(originally published in Uncommon Lands)
Easing back on the thrust, I squinted at the landing zone far below me on the planet's surface. Something weird was going on. If I turned my head one way, the black square seemed to rise up into the air. If I turned it the other way, misty purple auras emanated from the landing zone, blurring its edges. What the hell? I grimaced and tapped on the navpad to make sure I wasn’t coming in on a weird angle. The gravity on Beto was supposed to be just a touch below Standard, and I’d just shut off my ship’s imperfect Standard plus-two. Could be that I was having a gravity-lurch and getting my horizon wrong—but, then again, I had twenty ots of flying rust buckets under my belt, and I hadn’t lurched since I was a rookie. Didn’t hurt to get a second opinion, though.
“Hey, Lala . . . how do I look?”
“Like a man in need of a shave,” the ship quipped back in her mellifluous Grao accent. “But if you’re talking entry, you’re looking just fine Drayan . . . though, we’d be wheels down faster if you’d let me take the controls.”
“I’ve got it,” I muttered. I flicked on the landing fog lights to get a better view, but that did nothing for the wobbling, ill-defined target, and I considered letting Lala land herself, despite her penchant for dropping like a rock with little regard for the tender meat sitting inside her metal guts—a wrenched neck was nothing compared to becoming a smear on an alien world.
Suddenly the cabin was filled with a high-pitched whine, and I winced in pain, shaking my head as I controlled the ship’s descent.
“What the hell is that noise?”
“What noise?” asked Lala. “I’m not picking up anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, Drayan. My sensors don’t detect any noise besides the usual. Maybe you can describe it?”
“Like—” I ground my teeth, tears forming in my eyes from the agony building in my skull “—like a whistle. Or hissing. Or . . . someone screaming.” I realized the sound was different in each ear, and it was drilling right into the center of my brain. “You’re telling me you can’t hear anything?”
“Maybe you’re having some kind of mental breakdown.” Lala sounded smug. “Maybe you’re dying.”
“Maybe your sensors aren’t worth shit.”
“Maybe you’re the grepslat who can’t afford to upgrade me.”
Ignoring the insult, I just rasped, “Lala, just tell Sitik I need him here now.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
A few seconds later, the huge shaggy form of my first mate appeared at the hatch.
“Sitik. Tell me you can hear this.”
“Neg, Dray. I gen no whachoo mean, doudou,” the Rakka replied in his deep, gravelly voice, staring at me quizzically with his forward-facing eye. “You right-a, Dray?”
“No, I’m not all right,” I replied through clenched teeth. My vision was blurring and overlapping, just like I’d had too much to drink. Maybe Lala was right. Maybe I was dying. “I can’t see . . . and . . . and shit, strap in, Sitik. I’m going to let Lala take over.”
“Kep shekep!” Sitik swore as he thunked down into the seat next to me, snapping the restraints over his furry bulk. “Lala missama’am, you care wichoo crew, yea-oh?”
“Of course, honey,” Lala replied. “Drayan?”
“Go for it,” I gasped, giving her control. Then I leaned over, puked on the decking next to my feet, and passed out.
+
The first time I woke up, it was only long enough to see that we had landed and were still in one piece and that Sitik was staring down at me. I convulsed, puked again, then promptly lost consciousness.
+
The second time, I waited before peeling my eyes open. It seemed like the screaming in my ears had dulled a bit. If it wasn’t just in my head, that meant either I was getting used to it or I was losing my hearing. However, I could clearly hear Sitik and Lala discussing my condition in rapid Outer-ring pidgin, and I was amazed to hear concern in the ship’s voice—she claimed to dislike me about as much as she loved the big Rakka.
Slowly I opened my eyes and instantly regretted it. My first impression was of being inside a big, reflective soap bubble while simultaneously swirling around in a lake of burning potassium. The worse part, however, was that my left eye couldn’t agree with what my right eye was seeing, so I clamped my eyelids down tight and retreated to the stability of darkness.
“Hey-a Dray,” Sitik said softly, and I could feel him settling down next to me on the cold metal surface. We were still in the ship, but from the amount of space around me, I figured I was lying on the floor of the cargo bay.
