Part 5

Sobering

           In the middle of the night Amara woke me. Well, really we'd fallen asleep in the middle of the night, but she still interrupted my sleep cycle. She didn't do it on purpose, but was shaking in her sleep. Amara was twisting back and forth under me, mewling and shuddering. I rolled off of her and moved her in turn on top of me, then scratched her muzzle until she came around.
           "Uhhn," she whimpered, burrowing her head into my neck and slicking it down with her nose. She mewled more softly. "Please, no more… I beg you. Please." I reached to scratch behind her ears.
           "Amara, it's me. It's okay, you're safe." Amara's shuddering stopped and she grappled around me. I could feel the hot mist of her breath on my neck as she panted heavily. "It's okay, Amara, calm down. Just a bad… thing." I wanted to say nightmare, but I didn't know it, nor did I know the word for dream.
           "I'm so scared, khos Ahrn. In my [dreams?] they came for me… I was so frightened. I'm sorry for everything. I never want so see another man again…" She looked up at me, miserable. "If I go back to sleep they'll come for me again." I rubbed her muzzle.
           "No they won't. I'll stay awake and keep watch over you, keep you safe. Go back to sleep, Amara."
           "I'm sorry," she murmured, "I'm sorry if I'm failing. Please, go to sleep: don't watch over me. Just let me fall asleep in your arms before you do. I'm scared, but I'll be okay with you." That last sentence burned into my mind: I'm scared, but I'll be okay with you. It's kept me going when I'd rather lay down and die more than once.
           "Shhh… everything's going to be all right. Go to sleep. I'll stay up until you do." She smiled at me thankfully, then burrowed back down into my chest. "Good night, knight," I whispered in English. Amara murred back incoherently.
          

---v---

           The rest of the night was uninterrupted, but it was still only an hour and a half. Amara didn't shudder or mewl after our midnight interlude, instead sleeping soundly. I was glad that her nightmares had subsided, even if not for very long. About three hours after we'd fallen asleep the cabin's lights suddenly increased to full blast and the ship-wide speakers came on with a bored Hrasi voice reciting something I couldn't understand. Amara hissed in groggy displeasure at about the same time as I woke up.
           "Stop," Amara complained, "[ ], go away! Please!" The intercom went on for another five seconds, then cut out. "Uhnn, Khos Arhn, let's please sleep in. I don't want to see or talk to anyone this early…" I was still hazy. hangovers suck, especially when accompanied by one-and-a-half-hours of sleep rudely ended with snarling cats. Amara stared down at me imploringly as I looked back up at her.
           "Bath… cold bath," I uttered blearily. Wasn't making much sense. "I… want… a bath. And medical… things." Amara's ears sank and she collapsed back on our chest.
           "Please, Khos Ahrn? I don't want to… besides, the [something plural] are [ ]. I don't want anyone to see me like this." I smiled irrationally.
           "I didn't understand a word of what you said." A small sigh.
           "Baths… Lots of people at once. [Communal]. Bad for me, understand?" I pushed her off and sat up painfully. Bones were broken, and stuff hurt, that's all I knew.
           "Go back to sleep. I want a bath." She did, curling up in the dent we'd made on the mattress.
           Hard as it was, I pushed myself out of the bed to lean on it in a painful crouch. The thick, sickening combination of blood and booze and scared Hrasi permeated the room, and it was all I could do not to puke my guts out. There was a small hatch in the corner that I staggered over to and pulled open: inside was a sink and toilet. Retching sent me to my knees: I stuck my head in the toilet bowl and noisily emptied my stomach. The stench was awful, but it was a light sentence for having drunk so much hard liquor. For a full two or three minutes I just vomited, until I was just hacking. Thoroughly disgusted with myself, I flushed the commode twice, then pulled myself up to the sink to wash my mouth out. My saliva ran red, then pink, then finally clear. Amara rustled behind me.
           "Ugh. What a smell we've made. Ahrn… you alright?"
           "Fine," I croaked, then shoved off the sink to go and look for the medical kit. It was back in the drawer. "Your wounds. They'll get sick if we don't help them." Amara growled warningly as I lurched back to the bed.
           "Khos Ahrn… don't. I can do it. I don't want a man to." I shrugged, dropping the kit at her side.
           "Okay. I understand. I'm going to find the bath." It was with great pain that I turned to face the door and wobbled off the bed. Amara growled when I turned away.
           "Khos Ahrn! You really don't think or act like a male Hrasi…" I turned back to see her laying on her belly, glaring at me with ears set back. "I see [ ] is all but [ ] on you. That was not serious; I didn't actually mean walk away. Not that I want to [show] you any disrespect, Khos Ahrn, but get back over here." I did, sighing, then came to kneel on the bed. Seeing my impairment, Amara rose to her knees and pulled me next to her. "…I was trying to be… [ ]." I grimaced, not really knowing what she'd said.
           "I'm sure you were," I muttered, picking through the medical kit. There was still some bandaging tape in there, along with about a third of the antibiotic cream she'd been so liberal with the other night. Too bad it hadn't repaired my broken bones. Only even more liberal amounts of plasm had kept me through the night, a scary thought. "I put on some of this and then put this around it, right?" Amara nodded as I pointed at first the cream and then the tape.
           "Put it around the wound too before you [wrap? / dress?] it." I nodded, then feebly picked up the antibiotic and squeezed a bit onto my finger. Amara stared at me inexplicably, then dropped back on her belly. "Trust you. If you were any [other?] male…"
           "I promise I won't hurt you. Tell me if I do." I started with the scratches on her back, rubbing in light, circular motions. She hissed like a steam kettle, and I hesitated. "Are you alright?" She just snorted, so I continued. When I got down to the lacerations on her rump she winced and those muscles went tight.
           "Hurts," she growled, and I stopped right there. "No," she panted, "just be fast with it." I was, briskly swiping the cream over those shorter furs. Then the bandaging tape went all over her back and rear. "I won't sit for a long time," she chuffed. I wasn't an expert on Hrasi sounds and mannerisms - I still am not - but it sounded like a forced laugh to me.
           "Sorry," I whispered, "it's because of me." Her ears flattened, but she didn't object. "Other side?" It was her turn to grimace as she rolled over, yelping when she first put weight on her new bandages. Amara put a leg on either side of me and averted her face.
           "Okay, I don't care if you're my lord, you're still male. I'm going to [pretend?] you're a woman."
           "You want me to go find Maura?" I offered, but she jerked her head in a very poor imitation of a human headshake. I squeezed out some more antibiotics onto my finger and got to work on her belly. Her breathing was fast, scared. I tried talking to her as I worked on her inner thigh cuts. "You haven't been so scared of me since…" I didn't have the words to finish.
           "[Since?] we [met?]," she finished for me, "I know. I trust you, but it was only last night that… you know."
           "Yeah," I said, finishing with her thighs and moving to the final trio of hand slashes on her crotch, "I know. If I was you I wouldn't let me do this."
           "I [wonder] what Kjistha will think when he sees -"
           "He won't," I interrupted, switching to the bandages. "You won't go back." Amara turned her head to stare straight at me. "No," I said firmly. "Not again. I will have Maura stop you." She looked at me, obviously upset over conflicting obligations, but nodded.
           I did my best to clean and bandage her wounds with clinical detachment, and she stared at me with a confusing mix of rage and gratitude. When I carefully pulled away her outer lip and dressed her centermost slash she yowled and hissed at me, but also spread her legs wider so I could finish. When I was done with the bandages she curled into a fetal position and looked at me with thanks, albeit brooding, gloomy thanks. "I can't believe you'd give me that trust, that I could… violate you without being killed."
           "You didn't violate me: Kjistha did. You had my [permission? / blessing?]. I'll let you… do anything… to me." I looked at her determinedly.
           "You must be exhausted. Get some sleep," I ordered her.
           "I will, Khos Ahrn."
          

