Kensho (Claimings) Read online

  KENSHO

  and other short tales and tails from

  the Claimings Universe

  Lyn Gala

  Kensho

  Copyright © November 2020 by Lyn Gala

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  Editor: Sue Meadows, No Stone Unturned

  Cover Artist: Lyn Gala

  Published in the United States of America

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning

  This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Disclaimer

  Dedication

  Angry Little Aliens

  Responsibility and Regret

  Lost Words: The Unauthorized Biography of Liam Munson

  Introduction to Xenolinguistics

  Kensho Part One

  Kensho Part Two

  Kensho Part Three

  Kensho Part Four

  Kensho Part Five

  Kensho Part Six

  Farewells

  Walking A Large Border Part One

  Walking a Larger Border Part Two

  Walking a Larger Border Part Three

  A Guilt of Orphans Part One

  A Guilt of Orphans Part Two

  A Guilt of Orphans Part Three

  A Guilt of Orphans Part Four

  A Guilt of Orphans Part Five

  A Guilt of Orphans Part Six

  Family

  The Choice

  The Greatest Profit

  Adjustments

  Rivalries

  Halloween on Earth

  A Rownt Christmas

  The More Life Changes

  Like Father, Like Son

  Endings

  Lyn Gala

  Sign up for Lyn Gala's Mailing List

  Dedication

  I can’t even count the number of people I have to thank for their help with this story, starting with all the readers who followed me into this universe. When I wrote the first book, I never expected anyone else to fall in love with Ondry and Liam like I had. So thank you for helping to give this universe a soul. Sarah, Beth, Emma, SJ, Jeanette, and Carolyn have all encouraged me to write whatever I wanted, even when I wanted to write stories that don’t fit into the traditional publishing models. Raelin and Madison asked about the Rownt reaction to orphans or orphanages, and so many people asked about potential egglings for our couple. Those requests really guided this collection. And then I can’t even count the supporters who fed the muse by commenting on the different stories on Patreon. These would have remained vague ideas floating around in my gray matter except I wanted muse-food, and every time I came back to Claimings, I got enough comments to sustain my muse through the most trying times.

  And I have to mention all those who helped catch my various and sundry errors. I have done everything from forgetting names of my own characters to dropping words, and they have jumped in with their mouses (mice?) at the ready to stop me from embarrassing myself. Thank you to my patron saint of grammar, Mandy, as well as Marnie, Erica, Anka, and Ally who caught umpteen mistakes. It’s good to have friends who don’t let you run around with toilet paper hanging off your shoe.

  Angry Little Aliens

  The eldest Grandmother who had once been known as Ragil watched the strangers’ ship approach. Her fellow Grandmothers waited in silence. This was not one of the giant ships of the Cy that sometimes drifted through space, empty and sending out repetitive signals that made Imshee flee. This ship had straighter angles than the rounded lines of the Cy, and it lacked the transparent structures. It also lacked the long spider legs of an Imshee ship, but it did have one long spire that reached in front like the grasping claw of a sea creature. It was not as large as one of the in-system ships the ship-Rownt built, but it was larger than the boxy landing ships the Imshee regularly brought to Prarownt.

  It was utterly alien.

  “Should we quiet our transmissions?” a younger Grandmother asked.

  She-who-had-been-Ragil watched the report from the satellite. Nothing indicated aggression, but that did not mean that these aliens were harmless. Likely they came to steal the meat off the table. They would find that Rownt were not likely to leave valuables in sight for strangers. Deidell would have hidden any ships, or any evidence of ships, leaving Janatjanay to fulfill its role.

  “We stand on the hill for others to see us,” another Grandmother admonished the younger one. Hopefully she felt the shame of the rebuke, but She-who-had-been-Ragil did not turn to study the others. This would be the first time since the Imshee had arrived that strangers had appeared. Ship-Rownt always ran the risk of sharing a path with a stranger, only Imshee came to Prarownt. And they remained near Deidell.

  Fewer Imshee visited now that the Cy ships often flew empty. When those powerful ships were alone, they reacted unpredictably.

  The strangers’ ship was so slow that it would take days to approach properly, so She-who-had-been-Ragil turned her back to the display, making it clear that Rownt of any reasonable age would not live in fear of strangers appearing on the horizon. Their temple was named Janatjanay, after all. Strangers would be inevitable in such a place.

  “We should check satellites and planetary defenses,” she said. She waited to see if any of the Grandmothers would contradict her and put forward a plan other than waiting for these strangers, but none did. The burden of being eldest was not in taking action—it was in knowing that others would follow and would suffer if her judgment was flawed. More than one eldest had walked away from a temple and sought a place to sit and die rather than carry the burden.

  Some stories said the last Grandmother of Prabrateakil had done that. She had led the Rownt to space, to an uneasy trade with the Imshee when she had not valued or understood the true nature of the trade. The burden of that had grown to be too much, and when the town around her died, replaced by Deidell and its modern shipyard, she had walked away rather than sit on the temple floor and see if the Grandmothers of Deidell would seek her counsel.

