Claimings Tails and Other Alien Artifacts Read online

  “I am very new and young. I would appreciate elders who showed me what path to walk,” Liam said. He wasn’t sure that the metaphor of walking a path would translate, but he seemed to remember some of the storyscrolls containing similar language. It was the best he could do.

  His words had some sort of impression because Ondry studied him carefully. Finally he said, “To discuss trading over food makes for bad…” Liam was guessing either digestion or business.

  Liam ducked his head in a sort of truncated bow. “I apologize for my lack of manners,” he said. That was another phrase Spooner had made him memorize very carefully. “Humans often discuss their personal habits or their interests in order to introduce themselves. I meant only to offer introductions.”

  “Who would you introduce?” Ondry asked.

  “I would introduce…” Liam stopped as he realized he didn’t have a reflexive pronoun that he could use to finish his sentence. Grimacing at how he was mangling the language, he finished his thoughts. “I would introduce I.”

  The server gave a trill. That was definitely laughter. Liam could only shrug. “I am young and new of language.”

  “You are horrible with the language,” Ondry said plainly. “It is good you speak it. Other humans refuse to share more than public greetings.”

  “By remaining silent they hide their badness,” Liam pointed out. Personally he was showing off his ignorance to a horrifying degree, but he was willing to look like a fool if it meant keeping a trading partner with access to ore. They were mutually using each other, and having that clear up front made Liam much more comfortable with the relationship.

  “Badness must have a noun that it describes,” Ondry explained.

  “They have badness with language,” Liam said. He studied Ondry to see if that sentence structure caused more humor or distress.

  “The young are bad at many things,” Ondry said easily, the verb conjugation suggesting a neutral tone. This was a fact, not a value statement of judgment. “The wise try anyway so they can improve.”

  Liam wasn’t sure, but he thought Ondry might have just complimented him. As much as Rownt custom dictated he be offended, Liam couldn’t contain his smile. “But to be young and bad at language is to risk offending others. I do not wish to offend anyone.”

  “I do not find you offensive. When you meet a human, do you inquire about where they live or work or these personal habits you speak of?”

  “Yes. When I introduce myself, I will give my rank—sergeant. That means I have skills in an area. In my case I am better with Rownt than most humans.” Liam recognized the irony in that statement, so he wasn’t surprised when the female pointed it out.

  “Then most humans are very bad indeed,” she said.

  Liam chose to ignore her insult since technically it was true. He told Ondry, “I would then tell people I was from Earth, the human home world.”

  “And do humans have many worlds they live on other than their home world?”

  This was approaching more dangerous territory. “Yes. Many.” Liam hoped Ondry didn’t push for more information in that direction since that was one of the areas Liam had been told to avoid. The Rownt appeared to be a largely nonthreatening species, but then the Anla had appeared rather harmless all the way up to the point where they kidnapped a ship full of children and then attempted to blackmail the government into turning over technology. That had not ended well for anyone.

  “Why did you leave Earth to come here?” Ondry asked, using the singular, personal, second-person pronoun to express an interest in Liam in particular and not about why humans in general explored the galaxy.

  And that took them straight into another of the forbidden subjects, a discussion of the war. The truth was that Liam had to study languages, or else he was going to end up dead. However, Liam needed to find an answer that was both truthful and inside regulations. “I had moved to a different planet, and I didn’t like it. Moving here seem to like a way to work productively,” he said. In every storyscroll he’d read, Rownt always had some sort of profession or trade, so he was hoping the idea of productive work would resonate with Ondry.

  Silence filled the air, and Liam could hear only the murmurings of other Rownt at their tables and other food preparers. Liam quietly ate, and his patience paid off when Ondry said, “I often travel for my work. As a trader for the miners, I must go where there is a market for my clients.”

  Liam smiled, and then he was back to struggling to try to come up with a subject for conversation. However, as Ondry focused on his huge plate of food, Liam slowly realized that he liked just sitting in silence. Ondry didn’t expect small talk, so Liam enjoyed the best meal he’d eaten in a long time. The rations on base were filling and clean, which was a large improvement over the front, but they were rarely good. The rare addition of fresh, local product usually meant the food would be sour or bitter. Liam hadn’t been on Prarownt long enough to have much personal experience, but he’d heard plenty of stories.

  This fruit was good. And it was less popular with Rownt, which should mean it was cheaper. The problem with that was the Rownt now knew what humans liked, and that might drive the price up. It was a fair trade in information.

  Ondry finished his meal and looked at Liam’s still mostly full plates. Rownt serving sizes were too large for human appetites.

  “I have eaten so much my stomach…” Liam mimed the action of stretching.

  Ondry gave one of his tight-face smiles and nodded. “Come,” he said before he stood and walked away. Liam hesitated a moment and then hurried after him. Ondry led them back to the plaza. Then with a brief, “Good trading to you,” Ye-Ondry turned and walked back the way he had come.

  This had been a strange day, and the sun was low in the sky, so Liam hurried back toward base, his hand in his pocket so he could clutch the riches he was bringing back—a recorder full of new language samples and two tokens that promised the delivery of metals. It had been a great day.

