by G. Howell
Despite PGP encryption, passwords and assorted other lockouts, my system was cracked by pre-electrical alien cats who can’t even speak English doing some basic shoulder-surfing.
It was information a lot of parties would kill for. In fact, some did. They threatened me, they threatened Chihirae. It wasn’t a state I had any wish to return to. So if the political winds were picking up again, I was all for casting some oil on the waters.
My carriage was waiting for me as I stepped out onto the front steps of the palace. The sun was high in a brilliant sky, coaxing heat-shimmers from the gravel drive. Insects buzzed and razzed in the meadows of golden grass that rippled like an ocean sunset as a breeze set the stalks to swaying. There was a courier message waiting for me: my driver relayed the essentials to me in a carefully impartial voice. So I couldn’t read. It was embarrassing. I was learning, but it took time.
It was from Rraerch aesh Smither. The owner of the largest industrial firm in Land-of-Water and the Government’s principal shipyard contractor. She was also Chaeitch’s original sponsor and an old acquaintance of mine. She was requesting an immediate meeting with me at her offices in town. I didn’t need the driver’s translation to know what this meeting was going to be about.
So much for my day off.
------v------
Shattered Water is always an experience. Any large Rris town is. It’s one thing to look out from the relative aloofness of a carriage rattling through the streets, it’s quite another to get out and walk around those streets. Your immersed in a town where humans have never even been seen or even conceived of, built entirely on alien needs and desires. Form still follows function, so there are similarities: sloping roofs to keep the rain and snow off; there are windows and doors; there are alleys and streets for wheeled vehicles. But all the things that should be familiar all have subtle nuances that just seem wrong to my senses. The architecture is built for inhabitants with smaller statures, so the doors are too small; there are few windows on exterior walls; proportion and ornamentation are designed for inhuman sensibilities.
And then there’re the crowds of furry bipedal cats all turning to stare at me. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe: like stage fright mixed with a disturbing primal sensation crawling up the back of your neck as the ancient ape sees the predator’s interest. I thought it was something I could get used to, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Now all I can do is fight that nervousness down.
It’s a sensation I feel all too often as I go about my business. I felt it when I got out of the carriage in the courtyard of Smither Industries. It was a complex of brick buildings with dark slate roofs. As with so much Rris architecture the complex turned blank brick faces to the outside world, broken only by the merest slits of windows. Arched passages led through the outer walls to the central courtyards and the planted gardens there; the huge windows glazed with panes of new glass. As I got out of the carriage I could see Rris around the courtyard stopping and looking my way. Even up in the windows curious feline faces appeared.
I ignored them as best I could and headed over to where my guide was waiting. I’d been there over a dozen times and he still looked nervous.
The halls of Smither Industries were busy places. There were Rris scurrying around with that odd little scattering sound their claws make on hard floors. On the main staircase they hastily stepped aside as I made my way up to the third floor. Rraerch’s offices were elegant, in Rris style. The floors were tiled in tan and gold, the walls paneled in light pine and white plaster. On either side of the office doors were two pieces of what I might normally have considered polished driftwood. Apparently they were works of art, imbued with scents from distant lands. All utterly undetectable to me.
Rraerch’s secretary was at work at his low desk. He looked up as I approached and his ears went back flat against his skull. He’d always been civil toward me, but his ears had always done that: a reflexive Rris anxiety reaction. “Sir,” he greeted me, “she’s expecting you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I know the way.”
The Rris seated at the low desk turned two pairs of amber eyes my way as I stepped through the door to the inner office.
“Mikah,” Rraerch greeted me. “You made good time. Sorry to do this to you on your free time.”
“Not your fault,” I said and glared at the other Rris. “Chaetich, thanks a lot. You could have told me.”
He tipped his hand in a shrug. “I really didn’t know. I was preparing for a trip over to Cover-my-Tail and suddenly I’m told it’s grown into something a good deal more than a property inspection deal.”
I took a cushion at the desk: one of those uncomfortably low tables the Rris favor. They find them quite suited to their needs, but I find the experience of sitting on a cushion on the floor at a knee-high table uncomfortable, physically and psychologically. In a human office the desk is a symbol of power and entrenched authority. I suppose the Rris use them in the same way: someone sitting on a low cushion is at a distinct disadvantage when someone else is standing.
At least you could count on Rraerch having good alcohol handy. While their beers were terrible, I was actually growing quite partial to some Rris wines, and Rraerch had a bottle in a wicker basket sitting on the desk alongside an imposing stack of books.
“So,” I said as I settled myself, “what’s the deal here? You’re all suddenly very keen to shift me over to Cover-my-tail.”
Rraerch snorted, wrinkling her salt-and-pepper speckled muzzle and narrowing her yellow-amber eyes. “It’s simply a friendship visit.”
“Oh? Nothing to do with forging alliances against possible political unrest and economic sanctions?”