  It was a cautionary tale. Just because a Grandmother was ready to walk a border did not mean they had the right to walk it. Rownt followed where Grandmothers walked.

  Ironically, every Rownt would have chosen to follow that Prabrateakil Grandmother into space. Her motives touched the Rownt soul. But in the end she chose not to follow the path she herself had set. She-who-had-been-Ragil was acutely aware of the danger that approached with the strangers’ ship—and the danger was not limited to individual Rownt lives or profits.

  “I will advise parents to remove their egglings,” another said.

  She-who-had-been-Ragil should have advised that first, but she walked toward the stairs without comment. She was fortunate to have so many elder Grandmothers to stand beside her. A Rownt who invited others to pick a harvest had to share the
profits, but a Rownt who picked a harvest alone watched fruit rot on the plant.

  “Grandmothers! A transmission!” The youngest Grandmother’s voice trembled with emotion. She-who-had-been-Ragil turned back to the monitors. “I believe they transmit visual and auditory information.” Her tail whipped so furiously that she slapped another Grandmother. The victim of that errant tail hissed, and the young Grandmother held her hands low and even showed the back of her neck.

  “We are all emotional,” She-who-had-been-Ragil said, not specifying whether she intended her admonition for the hissing or the tail. The young Grandmother curled her tail around her leg where it should’ve been. She was cursed with a masculine tail that showed her emotions more than a Grandmother’s tail generally did. “Can you display the transmission?”

  “The visual,” the young Grandmother said. She tapped at her computer and a figure appeared on the screen, blurred by static but unmistakably Rownt-like. The Grandmothers all looked at one another in shock. They had never seen such a familiar face on a stranger.

  “It appears angry,” a Grandmother commented.

  She-who-had-been-Ragil agreed. The color was most unfortunate. If they had met these strangers while standing on a ship, She-who-had-been-Ragil would assume the Rownt had trespassed—nothing else would account for the apparent rage in the stranger’s expression. Every bit of blood had fled the creature’s face, leaving it pale with anger or perhaps distress. The stranger’s mouth moved, and a Grandmother moved to a computer and opened the communication to planetary defense.

  “Do they send audio?” She-who-had-been-Ragil asked. She would not have strangers treated like predators because of unfortunate coloring.

  “I struggle to separate the signal from the noise the ship generates,” another Grandmother said. A new stranger moved to stand beside the first. This one was much more agreeably colored; around the room Grandmothers relaxed fractionally. Perhaps the pallor of the first did not indicate emotions as it would on a Rownt. After all, Imshee never changed color, even at their most fearful or angry.

  “We should transmit,” She-who-had-been-Ragil said, and she hoped that some Grandmother would provide a logical objection. When none did, She-who-had-been-Ragil moved to a computer and brought up the communication menu. She studied the technical data collected by the satellites and hoped these strangers could receive and understand Rownt transmissions. The strangers had shown two individuals, so she made eye contact with the second oldest Grandmother. She moved to stand next to She-who-had-been-Ragil.

  Since she had nothing to say to the strangers, She-who-had-been-Ragil transmitted the visual image and watched. It would take the transmission eighty-four minutes to reach the strangers. Only then would they get to see the strangers’ reactions. If they were wise traders, they would stop transmitting so they could preserve their privacy, but She-who-had-been-Ragil had no illusions about a stranger following the same rules of logic.

  “I believe this is the audio transmission,” the young Grandmother said. Noise filled the temple. Not noise. A voice. It was high but not unpleasantly so. The more concerning problem was that She-who-had-been-Ragil heard no individual words. The sound went on and on for an impossible length of time before a brief pause and then more sounds. She considered her fellow Grandmothers in dismay. How could they interpret sounds that were not discrete units?

  When the Imshee had come to Prarownt, they had provided the translations with their computers. This time the strangers brought strange words. But Janatjanay stood where others would not. The Janatjanay Grandmothers transmitted news and called out to strangers to come and stand where none of their kind had stood before. This was their business just as the business of Deidell was metals and ships and the business of the lost Prabrateakil had been hunting.

  She-who-had-been-Ragil sent a simplified file modeled after those early files the Imshee had used to teach Rownt how to understand Cy language. If these strangers had the capacity for communication, they should recognize the primer. Hopefully. She-who-had-been-Ragil had no idea where to start on the strangers’ language.

  “Grandmothers,” one of the others called. She-who-had-been-Ragil moved to look at the display. An estimate of eight hundred based off scanning technology designed to identify life forms dispersion in preparation for boarding enemy vessels.

  “What is the probability of error?” she asked.

  “Small. There must be over seven hundred and fifty individual strangers, although there may be far more if some of the strangers are small.”

