Fitchsher placed his fists on the ground, rotating on his backside to face Minnie. Somehow, despite this killing machine’s size and weapon array, in that instant he appeared as a kindergartner.
“Nnn-neee.”
“Yes,” Minnie sent via Livetrans, hoping no one would notice the difference in voices or the fact that her mouth didn’t move.
“Greater you? Lesser you?”
Did he think she was Hynka? Minnie also noticed the sudden lack of unknown DB hits in his speech. Coincidence, or had he adopted whatever dialect she’d spoken? So how to answer? She couldn’t tell their breed in this light, and all covered in riverbear furs. Was there a right answer?
She decided.
Her PA spoke the reply. “Greater no. Lesser no.” And then she said aloud, “Hooman.”
“Hoonan,” Fitchsher repeated. “Hooonan.”
Minnie returned the question. “Greater you? Lesser you?”
“Lesser Fitchsher,” Fitchsher replied without hesitation, then gestured to his comrades. “Lesser Onjr. Greater Leeg. Two Lesser. One Greater.”
“Two Greater,” Leeg moaned. “Baby Greater.”
Both Fitchsher and Onjr appeared troubled by Leeg’s statement, their eyes rolling about, tongues moving in their mouths. Minnie had seen in Ish’s game that Greaters could birth Lessers, and vice-versa, but hadn’t realized the two breeds actually interbred. She’d thought of it like a black dog giving birth to both black and golden puppies.
After several moments dominated by Leeg’s wheezing, Fitchsher stared at the heater for a time, then broke the silence. “Fire in?”
Minnie knew no better way to explain the device. “Yes.” Mindful of an even exchange, she decided she could now ask another question. She wished to know why they’d traveled so incredibly far from a village, but was skeptical of Livetrans’ simplification, unsure if her meaning would be grasped, “Fitchsher far. Village far.”
“No kill,” Fitchsher replied, and Onjr echoed a second later.
“No kill.”
Reasonable. They didn’t want the two Lessers of the group to die. But they could’ve settled 1,500K south of here, and remained safe—probably safer, given environmental concerns.
“Cold kill,” Minnie continued. “Hot there.” She pointed south.
“Yes,” Fitchsher agreed, and Minnie noted the vague body language of an affirmative: a subtle shoulder dip, elbows moved outward ever so slightly. “Greaters there. Greaters come.”
They were being followed? Were more Hynka on their way? And why weren’t the two males concerned about the Greater among them?
“Greaters come here?” Minnie asked.
Leeg piped in again, a single word between each labored huff. “Greaters … no … stop.”
Minnie emulated the affirmative gesture. Apparently, Leeg was as worried about Greaters as her friends, and all three believed Hynka would never stop spreading, so they’d continue heading north. Forever, it seemed. She wondered if they realized that their unwavering drive for survival was leading them to certain death. Then again, they seemed to be doing okay so far.
Onjr twisted and reached behind him, hand returning with a drape of solidified meat, sheets and dots of frozen blood flaking off. Minnie’s eyes conjured a skinned human, and Ish’s mangled body flashed in her head. Onjr tore off a small piece, exposing what looked like a scapula or pelvic bone. He hunched over and placed the portion before Leeg’s mouth, wedging it in as if force-feeding her. She opened a crack, displaying a live reminder of all those teeth, but quickly hissed and spat a series of unknown words mixed with others.
“… hard … no … bad.”
Onjr took the piece back and slipped it under his armpit.
“Onjr,” Minnie said, and pointed to the metal disc beneath the heater. Onjr appeared startled to hear his name again. “Hot here.”
Fitchsher agreed, “Yes. Put.”
Onjr snorted and threw the hunk in front of the heater. Perhaps a little too close, it sizzled and steamed. She didn’t know how they’d feel about cooked meat, but it smelled damn good.
“Grarlar?” Minnie asked. Fitchsher and Onjr stared at her. She pointed at the meat. “Grarlar?”
Fitchsher pointed a thumb toward the thawing hunk. “Food.”
Minnie gestured to the riverbear skin on his nearest shoulder. “Call this?”
Fitchsher crooked his neck to it, then pinched the edge of the fur. “Possyr.”