“Sitik, what the hell is going on?”
“I gen you Earthing part no gon’ good wit Beto, yea-oh?”
I put my hands over my face, massaging around my eyes—I was still incredibly nauseous, so I didn’t dare move more than that—and tried to recall the minimal amount I’d read about Beto. It was the fourth planet from the orange dwarf star Chyron, had a passably breathable atmosphere and no plant life to speak of but had nutrient-rich “sap springs” that sustained life, and the sentient beings were friendly but somewhat curt . . . then, with a sinking feeling, I remembered the part about atmospheric wave-length and interspace distortions. I’d figured they were things that would affect the ship, not me.
“Shekep,” I said, my throat raw. “That’ll teach me to ignore the fine print.” It had seemed like such an easy job. Pick up a little metal box from Vedescendart IX and deliver it to the leaders of Beto as a peace offering and make a short speech. I hadn’t figured on puking up my guts and passing out in the process. How was I going to complete the job if I couldn’t even open my eyes?
“Wasso?”
“Nothing. Hey, how come this isn’t affecting you?” I asked, cracking one of my eyes open a slit.
Through the violent haze, I saw Sitik swivel both eyes to face me, the convex black facets reflecting the light in various sharp colours.
“Whachoo see, Dray?”
I tried my best to describe the overlapping, brain-numbingly bright imagery I was being bombarded with and how it felt like my eyes were seeing completely different things.
My first mate shook his head and gave the dry double-cough noise he used to indicate laughter, then rotated his eyes on different axes, pointing to his left one with a clawed finger. “No so primi, Earthing.”
“My eyes aren’t primitive,” I said, smiling despite my pain. But Sitik was right. Rakka had uncoupled, non-stereoscopic vision—each compound eye operated and collected data independently, thanks to the Rakka’s dual brain system. It also made sense that he wasn’t getting the same aural effect since he didn’t have inner ears. Folks liked to blame Rakkarian resistance to “proper” spoken language on their perceived feeble-mindedness, but in truth, they relied entirely on an embedded prosthetic to translate soundwaves for them in a way that was compatible with most species. It’s not that they were deaf, per se—I liked to compare it to a two-dimensional being having to learn to communicate in three dimensions. Granted, that didn’t really explain why most Rakka tended to adopt a similar sort of pidgin. A small part of me thought they were all fucking with us.
“Crap . . . what am I going to do? How am I going to deliver that box if I can’t even stand? And it’s not like I can have you deliver it for me, can I?”
Sitik’s right eye swivelled away. I knew that probably hurt his feelings a bit, but he knew I was right; unfortunately, most people didn’t see Rakka the way I did, including the people who provided my paycheck.
“Mayya you gon be getcha used to? Big-li’l time?”
“I don’t know,” I said, swallowing against my nausea. “I don’t think this is something I can get used to, no matter how long.”
Sitik made a chik-chik-chik sound with the cartilage disks in his throat, which usually signalled anxiety, and I reached out.
“Come on, help me sit up. Maybe I can do this with your help.” It couldn’t hurt to try—we really needed the money if I was going to keep Lala running, not to mention I didn’t need another failure on my record.
“Yea-oh,” Sitik said, taking my wrist. The pad on his palm was rubbery and cool in contrast to the warm gray fur on his fingers and thumbs. “Easy, Dray.” He slowly dragged me up to a sitting position. However, it caused my world to whip around me like I was a spinning toy top, and it was instant lights-out for me.
Again.
+
When I came to the next time, I found a cloth tied around my eyes and the world swaying beneath me as I was held in a warm, furry embrace. It took me a sec to realize that Sitik was carrying me cradled in his arms like a baby. I was feeling better, the high pitch whine had nearly disappeared, and the material blocked out all the light, but I was still weak and disoriented.
Sitik must have noticed me waking up because he gave his dry-cough laugh and said, “Jus-a me, Dray.” He chuckled again. “Hey, big bad Rakka banga gonna see you troo, doudou.”
“Yeah, great. Thanks,” I muttered. The landing zone was a good hike from the citadel where I was supposed to present the peace offering to the ruling powers of Beto, but with Sitik’s long stride, we’d be there in no time. But, how was I going to stand on my two feet without Sitik’s support, let alone communicate in a way that didn’t embarrass me or the High Vedescians?