  She-who-had-been-Ragil had translated that. If this was a family ship—if these strangers had brought children—there could be far more than eight hundred individuals if their scanners were correct. She checked the size of the approaching ship. These were small strangers.

  Another individual walked into the area of visual transmission. Like the first, his skin was an unfortunate shade of furious.

  Eight hundred angry little strangers.

  Once again, the universe was changing. She-who-had-been-Ragil had never wanted to be Grandmother during such monumental adjustment, but the waterfall would not change course for the Rownt who complained to it. She would lead her people and hope that this change did not end with her sitting alone in an empty temple after all the sane Rownt fled Janatjanay the way they had Prabrateakil.

  Responsibility and Regret

  When Dana walked into their apartment, she expected to find Luke passed out in their narrow bed. Instead he sat on the end of it, a boot propped on the lower rail of their best chair. He wore his vid set and a furious expression.

  When he saw her, he faked a quick and unconvincing smile as she pushed the door shut. Hopefully, there wasn’t a problem.

  Scratch that. Given Luke’s thunderous expression, some problem had come up, but Dana hoped it didn’t involve money. With both of them working, they struggled to pay the bills on this place. Dana didn’t think either of them could pick up any more hours, and if Luke tried, he would fail out of school. In the long run, that would cost both of them. His education—his innate talent with math and AI design—could buy them a ticket out of poverty, but only if he finished his schooling.

  That didn’t stop Luke from arguing that he should work more to take the weight off her. Even now, he was pushing the chair toward her with his foot. Dana dropped her tool belt into the bucket on the floor and got off her feet with a happy sigh.

  “Put your feet up here,” Luke said.

  “I’m fine.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m on hold anyway. Give me your damn feet, woman.”

  “Bitch, bitch,” she shot back, but she pulled the laces on her work boots. “What’s wrong?”

  “Fucking idiots at the bank, that’s what’s wrong. This world would be a better place if I could press a button and send all the incompetent morons to the front lines.” He mimicked pressing a button. He then pressed his imaginary button harder before pantomiming mashing it with his thumb.

  That was not good. If the bank had screwed up, she and Luke would be in deep shit when the rent came due. They’d already used their one free late payment allotment for the year, so a second late payment would create huge penalties. Dana wasn’t sure how to keep Luke in school if that happened.

  She wiggled her toes and plopped her right foot in Luke’s lap. “How much did they lose?”

  “Weirdly, they mysteriously gifted us with an extra two hundred and twelve credits.” He rubbed her feet, pressing his thumbs against the arch of her foot. Shivers of pain ran up her leg, but when he released it, all the tension drained away.

  “Oh thank God.” The fear that threatened to crush Dana’s heart eased. She’d feared he’d been conscripted, although that was unlikely. Talk of peace filled the vids, at least it had until the Rownt had shown up, hovering over Earth with that big-ass ship of theirs. But Dana had seen the government talk about peace in the past, and the damn colonies always pulled out one more campaign, one more damn suicide bomber. And that alwa
ys led to another round of conscription.

  Dana was safe because of her medical problems, but the war was an ever-present threat to Luke, and the university was his only protection.

  “You say that now, but they’ll come looking for this money later.” Luke pointed a long finger at her. Every time he got angry, his movements got jerky, like a scarecrow in the wind. The fact that he was tall and lanky reinforced the image. But even if Luke hadn’t outgrown his gawky stage, Dana still adored him. He had dark blue eyes, and his sandy hair flew in opposite directions, even on a still day. Luke complained that his hair did that because it was too fine, but Dana loved running her fingers through it. Luke had smarts and more loyalty and love than any other human on the earth.

  But his one great flaw was his ability to see the downside of every situation.

  “If we don’t spend it, we can give it back as soon as someone comes looking,” she said.

  “Until they accuse us of stealing it.” Luke tapped the eyepiece to make it more opaque. He was probably trying to see what the teller was doing. “Yeah!” he said loudly to whoever was on the other end of the call. “I’m here.” He listened, his face a twisted riot of emotion, none of which Dana could read. He stilled. She pulled her foot away and leaned forward.

  “Are you sure?” Luke asked.

  Dana watched as the vid display flashed colors across Luke’s face as the teller showed him something. Luke grew more and more still.

  “Yeah, can you forward that?” He groped blindly for Dana’s hand. She grabbed him. It couldn’t be his mother. She had died years ago. Dana had only known her at the very end when cancer had wrecked her body. When they’d been growing up, Liam had been Chak’s best friend, and that had put Dana into the annoying sister category. She hadn’t known the rest of the Munsons until the much younger Luke started showing up to pester Chak.

  During her last days, Mrs. Munson had often confused Luke with his brother Liam. She wept and reached for him with an emaciated hand, begging him to come back and weeping harder when the drug cocktail convinced her that her sainted Liam had returned. Every time, Luke would clench his teeth and storm out of the room like a tornado ready to destroy a small village.