Kensho (Claimings)

by Lyn Gala

  Chad shrugged. “Nasila asked them to help.”

  “But they didn’t know Nasila, and Rownt don’t believe in talking to strangers.” Liam knew he’d made a mistake the second tears ran over Chad’s cheeks. No doubt some parent had given him the same advice. “Rownt always take care of children,” Liam added quickly. It didn’t stem the flow of tears. “And they like to spoil their friends. I have a friend and the Grandmother brought his dog on the ship.” Liam prayed for all he was worth, and some god listened.

  Chad blinked, too shocked to continue crying. “A dog?” he whispered. “A real dog like they have on Earth?”

  “A real dog from Earth,” Liam said. “That’s where Zach is from and his parents bought him a dog, and he brought it with him.” Liam felt a little guilty about volunteering Zach for this shit show, but Liam had almost no experience with kids. Sure, he had siblings, but he didn’t have a great track record at mainlining relationships with them. He was just now starting to think that Luke might not hate him. He had no way of dealing with actual children.

  “Really?” Tears still slid over his cheeks, but at least something had distracted him. That was Liam’s goal for now—distract the children until they figured out what to say to a ship full of youngish, agitated Grandmothers whose instincts told them to care for children who flinched away from them. It would help if some of the Calti Grandmothers would come over, but Grandmothers were stubborn creatures who avoided others’ territories. In this case, Liam thought it was probably wise of them to refuse.

  “Ondry?” Liam called softly.

  Immediately Ondry knelt behind him, staying as far back as he could while still touching Liam. He’d learned a lot about humans in their years together, so he would be able to explain to the Grandmother why they wanted to borrow her palteia and her pet predator.

  “Could you ask the Grandmother if Zach is available to come over with Duke?” Liam asked.

  Ondry gave a distressed trill and then he hurried away.

  “Can he understand English?” Chad asked. He was an observant one.

  “He can. When I was first learning Rownt, he learned English so he could help me. These Grandmothers started studying English when they first picked up your ship’s transmission. They understand most of what you say now.”

  Chad looked around again. “Why won’t they talk to us?”

  “Because they can’t say English words. Their lips and tongue aren’t the right shape.”

  “Anur was born with ears the wrong shape and he couldn’t hear,” Chad said with great seriousness. “Is it like that?”

  “A little,” Liam said. Congenital deafness did suggest the children might be from the rebel territory. Galludetti on Nalanda had a population where the majority were deaf. On Earth, most congenital deafness had been genetically edited out of family lines. “Anur” and “Nasila” even sounded Ribelian. However, “Chad” was very Earthy. “Only all the Rownt are born like that. It’s why their language sounds so different.”

  Chad chewed on his lower lip and then he got up. “I should go see the others.” When he turned to leave, a half dozen Rownt scrambled out of his way. The image was almost comical, except nothing in this situation was funny. Liam had no idea what to tell these Grandmothers. Human children needed human love and care, but Liam couldn’t promise they’d receive that on Earth.

  Several Rownt followed Chad when he left, probably to ensure his safety. For Rownt, a twelve-year-old was still clinging to a parent’s leg. Liam would not mention that to Chad.

  “How many children did you save?” Liam asked. He stood and turned toward the eldest Grandmother. Of all these Rownt, only she had the height of a Grandmother.

  “Fourteen,” she said. A younger Grandmother trilled in distress. None of them could take revenge against radiation, so at least the Grandmothers weren’t about to declare a vendetta. Maybe Rownt didn’t war, but they sure as hell knew how to fight.

  “Did you allow them to stay together?”

  The Grandmother’s nose twitched as if she wanted to close the nostrils. “Yes,” she said. “We are unable to care for the youngest.”

  It would hurt a Grandmother to admit that.

  “How old is the youngest?”

  “Young enough to be unable to walk.” The Grandmother could no longer control her expression, and her nostrils closed. Liam wondered if she was disgusted with herself for not reacting to the distress call earlier or if she was disgusted with the humans who had flown a dangerously under-shielded ship with such young children.

