Home is a Planet Away
by Ika Koeck
THE TROUBLE WITH Ghika was that one could never tell how his luck would turn out. His stories of conquests in planets far beyond their home were often too fantastical to be true. Yet just as the others were beginning to think that he was nothing more than a failed embellisher, he returned a wealthy Tuli, with enough credits to purchase three burrows. And just when he had begun to gain the respect of his kind, Ghika went offplanet once more, only to crash-land near the warren two days later on his old starship, The Moderate Flea, with little more to boast about than patches of missing fur on his back, a singe on one of the tufts above his three eyes, and a debt large enough to force him to sell his burrows.
He spent weeks sulking in the packed communal hive, muttering to himself and ignoring the press of bodies all around him, his broad nose and whiskers twitching. Olsi, who had always observed him from a distance, thought him not a fool. Just a poor judge of what was right or simply stupid.
On his latest expedition, however, Ghika once again returned a wealthy Tuli. The Moderate Flea was gone, replaced by a ship twice as large and one that was anything but moderate. It had thrusters that roared so loud, it rattled the otherwise sturdy glass domes above their burrows. The portlights flickered and furniture shook as it passed overhead. It was impressive enough to draw Olsi away from her maps and vistapes. Enough to make her wonder if this was the moment she would gamble her fate and leave her crowded colony.
“I have a proposition for all you bucks and does!” Ghika announced in barks and yips as he hopped down from his ship. An entire horde of Tulis had already gathered around him by the time Olsi emerged from the burrow she shared with three dozen of her siblings. Her pale eyes widened at the size of the vessel. Its fuselage alone was half the size of her home. As the smell of fuel began to subside and the impulse to sneeze faded, she caught other smells. Offworld metal and the stink of offworld creatures. Ghika had gone much farther this time.
“We’re looking for all sorts of crew. Diggers, cleaners, transport pilots, groundcar mechanics!” Ghika snuffed and sized up the crowd. He swept his short paw over the ship and moved his stubby fingers in a series of motions. A gesture for pride, certainty, assurance. “And as you can see, the offer comes with many rewards.”
“Who’s we?” someone from the crowd asked. Noses twitched, and more gestures rolled through the crowd. Here, uncertainty. There, intrigue. Olsi waved her hand in a motion of curiosity as she wended her way through the crowd for a closer look.
“An employer that surpasses all others,” Ghika said, and made a gesture for pride and awe. “He pays well, as you can see. An expert negotiator of Trade Pact laws, an opportunistic entrepreneur, and one who cares deeply for his crew and ships.”
“Where?” someone else asked.
“Auord,” Ghika announced. “Well, Auord first, and then elsewhere, depending on what your assignment is. Beyond, I say. Beyond here.”
Beyond. It was enough to convince Olsi to shoulder her way past the press of Tulis and back into her burrow to pack her meager belongings. After all, if a lazy old buck like Ghika could earn an honest wage, a life beyond their planet and far from the company of other Tulis could be worth exploring. Her mind made up, she lifted her paw when Ghika repeated his call for recruits.
* * *
• • •
Ghika’s job offer entailed working with a decisive, determined Scat who was an expert negotiator of Trade Pact laws. What the slimy old buck failed to mention was that Roraqk was a bloodthirsty Recruiter and the last alien any sane Tuli would ever wish to work for. The day Olsi realized her mistake was a month after her arrival on Auord, where she spent most of her time tuning the engines of groundcars in a dank, mold-infested hangar and trying to memorize the network of halls and corridors to avoid getting lost in a massive warehouse Roraqk shared with his Human business partner, Smegard.
Boom.
It was a faint sound. So faint that Olsi thought she had imagined it. She looked up from the vehicle’s engine, her broad nose twitching as she tried to sniff for trouble. Too bad the smell of the lubricants coating the engine and the warehouse’s poor circulation made it a chore to try and catch a whiff of anything other than the groundcar.
The Human working across from her, Eladia, gave a final sweep of the engine and narrowed her brows.
