No, he no longer feared the unknowns of the Alliance, and he’d become accustomed to being one of its few mysterious species. No doubt Song of Wine Skies at Sunset collected its share of stares as well.
An Akubi medic! How did that work? Jahir knew nothing about their homeworld’s technology, and the only Akubi he’d known for long enough to evaluate had been employed as a starbase dockworker, where its strength was an asset and its size less inconvenient. Akubi did not have functional hands, and while they had two thumbs on their feet, those feet were also the size of most Pelted’s entire chest cavities. Perhaps the Akubi only worked with larger species? Maybe he could ask later.
At the conclusion of Orientation, Jahir waited for the room to empty before taking his leave. His tablet had an outstanding message from Vasiht’h, so he tapped it: “Come on down, the water’s fine,” accompanied by an image he assumed to have been taken from their hotel room. Smiling, he checked the location of the nearest Pad and went in search of his friend.
“The Bridge of Dreams, is it?” Jahir asked, bemused. He had stepped on-planet only to find himself drawn into a luau in the hotel’s central plaza, such as any collection of buildings this disparate could be said to have one: an enormous octagon of polished dark brown wooden planks, surrounded in deck chairs shaded by umbrellas, with scattered tables and benches. The sea breeze gamboled gaily among the throng in the center, where the guests were dancing or clustering around the large open grill. There, skewers of meat and vegetables were being basted with what looked like a sauce involving pineapples? It smelled delicious, anyway.
“I can’t decide whether to try that tomorrow or the day after,” Vasiht’h said. “I feel like I should at least wander aimlessly the first full day and look at the beach. Except how can you say no to a music-making bridge with colored lights leading to a paradisiacal island where you can rent boats to sail around a lagoon shallow enough for even me to fall into without drowning?”
Jahir laughed. “And is that what you’re planning to do? Go sailing?”
Vasiht’h grinned at him. “At least once. But you need to come too. You like sailing.”
“I do,” Jahir said, finding the fact that he could say so surprising. It was one of his few good memories of Heliocentrus. In fact: “This is a great deal like Heliocentrus. Save not so dire.”
“The gravity here is great,” Vasiht’h agreed. “You know what they call planets like this?” At Jahir’s quizzical look, the Glaseah said, “New Year worlds. Because so many people make resolutions at the start of the new year to lose that little bit of extra weight? And worlds with gravity like this, just a few shades off of Terran norm, but without being noticeably lighter, do that without the effort or the trips to the clinic for metabolic therapy.”
“What a beautiful name!” Jahir exclaimed. And laughed. “Rather painful statement about our natures, however.”
“A New Year world,” Vasiht’h agreed. “Perfect, since you’re doing something new too, that’s going to start something for both of us.”
“Not so great a change as all that,” Jahir demurred.
“No, but still a change.” Vasiht’h watched a handful of Pelted children chase one another past, giggling and squealing, and through the mindline Jahir felt his wistfulness, and that steadfast core the Eldritch had found so attractive from the very beginning. “But this is a good thing for us both. I’m glad we’re here. And not just because I’m planning on drinking pink drinks on the beach of Serenity Palms while you’re sweating through your test upstairs.”
“Pink now is it?” Jahir asked.
“I tried the purple one, it wasn’t anything to write home about.”
A cloud of butterflies swept past, their wings a stunning electric blue. Jahir watched them, wondering if they were some contrivance like the fish on the station. “Are those real? I had no idea butterflies were typical near the coast.”
“Don’t they migrate?” Vasiht’h wrinkled his nose. “I seem to remember reading something like that?”
“They are the most unlikely colors. Like everything here, flowers inclusive.”
“Oh no, the flowers I believe,” Vasiht’h said easily. “The ones on Anseahla are as ridiculous. That color on the butterflies, along with the eye-punch yellow, though…”
“Engineered?”
“No,” Vasiht’h said. “There are laws against genetic engineering these days. Tinkering to fix problems, yes. Aesthetic tampering or creation of new species… not so much.” They watched a Tam-illee toddler catch one in her hands, squealing, and then release it. “That answers that. They’re solidigraphic. There must be projectors somewhere. Under the deck, maybe?”
