Chapter 5
Zephrum
After spending several rotations interacting with Han, Zephrum had to acknowledge she was as smart as him. Perhaps even smarter in some respects.
All the pamphlets published by the Committee of Pet Welfare and entries into the Talin UniBase woefully underestimated human intellect.
They’d been marked as a low-intelligence species by the Talin Empire, but she’d demonstrated her wit repeatedly, including right now as she effortlessly beat him at the strategy game grav for the third time.
“I taught you this game,” he grumbled, as he stared at the grid on the information square they were using to play. “How am I the one losing?”
Han chuckled. “Grav isn’t that different from domie. I’m really good at domie.”
He let out a long breath and finally moved one of his triangle pieces to a different place on the grid by dragging his finger on the square. The moment he lifted his finger, Han made a happy sound and moved her piece. The square flashed, declaring her the winner.
He sounded a negative rumble. “How did you do that?”
“You play a defensive and conservative game,” she said, tapping the square to reset the grid. “That makes you easy to predict.”
“I do not,” he retorted, sitting up.
After eating their first meal together a few rotations ago, Han had nearly fallen asleep in his lap. He’d tried to put her back to bed in the bunk, but she’d objected. Probably because the bunk wasn’t a nest.
He’d pulled out every bit of bedding and even found a second bunk mat tucked away in a storage compartment. With all that and the pillows from the bed, he’d set up a nest for her next to the bunk.
She’d called it adorable and invited him to snuggle with her while she slept. He’d assumed she’d needed comforting and thought it would only be that one time.
He’d slept in the nest every rest period since.
It was going to be impossible for him to go back to sleeping without her small, soft, human body nestled against him.
Honestly, he’d become spoiled with all the time they spent together in the nest. Even now they were sitting in it with the square laying on a small pile of pillows between them.
Han gave him a bland smile at his denial of playing conservatively. “If you say so.”
He’d become familiar with her many expressions and knew this one meant she wasn’t going to contradict him even though she was right.
It was aggravating how often she was!
Giving up on his self-esteem for the rotation, he pointed to the square. “Please teach me how to play better.”
She beamed up at him, which made swallowing his pride worth it. “Sure!”
As she played a first move, she talked him through her thought process. He’d probably be impressed by her brilliance if he wasn’t so distracted by her soft scent and melodious voice.
It’d be easy to blame his repeated losses on being close to her, which made it hard to concentrate, but he’d never been a good player. He’d assumed he’d win against Han simply because he was Talin and she was human.
He should’ve known better.
Still, there was no denying she was a constant source of distraction. Yesterday he’d spilled her mid-rotation meal all over the floor because he turned to find her emerging from the cleansing unit with nothing but a towel wrapped around her luscious body.
That had been one of the most embarrassing moments in his life, made worse when she rushed over because she thought he’d burned himself.
His scent glands ached with bonding oil and blood flooded to his shaft. It took far too much willpower to keep from trying to tug the towel out of her grip.
All the while, she remained oblivious to his lust.
“...so that’s why it’s best to let go of a few squares early,” Han said. “Right?”
He hadn’t been paying attention to what she’d been saying, so he sounded a rumble of agreement and hoped there wouldn’t be a test later.
Halfway through this teaching game of grav, Zephrum gave up. He wasn’t good at this game to begin with, and being so close to Han that her smell invaded his nose slits meant he couldn’t focus on her patient instructions.
“Tlash tea,” he said abruptly. “I need some tea.”
Han tapped the square and shut down the game. “Yeah, tea sounds good. Make mine half strength. I think the last mug you made was so strong it stripped some of the enamel off my teeth.”
He sounded a rumble of amusement and jumped to his feet. Three strides brought him to the food storage cabinet and reconsitutor. He hated the stale packaged Tlash tea, but it was better than no tea.
“Tlash tea is good, but you should try some of our tea. Mom grows a bunch of Old Earth tea bushes in her garden,” Han commented as she leaned back against a pile of pillows. “Last time I visited I stocked up, but it never lasts long.”
“Where did you grow up that you were able to have a garden?” he asked.
He’d assumed she’d grown up in a dense urban center or on a station.