“Olsi?” Eladia asked in Comspeak, the common merchant and trade tongue for all beings on Auord and beyond. “Did you hear that?”
A Tuli’s vocal range, mouth, and jaw structure could not form words in the common tongue as well as most humanoids, which made them valuable employees when the task required silence and efficiency. That their language was intrinsically paired with elaborate gestures meant they mostly kept to their own kind, but this slender Human learned those signs as fast as any Tuli pup. Olsi liked that about her. Liked her more for not being a Tuli.
Maybe something, the young Tuli gestured, then followed with a shrug and a fluttering of her stubby fingers. Maybe nothing.
Eladia frowned again, mimicking Olsi’s gestures slowly. Perhaps it helped her to recall what they meant. “Maybe you’re right. Could just have been me imagining-–”
Another boom, louder this time. It startled the Human into cursing and caused Olsi to drop her wrench. Echoes of fast footfalls, voices shouting and screaming, came in sudden concert with the building’s alarm system, which blared evacuation warnings in a monotonic tone.
Olsi huddled against the groundcar, her three eyes scanning the vast hall of the hangar for the imminent danger. Instinct prodded at her to find a bolt-hole and hide, but where?
“Olsi, we have to get out of here!” Eladia said, her fingers tight around a tuft of fur on Olsi’s arm. It took a couple of hard tugs before the Tuli found the courage to move. Olsi lumbered after the Human as fast as she could as the smaller being ducked through a door and ran down a long, empty hallway. Portlights flickered around them as another loud boom shook the building. Dust and debris rained down on them, as Olsi’s nose registered the scent of other creatures.
More shouts came as they reached an intersection. Aliens of varying species, all under Smegard’s or Roraqk’s employ, rushed past them and turned into different corners and intersections. The sudden onslaught of smells caused her to pause, for within them came a familiar scent. She twitched her moist, spongy nose and turned her head. Another quick sniff told her it came from all the way down a corridor on the opposite side of the exit everyone else was running toward.
Ghika had passed through here. In this enclosed space, it wasn’t difficult to recognize his musk. Olsi followed her nose, the softest of sounds vibrating from her throat. Another loud explosion from the levels above caused her to stumble. She moved on all fours at first, down another network of hallways, then tumbled into the first lift she could find.
It was dark when she reached the bottommost floor. Whatever remained of the portlights were dim, near useless given the urgency of her predicament. Olsi placed one hand along a wall and took several sniffs to make sure she was moving in the right direction, for once curious of the extent of their employers’ questionable trade. The smell of blood, fear, and sweat was ripe in this narrow hall and opened into individual cells, empty now that everyone had found a way to flee. How many aliens had been kept in this place. And why?
Tendrils of smoke were rising from Ghika’s body, or what remained of him, when Olsi entered the empty cell. She could smell his musk more than see him, but it was the old Tuli, nonetheless. The stench of blood filled every breath she inhaled, and Olsi fumbled back against the wall, the whimpers in her throat turning into something stronger, more urgent, and filled with fear. Ghika’s luck had finally killed him.
She smelled the Human before she heard her. A shaft of light beamed into the cell, its brightness stinging. Between half-lidded eyes, Olsi looked up and saw her coworker. Eladia�
�s breaths came fast as she wiped sweat from her brows. One hand was wrapped around a glowing globe, the other now grabbed the Tuli by the fur on her arm.
“Olsi, come on. Port Authority is raiding the warehouse,” she said. When the Tuli hesitated, she made a clumsy gesture for danger and survive. “There’s nothing we can do for him now. We have to catch the next transport out of here.”
* * *
• • •
There was nothing more terrifying than that mad dash from the cell blocks, back up the lift, and down a maze of hallways and corridors the Human remembered with a precision Olsi admired. They huddled behind plas crates and kept themselves hidden whenever they heard anyone coming.
“There, look,” Eladia whispered, gesturing caution.