It was a word one of them had earlier spoken, Minnie had thought in reference to her. Did it mean fur? Protection? Their term for riverbear? The DB had no similar entries.
Onjr leaned forward and slid the smoking meat away from the heater.
Minnie pointed at the slab again. “Possyr?”
Fitchsher looked at the hunk as it steamed atop the frost, cooling. “Yes possyr. Onjr kill. No possyr. Food.”
Minnie felt the same warm rush of adrenalin that always hit her when working linguistics. Each new word was a mystery to be solved, and each word defined was a clue toward the next, and all the pieces together would solve the puzzle entire. This meat was a possyr before it was killed, but no longer. The fur was still a possyr, so it couldn’t mean living or alive. Perhaps a generic noun.
Process of elimination. She touched her own chest. “Minnie possyr?”
After a pause and glance to Onjr, who was again trying to feed Leeg, Fitchsher confirmed. “Yes.”
And with that, Minnie decided to ask her most pressing question. “Kill Minnie?”
Even Leeg went quiet.
Fitchsher stared at Minnie with eyes that appeared to have a million more thoughts than his limited vocabulary could express.
With still no answer, she persisted. “Kill Minnie? Minnie food?”
Fitchsher opened his mouth to speak, then closed it as if to rethink.
Onjr’s head appeared from behind Leeg’s back. “Nnn-neee scent food taste.”
He talking about the half-cooked meat or saying that I smell delicious?
Fitchsher spun round, flinging an arm toward Onjr, snarling, “No!” followed by a string of unknown words. Onjr returned, popping to his feet, and stepped toward Fitchsher, throwing an open hand to Fitchsher’s face. Onjr’s foot accidentally nudged the metal lid and the heater toppled onto its side. Minnie grabbed the MW from her lap and scurried to her feet, backing away from the commotion. The two wrestled around, arguing and slapping each other over the quietly moaning Leeg. Onjr had the size advantage, but Fitchsher appeared faster.
Standing beyond the bulbs, Minnie’s legs remained primed to bolt. What seemed apparent was that Onjr considered her food, and Fitchsher was defending her. In the bustle, the heater was kicked again, rolling and skidding away with steaming footprints. When it came to rest, it hissed and whistled, slowly sinking into the frost. Water at its perimeter began boiling and Minnie wondered if it would soon submerge itself and short out.
Onjr was on top of Fitchsher, one leg pinning his face to the ground, a knee on a thigh, fingers clutching and twisting the loose skin beneath Fitchsher’s arm. Fitchsher screeched and yapped.
Minnie darted to the heater, grabbed the handle, and set it upright away from the shallow new rectangle pool. Keeping an eye on the brawl, she shut it off and dashed back to a safe distance.
“Stop!” Fitchsher cried from under Onjr. “Onjr win!”
That can’t be good.
Onjr stood up, gave Fitchsher a little kick to the head, and peered round the area. His eyes found Minnie. She gripped the MW, raising it higher. Onjr took a step toward her, then looked around at the ground.
“Cold,” Leeg whimpered.
Onjr stomped forward and Minnie prepared to fire, but he was heading to the heater. He huddled over it, crushed two nubby claws into each side, and took it back to Leeg. He plopped down and set two fingers in front of the heater as Fitchsher strained to sit up, rubbing his side and head.
“Hot no,” Onjr snarled to no one in particular. “Fire leave.�
��
Leeg emitted a terrible, shrill scream, arching backward before rolling onto her stomach. Minnie switched optics and observed the female’s massively swollen lower back. Similar to marsupials, Hynka birthed an under-developed fetus to then carry in a pouch for several months. However, a face-attached umbilical remained bonded, and the birth canal squeezed the fetus directly into the bottom of the pouch. From the lumpy look of Leeg’s pouch, her baby had either already arrived, or was making solid progress.
Onjr turned his back to Minnie, tending to Leeg.
Fitchsher poked a thumb at the heater and searched for Minnie. “Nnn-neee,” he called.
Minnie took a few steps toward the clearing.
“Fire in?” he said.
“Fire no,” Minnie replied. “Onjr kill fire. Onjr kill Minnie.”
“No kill,” Fitchsher said, standing and facing her. Minnie stepped back again. “Onjr no.”
Right, she thought. Like I didn’t just witness that fight.