Great, my first experience with an interspace planet was going real well. I took a deep breath, trying to quell the rest of my nausea, and noticed then that there was a pleasant scent following us. At first, I thought it was environmental, but as I turned my head, I realized it was coming from Sitik’s fur. This close, the big Rakka smelled like something familiar. I frowned, trying to think of what it reminded me of when I got a flash of my grandmother standing in her homey kitchen on Enceladus—an old memory from when I was a kid. A really good memory.
Salted caramel. That’s what Sitik smelled like. I’d never noticed it before. I wondered if it was a natural smell or if he perfumed himself like us humans liked to. I lay there pondering, rocked gently by the Rakka’s smooth gait. There was a lot I didn’t know about my first mate. Hell, I only knew Sitik was male because of the time we got stopped at the Gellex border. An authoritarian and xenophobic independent state, Gellex was downright zealous about security. The border guards had simply been following standard protocol when confronted with an un-sexed Rakka. They’d pinned him down to the floor and pulled out his genital sack in front of everyone when he refused to say if he was male or female—the Rakka are extremely private about what sex they are.
Back then, I hadn’t had much experience with Rakka, and I’d only hired Sitik on the cheap to take care of cargo after my rotator cuff injury. Rakkas didn’t seem all that bright to me—I could barely understand their mangled speech—and I hadn’t been planning on keeping him on for that long.
However, when I saw how rattled he was after being manhandled and put on display by the Gellexian guards, I started to give him some other odd jobs around the ship. It began out of guilt for not doing anything during his ordeal, but I was impressed when he showed a real knack for navigation and could convince Lala to do things I normally had to bribe her for. So, less than three cycs later, I made him my first mate. The title doesn’t mean much in a crew of two, but I feel like he deserves it.
“You right-a, Dray? You don’ be too chat-see.”
“I’m okay,” I replied. “Really though . . . thank you. This is helping.”
“Gaw,” was all he said, and I heard the chik-chik-chik come from his throat.
I quietly breathed in his salted caramel scent, a bunch of questions drifting through my mind. Like, how Sitik sometimes called himself a banga—was he just kidding around? Bangas were members of the antiestablishment gangs that caused no end of trouble for the Polyverse Coalition. I knew there were Rakka among their number, but had Sitik really been one of them? He seemed so easygoing. And, why was he so loyal to me? Was it because of the title? Because I paid him well?
Was he happy?
I think the empty stomach and the assault on my senses were making me a touch dippy. Laughing to myself, I shifted to get more comfortable, and when my hand landed on his forearm, I left it there. His fur was much softer than I’d imagined, probably due to the fine secondary hairs, and I wondered idly if he liked being brushed. . .
Chuckling quietly to myself, I drifted on my loopy thoughts.
+
Obviously, the Betoans were sympathetic to my plight because they immediately offered me the chance to recuperate a bit before I presented myself to their leaders. The Betoans were tall, reedy creatures with a single eye and no other facial features to speak of, but I got a sense of their curiosity and excitement as they helped Sitik to settle me into the spherical room. They were one of the newest members of the Polyverse Coalition and, as such, hadn’t yet been exposed to many “aliens” before—I wondered how often they would get foreign visitors, given that their world would be so uncomfortable for the vast majority of species. It certainly could be a while before they got as jaded to “otherness” as the rest of us.
Lying on the soft gel floor of the room we’d been given, my right eye covered with a makeshift patch, I followed the shifting curves of the window above my head with the other eye until I felt I could make sense of my surroundings. On the whole, I was feeling better, and with my stereo vision turned off, I was sure that I’d be able to present the peace offering no problem. Or at least I was sure I wasn’t going to just puke and pass out again.
“Dray? You good, doudou?” Sitik was stretched out on his back beside me, his hands clasped over his furry belly, one eye turned my way. Rakka had three fingers and two thumbs on each hand, tipped with blunt blue-black claws, and he twiddled his thumbs in a mesmerizing, complex way.
“I’m going to be fine, Sitik,” I replied. “The eyepatch was a good idea. Thanks.”
