“Hey,” he said, his voice warm. “What’s up?”
I hesitated. This was kind of stupid. I could see him. He was right there. But we’ve been so busy these last few days. Normally we spent our time together. We weren’t glued at the hip, but we usually ate together. We did chores together. At night we settled into a comfortable room I made for us off our new joint bedroom, and we played video games or watched TV with Beast and Olasard.
We hadn’t been able to do any of that. I felt like I barely saw him, which was somehow worse than not having him here at all, like when he went on his excursions with Wilmos. I missed him but saying it out loud seemed too needy.
“Are you okay?”
“I miss you,” he said.
“I miss you, too.”
“Young love,” Gaston purred.
“Disgusting,” Tony said with mock derision. “If it wasn’t for the mission, I would mute you both.”
A trumpet-like sound pulsed through the arena, announcing the end of the break.
Surkar of the otrokars stared at Oond in his fishbowl. This was clearly not the opponent he would’ve preferred. Too bad for him. The orbs had been set up at random. Even I didn’t know which was which.
“Am I supposed to debate a fish?” he demanded.
“Xenophobia has never led anyone to a path of enlightenment,” the First Scholar told him.
Surkar raised his eyes to the sky briefly, as if inviting the sun to witness his tribulations. He was about to debate a space fish, and their discussion would be presided on by a space chicken. This was not a trial appropriate to his stature. His hero-of-the-Horde image was taking a bit of a beating, but throwing a fit about it would make him look like a fussy baby and he knew it.
“Ask your question,” he growled.
“What is best in life?” the First Scholar announced. “You have one hundred moments to consider.”
Oh, sweet Universe. “Sean, I know it was you,” I whispered.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sean said.
“We just rewatched that movie a month ago.”
“Let’s see what he says.”
Surkar straightened his shoulders, as if he was going into battle on familiar ground and just noticed a gap in the enemy’s line.
“To crush your enemies,” Sean mumbled in a horrible imitation of an Austrian accent. “See them driven…”
“He isn’t going to say it. There is no way.” There were few things that I was willing to bet my life on, but Surkar of the Hope Crushing Horde not having seen Conan the Barbarian was one of them.
The First Scholar’s egg turned white.
“Victory,” Surkar announced.
Oond spread his fins and let them float down gently like delicate veils thrown into a breeze. His translator flashed, and a soft voice issued forth from the speakers in the base of his fishbowl. “Safety.”
“Victory is the only way to achieve safety,” the otrokar champion growled. “Crush your enemies.”
Sean made a strangled noise in my ear. Tony snorted.
“Slaughter their armies. Drive them back. Force them to submit. Fill their hearts with fear and dominate their minds, so they tremble at the mere mention of your name. That’s how you ensure safety.”
Oond’s fins wavered back and forth. “Untrue.”
Surkar glowered. “What does a fish know of battle or honor?”
Oond’s fins unfurled, twisted, and snapped. “I know of deep water. I have tasted the darkness so thick and cold, it blinds all senses, a place without a current where no direction exists. I have witnessed the things who live within it. I have seen the jaws of monsters who span the length of the ocean. I know the value of safety. No matter how powerful you are, there are enemies one cannot crush.”
“Spoken like a coward.”
“You seek to belittle me. Have you swum in the deep water? Can you kill a leviathan?”
Surkar shrugged. “Fine. How do your people obtain safety? Enlighten me.”
“Within the ocean, there are vast corals reefs. A coral grows slowly through the efforts of tiny creatures, and yet over the years it spreads and shelters other lives. Fish dart around it, playing and feeding; mollusks crawl, cleaning up the ocean floor; dozens of species feed, live, and reproduce within its growth, and, should a predator appear, they will withdraw within the coral’s sturdy walls and most of them will survive. If you wish to secure safety, you must become a coral. Help others. Make yourself indispensable to them. Show them that apart you struggle but together you prosper.”
Surkar sneered. “That’s the way slaves are made. Make yourself indispensable, and those who are stronger will chain you to serve them. Why should they respect you or care about your wellbeing, if they can simply force you to do their bidding? Without the power of retaliation, none of your talents matter. You will become the lowest of the low, doomed to a wretched existence. No. My people will not live like this. I cherish my freedom. I will not set it aside. I will not cower.”
“Untrue.”
“I don’t lie, fish. I have no need. I’m strong enough to force others to suffer through the discomfort of my true words.”
“Kill your enemies,” Oond’s translator said, its voice soft and sad. “Murder parents. Slaughter offspring. You cannot grow safety this way. You grow memories. They sprout deep in the bellies of the survivors, like sea urchins covered in spikes. They hurt and hurt until those you have crushed return to crush you and rip the source of their pain out.”
Surkar bared his teeth. “They will regret it.”
“And then the eggs of pain will be sown again. In turn your people will grow their own anguish and will seek revenge. And so it will go, a cycle of pain never ending.”
“The crucible of revenge makes us strong,” Surkar said. “I had six siblings. The war took four. Only my brother and I remain. We are the strongest of our clan. By achieving victory, we proved our right to live.”
Tiny sparks of light ignited along the oombole’s fins and body. Oond turned within his fishbowl, drawing a complete circle. It was a breathtaking sight, yellow and red lights sliding through his layered fins, graceful and beautiful. He raised his fins, lowered them, and turned again, like a living flame.
The arena watched in hushed silence.
The mesmerizing fins flowed. The light pulsed, gentle and beautiful.
“What is he doing?” Surkar asked.
“He is dancing for you,” Sean told him.
“Why?”
“You are a child of pain,” Oond’s translator said. “You have suffered. This is a small gift. A moment free of anguish.”
Surkar stared at him for a long moment. “A pretty dance. A pity that dances don’t win wars. I’ll give you a piece of advice: when the enemy comes for the lives of your children, gather them and run away to your coral. Don’t waste time on dancing.”
He turned to the First Scholar. “This farce is over.”
“Very well,” the First Scholar said.
“Do the oomboles have professions in the traditional sense of the word?” Kosandion asked.
“Yes,” I told him. “Oond is an ookarish, an exceptionally beautiful being whose job is to dance for those who are aggrieved.”
Cyanide was next. The beautiful sleek Higgra padded into the arena on her big paws, looking very much like a mythical cousin of a terrestrial snow leopard.
Most species evolved appendages that allowed them to manipulate tools. The Higgra did not. They still walked on all fours, sitting on their haunches or lying down in specialized tool chairs when they had to do something intricate. Their digits were dexterous, but it was their claws that truly made their tool-use possible. Long and curved, they allowed for extreme precision. A Higgra could pluck a yolk out of an egg and carry it across a mile of rough terrain without breaking it. It was theorized that the Higgra didn’t evolve at all but had been enhanced by some advanced civilization lost to time. Their origins were one of the mysteries of the galaxy.