“So it's like an exterior womb.”
“Yes, very much so. In fact, some issyrians envy your women because of the interior gestation period. We must watch our young grow outside of ourselves.”
“I could introduce you to a few woman who would trade in a heartbeat,” Jake laughed quietly.
“Oh, that's right, I've heard about your birthing ritual. But yes, to answer your question, it is like a womb, only an old household clutch can be the size of a small lake, cleaning the water there, providing homes for the injured, aged and a place of peace for the entire family. It is why we are not so common past our own system of stars, as long as we are near a friendly clutch most injuries can be healed quickly and once one of my kind grows very old, such as myself, I can return to be with the young and rejuvenate myself.”
“How long would you go back in?”
“I am of House Londa, we have a very old clutch so I could remain there for as long as I like, but I think I would miss the galaxy before long. I would remain inside with my young for two of your years after they hatch. Then after another decade of air breathing I might want to take them travelling, perhaps deliveries again but closer to our home worlds.”
“Congratulations,” Jake said with a smile. It was strange saying it to someone who looked like an aged man, but he knew that either the men or women of his race could carry embryos. There was even a subspecies that was fully asexual.
“Thank you, my young have been dormant for fourteen of your months though. I feel foolish for putting my return off for so long.”
“It happens to my people too. Couples who put off having children so they have more time for their careers. We're lucky to have some regenerative technology that lets us have them further along, but it doesn't work for everyone.”
“I really know so little about your people despite your cultural need to flaunt your duality.”
Jake gave him a confused look. “Duality?”
“Your advertising, it seems they use sexuality to sell everything.”
Jake chuckled and nodded. “Yup, it didn't take us long to realize that when you pair a product with one of our base desires it makes it easier to sell. There are days I wish we were a bit more like issyrians, I could do without the drama.”
“I've heard there are benefits,” Din prodded with an impish grin.
“Oh, there are. Maybe I'll tell you about it some other time, looks like our rest shift is ending early,” Jake said with a nod to a short female nafalli walking between the two rows of cots.
Her hand shook the foot of each person resting as she passed. She stopped at the foot of Jake and Dindamen's cots. “They've broken through into the old subway tunnel and we're about to blow up the way behind,” her squeaky high voice said through a smile.
“Thank you Nibuna, tell your father we'll be there right away,” Dindamen replied.
“Okay, see you there!” she said with unexpected enthusiasm.
Jake looked at Din as they stood and he put his gun belt and long coat on. “Let me guess, she's Alaka's daughter?”
“Yes, insuppressible spirit. I think everyone in the mountain has come to love that one.”
“I can see why, she's so cheery my teeth hurt.”
Din burst into a short chortle; “what an unusual expression, I'll have to use it sometime.”
The pair made their way out into the tunnel, one side was piled with debris from the intentional collapse, and even though there was hundreds of tons of rubble between them and the commerce building two of the younger armed refugees kept watch, listening closely for the sounds of digging equipment from the other side. They were packing up, the small folding table that had been placed there had been roped to one of their backs along with the small matching chair. From what he could see in the dim light their mood was light, they were happy to move on.
Just around the first corner in the tunnel was Alaka and all the other refugees, only sixty one of them not including the rear guard. A lot of smiles flashed up at him as he passed by and Jacob's suspicious nature told him that people had been talking while he was trying to get some rest.
The crowd parted for him as he approached and he made his way to the front with Nibuna close behind. The rest of the people who had been sleeping in the makeshift barracks dispersed into the crowd of hundreds as it quieted.
Jake closed the distance between Alaka and himself. There were others around, the ones he'd seen taking charge of different tasks here and there, and they were all working a makeshift pulley to lower people down into the tunnel below into a circle of three centimetre long disposable lights. Jake had given them a small box of them from his long coat, leaving him with his command and control unit as well as the light on his stolen sidearm and rifle, more than enough.
The small box contained fifty of the small throw away lights, they would burn for up to a thousand hours unless someone deactivated them, and once the chemicals inside were expended the thin casing left would decompose in a matter of hours, leaving nothing but water behind. Jake looked at the situation at the hole and suddenly didn't feel bad for not lending a hand. There were so many people standing around, ready to lend a hand that there was barely enough room for the rope ladder most of the more able people used to climb down. The younger and less able refugees were being lowered. He took a position behind Alaka, relieving someone helping him lower people down.
“Good morning,” Alaka said as he noticed Jake lending a hand.
“Good morning, call me paranoid but it looks like someone's been singing my praises.”
Alaka quietly chuckled, a sound that started deep in his chest and was muffled by his snout and large frame. “I'm afraid so. The West Keeper defectors, Namic and Terrance have been talking about the advisory on you, how the West Watchers placed a notice to look out and avoid you instead of putting a bounty on your head or sending squads after you. They see you as a very dangerous man. Word has spread of you returning from the dead too, and that's made quite an impression.”
“That's something I would have rather kept quiet.”
Alaka simply nodded and they worked on for several minutes before either man said anything. “So how did it feel?” he asked finally.
“How did what feel?”
“Dying.”
Jake hesitated. He wasn't offended, just quietly surprised at the question and eventually answered; “Painful.”
The much larger fellow's laughter shattered the relative silence of the cavernous main transit tunnel and it was joined immediately by the mirth of everyone who overheard.
When it subsided Jake went on. “I've died twice that I know of now. Both times I was shot more than once. You know how the movies make it look like shock sets in and most of the pain goes away?”
“I've seen it.”
“That didn't happen.”
“Ah. Do you remember anything?”
“I remember thinking how crappy the armour they give West Keepers is.”
A few of the people listening couldn't help but laugh along, Alaka pressed on after it subsided. “I mean after.”