Retread Shop 1: First Contact

by T. Jackson King

  She peaked then, arching her neck backwards, her headcrest feathers rising upright each and every one of them. Like a static electric charge through fur. Or ecstasy perfected because it was shared.

  Feeling her pleasure, he peaked too, leaving his essence inside of her.

  Long moments later she rolled out of his arms, yellow eyes sultry and hot, watching him. But silent. He kissed her eyes. Then her ears. Then her fingertips, not minding sharp nailclaws. She smiled, raking his cheek fur lightly with one fingerclaw, pausing to cup his chin with her hand.

  “Too bad we can’t make another child.”

  “Yes.” Long silence. “But we have Persa and Corin. They bless us.”

  Her eyes took on a distant look as she gazed into the dusky shadows of their stone-walled bedroom, dust motes dancing in white light beams streaming down from the overhead skylight, reminding him of his duty. And obligations. Sighing, he pulled away from her, turned to set feet on the cold stone floor, and looked around.

  The muted shapes of low furniture, a woven wall hanging, several potted plants, laser disks on shelves and a small study alcove encircled their sunken bed. A ceramic tile frieze of yellow, green and blue plaques ran in a strip along the lower portions of all walls. Ceiling glowlights, stone walls, granite floor and unobtrusive power and service outlets completed the fixtures. Sargon looked back over his shoulder at Bethrin.

  She lay facing him, partly curled up on her right side, breathing slow, eyes luminous. Short brown fur covered her body except for the nipples of her four breasts, the vulva area of her groin and the bottoms of hands and feet. Bethrin’s fur shimmered with the light of sunrise. Between her legs wetness remained. Passion stirred in him once more. He pushed it away, seeking discipline despite temptation. Soon, she too must report in to her work as the habitat’s Chief of Communications and Programming.

  Getting up, he headed across the cold stone floor for the baths.

  “Sargon?”

  He turned, seeing Bethrin risen on one arm, yellow eyes alight. “Yes?”

  “Try not to worry about the interview today with the Clan Coordinator.” Bethrin flared her headcrest with amusement. “I talked to Alis’ sister last night—I think he’ll be fair and support you.”

  He snorted. Women! “Bethrin, try not to run the entire habitat—at least until Coordinator Alis retires!”

  Her eyes shone with laughter and with love. She laughed softly, a low chuffing noise.

  “My dearest husband, you run the Command Deck. Women run the habitat—we just let the Coordinator and the Heralds think otherwise.”

  “I know.” Sargon turned back to the baths—he needed a shower to refresh his pelt. “But do try to be discreet about it. It would shock the Arriks too much.”

  Her concluding remark escaped him as he entered the baths. Blessed warm moisture at last.

  The water-jets beat a relaxing, invigorating massage into the muscles of his body. He reveled in it, thinking over his decision, considering logical arguments—not emotional ones—weighing the risks. He finally gave up. The decision was right, even if his father might have handled it differently.

  Shower over, he stepped out into the dressing alcove, picked a green and yellow duty toga, slipped on sandals, attached his Command comdisk to his shoulder and walked out of the room with a silent farewell to a newly-sleeping Bethrin, heading for the stone access ramp to the surface.

  Up top, wind ruffled his headcrest. White light shone down hotly on him. Scents came to his nostrils, tickling suppressed juvenile prey-hunt reflexes. His mouth watered unbidden at instinctive yearnings for blood-hot flesh.

  My oh my!

  What would civilized Alis think of a young Watch Commander who engaged in retrogressive reverie? Would he approve? Would he even join in with the skinning?

  Shrugging, Sargon touched his shoulder comdisk, spoke words to order air transport and prepared himself for the coming confrontation.

  Mercy in Horem society was always swift.

  Either you were right, and retained Command. Or you were wrong and someone else possessed your sigil of authority, your status, and your meaningful work.

  Sargon would rather die than lose his job.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  T’Klick T’Klose perched high atop his Aerie, balanced on a knife-ridge of craggy granite, feeling the thermals rising up its sheer face, enjoying the sensation of flight-readiness, feeling in command. Then the rock spoke to him.

