by Mark Wandrey
“Idiot,” Rex snorted, then interrupted himself by breathing in again, more deeply.
“Clan has a scent,” Isgono confirmed, looking steadily at each of them, somehow.
“How many years?” Drake asked, filing that fact away. Interesting, sure, but until a handful of weeks ago, he’d never smelled a Zuul not of his family, so it felt of limited use for the moment. “How many years,” he continued, clarifying when Isgono didn’t react and Shadow didn’t seem to have a helpful interjection, “since our clan has been considered dead?”
“How old are you?”
“Fourteen Human years.” Drake’s lip curled slightly, the old Zuul’s utter calm nearly as infuriating as Shadow himself.
“Fourteen Human years,” Isgono repeated. When Drake’s lip curled further, he sighed. “That is the answer to your question, Earth pup. Your clan has been considered dead since the contract when the Humans took you. There had been many losses. After much searching, after we received the report from the Mercenary Guild, that contract was believed to be the final one.”
“That’s why no one looked for us,” Sonya murmured so low, even their parents might have missed it, but Isgono’s ear twitched toward her.
“We looked, but on Gephard. Never could we have guessed you were born and that you went with Humans.”
“We didn’t have much of a choice, Isgono.” Ripley’s tail lashed, but she stilled it before it threw her from her seat. “The clan must have thought it a valid option.”
“And our parents—the Humans—they sent a message.” Sonya flattened her ears, something in the tone or conversation itself not sitting well with her.
“They sent a message to a Zuul world.” Isgono lifted a shoulder and gestured again at the images. “If they had reached Ja, or Zi perhaps, someone would have been able to get the word to the right place. But with the loss of your clan and so very many Zuul worlds…” He shook his head, the gesture heavy.
“So Ja is your world?” Drake asked, moving them away from what felt like an important, but too sad, conversation. He wasn’t in the mood.
“Ja is the world, Earth pups. Humans are new to colonies, and prize Earth still, yes? This is why the fight with the Mercenary Guild became so…personal. Then perhaps you will understand some piece of it.” He glanced back at the hilly image behind him, then settled his hands behind his back and faced them fully once more.
“Zuul have had colonies longer than Humans have had writing, and we have had Ja since there have been Zuul. We have many colonies, many for so long other beings consider them the birthplace of Zuul.”
“But Ja is the Zuul homeworld.” Shadow gazed on the still images as though he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Drake wrinkled his nose, but flicked an ear and smoothed out his features. Maybe something they would learn would be interesting.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Sonya admitted. She hadn’t been the sibling to do the most hunting of the GalNet, but even Drake knew she’d done a fair amount.
“Ja is for Zuul. Other beings believe Zi is our home world, though it is our oldest colony and there is no reason for any other being to believe differently.”
“Meaning you don’t want us to mention this to our parents or the other Humans,” Rex said, picking up on it faster than any of them.
“They are not Zuul.” Again, Isgono lifted a shoulder, dismissively this time. “You could mention it, but to what end? They are very unlikely to find it. If somehow they did, they would risk their survival landing on it. And were they to know of it, I would know I could not trust you with other facts of your people. Things that are yours by right, if you choose your clan, and not at all if you remain Earth pups.”
“Our clan is dead.” Sonya’s voice, stiff enough to raise Drake’s hackles in sympathy, cut across Isgono’s calm and made even the old Zuul blink. Her ears flattened close to her skull, and even Ripley didn’t reach out to attempt to soothe her.
“And yet I scent it on the wind.”
Drake listened to the flow of those words, letting the translator register, but focusing on the Zuul’s language itself. That phrase had a heaviness to it, one that resonated down his spine.
“If you choose to learn of your clan, of your people, of your homeland, meet me here every day after the morning drill. For now, turn off your translators. We will practice as we do with the very young.” Isgono made no gesture Drake could see, but the wall screens immediately changed and the air took on a new scent.
Drake lifted his nose, trying to identify the new scents, and realized two things. One, the Zuul had pinplants, which he supposed shouldn’t be too shocking. Two, and suddenly of far more interest, he controlled the airflow in this room, to flood with scent or take it away. Innocuously, that meant smell would be a part of their learning.