Sitik just nodded, swivelling his eye back to the ceiling.
I studied his noseless, bulbous-eyed profile in silence, wondering if he was considered handsome for a Rakka. Sitik’s eye slowly rotated back to focus on me, and I saw myself reflected in multiple facets.
“Wasso think, Dray?” His words were clipped, even for a Rakka, and I thought he sounded tense.
“You know . . . you take good care of me.” I shrugged as best as I could, considering the way I was lying on my side.
“Yea-oh. You dem big boss . . .” Sitik gave his dry-cough laugh.
“But, are you happy working for me?”
Sitik’s thumb gymnastics stopped. “Whachoo do if this Rakka neg?”
“I’d ask how I could make you happier and then do it.”
Nodding slowly, Sitik went back to staring at the ceiling and twiddling. “See-oh, thatta my happy there, doudou. S’all dumplings.”
“Okay, so you do like working for me. I’m glad. I was just making sure.” I sat up slowly, keeping my eye focused on a single spot so the world didn’t start doing flips again. Hesitantly, I reached out and placed my hand on what passed for his shoulder. This time, Sitik turned his whole head so he could stare at me with both eyes. “I appreciate you, Sitik.”
I felt my face get a bit warm. I wasn’t exactly sure where this urge to share had come from, and I was probably making the both of us uncomfortable, judging by the chik-chik-chik noise coming from him, but it was suddenly very important to me that he knew how much I valued and trusted him.
“I’m serious,” I continued, petting his soft, furry shoulder. “I don’t know what I would have done without you today, buddy.”
“Dems true dat, yea-oh,” Sitik replied with a cough-laugh. His fanged mouth stretched out in the semblance of a human grin, and it was hilariously terrifying to behold. Then he placed his hand on top of mine to stop it. “You ah. . . you gon’ wan no be. . . ah. . . ” Sitik pushed my hand off his shoulder, and I noticed that he was breathing rapidly. Grayish lumps had appeared through his fur along the side of his neck, and for a second, I thought he was having some kind of allergic reaction.
“Sitik? You okay? What’s going on?”
Another laugh came from the big Rakka, and he shook his head from side to side, touching the swellings on his throat.
“Jus’ fine, doudou. Don’ be mind no kep shekep Rakka trasha.”
“But what is—”
“Hey-oh, done chat-see, right?” He sounded downright embarrassed, so I decided not to press him any further. I didn’t know what I had said to make him act so odd.
“I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Mm.”
“I think I’m all right to stand. Can I get your help?”
“Course, Dray.” Sitik got to his feet, then hauled me to mine and steadied me while I found my balance in the lower gravity. When I felt like I was ready, I touched the glowing block on the opposite wall. A beautiful, polyphonic chime echoed throughout the chamber. Almost immediately, two Betoans slid through the wall, staring at me expectantly with their huge, single eyes.
“I’m ready,” I said.
The handing over of the peace offering had gone well enough, if a bit awkwardly on the part of our hosts. The Betoans had no idea what to do with the carved rock inside the box—turns out that gift-giving wasn’t part of their culture at all, so they were at a loss as to how to act. They left me standing in the center of the room with my eyepatch and vertigo while they huddled together in a tight knot to discuss an appropriate reply. Sitik turned an eye toward me, and I saw unmistakable amusement in its segmented depths. The swellings on his neck were still visible but didn’t seem to be bothering him. I inched closer and surreptitiously sniffed. Sitik’s salted-caramel scent was tied up with such pleasant memories that being near him lessened my discomfort quite a bit.
The Betoans must have come to some agreement because they quickly retook their places around the semi-circular table I was facing. I found them a rather interesting species and wondered if the fact that they moved in pairs and nictated at the same time had to do with cultural convention or something physiological. Smiling, I gave them a shallow bow and waited for them to either present me with some token of their own or send me on my merry way. I was tired of seeing the world through a hazy, wobbly, too-bright lens and was looking forward to the comforting deep black of space.
“We would like to thank the Vedescians for the curious cast-off they were motivated to leave behind on our planet,” droned the translation matrix as two Betoans chittered, seeming to finish each other’s sentences. I winced inwardly at their choice of words, already rewriting their response in my head. “As a moderate reaction to this event, we would like to invite Captain Delor Drayan and his mate Sitik to partake in shared nutrients before departing.”