---v---

           I rambled from wall to wall in the corridor. I wouldn't have had any idea where I was going, except that the pipelines in the ceiling were all humming, and got louder in one direction. I followed the increasing hum, which brought me into mistier and mistier territory. By the time I'd gotten to the final double doors at a dead-end hallway the corridors were downright foggy. The double doors were clear plexiglass, but were steamed opaque. Shower room was my immediate guess.
           When I moved to lean on the door it unexpectedly slid open and I stumbled forward into a foggy, hot, blue-tiled room. I couldn't see anything but gray haze. My footing slipped and I went careening forward. I yelped, then collided in mid fall with a furry body. The furry body shrieked in surprise.
           "Ai! Who are - oh, Ahrn." Hrasi arms caught me as I slumped and pulled me up to a golden Hrasi face. "Hai, lost your [ ]? I was - what's [happened?] to you?" A familiar face… Eshera, Naia's girlfriend. "You look half dead! And you smell… Did you hurt Amara?" I sagged against her.
           "No. I'm hurt because… I'll tell you later. I need a bath." Eshera's ears slanted back, then forward. "Please?"
           "No baths. We only have [showers?]. Communal showers. You're really hurt, aren't you? I'll take you to Naia." She dragged me several yards to the left, and the mist began to clear. There were sounds of water running everywhere, echoing off the walls, as well as voices of chatting Hrasi. I'd never thought of Hrasi just sitting around chatting, but I guess they did. Another few yards and I could actually see the tiles a few feet in front of me, not to mention the rest of Eshera.
           "You… don't have clothes," I blurted out, and I got a wry look from her.
           "I suppose you [shower?] with your clothes on? Besides, all but two of us of are girls, and nobody minds showing off for those two. They aren't going [somewhere? / anywhere?]. And what do I care if you see me naked? You have [absolutely?] no [chance?] with me."
           "What happened to… to…"
           "I think the word you're looking for is modesty," Naia's voice called from down the corridor. "Eshera doesn't have any. Most Hrasi don't." Eshera dragged me into a shower room.
           It was empty except for Naia, who was standing with her back towards me like a nude alabaster cat goddess under one of a dozen running showerheads. She was arching back into the stream, mouth open, drinking some of the water and letting the rest dribble down her neck, chest, and tail, which swished through pools of water on the tiled floor. Naia swiveled her torso to look at me; I, of course, made it a point to look away, and she chuffed lightly. "Oh, come on, Aaron," she teased in English, "You don't even want to look? What kind of man are you? Don't tell me you're one of those 'moral' men." Eshera didn't seem to understand our exchange, but she could see me.
           "Hey! His face! He's [blushing?]." Naia laughed again, and I looked at her just as she happened to be turning around. Blood rushed to a very certain part of my anatomy as Naia padded straight up to me and took me off Eshera's hands.
           "Humans do that when they're embarrassed. Thanks for bringing him, though. He's - hey, he's hurt!" Naia looked at me intensely, the dragged me under a water stream and laid me on the tiled floor. She switched to English. "What happened to you, Aaron?"
           "I got really, really drunk, and a ran the simulator really, really too far into the gauntlet. It threw me out, and I got hurt." She looked at me incredulously.
           "I'd call that a small understatement. Gods, you reek. Better take of those clothes and shower up before the water runs out. The pilot shower rooms only get ten minutes of hot water at the start of main-day shift. If you don't hurry you'll stay like that until they give us another ten minutes of water at the end of the shift." She stood up to a small wall fixture at about shoulder height and dispensed something into her hand. "Hey, I'll scrub your back if you scrub mine." Being in that warm room with all the mist, especially when hung over and sleep-deprived, made me extremely tired.
           "Yeah," I mumbled, "sure." Naia rolled her eyes and slanted her ears, doubling up on human and Hrasi expressions that meant the same thing.
           "Don't fall asleep. You need to take a shower. We Hrasi have sensitive noses, and we don't want to have to endure you." She turned back to Eshera, who was leaning under one of the showerheads, soaking her chest pelt, and switched to Hrasi. "Hey, Eshera, come help me. He's [ ]." Eshera made a sneering or snorting sort of noise, then walked to us and knelt beside me.
           "Ahrn, Ahrn… you're [ ], huh? I think he's just [faking? / lying?] so we'll [ ] him." Naia shook her head.
           "No, his eyes are [glazed?]. He's [ ]. Help me get his shirt off." Dull shock: they started pulling my clothes off, Eshera with a plainly distasteful look and Naia with one of wry amusement.
           "Hey, I don't need nurses," I mumbled in incoherent English, "I'm not some old man who can't bath himself." Naia frowned down at me.
           "No, you're not. You're irresponsible young man who doesn't haven't any morals." Then she smirked. "That's what my mother would've said. I say be quiet, because we're going to decide when you're clean enough to be released back into the public." I tried protesting, but I couldn't really stop them. Eshera squinted and wrinkled her muzzle.
           "Probably only minute or two [left?]." They were pretty nice about it, stripping me down and soaping me up with some strong antiseptic that was unsuccessfully masked with flowery perfume. I tried to endure it without completely embarrassing myself, but it was hard. The water abruptly cut out while the two were working on my legs and they exchanged glances
           "They don't say before they do it?" I asked, surprised.
           "They don't care. Nobody cares about pilots," Eshera growled, "[The cleaners? / janitors?] are more important than we are." Naia nodded affirmation.
           "They like to play with us. We're like tools. Sometimes they give only give us five or eight minutes, so we're all [soapy?] and we have to [rinse off?] in the sinks. And they have [camera's] in the walls so they can see us, even in the shower rooms."
           "Especially in the shower rooms," Eshera sneered. "It's because they're all lonely single men. The [officers? / command staff?] just don't understand. Hell, I'd let them do more than just watch if they came down here and [treated?] me like I was a real Hrasi instead of like a slave."
           "They won't hear you?" I asked.
           "I hope they do," she countered. "Maybe they'll listen." She looked up and called out loudly. "Hey, command staff! You hear? My bedside [in exchange?] for some respect, you [ ]! I'm waiting for you, boys!" Naia gave her a flat-eared glare.
           "Hey! They might listen, but more likely they'll [kidnap? / arrest? / take?] you and then rape you once you're away from our protection. Don't say those things!" She turned to look at me. "Better rinse you off before the water drains," she growled softly. The two women gave eachother the back. Maybe they weren't speaking to eachother for some reason. Just like an old married couple, I thought. Naia actually caught her tail in her hands and wrung it out over my leg. "Pelts have to be good for something, a?" She said in English, heart not really in the humor.
           "What was that?" Eshera demanded of me as Naia rinsed me off.
           "Nothing. A bad joke." At her scowl I quickly added "Not about you." She flicked her ears in what seemed a dismissing gesture.
           "Not perfect, but good enough," Naia pronounced. "Still, don't take it personally if you get some nose wrinkling today. I suggest you eat something to get the smell of bile and [something unpronounceably Hrasi] off your breath, though." I moaned consent, then pulled up to a sitting position.
           "Have a towel?" I asked. Both Hrasi chuffed at me. Naia was the one to reply.
           "Towel? What fun is that?" Another chuff at the warning look I gave her. "Yeah, sure. Don't worry, Aaron, we'll get you a real pilot's uniform."
          