From a race of beings who’d practiced war for millennia, such a thing also served as a warning. If Isgono could change the scent of a room, he could possibly change the composition as well. Could be friendly, could be deadly, could be quite a bit in between.
Drake, for possibly the first time in years, determined to be on his best behavior. Learn first, act later.
* * *
“Earth pups!”
Sonya closed her eyes briefly before turning. She was getting really sick of the nickname, but this particular Zuul said it with such enthusiasm—and a strong attempt at speaking Human—that it would have been far too rude to snap at him.
“Kobo Ask’sha,” she said, getting the inflection nearly right.
The new Zuul’s jaw dropped, and his tail swung in a cheerful grin. “We’re on a Zuul ship, I know what you are, you know what I am. No need to be so formal.” Before they could answer, he cocked his head, one ear flipping to the side. “You’ve been spending time with Isgono.” He made a low grunt that reminded Sonya of nothing so much as Dailey’s impressed whistle. “A Sei from Cho’Hosh took an interest—making your way in the worlds. You must be something impressive. Maybe I shouldn’t call you Earth pups after all.”
“You could introduce yourself,” Sonya said once her translator and brain caught up to the different things he’d said. “And we could do the same.”
“Oh, we all know who you are. Mystery clan pups, born on a contract, raised by the enemy.” There was a boundless excitement in his voice that the translator couldn’t replicate, but carried through after their hours with Isgono.
“Humans aren’t the enemy,” Drake replied, though his ears remained too soft for him to have taken offense.
“Not yours. But fight ‘em on a contract a few times and try to tell me that. Clever monkeys, aren’t they?” He shrugged, eyes shining with good humor, then spread his hands at them before re-securing himself on his handhold. “Didn’t introduce myself. Right. Let me meet formal with formal—Kuru, of Insho’Ze. Fi-Ke Ja-Insho’Ze: Hoat, P’kaf, Zal.” He bared his throat to them, somewhat ruining the formality of it with his lolling smile.
The translator didn’t even try, and Sonya glanced at Shadow and Ripley, closest to her, to see if anyone had picked up more than she had.
“Oh, not that much time with the Sei yet. Apologies.” He flicked his ears back and toward them again, holding each direction slightly longer than Sonya knew she or her siblings did when mildly embarrassed. Either he was really embarrassed, which the rest of his posture didn’t indicate, or that was a Zuul ‘sorry.’
“Just the one conversation so far,” Rex interjected, angling himself fully toward the other male. He didn’t bare his throat, and Sonya floated forward before her largest brother pushed the issue.
“Isgono encouraged us to learn from anyone on the ship and said the Paku’s crew would be happy to work with us. Maybe try that one again and then you can tell us what you needed?”
“Oh, needed.” He snorted dismissively. “Wanted to invite you to sparring drills, if you were interested. Everyone wants to see how Earth Zuul fight. We have a tie between Zi and Ja, and wanted to see if you could flip the rankings.
”
“Home world Ja, oldest colony Zi,” Ripley murmured, and Sonya saw her sister drop her jaw in an answering smile.
“Isgono has priorities, I see. Very well. Will you come spar? I can explain on the way.” He jerked his head back the way he’d come, an entirely different direction from which they’d left Isgono.
Sonya glanced at Rex, though she couldn’t imagine a world in which he turned that down.
“We can at least see what you’re all about,” Ripley offered, pointedly not looking at Rex.
“Let’s do that,” Rex said after a moment. His voice was level, but Sonya didn’t have to see his tail to know how much he wanted to spar with other Zuul. No holding back like they had to with Humans. Like Rex did, even for his siblings. Maybe not Drake, but Sonya didn’t pretend to understand their dynamic half the time.
“Excellent. This way, Earth pups.” The other Zuul did a neat flick of his tail and spun around, keeping his pace slow enough for the pack to fall in step with him.
“All right, Kuru of Insho’Ze. What were the rest of those words?” Shadow asked, trailing the group by only a half-step.