Fitchsher persisted. “Onjr no kill. Onjr …” he seemed to search for the words. “… speak smell. Nnn-nee food smell. Food no. Smell yes.” He turned and slapped Onjr’s back. Onjr grumbled, pushed him away, returning his focus to Leeg. Fitchsher barked at him in mostly uncatalogued words. “Speak … Nnn-neee … smell … kill.”
Onjr reared up, shoved Fitchsher, and faced Minnie. “No kill! Nnn-nee Onjr no kill!” He kicked the heater. “Fire in!” He returned to Leeg’s side, where she now breathed slower, almost purring with each exhalation.
Fitchsher took a tentative step toward Minnie, disarmingly human in his pleading. “Yes? Fire in?”
Resigned to her own weakness, Minnie walked to the heater and picked it up, reactivating it. She kicked the metal disc back into the icy depression it had earlier formed, setting the heater down facing the backs of Onjr’s ankles, and beyond them, Leeg. Onjr moved an arm and peeked at Minnie through the gap. She kept her eyes fixed on his, and the MW primed.
“Move,” Minnie said to him as she withdrew backward. “Leeg fire.”
Onjr snorted and leaned right onto a knee, shuffling from between the heater and Leeg. Leeg murmured something to him and he continued around to her other side. Thick fingers wedged under her, and Onjr lifted Leeg’s far side, rolling her until she ordered him to stop. Now, her back—and the fetus in the pouch—faced the heater.
Minnie gazed through the wall of flesh to the writhing being inside, already the size of a human preteen. She could see the membrane gluing its toothless gums to a thick umbilical tube. There was a bit of a kink between baby and the quivering sphincter from which it’d come, and Leeg seemed to be aware of the danger. She’d reached behind her and was smushing sections of pouch next to the baby, trying to spin it around to face downward.
“Turn,” she said, and Onjr obeyed, using both hands to reorient the fetus.
Minnie heard the crackling of joints and glanced Fitchsher’s way, observing him sitting down. She hadn’t been paying attention to him all this time, subconsciously trusting that she had nothing to fear from him, but this was foolish of her. She moved back a few more steps and also sat.
“Baby turn,” Fitchsher said. “Baby hot.” Perhaps it was a thank you.
Onjr rolled around beside Leeg’s head, took a riverbear skin from one of his shoulders, and lay it over Leeg’s exposed face. With her baby and back to the fire, her front would be feeling the bite of midnight cold. Onjr settled onto his rump and faced the heater, peering over it to Minnie, his eyes unreadable and disconcerting.
After a few moments of silence, with everyone’s focus on the heater—like any classic, late-night campfire scene, orange glow casting shadows—Fitchsher broke the silence.
“Baby kill all.”
Onjr stole a glance his way, then back to the heater.
Fitchsher went on. “Leeg birthed Udartsh. Udartsh Lesser. Udartsh no turn. Udartsh die small. Leeg birthed Fitchsher. Fitchsher Lesser. Fitchsher turn. Fitchsher big.” His shining eyes turned to Minnie. “Leeg birth Greater baby. Greater baby turn. Greater baby big. Greater baby kill Fitchsher, kill Onjr.”
Leeg turned her slumped head a degree, and uttered with a feeble, defeated voice, “Greater baby kill Leeg.”
Minnie unclasped her sore fingers from the MW, curled her arms around her knees, and pulled them to her chest. Fitchsher’s gaze drifted back to the heater, unblinking eyes alight with emotion. Minnie didn’t think she was only imagining it, or projecting her own feelings: the bleak bewilderment, the absolute horror of knowing with certainty that one’s sibling—and for Leeg and Onjr, one’s own child—would grow, mature, and eventually slaughter their entire family.
3.8
Their afvrik handler, Heshper, was a real hole. Even the fourteen crewmembers seemed to despise her, for as much as a labor class Threck would reveal such feelings. Their responses were usually subtle—a delayed response to an order, or reconfirming they’d heard her orders correctly, voicing their objection in the least direct manner possible.
“You two: go down, find bottom-grabbers, and bring back up. You that way, you the other.”
A beat.
A crewmember replies,“We go separate. Down there … for bottom-grabbers.”
“Yes,” Heshper confirms.
