by H. E. Trent
Stop that. Just stop.
That kind of thinking wouldn’t do anything but make her more anxious. She was home. She had no reason to be so anxious anymore.
She took a breath and let it out. “Generally, what happens is people who have children of about the same age coordinate with the instructors and have them offer the modules at times that suit everyone.”
“Huh. That’s interesting. Do you have set curriculums for each age, or…” He set down the sensor and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry. I taught for almost five years. Your system sounds like a logistical nightmare.”
“You were a teacher? I… I’m sorry if I sound surprised. I’d imagined you’d been like Luke or Edgar, working for the government.” They were men meant to fear. Teachers weren’t men to fear.
His smile broadened as he raised a shoulder in a shrug. “Ended up in the gig kinda by accident.”
“Explain, please. How does one accidentally become a teacher? Here, teaching requires very many years of specialized schooling.”
“Similar strictures on Earth, but there are ways to make a lateral move into the profession. In my case, I was working for a company that developed robots, like the ones used in assembly lines and such. The company did this outreach program where they’d send us out to schools to let the kids play with the tech and get interested in engineering. I’d been there for about, hmm, nine months after getting my master’s degree, and then, whoosh.” He swiped his hand through the air and made slicing sound.
“You were…let go?”
“The term you’re looking for is ‘laid off.’ The economy went into the gutter. I was unemployed for about three months after that, and one day, I got a call from one of the schools I’d worked with. They needed another STEM teacher, and I needed to pay my rent.”
“What is STEM?”
He counted off on his fingers. “Science, technology, engineering, and math.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tree truck. “Private school, grades six through twelve.”
“What is a private school?”
He chuckled and pressed his fingers to his eyelids.
“I am asking too many questions?”
“Nah, you’re not. I think curiosity is a hallmark of intelligence. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. ’Kay?” Opening his eyes, he raised a brow in query.
She nodded.
“Slept like garbage last night, is all.”
She noticed then the slight red tinge to the whites of his eyes, and her heart stuttered with pity. She knew how he felt. In fact, she felt how he felt. Sleep shouldn’t have to be such a decadent luxury.
“There was something clicking in The Tin Can,” he said. “Salehi’s in there right now trying to figure out what the noise was. Might be the air system. We have no way of knowing when it was last serviced. The records are shoddy and I suspect they’re bogus, anyway.”
“We’ll leave you to your rest then,” she said, the wistfulness in her tone surprising her. She was behaving as if people didn’t talk to her all day long, and that was far from being true. “Come, Elken—”
“No, that’s all right,” he said. “You don’t need to hurry away. I’m going to grab a nap after lunch.”
“Are you sure?” Relief bloomed, as unexpected as her yearning. He was right that she was curious. So curious.
“Yeah, really. I need to be up late tonight to catch a call from Luke and Owen. By the way, the reason I laughed when you asked what a private school was because that’s hard to explain nowadays without getting into politics. If you want to talk politics, Precious is your girl. She’ll talk herself blue in the face. She’s passionate that way, and I guess that’s not always a bad thing.”
“Indeed.”
“Suffice it to say that private schools are exclusive. They’re not run by the government, so they can make their own rules in some ways. They might be much better than public schools, or much worse. Depends on who’s running them and why they’re running them.”
“And your school? Was your school better or worse?”
“It—” Marco’s wrist COM beeped, and as he hit the activation trigger on the band, Sera made a sour face at the interruption. She didn’t know if she’d be able to get her courage back up when his attention was back on her.
“Yeah?” he said, rubbing his eyes again.
“Marc, I need you to come help me and Jasper get a panel off. I found the source of the clicking,” Edgar said. “Timer crapped out in the AC unit.”
Grunting, Marco got to his feet and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll be there in five minutes. I’m out in the hanat field.”
“What the heck are you doing way out there?”
Marco ruffled Elken’s hair. “Philosophizing about colors with Elken. She let me use her chalk.”
“Yeah?” Edgar chuckled. “That was nice of her.”
Elken grinned hard at Sera, in a “See, Mommy? I was nice,” sort of way.
She couldn’t help but to laugh. Laughing felt good.
“That doesn’t sound like Elken’s laugh,” Edgar said. “That must be Sera.”
“Where one goes, the other follows. Package deal. You know that.” Marco propped his crate onto his hip. “I thought Jasper was going back to town.”
“He was, but he figured he might as well stay for lunch.”
“Was that before or after you told him what was on the menu?”
“I plead the fifth. See ya in a bit.”
“Yep.” Marco tapped the wristband to end the call, and gave Elken a sideways look. “Looks like you’ll have to rely on the tree for shade, kiddo. I know I was providing most of the shadow you were in.”
“She’ll survive,” Sera murmured. “We all did as children. She may be a little more human than my siblings and I, but I doubt she’ll suffer much under the sun.”
“Got sunblock on her?”
“What is that?”
“You don’t have that here?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Huh. Maybe Jekhans don’t need any. Tyneali must have gotten something right.” He walked away, waving over his shoulder, and muttering something about looking into the UV levels.