“Formality. I introduced the whole of me. Usually we use it in descriptions, to ensure others know who we’re talking about. In extremely fancy settings, we might introduce ourselves that way, in case we weren’t close enough to exchange scents, or in space-worthy suits that don’t allow for such things.” Kuru’s tail brushed side to side, not enough to visibly change his balance. “Fi-Ke, Ja-Insho’Ze—I am a soldier, Fi, and male, Ke. I am of the Insho’Ze clan of Ja—Ja-Insho’Ze. Other Zuul would know my ancestry fairly well, were they properly familiar with Ja.”
“That becomes important, given how many Zuul worlds there are?” Sonya asked, considering all the modifiers.
“Becomes? Always is and has been. Some worlds are so old they no longer remember where they were from, choosing different traditions and paths so many generations ago, they believe that was always the way.” Kuru snorted, lifted a shoulder, and flicked his ears. “Some worlds are so young it is the same. It can be easy to lose the scent on the wind, among the stars. Some Sei’Shin lost their path, and their worlds followed.”
Sonya didn’t know which piece she wanted to ask first. Before she could untangle her thoughts, Ripley forged ahead.
“And the others? Hot, kaf, zal?”
“Hoat, P’kaf, Zal are my three dominant scents,” he corrected her easily, and Sonya saw him sleek down his dark red-brown fur. She clenched her jaw to keep from smiling but filed it away to tease her sister later. “Saying them brings the smell to any Zuul nose, even if they can’t scent me themselves.”
Kuru looked around at them, eager as ever, and saw the lack of comprehension. “The Sei didn’t share scents yet? No, Earth pups, I am no teacher. I’ll leave that to him. I’m a soldier, and I’ve heard you are too. Let’s talk about that!”
“How many contracts have you been out on?” Drake asked, using the Zuul word for contract.
“Six,” Kuru answered guiding them down a new corridor. “Though two were training and clean-up for my clan. Four properly. To the end of the hall and up the tube, make your way.” He gestured them along, tail waving.
Sonya floated ahead, half listening to the conversation of battles and contracts. The corridor continued, bending into another curve, but she tipped her head back rather than taking the turn. Above and below her stretched a small corridor, studded not with rungs but small projections in the wall. She cocked her head and studied it while the rest of the group caught up, then dropped her jaw in a grin.
Steadying herself on a handhold, she crouched slightly, then shoved upward and let go to fly almost straight up into the corridor. The small projections gave her exactly enough leverage to continue her momentum, and she spun and pushed and ricocheted without thinking about it.
Small howls of appreciation followed her. In the utter joy of motion, she forgot she might have a destination. Barely in time, she caught a flicker of motion, and slowed herself with two hands and a solid boot in the wall.
An arm—a Zuul arm—thrust out again from an opening above, and she aimed for it without question. A hand clasped her arm, and another came to meet it, pulling her out of the conduit and passing her fully into the new hall.
“Well done, Sonya!” one of the five Zuul in the hall called, and they snapped their jaws in approval.
Not Earth pup? She’d take it.
She watched with interest as the lead Zuul darted into and out of the opening of the conduit. A bit like a dance—signaling the stopping point, getting out of the way, and then throwing out an anchor for the moving bodies to use.
“Conduit’s just for fun and exercise when we’re in zero G for a while,” a voice behind her said.
She turned her head, missing Rex’s arrival, taking in the large white and brown Zuul who’d spoken. Roughly the same size as Kuru, he had broader shoulders and deep scars across his muzzle and neck where no fur grew. His golden eyes regarded her with amusement, and she turned her head back to watch Drake bounce in. Drake missed the arm and sailed through, looking too delighted for it to have been an accident.
“That makes sense. I thought it wasn’t as practical as a lift.”
“Pups need a way to bleed off energy in hyperspace, and all of us need to stay in shape for what waits on the other side of a gate.”
“Are they all over the ship?”
“There are a few. They have different patterns and obstacles. You seemed well suited to this one.”
“It’s a little like a wraparound rock wall,” she said, before realizing he’d have no idea what that was. Sonya shrugged and glanced at him again. “Climbing you can do on Earth. We used to race.”
