· · · · · · ·

July 26

Planet Kyasumeni

· · · · · · ·

Karga'te thought evacuating the market would be easy. There were just a few thousand people. Too bad they all had wares they didn't want to leave behind — fearing theft or swindle — or couldn't leave it because it would be conspicuous. Now all this had to be sped up because Ayo claimed there would be an invasion right away.

Anudjan insisted this made no sense, citing experience. Airborne drones would first be launched to explore the area, leaving months for a battalion of humans to arrive to find whatever mutated dinosaur they would be finding. These drones coming across the implausible cavity under the plateau was inevitable, so they better find nothing but a ridiculously expansive vacation resort conveniently populated only be species already known to humankind. Give the space marines a friendly invitation to join in the goo baths by dimwitted tourists who couldn't tell human soldier from civilian.

Hguthreeit sided with Anudjan, and after some dabbling, Ayo suddenly approved. Next up, Hguthreeit hired grunts to slime up the market, and plant distorters in a few key locations. The major wares and traders would hang around on a moon base, normally only used to store pressure sensitive wares and spaceships for sale.

All that just to send some humans back with the wrong impression?

Translation : a whole lot of hassle. So much of his daily route was now a slipper slope. Couldn't they just shoot the drones and brainwash the humans? Blame the damn dinosaurs they were pretending to fetch.

But noooo they were going to be difficult, so now he was out in the jungle. They had a particularly smart dinosaur around that could snatch things from the sky or drive air blockades, camouflage itself too. The perfect distraction.

It understood threats, both telepathy and demonstrative, with which he'd been herding it for the past few hours. Twice, apparent surrender had been a trap, but for the most part it was almost boring. He wasn't actually paid to tame or fight it.

Kirindi leaned over the edge of the hovercraft, peering down at the creature running ahead of them. She tried again to suggest they were bringing it to a better living place, but without fully drawing the creature into the hivemind she couldn't convince it. Letting her do it would be easier on the short run, but he already had enough trouble with Eliath, who quietly seethed in the back of the craft.

Karga'te had let him come to avoid a conflict with Ayo, which had introduced Eliath to the concept of loathing someone more than Karga'te. That wasn't a favor for Karga'te, since Eliath also hated that Karga'te didn't hate Ayo.

Mostly. She was good for what they were doing, bad for reminding him of the past. It brought about the kind of dreams he didn't want the sisters to be polluted by, and Odygos and Shadhahvar pried. Kirindi didn't, at least, but she might learn from others if they did. Her least of all should learn, so Ayo better move on soon.

Eliath nagged at him that this was a good reason to resent Ayo, who was very dangerous. Karga'te kept his hands glued to the steering device and eyes fixed on the dinosaur. The edge of the rainforest was ahead now, and the dinosaur no longer need motivation; it preferred a place to hide.

The colossal trees here were taller than any long necked dinosaur. Karga'te was pretty sure the thicker trees were planned to be homes to worms eventually, but Hrugheeit hadn't come that far with colonization yet.

They drove the dinosaur into the undergrowth without incident and were about to leave when a line of the thinner trees came crashing down, outward and tearing along others. They got out of range just barely in time. Karga'te gained altitude and looked back.

The dinosaur stared at them. That had been a little farewell.

Oh, he was so tempted to drive a rival to its new territory now.

On the way back, Ayo dropped a digital note, asking him to get rid of Eliath and meet her at the odhuiooi docks. Orders or something.

While enlisting Ti'chai-di to drag Eliath into his room and seal the door, Karga'te checked up with Hrugheeit to find that yes, he was assigned to go there with Ayo. Something had to be done about the poleepkwa. Dammit.

After sealing Eliath's door, Karga'te asked Kirindi, "You gonna have a problem with Ayo near?"

"I'll be calm, it's okay," she said. "Really."

"Then come along."

They headed for the docks, where Ayo sat on her own hovercraft — made not of metal but whatever that Aing Tii ship was composed of.

Ayo waved, nobody waved back.

Karga'te kept his craft in the air and waited for her to get moving.

"Why are you on my job anyway?" he asked.

"Why not? We used to be able to work together. See whether we still can without Nra'tex-ne looming over our shoulders?"

They traveled at a distance to one of the farthest points back in the cave, where a lone dock lay. Well, there ought to be one, but it wasn't visible anymore. The poleepkwa vessel was on the small side for their usual fare, but all around and half of the slope they had built a camp. Poleepkwa were often impoverished, but over the past centuries had slowly been pulling themselves out of this slump.

