Aldera reached forward and took the meat from his hand. “I would be most happy to see to all of your needs tonight,” she said, piling bits of meats and breads onto a small plate before placing it in his hand. “There is no need for you to serve yourself.”
“I had heard that humans were two separate species, and that reproduction was symbiotic. Would it be impolite for me to ask about the differences you mentioned?” Yolunu’s question caught him taking a large bite of sliced meat, and she waited for his response.
Aldera refilled his glass, and Isaac realized that he was getting drunker than he had been since leaving Earth. He took a second bite of food and hoped he wouldn’t alienate his hosts.
“Well, humans show their teeth as a sign of pleasure, so I apologize in advance if this happens during the evening,” he said with exaggerated care in his inflections. “The physical difference between husbands and wives is that one carries the seed for an infant and the other carries the infant. No, that is not quite right. Each contains half of the pattern for an infant, and after the two halves are joined, one, the mother, carries the infant inside of her until delivery. That is not right either.” Isaac made a sandwich of meats and breads while resisting the urge to drink more.
“How do the two halves combine, and which spouse decides who will bear the child?” Yolunu seemed interested in the puzzle.
“Only a wife can carry an infant and only a husband can cause an infant. Um, a mother cannot become a father,” Isaac said, and tried to wish the first glass of brandy away. The conversation was almost shedding light on his difficulty with pronouns.
“Strange, to be so limited. But how does one cause the other inception?” Yolunu asked, staring at him.
“The husband has a longish, um, limb that he places within a hole in the wife, and then he places the seed, or his half of the genetic code, into her. If everything works right, she grows a child.” He needed another drink, he decided, and drained his second full glass.
Aldera interrupted Yolunu’s gaze by reaching for the almost empty bottle of brandy, and filling the once-again empty glass.
“I see no extra limb on you, have you many children?” Yolunu asked.
“I do have an extra limb, it is just, ah, discreet.” Isaac could feel his face getting hot. Never too old to blush, he thought with amused disgust.
“Very discreet it would seem. Enough of reproduction, what do humans do for pleasure?” Yolunu asked, and pushed Aldera back out of her way.
Aldera moved to kneel behind him, and Isaac felt her begin to stroke his shoulders and back.
“We make infants. Or at least pretend to. Contact friction is at the center of our pleasure,” he said and gulped down the last of the brandy. For a moment, he couldn’t distinguish the heat of his embarrassment from the blush of the alcohol.
“I would see this discreet limb that concentrates your pleasure. If it would not seem too forward.” Yolunu moved toward him and touched his stomach, pressing; her hand began to move upward.
“I would have to take my clothes off, and it can be rather messy. I mean, when the seed comes out. It is not very appealing by itself, you know.” Isaac found himself lying back as Aldera unfastened his shirt and Yolunu’s firm hand hunted in circles around his chest. Tansea will definitely tease me tomorrow, he thought.
“Of course,” Yolunu said, sliding her hand down and off of his stomach. She nodded to Aldera, and they each unfastened crossed banners.
The silken pants favored by most Sansheren were untied, and joined his own shirt and pants beside their makeshift bed. Isaac stared up at the square, muscular bodies, and reminded himself that they were female, before stripping off the last of his clothing. “Unless,” a small voice whispered. “Regardless,” he decided, “they’re not human, it doesn’t matter.” Isaac allowed himself to surrender to the sexual feelings and drifted on the cloud of alcohol within his system.
#
“I would bear your children,” Morgan heard Neavillii say from above in a voice muted by exhaustion.
And took a long time finding an answer. “I love you,” was Morgan’s final response.
“Indeed,” Neavillii said without inflection. “You are correct, my Lady; perhaps it would be best if no one parented on this rock.” Neavillii untangled her small hand from Morgan’s hair.
Morgan twisted about to bring her face close to Neavillii’s. “I did not say no,” she said with a reproachful sigh.
“You did not say yes,” Neavillii answered after her own pause.