  “Ruler,” whispered his aide Noren T’Skok, “the spies have reported in. Your mate T’Erees T’Say has reviewed their reports. She asks if you would speak with her?”

  T’Klick clawed the rocky scarp with perch-claws, feeling angry. Would the duties of dealing with ground-hugging aliens never leave him? He should be soaring high above his domain, not chained to his launch platform like lice to one’s flight surfaces. He flapped wings sharply, angling the lift surfaces inward and down, splitting the nearly visible wind force in two, using its pressure to support and push him backwards onto a resting squat atop the knife-ridge, leaving only small wingtips exposed to the uprising thermal pressure for balance control. Excrement!

  “Yes!” The voice-activated stone panel awaited his further commands. “Send her up. And you, Noren, go clean out your belly pouch! It must be contaminated from having to deal with groundhuggers so much.”

  His aide wisely remained silent. The harsh flap-flap of wings from below drew his middle eye downward. He watched in jealousy as his mate rose up on the buffeting thermals, hardly moving at all, her vane-tail curved slightly to cant her toward his position, the glistening of her blue underbelly and underthroat scales hardly touching him. Instead, he saw only the military sharpness of her bearing, the ceramic liege-sigil that adorned her wing-shoulder, the hollow sound-tube clutched in both hands rather than buried inside her gestation pouch. She spied him, blinked all three eyes slowly, let the thermals lift her high above him, winked her middle eye and turned on her back.

  She plummeted, wings flat against her sides.

  The whistle of cloven air touched him in the ultrasonic range, tickling his inner eardrums.

  Suddenly, in fractions of a moment, she spread wings wide, flapped hard downward, flipped over to show belly to him, and alighted delicately beside him on the same knife-ridge which his claws gripped. The forward edges of her wing-skin nearly grazed his immobile shoulders. Nearly. She was too good a flyer to need his help, or to be so careless as to unbalance him. Her breath came softly.

  “Well?”

  “Where is the report?”

  Sharp teeth flashed behind thin lips. Nictitating eyelids half-lowered. She sighed into the noisy wind.

  “I thought you would be pleased.”

  He relented. “I am. Always. By you. But these groundhugging aliens and their conspiracies make me lose my appetite.” She pretended shock. “Anyway, what do our crew spies report?”

  Scales rippled over her deltoid muscles as she lifted the report tube, tapped its end to activate the ultrasonic recording, allowed him to listen, then she added her own interpretations.

  “As you can hear, there is much confusion among the crew of all species over why the Horem Commander Arix Sargon Arax chose to act so soon.” Her leathery wings folded around her midbody, hiding her pouch and the hands holding the report tube, making her appear to be a statue carved on some ancient spire by some long-lost Fartalker acolyte. “Even some Horem whisper that this Horem’s emotions are unbalanced, not normal for Horem.” Interesting. “But the Strelka can be expected to support this decision—they have a Hunt lust that already rises.”

  He gestured a no-matter sign. “Let them Hunt each other. They own the ground. We own the air. So it has always been. So it will always be. What of the signals—does this new planet have winds and high places?”

  T’Erees smiled in her way, wingtips curling slightly. “The electromagnetic signal impedances suggest electrical fluctuations similar to lightning. Where there is lightning, there i
s wind. Where there is wind, there are sharp mountain spines. Perhaps we will find a world of nothing but high crags and rising thermals?”

  “Perhaps.” He knew better—such a paradise had yet to be found in the planetary systems visited by Hekar. “What of these sapients—are they groundhuggers, waterswimmers or flyers, like us?”

  T’Erees canted her blocky head slightly, eyeing him with her left side eye. “We will know soon, my liege-lord. The Horem Coordinator has called a Council meeting. The full analysis of the signals will be presented there. I have but spy reports and these do not include audiovisual reports.”

