by Lyn Gala
Liam put a hand on Ondry’s arm. “He is not wrong,” Liam said. Every time they came back to human space, Liam felt less and less connected to the species of his birth. But he could imagine that Ondry’s bad reaction came from Takil’s suggestion that Liam was faking some emotion for the sake of trade. Tuk-ranked traders never manipulated their partners. Any metaphorical stabbings took place in the front, not the back.
Ondry’s tail slapped the table leg again. If he wasn’t careful, he could break it, which would also leave a poor impression.
“I do not put on the trappings of humanity,” Liam said. “I still appreciate many parts of my first people. My brother was a good man and a great programmer, and I still have fondness for his descendants. Humans are creative and admirable in many ways, so any kindness I show humanity is because I like them.” Liam hadn’t thought about it, but he had let go of most of the anger that had once ruled him. He could still say that Mort had been a sadistic asshole and the whole Colony War had been the height of stupidity on all sides. However, he also admired many humans, and he had enjoyed seeing Luke grow into a confident and ethical man. And watching him grow into a human version of a Tuk-ranked individual capable of challenging temples—he had loved that.
“But Rownt are better,” Takil said in an unhappy tone that made him sound about twenty.
The skin around Ondry’s eyes tightened and his tail relaxed. “Humans must be superior if they produced Liam.”
Liam smiled. “You’re biased.”
“In favor of you? Always,” Ondry said. He brought his hand up and rested it on Liam’s. They sat in the shadows, leaning closer together for infinite seconds. And then Takil asked loudly, “Can I steal treats?”
At the same time, Ondry and Liam said, “No.”
A Rownt Christmas
Takil studied the video of the store. The shopkeeper had changed her display dramatically in a short period of time. The yellow and orange and black that had filled the front window had been replaced with trees, all decorated in different colors. Takil tapped the computer to send the shopbot inside and see if the offerings or prices were different. It would be easier if he could go to the shops himself, but he refused to walk in with a parent escort as if he were an eggling. He was young. That didn’t mean he still had egg stuck to him.
Inside, more of the strange decorations lined shelves. This was something of great importance to humans, and it bothered Takil that he didn’t understand it. He stood, taking his computer into the front room where his Liam and Ondry worked in relative silence, each at his own computer. Even now, they sat close together.
Takil sat next to Liam and thrust his computer at him. “What do the humans hope to communicate with these decorations?”
Liam blinked for a moment, and then set his own computer aside, but not before locking the screen. Takil felt pride that his Liam felt the need to guard his trades against Takil. The day would come when Takil was smart enough to steal more than meat from their table. He had already stolen a deal they were discussing. Takil had made good profit defining Rownt food staples, and he had worked for a fraction of the price Liam would have charged. It had been a good deal for everyone involved, except for Liam who had lost his profits.
After studying the computer, Liam handed it back to Takil. “They are not communicating anything in particular. They are decorating in a way that makes them happy.”
“Are they normally unhappy?”
Ondry’s eyes tightened, but he didn’t comment, not even when Liam glanced at him. “Humans tend to have more variation in how they feel,” Liam explained. “They are not constantly happy, but that does not imply unhappiness. But this time of year, they often wish to maximize the joy.”
That inspired an entirely new set of questions. “What is the significance of the calendar to the pursuit of joy?”
Liam leaned back. “Well for many people in this part of Earth, Christmas is a time to traditionally seek the company of family and maximize joy. The decorations are a visual reminder of the goals of the season.”
Takil was more confused than ever. Green and blue and red did not correlate to family or joy in any stories he had read, and he knew many, many Earth stories. “I thought Christmas was a time to celebrate the birth of a religious leader who may or may not be a god.” On the point of Christ’s godhood, Takil was most confused. And the more he read, the more confused he got. Ondry insisted that humans were logical if one considered them through the right perspective. Sometimes Takil did not feel capable of finding that perspective and his Liam did not guide him in that because Liam was never illogical.
“That's true as well. But for many people, thinking of that religious leader gives them joy.”
Takil opened his eyes as far as they could go. “Why?”
“Because they wish to reflect on the ways that God has improved their lives.”
“How can a god improve their lives?”
Liam pressed his lips together, but the upward curve at the edges suggested amusement rather than disgust. “Well, they believe God puts opportunities in front of them and goes out of his way to provide for them. It gives them joy to thank God for this and to celebrate the birthday of his son.”
“How could one creature go out of his way for all humans?” Takil shook his head as if trying to shake the ridiculous idea out. He knew he shouldn’t. It was rude to treat human beliefs so disrespectfully, but that made no sense.
“Not all humans believe in this god, Takil. You know full well that Wolf and her people have very different beliefs, as do many on Earth.” Takil paled. Of course he knew that. He had been speaking in exaggeration. His Liam did that all the time.
Even to his own ears, Takil sounded petulant as he pointed out, “Even if only a small percentage of humans believed in this god, that would be far too many individual interests for a creature to balance.” This god would have to be a nutu trader greater than any Rownt who ever lived. He would have to be greater than every nutu trader in history combined to balance so many needs.