His images of humans out in the wild were of poverty and deprivation, except the more time he spent with Han, the more he realized he should question all his pre-conceived ideas.
“I grew up on a planet called Inneeko,” she answered. “It’s good sized, with several really large cities. It’s mostly Ugarians there, but we have a pretty good-sized population. Over three hundred.”
She frowned for a moment, as if upset she’d shared that with him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Three hundred is a number to be proud of. It sounds like your human community is thriving.”
“Yeah,” she agreed but was still frowning.
He tried to think of some way to get her talking about herself more.
He was hungry for information about Han’s life but was scared to ask too many questions.
Early in the journey he’d asked about why she’d been on Filsin Station.
She’d said something about a last-minute job and then got quiet.
He didn’t know if she was embarrassed by her work or if it was illegal.
He’d never judge her, and he hoped as they spent more time together she might come to trust him enough to confide in him.
“Is all your family on Inneeko?” he pushed.
“Most of my family is still there,” she said, stretching her leg out, and her pants rode up a little, reminding him of her ruined garments.
She traveled prepared because there’d been a second set of pants and shirt in the bag she had. The other outfit was ruined, but she hadn’t let him throw it out. She’d promised that after a cleaning, the material could be fed into a tailor machine and used to make a smaller outfit for a child.
He’d watched her seal it up in a steri-bag usually used to seal food and tuck it back in her travel bag.
It reminded him that humans were a poverty-stricken species.
Any Talin would’ve thrown the outfit away, but not Han.
She was going to carry it all the way back home. It was admirable, if a little sad.
Of course, his situation was much more dire now that he didn’t have access to any of his account. He shouldn’t be looking down at Han’s frugality, he should be learning from her!
“How do you…” he started to ask her a question about surviving on such a limited income when he noticed her rubbing her leg over the healing wound. “Does it hurt?”
She let out a frustrated breath. “It doesn’t hurt, but I wish I had some lotion or oil,” she said, pulling her pant leg up to her knee and lightly scratching her blunt nails over the long scab.
“What are you doing?” he asked with a worried rumble. Abandoning the tea, he rushed back to her and pulled her hand away.
The skin patches had fallen off earlier that day.
Normally they’d stay on longer, but because the first set had failed and the wound had aged, the second set fell off early to keep from growing into the skin as it healed.
Even though she assured him the scab was natural, he hated how it looked like it must hurt.
She tried to tug her hand free. “It itches.”
“You shouldn’t touch it like that. You could reopen the wound!” he admonished, still holding her hand, and sounding a worried rumble. “Does itching indicate infection?”
She shook her head. “Itching is normal but annoying.”
“You said you wished you had lotion or oil. Does that help?” he asked.
“Keeping the scab and skin soft helps.” She tugged again, and this time he let go of her wrist. “I usually carry a tin of salve that Aunt Elle makes, but I ran out a few months ago.” She let out a long sigh. “I’ve run out of tea, salve, and tamarind candy. I should've really visited home sooner.”
For the first time, she sounded a little sad. He sounded a soothing rumble. “I can’t produce any of those things but might be able to provide you with some oil.”
She stopped tugging and met his gaze. “You can?”
He pointed to the side of his face with his free hand. “Uh, my kind produces oil from glands in our face.”
She tilted her head, a sign of curiosity, and leaned closer to him. She brought her free hand to his face and ran her fingers gently across his cheek. Her touch caused his aching scent gland to release. After only one touch, her fingers were coated in oil.
Drawing her hand away, she rubbed her fingers together. “It feels like the expensive oil we’d sometimes buy before the Veli traders took Inneeko off their route a few years ago.”
She put her fingers to her nose and breathed in deep. “Hibiscus.”
His INT couldn’t translate that word. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a flower from Old Earth,” she explained, rubbing my bonding oil over her lips. “It’s one of the plants we make tea out of. It tastes delicious on its own, without having to add any sweetener.”
“Do you like the smell of hibiscus?” he whispered. It was hard to focus on words when all he wanted to do was press his face to her and rub bonding oil all over her pale body.
“Very much.” Without warning, she pressed her fingers to his face to gather more oil. He barely kept from gasping. He was forced to clench his jaw to keep from reacting.