  His toeclaws dug into the granite, scoring its surface nicely, joining thousands of other tiny furrows left by him and others over the last eleven years. Years of isolation among the groundhuggers of Hekar. Years when they had to swallow bile most sour at intended and unintended insults by every kind of disgusting alien animal! Gods! They had even dared to invite him and his senior command into their habitat domes—as if any Arrik would willingly suffer such debasement. Couldn’t they understand? Their air stank, their water looked foul, their food did not run away, nor did their rulers attain prominence through the proper means of death-Challenge. He shuddered, worrying T’Erees enough for her to stretch out a hand. He ignored her, tormented by his imaginings.

  Only in the interior Bubbles could the Arrik enjoy their aerial advantage. Only in the Bubbles could they soar, dive, strafe and mock-attack the weirdly-shaped aliens who infested this cold, windless rock. And they thought the Arrik intended play! He smiled. T’Erees relaxed as his teeth showed sharply. In his mind, a plan grew.

  “T’Erees, how long before our crew lieges will not be constantly monitored in the hangars? How long before we could activate our fighter ships? How soon?”

  “My Lord!” Her ultrasonic hiss of understanding warmed him. “Not long—the Compact takes our acquiescence for agreement. They debase themselves before us, seeking friendship, instead of fighting honorably and earning our allegiance. In a few ship years we will be unwatched, like the long-term Compact members.”

  “Good.” The thermals felt warm today. Blood-warm. “Join me in flight, my love. I would inspect our domain.”

  “Yes!”

  Together, they leaned forward, spread wings flat against the uprising pressure of the thermals, and lifted upward, hollow bones and light gravity field combining to render them weightless in the liquid air of Aerie.

  High, high above the sharp-edged mountains of their habitat home, with the black holes of individual Aeries spotting mountain flanks, T’Klick T’Klose and T’Erees T’Say circled one another, nipped each other’s tails and whispered bloody words to each other.

  Such was love among the Arrik.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  To Sargon, Alis’ office was a triangular-shaped room with an outer glass wall and pastel-colored strips of paint curving across the two metal interior walls. A ceramic tile pattern of green and yellow wildflowers covered the low stone banquet bordering the glass curtain wall opposite the entrance. The wall itself looked out upon the low boxes, domes and short towers of Pack City.

  Coordinator Alis sat cross-legged on a floor cushion before his work pedestal, looking preoccupied. He ignored Sargon.

  Dressed in a simple yellow toga, Alis watched several visual readouts on his pedestal. Sargon chose patience, remembering that Alis had guided the Horem for the last 288 ship years, had participated in Contacts with all seven alien species, was a First Generation member and was traditional in his social customs. He also happened to be the best Trader the Horem had ever produced on Hekar or at home in more than two centuries. His quiet manner hid a quick, sharp mind, near-telepathic intuitive abilities and the great personal pleasure he took in the voyages of Hekar. Alis finally motioned Sargon to sit on a nearby cushion, ceremonial towel and bowl of water beside them, then spoke as Sargon washed eyes and face.

  “Sargon, I understand Hekar’s Core has partially deciphered the waveforms you detected more than a day ago.” Alis’ headcrest flickered subtly. “What do they tell us of these new sapients?”

  Sargon tried to relax. “The Core’s decipherment of the audiovisual signals provided us with two-dimensional images of the new sapients, views of their cities, information on some of their customs and brief suggestions of their social patterns.” Sargon looked down at a foil printout brought in from the air transport he’d taken from his home. “Specifically, the new sapients are bipeds with a form quite similar to Horem-normal.” Alis looked up sharply at that news, headcrest quite stiff. “One group of bipeds possesses fairly long fur on their heads but are furless in other areas. A second group of bipeds has short head fur and is also mostly bare-skinned. Perhaps they suffer from a mange disease? They cover themselves with extensive layers of clothing. Perhaps by custom or to cover disease defects. The two groups of bipeds have body shape differences that may be sex-based. The biped group with long head hair possesses a pair of breasts similar to those of our own females.” Alis’ indrawn breath reminded Sargon of his own excitement at learning of near-cousins just a few light years away. “They possess self-propelled ground vehicles, transport that moves on rails, small and large aircraft with some aircraft moving large numbers of bipeds, ocean-going ships, multiple types of projectile weaponry along with basic lasers, rockets and, based on a segment of imagery, it seems they have visited their nearby moon.” Alis’ headcrest flared broadly at that news. As it should. A species that has put its own people onto another body was nicely promising. “Lastly, some of the vidforms reflect organized combat actions on the land, air and at sea in a portion of the world that resembles our dryland home.” Sargon tried, but failed to read Alis’ reactions to that news from the flickerings of the Coordinator’s headcrest. “My technicians have prepared a flat image collection of highlights from the audiovisual signal. It can be projected by your pedestal’s Imager. By your leave?”