---v---

           The two took me back to their cabin, guffawing at my aversion and self-conscientiousness to their nakedness, as well as my own. We saw a few more of the pilots - neither of the men, thank god - in the corridors outside the shower room, and everyone seem to get a good laugh at my expense. I didn't see what was so funny. When we'd gotten to their cabin they tossed me in and shut the door behind us.
           Naia and Eshera's room was completely different from the rest of the ship that I'd seen in that it appealed to my human eye. Their walls were white-washed, their ceiling was ocean-blue, and their floor was tiled with artificial stone. Where the other cabins had bare metal and plastic furniture these two had chosen to decorate their bedroom with carpets and cloth that covered almost every patch of ship. I really hoped that they'd the sense to secure all that fabric. If not, a fraction of light speed would make the room lethal.
           "Do you like it?" Naia asked, laying me down on their bed.
           "Nice. Feels like old Earth." It did have a sort of Caribbean ambience. The Caribbean back in, oh, say, 2050, that is. Before the wide-expanse oil drilling, the fusion experimentation, and the nuclear haze that turned the Caribbean Sea into the Caribbean Basin. I wish I'd been around when the Yucatan had a coastline and the Atlantic Ocean reached from Europe to North America.
           "We've tried," Eshera said, bending down to a clothes drawer to remove a single towel, "but it's hard to find real human stuff." Naia pointed at the blanket I was sitting on, which had a complex geometric design embroidered on it.
           "Check the tag on that." I flipped over the blanket's nearest corner to read a small cloth slip there. 'Made in China'. "It's from Earth. Old Earth: the real thing. Expensive this side of the war." I smiled politely, but laughed on the inside. Somebody was proud of something made in China.
           Eshera rubbed herself with the towel, working out the water until her fur was fluffed out and moderately dry, then tossed it to Naia. She too toweled off with it, throwing it to me when she was done. "That's about as close as you'll ever get to us, I'm afraid. Go ahead and rub our scents over yourself all you want. I'm sure nobody's going to notice." I held the damp thing in my hand.
           "Why?" Eshera gave Naia a knowing glance.
           "Naia is being [ ]. She wants you smell like us so they'll think you slept with us." Eshera flicked an ear at me, gazing predatorily, then dug out another towel from the drawer to give me. "If you had used it, the pilots would not be [ ] of you. They would make you [regret? / appreciate?] your actions." I took the dry towel and wiped off with it, then wrapped it around my waist.
           "Oh, modesty," Naia commented. "Didn't I promise you pilot's clothes?" She strode right up to me and ducked below me to pull at something under the bed. A snap of a latch and she drug out another drawer with identical uniforms. Not the black stuff Amara had been wearing when I picked her out of her fighter, but light brown leather bomber jackets and pants. "It looks small, but this stuff can [stretch?] a lot. The military isn't going to use it's money on different [sizes?] of clothing."
           Cheap it may have been, but the uniform was still clothing. I donned it thankfully, and my new Hrasi friends got one last round of laughs as I tried to go from towel to uniform without two carefully watching young women seeing anything. Eshera at least had the grace not to move and try to get a better view. Once I had it on they followed suit, but only went as far as the shorts and vests which seemed to be the fashion. It would be many years down the road that I learned that the vest was possibly the single greatest contribution humans had made to Hrasi clothing, if not civilian culture.
           "You look good," Eshera remarked, "but I still won't sleep with you." She smiled when I blushed. "It's not hard to make his face do that, is it?"
           "I need food. And sleep. Food first, then I go back to bed with Amara." Naia cocked her head back, ears swiveling.
           "Oh, is that where she is? I was [curious?] if she had come back. Why did she go outside?"
           "I'll let her decide if she wants to tell you. After we've both had sleep." She shrugged, and only after the fact did I realize that she was the only Hrasi I'd ever seen do that.
           "Well, we'll get you your food. Want breakfast?"
          