I shared a glance with Sitik. I couldn’t refuse, could I? Keeping my impatience in check, I bowed again.
“I would be honoured, Your Excellencies. However, our physiology may not be compatible with the delicacies you are offering.”
“Have you no sustenance aboard your vessel?” the Betoans asked through the translation matrix. Even without inflection, I could tell they were astounded it hadn’t occurred to me to bring my own food.
“Err. . . yes. I do. I um—” I turned to Sitik. He had much longer legs and was more used to the lower gravity than I was. Nipping back to the ship for some grub would take less time if he did it. “Could you please go get something we can eat? Um. Maybe some of the uh. . . treb mix?” The mix barely passed as a snack, but I didn’t know if my stomach could even handle that much—plus, it would take less time to eat.
“You betcha, Cap-ty,” Sitik answered. Then he let out a cough-laugh. “Back in li’l time, doudou, dontcha fret.” He’d obviously picked up on my feelings about being left alone with the Betoans.
“Thanks.”
I watched him lope away, then stood awkwardly, trying to think of something to say. I wished I had a chair to sit on or even just an invitation to sit on the ground. Time stretched on, oppressively filled with silence, as we waited for Sitik to return. Some smaller Betoans arrived, their skin a lighter orange than the ruling class, bringing bowls of steaming. . . something. The smell of rotting fish would have been more appetizing.
“Your mate has been spotted on the return,” the Betoans closest to me said reassuringly, flicking their ocular membranes in unison.
“First Mate,” I corrected them with a smile.
“Oh, you have many mates then?” asked another pair of Betoans.
I burped quietly into my hand. The smell of their food was making me feel ill again. “Ah. . . no, just the one. And it’s not mate mate. It’s First Mate. . . he’s second in command of my ship.”
The Betoans turned to each other to confer, and when they faced me again, they asked, “Why does he call you a mate-term?”
“A mate-term?” I was confused and dizzy. I really needed to sit ASAP. “Oh, you mean ‘doudou’? I don’t know what that means, honestly. I think it’s just a Rakka thing.”
“Rakka’s have no native language. The word conveys a similar meaning in seven hundred thirty-nine languages in the database sent by the Polyverse Coalition, including one language from your home planet. The equivalent in your English is ‘sweetheart.’ ”
“Oh.” I tried breathing without using my nose, but the horrible food smell was coating the back of my throat. “That’s. . . um. I don’t think that’s what he means.”
The Betoans chittered again, and something told me they found my reaction confusing.
“But he is in rut. And you display attraction. Do you plan on making him your mate?”
“He’s in what?”
Again the Betoans conferred with each other before replying through the matrix. “He is showing signs of high sexual desire. Rakka display desire and availability through hormones and enlarged scent glands.”
“They do?” I asked, thinking about the gray lumps on Sitik’s neck. “How. . . how do you know this?”
“All known species are within the database sent by the Polyverse Coalition. Perhaps you should peruse it as well?”
“Uh. . . yeah. I, uh. . . ” The smell mixed with the visual shenanigans and the low gravity finally got the best of me, and I keeled over backwards, my eyes rolled back in my head. However, just before I hit the ground, I felt a pair of strong, furry arms rescue me.
+
I sat hunched over the instrument panel, nursing the headache to end all headaches while calculating the jump vectors to reach Vedescendart IX by the shortest route. I felt heavy and weird and uncomfortable because the ship’s gravity module was acting up again and it felt more like Standard plus-three rather than our usual plus-two.
Also, I was still mulling over what the Betoans had said about Sitik.
“Hey Lala,” I said quietly. “Do you have a species catalogue on board?”
“Of course we do. Why wouldn’t we?” she replied. If she had eyes, she would have definitely rolled them.
Gritting my teeth, I shook my head. “One of these days, I’m going to get you wiped.”
“Oh, I’m shaking in my boots. . . you’ve been threatening that for how long?”
“Or, better yet, I’m going to trade you in for a real ship’s computer. None of this recycled corpseware business.”