Sera shrugged and watched him walk the path between the hanat and the dishe crops.
He wasn’t so frightening. He hadn’t even asked her for anything.
“Odd,” she whispered, fidgeting with the pocket of her apron.
He was interesting and curious.
And patient.
Perhaps that meant he was a “safe” male, as well. She wasn’t going to be able to hide from society forever, and she was going to have to start judging people as individuals again. Kneejerk stereotyping had kept her and her sisters alive during an ugly time, but the players and motives had changed.
She smoothed her hair back yet again and headed to her row to start weeding.
If acclimation to the new Jekh didn’t kill her, she’d come out the other end stronger.
She hoped.
CHAPTER SEVEN
If Luke Cipriani had ever expected to be sealed into a spaceship designed by a six-limbed alien race, and skimming over the atmosphere of a distant planet with his best friend, he wouldn’t have bet money.
But there he was—peering into the ship’s stack of bunks, trying not to get distracted by the flash of rosy breast while simultaneously listening to warning beeps from the sensor console and listening to Owen run down the list of coordinates.
The breast was Ais’s. She was nursing Michael. That shouldn’t have been an especially scandalous sight. After all, the kid ate constantly, and when he wasn’t eating or fighting sleep, he was crying for another sip.
Typical McGarry.
Because Luke was Luke, Ais didn’t bother being discreet, and that was plain wrong.
Natural, sure. Her right, of course. But still—wrong.
She had very pretty breasts.
He closed his eyes and cleared his throat. “You may as well
stop talking, Owen, and go back to the beginning. Everything you say is going in one ear and right back out without absorption.”
“You could turn your back, you know,” Owen said flatly.
“And leave the chance for perfectly good self-torture on the table? Nah. You know me better than that.” Letting out a groan of self-loathing, he opened his eyes and focused on his friend. “Can you imagine the furor from the feminists on Earth if I’d dare confess that I’m such an animal that I would get turned on by a nursing mother’s flash of tit?”
Owen chuckled. “Breasts are for babies, Luke.”
“Yeah, well, I wish someone would call me baby.”
“I’m sure there are women in Little Gitano who would.”
“Perhaps, but most of the Terran women have already paired off, and Jekhan women don’t have breast fat until after their first pregnancy. I’d be searching for a unicorn, when all I want is a few seconds of delicious suffocation.”
“I’m glad my kid doesn’t understand language yet,” Owen said.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll clean up my act before he does.”
“I would indulge you,” Ais said, ever helpful. “If I could ever get Michael off my lap.”
Tapping his chin, Luke actually pondered the proposition.
Most people wouldn’t openly covet their best friends’ wife, but Jekh wasn’t like Earth, and most best friends didn’t have Owen and Luke’s past. They’d shared countless women before Owen had pulled up stakes and flung himself across the galaxy to Jekh. Luke had gotten so he preferred to share. Less pressure. More fun. He saw the appeal of the Jekhan system of two men to every woman, even if he didn’t share the natives’ hormonal requirement that he be in such a relationship.
It was too bad—for Luke, anyway—that Ais was a one-dick kind of lady, and that Owen was a straight kind of guy. If Luke were going to get his rocks off, it’d be by his own hand.
At least until he found someone he liked as much.
Staring at one perky red nipple long enough to trigger a painful ache in his nuts, he shook his head. “Nah, Ais. You’d make me cry.”
“The offer stands,” she said sunnily.
“And I appreciate you offering. Maybe Owen will let me cuddle him tonight to slake some of the angst.”
“Your cuddling tends to be a bit aggressive for my liking, but what’s a couple of shin bruises between friends, hmm?” Owen sidled around and then, from behind him, said, “And I won’t even say anything if I see suspicious movements of your hand in the general vicinity of your junk.”
Luke turned and followed him, closing the divider curtain between the front of the ship and the bunk section as he went. “I’m a lusty kinda guy, Owen, and the dating pool on Jekh isn’t quite as robust as I expected.”
“You kidding? The dating pool is plenty robust. You need to adjust your standards, is all. You’ve had inquiries.”
Luke rolled his eyes.
True, he had had inquiries. Lots of intermediaries had contacted him on the behalf of men who were in imminent need of a partner. That was all well and good, but before the trip, Luke had swung by Esteben, Headron, and Erin’s house on the way from town and heading back to The Tin Can. He’d shown Esteben the list. The well-networked Jekhan man had taken a cursory look, handed the list back to Luke, and shaken his head.
“Why not?” Luke had asked.
“Those are all definitely second males. I’d bet my son’s favorite teething stick that they are.”
“Second, meaning what?”
Headron had stepped out the bakery then, wiping dishe dough off his hands onto his apron. The door had been open, and the bakery was attached to the house. He’d likely heard every word. Fortunately, Luke was generally a pretty shameless sort of creature. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with second males. I ended up being one.”
“Admittedly, you were on the cusp,” Esteben had said, rubbing a bit of dough off Headron’s chin before looking back to Luke. “Had he been with anyone else, he likely would have been a leading male.”