---v---

           We must have been a sight to see: One beleaguered human being supported on each arm by two damp, fluffy Hrasi women. We walked together down to the lounge room, resting every dozen meters so that I could get a breath. There were murmurs coming from where we were headed - pilot's lounge, I assumed. When we got there I groaned in dismay.
           Thirty wet Hrasi in black and brown shorts were standing in a semicircle around one of the simulators, talking amongst themselves in threes or fours. The simulator that seemed to be of so much interest was achingly familiar. The high scores list was still up, dutifully awaiting a name to be input for the 1st place ranking. Brown dried blood covered the module. As we walked in every head turned to stare at me. Sixty glowing cat eyes stared. Sixty ears lay back.
           "The [prodigal?] warrior returns." That came from Tenuran, who sat on the table farthest to my left.
           "The prodigal warrior is prodigally hung over," I shot back, and the pilot crowd rippled. I hoped that I'd used those words correctly; the words for hangover and prodigal I'd taken from context, I could have easily told her that 'the foolish warrior is constipated' or some such. Tenuran didn't laugh, if that meant anything.
           "That was a lot of [ ] you drank last night. Expensive stuff. Do you like to do that before you fly?"
           "No. I had too much. I'm sorry." I took a look at the simulator coated in blood. "I'll fix it." Tenuran blinked.
           "See that you do." She turned to the rest of the pilots, who were alternately looking at the two of us, rustling and bristling at some perceived conflict there. "A single human pilot, drunk out of his senses, stood up to a gauntlet until he hit 112 enemies. And none of you can get past 10 enemies [except?] the traitor and the drunk? No, I [take that back?]. Amara once [managed?] sixty enemies. That's why she gets to sleep [in? / late?]. The rest of you [ ] are going to [drill?] until your tails [fall?] off, until you're all like Amara." I stiffened at what sounded like a slight aimed at my knight, but Naia pulled down on my shoulder, whispering to me in English.
           "Don't. It's a recessive genetic trait, it's humiliating, and Amara knows it. She also knows Ten's a bigot. Let it go." I bit my tongue as Tenuran continued.
           "When you've [taken?] the gauntlet up to twenty enemies you can stop. Until then you [train?], you do [ ], you study [ ], or you do your work. Any of you [gives?] me any trouble I'll [lend? / sell?] you out to the [ ], [ ] you want to or not. If you don't like that idea, I [suggest?] you have your [ ] meal and get to work. Naia, Jaurn, you two are [ ] the twenty [ ], so you don't have to do anything. Tell your [partners?] if they aren't here: I'll give them out if they [heard?] or not." The pilots growled, no few looking at me resentfully, but got moving.
           "Great," Eshera moaned, "just great. Thanks, Ahrn."
           "Sorry." She gave me an ears-back look, then a shadow of a smile.
           "No problem. You can teach me how to fly." Naia humphed.
           "Good luck. It's hard; I've tried before, but she flies like a rock." The two continued in said fashion, bickering like sisters, or maybe like spouses. The pilots mostly gave us a wide berth as they took me over to the bar; I felt like Moses parting a Red Sea of fur. They dropped me on a stool behind the bar. "That stuff you drunk is expensive," Naia warned, "I would pay it off quickly if I were you. You don't want to be noticed by the crew."
           "Too late," I muttered, grimacing as I rested against the bar.
           "No, they're just pilots," Maura said, stepping out of the crowd. She took a seat beside me. "The pilots don't [mind?]. It's the crew you have to [worry about? / fear?]. Males, you know." She looked up to Naia and Eshera. "You want to make the man breakfast?" Naia gave her a curious look, then turned back to me, then back to her.
           "Yeah. Sure, no problem. I'll get you something too." She touched Eshera on the shoulder and they went to the other end of the bar to fiddle through some cabinets. As soon as they were gone Maura fixed me with an intense stare.
           "She's back," Maura growled lowly, "right?"
           "She's back. She got back after you went to sleep. She was scared and hurt, as was I, so we bandaged eachother and fell asleep. She wanted to sleep in."
           "How hurt?" Her eyes were dilated, watching for the response.
           "She'll live. She was scratched around the abdomen. You can go see her if you want to; she's in the cabin that smells like blood."
           "That's not funny. My [threat? / ultimatum?] stays: you hurt her, I hurt you." She leaned over and gave me a friendly-looking nudge right in my bullet wound. "Did that hurt?" There was too much pain in my chest for me to say much but 'uhn'. "No? Let me try again."
           "It hurt," I stammered, "It hurt like hell! Don't do that again - I couldn't do anything after she left!" Both Naia and Eshera were digging in a floor-level cabinet, their tales perked high above the counter, and at the insistence of my voice two heads bobbed out to stare at us. Maura put her hand threateningly at my side on the other side of the counter, out of the girls' sights, but smiled at the two. They looked at her, then at eachother, then shrugged in unison and went back to whatever they had been doing. No rescue there.
           "You're lucky. I said I was going to kill you, not hurt you. I'm being [lenient?] with you because Amara won't speak with me. She's mad because I said she was a fool to have you as her lord."
           "Why don't you sleep with her?" I asked, and she shook her head.
           "I want to, but she won't let me. I know her. And I want to know how you're going to fix this [situation? / dilemma?]."
