by L. A. Graf
Sikes scowled and jerked his arm away. “So you can ride with us and interview him the whole way? No thanks, pal.”
“Let me take you in my limo,” the reporter expounded, tapping his pencil against Sikes’s hip-to-ankle brace, “and I’ll get you a first-class seat to take care of that leg.”
Sikes nodded and pushed the reporter practically into George’s arms. “Start talking.”
“Matt, fasten your seat belt.”
An hour and a half delay at the gate and three airplane servings of bourbon had left Sikes feeling cottony, and pleasant, and not caring a rat’s ass whether they got back to L.A. or not. He opened one eye to peek over at Cathy and noticed through her window that the plane had started moving. Funny—he hadn’t even noticed the engine noise. “Wait’ll we take off.”
She reached across his lap without even asking again, digging underneath him for the buckle’s second half so she could click it closed across his hips. “I’m glad Ann Arbor won’t be coming home for a couple weeks,” she sighed. “I don’t know if I could put up with six hours of you two on the same flight.”
Cathy had managed to spend most of last night on Sikes’s floor at the hospital, but only because Ann Arbor came up from riasu shortly after they wheeled Sikes off into surgery. Between shot-putting elements of her room into the hallway and filling the ward with an impressive bouquet of Tenctonese curses, she’d kept both the orthopedic nurses and Cathy busy picking up after her and translating. Sikes was still sorry he’d missed it all.
Instead, he got to share his plane home with a bunch of tall, studly jock types who were busy shouting and laughing about wiping the ice with some Los Angeles sports team or other starting Monday night. Sikes wasn’t sure he liked the way some of them were chatting up George and Susan behind him, and he knew he didn’t like the way one of them kept smiling and waving at Cathy whenever she looked in his direction. Sikes made a silent suggestion to the fellow in the universal sign language of the streets. The athlete raised one eyebrow in amusement, said something in French apparently meant to be insulting, and turned back to his teammates.
“Stop that . . .” Cathy closed her hand over his, pulling it back down into his lap in an obvious effort to keep him from causing more trouble with it. She used her elbow to lift the armrest between them. “Come here, you.”
Sikes let her pull him over close to her, shoulder to shoulder, arms intertwined. She smelled musky and fresh, better than the antiseptic hospital, better than the first-class cabin full of sweaty hockey players. He tipped his head against hers with a sigh.
“Does your leg hurt?” she asked him softly.
He nodded. “Yeah.” He’d mostly gotten used to it, but its steady presence still made him awfully tired. Even the bourbon couldn’t change that.
“Anything I can do to help?”
He snorted, a little embarrassed with himself. “Stop making eyes at the Pittsburgh Puffins.”
She was quiet for a minute, then disengaged her hand to reach up and toy with the ends of his hair. “You know . . .” Her voice was pensive, the movements of her fingers in his hair relaxing and small. “You don’t have to get worried every time a reporter wants to talk to me or a hockey player makes me smile. You ought to know by now that I’m not attracted to humans just because they’re good-looking, rich, or well-mannered.”
Sikes turned his head to frown at her with some concern. “Boy, I sure hope this is leading up to a compliment.”
She smiled, and shifted so they could face each other in pseudo-privacy. “Matthew Sikes,” she said prettily, “I like you because you’re smart and loyal and honest even when you think you don’t know how to be. I like you because you’re just like all the best sansol—you’re cha’dikav.” She leaned forward and kissed him unexpectedly. “And because you listened to my speech, you sneak.” She poked him with a finger, failing abysmally in her bid to look stern. “Where did you get it? And how?”
He smiled, liking the warm blush her sentiments and touch brought into his cheeks. “I got Kathleen Westbeld to bring me a copy while I was in the hospital. I watched it with Ann Arbor before you came to get me out this morning.” He touched the back of his hand to her temple. “It really was wonderful.”
Her eyes darkened to a lustrous emerald. “Thank you.” Then, taking his hands in hers once again. “I haven’t really thanked you yet for everything you did for me this weekend, have I?”
Sikes shook his head and did his best to look martyred and neglected. Cathy rewarded him with an equally insincere attempt to look contrite. “Then I guess I’ll just have to follow you home tonight and take hopeless advantage of you until you beg me for mercy.”
Sikes liked the sound of that. “I’m a cripple,” he reminded her.
“Don’t worry.” Cathy tugged on his tie with a wicked smile. “That will just make it easier.”
Glossary of Tenctonese words
used in Extreme Prejudice
Andarko—
Celine’s religious male counterpart
anir’na—
a small, fur-bearing mammal from Peshtwa’e, known for its crop-destructive abilities and for its practice of bearing a litter of 8-12 young every thirteen days
cate’un—
child
cha’dikav—
a troublemaker; literally “too intractable to be trained”
eckwa—
dead
eeb—
baby
en—
who
karr—
damn
karrto—
damn it
kleezantsun—
Overseer
ma—
they
monk-suit—
colloquial profanity; literally “excrement consuming”
Na—
I
Nem—
I’m
neemu—
term of enderment; e.g., honey, sweetheart
nema—
human
nos—
my
odrey—
darling
roos—
kill
sacka—
was
sansol—
slave
sardonak—
a Tenctonese aphrodisiac, binding those who take it in eternal loyalty and monogamy; sardonakked—the act of having taken sardonak together
syka—
were
tam—
all
tert—
racial slur applied to humans
therma—
mother
toe—
it
tog—
thought
vot—
you
vuka—
butcher
wrap’da—
finished
zoo—
here
Phrases
“Na nteeka wask”—
I don’t know.
“Vots garsa ot aeb’ blafta lon coke see ’ser la su rom heef”—
a slave’s phrase from the ship; literally “Your struggle to change things only brings the rest of us more pain.”