“I wouldn’t have believed you,” Shiver said, her voice ringing out, “if I hadn’t grown so long near Maksim. Who is the least violent person I’ve met.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen me in action yet!” he said, then he made a growling sound. “Just wait until I get into the sky. I’ll be fearsome!”
“I’m sure,” Shiver said, vibrating with a sound like ringing bells—her version of laughter.
“I believe you, Spin,” Nuluba said softly, looking up from her spreadsheets. “I mentioned my job earlier. Well, one year I was analyzing population statistics on the planets of species with ‘lesser intelligence.’ My job was to suggest where to employ advertising for regions that weren’t buying our services.
“But in the data, I found unexpected truths. Many so-called lesser species weren’t suffering the casualty rates from intraspecies murder that we projected. They were known as aggressive species, so they should have been killing one another at horrific rates. Yet…that just wasn’t the case.
“I thought I’d hit on something so important. Something revolutionary. Proof that our definitions of aggression didn’t match statistical models. I spent years gathering my information, thinking I’d be heralded as some great mind.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You presented it to your supervisors, and they immediately tossed you in here.”
“There wasn’t even a trial,” Nuluba whispered. “By the way they talked, what I’d done was dangerous, subversive. Merely looking for evidence that might contradict long-held beliefs was seen as aggressive.” She put her hands to her sandstone helmet. “I don’t know what they told Vormel, my mate. I didn’t get to see him again. I just…vanished.”
Maksim reached over and took Nuluba by the shoulder to offer support. Dllllizzzz vibrated her crystal, low and sonorous, a…comforting sound. The varvax gestured in thanks.
Scud. She really was what she said, wasn’t she? An unimportant bureaucrat caught up in something bigger than she was. I felt uncomfortable, realizing how I’d viewed her. I’d done it before, with other varvax. It was hard not to see in them the people who oppressed mine for years. Even still, even knowing what I knew.
Watching them console her, I felt like an intruder.
I’d known camaraderie like this. Expressed it, cherished it. A night spent with the other women in my flight, who refused to let me return to my cavern exile. Evenings together reminiscing about those we’d lost. In a powerful moment, I saw their faces. Kimmalyn, Nedd, FM, Hurl, Arturo. Jorgen…
Scud, I missed Jorgen. I found myself reaching out with my cytonic senses. Why hadn’t I been able to locate him again in my dreams? As always, when I tried to reach him intentionally, I found only that other presence. That familiar one that had been nearby, like a spirit watching over me. It was more distant now. And angry at me for some reason? Was it the delver I’d contacted? Or…something more personal?
I know it was foolish, but I couldn’t help feeling it was connected to my pin. And my father.
I excused myself as the others continued to comfort one another. Their genuine emotion made me feel sick. As I moved over to the bins where I could store the salvage I’d separated, I spotted something I’d missed earlier. Someone large sitting in the shadows near the closed hangar doors.
Peg. Captain of the Broadsiders. How had I missed her sitting back here? The thick-bodied alien looked particularly predatory in the shadows. And she was watching me. I didn’t need to see her eyes to know that.
Right, then. I took a deep breath and strode over. I hated feeling like people were watching me, thinking about me, but saying nothing. Better to confront them.
Of course, a similar attitude is what got me into my initial fistfight with Jorgen. So maybe I could take it a little more carefully this time?
“Captain?” I said as I reached her. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Oh, I don’t know, Spin.” Peg laced her clawed fingers in front of herself. She had an almost reptilian appearance, though her skin was a thick hide instead of scales. “Words. You fit in well with the others. Adapting better to this than any other I’ve known. I hadn’t thought you were one to grow heknans. I thought you most certainly to only have muluns…”
“I still don’t know what that means, Captain. My pin refuses to translate the words. How do your people…grow…these things?”