           "Don't worry. I want you to stop her if she tries to go. I told her not to, but I don't know if she will or not. Let him do what he will with me." Her ears slanted back as she gauged my sincerity.
           "That's stupid. I like it, though." Maura smiled at me, a rare gift from her. "I'd be happy to keep her [pinned? / immobile? / secured?]."
           "Tell her I said she had to sleep with you, and that if she doesn't I'll come and make her." Maura pursed her lips mirthfully.
           "Hrrnnn. Alright. My thanks." She left and headed out for the cabins. That was two less problems I had to deal with; get Naia out of the way and maybe I could get some sleep.
           The woman in question was at the end of the bar, working over a counter. Eshera hovered next to her, helping her with whatever it was they were doing. As long as they were over there and not in my face, I saw no reason not to fall asleep, and did so immediately. Bar-counter metal is hard, but you can sleep on it if you're really tired. There was a lot of background noise in the room keeping me awake, so I burrowed my head under my crossed arms on the bar counter. Even though I couldn't fall into any kind of deep, restful sleep because of all of the predatory snarls and hisses that are the Hrasi speech, it was restful for me to close my eyes and be still. Naia must have felt sorry for me, because she gave me what felt like an hour.
           "Wake up, sleepy," she finally called, "breakfast's ready." In English, thank god, because I was too tired to translate any more. When I didn't move after a few seconds a cold, wet, leathery nose jabbed me in the ear. "Hey, wake up. I made you breakfast. This doesn't happen too often." I mumbled protest and drew my head up to look at her hazily. Naia smiled and proffered a dish. "Eat it. You'd better like it, too."
           The plate had some sort of meat on it, with spicy-smelling red and yellow peppers and leafy greens on the side. Breakfast looked far too spicy for me; reluctantly, I took it from her and set it gingerly on the counter. Naia put a hand into her pocket and retrieved a metal dinner knife. "You might want this, clawless that you are." In the corner Eshera chuffed, seeing Naia with the knife; I ignored them both.
           "So what is this stuff?" I asked, taking the knife to prod the meat. Naia scowled.
           "Hey. That's not proper in human or Hrasi culture. You haven't even touched it yet." I looked at it unenthusiastically, then held the meat in place - no fork - and sawed off a piece to swallow. Not bad: didn't taste like chicken though. Actually, it tasted something like sweetened ham and something like salmon. The vegetables weren't bad either, but they didn't taste anything like peppers - more like gingery yams and tomatoes. Everything had an odd, sour taste to it.
           "I like it. Something tastes really sour, though. The same way inedible plants taste." Her ears set back even further.
           "It's safe. My mother used to make it for us all the time. There's nothing in there that'll make you sick, although that might not have been the case if we'd had this conversation while I'd made it." Naia looked fairly pissed, but she kept her tone even. Maybe she didn't want to attract attention with her voice - nobody else could understand us.
           "Sorry," I soothed, too tired to get involved in a confrontation with her, "I like it. Really, I was just worried. This is good stuff. These are natural ingredients, right? I'm really impressed. What are they?" Her fluffed, ruffled fur smoothed a bit and her ears rose an inch or two.
           "Yeah, they're real ingredients. My father sends me this stuff all the time. You'd better not just be saying you like it. I don't have much, and I'm not going to waste it on you if you don't love it." She gave me a hard look. "If you must know, that meat is called 'Geri'. They're small aquatic rodents that live in mountainous rivers and other bodies of water. Geri is one of very few Hrasi meats that humans can eat, because geri don't graze on the Cha'so grass that covers our homeworld. Cha'so just happens to be an incredible hypertensive to you humans; ingest a milligram or so of its natural toxin and it'll drop your blood pressure until you slip under permanently. Most humans like geri because of its sweetness, which comes from all the underwater plants that they eat. In medieval times geri - exclusive to the northern highlands - was the single biggest export from the northern family associations, aside, of course, from weaponry." I swallowed another piece of geri.
           "Did I need to know all that?" I asked, chewing around meat. If I'd been awake I wouldn't have been so caustic, but I wasn't, so I was. She took the criticism pretty well.
           "Asshole. Know what? You're a real jerk when you haven't had your sleep. I thought you might be interested in Hrasi culture, but I guess not. Go ahead and try to eat some haro or jhesa, then: see how you like it. I hope you don't mind slipping into a coma for the rest of your life." A maddened Naia glared at me, looking hurt. Ah shit, I thought, I can't have Naia mad at me. In retrospect I realize that I was acting like a kid, but I had decided for some reason that I still had pride that needed salving.
           "Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm also hung over and sleepless. Can't think very well. I like your food though, so don't yell at me…" She stared, then flicked an ear forward.
           "I've heard better apologies. I won't let you push me around or mistreat me, Aaron. You figure that, alright?"
           "I figure it."
           "Good." Her coat smoothed and she stood back, less confrontational. "Hey, you want to eat your geri and get some more sleep? I'll wake you up for lunch." That was about all I heard out of her before I hit the counter and went back to sleep.
          