“People believe him a god, not an individual,” Liam said. “An individual may not be capable of such things, but God would not have limitations on his abilities.”
Takil understood that theoretically gods had powers that no individual could claim. One story had Goaganglit confronting a hundred kawt who had united to defeat him. Of course Goaganglit had defeated them because he was the god of hunters. But Takil was almost certain that any creature confronted by a hundred kawt would die, divine or not.
“Do you believe in this human god?” Takil asked. He trusted his Liam to explain things in a way that made sense. Sometimes he got frustrated that his Liam’s explanations went into the sort of detail that one might offer an eggling, but his Ondry’s insistence that he find his own answers grew annoying. If his Liam and Ondry had an answer, it felt like a waste of his time for him to search for it, and he did not want to search for answers about human gods. Humans wrote too much on the subject to find answers.
Liam huffed and rested a hand on Takil’s arm. Takil had a small urge to push off the touch of a parent, but Liam was palteia, and they were more tactile than other Rownt. Takil reminded himself that Liam touched due to his own nature and not because he considered Takil too immature to control himself without that contact. Besides, this was not a conversation that was likely to inspire strong emotions, at least not outside of confusion.
“I was not raised religiously. My mother was quite religious, but religion is typically communicated most strongly on Sundays, and she struggled with her trade and did not have the time to devote to communicating her beliefs as she would have liked.”
“Does that mean you do not believe in this God?”
Liam blew out a breath. “I also cannot say that. I will say that I am ignorant of the truth, and I therefore choose to refrain from taking a position.”
“But it is illogical to assume there is a creature that could act as nutu for the universe.” That meant it was logical to deny the existe
nce of such a creature. That was why Rownt rejected their own gods, even if they made the best stories. Takil liked to think of a giant smacking kawt with his tail and throwing them across the horizon. But enjoying the story was not the same as believing that one should hunt kawt with one’s tail.
“But it is also illogical to assume that pieces of a puzzle will fall together on their own. If I were to take a jigsaw puzzle and shake the pieces randomly, would the puzzle ever assemble itself?”
“No.” The thought was so impossible that it amused Takil. His Liam remained silent, so Takil elaborated on his answer. “Statistically, any given motion would have a low probability of bringing together two matching pieces, but each time you shook again, you would disturb that connection with no guarantee of creating a new correct pairing.” Takil wondered at the mathematics behind such an endeavor. The actual odds would depend on how many puzzle pieces existed and the size of the container in which one shook them, it would be an interesting calculation, although Takil doubted he could follow the math beyond calculating the probability of obtaining one match. “What does this have to do with human gods?”
“Among humans, true palteia are rare.”
Takil tilted his head and watched his Liam, waiting for him to continue. Sometimes Liam would do this. He would present a series of facts, and then discuss possible, probable or necessary consequences of those facts.
“The vast majority of Rownt do not consider the needs of their trading partners.”
Again, Takil could not debate that truth.
“Among Rownt under two hundred, there are no nutu traders at all.”
Takil waited.
After a few minutes, Liam continued. “Most human palteia do not reveal themselves, and are not easily identified unless they have been damaged in a way that makes their need to serve obvious.”
This was not a fact as much as a reasonable assumption, given human psychology. It was one that made Takil uncomfortable because he knew that his Liam had been damaged by humans, but neither parent spoke of how. They would only say that the humans who had caused harm had died centuries ago. Takil often wished humans had longer lives so that he could have the pleasure of killing them. However, his Ondry would be unlikely to give him that pleasure. If the humans had survived time, his Ondry would have killed them himself.
“Do you not see the connection?” Liam tightened his fingers around Takil’s arm. Takil frowned as he considered those facts. He suspected he understood his Liam's point. “If one shakes the puzzle box often enough, eventually two matching pieces will be brought close together.” Takil acknowledged that the odds of his parents meeting were impossibly low, but eventually a human palteia had to meet a Rownt chilta. Takil was grateful that it had been his parents, and not some random palteia and chilta that he did not know.
“Humans and Rownt had not known each other for long before Ondry and I met,” Liam said. “The puzzle box had not been shaken very often. Some would look at that and say that we were destined to meet, and that God had, like a nutu trader, arranged the pieces so that we would.”
Ondry spoke for the first time. “My memory differs slightly. I did not see a human palteia, not at first.” He rumbled as his gaze grew unfocused as though looking at a memory.
“Oh? What did you see?”
“I saw a trader who knew so few words that every time he spoke, his ignorance was more obvious.” Ondry trilled.
“Truly?” Liam sounded amused rather than offended.
Takil dared not show a tooth, but he flipped his tail at his Ondry. Takil could not imagine any creature in the universe more skilled than Liam when it came to trading words. Takil hoped one day to match his parent, but he knew how far he was from that goal. His Ondry was better at predicting markets, but even he admitted he could not match Liam with language. “Liam’s language is better than most Rownt.”
Liam patted Takil on the arm. “It is now. But your parent is right that Rownt was a difficult language for me to learn. No doubt I did sound quite ignorant. But, in my defense, I was better at speaking Rownt than any other human alive, even then.”