“Magic,” Jahir murmured.
“Might as well be,” Vasiht’h agreed, smiling at him easily. “So, do you have any idea what you’d like to do after the exams? They end pretty early, don’t they?”
“Late afternoon daily, yes.”
“You could go swimming?”
Jahir looked past the deck to the sea, rolling endlessly onto the shore, the roar of it, the softness of the spume. A tremor ran the length of his spine. “I think… I shall save that. As reward for completion of the task.”
“As if you need motivation,” Vasiht’h said affectionately. “But there’s plenty to do at night that doesn’t involve swimming. I looked the schedule up… there’s live music all the time, and bonfires, and things like this. I can check out the more involved things by myself, see if they’re worth doing.”
“Like the bridge,” Jahir said, amused.
“That’s a definite yes! There’s also a day-long cruise out to this… sandbar in the middle of nowhere? Where they’ve built a series of platforms for people to stand on. And then the local cetaceans come and do tricks.” Vasiht’h grins. “I want to see that. Supposedly they showed up one day to play and someone got the bright idea of training them. Of course no one wanted to constrain them in pens or anything, so they did it on a lark. But then the animals kept coming back? So they brought in a bunch of foreign animals to play with the natives, and they do a show. By now it’s not even the original animals, either… the whales brought their kits to play with the crazy land mammals too.”
“That sounds… astonishing,” Jahir said.
“I can’t imagine it, so I’m going to have to see it,” Vasiht’h agreed, satisfied. “If it’s worth the trip, we can do it together when you’re done. Maybe they’ll let you swim with them!”
“In the sea,” Jahir murmured.
“In the sea.” Vasiht’h looked over at him, his love warmer than the sun gilding his fur. “So, do you want a pink drink? To inaugurate our enterprise.”
Jahir considered. “Something yellow. And virginal. I suspect I will need my wits about me in the morning.”
Chapter 9
The selective permeability of their wall admitted the warm evening breeze, redolent with the scent of brine and night-blooming flowers, and Vasiht’h couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so well. His dreams overflowed with memories of home, twined with sensory impressions: sand under his pawpads, the feel of sun-heated fur on his back, the taste of pink drinks: tropical fruit and sweetness. He woke refreshed, stretching in the nest of pillows he’d made beside Jahir’s bed, and found his friend peeping at him from beneath his cocoon of blankets, because even in warm weather the Eldritch refused to sleep without several layers over him.
/Good?/ Jahir asked, the sending wreathed with laughter like champagne bubbles.
“All right, I could get used to this,” Vasiht’h admitted. And grinned. “But just in case familiarity breeds contempt I’m glad we’re only staying a week. I’d hate to lose my wonder over it.” He slid out from amid the pillows and stretched, forelegs splayed before him and tail behind. “Breakfast?”
Jahir sat up, braid sliding over his shoulder. “If I must.”
“You’re taking a test, you need a good breakfast. Let’s go see what the hotel has.”
Acquiescence in
the mindline in this case felt like blushing. Vasiht’h hid his amusement and went to freshen up.
The hotel had multiple breakfast options, as one might have expected from its expense. Vasiht’h decided against ordering into their room in favor of the buffet, which was set up in the open air plaza. He hovered while his partner made his choices, because he didn’t want Jahir to undereat this week of all weeks, and then trotted alongside the Eldritch to the nearest Pad. The hotel had five public-facing ones, because of course it did. Why force its clients to come down by shuttle when they could walk?
“Good luck today,” Vasiht’h told him. “You’ll do great, I know.”
“Thank you, arii,” Jahir said. “You’ll be… seeing cetaceans?”
“If I can schedule it,” Vasiht’h said. “Otherwise, I’ll keep busy.” He grinned. “Shouldn’t be hard.”
Jahir laughed, quiet. “No, I imagine not. I will return.”