“I was thinking of the dangers. Especially here.” Morgan gestured toward the room’s window, but she thought Neavillii had already considered the war-devastated planet they were in the middle of resurveying.
“House Sheresuan’s nursery will be fine. I can wait until we return to Our Lady Neadesto,” Neavillii said.
“I can wait, can you?” Morgan asked with a smile, and slid her hand from Neavillii’s shoulder, down her back, and around onto her thigh as she leaned back onto her pillow.
“Oh, to have children you meant,” Neavillii said and laughed outright.
Morgan joined her new spouse in laughter as Neavillii’s hand disappeared beneath the blankets once more.
#
“Tell me, why was this missed during our initial assessment tour?” Morgan asked. She stood beside an all-terrain ground vehicle.
They were parked just inside a broken gate. Twenty foot tall steel walls stretched out to enclose the long, narrow valley. Cloth tents in clusters of fifty or more covered the valley with no pattern to be found. She glanced up at the guard tower that was situated just outside the gate. It was as empty as the camp, and Morgan scanned the tents again for any sign of movement or life.
“I assure you that this camp was not on any list I was provided with,” Neavillii said with unconcealed irritation. “One of Tadesde’s people, begging kinship, told me of it. No one has entered, and little movement has been seen within. It could be a trap, my most lovely wife.” Neavillii moved to stand beside Morgan while the other retainers milled about their own vehicles. A few heard Neavillii’s comments and turned to stare in surprise.
“Your only wife, as yet,” Morgan said, and placed her hand on Neavillii’s shoulder to soften the warning. “I would give my newfound kin the honor of walking beside me. Come, let us begin.” Morgan moved forward, barely giving Neavillii time to summon security personnel.
“The smell of death is rampant, and yet I see no carrion eaters,” Neavillii said with a puzzled glance as they approached the first scattered clump of tents.
“Look closer, friend, between the tents, there, and over there as well,” Morgan said, and pointed to the small, dead and bloated bodies that lay amid the refuse piles.
“I trust we have done a complete radiation scan of the valley?” Neavillii asked of an aide.
“Oh yes…, my…, Lady,” the aide replied, stumbling through the honorific with several timid glances at Morgan who was greeting a new arrival to their team. “The background radiation is definitely elevated, and there are a few hot spots as we noted on the map, but overall there is no indication of anything strong enough to kill quickly,” the aide said, and a second aide moved forward to offer a hard copy of the aerial map of the camp.
“And what of the subtler toxins? Did Tadesde, I mean the mercenary Captain Timone, use anything exotic?” Morgan asked with another glance at the scavenger’s carcasses that clustered around garbage piles.
Those present laughed nervously at Morgan’s deliberate slip in placing blame.
“Not that anyone has named. It might be wise if we withdrew and allowed a security team to survey the area further,” Neavillii replied with a forced nonchalance. Her words echoed the growing discomfort felt among many of the twenty or so people who were following Morgan through the cluster of tents. When Morgan shrugged her response, Neavillii paused to speak with an aide before turning back to Morgan.
“My newfound kin tells me that there were over th
irty thousand mercenaries here when she was stationed at this camp less than one year ago. Surely Tadesde did not kill them before abandoning the planet,” Morgan said with a nod to the very young Sansheren who had arrived earlier, and now walked beside her.
The youth’s fur was still almost entirely green, with an occasional stripe of the red to attest to maturity. “Oh most beautiful and caring Morganea, it is true that there were over thirty thousand mercenaries, compromising every species imaginable, but it is also regrettably true that I personally saw over twenty-five thousand buried in the year I was stationed here. As I have reported to your kind and generous wife, this was a destination for those who could not work. In the year I was here, she never sent supplies for the prisoners, only for her guards and that barely enough to survive on. Many children were born of the guards, but few survived of either generation,” the youth said with head bowed, and none present could doubt the rage and despair in her voice.