“In this water, away from harbor safety, we go down alone.”
“Yes. Quickly!”
And then they comply.
Aether had a firm grasp on her own conflicts with the handler. Heshper had legitimate complaints, and Aether wished she’d been exhaustively explicit about their travel needs with Massoss Pakte. Not only had misunderstandings created an antagonism between Aether and Heshper, their ETA to the recovery location had been tremendously underestimated.
Fishing and exploratory voyages had never been restricted to the ocean surface. In fact, afvrik spent very little time above water. The bands of rope that crossed the top of every afvrik were used by handlers and crew as anchoring points. The crew coiled their legs several times around these holds, and the afvrik would swim as usual, with only slight drag from the tagalongs’ profiles. Threck even slept this way underwater—quite enjoyably, it seemed—tapping into some primal comfort source. Submerged, afvrik rotated so their broad fins faced behind them, their thrust system obviously at its optimal output with this orientation. Compared to propulsion on the surface, it was the difference between powerboat and paddle.
Further, afvrik had to eat. Go figure. Normally, this was accomplished by the creature descending to lightless depth, opening its mouth wide, and drifting downward over dense concentrations of tiny sea life, much like many whales or the whale shark. This fact wasn’t shared until well after losing sight of land, when Heshper told Aether and Pablo that it was time to “stick” so the afvrik could feed. While the suits and supply bins were fully sealable, and they technically could have gone under long enough for their vessel to feed, the skimmer strapped to the holds at the center of the afvrik’s back eliminated immersion from the realm of possibility. Skimmers were weather resistant, but neither Aether nor Pablo believed they could survive a full plunge.
Heshper had threatened to turn around, call off the voyage. Aether had to repeatedly emphasize the conditions of her arrangement with the Thinkers and Council, highlighting the fact that hundreds of Makers and Materials workers were on their way north to begin construction. That all these moving parts hinged on this rescue mission.
Three days later, without any warning, Heshper had called for the second afvrik to approach, ordering everyone, including Aether and Pablo, to untie the skimmer, tent, and supply bins, and move it all over. Heshper was simple done with this ridiculous arrangement and the admittedly arduous task of hand-feeding their afvrik. To make things worse, apparently the second afvrik had been flaunting its freedom, swimming below them, twirling around, and emitting the equivalent of yummy sounds upon ascending from a feeding.
Halfway through transferring the bins, Tunhkset, the second afvrik’s handler, couldn�
�t keep her animal at the surface. It submerged a couple meters before anything had been strapped down. Most of the bins floated, and the two that sank were quickly retrieved by swift crewmembers. Unhkset apologized (more to Aether than Heshper), submitting her afvrik’s relative youth for clemency, followed by a curt commendation of Heshper’s masterful handling skills.
Now, eleven days into the journey—the past four spent following along the Hynka Country coast—and after several deviations in course to fish in “legendary waters,” Aether had lost her patience on enough occasions that Heshper was no longer speaking to her.
Heshper popped up in the frothy wash at the afvrik’s front, deftly found her footing, and walked to Pablo, sitting against the front of the skimmer. “How much longer north?” Heshper asked, her wide siphon holes sputtering water. “She is getting too cold. Obviously, submerging would help.”
After days of acting as go-between, Pablo no longer seemed concerned with his Livetrans proficiency, and he’d caught on to the key ingredients of Aether’s responses to the point where she now rarely needed to send them to him. And Heshper never seemed to catch on that she was being fed the same formulaic appeasements.
Lying on the skimmer pad, mostly sheltered from wind and mist behind the console riser, Aether saw the Livetrans pop up in her fone, and rolled over on her mat cushion, watching the exchange from the skimmer’s side.
“We apologize for the magnificent afvrik’s discomfort,” Pablo’s PA announced. “And our gratitude to you for your patience and dedication cannot be overstated.” Aether smiled. His BS placation skills were flourishing. “It appears that today is still our arrival day. Only three gaps remain.” He’d also mastered their gauge of daylight time—imprecisely calculated via the sun’s movement, measured with tentacle clubs held together in the air with an almond-shaped gap between the pads.
Hold on, Aether thought. Three gaps?
Was that all? Little more than an hour?
“This is certain? Three and we begin return?”
Exigency Page 37
