by Cara Bristol
“Town” seemed like a rather grandiose description for the straggle of huts, but, again, I was eager to visit the “hall” of records, the trading post, everything. “I would love that,” I said.
“For sure.” Andrea nodded.
We women donned our kels and followed the men out. While we’d been in the lodge, enough new frozen precipitation had fallen to obliterate our arrival tracks, but fortunately it had stopped snowing.
As with the lodge, a heavy hide flap covered the doorway of the tavern. We pushed inside to a room scented by yeast. No jovial, loquacious bartender swabbed down the bar between drawing draughts of ale. A half-dozen corked jugs sat on a shelf. Tree stumps surrounded a couple of roughhewn tables. We were the only patrons.
And, come to think of it, other than us six, I hadn’t noticed anyone else in the “town.”
“Does no one come here? To the meeting place?” I asked.
“Only for assemblies, or if they need something, but each tribe is pretty self-sufficient.” Torg tossed a log atop the embers in the pit.
He finished, and I smiled at him. “Buy me a drink, sailor?”
His brows knitted. “I don’t understand.”
Tessa giggled. “She means pour her an ale.”
“How about a round for everyone?” Andrea asked.
“Oh! Of course.” Torg plucked an earthen cup from a nesting stack. He poured out the dregs, and two thoughts struck me: one, small wonder the hut smelled so yeasty, and two, how many people had used that mug?
Andrea, Tessa, and I exchanged glances. Tessa looked horrified.
“The alcohol will kill anything.” I shrugged.
“Even alien microbes?” she whispered. For a woman who’d run a prostitution operation, she was rather squeamish.
“Why not? It’s alien alcohol.”
“Besides.” Andrea’s mouth twitched. “There aren’t that many people on Dakon. I doubt more than two or three thousand used that cup.”
Torg eyed the tankard. “Is something wrong?”
“No. It’s a Terran custom that we wash a cup before the next person uses it.”
“But this one is not dirty. To replace the water used to wash it, a hole must be drilled into the ice to draw water—or ice must be melted.”
No resource, not even water, could be taken for granted. Simple tasks took monumental efforts. These people needed our help more than they realized.
“Would you like a different cup?” He reached for another on the shelf.
“No, that one will be fine, thank you.” The others wouldn’t be any different.
I accepted the ale, and after Torg had passed a draught to everyone else, I raised my tankard high. Andrea and Tessa did the same.
The men exchanged befuddled looks.
“You, too, guys!” Tessa nudged Loka.
Hesitantly, they raised their cups.
“What should we toast to?” I asked. We had so many things to celebrate.
“To new friends and fresh starts!” Tessa said.
“Here, here!” I seconded.
The three of us touched cups. We motioned to our men, and they did the same. I took a drink. The foamy liquid pretty much tasted like beer until the afterburn kicked in. Pure firewater. I choked. Andrea gasped, too, but Tessa hadn’t tasted hers yet.
“I’ve seen all I need to see.” She giggled.
I took another exploratory swig. Once the heat subsided, the ale wasn’t all that bad.
The men pushed two tables together, and the six of us sat around and talked, swapping stories of our respective homelands. I was on an alien planet, but damn if this didn’t seem normal. I never thought I’d say it—or be able to experience it—but my life was pretty damn good.
Chapter Fourteen
Torg
My mate staggered a bit as we left the tavern. I’d tried to warn her of the ale’s potency, but she’d finished off her tankard. I blamed myself for her inebriated state; I shouldn’t have poured so much. Dakonian females rarely touched the stuff. Groman, Loka, and I were all surprised when the females insisted on going to the tavern. Love-smitten males that we were, we’d indulged their unusual request.
Loka’s female barely touched her ale, while Groman’s held her liquor much better than my mate. Starr giggled and clung to my arm.
“Perhaps we should skip the tour,” I suggested. We’d spent more time in the tavern than we should have. “We can do it another time.” The sun had begun its descent toward the horizon.
“It will be dark soon,” Loka agreed. Groman nodded.
“No, I want to see the rest of the…town,” Starr said, and then burst into giggles.
I didn’t understand what was funny about that.
“I want to see it, too.” Tessa bobbed her head enthusiastically.
The other one, Andrea, nodded.
Groman and Loka shrugged. “All right,” I conceded. “But we should be quick.”
“Goody!” Tessa clapped her hands.
“We’ll just peek in all the huts, promise,” Starr said.
“All of them?”
“The hall of records first!” She staggered across the snow toward the building I’d pointed out earlier. Tessa ran up to her, and they linked arms. Andrea joined them. They giggled. We three men followed.
A cold, empty fire pit lay in the center of the records hut. We did not heat the hall of records because if the hut went up in flames, we would lose everything. Shelves bowed under the weight of hundreds of leather-bound tomes. Sheets of paper, wells of ink, and binding supplies were provided on a table for whoever needed them.
“Where’s the book where you recorded our mating?” Starr asked.
“Here.” I stepped to a book stand where the tome of vital statistics lay open so the ink could dry.
Starr peered at the book. “It doesn’t look like hieroglyphics at all!”
“That’s what I was expecting, too,” Andrea replied. The two of them huddled around the book.