Luke had let his eyes cross and tucked the list back into his pocket. “But, what does that mean?”
“There has to be a structure with any trio containing a Jekhan man,” Headron had said. “Although everyone in the trio is involved with decision-making, one person needs to be more assertive or we’d never get anything accomplished. Also, the leading male is generally first to sire a child. It’s a privilege.”
“Children are the last thing on my agenda right now.”
“Be that as it may,” Esteben had said, “but you should know that’s always at the foremost of any Jekhan male’s mind.”
“Is that why you think this list is no good for me? That I shouldn’t hook up with one of these so-called seconds because you think I’m one?”
Esteben had said “No” rather emphatically, scoffingly, even. “I believe that if you were to take on someone who truly had a second’s personality, you’d get the worse end of the deal. You’re very antagonizing.”
“Bite me, Ben.”
“I rest my case.”
Headron had laughed before retreating into the bakery. “As Erin might say, you talk a lot of shit.”
Luke had harrumphed. “I back that shit up, though.”
“Which is why you won’t find a second male satisfying,” Esteben had said. “Inform the intermediaries that you’re flattered, but that you’re keeping your options open.”
“How the hell did they find out about me, anyway? As far as I know, there’s no general assumption by you guys that Terran males are, by default, bisexual.”
Esteben had shrugged. “Perhaps your sister has been socializing.”
“Running her mouth, you mean.”
“That. Yes.”
Luke was actually quite certain that Precious had something to do with Luke’s sudden popularity. While Luke could admit to being queer, Precious was both queer and brazen. In Ma’s opinion, Precious could do no wrong, even if she was a damned delinquent. Luke, however, was apparently a punk for letting his baby sister show him how to grab life by the horns.
There was no accounting for taste.
“So, if none of these guys pass muster,” Luke had asked Esteben, “what kind of guy should I be looking for?”
“Obviously, an antagonistic one. Good luck.” The bastard had grinned, and Luke wasn’t sure if he wanted to punch him or kiss him. Apparently, that was the effect most Beshni men had on other people.
Owen plopped into the navigator’s seat of the ship and tapped a small, egg-shaped module into the data receiver. The little tablet had been a gift from a sympathetic Tyneali visitor. She’d apparently thought Owen would be the best steward for the information within.
The tablet contained maps to secret laboratories, technology caches, and possibly, some protected bunkers where older Jekhan women used for experiments had been locked down by a Tyneali splinter group. The Tyneali were supposed to have stopped fucking around with the Jekhans, but some broke ranks for their own profit. There was a bit of a civil war happening amongst those guys, and the Jekhans were all praying that they kept that shit in their own territory out in space and didn’t take it down to the surface. Already, they had way too much work to do to rebuild their society.
In one of those hidden bunkers was Ais’s mother, and Owen probably would have given up his dominant hand to make his woman happy. If Ona were alive, he’d find her and do his part to restore other missing Jekhan women to their broken families.
And Luke had to admit the quest had exactly the sort of feel-good makings he needed to forgive himself for being such a shithead in general.
“Atmospheric conditions on the southern continent should be pretty stable in a couple of hours,” Owen said. “If I’m reading the report correctly, Ona’s bunker is in an area known for dense, soggy jungle. We may not be able to land close to the coordinates.”
“Can’t tell if there’s a ship platform? You’d think the Tyneali would have built
one.”
“They probably didn’t need one. From what little I know about their ships, they only need a few feet of flat space to balance them on. The footprints of their vessels aren’t very long. They’re more vee-shaped.”
“Jeez.” Luke took the captain’s seat and leaned his forearms onto his knees. He stared out the window at the big, red-and-green planet below. Massive, and he would have never known the place existed if the Jekhans hadn’t paid them a little visit. He would have never fathomed that he’d be in a place where the quickest route from one location to another on a planet was often via space. “Does that data say anything about the likelihood of the bunker being guarded?”
“The intelligence said unlikely. The Tyneali tend to let their technology do the work for them. If their structures get breached, they consider the intrusions learning opportunities.”
“Cocky bastards.”
“Yeah. We’ll do our best to take them down a peg or two and teach them what true disruption looks like.”
Luke held out his fist for him to bump. “Amen.”
Owen obliged him, and then leaned forward, squinting at the panel.
Luke and Owen were the same age, give or take a couple of months, and he hoped like hell Owen wasn’t devolving to the needs-reading-glasses stage of life. They weren’t that old.
Are we?
Luke scratched his head, trying to figure out when they’d gotten so close to middle age. They’d probably gone to bed one night, and—boom—woke up old.
“You see that?” Owen asked.
“What?”
“There.” Owen pointed, and then stood to get his finger closer. He wasn’t pointing at the console, but at the window. Or rather, something on the other side of it. “Black speck about a kilometer down in the mesosphere.”
“Huh. Yeah, I see it now.” Luke looked from the speck to the sensors. No blips. “The atmospheric composition is probably making the readings unreliable. Whether or not whoever was in that ship knew that, I can’t guess. They may be traveling there simply because their ship allows them to do so.”