Vasiht’h saw him off and sighed as the mindline went diffuse and tenuous. He’d spent time apart from Jahir, but the attenuation of the mindline never ceased to mystify and disturb him. Why should something mental be subject to laws that dictated physical behavior? How did it work, anyway? Something quantum? Vasiht’h thought of himself and Jahir as two objects vibrating in sympathy and found the imagery charming and amusing.
“Well, that’s that,” he said. “Time to do something with myself.”
The whale show was apparently popular; when Vasiht’h tried to book it, the first available slot wasn’t for another two days. He scheduled that and studied today’s list of activities, decided tentatively on a walk along the beach, a massage at the spa, and then a show with air dancers. He couldn’t not investigate the latter, because if he saw it first, he’d be able to anticipate Jahir’s wonder at the sight when he took the Eldritch later.
This was, he thought, another situation like Jahir’s arrival to Seersana U, where the Glaseah got the pleasure of re-experiencing the Alliance through his partner’s eyes. Except by now he was so used to Jahir’s reaction to novel experiences that Vasiht’h could plan his own adventures so that he could enjoy them twice: once because they were new to him, and again vicariously through Jahir. How lucky was he?
Grinning, he went to the day.
There was little exciting about a test, no matter how momentous. Jahir reported to the lecture hall and was assigned his desk—the one he’d chosen during Orientation, he noted—where he was then isolated by a privacy screen, which fascinated him. He’d observed during his tenure at the university that most every interface in the Alliance could tessellate into unreadability when a privacy screen was activated. He’d expected this test to use that technology to prevent cheating, as the university had. But to have the field on, muting the noises outside his immediate area as well, felt like a courtesy. It minimized distractions.
While he waited for the testing to begin, he evaluated his mental state. Was he worried? Not at all. Nervous? Not that either. Nor guilty. There was no choice now but to go through with his course, for to do otherwise would be to waste the money and time spent arranging this, and to disappoint his partner.
“Day one of three,” Song of Wine Skies at Sunset intoned from the front of the room. “Commend your souls to your gods, aletsen. Commence.”
Hiding his smile, Jahir turned his attention to the interface as the first question appeared.
“So a Glaseah!” the human said. “How does that work? I mean, so many limbs?”
The cream-colored tabby Asanii beside her covered her face with her hands. If she could have sunk into the bench in the spa’s waiting room, Vasiht’h was certain she would have. “Don’t mind her, please, she just blurts the first thing that comes to mind.”
“Actually, it was the third thing that came to mind,” the human said cheerfully before peering again at Vasiht’h. “The first two would probably have been even more annoying! Maybe?”
“Definitely?” Vasiht’h guessed, taking a chance on the woman’s demeanor, and—
The human laughed. “Yes! You get it! Poor Gladdie, I don’t know why she puts up with me.” She offered her hand, then stopped mid-reach and turned it palm-up. “Oops, sorry. I keep forgetting. Hi! I’m Kristyl, and this is my best friend Gladiolus.”
“I hate that name,” the Asanii muttered.
They were a pretty pair, young women both, the Asanii’s soft ivory fur only faintly darkened by gingery stripes and her long, pale hair tucked up into a chignon with wooden hairsticks. Her human friend had skin a few shades darker, and light brown hair that fell in glossy waves over her bare shoulders. They were both in swimsuits and sandals, the Asanii’s more demure in color and cut than the human’s.
“We’re here for massages too,” Kristyl said, ignoring what was probably her friend’s recurring complaint. “This is my first time off-planet. Except I’m on a planet. I mean this is my first time out of the Sol system. I’ve never been this far into the Alliance. Except it’s more like it’s out of the Alliance, isn’t it?”
Amused, Vasiht’h said, “It’s not far from the Core, really. By our standards, it’s still in the Alliance. You’d have to keep going into the colonies to hit the lawn.”
“The lawn!” Kristyl said, delighted. “Like there’s a house and if you’re not in a house, you’re on the lawn! I love it!” She leaned forward, green eyes sparkling. “Metaphors are fun.”
“She likes to take things literally,” the Asanii murmured.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing for me.” Kristyl patted her friend’s arm. “I know I drive you crazy but that doesn’t make you responsible for my behavior.”