  Chapter Two

  Liam had just crested the hill on his way back to base when he saw Craig and Gina walking toward him. The sun had almost set, so it made sense that someone had ordered Craig, the lead trader, and Gina, the head of security, to find their wayward sergeant. Liam just hoped his trade goods earned a little forgiveness because the sun had set faster than he’d expected, and now the oversized moon lit the landscape in shades of rust and gray.

  “Munson, there you are.” Craig trotted up the hill with Gina walking behind more warily. Gina Venkatachalam was an infantry soldier and the head of their small security force, although Liam wasn’t sure how much she could secure when Rownt law forbade carrying weapons outside the base. “Where have you been?” Craig called.

  “I got one of the Rownt to sit and have a conversation with me. I recorded the whole thing. Spooner is going to have a field day.”

  Craig stopped right in front of him. “Holy shit, how did you do that?”

  “I offered to help carry the trade goods back to his place.” Liam grinned at the shocked expression on Craig’s face. Gina looked a little less enthusiastic.

  “His place? You went to one of the Rownt houses?” Craig asked breathlessly.

  “No, he took the goods to a warehouse in the middle of town. It had a lot of different sections, and I think different people might have storage space there, like a rental space of some sort.” Liam started down the hill, and Gina stepped off the pass to allow him and Craig to go first, but her gaze stayed on the hill as though she expected a Rownt invasion force to follow. They were all war-weary and twitchy.

  “Shit. You went into town, like to that large building in the center. Is that what you’re talking about?” Craig asked.

  “Yeah. Have you been there?” Liam had to stomp on the hard pebble of disappointment in his heart at the evidence he hadn’t done anything special. Maybe dozens of traders had gone there.

  “Hell no,” Craig blurted.

  When Gina spoke, her accent was thicker than usual, so Liam guessed his long absence had upset her. She always developed a drawl when she was angry enough to threaten to shove someone in the incinerator and override the safety protocols. “We saw it on the first satellite feeds before the Rownt ordered us to ground them,” Gina said. “The security forces have studied the layout of town in case there’s some sort of incident. We saw that large building not far from the temple, and most of us assumed it was some sort of communal building or weapons depot.”

  “Well, it’s not a weapons depot. I can tell you that,” Liam told her. “And I honestly don’t know whether it’s a communal building or whether someone owns it and they’re renting out space for storage. But that’s where I helped Ondry carry most of the brass copper bowls and boxes that he bought.” Liam was feeling high from the success, so when Gina grabbed his arm and yanked him around, he was too shocked to protest.

  “Because this Rownt traded with you, you decided to wander away from secure areas and have a conversation with him? Does that strike you as a little dangerous?”

  “Hey, Gina, rest the sublights,” Craig said soothingly, or at least in a tone he probably thought would calm her.

  Gina tightened her grip on Liam’s arm. “I’m the head of security, and I won’t take you two treating this like it’s a walk in a fucking park. You’ll get yourselves and the rest of us killed.”

  Liam jerked his arm back. “I’m on an alien world with Rownt that we barely understand. Command claims they managed this first contact well, and maybe they did, but they don’t actually understand Rownt. So I’m assuming all of this is horribly dangerous.” Liam gestured toward the night and the distant mountains and even the human base.

  “Well at least you have some common sense. I was starting to wonder about it.” Gina backed up, but then she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Meaning?” Liam asked. He hated that all the pleasure from earlier had vanished under a river of new fears—apparently he’d fucked up royally.

  “Meaning you don’t seem to understand how dangerous that was. We don’t understand the Rownt. What if they turn out to be like the Anla? What if it turns out there’s some class of Rownt that is horribly violent? What if they have some cultural rule that if you step over they execute you?” Gina’s voice rose, but then she took a breath and visibly calmed herself before she added, “I can’t protect you when you’re out there.”

  “I don’t expect your protection.” Liam had traded away too much of his life already in return for others’ promises that they would protect him, and he wasn’t about to do that again. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Against a Rownt? No, you can’t,” Gina said with a dark laugh. “Which is not a knock against you because I couldn’t either. Guns are the great equalizer, and you don’t have one.”

  “And neither do you. So if you thought I was in so much danger, why are you out here walking around unarmed?”

  Craig punched Liam in the arm. “Officially out of bounds,” he declared softly.

  “Because it’s my job to keep everyone on base safe,” Gina said. “I’m the head of the security detail. And more than that, you’re almost not an asshole. You haven’t hit on me once.” Here she stopped to glare at Craig before turning her attention back to Liam. “And you haven’t questioned my ability to do my job. So that puts you one up from most of the people who transfer into my unit.”

  Liam frowned. “Why would they question your ability to do your job?”

  Gina pointed a finger in his direction. “That is why I like you. You seem to have missed the asshole gene. You listen to my accent, and you tell me why they question my right to lead the security detail.” Liam stared at her blankly for so long Craig answered for him.

  “Because people are assholes?” Craig guessed. “Seriously, don’t worry about those dicks.”