---v---

           Naia lied; she woke me up four hours later. Mid-shift meal had come and gone, but I didn't really mind. The alcohol had begun to work its way out of my system, so my senses had mostly returned. Needless to say I was mortified at the things I'd done, not the least of which was downing so much hard liquor. The first thing for me to do was apologize to Naia and Eshera again. Eshera waved it off and Naia seemed at least marginally placated.
           Amara wasn't up yet, nor was Maura. Jaurn was coaching some young woman in one of the simulators, while Tenuran was talking to another young pilot resting against a wall. The large majority of the pilots had collected into groups around each of the simulator units, including the one that I'd nearly killed myself on. Someone had cleaned it up. That made me wince; I didn't need anyone getting rid of all the nastiness in my life. That's a bad habit for a leader to get into. Even without that to worry about, I was still running up a serious tab with these people.
           I was resting at the bar, sitting on the stool that I'd been left on. Eshera was the one behind the counter at that moment, so I leaned over to tap her. In response I got a bored look. She didn't have any words, but 'meowed' inquisitively. Kind of comical to hear that sound from a giant tabby.
           "I have a… uh, I owe people. What's that word?" She blinked languidly.
           "You owe some people. You're building up a [debt]."
           "Right. Um, how do I… fix it?" I couldn't think of the word. Eshera gave a small snort.
           "You don't fix debt. You [pay? / relieve?] it. And you pay your debt with money. If you want money, get a job."
           She wasn't being very cooperative, instead staring dully straight ahead. In fact, Eshera didn't look too interested in much of anything. Glasses sat in a row next to her; she took one and pulled a white rag from under the counter to clean. As far as I could tell it was already spotless. Just a rote behavior, I guess. Must have been bored out of her mind.
           "Where am I going to get a job here?"
           "Take somebody else's [shift?] for them," she muttered, staring at the opposite wall.
           "How about taking yours right now?" I offered. She nodded absently, then blinked.
           "Not a bad idea. [Bartending?] doesn't pay much, but if you want to sit here and be [bored?] you can have my pay." She smiled tiredly and set the glass down with its rag. "Let me show you what to do."
           She showed me the basics of her shift, pointing out the drinks under the bar (including the one I'd half drunken). "Going to be a while paying that off," she commented. After I'd gotten a semi-decent handle on the labels she showed me the three most commonly ordered drink mixes, although she freely admitted that nobody was going to come up and order anything. "And if you get a glass," she finished, "clean it. That's all. Now make me a white rose." I nodded and fished out the three ingredients: white tea, kajo liquor, and white chesha ale. She looked faintly amused as I tried to mix them into the proper proportions. "It's only two parts ale to one part kajo, you know," she reminded me softly as I sloshed way too much chesha into her glass. Feeling like a fool, I compensated with more tea and kajo before handing it over.
           "Try this out." She took a sip and smiled wryly.
           "Not bad. Still too much ale. It doesn't taste like a white rose. Good luck; I'm going to train." She walked away, leaving me alone, but the first thing she did was to sneak up on Naia. She was talking in earnest with one of the young men at the farthest table, who noticed Eshera but remained silent, but stopped abruptly when Eshera yanked on her tail. Naia yowled, attracting looks from across the room, and jumped up out of chair, only to be pulled back down by her tail. She turned around furiously, ears down and fangs bared, to see Eshera. At the sight of her partner Naia calmed down, looking simply annoyed, but still made a half-hearted swipe at her antagonist. Eshera pointed a hand back to me and briefly murmured something. Naia's ears went up as she nodded, then she ceded her place to Eshera so she could casually meander her way to the counter.
           "Hey, bartender. Not a bad idea, trying to make some money - you'll probably need some cash to pay off the drink and the cabin." She stared at me as if sizing up my culinary acumen. "Make me a black rose."
           "Black rose?"
           "Don't tell me she didn't show you how to make a black rose," she groaned. "I just saw Eshera walking away with a white one. She likes white;: maybe that's why we're partners? Just switch out the white tea for coffee." A look of disbelief from me and she smiled.
           "What? I like coffee. Yes, we have coffee. Ours was grown on tropical plantations in the archipelagos of Ura. Hrasi enjoy some human vices too, you know." She mock-growled at me with a smile. "Make me my black rose already. The coffee is brewing on a pot in the corner." I nodded, getting up to find it. Lo and behold, there was coffee. Real, natural coffee from real, natural beans. That was something I hadn't seen in a long time.
           "Amazing," I told her, honestly taken aback. "That's really impressive. I'm sorry about being a jerk this morning - I feel a little bit better now." She flicked her ear to the side in that ubiquitous, fly-swatting 'I hear you' manner.
           "Asshole, actually. I'm not a nice person when I get drunk either. Go easy on the kajo and the ale, alright?" I smiled at her, grateful. "If you're willing, I'd be happy to coach you with your Hrasi. For someone who has been around Hrasi all of three or four days your grasp of the language is brilliant, but it's still atrocious."
           "Really?" I asked, mortally embarrassed. I hadn't noticed. "Amara never said anything…"
           "Of course not. She's your knight; it's not her place to criticize you. What did you expect?"
           So for the next few hours we talked in Hrasi. Atrocious was a kind way of putting it: like shit was a little more appropriate. A few of the Hrasi words I'd been slaughtering, but the pronunciations were hard and honestly I couldn't hear the difference between some of their words, not to mention that my sentence structure had been completely switched around and my conjugations were totally messed up. For instance, Naia asked me to tell her that my eyes were blue. I responded 'Rei nos kharan a ghe raejh' - I have blue eyes - but she shook her head. "You just said 'blue grass we had'. It's 'Rei gha a nos kharan raehj'." I didn't hear the difference between raejh and raehj; they both seemed like guttural snarls. Apparently they were like see and sea, except that supposedly you could hear a subtle shift in the last sound. I finally got it - mostly - but it took me an hour.
           "Uhr hazsha larhe jerje raira soun, kheir Naia." Her eyes widened in surprise as she pushed back from the counter. Not a good sign… "That means 'I think your hair is quite beautiful, miss Naia', doesn't it?" She shook her head vigorously.
           "Maybe literally, but it implies that you'd like to have sex with it, and using kheir after soun would only be appropriate if I was your mistress. At least you got the conjugations right… that wasn't what you meant, was it?"
           "No. No way. Ah, let me try this instead: Uhr hazsha yehso jerje kiu soun, nos kheir Naia." She stared at me with a wary gaze.
           "Thanks… I think that that's a bit better of a translation." Then she shook her head. "That sounded weird coming from you. It was too sincere. Alright then, conjugate the verb Quary. It means 'to flip'. Like you'd flip a coin, that is."
