CHAPTER 7
I come awake suddenly, and for the first three heartbeats, I’m disoriented, my body thrashing, expecting to propel me from a bed of seaweed. It takes a moment to register cloth blankets, a linen sheet, and a solid wooden bed frame supporting my body, but I regain my bearings soon enough, and the events of the previous day flood through my consciousness.
Without glancing over, I know Becky isn’t in bed beside me. There is no other bio activity in the whole house.
That realization has me sitting upright with something that might be alarm.
I grab my outer leg and extract it from the covers, then repeat it for my other leg. I swing out of bed, adjust to the planet’s gravity, which feels curiously flat without the ocean buoyancy I’ve had a lifespan to be used to, and move to exit the room.
I tug on boots before I leave the house because I don’t want to damage my cybernetic feet, and clad only in Joel’s boxers, I make my way out the front door and scan for Becky outside.
Paco greets me on the porch, and when I make a muttering noise and brush past him, he latches onto the side of my boxers, nearly yanking me right off my feet.
My exclamation is loud and surely in an entirely different language than he was trained in—and yet his large shaggy ears fall and he lets go of where he has me prisoner, shuffling back as if he understands me when I shout “Gni tway znoch!” Which means I’ll eat your head raw .
Cursing in Yonderin, I clomp down the steps—and then turn and grab Paco, who needs to be taught how to descend steps in order for him to know how to navigate them by himself, just as Becky said. I set him on the ground and hold him just long enough to confirm he’s steady on his hooves, then I’m stepping around him, striding away.
Of course he follows me. He bumps me in the posterior with his nose every other foot tread just to irritate me, as far as I can tell.
He follows me all across the yard, stopping when I stop, his nose running down my leg.
“Bite me and I will make you regret it,” I warn him.
He snuffles and lowers his nose to the dirt, seemingly fascinated by the dust puffing up care of his nostrils’ exhalations—and then he drops down to his knees, falls to his hip, and kicks out his rear legs, shoving dramatically to his side, and kicking until all four of his hooves are in the air.
He looks like he's dying. He kicks dust up around him in a cloud and makes a loud huffing sound as he throws his body sideways, rolling.
Well. If he's dying, I'll have to dig a bigger hole than yesterday, I suppose. Dodgasted donkey. That's a lot of work.
Shaking my head, I stride on.
Ahead of me, I’ve identified Becky’s location via her bio-readings. She’s behind the wall of a smaller outbuilding, one humans fashion for their edible fowls.
Becky is stepping out of it just as I approach, her hair tied back away from her face, which is puffy and tear-tracked. My appearance must seem sudden. Her reddened eyes widen, her brain lights up for shock or surprise, and her hands splay in some sort of reflexive action. This causes the basket handle she’s carrying to tumble toward the ground.
I lunge and catch it before it strikes the dirt.
“Wow,” Becky breathes. “You’re fast first thing in the morning.”
I nod. “I’m descended from a very efficient species,” I explain.
She makes a face I can’t catalog. “Right. ”
With a brief glance, I take note of her outfit: a prairie blouse the color of straw and a sky blue skirt. An apron the color of spurflowers is bumped hugely over her belly and tied under her pre-nursing globes.
Which, for some reason, are rather attractive to my eye.
Confused for more than one reason, I address my most pressing item. “Why did you let Paco loose from his stall?”
Her brows shoot up and her chin dips down, and her lashes slap up and down in a way that stirs something in me. Stymied, I place a hand on my lower stomach. I can’t define what the sensation is.
She speaks. “I didn’t let Paco out.”
Frowning, drawing my hand off my lower section, my gaze slices around us, searching for bio-signatures of intruders. “Then who did?”
“Paco let himself out.”
My regard returns to her. “Say again?”
She shrugs and hikes her basket of eggs. “He can open latches. I’m guessing whoever had him before you is doing a jig now that he’s gone. He seems to be a little handful.”
I recall the rope and length of chain that secured Paco’s stall on that day that I bought him. And I feel… conned.
That’s the word in Western vids. Conned. Deceived. Taken advantage of.
Yonderin aren’t taken advantage of twice.
Becky isn’t suffering from the same revelation. “Do you eat breakfast? Or has your species evolved to the point they don’t need it?”
“We often break our fasts with a morning hunt.” I tilt my head. “Only a poor hunter learns to go without, I suppose.”
“Well, I did egg hunting this morning, so if you want food, your brand new wife you don’t even have to service is today’s provider.”
Her statement is delivered wryly but lightly—so lightly I point at her. I’m watching her skull contents. “That was humor.”
She blinks at me, startled. “It was kind of a joke. And a dig.”
“What’s a dig?” I ask .
She waves my question away. “Nothing. How do you want your eggs?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “How are they usually prepared?”
She gives me a speculative look. “Tell you what. I’ll make them three or four different ways today, and you can try them all out. See what you like.”
I nod. “That is appreciated. Thank you. What work should I do today?”
Her countenance dims. “Joel—” Her voice chokes for a moment. “Joel said he needed to get fencing up. He was looking to hire help for the job, because we’ve got over two thousand oxyokes.”
Oxyokes are a measure of land here. A great measure. I stop and gaze around us. “I’m stronger than the average human male. And as you noted earlier, my agility is superior.”
“You definitely have a way of coming off superior,” she mutters under her breath.
“Thank you,” I tell her, accepting the compliment.
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, then shakes herself and focuses on the house, moving for it. “Okay. I’m going to get started on your eggs.”
“I’m going to perform my morning eliminations.” Which is more difficult on land than in the ocean, but I’ve adjusted admirably well.
She stops walking, her eyes showing white all around. “Why are you telling me this?”
I look to her, confused. “I assumed we were sharing our immediate goals for the day.”
After a lengthy stare, she starts for the house once more. Over her shoulder, she calls, “Breakfast will be ready in fifteen. Think that’ll be enough time for you to finish your ‘eliminations?’”