She hesitated then blinked. “Hirht told you that?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Huhn,” she glanced at Chaeitch. I suppose the lack of phones was something that worked to my advantage in cases like that. Hirht couldn’t simply call her up and discuss our meeting. “I think you’re being a bit paranoid, Mikah. It’s a friendship visit. It’ll show that Cover-my-Tail and other countries that we aren’t monopolizing you. And you’ll get a chance to see some more of the world.”
Okay. So they didn’t have phones, But that didn’t mean they couldn’t work out their spiel beforehand.
She rolled her glass between stubby fingers and looked up at me. “You could simply refuse to go. We wouldn’t coerce you, but it would make things difficult. There’s a lot of pressure from other countries for us to... to give them greater access to you. This would pop the valve on that pressure for a while.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “I’m not against this. It’s just very sudden.”
“There wasn’t a great deal of time to consult you about it,” she said. “It’s an easy journey. Water all the way.”
That certainly beat a land journey, which would have been many days of slow, hot, dusty, boring and bumpy travel in carriages. “He said the two of you are going along. You’re supposed to be... tutoring me?”
“Huhn,” now her ears went down. “That. Yes, well, we’ve had a lot of dealings with Cover-my-Tail. His highness feels that we are the best ones to cram as much information into you about Cover-my-Tail as possible. Their geography, history, trade and exports.”
“And about the good Lady herself,” Chaeitch sighed.
“She’s trouble?” I asked. “I’ve met her, she seemed pleasant enough.”
“She’s a very pleasant person,” Rraerch said. “She’s personable, charming, intelligent, and a shaved astute business dealer. That’s the problem. She could buy your hide off your back and sell it back to you and still make you think you got a good deal. That’s what his highness wants me to caution you about. I’ve had experience dealing with her and I know some of her games, so I can tell you what to watch for.”
“How long’s that going t
o take?”
She slapped a furry hand down on that stack of books on the desk. “We don’t have long enough, so I’ll have to give you the condensed version.”
I winced. Chaeitch clambered to his feet. “It’s going to be a long night.”
------v------
A bright three-quarter moon hung low in the velvet sky, casting a cool, grayish illumination across the world. The slats in the carriage window cut that moonglow into bars of shadow and light that fell across the floor and my legs, shifting and juddering as the carriage clattered through the nightbound streets.
I just sat back in the upholstered seat and closed my eyes, my head still swimming with facts and figures that’d been pumped into me for the past seven hours. Things I hadn’t known, things I’d never wanted to know... the capital was Open Fields; the population was about two million; main exports were coal and iron ore essential for developing industry; ruling lineage was the Esrisa family, ratified since the Wall Wars one hundred and forty years ago; there were extensive vineyards along the central river valleys; the glassworkers in Open Fields produced some highly-prized materials; her Ladyship’s extended lineage and associations; Reli district specialized in expensive inks... and on and on.
At least I knew more about Open Fields than I had known about Shattered Water when I first arrived. And I’d be going in as a guest rather than a curiosity. The itinerary had been planned out and from what I’d seen it did seem to be a predominantly goodwill visit. I had met her Ladyship before and she was a pleasant enough individual. In fact, I quite liked her. We’d gotten on well. Although, after what I’d been told that night I had to wonder how much of that was good salesmanship.
The motion of the carriage changed: slowing, turning. The clatter of iron-bound wheels on cobblestones turned to the muted crunch of gravel and we stopped. I heard muted voices and the door was opened.
“Squad Leader,” I said tiredly, not bothering to look around.
“Sir,” the commander of the Rris gate contingent acknowledged and closed the door again. I had a house of my own, but it came complete with a full set of toy soldiers: a small army of guards and security checks. Necessary in their eyes, I supposed. At least they kept the curiosity seekers from peeking in the windows, and yes, there had been some problems with that. Gravel scrunched under the wheels as we started up the drive toward the house.
“Here, sir,” I heard the driver say from up on the bench. I sighed and clambered out, bidding him goodnight and heading for the front door. Behind me came the jingle of harness and rattle of wheels as the carriage headed off toward the stables.
Home again. The lights were on in the living area and up on the second floor, glowing a welcoming orange against the almost indistinguishable blueblack of the night sky. As I stepped up onto the front porch the front door swung open, throwing a fan of light out and silhouetting the alien form of a Rris.
“Evening, Tich.”
“Good evening, sir,” she greeted me. “I trust it was a productive day?”
“Productive, yes,” I said, handing my coat over. “And very long. Some warning about these things would be nice.”
“Yes, sir,” she said neutrally as she hung my coat in the closet and turned back to me. “You sound tired. Do you wish to eat?”
I was hungry. “Food. Yes. Food would be good,” I said.
“Very good, sir,” the major domo said. “It will be ready shortly.”
“Nothing fancy,” I said. “You’ve already eaten?”
“Ah, yes, sir. Ah, her Ladyship has. She wasn’t sure what time you’d be home.”
“Whatever’s convenient,” I said and she ducked her head, headed back toward the kitchens. I sighed and made my way through the living room. It was dark, the low cushions and tables where we could receive guests in the Rris idea of comfort unoccupied, but there was a light on through in the study.
