CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KADE
I watched my master stride quicky away, feeling both eagerness and trepidation about the task ahead of me. Both emotions stemmed from the same cause; I was going to be spending the majority of the afternoon alone with Jai.
But at the same time, Jai was clearly angry about something.
My master had given him clear instructions to change his colouring, and he’d flatly refused.
While it was impossible for a dimari to refuse a direct order from their master, most jumped at the chance to comply with even the subtlest of hints about something their master wanted.
Jai was feeling no such inclination, and I found that to be deeply unsettling.
Despite his antagonistic behaviour in the conference room while he was waiting to be claimed, I’d hoped that once he bonded with his master, he’d settle down into willing compliance.
Or, at the very least, into anxious confusion.
I knew from first hand experience that the initial meeting with one’s master could be highly emotional, and quite baffling, until we learned a bit of context about where we were and what our role was to be.
But based on the conversation Jai and my master had just had, he was still as defiant as ever. That likely meant he was going to be unpredictable for the rest of the afternoon, since I didn’t see him offering me any more respect than he’d offered our master.
Aiden had ordered him to follow my instructions, which would alleviate any immediate difficulties in completing the tasks he’d given us. But I wanted to spend the afternoon reassuring Jai about his new life and finding out more about his training, not giving him orders that he was going to resent.
Jai was staring at me expectantly, almost glaring at me, as Aiden disappeared around the corner, and I peered at him as I looked up from my bowl of stew. “Is there a problem?” I asked him, genuinely wanting to be helpful if there was.
Jai looked around apprehensively. “Your… Our master told us to go to his office,” he said, sounding unexpectedly adamant about it. He was fidgeting, perched on the edge of his seat.
I nodded. “Yes, but he meant we should do that after I finish my lunch.” It struck me suddenly how far we’d come, that I could know that without even asking. Indeed, Aiden would be rather horrified if he found out I’d abandoned the rest of my meal in pursuit of instant obedience.
Jai frowned at me. “You are… disobeying him?” he asked, sounding both confused and just a little bit scared.
“Not at all. I would never willingly disobey him.” Even as I said it, it occurred to me how this might look to someone who didn’t know my master as well as I did.
“Aiden is a very caring master,” I told Jai.
“He’s not at all like a lot of the masters from Basub or Fotessia.
If there was some emergency, if the base was being attacked, for example, then yes, I would jump to obey him immediately.
But we have several hours to complete some tasks which are very much non-life-threatening.
So he would prefer that I have a proper meal, and then see to the rest of the tasks for the afternoon. ”
“You just called him Aiden,” Jai said, sounding confused all over again.
I nodded. “I realise that’s not the usual way of addressing one’s master,” I said, knowing it must sound rather strange to him. “Aiden has specifically asked me to call him that. He doesn’t object to me calling him sir, but he prefers Aiden.”
“Calling a master by their name is disrespectful,” Jai insisted. “If you have the option to call him sir, why would you not do that?”
I didn’t feel any offence about the way he was questioning me.
When I’d first arrived here, I’d been just as shocked by my master’s request. “It’s a bit complicated,” I tried to explain.
“I was given some unique programming by the Eumadians’ neuro-engineering technology.
I’ve been programmed to protect my master as my primary purpose, over and above any order he gives me.
There has only been one instance when I’ve had to directly disobey one of his orders for the sake of keeping him safe.
We have a theory that that somehow altered the training protocols I was taught.
I’m not sure exactly how that would work, but ever since then, I’ve been able to comfortably call him Aiden.
” Even I wasn’t entirely sure what had changed that day, when a band of Geshtoch had attacked the restaurant we were in.
But I knew it was a very unusual situation.
“He trusts you a great deal,” Jai said, and there was a clear note of resentment in his tone.
“Yes, he does. And he’ll learn to trust you, as well,” I assured Jai. “It’ll just take a bit of time for you to get to know each other.”