A dozen or so enforcers and Port Authority constables marched past them, blasters drawn. Eladia was right. It was a full-scale raid.
Why is this happening? Olsi signed, her mouth agape. But the Human grabbed her hand and led her to a door disguised as a wall—one of the many escape holes their employers had thoughtfully installed around the warehouse, for this very purpose, the Tuli thought.
That Eladia found the door with such ease made Olsi wonder how long she had been under the Recruiters’ employ. That she immediately found a ship for the two of them at the docks without so much as a stare and several harsh-sounding words to a recalcitrant captain made her wonder if she should start worrying. After all, did Ghika not trick her into working for Roraqk?
* * *
• • •
The sound of Olsi’s stomach grumbling should have been drowned by the mill and press of the crowd and the shouts of hawkers peddling their wares. Should have. Several steps in front of the Tuli, Eladia looked over her shoulder and winced. “Yeah. Me, too,” she said.
If the Human could smell the embarrassment that was now intertwined with her musky scent, or saw the way the long white tufts above her eyes twitched and flicked, she gave no sign. They wove through a crowd that seemed to move in every direction but forward, to the point Olsi touched Eladia’s shoulder to stop her, then planted her stocky build in front of the smaller being so that she could carve a smoother way through the mass.
Crowded. Just like home.
She had heard of Plexis’ changing weather and seasonal patterns. The diversity of its inhabitants and visitors had once encouraged its founder and creator, Raj Plexis, to provide an equally diverse environment to emulate the worlds of its customers. One could never tell which planet one would visit when arriving on Plexis. To the Tuli’s consternation, this part of the space station reflected the temperate, humid climate of her planet.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Eladia had to raise her voice to be heard.
Olsi doubted the Human could see her answer, so she trudged forward, ducking under a servo that moved on tall metal stilts and scanned the rows of shops for signs for work. Truth was, she had no idea where to start. Plexis Supermarket was massive, almost a planet on its own. They could spend tens of drops from subspace here, hundreds even, before finding anything suitable.
Worse, all the vistapes she had studied on the planet did not prepare her for the smell. Between the sweat and stink of anything that moved and breathed here was the stench of decades’ worth of alien industry. And past a row of shops with moving signs flashing outside were smells of unfamiliar spices from parts unknown. Farther down was the stench of body parts from creatures unknown. Olsi looked up to see creeping vines with spiked flowers releasing multiscented gases for reasons unknown. Made her shudder, to see the plant expand and contract like that, like it was breathing the rancid yet expensive Plexis air.
She tried not to pick at the blue waxy living patch now attached to the skin on her forehead. Proof of the air they paid for in advance, Eladia said, coming in with no prospects or sponsor. It had cost the Tuli almost her entire life’s savings. Made her question what sort of job she would find here that could replenish what she had lost. Made her wonder if they should be charging for air back home. Maybe then the Tulis would not breed so much and overpopulate the planet.
“We’ll find a better job than the last one. Don’t you worry,” Eladia called out behind her, as if reading her mind. “We can’t keep wandering around like this. There must be someone looking to hire grunt workers somewhere on this level.”
Olsi huffed, one paw clasped around her pouch where a handful of her credits remained. She turned to face the Human to make a sign for food and hunger, and paused mid-gesture, her mouth agape.
The Human was gone.
* * *
• • •
The thickness of the crowd had lessened to a trickle of aliens by the time Olsi found her way to the higher floors, where balconies offered a grand view of the levels below. She wasn’t certain what her plan was. To find a vantage point high enough to try and sniff out her companion perhaps; or find a constable to help her locate the Human.
How could they help? she wondered. I can’t even speak to them.
Her initial panic had dulled since her unexpected companion disappeared, though her urgent need to find Eladia brought the realization that she had grown close enough to the Human to care for her safety. That surprised her. Back home, she never much cared for other Tulis. There were just too many of them to care for.
