by Wen Spencer
Turk snarled and swung at Orin. The man ducked and danced backward.
"A cat fancier," Turk growled, "is a pervert that sleeps with Reds because he sees them as animals."
"Glad you know what you are." Orin taunted.
Turk leapt at the man. Maddeningly, the man sidestepped him and then dodged every swing that Turk threw at him. They circled in place.
"I'm not a cat fancier." Turk feigned a punch with his right and followed with a swing from his left.
Orin ignored the feint and sidestepped away from the true blow. "You slept with the disgusting animal didn't you? That makes you a cat fancier."
Turk roared and attacked without reserve. He wanted to silence the filth coming out of the man's mouth. Maddeningly, Orin ducked and weaved, avoiding every blow.
He's only half Red, I should be able to hit him . Turk fell back, panting. How was Orin dodging his attacks? "Paige didn't tell me she was a Red."
Orin laughed. "We didn't want trouble. Crèche-raised Reds won't fight with humans."
"I'm not crèche-raised . . ."
"You're acting like it. My grandfather worked in a crèche. I know what went into engineering Red gene banks. They didn't add anything that wasn't human. There's no cat or lizard or fish in our genes. It's all human. Tweaked. But it's all human. That cat shit is nothing more than screwed up behavior training."
"I wasn't raised in a crèche," Turk growled. "I didn't go through behavior training."
"You got it somewhere. You're not as deeply etched as Rabbit. But when you were young and impressionable, someone rubbed your nose in that shit, telling you lies, until you believed them. And you know what's truly sad? By refusing to see the truth, you're letting those bastards keep your nose in shit. Bad cat! Bad cat! Shame on you for thinking you're human."
Turk lashed out and this time caught Orin fast by the throat. Turk felt a flash of triumph until he realized that there was no fear in Orin's eyes. The man looked at him the same way Mihkail would; trusting Turk not to hurt him. Their eyes were even the same shade of blue.
Had the man let him win? Orin had started the fight. And now he let Turk win. What was Orin trying to do?
"Why are you doing this?" Turk growled.
"Because my sister loves you, even though you're being a complete asshole. I figured this would go one of two ways. Either you get your head out of your butt or you'd kill me. And I trusted you not to kill me."
Turk let go of Orin. It hurt to think of Paige in love with him. Of what could have been—but only if they were two different people.
Orin shook his head, sighing at whatever showed on Turk's face. "Humans are all alone in that place you're from. All they seem to do is examine each other under a microscope to find differences. Why do they feel the need to say 'you're not like me?' We don't do that here, because we have the minotaurs and the civ and obiaan. If anything, we cling to each other and say 'thank God, you're human too.'"
* * *
Hoto was the bull from Midway. He stood a full nine feet tall and clocked in around eight hundred pounds. His coat was rust red and his horns and hooves gleaming jet-black. He wore a loincloth of cobalt blue, earrings at the tips of his jutting leaf-shaped ears, and steel shoes. The makeshift dock quaked as he stomped up it.
"Who is the mouth here? Who? Who?"
"I am mouth!" she shouted at him and gave an assertive stomp. "What's your rush? You so thirsty for beer?"
She was trying for ridiculous. Minotaurs liked broad humor, or perhaps, humans didn't understand them enough to get the finer points of their wit.
Hoto threw back his head in surprise, and then cocked it to one side to get a better look at her. "What? This little thing is mouth?" He towered over Paige as he peered down at her. "I surprised it can think!"
At a distance, you could mistake a minotaur for an animal. Close up, once you got over their sheer size, you could see the intelligence in their face. Hoto's mouth pulled to one side in annoyance, but humor flicked through his eyes. The humor was working.
"You not tall yourself!" Page shouted and stomped her foot. "You just calf! Where your bull, calf?"
Hoto roared out what passed as laughter among the minotaur, a loud braying noise that was deafening close up.
Unfortunately, any exchange of insult was always followed by ritual exchange of blows. She really hated this part. He casually cuffed her on the shoulder. She rolled back to soften the blow to something that wouldn't break her shoulder, but it still hurt like hell.