“It’s a regular written language.” My mate sounded surprised.
“Only not one I’ve ever seen,” Andrea said. “It’s nothing like Terran Universal or any of the dead languages. The symbols are completely different.”
Their other friend, Tessa, took a peek, shrugged, and moved to Loka. He wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Is this our record?” Starr pointed to the latest entry, still wet.
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
“It has your name and mine and the date you arrived.”
“Are we in the book?” Tessa asked.
“Yes,” Loka said.
“We are, too,” Groman added.
Starr ran a finger next to the list of recent entries. “Are these the matings with the Terran women?”
“Yes.”
She nibbled her lip. “Your language looks…challenging.”
“Do you not wish to try to learn it?”
“No, I still want to.” She rubbed the side of her head, behind her ear. “Too bad the implant doesn’t instill reading ability, too.”
“We’ll start slow and easy.” I moved to a shelf and searched among the titles for a few of the smaller books. I extracted two of them. “These will be good to start.”
“What’s so special about those?”
I pretended I didn’t hear as I stowed them in my satchel and added some parchment.
“Torg? What kind of books are those?”
I shuffled my feet. She would be insulted, but she would need to start with something easy. “Children’s books,” I mumbled.
“You have children’s books?”
“Not so many, because we don’t have many children anymore, but a few, yes.” The vocabulary in the children’s books was simpler than in the others. I’d learned to read with these books myself.
Andrea hooted. “See the kel run. Run fast, kel, run fast.”
Starr and Tessa laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
Groman, Loka, and I glanced at each other. We had much to learn about Terran humor. “The kel do run fast. That is why they are so difficult to hunt,” I said. Aware of passing time, I asked, “What would you like to see next?”
“Trading post!” Tessa suggested.
“The storehouse,” Starr added.
We stopped at the storehouse first where the females inspected baskets of grain, dried roots and berries, and the hanging slabs of dried kel. However, the trading post captured their interest the most. We did not discard anything; possessions were too precious. We might not need an item, but someone else might. An old boot with a hole in the sole could be refashioned into a child’s boot or a carrying pouch. Tanning took a long time and a lot of work. Reusing materials saved labor and resources for something we didn’t have.
The women chattered and touched everything: the kel hides, clothing, pottery, baskets, tools, and weapons. “I didn’t realize how much I’d missed shopping until now.” My mate held up a tunic with a beaded fringed hem. “This took a lot of work. Why would somebody get rid of this?”
“Perhaps they saw something they wanted more.” I didn’t tell her the garment had belonged to a child who’d likely outgrown it. She bristled whenever her size was compared to that of a child.
“What do you think?” she asked her friends.
“It’s cute. You should get it,” Tessa said.
Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t have a trade.”
Andrea sidled up to her and murmured, “With what will be arriving in a couple of months, you could have everything in the trading post.”
I didn’t understand her cryptic comment, but if my mate liked the tunic, then she should have it. “You don’t need a trade. I’ve brought items in the past and have not taken anything.”
“So we have credit on account!” Starr said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She hugged the tunic to her chest. “I’ll take it. What kind of items did you bring?”
“Hunting weapons.” During the long nights, Darq and I often had sat in front of the fire and made bows, arrows, spears, and stone-bladed axes. If I hadn’t been tribal chief, I would have been a bowyer or a fletcher. We already had several bow-and-arrow makers at camp, so I gave away most of my projects.
“Like this?” Andrea held up a bow-and-arrow set.
“Yes. That’s one of mine.” I’d dropped off four artillery sets. I’d soaked wooden staves until pliable then shaped them into bows, using sinews from the legs of kel for the strings. I’d crafted arrows and quivers.
She examined it. “You carved the design on the limb?”
I nodded.
“Let me see!” Starr peered at it. “Those are animals! Are those kel?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s what they look like!”
Groman and Loka crowded around to peer at the bow. Tessa peeked, but then a basket caught her eye. However, the four of them examined the bow at great length, passing it among them and commenting.
Pride mixed with embarrassment to have my work subjected to such scrutiny. I crafted the bows merely to pass the time, but a little part of me lived in each one. “Your workmanship is excellent.” Groman tested the bow’s strength, pulling the string taut. “I would like to have this.”
“You may take it.”
Loka made a wry face. “I was just going to ask for it.”
“There are others. I dropped off four sets.” I peered around the trading post. “But…they are not here. Someone has claimed them.”
As a tribal chief, I mediated disputes. Angry, upset people brought me their problems to solve. A decision that pleased one man, upset another, so I received more complaints than praise. So, to discover others liked my work filled me with pride. The bow-and-arrow sets had gone fast! I’d dropped them off the day I’d come to claim my chit.
“I will bring you a set,” I told Loka.
“I would be honored. Thank you,” he replied.
“May I?” Andrea asked, and Groman handed her the bow. She held the grip, drew the string home, and released it. “Will you teach me how to use it? I would like to learn how to, er, shoot.” To my eye, she looked adept already.
“I’d be happy to,” he said. All males had at least a minimum proficiency with a bow and arrow so they could hunt for small game. Fathers taught their sons, and sometimes daughters, if they were interested.
