CHAPTER 10

 

TAC’MOT

 

The new hire—Grake, he introduces himself—approaches her slowly.

She’s checking her face, seemingly unable to believe she’s no longer bleeding, and it must not sting anymore either, because she’s feeling all around like she can’t quite find the injury site anymore.

Not hard to imagine.  It was likely shallow enough it probably really did heal completely over.  Rakhii saliva is a miraculous substance.

The hob suddenly flares his wings for her and succeeds in catching her attention.  But instead of appearing bored, or forcing a flattered politeness like I’d imagine a princess would react if she regularly gets such attention—she stiffens and takes a wary step back.

Lem’s got his chin in his gloved palm like he’s observing a nature documentary on the holograph.  “Female rejects the potential male suitor…”

I wince at her fear smell.  “How… unexpected.  I’d have thought having a hob would have been the perfect solution.  Most welcome.”

Grake’s face is set in grim lines.  “With the right hob, normally yes.  But I wasn’t fit for service.  I was given a rejected label thus I never even saw the inside of the academy.”

“You were still raised by a Gryfala,” I point out.  “At least you’ll know better how to care for her than we do.  You’ll know what she needs.”

“She seems like she would be high maintenance.”  Lem pipes in, lips pinching, eyes back on her mane.  I hope he’s not about to obsess over it.  His various eccentricities can get so tiresome some rotations, but for her—not being used capitulating to random full-cleanse nanobaths at some stranger’s whim in order to keep the peace—they could be especially alarming.  Since she has already shown discomfort around Lem, there is actually quite a high probability that she would find his eccentricities extremely alarming.

Grake bends the top of his wings outward, making a sort of dismissive gesture, the talons on the tops glinting, and for the first time, I see the potential harm a hob could cause.  Though I’ve never viewed them as a threat before, I suppose if you’re a Gryfala who doesn’t desire one’s attention…

Not that hobs would hurt a Gryfala.  Wear on her patience maybe, but not hurt her.  Yet this female seems so very wary.

Grake holds up his hands, conveying his sense of baffled helplessness.  “My sires were completely dedicated.  I have no idea what my dam ever needed because they made sure she never needed for anything.”

I clack my teeth.

The hob circles her slowly, having to distance himself quite a bit before she relaxes enough to let him get a look at the sleek line of her wingless, smooth back.

Lem was not incorrect earlier—with nothing else plaguing my mind, now that I really look, there are no wings under there.

Grake whispers, “This is unthinkable...”

I nod.  “Take a peering at her fingers.”

“Declawed!”  He’s aghast.  “My dam would have scratched their eyes out if someone tried to so much as clip her nails.”

Lem pipes in.  “I heard once that there is a place women spend leisure time in shops and pay others to clip their nails.”

Ha.  That’s ludicrous.  What a waste of a good, natural line of defense.  No female would pay for that.

At our looks of disbelief, Lem sniffs as he tugs a lens wipe packet open and swishes it over his shield in a slow, meaningful manner.  “Seven.  Years’.  Wages,” he reminds me.

I clear my throat and mumble, “Right, Lem,” and decide that it’s going to be a bit of a long while before he lets this rest and really, it is of utmost importance that I turn my attention to watching the hob interact with the Gryfala.

Grake tries for a little while longer to engage her, but the most she does is dart her eyes towards him and edges away whenever he tries to talk or circle closer to her.  It seems to be setting her on edge.  “Better give that up,” I warn him.

I suppose he needs no warning, since he can surely read a Gryfala better than I.  But he inhales like he has a hard time believing her scent isn’t letting up its anxious cast.  Appearing completely dumbfounded, he asks, “Why won’t you speak, princess?”

“I don’t think she understands you,” I inform him.

That gets his eyes off her.  “What…?”

I wave my hand to indicate her.  “Whenever she has spoken, either my translator is faulty—or she doesn’t speak Gryph.  I was going to see if Lem here could verify for me either way in case his works fine and mine’s just non-operational, but since she isn’t responding to you, I’m not sure how to relay that we want her to try talking.”

Grake looks her over thoughtfully then says, “This freighter’s hold is filled with diamonds.  It looks like a treasure cave down there.  Have you seen it?”

He lies—this is absolute falsehood.  A Gryfala though, would be far too curious not to verify it, no matter how far-fetched a claim it was.  But it’s of no matter: her expression doesn’t even flicker.

“Crite,” Grake breathes.  Then his brows furrow in extreme concern.  “How?”

