Circling

There was a guard outside the nursery on the fourth deck. There were a lot less yautja out and about since most would be either on the second deck hub or in their quarters, and the guard perked up immediately as we approached.

Mhalu greeted them with a salute and said, "I am showing around our esteemed visitor, the arbiter's important companion, and she wishes to see the infants."

The guard eyed me. "You suggest that I allow a human, one of our long-time enemies, into the nursery with helpless infants?"

"They are hardly enemies, just sometimes prey. But yes, that is correct," Mhalu blithely agreed with a chipper click of her mandibles.

"I will not," the guard snorted, adjusting their grip on the speer they carried.

Now that I knew how similar males were to females, I didn't dare assume with this one. They were by far much taller than Wolf, though, perhaps by a head and a half, with fair golden skin free of any patterns or markings—just solid sandy gold. I was really enjoying the variety of colors and patterns they had.

It just sucked that they generally never saw themselves like that. Maybe that was just the shallow side of my human nature.

Would they have appreciated Mhalu more if they knew how gorgeous she was?

With a huff, Mhalu said, "She is on friendly terms with us and is a fellow female!"

/That must mean this one is female, too,/ I inferred.

"And?" the guard growled.

"Humans are fiercely protective of not only their young but each others' and those of other species. Especially females! They often take in orphaned young and care for them like they were their own."

Not wholly convinced, the guard turned her suspicious glare to me.

It took me a second to realize that she expected me to make a case for myself. I swallowed my nerves and put my hand over my heart, hoping the gesture was universal.

"I only want to look. I am very curious, you see. I promise I will not cause any harm or disruption and accept any punishment if I do," I said, speaking as clearly and sincerely as possible.

Mhalu may have prepared me for this possibility.

"I accept all responsibility for her, as well," Mhalu assured the guard. "You have my word that I will not let her out of my sight."

She regarded me and Mhalu for several seconds before deflating a bit and moving her spear out of the way of the open doorway. "Fine. Do not take long, though, or I will come and remove you both by force!"

"Thank you, dear Nopr'ni. We will not loiter," Mhalu said as she grabbed my hand and dragged me inside.

Already, I could hear small sounds. There was a short, dark hallway before the room opened up. It was bright—brighter than the rest of the ship and sweltering hot. All of the light in the room was coming from dozens of heat lights lining the ceiling that were keeping the occupants of the bassinets warm. One light for each.

The sounds I'd been hearing earlier was the small, weak croaking sounds the waking babies were making. Most were asleep, but some were up and wiggling around on their backs, their little hands grasping at the air.

I paused at the entrance, almost afraid to keep going. This felt like a special place that I was intruding upon, that I had foisted myself into.

Mhalu stopped as well, her head canted to the side. "It is alright. We were given Nopr'ni's blessing to enter," she said.

"|I know|," I said quietly, matching Mhalu's pitch so we didn't disturb the sleeping ones.

Mhalu tugged on my arm and I hesitantly let her lead me toward one of the nearest bassinets. I noticed now that there were another two yautja present, standing over the same child, and I assumed they were a couple admiring their offspring. If they noticed we were there, they were doing a good job of ignoring us.

She stood me before one of the bassinets and made a gesture. "|This little male is a week old, I believe. That is seven days, yes|?" she said in English.

"|Yeah,|" I replied absently, staring down at the sleeping bundle.

There were no blankets, it wasn't swaddled or wearing a little cap like I'd seen of Earth babies like when my brother was born. All the heat they needed came from above, making me sweat and tiring me out.

The little bundle was pudgy and reminded me enough of a human baby, curled up on his back and tiny fingers stuck in a fist. His head was lined with ridges where the tresses would grow, and more bumps where spikes and spines would develop.

His mandibles twitched sometimes in his sleep, along with small squawks as he dreamed of all the sights and sounds he was growing accustomed to.

"|He's cute,|" I murmured, leaning on the cradle. "|A cute little future killer.|"

Mhalu purred in amusement. "Yes, I suppose so."

He started to croak and squawk a bit more and I straightened up in alarm. However, he was just waking up and started to wriggle a lot more, eyes squinted half-shut. I stepped back, half-expecting him to start crying like a human child would, but all he did was continue making that same croaking noise.