“I wonder if Tadesde ever considered the day her war would be over. No Arbitrator would condone such actions. What did she hope to profit?” Morgan threw the question out as she moved forward and opened the flap of the tent before them. The odor that wafted outward was enough to prevent her from a closer inspection.
“But she did profit!” The young woman said with her head still bowed. “Please excuse me for so rudely pointing out an obviously unimportant and rightly overlooked fact, but she did!”
Morgan placed her hand under the young woman’s chin and lifted. “I like to see the eyes of those I speak with, child. What is your name? Tell me how Tadesde profited.”
“I, um… Nealoie. She took the art. Bystocc has always been known for its art treasures. She stole them all.”
Morgan shot a puzzled look to Neavillii who shrugged and turned to speak to one of her own aides.
“I toured the vaults in every major city before the Arbitration. I assure you there is no way Tadesde could have looted them before her people left,” Morgan said, her hand forgotten on Nealoie’s shoulder as she continued to watch Neavillii.
“But, the first year I was apprenticed to Tadesde, I worked the shuttle docks on Shere. I saw the boxes come in stamped with her House emblem. They were transferred to a Faldebbian trader. When I was transferred to this forgettable planet, I heard the other Gulardee boast among themselves of the riches they had acquired. Could the artworks you saw be forgeries?”
Morgan nodded and put her arm across the troubled woman’s shoulders as they continued walking toward the next group of tents.
“I have contacted our base camp on the Eastern Continent. Zimsasha is looking into it. If they are forgeries it will be difficult to find a native artisan to prove it,” Neavillii said, and moved to open the tent flap before Morgan. “The carrion eaters were butchered.”
“By?” Morgan asked, but did not wait for a response. “Tell me child, how many years out of apprenticeship are you, and why did you choose to wear Tadesde’s banner if you suspect her of crimes?” Morgan moved on toward the next group of tents, trusting a member of her entourage to check the tents she passed.
“A knife,” Neavillii answered Morgan’s first question.
“I was to graduate from my apprenticeship the year after I was transferred here,” Nealoie said. “I have been here two years, and yet my sponsor insisted I am not qualified in many of the traditional skills. I was sent to this camp when I asked to write the one who fathered me.”
Morgan stopped walking and pulled the young woman into her embrace. “I would name you as my daughter and declare you complete of apprenticeship. Would you do me the honor of coming to my banner?” Morgan said, and looked up to smile at Neavillii’s startled expression.
Before Nealoie could respond to Morgan’s generosity, a soft moan was heard coming from a tent to the left of them. Neavillii moved to stand beside Morgan, hands outstretched, and prevented her from moving toward the tent as three of her security members drew weapons and approached the tent.
“This is not necessary,” Morgan muttered, with more amusement than annoyance.
“But it is, my most wonderful father. It is!” Nealoie gave Morgan one long, beseeching look and ran forward through the tent flap.
No one moved.
Morgan stormed toward the closest member of her security detachment. “You did not even attempt to stop her!” she yelled.
Neavillii shifted to stand directly in front of the tent flap, but nothing could be heard from within.
“I am determined to protect you, my Lady. I knew you would enter that tent. She did first what I was planning. Your House is honored by her courage and devotion.” The security officer was an old soldier wearing a single banner of the Eleventh rank of Gulardee and nothing where Tadesde’s House banner used to be; she stood firm and did not step from Morgan’s way.
“Honor to an unborn House is not a very kind epitaph,” Morgan said abruptly. “Assist her or move aside.”
Again no one moved, and in the uncomfortable silence that built, she considered the complement the officer had paid her. Standing in front of the tent, she thought of the interviews she had granted in the week since Tadesde began her pull out. Nearly two hundred of Tadesde’s people had contacted her camp about defecting. If all requests were granted, her own retainers ranks would swell to over a thousand, families included. Even the Gulardee that stood before her was of Tadesde’s blood family, and yet the loyalty in her eyes could not be doubted.