“Yes,” Ondry said, “but other humans maintained the illusion of competence by remaining in the trading square.”
“If you believed I was not competent with my work, why did you invite me to share a meal and to trade with you again?” Liam asked.
Takil looked to his Ondry to see the answer to that, because it was a curious reaction. If Ondry had truly believed Liam was not worthy of his titles, Ondry should have avoided Liam until such time as others realized Liam should be removed from his position.
The skin around Ondry's eyes tightened. “I feared you were dalit, and you had been given responsibilities before you were ready for them.” The skin around Ondry’s eyes tightened. “I declared my independence in the temple so young, that I often regretted my choice. When my parent died, my status prevented me from crawling into another's nest and grieving her as I wished to. I saw in you, someone who needed some small part of the nest where you could rest until you were ready to carry your status.” Ondry rested his knuckles against Liam's fora. “I saw myself in you.”
Liam shifted to face Ondry before he reciprocated. Each rested his hand against the other’s fora and they leaned closer. “I do not know how long I could've survived without finding a nest, and I will always be grateful that you are the one to offer a nest.”
Takil’s eyes ached as the skin around them tightened too much. He knew his Ondry continued to speak of his own regrets with the temple ceremony because he hoped Takil would not claim independence too early. Sometimes, Takil wanted that ceremony. He grew frustrated by his parents’ inability to see that he could trade on his own. He understood Earth was not Prarownt, and that he had to trade differently with these aliens, but his parents insisted on monitoring his efforts, as if he were an eggling who did not know how to steal meat off a parent’s plate.
But then he saw these moments between his Ondry and his Liam. If he left their nest, he would be forever outside the intimacy they shared. They would still be his parents and they would still assist him as long as their hand remained unseen. He had every faith in that. His Liam might even assist when others were watching to judge Takil’s inability to stand on his own. That was a real danger.
But the greater danger was losing access to the intimacy he saw when they touched. He enjoyed the strength of their connection. Of course he knew that Rewa’s parents had the same bond as chilta and palteia, but he would never expect to see Zach and the Grandmother show it where others watched. Being here between a chilta and palteia was a privilege few Rownt ever enjoyed.
His Ondry was right. He did not want to lose his parents’ nest. Not yet. After a few minutes, his parents separated and Liam turned back to Takil.
“Does the improbability of your relationship mean that you assume God put you together?” Takil asked when Liam’s silence continued.
Again, Liam huffed. Perhaps the subject was as confusing for him as it was for Takil. If Liam could not understand humans, Takil was not sure what hope the rest of them had. “I do not know the answer. Perhaps God did make it possible. Perhaps he put me in a place where I could find the one person who would give me what I needed.” Liam smiled at Ondry, and the sides of his eyes crinkled. It was the opposite of a Rownt expression of joy, and yet it was similar.
“Perhaps it was chance, and the great wisdom of your parent in recognizing what I am. I do not know.” Liam turned back to Takil. “Therefore I will not take a position. I will not criticize others who may choose to find joy in the idea that their God looks after them as a nutu trader would, or perhaps as a chilta would. And if they wish to decorate trees in order to better enjoy that feeling of being watched, then I will not speak against it.”
Takil considered the decorations displayed in the shop window. He understood his Liam's explanation, but he was grateful he was Takil and not a human from Earth. He did not require decorations to remind him of an inv
isible god. Instead, he enjoyed the comfort of two parents who shared their nest with him and who always had his best interests in mind, even when they were being annoying.
The More Life Changes
Liam mumbled in his sleep and shoved at the appendage tickling the back of his knee. It vanished for a second and then returned. Feather touch. Soft. Teasing. Liam blinked one eye open to find Ondry’s face inches away.
“Good trades and fair weather,” Ondry said in an amused tone.
Liam rolled onto his side. “Good trades,” he returned. He stroked Ondry’s arm as he drifted on the last wisps of sleep. Lazy mornings were his favorite, especially after years on the ship. He’d never been able to relax around the rumble of heavy engines. Liam frowned and pried both eyes open long enough to look over his shoulder. No Takil.
Liam’s heart pounded. “Where is he?”
Ondry’s face tightened in pleasure. “He crept out of the house and currently hopes to steal profit from Vida. She is heavy with eggs and he hopes to take advantage of her inability to harvest.”
“But...” He was too young to be out on a farm running equipment.
“He is fine.”
“He’s a baby.” Liam squirmed his way toward the edge of the nest.
Ondry caught him around his waist and pulled him back. “The shell has dried and fallen off his backside. He has to find his own way. And Vida will protect him from himself.”
Since Liam couldn’t win a physical contest against Ondry, he yielded. “But he’s a baby,” Liam repeated, not that he would say the same in front of Takil. The boy was so damn touchy about his age. He came up to Liam’s shoulder, and yet he walked around with the confidence of a tuk-ranked Rownt.
“We are alone,” Ondry said.
Liam was on the verge of saying something else about Takil when the words sank into his sleep-soaked brain. Alone. Totally alone. In their nest. Together. Liam raised his eyebrows. “Alone?”
