Chapter 11
MARDOK
For three days, we stay with the tribe with no answers from Vektal or his people.
Captain Chatav is growing upset at the delay.
I don’t blame him—every day we linger is another day that our delivery window gets a little narrower.
From the sounds of it, this delivery will break him—and the crew of the Lady—if it’s not delivered on time.
He’s agitated, but his soldier’s code won’t let him leave without an answer.
Leaving someone behind would be the wrong thing to do, and Chatav is a man of his word.
He won’t leave until he gets a definitive response.
Niri and Trakan are restless. Niri spends most of her time at the ship, sometimes running scans on the villagers when asked and mostly keeping to herself.
Trakan spends his time with the hunters and Farli’s father, Borran, who is the tribe’s brew-maker.
Trakan’s already traded a couple of trinkets for several skins of the stuff called sah-sah.
He’ll have to drink it before the next port, though, because I’m pretty sure it’ll never pass a single quarantine law.
As for me, every day seems to be too short. There are always new faces to meet, tasks to be performed, and food to be cooked. The day is filled without a moment of time to squander, it seems. I fall into bed each night with Farli at my side, and I am exhausted.
In a strange sort of way, I enjoy it. Living on the ship doesn’t allow me to be physical, so unless I spend my time at the ship’s gym, I end up sitting on my ass all day.
This reminds me of back when I was a soldier, working with others on a physical, sometimes menial, task.
There’s always a feeling of satisfaction once it’s done, and the camaraderie is far more pleasant than with my cold shipmates.
The planet’s still horrible, though. My face feels wind-burned and numb from the cold.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose a toe, and I’ve resorted to wrapping my tail from stem to tip because it feels like waving an icicle otherwise.
It’s snowed every day since we arrived, and while the sa-khui aren’t much bothered by it, it’s harder for me to move around when it feels as if I’m frozen.
Nights are spent in Farli’s bed. We haven’t fully had sex yet—not yet—but we’ve licked and touched and explored each other for hours on end.
We hold each other close each night and talk about everything and nothing.
I love her mind and the way she approaches life.
She hasn’t asked me why I won’t come inside her.
I think she knows. She hasn’t pressed and asked me to stay.
I think she sees how miserable I am in the cold and how unhappy I’d be.
So every night, I tell her about my world—the spaceports in deep space, the beaches of Homeworld, the greenery of my own planet.
My time as a soldier. Heck, I even tell her about the exotic foods she could experience if she comes with me. She hasn’t said yes…
…but she hasn’t said no, either. I’ll take that for now.
We’re running out of time together, though. Chatav’s antsy and told me in private last night that Vektal has until the end of tomorrow to get all the decisions from his people. We’ll leave then.
It doesn’t feel like enough time.
But it’s what I’ve got, so I’m going to spend every waking minute at Farli’s side and making her happy.
Like right now. We’ve taken a small crew to the place they call their ‘Elders’ Cave.
’ Turns out it’s an enormous old spaceship turned on its side.
The tribe tells me that it happened during the last big ‘earth-shake,’ and they made use of the computers there until then.
Seems only fair that we get things going for them again, and I’m eager to get my hands on the engine, see if I can’t poke around with it and make things run smoothly.
We use The Tranquil Lady to tow the ship back out of the gorge.
When it falls back onto its side, the boom of it is deafening, and I wince, anticipating utter destruction of the equipment inside.
But the tribe is pleased, especially the orange-haired human, Harlow.
It seems that of all the humans, she’s the one with a mechanic’s mentality, and this wreck of a ship is her baby.
She tells me she’s tried to make equipment to help improve their lives here on Kopan VI, but she’s limited by her knowledge and that of the ancient computer.
All of this makes me eager to try my hand at it, of course. Maybe that’s arrogant, but I’m curious to see what I can do to help. I’ve got more modern equipment and an entirely different set of skills than the humans do. I know I can help out.
Maybe it’s my way of apologizing for the fact that I want to take Farli away from them.
“I don’t have to ride the sled,” Harlow tells her mate as we disembark from the Lady to cross over to the Elders’ Cave. “I can walk. Really.”
He just growls and points at the sled, piled high with warm furs.
