When the capsule’s occupant was stretched out, she was three times as long as the transport she used. She tucked eight pairs of her legs underneath her and used the remaining pair to manipulate the capsule’s controls. Her primary hands rested on the bumpy controls for the information terminal, while her secondaries folded in the polite greeting. Two of her eyes extended down toward her primary hands. The other two focused on her goal.
Perivar squinted at the pattern of grey blotches on her smooth golden scales. This was Sha, the third-named of Kiv’s litter.
Didn’t even send his first-named. Gods, gods, gods, he is mad.
Sha used the post to lower the capsule until she was eye level with him. She extended her snout and pursed her lipless mouth. The protective capsule shut in the actual buzzing sound of her voice, but its intercom carried the signal to activate Perivar’s translation disk and transmit her message.
“My parent requests information regarding the progress of the routing for packet 73-1511.”
Perivar took a deep breath. “Sha, tell your parent …” He let the sentence die. “Tell your parent I’m coming in.”
Sha’s snout retracted, fast. Perivar had come to equate the action with a human gulp. Without another word, Sha reversed her course, sending the capsule back across the cables and through the portal.
Anticipating trouble, little one? Perivar got to his feet. Me too.
The workroom had three doors. One led to the hallway. One hung open to display his comfortably disreputable living rooms. The third was a sliding metal partition in the same wall as the capsule’s portal. Next to the partition stood a rack containing an oxygen pack. Perivar checked the tank reading to make sure it was full before he hooked its straps over his shoulders. Fumbling a little with the catches, he fitted the shield over his eyes and mouth.
Shrugging his shoulders to settle the tank more comfortably, Perivar slid back the partition to expose the gelatinous membrane that separated Kiv’s half of their quarters from his. The membrane had cost more than all the rest of his equipment combined, but it was worth it. Working with Kiv meant contracts from other Shessel and the Shessel had a lot of work that needed doing.
As usual, Perivar paused before the membrane, hoping that one day he’d get used to going through it.
After four years it was starting to seem unlikely.
Perivar stepped through the membrane. The gooey gel pressed against his skin, clothes, and mask and stuck, sealing him inside a flexible envelope that would screen out the ultraviolet rays Kiv and his children basked under. When Kiv stepped through into Perivar’s space, the gel kept in his body heat so he wouldn’t drop into a stupor in Perivar’s arctic climate, or drown in the flood of his oxygen. It was a good method, but not very sturdy, which was why the children used the unbreakable capsules.
Kiv was a bulky, earth-toned match for his five daughters. Uncoiled and standing straight on all his legs, he was so tall his eyes were level with the crown of Perivar’s head. A skintight, vermilion garment encased him from his neck to his last set of toes. He’d started wearing the thing as soon as the last of his children were hatched and he made the shift from female to male. Kiv had never been able to explain properly whether being required to wear clothes indoors was a mark of advancement or decline in the Shessel’s social order.
At the moment, Kiv was half-coiled around the base of his map table. Like Perivar’s it provided information about the space between the stars, but it did so in a series of lumps and indentations that shifted under Kiv’s primary and secondary hands. Only one of the other children was in evidence. Ere draped herself across her parent’s shoulders and stretched her arms so that her primary hands covered his and moved with them. Kiv buzzed and whistled at his first-named daughter, teaching her to read and understand the map in front of them.
Perivar glanced at the cables overhead. Sha must have taken the capsule straight into Kiv’s living rooms to hide with her other three sisters.
“Sha delivered your insult, Kiv,” Perivar said. “I heard it and I understood it. Now you understand this. I owe Eric Born more than one favor.”
“He’s contraband.” Kiv did not point his snout toward Perivar, or stop reading the table. “And he is running yet more contraband.”
“He swears she’s a volunteer.” Gods, I hope she’s a volunteer.
Kiv’s hands froze. “What could you possibly owe …”
“A contraband runner for?” Ere finished for her parent. She wasn’t being rude, she was showing how well she knew Kiv.
“He’s not a runner,” Perivar insisted. “And you don’t want to know what I owe him for.”