Chapter 17 – Swords and Slippers #3
Nay'li walked me through a dozen different sequences and had me look into the camera and deliver the truly awful canned line four times before calling it a wrap.
I sat down to haul my slippers off as Neern Mournet, the marn competitor, stepped onto set with his handler.
As I was leaving with Silver Sea, I heard him practicing his line – "I'm here to slice and dice, not play nice" – and I decided, in a rush, that I'd won the fucking lottery when I'd been assigned my ketaari handler.
Araxis and I did meet, as planned, the next day, drifting to the kitchen after our particularly intense training session.
He offered to make me tea and we sat at the dining table and I trickle-fed the audience little pieces of my childhood as Araxis told me about his creche-mates.
Vivith had hoped that this would make us seem like fully-realized people, which would help spike our numbers.
During my interview with Sky Pebble that evening, he went through a list of other competitors and asked me to say a few words about my first impression of each of them.
I aimed for banal observations and managed to keep it pretty light, until he brought up Grigor Spade.
"You must have an opinion on the other human," Sky Pebble said conspiratorially.
"His interviews are a bit painful, I'll admit.
I hate talking to someone with a translation chip.
Really hard to get a back-and-forth going, you know? But your Standard is excellent."
"I had the option of getting a chip, but I thought – I still think it's a bad shortcut.
" I drew up a little taller in the plush seat.
"If you just get a chip, you can't ever understand the nuance of a language.
You miss everything for the sake of convenience.
Different languages frame ideas differently, so if your brain is only ever running things through your first language, you're actually limiting your ability to think. "
"Do you think that's a big difference between the two of you?"
I snorted. "I think that's a big difference between me and Seraphim as a whole.
I like learning about other ways of seeing the universe.
I like learning about different cultural concepts and belief systems. Seraphim doesn't: they figure that their way is the best way and everything else is a distraction. "
"It must have been a shock," Sky Pebble said, studying me with his yellow eyes, "to go from such an insular community to a marn den. And you didn't speak any Standard when you arrived on Yellow Fin?"
I shook my head. "I had to learn quickly – but leaving Seraphim was the best decision I ever made.
Meeting someone like Grigor only confirms that.
And it's not like my life has been easy in the ten years since I left, but I'm not afraid of hard work.
I'd rather work hard than have a small life full of regrets. "
"Are there any regrets you do have?"
I gave myself a moment to pretend I was mulling it over, as if I didn't know exactly where I'd steer the end of this interview.
"You know," I said slowly, "my only regret right now is that I didn't approach Araxis when he came to the den on Yellow Fin.
I wish we could have met somewhere else.
Anywhere else. Who knows what might have happened? "
Later, as Silver Sea walked me back to my room, she flicked off her wristband display and watched me out of the corner of her eye. "You are an interesting person, Sashen Solar," she said finally, just as we approached the door.
I shrugged. "I'm just a dancer." When I settled in for the night – which involved watching media and mentally reviewing the plan for the next days in minute detail, I pointedly and deliberately didn't think about Grigor Spade or Seraphim.
They didn't get to take up any of my bandwidth.
I had too many other important things to juggle.
Unfortunately, my luck with avoiding Grigor ran out on the fourth day.
Araxis had set to making me lunch according to our plan (this will be particularly important to abayan viewers, Vivith had said, although I wasn't sure why).
I was leaning against the counter as Araxis sliced leafy green vegetables, a pot behind him shimmering with oil as small balls of fermented grain bobbed along.
"This dish is best with fresh dathal root, but it doesn't travel well on ships," he murmured, black eyes glinting as he looked at me.
I fought in vain against the little smile that hooked my mouth: it was an oblique way to tell me he'd made this for me before.
It almost felt like a private moment for the two of us, far away where the cameras couldn't touch.
"You know, no one ever cooks for me," I admitted. "I eat a lot of ration blocks."
"Hm." He scooped up the vegetables and set them in a bowl where there was already some brown liquid, using a flared stick to nudge them around. "Clearly you need someone to feed you more regularly. Someone should be taking care of you."