  “Are any of them sick from radiation?”

  A younger Grandmother, but one who often communicated scientific information, spoke up. “The children’s area was well-shielded. The eldest child followed the last adult to the upper deck and has some minor tissue damage, but we have counteracted the deleterious effects of the radioactive exposure. The other children are unaffected.”

  Liam closed his eyes. If the whole crew had stayed in the shielded area, they might have survived longer, but they’d chosen to leave the shielding and work on the engines knowing they could never go back into the protected area. Their very flesh became so irradiated that they contaminated everything around them, and they died trying to save their children. The horror cut Liam to his soul.

  The eldest Grandmother stepped forward. “What would you recommend?” she asked, her eyes wide as she waited for some great wisdom Liam didn’t have. Normally Liam would have tried to maintain some illusion of wisdom by remaining silent. But children were at risk.

  He climbed to his feet. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  More than one Grandmother paled.

  “If I can see their records, I might be able to tell if the parents had family who could take the children in.”

  A tuk-ranked male with an eggling clinging to his leg spoke up. “The mothers did not survive to choose the parents for these children. Another must.”

  Liam rubbed his face. That was so damn logical that he wanted to agree. However, humans were as touchy as Rownt when it came to kids. “Human children have human needs, especially when they are emotionally in pain and damaged in their thoughts.” Liam mangled the Rownt language because no Rownt words would explain the concept of psychological damage. Rownt didn’t suffer that.

  Of course, Rownt also had the unfortunate habit of walking headfirst into death if they became distressed enough and couldn’t relieve that anxiety by killing something. Liam preferred human reactions to stress. Rownt felt loss and grief and fear, but for them, those were emotions separate from pain. Maybe they did understand because more than one trilled and a younger female fled the temple.

  “How do we ease the pain?” the eldest asked.

  Liam had no answer.

  A Guilt of Orphans Part Four

  The eldest Grandmother had not sent Zach, so Liam was forced to retreat to his own temple to seek some sort of solution. The Calti Grandmothers, for all their age and wisdom, had no more answers than those younger Grandmothers on the Desga. The eldest stood in the temple with her nostrils shut tight. She was so pale that her skin matched Liam’s own, and the ka ranks and even some of the tuk had fled.

  Liam’s own Grandmothers appeared even more distressed than the Grandmothers from the Desga, but Liam suspected those Grandmothers had more motive to hide their reactions. Not only were they younger, and Liam had learned that with Rownt younger meant touchier about status, but Liam himself was another unknown factor in their world.

  He didn’t envy them.

  An awkward silence filled the temple. Even the two tuk-ranked individuals who had chosen to stay decided this was a good time to be elsewhere, leaving only Liam and Ondry to represent the lower ranks.

  “Are the younglings physically healthy?” the Grandmother asked.

  “They are. The humans on the ship moved the children to their most shielded position while they attempted to fix the ship. None of the children are ill,” Liam said. At least the humans on the ship had prove
n that adults could think rationally from a Rownt perspective. After all the Grandmothers had read the information on orphanages, humanity would need a few points in their favor.

  The eldest hauled herself to her feet and stood rocking gently for a second, as if she couldn’t find her balance. Then she turned and headed for the stairs. A few of the younger Grandmothers hurried up the stairs ahead of her, but most of them waited for her to pass, following her up into the more private quarters where Grandmothers debated.

  Liam sighed and looked at the Aizen Myo-o secured in his alcove. Several of the Grandmothers considered the art a reminder of the contradictory nature of human logic. That seemed particularly appropriate now.

  “Ondry, I would like to speak to Zach alone.”

  Ondry widened his eyes. Liam would have to explain later, but right now he needed to have an honest conversation with the other human on the ship, and Zach still tried to give answers the Rownt wanted instead of saying what he felt. When Liam glanced over toward Zach, the muscles around Ondry’s eyes relaxed and he left the temple without another word.