There was movement behind her and a snarl of frustrated anger. She glanced behind her to see Mikhail and Orin haul Turk back by his scruff.
"No!" Orin growled. "Stop him. Only the mouth can talk!"
"Stay." Mikhail snapped.
Apparently Turk didn't hate her totally. Somehow it only acted like diesel fuel thrown on the hot ember of hurt that been smoldering inside of her, pain at what couldn't be flared through her. Blinking away tears, she made a fist, and hauling back, put all that hurt into punching Hoto as hard as she could, as high as she could, which landed mid-belly.
The Minotaur brayed out laughter. "You hit like a calf, little mouth!"
"I'm a young bull. I will grow bigger."
"Oh yes, you will come to here." He tapped his chest and then tapped a point level with her head on his stomach. "Instead of here."
She laughed as if it was a joke. "Be careful. I might bite your ankle if you make me angry."
That made him laugh. "Ah, but I know your secret. You are smart. The little young bulls that cut out their own herds are the very clever ones. I will be on my guard around you."
Paige considered the Minotaur. If she could read ages right, Hoto was fairly young himself. Perhaps even small in terms of males. Calling him small would be probably be an insult, but she allowed. "Then I will have to be careful too—you are not old yourself."
Hoto brayed another laugh and then sobered. "Where are my calves, clever little mouth? Why do humans have our little ones?"
"We found them washed ashore, their boat ruined, and one of them very hurt. We brought them here so we could care for them."
"Which one?"
"The female Zo."
Hoto nodded. She couldn't tell if he was relieved by the news. It was possible that the little bull, Toeno was more valued as the only male. Or he might be more expendable, since one day he'd be Hoto's rival. Paige wasn't sure how minotaur viewed their children as they were always kept out of sight and silent.
"Let us go then and collect my calves."
* * *
The Baileys had warned Turk that the minotaurs were large and brutish. Somehow he'd forgotten. Part of it was because he could look down at the children. He'd expected the adults to be only slightly larger. The male that stomped down to meet Paige was huge. It was easily twice her size. One of its beefy arms was nearly equal to her whole mass. Its angry bellows were deafening. Paige's shouts—which had seemed annoyingly loud moments before—were like a mouse squeaking.
The two bellowing at each other was nearly comical until the minotaur hit her.
He nearly shot it. Without thinking, he started to raise his rifle.
"No!" Orin knocked the rifle out of his hands. "Stop him."
And then Mikhail had a hold of him too, and the two of them were hauling him backwards when he wasn't even aware he'd lunged forward.
"Only the mouth can talk!" Orin blocked his view of Paige.
"Stay." Mikhail got between him and the minotaur too.
"It hit her." Turk growled lowly.
"She's fine." Orin didn't even look to be sure. "This is how it works. They talk to one another. Hit each other. Drink some beer. Do business."
Turk realized his Reds were standing alert, looking to him for guidance. He forced himself to relax and watch the negotiations, flinching each time the bull hit her. Paige bellowed. She roared. The cleats on her boots gave an extra noise to her stomping. The bill of the cap that she wore sideways stuck out to one side, and
she waved it like a horn, tossing her head. She thumped on the minotaur's chest to make a point, and somehow took the beating back. Each time she was hit, a jolt of fear would go through him. Fear that she wouldn't get back up.
Then finally, he realized that the blows weren't really connecting. Just like Orin when they'd fought, Paige was somehow judging when and where the hits would come and shifting a moment before they fell. As his fear lifted, he began to see the artistry in what she was doing. She wove all the minotaur nuances into a complete cloth and vanished behind it. She became a minotaur.
Just like she had all the human nuances down pat.
Eventually, the bull, Paige and a harbor pilot headed up to the gangplank for the minotaur dredger be guided into the harbor so that minotaurs could be reunited with their children.
"Now what?" Turk growled, wanting to follow.
"We have a small flotilla of boats back to the harbor. Paige will stay with them, drinking beer and keeping the peace." Orin said.
