Reclamation(39)

Perivar said nothing for a long moment.

“There’s nothing else I can tell you,” Eric said.

“What about something about your … friend?”

“She’s no friend of mine.” Eric’s eyes seemed to see something other than Perivar’s face at that moment. “Although, Notouch or not, I could maybe wish she was … she’s all right, Perivar. She’s stubborn and she’s got some secret she’s keeping to herself, but she learns fast and she seems as determined to stay out of the Realm as I am.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that.” As well as on everything else.

“I’d give you more if I could.”

“I know.” Perivar pushed the door open. “And I appreciate it.”

In the workroom, Ri and Dene had Arla under close scrutiny. The pair of them had crammed themselves into the capsule that now hung from a post maybe six inches from Arla’s nose. The wariness was gone from her face. Instead, her expression shifted from bemused to bewildered as she tried to keep pace with the kids’ yes-and-no questions.

“Will you be staying …” Ri started.

“… with us?” finished Dene. Arla shook her head.

“You came from a long way …” Dene started.

“… away? How far?”

Arla nodded and spread her hands, unable to answer completely.

Perivar glanced through the membrane to Kiv. He was saying something soft to Ere where she lay on his shoulders. The remainder of his brood was draped across his back, whistling encouragement as their representatives tried to get information from the stranger. Kiv’s legs were retracted, but his arms and eyes were extended. He was relaxed and Perivar was willing to bet, a little amused.

“The lines on …” began Dene, but Ri saw Perivar step into the workroom. She squeezed her sister’s mouth shut with her secondary hands while she swung her eyes toward Perivar and Eric.

Arla also turned all her attention toward them.

“I’ve set things in motion.” Perivar felt his glance slide past Arla to Kiv, who did nothing more than swivel an extra eye toward his children in the capsule. Perivar faced Eric. “Are you going to stick around and watch?”

“No,” Eric said, and Arla’s head snapped around. “I’ve got to keep moving.”

The two of them exchanged a long, uninterpretable look.

“You leave me in your debt.” Under the translation, her voice sounded stilted to Perivar, as if this was a new phrase for her.

“Pay me by not giving Perivar any extra problems.” Eric turned away from her a little too quickly. “I’ve got to go. I only authorized a day’s worth of dock time for my ship.”

Perivar nodded. “I’d rather not ever see you again, Sar Born.”

“I know.” And he walked out. Arla did not turn around to watch him leave.

The door shut and left them all closed in together. Perivar looked at Arla, who looked back at him in silence.

What do you think I am? asked Eric from memory again. It was his old voice, heavily accented and awkward. Nothing like the smoothly educated tone he’d used today.

Cargo, thought Perivar. Checked over, labeled as clean and delivered, or too dirty to fix and dumped.

Certainly not a person who would look at him like Arla was, vaguely expectant, waiting for him to do something.

“Want to sit down?” he gestured to a chair.

Her eyes tracked his hand and a puzzled expression wrinkled her brow. “Thank you … I don’t know how to call you.” The translation fell a long way out of synch with her real speech.

“Perivar,” he told her. “My partner is Kivererishakadene. Kiv’s the name you have to remember there. The rest of it belongs to the children.” Perivar nodded to the two in the capsule.

Taking that as some kind of cue, Ri raised the capsule back up to the ceiling cables and rattled back toward their own side.

Kiv stretched himself out toward the membrane. “Have you borne your children yet?”

Perivar shot Kiv a look, uncertain whether he was being really absentminded this time, or if he was trying to pay Arla back for her shocked stare by making her uncomfortable.

She sank onto the edge of the chair Perivar had offered her. “Four living,” she said quietly, and Perivar translated it for Kiv.

Kiv’s subtle ripples told Perivar he was trying to make the mental readjustment. The only thing more alien to Kiv than a male without children, was a parent who lived away from them. Even though the kids theoretically understood humans’ strange ways better, Ri and Sha piled on top of their sisters as soon as they got out of the capsule, as if the idea that a brood and parent could be separated would magically tear them away. Kiv automatically coiled himself around them, buzzing softly.