“Where are you going to get the money, honey? You going to start peddling your pud on the side? From what I’ve seen in the shower, that’s not going to get you much. . . ”
I smacked the control panel and then laughed. “Stay out of my shower, you pervert.”
Lala responded by lighting up the LEDs on her console so they made the outline of a dick, and I shook my head. Sobering a moment later, I asked, “Um. . . speaking of that sort of thing. . . I think Sitik might be in some kind of sexual heat thing.”
“He is.”
“You knew this?”
“Sure. He’s a healthy male Rakka in his sexual prime. It happens every two-point-eight cycs like clockwork. This is the first time you’ve noticed it?”
“I guess. I think he might have. . . feelings for me, though. I don’t know what I should do about that. I mean, are we even compatible?”
“Why do you think he has feelings for you?” All the teasing had gone from Lala’s tone; she honestly seemed interested.
“Turns out he calls me ‘sweetheart,’” I muttered, locking in the coordinates for the first jump. I wondered where Sitik was on the ship and thought about asking Lala, but I figured she would go back to teasing me.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does. The Betoans told me that’s what doudou means.”
“Doudou means ‘friend’ on Pellos Prime. You know. . . where Sitik was born?”
“Oh.” I actually had no idea he was born there. What was that I was feeling? Jealousy over the fact that my ship knew more about my first mate than I did? Maybe a smidge of disappointment about the doudou thing? Ridiculous.
“Right,” I replied gruffly, fiddling with controls that didn’t need fiddling with. “I knew that. Forget I said anything. Just a misunderstanding.”
Something about the way Lala stayed silent, just twinkling her lights, made me frown. It wasn’t like her not to get in some sort of insult when she had the chance.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Wellll. . . ” Lala said quietly. “I never said he didn’t have feelings for you.”
“He told you that?”
“Told Lala wasso, Dray?” Sitik said, climbing through the hatch to join me in the cockpit.
“Oh uh. . . about how you were born on Pellos Prime.”
“Ooh. . . smooooth,” Lala said, and Sitik swivelled a curious eye towards the camera mounted on the dash.
“Yea-oh. Been born ‘n biggen in dem Rakka camp,” he said, settling into his seat. Sitik fixed one eye on me and stretched his mouth in the facsimile of a smile. “Wasso? You chat-see ‘bout em Rakka trasha?”
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, big guy,” I said, trying to sound like my normal self. “I don’t think Rakka are trash, and you know that.”
“Hm,” Sitik conceded, and I heard his cartilage disks go chik-chik.
His sweet-salty scent wafted towards me, and I wondered if it was part of his hormonal mating season thing and how I could have possibly missed it before. Maybe having my senses put through the wringer had done something to make me more sensitive. Maybe it was just that I was more aware of him since he’d carried me so gently in his arms. I scratched the back of my neck, feeling flushed.
“You good, doudou?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just got a, um. . . logistics problem on my mind.”
I heard Lala snicker quietly, and I surreptitiously turned off the main cockpit speaker. If she had something to say, she could use the panel. She hated text, though—her spelling was horrendous.
“Hey, Sitik?”
“Yea-oh, Dray? Whatchoo say?”
“I was wondering if, when we get to the moon port at Vedescendart IX, you’d join me for some Lascarran brandy. . . or something.”
Sitik just stared at me with both eyes, not saying anything. I busied myself straightening out the gimbal on the dash, trying to act nonchalant. Finally, I looked over at him.
“No?”
“I would love to join you, Delor,” Sitik replied, his English still accented but clear as day. Then he gave me another of his horrifying grins and reverted to Outer-ring pidgin. “You betcha Cap-ty.”
“Well, damn,” was all I could muster. I watched him finish the sequence, correcting one of my calculations as he went, and I wondered what other surprises lay in store for me with the big Rakka. He sat back in his seat and hooked his thumbs into the harness, his eyes focused on the stars beyond the viewport. I thought he looked smug.
“So the Betoans said doudou means ‘friend,’” I said, pulling the navpad closer. I glanced over at Sitik and saw that he had turned an eye toward me. “Does it?”
“Neg,” he replied in a quiet voice, staring at me intently. “Neg, doudou.”