Thankfully, Mhalu knew what to do. She started rocking him, swaying his bed gently back and forth. He stopped making that noise and eventually settled back down to sleep and I let out my breath in relief.

"|You seemed to know what to do.|"

She nodded. "I worked here when I was younger before I dedicated myself to learning and advising."

"|Do you want kids of your own?|" I asked her.

Her expression fell somewhat and she said, "It is unlikely I will. Any suitor would be afraid that I could pass on my condition. Not only that, but I am much weaker than most and would not fare well in a fight."

"|You don't look weak. You have the same build Wolf does.|"

She gave me a grateful look. "That is kind of you to say. Not being able to expose myself to the sun has made me more fragile than normal. The clan makes frequent stops to planets with the same sun as our home to ensure strong growth for young ones."

I nodded. "|And you couldn't participate|."

"Correct."

"I|'m sorry for asking|."

"No! You have not caused me offense. I have long accepted my place as the resident human expert and tolerated presence," she assured me.

I still noted a hint of sadness in her voice, but I didn't want to dwell on it.

Then she turned it back to me.

"What of you? You will not have much of an opportunity to have children while you are with your arbiter," she remarked. "Not many other humans in these reaches."

An unfamiliar tightness gripped my chest. I ignored it and shrugged. "|I never thought about it. I spent my whole life working up to being able to go with Wolf. It wasn't something I considered an option.|"

Mhalu chittered thoughtfully. "Well, do not let me sway you one way or the other."

Stomping came down the hallway and a grumpy-looking Nopr'ni appeared in the doorway, spear in hand and hackles raised. When she spoke, though her voice was just south of wrath, she was quiet.

"It is time for you and the human to leave!"

I shrank back and Mhalu cowed herself in a placating manner. "Yes, of course. We were just about to go."

"I am so sure," the guard harrumphed.

Taking my arm again, Mhalu and I skirted past the guard and left.

"She is always in a bad mood," Mhalu muttered somewhat petulantly as she took me to the fourth deck, our last stop before we headed back.

I giggled. "|It's fine. I'm just glad she let us in at all. I would have been disappointed if she hadn't|."

Her countenance brightened again and before I knew it, we were on the fourth deck. It was even worse than the nursery in terms of heat, almost to the point where I couldn't go. I stuck it through, though, just long enough for Mhalu to give me the abridged version; she definitely noticed that I was struggling to keep up, struggling to catch my breath, and struggling to stay upright.

On the fourth deck was the smithy: the source of the majority of the heat. There, yautja artisans—mostly female with a few males mixed in, as Mhalu informed me—hard at work over bellows and forges.

Under normal circumstances, I would have loved to stay and watch them work. As it was, Mhalu almost had to carry me back through the ship.

Of course, that was mostly me being dramatic. I walked a lot of the way, she just made sure I didn't collapse from heatstroke while we went. Had to keep my dignity around all those badasses on the ship, naturally.

"We did not have to stay so long," Mhalu said with equal parts concern and amusement.

I waved off her worries and said, "|I wanted to see how the things were made|."

"You almost passed out."

"|Wouldn't have been the first time.|"

Mhalu gave me the same kind of condescending head pat Wolf usually gave me and I pouted.

Ignoring me, she said, "That concludes the tour! I do not see your arbiter around, so shall we wait for him by your ship's airlock?"

"|That's fine. Thank you for showing me around|."

"Mhalu!" came a shout from the other side of the room.

She flinched and turned around. "Yes?"

The yautja approaching us slowed when they noticed me. "Ah, you are with that . . . human. I had a few questions to you."

"I may have answers," she responded, relaxing somewhat. To me, she added, "This is one of our younger hunters."

I nodded.

However, the hunter looked oddly uncomfortable. "I do not wish to speak to you about it in front of the human."

Mhalu gave me a sidelong glance and said, "I promised the arbiter that I would stay with his companion. Perhaps it can wait until later when our guests leave? I will be happy to spend as much time as you want to answer questions."

"It will only be a few minutes. No one will hurt her."

I gently touched Mhalu's arm to get her attention and said, "|I'll be alright. I need to sit down anyway so I'll just be over there,|" then pointed at an empty table with a single chair. It seemed to be far enough away from the crowds of yautja.