  “In a moment,” said Alis, eyes fixing on him. “How is your father, Commander Salex?”

  Sargon’s two hearts jumped. “Fine. I met with him and Clan Herald Maran last night before the Remembrance you picked. The Clan Conclave endorsed my decision.”

  Alis’ mouth opened in a chuff-laugh. “I’m sure they did. What was their reaction?”

  What did his family have to do with his decision? Still . . . .

  “Variable, Clan Coordinator. Many pointed out the need for new Trade opportunities and for replenishment of our biological seed stocks.”

  Salis nodded, seeming preoccupied. “True. Quite true. What do you think?”

  Sargon went on-guard. “I think we may have interesting new Trade partners. And that Horem prestige in the Compact will be magnified.”

  Alis smiled with his headcrest. “Not what I meant. Tell me—why did you really turn toward these new sapients? You had little hard data.”

  He felt . . . exposed. “What do you mean?”

  Alis’ look sharpened. “Don’t play word games, young man. You heard my question. Answer!”

  Sargon swallowed. “Intuition, sir. I saw the signal waveforms. I saw the star characterizations. I guessed what they could mean. Mostly . . . I felt drawn to go there. I don’t know why.”

  Alis’ headcrest flickered softly. “Better. Always examine your emotions in addition to your logic. Especially in your case, young man. Your differences from the rest of us are why you were chosen to be our emissary to the other species of Hekar. But never forget your heritage. Shall we see your signals?”

  Relief flooded Sargon. He flickered compliance with his headcrest, then inserted a data chip into the Coordinator’s pedestal. They both turned to the side to view the side wall where the flat, non-hologram image would be projected. The wall brightened with beamlight. A grouping of angular shapes—were they writing?—arranged in a few horizontal rows appeared on the wall below a map that showed a large continent with 15 internal boundary markings.

  COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION ANNIVERSARY

  N
EW NATIONS CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE

  DECEMBER 26, 1994

  BBC-l TELEVISION NEWS

  Sargon wondered—did you read this . . . writing from right to left, like Horem ideograms, from top to bottom, or in gestalt, as with the Thoranians?

  A low-toned voice could be heard speaking . . . .

  “This is Alex Jones reporting for BBC-l news on the third anniversary of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The resignation of former Soviet Party Chief Mikhail Gorbachev and his surrender of all Soviet military authority to Russian Republic chief Boris Yeltsin completed the dissolution of a totalitarian empire formed at the end of World War II,” the voice said in words that Sargon could not understand, but he felt the emotion in them. “Before 1991, all Warsaw Pact nations overthrew their Communist bosses, while by the time of December 26, all of the component republics of the old USSR had declared independence. The map records the location of those new nations, which include Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and other central Asian nations. Economic hard times have hit the administration of President Yeltsin, and his response—”

  The image switched to one showing armored ground vehicles firing in both daylight and night at each other on a sand-filled landscape as, from above, combat airplanes dropped bombs on targets in the middle distance. Linear text filled a space below the imagery.

  GULF WAR ENDING ANNIVERSARY

  KURDS APPEAL FOR AIRDROPS OF FOOD

  FEBUARY 28, 1994

  BBC-l TELEVISION NEWS

  Another voice, this one higher in tone, spoke . . . .

  “This is Christiane Amanpour reporting on the third anniversary of the end of the Gulf War that defended Saudi Arabia and ousted the troops of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and areas of Iran. The air combat campaign that began with the arrival of American and allied troops in northern Saudi Arabia continues today in the northern and southern sectors of Iraq, even as Hussein launches attacks on Shiite members of his nation, alleging—”