She sighs and takes her seat on the sled, and her mate pulls it, carrying her forward.
She does look a hundred times better than when I first saw her.
The painful hollowness is gone from her face, and even though she’s still weak, she looks more vibrant every day.
She puts her arms out, smiling, and her small son crawls onto her lap, trying to get comfortable next to her big belly.
I might be taking Farli away from them—hopefully—but I’ve given them back Harlow. It’s something.
I’m trying to justify it in my mind, I know.
I can’t help it. Farli walks at my side, smiling and happy, and I can’t get over the feeling of guilt that I’m going to be taking her away from a people that adore her and dropping her into my world, where she’ll just be another person.
Another refugee in a galaxy full of refugees of one kind or another.
But I can’t bear the thought of giving her up. She’s mine.
As we approach the ship, I eye it speculatively.
The hull is completely compromised, with gaps between metal panels and missing bolts.
I’m surprised it’s managed to stay together as much as it has.
It’s ancient, all right. I’ve seen vids of Old Sakh space vessels, and had a good laugh at how clunky and crude they seemed compared to the sleek modern versions.
Seeing one in front of me fills me with a sense of history and wonder, and I can’t wait to get inside and poke around.
Once inside, Harlow takes charge. She powers up the decrepit computer and runs a diagnostic, just like I would. Immediately, the system comes back with a ping. “Completed,” Harlow says. “No errors. Huh.”
Something sizzles. We both look over at one of the panels, where sparks are flying out from the metal.
“No errors, eh?” I say. “Pretty sure that’s wrong. The Lady’s computer is pretty new, and after a tump-over like that, she’d be throwing errors all over the place. Let me take a look.”
“Please do,” Harlow says, moving to the side.
“Rukhar, why don’t we clean up in here and start a fire?
” Farli says brightly. “We can get this place like it was before while your parents and my mate work.” She takes the little boy by the hand and leads him deeper into the ship’s main storage area.
It’s full of debris, most of it tossed to the far end of the bay.
“I remember this place from many seasons ago. Do you? You were just a tiny kit then.”
I put my hands on the input terminal for the old computer.
It doesn’t have an intuitive interface—where I can direct it with a few flicks of my hand or a strong, pointed thought from my cranial implant—so I’ll direct it manually.
I decide to start with a simple scan of all functional areas of the ship, just to see what it comes back with.
“Might take me a few to get up to speed on this thing,” I tell Harlow.
“It’s a little older than what I’m used to. ”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s a dinosaur compared to yours,” she says with a grin. “It’s what, almost three hundred years out of date?”
I give her an odd look. “Three hundred? Try over a thousand.”
She frowns at me, her pale brow furrowing.
“It can’t be. The computer’s given us detailed accountings of the crash here, and it happened 286 years ago.
Well, okay, that was when we first arrived, so I guess it’s been…
” She pauses and counts on her fingers. “Two hundred ninety-four years total. Not a thousand.”
“It’s been at least a thousand,” I correct her. “Probably more. The language you’re speaking is Old Sakh. This type of ship,” I say, pointing at the terminal I stand in front of, “hasn’t been in use for millennia.”
Harlow seems troubled. “I know there are things that don’t add up, timeline-wise.
Like, how is it that the oldest of the sa-khui don’t remember anything about the crash if they’re so long-lived?
They’ve been here for generations upon generations, but if I math it out, it should only be two or three generations, max.
Someone should remember this being a ship and not a cave.
” She shakes her head. “But computers can’t think for themselves, so when it tells me 286 years, I believe it.
Plus, it knows human languages. Specifically, it knows human English, which has only been around for a few hundred years.
So the crash couldn’t have happened that long ago. ”
I shake my head. I think I’m starting to understand why Harlow is so convinced that the crash is more recent than it truly is.
I know I’m right, though. These people have been here longer than a mere 300 years.
That doesn’t make sense at any level, not when I’m looking at just how ancient this ship is.
I know my Sakh history. “Let’s test a few things,” I say when the computer comes back with another clear diagnostic.
“All right,” Harlow says, and crosses her arms. “Go ahead.”
“Computer, can you hear me?”