  Liam looked from one to the other, and then it occurred to him what they meant. “They distrust you because you’re from the outer colonies? But that doesn’t make any sense. If you were sympathetic to the outer colonies, you’d be out there fighting for them. The very fact that you’re here makes that argument stupid.”

  “Yeah, well they seem to think I’m a spy.”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “That’s twice as stupid. If you’re a spy and this is where you’re doing your spying, you are really pathetically bad at your job. That said, I don’t need babysitting. It’s my job to record as much Rownt language as I can. I saw an opportunity to get some Rownt conversation on tape.”

  “Man, the officers may wet themselves over those recordings, but they do not pay either of us enough to stick our necks out,” Craig said. “Now if we’re all finished yelling at each other, can we get back to base? I got some new porn on the last blast from the soc-nets.”

  Craig’s life revolved around social network downloads and illegal Rownt porn, and Liam was really not going to guess how he’d managed to video record that. Liam had experienced enough rough sex that he thought he’d seen everything. But Rownt sex was scary as hell, and that was before the monster penises showed up. “Yeah, let’s go,” he said, but Gina clearly wasn’t as ready to let Liam’s impromptu travel drop. She walked in the grasses on the side of the simple dirt trail, her voice low and intense when she spoke.

  “What if your job gets you in trouble? Serious trouble?” she asked.

  “I came straight off the front lines. I’d have to be in a whole lot of trouble before it approached the sort of shit I saw already.”

  Gina sighed. “Fair enough. However, it’s not safe for you to walk around an alien planet unescorted and unarmed.”

  “Rownt are not going to understand an escort. Adults stand on their own. If you run after me babysitting me, they’re going to assume I’m not old enough to handle my own business.” Liam didn’t mention that his own inability to consistently construct a valid sentence had probably sent much the same message, but that was okay. He had brought enough back from this trade that it might be months before Command started pushing for more.

  “I know that. Trust me, I know that,” Gina said. “Craig has turned in at least two dozen requests for security escort, and Command has given him that exact answer every time.”

  “I still say they’re wrong,” Craig said. “You’re female and taller than me. The Rownt would probably assume you were my Grandmother.”

  Gina leaned around Liam to punch Craig in the arm hard enough that he stumbled off the path into the field.

  “Hey! That’s abuse.”

  “Keep it up, and I’ll really abuse you,” Gina threatened, and Craig fell silent. “You need to be prepared to take care of yourself.” She spoke in such a serious tone that Liam had trouble dismissing her fears. After what had happened with the Anla, clearly bad shit could explode out of nowhere. However, Liam’s gut told him the Rownt wouldn’t react violently, not that his gut was famously accurate.

  Gina caught his arm and this time she pressed something into his hand.

  “What is this?” Liam asked.

  “What does it look like, a carrot?” Gina asked. Liam stared down at the small personal weapon. It was a standard projectile weapon, and just touching it while in Rownt territory broke a dozen laws.

  “I can’t carry this on planet.” Liam tried to shove it back toward her.

  “No, you can’t get caught carrying this on planet,” Gina corrected him. “But if something goes wrong, if something starts a major conflict, then defending yourself is more important than following some stupid regulation. If that ship with the children had used common sense instead of clinging to regulations the entire time they were being boarded with Anla, they wouldn’t have lost all those kids. Regulations are fine under normal circumstances. But regulations won’t save you. A gun might.”

  “Why didn’t you ever offer me a gun?” Craig asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Because you’re savvy enough to value your own skin over the job. If Liam is going to take trading this seriously, then I have to take additional steps to ensure his safety. And if you tell anyone about this, I will perform a security override sweep on all computers and delete every piece of porn off the servers.”

  “Whoa, hey!” Craig held up his hands in surrender. “No need for nuclear weapons. I wouldn’t report this even without the threats.”

  “I don’t know about this,” Liam said as he tried to give the gun back. He failed.

  “Then it’s a good thing that I do know. Look, I hope you never have to use it, but if something happens and you need a gun, it’s going to really suck if you don’t have one.” Gina grabbed Liam’s pants pocket and pulled it out to make an opening before she took the gun out of his hand and shoved it in his pocket. She wasn’t going to win any awards for subtlety.

  “I doubt a gun this small would even take down a Rownt,” Liam said, and he wasn’t kidding. The big female leaders looked like they might require a tactical air strike to stop. He’d never before been so intimidated by old women.

  “It will if you hit them in the right spot.” Gina’s voice didn’t have an ounce of compromise in the cold tones.

  Liam sighed as he realized he’d lost this fight. “Which would be?”

  “Males carry their genitalia on their back. I find that if you shoot a man in his penis, he generally stops whatever he’s doing. So that would be one target. It’s also a simple fact of biology that an eye and a mouth need direct access to internal organs to function correctly. Therefore, I don’t care what the species is, you shoot them in the mouth or in the eye, and they will be dead.”

  That might be logical except for one problem. “Which requires a level of expertise I just don’t have with a gun,” Liam said. “On the front lines it was pretty much aim this really big-ass weapon in the general direction of the other side and keep pulling the trigger until the enemy stops running at you.”

  Gina smiled as if she had just won the argument. “Then we’ll work together. I’ll teach you to shoot.”