* * *
The females with Hoto brought out the massive glass steins of beer. Hoto laughed as Paige struggled to lift the stein with both hands.
"We are going to Mary soon," Hoto said. "I have been trying to tell if we are sailing into trouble."
"Trouble?" Paige was glad that the bull was giving her an excuse to sip instead of chugging.
"We have seen Fenrir. We know that it was an accident that caused the ruin, but if it was our holt, we would not take such destruction lightly."
"You know that Mary caused the accident at Fenrir?"
"Mary's Holt were the ones attempting to make the engine work."
Paige suppressed the urge to throw up her hands. Was she the last one to know what her brother had been doing? "How do you know it was an accident?"
"When our people come of age, they move from their father's holt and roam, looking for a place to settle. It lowers the chance of inbreeding."
She supposed with much of one generation in a small town all being half-siblings, she could see the sense of that.
"One of our young bulls, Caan, came to human waters. He is very brilliant and wanted to learn human science. He has a theory that we are not all coming from the same . . ." Hoto paused and searched for a word. "Outside place. That all that come here are coming from places vastly different and this is the only place we would meet."
Paige made the noise of understanding even though she wasn't sure what he meant. If he meant that they were coming from different galaxies or even universes that would explain the age old human question of why they'd never known of the various aliens prior to encountering them in the Sargasso.
"Caan went to Mary?" Paige asked.
"He came first to here." Hoto motioned to take in Ya-ya's harbor. "He met many civilized and uncivilized beings. By pooling their knowledge, they'd determined . . ." Hoto paused longer this time, searching for a way to making himself clear. "The common point."
"The common point of what?" Paige asked.
"Of here."
She had explained to Turk that jump drives were jumping from point A to point B with the Sargasso being point C. Human had been trying to determine the nature of point C for a long time. When navigating the open sea, the more points of references you had, the more exact you could be with your location. Ethan had combined information from three races. Or perhaps more, if he'd been able to communicate with the seraphim and the hak. And there was the civ.
"Having discovered the common point," Hoto said. "They went to Fenrir to move the engine out into open waters and attempt to send it back to human space. The humans of Mary were to make the arrangements, but something went wrong."
"How do you know?"
"Caan arranged for us to trade engine parts to the humans he was working with. We were to meet them at Fenrir. He communicated with us that they'd moved to Mary and that we were to meet him there."
It was, then, just an accident. Paige drank while she considered the implications. Minotaur beer was actually good beer. It just came in excessive quantities.
"Will we be sailing into trouble when we go to Mary?" Hoto asked again.
"I do not know." Paige did the exaggerated head shake, close to the human gesture but meant that the speaker was more at a loss of an answer than the human's simple 'no' conveyed. "They are another herd. We do not get along with them but we rarely fight."
Hoto didn't like the answer and it showed on his face. "I see. Well . . . good neighbors are distant neighbors."
"What did you ask for in exchange of the engine parts?"
"Submersible pumps." Minotaurs used hexadecimal and had method of counting on their fingers. Hoto held up his fingers to indicate they were to get sixteen pumps off of Mary's Landing. "I'm expanding my holt's fields. It will mean we can have half a dozen more calves."
"You don't care that humans have discovered how to return home?"
"Humans have discovered to blow themselves up." Hoto said. "And home? Home is the place you make."
* * *
By the time they reunited the minotaurs with their children in the hanger of the Svoboda, Paige was stomping in a wandering path.
"Idiot," Turk growled to himself. "She has no stomach for beer."
"Orin! I've got to pee!" Paige bellowed as she stomped up to them, still set at Minotaur volume. "Come and take over."
"I thought only the mouth talks." Turk reached out and steadied Paige as she threatened to tip over.
"Minotaurs can't tell us apart." Orin snatched the cap from Paige's head and put it on. "As long as only one of us is talking at time, everything is hunky-dory."
"Where the hell do they hide the pisspot in this goddamn shit?" Paige bellowed.