Lem fiddles with the one of the oxygen tubes on his suit.  “You said you’re a reject.  Doesn’t that happen fairly young?  Have you traveled off of your homesoil ever since?”  The hob flinches, causing the princess to send a sharp look at Lem.

“That... is correct.”

“Is it possible Gryph isn’t the only language spoken in the time you’ve been gone?”

Grake looks like this is ridiculous.  “They’ve never spoken anything else.  What reason have they to add now?”

Lem’s face screws up.  “Don’t you all have a translator implanted so you can communicate in other languages?”

“You mean like you do?  Sure.  You know how that works, don't you?  I can speak any language that’s uploaded into the system.”

“Hmm.  Why isn’t hers in the system?”

He holds up his hands.  “Do I look like I’m important enough to rate an explanation for anything?  I’m a reject.  I haven’t stepped foot on homesoil in so long, I’m starting to forget what it looks like.”

Lem sniffs.  “It was a rhetorical question.”

Apparently not ready to give up just yet, Grake waits until she’s looking at him again.  A shimmering cloud is kicked up when he attempts to be clever by preening at his wings—letting some of his marking dust fall off the thin membrane.

It works in that he has her attention—but she doesn’t seem hopelessly attracted.

In fact, when I nudge her in his direction, her eyes go wider and she scrabbles back to stay with Lem and I, holding onto us—me, even though I know she’s feeling suddenly resentful towards me.

I can smell it.

“My apologies,” I say, feeling contrite.  I’d been trying to help, not terrify her.

Grake is continuing his endeavors to win her favor.  “Here, let her go, and I’ll call her,” the hob insists.

“Last attempt,” I decree.  “I believe you’re stressing her out.”  I gently pry up her fingers—to which she responds by clamping her other hand on my person.

“You’ll have to be quicker than she is,” he points out.

I let out an exasperated noise.  “Don’t you think I’m trying?”

When he opens his wings again, his colors going brighter with his excitement, I try to give her a last little nudge, steering her towards him.  “It’ll be all right: he’s your kind.  Let him serve you properly while you’re here.”

But she clings to my hand, gaping at the hob as if he’s announced an intention to chew off her feet.

“Why would she react like this?”

I stop trying to force her, and end up with her fairly fused to me.  Acting relieved, she buries her face against my arm a moment.  Just as quickly though, she must think better of this plan because she adjusts so that she can keep an eye on—what she obviously believes to be—the untrustworthy hob.  “Maybe stop with the wings.  She’s responding as if you are threatening her every time you open them.”

“Maybe it’s not so much that she’s opposed to taking you into her service as it is her not being interested in mating right now.”  Lem is examining his suit for slices in the material where she scrabbled at it trying to hold on to him.  “After all, Tac did just beat her.”

Grake’s wings slam open, and the Gryfala scrambles to get behind me.  He looks distressed when he sees this and sounds confused when he shouts “You did what?”

“I didn’t beat her!”

Lem calmly talks over me, still addressing Grake.  “That could be why she’s refusing your display.”

I wonder if I did strike her too hard.  Even if I didn’t, but she feels like I did that would—

Lem continues conversationally, “It might not be you.  Could be that she just hates the pattern on your wings.”

Leveling him with a look, Grake takes a deep breath.  “That makes me feel so much better.”

With that possibility hanging in the air now, he folds his wings back, keeping them tightly pressed together behind him.  After that, she lets me go, avoiding me entirely.

“You struck her?”

I groan.  And, I note, his demeanor towards me has gone frosty.

It is so similar a reaction to hers towards me that there’s no mistaking they are a species match.

Now he eyes her protectively before turning a warning glare on me.  It’s a tense few clicks until our stare-down is cut short by the afternoon alarm going off.

I trill as I try to think.  “I don’t know what to do with her.  I’ve got to get to work.”

Obviously, I can’t let her have free run of the ship.  She doesn’t trust us, she can’t talk to us, and as evidenced by the run-in with the Culc, she could hurt herself with many dangers even once we’re in the air.  What else am I to do if she won't go with the hob?  She certainly won’t enjoy spending a rotation with Lem—not that he’d let her anyway.  I sigh.  “She’s not going to like this.”

The hob is instantly prepared to defend her.  “What are you—”

I stave him off with upraised palms.  “My quarters.  She’ll have to stay in my quarters.  But I’ll have to lock the princess in so that she doesn’t wander off and give Brax a reason to shove her out of airlock.”