I felt myself blush – why? – and was slightly gratified to see that his cheeks had silvered too. "Well, if I win, I'll be sure to hire someone to keep me fed."
Araxis carefully said nothing and turned to tend to the fritters.
"There you are, pretty boy," grated a voice from the doorway in English, which was jarring – like missing a step.
A wash of cold prickled my neck as I straightened and turned to look at Grigor.
He was dripping sweat, a towel draped around his shoulders, face red and shiny.
Clearly, he'd been training downstairs, still in his own tatty clothes.
"You're making me blush," I drawled, leaning my back against the counter and pretending to be unaffected even as my pulse spiked.
Something about him – the hard, rocky angles of his face, the lines in his forehead and around his mouth that spoke to his perpetual scowl, his simmering anger, the way he loomed and clenched his fists – screamed danger at me in a way I hadn't ever felt around aliens in ten years of living on Yellow Fin.
There was no part of my primal brain that understood aliens, and so they didn't trigger the same instinctive fear, especially when they just wanted to watch me dance and give me tips – whereas clearly my animal brain had a good grasp of the danger that a man like Grigor posed to someone like me.
My body recognized him in a way that was immediate, an echo of how I'd lived on Seraphim: in justified fear.
Grigor squinted at me, his hard gray stare flicking past my shoulder to Araxis, who was entirely ignoring the situation.
When Grigor spoke, it was still in English, no doubt to keep this conversation between just the two of us, and the broader galactic audience with its subtitles.
"You're spending a lot of time with that alien. "
"I don't know why you care." I fought to keep my tone even, even though my heart was hammering in my throat and made the words feel breathy as I forced them out.
He hauled the towel from around his shoulders, rubbing it hard across his face.
When it dropped back down, it revealed a sneer.
"It's not right, Alikander. We keep to ourselves.
Seraphim respects alien cultures and ways of life, but we know they're not right for us or where we come from.
" His eyes flicked upwards to the tiny silver camera hovering near the ceiling, and in a flash I understood.
That had been for the audience. Was he here to, what, remediate Seraphim's image?
My stare flicked down to his chest for a moment, emblazoned with that same mining corp logo, clearly a Seraphim initiative.
"And how does mission work fit in with that?
" I asked mildly, slipping into Galactic Standard and ignoring the way he had said my old name, dripping with condescension.
The word mission didn't translate exactly, so I used a voltaar loan word: if any word could best capture the religious fervour of Seraphim, it would be one ascribed to voltaari cults.
Grigor squinted at me as the chip in his brain interpreted the words for him. He continued in English. "Seraphim is happy to share its culture with others if they're interested. But we don't care about forcing anyone into anything."
I scoffed. "Don't lie. Seraphim loves to force people to try and be something they're not.
I know firsthand." I said it in Standard, wanting Araxis to hear my half of this conversation at the very least. And, I don't know, I liked that Grigor had to struggle to try and keep up; I liked that it made him look lazy.
Grigor shifted his weight, before stepping fully into the room.
Behind me, Araxis went still. Grigor's stare slid past me to Araxis, and then he stepped over to one of the fridges, wrenching it open and hauling out a cool bottle of water.
"You're the one trying to force yourself into a shape you're not supposed to be," he said belatedly, his back turned on me.
He rifled some more in the fridge. "Look at the lengths you've gone to: I know where you were working, so I know you've been making yourself a plaything to any paying alien since you left Seraphim.
Bending over to scrape an existence together, degraded day in and out.
And now, instead of coming home, you'd rather fall all over yourself for an alien who's just going to kill you on the sands, and you're doing it for all the galaxy to watch?
" He scoffed, lip curled. "It's pathetic.
He'll take his piece, and you'll have nothing to show for it except the stain on your soul.
But you're still wanted on Seraphim, even though you've strayed.
Your mother misses you. She'll be sad to see what you've become, but you could always go home and choose differently, Alikander. "