Upon a Savage Shore Ch. 10

"I was slammed out of my acceleration couch when we hit the big one," she said in a subdued tone. "Killed both pilots. I was lucky."

Liam looked at her. She'd stopped working on the fish, just staring down at the blood and severed heads.

"I think I was pretty lucky you survived, too, Commander," he said sincerely.

M'pel E'kmel shook herself and turned a grateful smile on him. Her good humor returned almost instantly and she resumed processing the fish.

"These would taste so much better if I only had some tHi'qel root."

"Tickle root?" he snorted. "Sounds funny."

"No!" she laughed, missing his pun. "You really have no ear for our language, do you?"

"Apparently not." He added some thin sticks to the growing flames and went on, "I speak German and Spanish fluently. Both were common where I grew up. And I speak some Vespan. Enough to order dinner or ask where the lavatory is."

"Two of the most important things in life," she sniped. "When I first began learning English I thought the language sounded like drowning qW'ogs in boiling oil."

"And now?"

"A different story, completely," she said. "It is quite a nuanced language, full of surprises and a wonderful array of descriptive words."

"Lots of those are barrowed from French, German, Spanish and a bunch of other languages."

"And that's another thing I like about it," she said and split another fish open. "English is so adaptive. Your people see a good thing and incorporate it into their language instead of trying to force English to describe new things. How many Vespan words do you now use?"

"Not very many," he told her. "Most of them refer only to things from the Vespan culture. I think a lot of them are used in the art field. We've covered pretty much everything else. I guess we'll incorporate more the longer we're in contact with the Vespans."

"A handsome race, I think," she said, glancing over her shoulder to see his reaction. "You were interested in one, didn't you say?"

"Oh, yeah. I was," he chuckled at the memory. "Turned out it was a guy."

"Really?" she grinned.

"Not my thing," he said and shook his head.

"I suspected not. What if it had been their other sex? The one that isn't male or female."

"Don't know," Liam admitted. "Probably would have felt the same."

"But it doesn't offend you that we female jZav'Etch enjoy each other's intimate company?"

"Doesn't bother me at all," he admitted. "Doesn't bother me if Human females do that, either."

"And what of Human males?"

"Doesn't bother me as long as they don't try to convince me I should participate," he said, his voice a little stiff. "Some of the marines I've known were gay. Some liked both boys and girls. Just not my thing."

"jZav'Etch males do not couple with other males," she said. "They are geared to procreate, not to enjoy the union. And there are fewer males than females by a sizable margin."

"Why aren't there more females on the front lines, then?"

"I told you, did I not?" she asked and glanced at him. He was adding thicker pieces of wood to the growing fire. "Males are aggressive. They see what needs to be done and go after it. Females preserve what we have. Most of the females in the military are in garrisons or in technical positions. Males are much better at assault than we are. It's in their nature."

"Huh. I guess that makes sense," Liam said. Then changing the subject, "What's this tickle root like?"

"tHi'qel root!" she laughed. "Really, Sergeant. You are hopeless."

They continued to banter about nothing, enjoying each other's company until M'pel E'kmel had the fish wrapped in leaves and coated with a thick layer of mud. Liam helped her lay them in the coals of the fire and then they set about pealing some roots Liam had found that tasted like potatoes. These he roasted on a spit when the fish were close to being cooked.

Through the meal Tem'Ma'tel and Clot'ilda practiced their English, asking many questions about Liam's home world and his time in the service. As usual, Clot'ilda especially wanted to know about relationships he'd had, but he successfully put her off.

As was typical the three cats put away more than twice as much food as Liam did. Their metabolisms were geared to process large amounts of meat and the fish was especially appealing to them as a change in their diet. Liam ate most of the roots, thinking it was a fine thing to have vegetables on the menu.

After dinner, Liam took Clotilda back to the old camp. There was little evidence intelligent beings had ever been there aside from the scout ship, now overgrown with vines. He was able to collect several small pieces of metal and these were loaded on the stretcher with the ropes, shovels and other items they wanted to bring along.

Before they left the camp for the last time Clotilda shot a winged creature like the one that had attacked her. Liam suspected it was more out of spite than a desire to have more of its tasty meat. Clotilda tended to take things like almost being eaten personal.

That evening he and Tem'Ma'tel broke down and cleaned the fero-plas weapons. They were sitting across from each other by the campfire and staying focused on the task when she unexpectedly shrugged out of her fatigue jacket. She didn't make a production of it, but the rhythmic twitching of her tail caught his attention. He looked up. Tem'Ma'tel glanced at him with only the slightest of smirks and wriggled her shoulders, making the cloth of her undershirt stretch tighter over her breasts. Her tail twitched a few more times and then she ignored him.

Yep. I'm going to have to do something about that pretty soon, he thought. The notion was no longer objectionable to him the way it had been a week ago. Clot'ilda seemed intent on him taking Tem'Ma'tel as soon as possible. She had cautioned him to be careful, though she would not say why. She made no hints or suggestions when it came to M'pel E'kmel, though. He wasn't sure why, but he suspected it had something to do with the commander's rank and age.

For the moment, Liam shrugged off such thoughts. Preparing for the move was the most important thing. Tem'Ma'tel was nearly ready to travel and the sooner they could get away from this spot to someplace they wouldn't need to stand watch night and day, the better.