"Get her to a bathroom." Orin stomped off toward the minotaurs.
"I need to pee!" Paige shouted.
"You can stop yelling," Turk told her. "I hear fine, and I'd like to keep it that way."
She laughed, teetering on her feet. "Help me find the bathroom before I explode."
* * *
His cabin was closer than the communal latrines, so he took her there. She banged, and cursed and muttered in his toilet closet as he waited. When she came back out, her pants were still untied. They hung low on her hips, exposing her bellybutton and the top of her white underwear. God, why did he find her modest clothes exciting?
"You . . .you didn't fasten your pants."
"Hmmm?" She tried looking down and walking at the same time and nearly fell over.
He caught her elbow, intending only to stabilize her, but she slid into his arms. As always, their bodies fit together perfectly. Her face pressed to the nape of his neck, her warm breath tantalizingly intimate. He held her gently to him, despite the fact it filled him with sorrow, because it was going to hurt more to let her go.
"I miss you." She whispered against his bare skin, her lips brushing him like butterfly kisses.
He would have thought that would make him feel better; to know that she was suffering along with him. But it merely made him feel worse. It made him painfully aware that he was the one deciding if they were together or not. And he had chosen to be apart.
She ran her left hand down his spine. She pulled him closer to her with her right, playing with the hair at the back of his neck. When she lifted her mouth to his, he couldn't resist kissing her, tasting her again.
"You're drunk," he protested as she undid his uniform and slid her hand across his bare skin.
"I'll burn it off quickly."
Because she was a Red.
She sensed his thought and looked up at him, her eyes filled with pain. He hated the fact that he was the one that was hurting her. She couldn't change what she was anymore than he could. He kissed her, trying to smooth away the hurt.
* * *
Ensign Moldavsky's report was stunningly bleak. Mikhail was glad he decided to review the information alone. He didn't need his staff to hear this without their Captain being optimistic.
"Beyond the shielding and thei
r generators, it has four rail guns at the cardinal points," Moldavsky was saying. She highlighted them, making it clear that Mary's Landing had no weak backside. "They seem to be salvaged off of British and Ruskis ships. As far as I can tell, they all operate. Between them, there are sixteen main batteries, creating an overlapping . . .."
Mikhail waved her off. "You don't need to continue." He could see for himself how impossible attacking the heavily fortified city would be. If they had all their Reds, they could drop them from overhead and back off until the Reds disabled key gun batteries which would let the Svoboda dart into the city. With only eight Reds and Turk . . .
Jumping to the Sargasso had been full of risk and uncertainty. Despite its label of 'suicide mission' Mikhail had extrapolated from the fishing boat's existence that the Sargasso would be in some way safe. Invading Mary's Landing, though, would be a true suicide mission.
"Did you find the Red Gold?"
"No visual, sir, but I set up Fenrir's IFF system so I could use it remotely and I found the Red Gold here." She indicated an enclosed harbor area at Mary's Landing that seemed to have camouflage netting stretched across it. "I say he's trying to hide from us."
Trying—or appearing to try? If Hardin was indeed completely hostile to the Svoboda and knew they'd be looking for him eventually, Mary's Landing could be an impressively large trap. Sitting out in plain site would make the fact that the Red Gold was bait too obvious.
Winning any strategy game was thinking several moves ahead. Hardin wouldn't have graduated with honors from the academy without a good grasp on that. At Fenrir's Rock, damaged as the Svoboda was, Mikhail still had the advantage. He was expecting a fight. The Svoboda out-gunned the Red Gold, and the Svoboda didn't have to worry about sinking. Hardin been caught off guard, realized he was outmatched, and lied to give himself enough space to gain the advantage. He had to know that Mikhail would eventually discover Hardin's connection to the Fenrir's engine; otherwise he wouldn't have needed to lie. Certainly, once Mikhail found the trail of evidence, there had been no attempt to cover it up. Jack Bailey had apparently thrown all of Hardin's plans askew when he started the fight that ended with the engine warping out prematurely.
