Captain Drago had empty containers converted to habitat for the Iteeche. One boffin kitchen became the Iteeche’s, along with a human helper to operate the unfamiliar equipment. Extremely large showers and unusual-shaped necessary facilities were all plumbed in and working within twelve hours.
It was truly amazing what the lab techs and the Wasp’s crew could do when they put their minds to it.
And having Iteeche on board seemed to fascinate most everyone. There were a few grumblers, folks who’d lost family in the Iteeche War and hadn’t forgotten. They were identified by the next day and referred to counseling. None were found to be a risk to themselves or anyone else on board.
Jack posted double guards at all hatches to Iteeche country, then installed security cameras and posted a double watch on their monitors, with a reaction team standing by close at hand.
Kris was sure she had everything well in hand when the Wasp jumped out of the system. The Iteeche ship was blasting for a distant jump on the other side of the system. It would return to the system at eleven-day intervals. Things were going good.
11
Kris invited Ron to the forward lounge to watch their first jump. Normally, she would be on the bridge, but she and Captain Drago were in agreement. No Iteeche on the bridge. So long as they didn’t know about the extra jumps humans had found, and the equipment that let them not only discover the jumps but spot the spoofing that the Iteeche used to fool human weapons range finders, the bridge was off-limits.
Besides, the lounge was more private.
There were a few couples in the lounge when they arrived. Whether it was the seven-foot-tall, four-legged Iteeche, or the two Marines that trailed them in, one human, one Iteeche, Kris wasn’t sure, but all three couples beat a hasty retreat not five minutes after Kris’s strange parade entered.
The Marines settled down in the back of the lounge, near the door, and a good twenty feet from each other. That left Kris and Ron the entire forward section and its view ports. Kris found a comfortable chair. Ron unrolled a thick green rug, settled it on the floor next to her, and did that bending thing with his eight knees that got him comfortable.
“You always watch me when I go to rest.”
“It’s your knees. I’ve never seen anything like them in all human space.”
“You will excuse me if I don’t get excited about them. They’ve worked that way since I first came on land.” Ron was a comfortable pink at his neck.
“Came on land?” Kris echoed. She’d read . . . and reread . . . everything known about the Iteeche. She knew that the species had only evolved out of the oceans fifty or sixty million years ago. Historical reports said nothing about individuals starting in water.
Suddenly, Ron was flashing red and green at her. “I don’t know, but that might be a state secret.”
“What, that your kids are pollywogs, swimming in water. Is that what choosing means? You have to be chosen to come onshore?” That was a stab in the dark, but it was an educated stab. This “chosen of a chosen” had to mean something.
Here was a chance to find out.
Assuming if he told her he wouldn’t have to kill her.
That wasn’t likely.
Really.
Kris held her breath.
“If my chooser is right, and our future lies along a path with you humans, then we are going to have to find out more about each other. And it is not possible to keep you ignorant of such a common thing. Yes, my egg was fertilized and hatched in the ocean waters of the planet of my birth. I swam in the shallows as I grew. Then I was chosen to come onto land and enter the social group, you might call it family, of my chooser.” Ron’s hind legs shivered as he finished, as if he wanted to run.
Kris spoke slowly. “I guess I’m glad to know that, though I don’t see how it makes any difference. You survived growing up. I survived growing up. High school is hell on every planet.” She half laughed. “What would have happened if you hadn’t been chosen?”
Ron’s skin turned back to pink as he took a deep breath, but a couple of slits still showed white. “I would have continued to swim, eating smaller fish until I was eaten by a bigger fish. Isn’t that the way of all life?” He managed what almost sounded like a human laugh.
WONDER how LONG he’s Been PRACTICING THAT LAUGH in FRONT of The Mirror, Nelly thought to Kris.
I DON’T know, BUT I HAVE a FEELING his CHILDHOOD was EVEN More hellish Than Mine.
I WOULDN’T BET AGAINST you on THAT.
Kris smiled to hide her thoughts and keep a shiver from going up her back.
Ron reached out and ran a hand through Kris’s hair. “I have always wondered what that would feel like,” he said.
“My hair?”
“Not your hair, but any hair. We don’t have hair. You humans seem to have it all over.”
“Men more than women.”
“It seems very strange. Your human men sometimes shave their heads. Women shave the hair in their armpits”—he pointed—“and . . .” Kris grabbed his hand before it could point lower down.
“We don’t talk about the other places we have hair.”
“Oh, why?”
“You cover some parts of your bodies with clothes. We cover some parts of ours. What we cover, we don’t usually talk about.”
Now Ron showed green, with flicks of gold. “We cover ourselves as befitting our rank. A just-landed immature has no rank and covers nothing. Only as we attain status do we gain the right to cover ourselves from the sight of lesser ranks.”
“So, if you went in to see the Emperor, you’d go in bare-ass naked?”
Ron’s eyes widened, all four of them. “I never thought of that. Of course we do not. There are always guards and servants. People of lesser status, so of course we have the honor of showing our family status.”
“This is all very interesting,” Kris said, choosing her words carefully. “Interesting” was hardly the word she felt. Confusing, involved, crazy even. She had considered her family as all-encompassing while growing up. She’d faced nothing like Ron’s family burden.
Then Kris tried but failed to suppress a giggle. Teresa de Alva’s getup had probably made her the lowest-status person in the bunch of fake courtiers Kris had.
Of course, Kris would never let that out.
Like hell Kris would never let that out. She could hardly wait to tell Abby. And Abby would, of course, swear it to eternal secrecy, and have the word through the ship within a day and throughout human space in, say, two weeks.
Having a gossip columnist/spy for a maid did have an upside.
“All hands, we are approaching our jump. Zero gee in five, four, three, two, one.”
Kris’s chair was locked down, she held on to its armrests. Ron put two arms around her and held on. In a moment it turned into a hug. A rather good hug.
Kris rested her head on his shoulder. It was a bit bony, but it had been a while since she’d had a shoulder to lean on. Nice.
“How long will this take?” Ron asked.
“It depends,” Kris said. What she wanted to say was not long enough. “With you aboard, I expect Captain Drago will go through jumps supercarefully. Say just a few kilometers an hour and rock steady. I haven’t given away a secret, have I?”
“No, we have bad jumps, too. I would have thought with your supercomputing machines, you might have figured out how to forecast the movement of these jump points.”
“No such luck.”
“Jump in five, four, three, two, one.”
Kris felt a touch of dizziness. Ron closed his eyes and Kris felt his entire body tense beside her. This went on long after Kris had recovered.