I found that a more comfortable room. It was a decent size and lined with bookshelves. Mostly bare: my grasp of the Rris written language was still rudimentary so the only books I could handle were the rare and expensive primers and cubs’ books, the Rris equivalent of See Spot, See Spot Run. Of which there weren’t a great deal. Printing and paper were expensive and generally limited to the upper classes.
The desk in the study had been built to my specifications, which included raising it a decent height above the ground and getting a good chair. Now there was a Rris figure curled up in the chair, sitting with legs draped willy-nilly over the arms in a way that would strain a human’s back and engrossed in a book while the oil lamp on the desk burned low. As I stepped in the door her ears flickered and she looked around.
“Mikah!”
“Good evening, your Ladyship,” I smiled.
“Huh,” Chihirae laid the book down on her lap and arched one leg out, her odd digitigrade foot held trembling for a muscle-stretching second, then the other. “I wish she wouldn’t call me that.”
“But it suits you.”
She chittered and then rolled her shoulders and slapped the chair with a palm and sounded a mock snarl. “How do you stand these contraptions? It puts knots right up my tail and back.”
“There are cushions,” I reminded her, touching her shoulders. Her fur was slightly coarse on the outer layers with the finer fell deeper in. It was a feeling that was getting to be familiar, something my fingertips knew. When I started kneading the thick hide slid loosely over the bunched muscles beneath, as if it weren’t even attached. She sighed and her head sagged forward.
“Huhnnn,” she rumbled. “You’re late home.”
“Been one of those days.”
“Another?... Sa, I see. Ah, lower... there. Hnnn…” she trailed off, her head nodding for a while. Then it lifted a little. “What do they want now?”
I told her.
Chihirae. She was the first Rris I ever truly met. She was a schoolteacher from the mid-sized town of Lying Scales who’d been working as a winter teacher at the tiny rural community of Westwater. She’d been the one I’d first approached for help. Actually, she’d shot me, nearly killed me, then saved my life and defended me from villagers convinced I was a monster and a murderer.
Long and complicated story.
She was a friend. A good friend. And yes, we were lovers.
Or rather I was. Rris don’t love. They can’t. They don’t have the mental hardwiring to form such connections. That’s not to say they don’t form friendships and attachments and affections every bit as complex and deep as humans, they just don’t feel that distorting surge we interpret as love. When it comes right down to the nity-gritty of it, love is a cocktail of chemicals our brains and assorted glands produce, and Rris equipment simply doesn’t produce those same juices. It’s not a deficit on their part. In fact, it tended to make me feel like something I’d always assumed was a vital part of human existence was less than useless. “You need to need,” was what a Rris had told me. It was a phrase that haunted me.
And conversely I can never really accommodate their emotional worldview. Trying to understand what they feel would be like someone who’s been blind their entire life trying to understand the color blue. At one time I’d thought I could intellectually understand the differences between her and myself, but it was one thing to understand them and an entirely different matter to make my body feel it. My hardwiring, the way my body and ape ancestry processed emotions, was continually undermining that knowledge.
It had caused me serious grief in the past. It would do so again.
So I loved her. And she was good enough to let me. And for her I supposed I was a friend, someone she knew in an unfamiliar town. There would come a time when she would leave. I knew that. I didn’t want to think about that.
“A busy day off,” she husked when I’d finished. She was limp under my hands now, the book laying f
orgotten and her head lolling while a low, almost subsonic rumble resounded in her chest. Not quite a purr, but that was the best reference I had.
“And how was your class?”
“Milk froth cubs,” she sighed. “They’re more of a problem than usual ones.”
“Attitude?” I asked.
“Ah,” she confirmed. “’Specially the older ones.”
“Hmmm,” I mused. “Well, I could always go and smile at them.”
“Mikah...”
“A joke,” I leaned over and nuzzled the top of her head. “Your Ladyship.”
Chihriae chittered her amusement and waggled her head, rubbing against my chin. “I never thought anyone would be calling me that. I’ve asked her not to.”
“Awww,” I sympathized. “First world problems… The things we have to live with.”
“Hai, like you?” she mock-growled and craned her neck back, trying to nip at me. Relenting when I scratched behind her ears. “Huhn, you know how to make peace, don’t you.”
“I had to learn quickly,” I said.
She chittered again and directed my hands to a more needing spot. “So, how long is this trip supposed to be?”
“They said not more than a few weeks.”
“You believe that?”
“When I see it,” I said, moving my scratching down her neck, down to her shoulders, toward her ribs.
“’Hai, Mikah!” she chittered and caught my hands. “Not now, you oversexed ape. I’ve got to finish this.”
“Spoilsport,” I murmured, trying not to grin.
She held my hands in her small ones for a second, turning them over, over again, staring and studying them as if she’d never seen them before. She traced a dark claw along one of the lines on my palm and then looked up to ask, “Have you eaten yet?”