“Perhaps your Earth raising was not so different after all. Did you race for prey or prizes?”
“You chase prey on board?”
His laugh rumbled low in his chest. “My answer is dependent upon your definition of prey. The gym is this way,” he gestured behind them, “if you’d still like to join?”
Kuru landed last, with a neat flip that received a round of thrumming approval. She wondered if that ranked higher or lower than the jaw snap, or her siblings’ small howls. Probably higher, she acknowledged (if only to herself). The flip had been pretty good.
“That didn’t suck,” Drake said, shouldering against Sonya while regarding the other large Zuul. “You our sparring buddy?”
“You have rounds to go before you face me, Drake.” He dropped his scarred jaw slightly, and gestured them ahead.
“Everyone here is Insho’Ze?” Shadow asked behind them, though the now-crowded corridor filled with sound that made it hard to hear the answer.
Sonya’s translator gave up, with at least eight different conversations happening around her, and so she looked at Drake, knocking his shoulder back with hers.
“Make up for surfing?”
“Nothing makes up for surfing.” His voice had less snap to it than usual. “But I can do some conduit runs for awhile without getting bored. Kuru’s flip was ok.”
“Your speed was more impressive.” She preferred to needle Drake rather than offer him praise, but the latter seemed more fitting in the moment.
“Right?” He grinned, ignoring the chuff of either agreement or amusement from the large Zuul just behind them. “You took to it right away. Ripper, Sun.”
“Piece of piss,” she replied, and laughed with both her brother and the Zuul whose name she didn’t know yet.
A door opened ahead, a new swell of noise meeting the chatter of the hall, and Sonya might have paused to take in the space if there weren’t ten Zuul behind her. She’d never been in a large group of her own people before, and though she didn’t know the language, it both soothed her and sent her nerves jangling. She couldn’t make sense of the dissonance, so she shoved it away.
Tens of Zuul spun around a room nearly as enormous as the CASPer bay. Crates had been secured at various heights to provide
cover and redirection points. Other Zuul lingered around the edges, banging fists against the wall or shouting encouragement to their fellows. A huge pipe went down the center of the room. Judging by the insulation, it was a fuel line, or maybe one of the main power pathways.
Unlike the conduit, Sonya couldn’t instinctively make sense of the rules or teams. It seemed more organized than a zero G melee, but she couldn’t have even said why she thought that. There were two balls involved, not just one. It appeared a team could only have one of the two balls in hand at a time, but could deflect the other or knock it around with precision, if possible.
There were niches and cubbyholes all throughout the space. A light would light behind one, seemingly randomly, and small howls indicated a ‘point’ for putting the ball into a lighted cubby, while nothing came of hitting an unlighted one. Strangely, it seemed to be more important to get the other team’s ball in a lighted cubby, possibly because the other Zuul weren’t grabbing it, only hitting to deflect it. There was a lot of hitting, blocking, and general trashtalk going on—that much was clear even without the translator’s help.
Oh, the boys back in Oz would love this game.
As if all that weren’t enough, there appeared to be a system for subsituting players, though she had no idea how it worked. Bonus—the spectators could knock a ball flying whichever way they wanted if it passed them. In the few seconds she observed, one spectator grabbed the ball and two players had to fight to get it back while the other team scored. She turned slightly to find Rex, and sure enough his eyes were locked on the moving figures connecting and spinning through the center of the open space. He figured this out the way she’d figured out the conduit.
“I am Makori, the onnogo for today’s Eshtoo.” The large white and brown Zuul gestured behind and above them. Sonya’s translator offered coach and referee for onnogo, and she filed it to ask Isgono. “These are the rules. This match is zero G grappling and scoring, no weapons. The aim is to get your opponent to submit, either by grappling or an overwhelming lead of points. If you lose contact with a wall and cannot get back, you must leave the game for five minutes. Twice, and you are out of the match. If you lose contact, you are an obstacle on the field.” Without looking, he gestured at a brightly colored Zuul whose entire body had become a shield or battering ram for two other Zuuls’ charge.