“It does if we’re seen together,” Gladiolus said, ears sagging, but she was smiling, and it was a helpless smile Vasiht’h had felt moving his features once too often. “Because people have expectations.”
“Stupid ones, often,” Kristyl said decisively. “But back to you! What’s your name? And are you here alone or do you also have a long-suffering friend to ride herd on you and die inside at all your faux pas?”
“Oh my,” Vasiht’h said, laughing. “Do you really think that about yourself?”
“No,” the human replied, cheerful. “But I can see where other people might so I save them the trouble of thinking it and feeling uncomfortable about hiding it.”
Vasiht’h grinned. “Well, I see why your friend likes you. You’re irrepressible, and it’s adorable.”
“I assure you it gets tiresome after a while,” Kristyl said. “That’s why I dote on Gladdie. She never gets angry at me for long. Even when she’s had to listen to me run on and on for hours.”
“No one’s so perfect that they don’t have a few tiresome habits,” Vasiht’h said. “I’m Vasiht’h, and yes, I’m with someone, but he’s on the station for business. He’ll be joining me in a couple of days. I’m taking in all the sights, see which ones I think would interest him most.”
“You think he’d like a massage?” Kristyl asked, interested.
“No, that’s for me,” Vasiht’h told her. “Because to your original question, I have no idea how it’s going to work with all the limbs, and I want to find out.”
“An adventurer, like me!” the human crowed. She tugged on her friend’s arm. “We should have lunch after. Are you busy?”
“Kris—”
“I’m asking,” the human said. “He can say no!”
“You haven’t given him a way to refuse without being rude!”
“Oh, mm. You’re right.” To Vasiht’h, “I’m sorry. That was abrupt, wasn’t it.”
Vasiht’h laughed. “I’d love to have lunch after. My unlikely massage needs an hour and a half. Maybe we can meet at the plaza and decide what to do from there?”
“Great! We’ll see you there! Oh, hey, they’re calling us up. Later!”
As the human vanished down the breezeway after the sarong-wrapped Harat-Shar attendant, her friend paused, ears bright red. “Ah… about all this… she… grows on you?”
“You don’t have to explain her to me,” Vasiht’h said. “I understand completely.”
“You really can bow out if you have other plans….”
“I don’t,” Vasiht’h said. “You should go, they’re waiting for you!”
The Asanii exhaled, smiled. “All right. Thanks.” And trotted off after the human. Vasiht’h watched her vanish around the corner and chuckled to himself. He had no doubt Gladiolus had suffered for her friend’s ebullience more than once. For his part, he found Kristyl’s attitude preferable to the one he often found in humans visiting the Alliance… which tended toward far less positive engagement with what they found.
An adventurer, though! He shook his head, bemused. That was the last way he would have chosen to characterize himself! And just because he was willing to get a massage? But that was hardly a risk worthy of an adventurous personality! A hedonist one, though… someone called his name and he rose. He supposed he was about to find out, and then he’d have the chance to tell Kristyl all about it.
“They did what!” Kristyl said, giggling. “No possible way.”
“It’s completely the truth.” Vasiht’h rested his hand over his heart and bowed his head. “They brought in two more people.”
“Three people!” Gladiolus sounded dazed. “That sounds decadent. How can they even afford it?”
“Oh, look at this place, would you?” Kristyl waved a hand at the view, the palms nodding in the breeze, the drinks, which this time had three separate colored layers: yellow, blue, and orange, with umbrella in green and a chunk of pineapple on the sugar-encrusted rim. “You think they don’t charge enough to have a separate masseuse for every limb of a centauroid client?”
“Technically they had a separate therapist for every two of my functional limbs,” Vasiht’h said. “But it was still…” He let the words die off, chuckled. “It was definitely decadent.”
“Ours was good too,” Kristyl said, cheerful. “We had them on an open deck, and you could hear the surf, and feel the sea breeze on your skin. And I think the Harat-Shar working on me would have had sex with me if I’d asked, which was kind of ridiculous? But flattering? Maybe? Except, don’t they have sex with anyone?”
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