Every Sansheren dreamed of becoming a Twelfth ranked Sansadee and establishing her own House. A power pyramid with her at the top and a planet or more in dominion. A long lived species, most never considered the possibility until well beyond their first century, so Morgan dismissed the dream. But now, as she stood in the silence of the death camp, with her people refusing her orders out of love and respect, Morgan saw the dream bloom.
Nealoie moved the tent flap aside with her shoulder and carried out an emaciated human. Morgan could not tell if was a man or a woman, and she winced in sympathy as a moan escaped the body.
“She needs water. There are two others inside, dead,” Nealoie said as she placed the human on the ground beside Morgan and then bowed her head.
“No apologies. I have been told I am not acting in the best interest of my family. Let me look at her.” Morgan placed her hand on Nealoie’s shoulder, and knelt in the filth to examine the survivor.
A teen, Morgan decided as she stared at the prone frame. The youth had browned skin and black hair, knife cut with long bangs that tangled over her face, and Morgan brushed the matted hair away to find the beginnings of a mustache darkening the teen’s upper lip. Morgan pulled her hand away in shock.
“I have sent for a stretcher. Will she live?” Neavillii moved to kneel beside Morgan.
“He is young and needs a doctor,” Morgan said after a long pause. “The leg is badly broken; I think it will need to be removed. He is also dehydrated and starving. Who was helping him?” Morgan asked to herself as she brushed the teen’s matted hair off of his face again.
He opened his eyes and moaned before his eyes focused on her face.
“Where are the others?” Morgan asked in a near whisper. “Tadesde has left, we are here to help. You must tell me where the others are.”
The youth stared at her with distrust in his face visible to any proficient at reading human expressions.
“Such fear and hatred,” Neavillii said, and Morgan recognized the expression. “Why do you think there are others?” Neavillii asked, and Morgan heard her curiosity.
“Humans cannot live long without water, and this camp has been deserted for months. There must be others. Why does he fear me so?” Morgan again tried to stroke the youth’s forehead, but he wrenched his head away in panic and then lay still, looking exhausted and frightened.
“If he is a child, perhaps he cannot yet speak or understand,” Neavillii said as she accepted a bottle of water from an aide.
“How stupid of me,” Morgan said without a l
augh. “Can you understand me?” she asked in slow and careful English.
The youth stared at her, and Morgan thought that he understood that she was trying to communicate.
“Yo no hablo Engles.” His voice was hoarse as he worked to sit up to accept water from Neavillii.
“And I don’t speak Spanish,” she said in English. “He is from a different House than I, and his accent is thick,” Morgan explained in Sansheren.
“?Yo no soy norte Americana?” he took another drink of water, and Morgan noted with interest that he knew better than to drink a lot of water fast. He had been a long time between drinks of water before.
“My name is Morgan, they work for me,” she said, using a wide gesture that incorporated everyone within sight before ending at her chest. “I was Asian. American. You are from Mexico?” Morgan found that speaking slow came natural; it had been fifteen years since last she spoke a sentence in English outside of her dreams, and she found it difficult to remember the words she wanted to say.
“Yo soy Mexicano, si’. Me llamo Enrico. Tengo hambre, por favor,” the youth blurted out and then brought his fingers to his mouth in a gesture most humans would recognize.
“Yes, I have food.” Morgan turned to Neavillii and requested fruit for him to eat. “Where are your friends? Um, Enrico amigos?” and again Morgan used a sweeping gesture to encompass the entire camp.
“Tengo un amigo. Su nombre es Sam, es Norte Americano. No he visto a mi amigo desde hace cinco dias. Por favor encuentrenlo!” Enrico fell back as he finished his impassioned plea.
Using her full reserve of self-control, she patted Enrico’s hand before standing to give orders to her security people. “We are looking for one person,” Morgan said in Sansheren. “Get more people in here and have them begin searching. They need to shout “American”. Can you say that?” Morgan clenched her teeth together as the name Sam continued to echo through her.
Obligations Page 4