  Ondry’s willingness to set aside his own curiosity and honor Liam’s request still made Liam tingle inside. He’d had plenty of partners claim to love him, and most of those had then hurt him. Ondry was the first who respected him enough to listen. Now that Liam knew what love felt like, he had trouble believing he’d ever fallen for pretty lies. He was worlds away from the idiot kid who had once believed Mort.

  Zach abandoned the bench on the far side of the temple the second Ondry left the room. “I regret sending them those details about orphanages,” he said softly. “This is why Colonels or above are supposed to make the hard decisions about what information to provide an alien species.”

  Sometimes Zach still fell back into Earth-centric thinking. And Liam got it. The statistics Zach had dug out of the sociology database from Earth were shocking, and Zach had not attempted to blunt the horror. However, Grandmothers needed facts. “The Rownt need to know the whole truth. Otherwise, their assumptions could be dangerous.”

  Zach’s expression turned stubborn. “Those statistics shocked me. I had no idea so many children were hurt like that. It makes humans look like psychopaths.” Zach grimaced, and Liam could almost see the thought bubble over Zach's head. Liam might not have been an orphan, but he had been hurt like that. That was a history Liam wouldn't wish on anyone, but he had also survived it. He didn’t need Zach’s pity.

  “The Grandmothers are even more shocked, but can you imagine what would happen if we wrongly told them the children would be safe? If they drop those kids off on the nearest human planet, and then find out the kids were hurt, what will happen?”

  “They’d turn on us,” Zach admitted.

  Liam had no idea if by “us” Zach was talking about humans or the Rownt on the Calti, but the answer would be the same in either case. “Yes. They would lose their collective Rownt minds.”

  Zach leaned closer. “So what are we going to do?”

  “The first thing we need to do is reassure the children that they’re safe,” Liam said. This was the part he hadn’t wanted any Rownt to hear. “They’re scared and being surrounded by giants is making it worse.” Liam kept his voice down and prayed no Rownt were eavesdropping. He wasn’t sure how they would react to being the source of a child’s fear. “I’m hoping you'll come over with Duke. The oldest boy was very excited about the idea of seeing an Earth dog.”

  “So they're not from Earth?”

  “There are a lot of generational ships and colonies and bootleg habitats floating around this part of the universe. Space has not been the barrier humans once assumed. So those kids could be from an Earth-aligned ship, from one of the colonies, or from Ribelo. They could be from a pirate ship or one of the religious breakaways’ habitats.”

  Zach grimaced. Maybe he had just realized the scope of the difficulties they would face trying to find any living family for these children. The war had scattered humanity, and despite Earth’s best efforts, no records existed for most of space. “Will the Grandmothers even care if these kids are from a rebelling planet?” Zach asked.

  For every time Zach's lack of insight surprised Liam, he turned around and surprised Liam with his ability to see through to the heart of the problem. “Not even a little. They don’t consider trading with Command the same as aligning themselves with Earth. Even when two towns are in an alliance—that is a natural relationship that develops over thousands of years. They don’t feel that way about Earth, and they will have no trouble seeking out rebels.”

  “And once they’re in rebel territory, they’ll trade with them.” Zach sounded upset.

  Liam got it. Hell, he was the one who had bled to retake Earth territory. If this had happened a few years earlier, the rebels could have turned a trading relationship with the Rownt to their advantage. The rebels had distance and better pilots, by far. With Rownt trade goods, they could have won the war.

  However, at this point, they didn’t have a single planet left except Ribelo, and Earth controlled the only jump platform that could reach it. The rebellion was over.

  That didn’t mean Earth would appreciate a Rownt ship crawling all over rebel planets, nor would the rebels. Liam had fought these people. Even if their planets were occupied, they would fight any way they could.

  “Shit.” Zach rubbed his face.

  “The Rownt will want the children somewhere safe, and they won’t care about the political affiliations of the adults involved.”

  “Could they keep them?”

  Liam sank onto one of the benches scattered around the temple. “I don't know. Our Grandmothers are old and cautious. These Grandmothers are young. There's only one that's large enough to stand with our Grandmothers.”