They approached the gate at a slow pace. Karga'te identified himself as the guard of the city, was recognized and allowed to pass. Ayo wasn't, but she said she was and somehow that made it okay. Prawns were fools.

Kirindi stayed at a cautious distance, but at least made an effort to tolerate Ayo. Eliath was fuming murder in his room right now.

They were an erratic bunch of creatures that functioned within a biological caste system. Color vision was a must for dealing with them. Red ones were guards, yellow ones workers, and green ones leaders; the latter was the only caste to have the mind for innovation and independence.

There was no green in sight anywhere in this flock.

"So we need to find the leader," Ayo said. "Kirindi, I know you don't like taking directions from me, but you're the most likely at succeeding here."

"I don't want her to add any prawns to the hivemind," Karga'te growled.

"She won't need to. Just some light mind reading and scents," Ayo said. "And we're going to make sure we do this as peaceful as possible. That's why I'd like Kirindi with us."

For all that Kirindi could soothe people, there wasn't much to do without what was almost a gut reflex for them. If they were provoked, they defended. Karga'te decided to stay close and expected Ayo to be the outer rank of defense.

Ayo said, "Karga'te ... don't kill anyone. They're dense, but still sapient."

"I've got an extra hide now," he growled. "There's not gonna be a need."

"I don't know how you define need," Ayo whispered.

He didn't bother getting into that debate, he just wanted to get this over with.

The camp was composed of high end technology arranged to double as living spaces. Stacks of massive engines hummed quietly while providing heat for a cabin that brewed something dangerous, while below were families cooking and working. A raft of pipes balanced over the street to hold dried meat for sale, with the seller clicking loudly but going quiet when spotting the group.

Most poleepkwa moved out of the way, weary of their presence but not that eager for a fight. Karga'te didn't know whether it was Kirindi's influence, his reputation, or the weird radiation of Ayo. Maybe all of that. Maybe Hrugheeit knew and didn't tell him. Dammit. Too much maybe.

Just as he was distracted with that, a red tinted poleepkwa stumbled out of an alley and tripped over Kirindi. They rolled to the ground, Kirindi shot away and Karga'te reflexively went to battle stance. The poleepkwa saw an enemy and charged.

Karga'te eagerly threw himself into the fight. It was somewhere in the back of his head not to rip off any limbs if he didn't want his pay cut, but the damn creature dug nir claws in his arm as they tackled each other. He couldn't let nir get away with that.

"Stop it!" Ayo called. It wasn't the sound as much as the thought she sent with it. She didn't want to go monster, but she would.

Karga'te stopped, got punched in the face. Using that opening, he kicked the poleepkwa back, at Ayo. She grabbed nir arm and hurled nir back into the alley, then blocked the line between them. Just a moment, enough to notice he wouldn't follow. Then she ran, and he followed.

Kirindi waited for them three streets down. Ayo stopped at a distance from her, Karga'te at her side.

"Okay. That went better than I expected. You actually listened."

"Hmmmph." He looked at Kirindi instead Ayo. "Find something yet?"

She nodded eagerly. "The fight made noise, I noticed someone thing hard about that that way. Ne's coming already."

Kirindi led them through the maze, now more careful when passing open spaces. The leader found them while they were in a dead end.

This one was somewhat green tinted, but otherwise didn't look very different. It was the thought that set nir apart as a hive leader, rather than worker.

Ne invited them to nir makeshift office for private discussion.

Karga'te couldn't make head nor tails from the clicks, but the way ne thought was identical to his own and that of humans, so it was easy to tune into. Ne wanted to know where they were supposed to go, without having sold their wares.

"~ Why all this hassle just to keep some humans from finding this place? ~"

"~ The best way to escape our enemies is if they don't think there is anything worth pursuing. We have to play it right, ~" Ayo said.

"~ They already know we exist. ~"

"~ But not that there is a market here. Humans are going to be complicated about commercial competition at best. That's why Hrugheeit wants us gone. And between us ... the people who are coming here are very, very dangerous. If they get in here, people may die. ~"

"~ People of us will die if we spend any more fuel on moving around. We barely have enough to keep our ship functional. Tell Hrugheeit that unless he compensates us, we stay. Let them pass us off as guests or something, or hire us as workers. ~"

Ayo actually liked that latter idea more than the Aing Tii tech she was thinking about bartering. "~We'll talk it—okay Hrugheeit will explore that option. While he doesn't like hiring poleepkwa in the long run, after that perhaps my friends can give you a lift, provided you'll be okay with your ship arriving later."