Having the time to walk and think and grind her incisors calmed her, though another Tuli would be able to tell that her musk still carried a hint of fear and worry. The sudden absence of the crowd, which had reminded her so much of home, left a strange tingle to her skin. Not the bad kind. For the first time, her nose wasn’t stuffed with the smell of Tuli fur or musk, apart from her own. As she entered a zone where the lights over the vast space station dimmed and changed to create an artificial night, so did the trade.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!”
Olsi tumbled into a grav cart no bigger than her foot. A chatter of noise erupted from the tiny being manning the cart as the contents crashed to the floor. Plumes of smoke began to rise from the wares which fell and broke, and the stench of them caused the peddler to cough and squeal. Olsi made a gesture for apology and bolted as fast as she could, past a collection of furniture and onto a ramp that took her to the level above.
The two beings on that ramp jumped and hissed at her sudden appearance. Olsi froze for a moment, her nose almost touching the scaled snout of an alien with thin crests rising from nose to forehead, and a pair of thin slits staring at her from the depths of bright yellow eyes.
Despite herself, the Tuli squeaked like a pup, and cowered closer to the ramp’s rails. Scats! She wondered if these two were related to Roraqk. Not that she had met the lizardlike pirate to begin with. Thoughts of explosions and Ghika’s lifeless body on the cold, hard floor came to her mind just then.
“What’sss-s a Tuli doing up here alone?” said the Scat in front of her, a female judging by her scent. This one wore beads of diamonds and colorful jewels along her snout. A beautiful yellow gem dangled from the bright orange frill on one side of her head. “Where’s-ss your kind?”
“Loss-st, are we?” the Scat’s companion, a male smaller in size, asked. This one’s crests were less prominent, and a dull green where its companion’s shone bright red. He might be just as short as the Tuli was, but those jaws, plus lean, well-muscled arms with clawed hands, could no doubt cause some damage in a fight. That he wore a blaster strapped to his side told Olsi this was not a confrontation she could win.
Olsi didn’t wait to see what they would do and dashed out onto the shopping concourse as soon as the ramp reached the next floor. Several Humans and two servos scattered out of her path as she blundered past, ignoring the cry of the female Scat and the shouts of alarm rising behind her.
Olsi turned into smaller lanes, then down an alleyway that was cleaner than the Tuli’s best family burrow. She ran up a terrace with empty peddlers’ carts lin
ed at the sides, circled a roundabout, and wove her way through a maze of walkways. Up here, the ceilings bore the shades of deep crimson and violet, almost mirroring her planet’s night sky, with the portlights flickering to a starlike luminescence.
Why must everything remind me of home? she wondered.
Her fur brushed against something cool and soft, made her pull her hand away. It wasn’t until the hardened pads underneath her clawed feet touched the familiar prickled edges of grass that she stopped to catch her breath. The scent of flowers both alien and known to her enveloped Olsi’s senses all at once. She emerged into a quiet intersection lined and adorned with beds of flowers, creeping vines, and the spiked flowers she’d spotted earlier in the marketplace.
This time they were dormant. No strange vapors wafted out of their buds though they let out a dim glow in the space station’s artificial night. Awed by the sudden coolness in the air, and the feel of wind against her whiskers, she barreled into a small tree in a pot, then landed on her rump in between manicured hedges.
“Didn’t think you could run forever, did you?” a voice came from just beyond the hedges. For the second time that night, the Tuli froze in fright.
“Forever? Oh, of course not,” said a familiar voice. “Just long enough . . . till you lose interest.”
A familiar voice with a familiar smell. Olsi’s eyes widened in both delight and surprise, but she managed to suppress the squeak that threatened to escape her throat. As quietly as she could manage, she crawled underneath the bushes until she could see who lay beyond, her nose twitching. There was no mistaking that smell.
“The reward for finding you is too high for someone to lose interest over,” the first speaker said. A Human male. He was twice the size of the Human he was now pushing down to the grass, and none too pleasant in the olfactory department. “Did you really think you could lose us in Plexis?”
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 24