           "Huh. That's an -ry verb? Let's see… Quarhe, Quarha, Quari, Quarhes, Quarhas, Quarun. That's the I, you, it, we, you all, and them forms."
           "Right. Good job. And the tenses?"
           "Phew. Okay, the command form is Quar… ro? Quaro? As for the past tenses… Quareis, Quarais, Quarigh…" I trailed off, seeing the doors in the back open.
           Amara walked through, ears down and eyes wandering. She'd far overdressed to hide her injuries: every part of her body from the neck down was covered with her full pilot's suit. Like a wave rippling across the room, ears swiveled to face her, followed by the rest of people's heads. Less noticeably their noses all twitched as well, picking up on some olfactory cue I must have been missing. The conversation only hiccuped, not stopping dead as it had when I first entered.
           She searched the room, looking for someone. When she finally saw me she smiled wearily and bowed her head, bringing her arms across her chest in the same way you might in order to do a sit-up. There were a few murmurs and questioning noises from the crowd as they saw her do that. When she rose up from her position she seemed to see something else, and despite what was obviously a determined effort one of her ears laid back. I followed her eyes to right beside me: Naia. Was that envy, jealousy, annoyance, hatred, or something else? I couldn't tell from the look in her eyes. All the same, she dropped her hands to her sides and strode over to us. She stopped in front of me and bowed her head, pointedly ignoring Naia.
           "Khos Ahrn. You are [bartending?]?" I nodded my head once.
           "Indeed I am. Sit down. May I offer you a drink? I'll pay, of course."
           "Milk please. Human, if we have any." She sat next to Naia, fur ruffled out. Naia smiled at her, then deflated at Amara's icy disposition. "Your Hrasi has improved. Miss Naia must be wonderful."
           Very carefully I bent to open the chilled drinks refrigerator. Mostly there were wine and ale bottles, but in the back there were two silver canisters. When I pulled them out and twisted off the tops to check them I saw that they both had milk. Amara waited for me, focusing away from Naia. "That one, please," She pointed out, naming the one on her left. "It's the mother's: it's thicker." I put the other stuff back without comment. Mother's milk? Did the mothers get any say in that?
           "Do you feel better now?" I asked, shaking the remaining bottle around and pouring her a small glass of it. "Can I help you at all?" She took the glass and sipped at it, closing her eyes.
           "Let me go to -"
           "No." I shook my head firmly. "You don't leave this room, hear?" She pursed her lips.
           "As you wish, Khos Ahrn. You don't understand the danger [involved?"], if I may say so. Kjistha will come here and arrest the two of us. He's the head of security. He can do that."
           "May I ask a question," Naia interjected, "or is this [private?]?" Amara gave her a flat-eared stare and a hiss.
           "What?" Amara practically snarled, and Naia actually ducked down to the counter in a twitch of fear.
           "Amara," I chastised, and she too ducked. Both of their ears were wrapped to their heads. Naia recovered first, sending me a slight nod of appreciation. An unusually icy Amara waited for the question distastefully.
           "Um… Why are you [mad at? / angry with?] me?" Naia asked quietly, staring up nervously. Amara gritted her teeth, then looked first at me before answering.
           "You are [ ] with khos Ahrn!" Whatever it was that she said made absolutely no sense to me, but there weren't that many words that would fit. Naia's mouth hung open, speechless, but then she consciously shut it. Her ears were twitching.
           "Do you really think so? I swear I'm not. He needs a teacher and I like humans. I'm not [ ] him. I promise."
           "You're lying."
           "I'm not. I wouldn't steal from you," Naia insisted. There was a moment when neither said anything, simply staring at eachother. I cleared my throat and Naia turned to look at me, while Amara didn't react. Obviously not a gesture our races shared.
           "Are you two talking about what I think you are?"
           "No," they both exclaimed. From Amara: "Yes." And from Naia: "Maybe." Amara let out a long, soft, tea kettle hiss.
           "If you think you're my friend, don't touch him. I can't stop you."
           "Don't worry about it, Amara. I won't," Naia assured her, "I'm your friend. But… tell me about the khos." They both gave me a look, ears halfway up, cautious. To me, Amara's demeanor seemed to finally be thawing, but still looked hostile. It wasn't the Amara I was used to.
           "Khos Arhn is a [ ] pilot. When we went for the [strike?] we took out his [squadron?], except for he and his [wingman?]. They'd [gotten?] behind us and come up from our [rear?]." She lapped her milk from the shallow Hrasi saucer-cup I'd given her. "We got his [wingmate?] but he [blitzed?] through my wing. I had Isha, Uuran, and Eleih with me, too, but they couldn't do anything. I couldn't do much more. We fought for a minute or two, then got eachother at the same time and crashed on the [local?] planet.
           "I lost it: went [unconscious?]. When I woke up everything hurt. I was in a blanket, near a fire. Khos Ahrn was tending to it, and when he heard me he turned around. Scared me, but he didn't try to hurt me. He just touched me, even though I was being [hysterical?]. I [assumed?] he wanted me as a knight, so I [bonded? / attached? / endeared?] myself to him. Now I know that khos Ahrn didn't want a knight at all, but-"
           "But you still owe him your life," Naia finished, and Amara nodded. Naia took a sip of her black rose. "That would be funny if Isha hadn't died. It's still [ironic?]. But don't worry, I'll ask your permission before I mess with him."
           "Mess with me?" I exclaimed. "Who's messing with me?"
           "No one but me, khos Ahrn," Amara growled, "if it's possible." She calmed down a bit. "This is not important. I'd rather let Naia near you than Kjistha. Naia bites softly, but Kjistha will take your throat out. Please, khos Ahrn. I'm [begging?] you to let me go to him tonight. I can ask him to take me back here [afterwards?]. If you don't let me go he'll be here tomorrow. He'll take us away! Khos Ahrn, I don't want to be his slave."
           "What's this?" Naia asked. Amara turned to her, suddenly morose.
           "A deal with the head of security. My body, nightly, for khos Ahrn's safety, daily." She snarled. "Khos Ahrn does not want me to continue."
           "Because it is completely unacceptable, especially to a human male who's protecting you. And he's right. So are you, though." Naia turned her head to look at me. "She is following your orders because she has to. Kjistha Sarunsa is a dangerous man. He will come after you to throw you in the brig. What will you do then? The pilots cannot [afford?] to protect you two right now. If you don't let her play love slave you'll both be in security. You could be killed, especially if Kjistha has [vendetta?] with you."
           "Don't worry about it," I assured her, not entirely too sure myself. "I have something in mind that'll work." Not really, but I might eventually. Hopefully it would be in time.
           "I [certainly?] hope so," Naia growled. Amara gave me a sidelong look.
           "I cannot let you fight him, Khos Ahrn. He would kill you as you are now. We need Ayo to work on your wounds."
           "I won't fight him. Trust me. But can you ask Ayo over here?" Amara nodded silently and got up from her seat. Naia looked at her back, then back at me.
           "I hope you know what you're doing."
           "So do I."
          