“Do women here use bow and arrows?” Starr asked.
“Some do. Most don’t because they rely on their mates to hunt,” I said.
“You plan on doing some hunting?” Starr asked her friend.
Andrea shook her head. “If I had to kill my own food, I’d have to become a vegetarian. But I figure it couldn’t hurt to learn how to use the tools and weapons of our new home planet in case I have to defend myself.”
“I cannot imagine that would be a necessity. Murder does not exist on Dakon. If it were to occur, it would be dealt with harshly.”
The three women glanced at each other, then Starr studied the kel carvings on the bow.
“You have a word for murder, so you obviously know what it is,” Andrea said.
“It existed in our past. Before the asteroid devastated our planet, we had a certain number of criminals. The catastrophe inspired us to appreciate life. To survive, we had to work together, to depend on one another. When we banded together, we bonded. Brother does not kill brother.”
“Nobody has ever committed a murder since then?” Tessa asked. “What would happen if you did find a murderer?”
Starr must have thought her question impertinent because she scowled and motioned with her hand.
“No, there hasn’t been a murder in centuries,” I said.
“Armax beat up Yorgav,” Starr said. “And Icha tried to poison me. Those were violent acts—or at least acts of malice.”
“And they were punished—exiled from the tribe.” Had Yorgav died, no tribe would have taken in Armax after I’d banished him. Alone, he would have died in the wilderness.
“Icha!” Tessa glowered. “That horrible woman poisoned you? That’s how she ended up in our camp?”
“Icha is in your tribe?” I asked.
Loka nodded. “Of course the chief accepted her. She is female. Icha did not say why she had been banished, only that she’d had a disagreement.” He fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, revealing something had happened, and if I had to guess, I’d say she’d attempted to seduce Loka.
“There are so many available men. Why does she make a play for the ones who have mates?” Tessa confirmed my hunch. She planted her hands on her hips and glowered. I’d bet Icha had met her match in this female.
I wiped a grin from my face. Loka had enough trouble without me laughing.
“An unattached man is no challenge,” Starr said. “Something easily acquired is not appreciated as much as something that is hard-won.”
And that was precisely why we abhorred violence. Our survival had been hard-fought indeed.
“Let’s not talk about Icha anymore.” Starr glanced at her friends. “Are you ready to leave?”
They agreed. I rolled up Starr’s garment and stowed it in my pack. Groman slung the bow and quiver over his shoulder, and we exited the trading post. The sun had sunk low upon the horizon. Even if we left now, by the time Starr and I reached camp, it would be dark.
“We should head back,” Loka said. He could read the sky as easily as I.
“I know we need to go, but one more place, okay?” Tessa slipped her arm through his. Her smile hinted at mating favors if he complied. Loka’s female had a little bit of Icha in her. Flirtation came naturally, and she used it to her advantage. There was nothing wrong with that as long as one didn’t abuse the power as Icha did.
“One more. But, be quick.” Loka caved.
As I would have if my mate had asked the same of me in the same way, but my practical, now-sober mate said, “I think Torg and I will head back t
o our camp. It’s a bit of a hike, and I don’t relish doing it in the dark.”
“Oh no! It won’t be the same without you and Andrea. Come on, please? I promise I won’t take long!”
Starr looked conflicted. I could tell she wanted to stay. “I would love to, but—”
“Moonrise will be bright this evening,” I conceded. “We should have ample light to travel by if you want to stay a little longer.”
Starr flashed me a smile that said Loka wouldn’t be the only man to get lucky tonight.
“Andrea? Are you in?” Tessa asked.
She looked at Groman, and he nodded. “I’m in,” she said.
“What’s in the other huts?” Tessa asked.
“Those over there are emergency shelters.” Loka pointed to the last two structures in the row. “Camps surround the meeting place at varying distances, so if you are traveling from one to another, you could spend the night here if you needed to.”
“When the council of chiefs meets, sometimes the meetings run long, and some camps are many tripta away, so they board for the night, and go home in the morning.”
“So the huts are like hotel rooms?” Andrea asked.
“I don’t know that word,” Groman said.
The three women glanced at each other. “Hotel,” they said in unison, and laughed.
“I wonder if they rent rooms by the hour.” Tessa winked at her two friends.
“There is no trade required. It is free to whoever needs it,” I explained. “Do you want to see one of those?”
Tessa shook her head. “No, I know what a kel hide bed looks like.”
“That leaves the hut next to the storehouse,” Starr said. “What’s that?”
“The apothecary,” Groman answered.
“You have a pharmacy?”
“We have medicinal herbs available to anyone who might need them.”
“Herbs helped me after Icha poisoned me,” Starr said. “I’d like to see that.”
“Me, too,” Tessa said.
“Okay.” Andrea shrugged, not as eager as the other two females. Since her mate was a healer, she’d probably seen a lot of jars filled with herbs.
Starr and Tessa skipped through the snow toward the apothecary. Like Andrea, I didn’t find a bunch of earthen jars with dried plants interesting, but all this was new to my mate. With Groman and Andrea behind me, I tromped after Starr and Tessa. Loka trailed behind Groman.