They argued a little more on the details. Karga'te's part was in laying out who could go where and what jobs might be okay with the worker class of the poleepkwa. He knew most of this stuff by now, to his own surprise. What he didn't know was much about what impact something like money really had on people. He'd brushed it off before, knowing he could technically survive without it. Most yautja could, but only because their entire culture was about weeding out the weak who were unwanted to survive.

Kirindi listened with rapt attention, eager to learn more about these people. She already played with the idea of how to integrate them into a hivemind — poleepkwa had biological classes too, but there was a cognitive division in attention span and aggression, unlike with hardmeat. In her hivemind's fantasy, they wouldn't need money. Last year he would've agreed it was stupid, now he had to reason. They'd die without money, like yautja died without strength or honor.

"~Who's to blame for this?~" Karga'te asked. "~ Why don't you just get rid of the one who did it to you?~"

The unpronounceable leader blinked in surprise. Karga'te couldn't tell anything, but Kirindi caught that it just seemed fundamentally bizarre to a poleepkwa to rise up against their biologically superior castes.

"~ We don't have the resources. ~" Maybe there was some urge to do so, though, because ne didn't outright say it was wrong.

Ayo poked into his mind space. "~ I'm all for overthrowing corrupt leadership, but right now none of us are in a position to work on this. Later, okay? ~"

Later? He had no plans for that. Or anything. He sat back and let poleepkwa leader write down a few demands for Hrugheeit, should they work for him. Kirindi was disappointed he didn't go on, but said nothing about it. How often exactly had she done that, say nothing when she wanted to?

They left without further incident. Once outside the camp, Ayo said, "Right, that went well, except for one thing. That almost fight could have been avoided. You're still acting like—"

Karga'te slammed the door to his hovercraft and shut Ayo out of his mind, but the overwhelming thought was still there. He'd acted like a hunter, for a moment. Seen a challenge, trained to respond.

Kirindi said a soft, "Yes."

· · · · · · ·

August 9

· · · · · · ·

Nowadays, the Auton were very enthusiastic about saving Noasyvé. They'd spend the last days disguising the exterior of the Aing Tii ship as a vessel they could've made and were now equipping it with weapons.

Kirindi was torn between wanting to go save Sarah and the Old Mother versus her distaste of joining Ayo on anything. He could forbid her, even restrain her by locking the door, but he wasn't sure whether he wanted to find out whether she'd then disobey him outright.

By the fifth time he walked past trying to get a handle on whether one or both of the parties were secretly up to something, one of the doors opened and Ayo peeked out.

"Karga'te? You could just knock."

Kirindi darted away, but Karga'te just crossed his arms. "The doors move and breathe. How am I supposed to know what I'm knocking on?"

Ayo chuckled, which started to be less weird to see on her. "Seriously though, why are you here?"

"I was trying to see what that ship's like and whether I'd trust it with Kirindi."

"Them. Not it," Ayo said. That might've contained a sneer, but he couldn't be sure. He had never much of an idea what went on in her head. Ayo always drifted through life, occasionally headbutting if required, leaving little sign she'd been there. The blank face wall surfaced even now.

Ayo nodded at the ramp that unfolded from her door.

He walked up at a slow pace and laid a hand on a piece of the door frame. It seemed to pulse below his hand, but wasn't unpleasant; not like Ayo when she got near.

The inside was like a neat, slimeless version of the hive material that Eliath and Odygos insisted should cover his entire house. More green and gray than brown and yellow, curled rather than ridged, and more moving, but nothing like stone or wood or metal still. Its occupants noticed them walking through, but didn't go out of their way to meet them, so he didn't seek contact either. He ignored the Auton altogether. Most of the Aing Tii had some kind of spirit speech, but even with that they didn't reach out.

All in all, it was pretty boring in here. Probably safe. The Aing Tii had no hostility he could detect, unless thinking of what went down on Enigma. They'd caught wind of Sarah and a few other people being enslaved there, which particularly raised their mental hackles.

Just as he turned back to leave, Ayo put a hand on his shoulder. The height difference made it awkward, but the signal was clear. Approach as an equal warrior, by the old standards. It annoyed him more than anything she still felt like using that language, so he almost shrugged her off, but then she spoke.

"I imagine Hrugheeit is going wrap up this place in the long run anyway, are you going with him?"

He shrugged. "I only took this job cause I needed a place to store Ti'chai-di. I'll see after that."

"Of course you did," Ayo said, lowering her hand. "Is surviving all you're planning?"

"What does it matter to you?"