---v---

           When Amara returned with Ayo the two were both laden with briefcases. Ayo cracked them open, drawing out a plethora of medical equipment. Enough people were watching that Ayo didn't ask me to lie on the counter or use some embarrassing probe, thank god, but she was still pretty damned thorough. Some basic scans and checks on my person got a few growls out of Ayo. She sat behind me and prodded my back, making questioning noises whenever I winced. Ayo was very gentle with me, thankfully, trying hard not to hurt her patient.
           She didn't have much to say about anything, but liked to make guttural animal noises to convey emotion. Odd that such a brilliant doctor preferred to express herself solely with 'urrows' and 'meows'. What little Ayo said was mostly out of surprise. "You're healing more quickly than most humans I've seen," she once purred, and said other such stuff. Finally she took some of my bandages off, eliciting some shocked gasps, and liberally reapplied more plasm to the wounds. I got lots of pills: antibiotics, nutrient supplements, and repair nanobot capsules. Reprogrammed for humans, she assured me.
           "You need to eat and drink a lot. The nanobots will fuel off anything they find in your digestive tract," Naia ended up translating for me. There were too many medical terms for me to understand Ayo at all. "She says the verdict is that you can fly, but not fight physically. You should be repaired back to perfect health within a week or two. Naturally you would heal within three months." Ayo growled one last sentence and Naia chuffed. "She says you need to secure the safety restraints on the simulator next time."
           At about the time we finished the pipes in the ceiling and walls started to shake and rumble. "Bath time," Naia laughed, looking at my bare-chested self, "just in time."
           The showers were freezing. Amara wouldn't take her shorts off and expose her bandaged wounds, so the two of us ended up in our trousers, leaning against a showerhead wall. Naia and Eshera were next to us, laughing at our modesty. Neither of us really cared, though; Amara just closed her eyes and stuck her face into the showerhead, nostrils flaring as she shivered from the cold water. When I got some soap and rubbed it into her mane and under her neck she murred.
           "It's cold, Khos Ahrn. The water feels good through my pelt. I [wish?] it was hot, though." She laughed, then leaned into me, sagging. "Khos Ahrn, please tell me that you know what you're doing." I raked fingernails through her fur.
           "I know what I'm doing. Promise. He'll leave us alone. Don't worry, Amara. I know what I'm doing." She nodded silently, then threw her head back.
           "Do you [mind? / care?] if I stay [sagging?] on you." I had to grin.
           "Sag all you want."
           When the water cut out we were all pretty much rinsed off. Everyone regressed to their cabins to change clothing. There weren't any other clothes for me, but Amara was sympathetic, and graciously gave me her officer's uniform. I got the impression that she was something analogous to a lieutenant; silver pins hung at the end of the V in her uniform's neck along with a trio of medals at the chest, but otherwise it was generic and well worn. Some writing was sewn into the shoulders: her name? I couldn't tell. "Where's Maura?" I'd asked her. She'd looked at me with a sorrowful expression.
           "We had a fight. She left our cabin. Said she was going to work on my fighter."
           "Didn't see her leave." Amara had shrugged.
           "She's a mechanic. There are doors she can open we that we can't."
           So we ended up back at the bar. Eshera was behind it, but I waved her away.
           "May I sit there? I need to." A bleak, uncertain plan had sunken into my mind. She nodded to me, getting up from her chair to give me the seat. I sat down there. "Anybody know what kind of drink the head of security likes?"
           "You are not going to [ ] him," Ayo protested, "You can't just murder someone."
           "Poison," Naia added. "That word, yuh'an, means poison."
           "No, no poison," I told Ayo, who nodded.
           "He likes Kajo," Jaurn growled from the rear. "Trust me."
           "Okay… Naia, can you ask Ayo to program some of her nanobots to do nothing but stay in his body?" Naia shrugged, then looked over to Ayo and hissed a string of unfamiliar terms. Ayo shrugged as well and ran back to the living quarters. "She'll do it. It'll probably take five minutes." Then Naia leaned into me and frowned. "What are you doing?"
           "Nothing." Everyone exchanged glances, then turned to me.
           "The hell are you people doing?" Tenuran emerged from the other end of the room. "Eshera! Have you met my simulator [requirement? / standard?] yet?" Eshera's eyes went wide.
           "No sir! I'll [get on it?] sir!" Tenuran snorted.
           "You'd [better?]. Now." Eshera ducked down, then went for the simulators. "Hurry up. And the rest of you, What do you think this place is? What are you doing, [ ] a [ ]? Do something [constructive?], don't just sit and talk! And you [wonder?] why the officers don't [respect?] us at all: nobody does anything [useful?]! You just [take up space?]!" For some reason she was annoyed or upset, and waved her arms wildly as she snarled. "Go do something!"
           The pilots all shuffled out of their chairs and spread throughout the room: to the simulators, to their living quarters, and to the tables. Only Amara stayed with me, looking concerned. Tenuran dropped her arms to her sides in an exaggerated sigh and stalked to the bar, pulling a datapad from the back and throwing it on the counter. "I don't believe my own squadron is so [helpless? / slothful?]. Amara, good to see you're not dead. I need your [ ] [ ] in battle. Can you fight?"
           "No sir. I cannot fight my lord's allies unless he [approves? / consents?]." I shook my head.
           "Sorry. I don't want you to fight my people. You can fly and you can protect, but please don't hunt my friends." Amara shrugged.
           "There it is, sir. [Perhaps?] you could [keep? / restrict?] my [missions?] to protecting and [escort?]?" Tenuran gave me a sharp look.
           "This is not - why are you [wearing?] Amara's uniform? Take those [medals?] off; you did not fight in the [skirmish? / siege?] of Earth!"
           "I did," I protested, "I was a squadron leader." A snarl.
           "Don't be [ ]. You have no [right?] to wear that. If you wear it [tomorrow? / again?] I'll shoot you. Also, you will tell Amara to [follow my orders?]." Solemnly I gave her a bob of the head.
           "Amara, please do as she asks. Now, go tell your friend to come take you for the night." Amara blinked.
           "But I thought- "
           "No, don't go there, just use a… a… signal."
           "[Phone?]? Yes, khos Ahrn. I'll have him come here." She left, leaving me alone with Tenuran, who growled.
           "Friend? She's [leaving?] the pilot's deck? Where is Maura?"
           "Maura is where she works," I responded, "and Amara is staying here." Tenuran hissed her annoyance with me. "I would like to keep her from danger."
           "No, I need her. She is too important to us. She will fly. If you want to protect her, be her [gunner?]."
           Tenuran and I stared at one another, trading verbal blows for a few minutes, though she had all the power in our situation save lordship over Amara. I suppose Tenuran must have felt threatened by my presence; in truth, I could understand how she might feel intruded upon after losing command over one of the pilots in her squadron. It was the sort of verbal jousting between leaders that Naia would have referred to as 'alpha bickering'. There were more questions about the military, but I dismissed them and countered with my own, which were equally ignored. In the end, Tenuran left me with a snort and Amara returned.
           "He'll be here soon. He is not happy." I nodded.
           "Ahrn!" Ayo called from the quarters, then jogged to me. "I am sorry to be so [late? / slow?]. Here they are." A silver pellet was in her hand; she dropped it on the counter.
           "Thank you. May I speak to Amara?" Ayo bowed and left. "Amara, I am going to tell him some things that are… wrong. Bad, hear? You will not want to hear them. Know that they are not… truths." I got a nervous set of the ears in response.
           "Lies. I hear you, khos Ahrn."
           "Good. I want you to look upset." I searched for the Kajo under the counter, then pulled it out and opened it up. Slowly I crushed the pill into the drink, then replaced the cap and shook it. "This will be interesting."
          
           End Part 5