She relented. "As you say. He and I will only be a moment."

After watching them leave, I went and sat down like I said and sank into the chair. I was still exhausted after trying to stick it out in the smithing area and my head was reeling from the culture shock of everything. Though I'd just woken up several hours ago, I was ready to go to bed all over again.

The sound of voices pulled me from my thoughts. I looked up, expecting Mhalu and the hunter, but only found a group of yautja sashaying toward me. It was the same group that had been rough-housing earlier, though I hadn't realized they were still around.

At first, I thought perhaps they were just coming in my general direction, but there was definitely a purpose as they approached. I sighed as they grew closer and closer.

Well, shit, I thought, wondering if I should stand to greet them or if sitting was fine.

In the end, I stood up.

It took almost every ounce of my self-control to suppress the reflex to smile politely in greeting, something that I'd done my entire life back on Earth. It was just the thing you did when you connected with a stranger—even if it was accidental, even if it was only for a second. If you looked at someone, you smiled at them.

It was harder than I expected to stop myself. I did, though.

Unsure what I was actually supposed to do, I shifted my weight from foot to foot and let my arms drop to my sides.

Wolf said the only ones who would bother me would be of similar rank or lower . . . was I supposed to nod? Shake them vigorously like he did when greeting others of similar notoriety to him?

I decided to follow their lead and did what they did.

Nothing.

"Do you think she talks?" the one in the center asked the others.

"She was babbling with Mhalu, but I think it was in a human language," another pointed out.

All four of them were similarly colored with muddy browns and lighter dappling, making it even harder to tell them apart from each other. I wondered if they were perhaps related, maybe brothers or cousins, but it could have also been possible that the ambient red glow of the ship was making already similar colors look identical.

The rightmost one jerked his head in my direction and pushed the center one toward me. "Only one way to know. Go and find out."

I started tapping my foot in irritation. "I can understand you, yes."

For a brief moment, I hoped that it would work the way it did on Earth. If someone was talking about you in a foreign language that you understood, you normally just had to confront them in that same language and they'd slink off in shame.

I wanted so badly for it to be like that there so I could avoid whatever . . . THIS was.

That, however, was not the case. There was no shameful slinking back into obscurity. They did seem slightly taken aback, but they hid it well enough that I thought maybe I imagined it.

After a shared set of glances, the one I assumed to be the ringleader spoke up again. "You came here with that arbitrator."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes," I replied suspiciously.

Ringleader continued. "What does one have to do to earn the company of someone with that kind of reputation?"

There seemed to be some sort of implication there that I couldn't quite figure out so I told them the same thing I'd told Uzule, albeit paraphrasing. "I fought side by side with him against two hard meat hives."

Just as before, I was picking my words carefully and trying hard to pronounce them correctly to avoid giving them more things to laugh at me for.

I just wished I had the vocabulary to make it sound more harrowing. My limited grasp of the language was starting to be more frustrating than it ever had been. I had to make more of an effort to stop using English around Wolf.

The one on Ringleader's left shoved his shoulder—earning a growl as a reprimand—and said, "I told you so."

Glancing around, I tried to spot Mhalu and see if she was on her way back. Maybe she'd shoo them away for me, though I didn't think she had the kind of clout to do so. No one else was anywhere close or paying us any attention, not that I thought strangers would come and save me from a conversation I didn't want to have.

Wolf wasn't around, either. It would have been the perfect time for him to pop up, but alas. He was either waiting for us at the airlock or still bartering for goods somewhere on this deck.

Whatever. I had gotten through plenty of conversations on Earth that I didn't want to have. This one would be no different. It was nothing compared to some of the other shit I'd had to go through. I could handle some schoolyard bullies.

Finally, my desperation helped me spot Mhalu across the room. Her back was to me while she spoke with the yautja from before, but he wasn't paying much attention to her. Most of his attention was trained on me and the group all up in my business. When he caught me looking, he quickly looked away and continued talking with my escort. I narrowed my eyes.

'These fuckers planned this', I realized. He'd seemed nervous, had insisted on pulling Mhalu away from me, and as soon as they left, these guys showed up. The one with Mhalu must have lost a bet or something. Just great.