Jai looked entirely unimpressed with that, and in the face of his ongoing hostility, I was forced to admit to myself that I was feeling rather disappointed with this introductory conversation.
Jai seemed more interested in confrontation than friendship, and I decided to finish my meal before we went any further with explanations about this world.
I scooped up the last few spoonfuls of stew, using my bread roll to scrape up the gravy clinging to the bowl.
“How about we go to Aiden’s office and I’ll show you how we order clothes,” I said, standing up and collecting the empty dishes from both my own and my master’s meals.
I took the tray back to the washstand, then turned around…
and found that Jai was still sitting at the table.
I wasn’t surprised by that. I’d seen the way he’d disregarded my master’s suggestions about his colouring, and also, by contrast, the way he’d immediately followed his direct orders.
Given that my master had ordered him to follow my instructions, I was assuming that for the next couple of hours, I would be able to compel Jai to obey me in the same way my master had.
But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to like me. I wanted him to be my friend.
I also wanted to know why he was so insistent on pushing his disobedience as far as he was able to.
I went back to the table, putting my hands in my pockets and staring down at Jai.
“I could order you to come with me,” I stated softly.
“But I would prefer not to. I can see that you’re not happy with Aiden as your master.
And I’d like to help you with that. But here is not a good place for that sort of conversation.
Would you please come to his office with me, so we can have some privacy? ”
Jai looked back at me, and he seemed to be genuinely weighing up the pros and cons of that decision. Then he sighed and pulled himself to his feet. “As you wish,” he said, sounding defeated.
Seeing him standing up for the first time, the first thing I noticed was that he was significantly taller than me.
He also looked heavier, his muscles thicker than mine.
Assuming his training was as thorough as mine had been, he would be a terrifying opponent, against anyone he truly wanted to harm.
I led him through the crowded hallways back to my master’s office.
Once we were there, I closed the door and activated my comm.
“I’d like to talk a bit about your training and what you can expect here,” I said, “but my orders were to arrange some clothes and a comm for you, so we’ll need to do that first.” I was aware that my master would not be upset if there was a pressing reason why we hadn’t completed those two tasks, but at the same time, he had made it an order, which meant I was compelled to obey him – albeit that the exact method I used to get there was up to me.
“Our comms can be used to scan a person’s body and match their measurements to appropriate sizes and styles of clothing,” I explained to Jai.
“Given that we have seven different species here, along with a number of visitors from non-Alliance species, it’s far easier to let the system figure out which clothes are suitable.
Would you please take off your shirt and pants so I can scan you?
” Once again, I was not making it an order, in the hope that we could start to build a bit of rapport between us.
In the privacy of Aiden’s office, I didn’t see any issue with the request. Dimari saw each other naked very frequently during training, and no one from outside could see into the office.
But Jai tensed, a look of fear and rage settling on his face.
I fell silent, my body tensing as I wondered what he thought he had to fear from an empty office and a fellow dimari.
Moving stiffly, he removed his clothes, tossing them carelessly over the back of the chair, then he stood still while I let the comm scan him from head to toe, both from the front and the side.
“Okay, you can get dressed again,” I told him, as I loaded the scans into the clothing selector in the comm.
He grabbed up his clothes, pulling them on as fast as he could manage.
I pretended to ignore his agitation, sitting down on one of the chairs in front of Aiden’s desk as I concentrated on my comm.
I scrolled through the options the program suggested, choosing a small but comprehensive selection of clothing – jeans, shorts, t-shirts, jumpers, underwear, plus a few different styles of shoes and a few necessary accessories, like a belt.
I knew from my own experience, and from talking to dozens of other dimari here, that when they arrived on Rendol 4, they knew nothing at all about Alliance fashion or culture, so asking Jai to choose any of his own clothes would have been pointless.
Instead, I simply ordered him a range of things that roughly matched the items in my own wardrobe.
Then I added a comm to the order and hit send.