  “So, young and rash?” Zach summarized. That was a very Rownt way of seeing creatures who had to be four or five hundred years old.

  “They’re upset. They’re trying to hide it, but noses narrowed and tails twitched throughout the whole damn ship.”

  “Maybe we shouldn't tell Earth.” Zach winced. He definitely still had loyalties to Command.

  “It might be safest,” Liam agreed. That wouldn’t solve the problem of a Rownt ship visiting every damn planet with humans in search of genetic matches, but if Earth didn’t know why Rownt were suddenly interested, it might be easier to avoid the press trying to draw parallels to the Anla plot to kidnap human children.

  “We’d be helping the Rownt kidnap children,” Zach said. Liam opened his mouth to protest, but Zach raised his hand. “If those Grandmothers keep those kids long enough while trying to find genetic matches, they’ll get emotionally attached.” He sighed. “More emotionally attached. But they won’t be able to give away children they personally know and love. And Earth will consider that kidnapping.”

  This time, Liam grimaced. That was the problem in a nutshell.

  “I'm the one who pulled together those statistics on orphanages, so I can't blame the Rownt for not trusting the government to have children's best interest at heart. And with the war, there are so damn many orphans. The whole war is a fucking mess, and now Rownt are going to end up in the middle of it. Maybe we should have the Grandmothers hack the genetic database and see if there are relatives on Earth. I know we’re avoiding Earth, but this would be a good reason to make an exception.” He sounded so damn hopeful.

  “I think the kids are from rebel territory.”

  “Why?”

  “Congenital deafness.”

  Zach scrubbed his face with an open palm. “Well, fuck. I don’t want my Grandmother looking at the rebel planets too closely. I don’t think the war makes Earth look sane. Not even a little. And I don’t know how to explain my motives for joining the war effort. How do I tell her that the chance at an education and a steady income outweighed the potential damage I was willing to inflict on my fellow humans?” Now Zach sounded miserable.

  Liam understood his fear, but the difference was that Liam tr
usted Ondry to always love him, even when Liam made morally questionable choices.

  “I know. When I was fighting, I was so in the middle of the violence that I didn't see the bigger picture,” Liam admitted. “All I cared about was surviving one more day of no man's land or of passing one more test to try to get my linguistic certification. Everything outside that was background noise. And now that I've had a chance to step back and look at some of those bigger pieces, I know how limited my morality was. However, your Grandmother will love and support you no matter how insane she judges the rest of the human race.”

  Zach gave him a doubtful look.

  Since Liam lacked any words to convince Zach of something that wasn’t in his heart, he changed the subject. “When these Grandmothers look at me for answers, I don't know what to say.”

  “Is it strange they would ask you for answers? I've noticed that the Grandmothers do a lot of listening, but not a lot of asking.”

  Liam shrugged. “Shows you how upset they are.” He suspected they had their own guilt about not answering that call for help earlier.

  “We should ask my Grandmother to go over.” Zach stood, like he might ask her right now.

  Liam caught his arm. “We can't!”

  Zach dropped back onto the bench. “Why not? With children in danger, she would drop everything.”

  “Of course she would.” Liam never doubted that. Hell, after meeting Liam, she had changed the Calti's course and postponed her trade missions to make sure that palteia on Earth weren't in need of evacuation. “The problem is that Grandmothers don't enter one another’s territory.”

  “These are extenuating circumstances.” Zach wore a stubborn expression.

  “I understand that,” Liam said softly. “And those Grandmothers have bent to give you permission to come over. You have the status of your Grandmother, but because you're a palteia and a human, they’re inviting not only you but an unknown alien predator to come onto the ship.” Liam didn’t see Duke that way, but he was fairly sure the Grandmothers on the Desga did. He remembered how Ondry had reacted when he learned the Grandmothers were allowing a dog on the ship. “They’re bending as far as they can without breaking their own backs. But if your Grandmother goes over there it will put far too much strain on everyone.”