"You're part of something huge now, it's time to start planning. Whatever you had in mind when you escaped Nirevé won't be as simple anymore."

He just grumbled.

"Once we're done, will you come with us?" she asked. "It's more than safe here. Would you have a problem with that?

That caught him by surprise. "Where to?"

"The Beast Nebula. We have allies there, and Noasyvé's chosen planet is there too. I imagine Kirindi and the drones want to go with her. Do you have a problem with that?"

Yes, but not in the direction Ayo was thinking. Sure, Noasyvé had nearly killed him by using him as a host, but he wasn't picky about the general idea of getting rid of hunters. The bigger issue was what she wanted with Kirindi.

Then again, if he left with Kirindi he probably wouldn't be rid of Noasyvé, so he might as well see what she wanted. He didn't have better places to go.

There was one thing he wanted, but he just didn't know where to even start.

Some deep down gut reflex still told him to be careful about talking to fellow students about non Path things. That was ridiculous, so he made himself say it, "I always had the idea that I'd track him down somehow."

"You still want to go back to him? Even with your new family? But why?" The sudden return of the rigid monotone to her voice hit like a brick.

"He's my brother. The only one worth calling that. What, don't you miss Mahad?" he asked.

"Why even ask? I do," Ayo said. "But this isn't about that kind of safety of mind, Karga'te. Your brother wasn't exactly healthy for you in a very different way."

Not this again. "What the hell are you talking about? He got me out of the slave pits. He's always been stupid about the Path, but that's it. He was better than the rest of them."

"Don't pretend that was good enough. I know what Nra'tex-ne is like. I was there with you for years."

"That's hardly a lifetime," he snarled.

"That's enough to know what he tried to do!"

"Shut up!" he snarled.

Ayo almost did, but then her brow knitted. "No. He ... he could have left! He had enough status to be able to ask for a private ship and get away! Take us along ... or even just you. But he stayed, even after disgrace. He would have drawn us on the same path that destroyed him. It would just be slow death."

A flood of kept back anger broke. Roaring he took one step closer, ready to strike her out of his sight.

Ayo just raised her hand. He lost balance somehow and fell back with the force of a full grown yautja punch.

"Here's your proof that I see, that it wasn't anything good," Ayo said. "You're still acting like this."

Befuddled, he stayed where he landed for a bit. Someone with Ayo's mass shouldn't have been able to do that, right? He wasn't sure whether she'd even touched him.

"Make up your mind before the mission what you're going to do. I may hope you're at least better than chasing something without trail."

The floor opened below him, he fell down a chute and dropped out of the bottom of the ship.

· · · · · · ·

August 10

· · · · · · ·

Kirindi sat cross legged in her room with dark brown and light green cloth in her hands, the needle untouched before her.

She tried to like Ayo, who was absolutely a friend of Karga'te. It bothered her a lot that he didn't get he'd been hurt. She'd been his ally once, she'd seen it in fragments of memories when they dreamed lately. But it wasn't easy. It probably never would be.

The door burst open under Shadhahvar's kick. "They're here!"

What, the enemy? They were early.

She passed over trying to mind read Shadhahvar and instead read Jake, who dragged his feet behind her. The scanners of Hrugheeit had picked up a rather fancy space time distortion above the planet, indicating the arrival of a human ship. It'd be time soon, and she still had to decide.

Quickly, too.

Karga'te was still out in the rainforest trying to get another freaky dinosaur, because he wanted a reason to avoid Ayo and thought it would be funny to simulate a territorial dispute between that one of their recent addition. Maybe she ought to ask—

"It's okay! You doesn't need to go back to Enigma, we'll go save Sarah. Right, Jake?"

"What?"

"Sarah's our friend!"

"We barely know her more than a day!"

"Well, Kirindi's our longer friend, so we're doing it anyway. Pleasssssse?" Shadhahvar drawled.

Jake gave a long suffering sigh. Kirindi wasn't sure whether to encourage him or not.

Far away Sarah had said that Ayo was working with Noasyvé now, but Sarah had been hazy since shortly after Ayo arrived, and she didn't quite trust it. Lemura said that Sarah slept a lot now, but Lemura without Sarah was really difficult to talk to. Not very coherent.

Shadhahvar ruffled her hair. "I just need you to make sure the Auton don't notice we're coming along. Pretend you're coming aboard and we see you off, right?"

"Do the Aing Tii know this?" Kirindi asked.

"Ayo's okay with it and so are they. I think," Shadhahvar said.

"You think?" Jake groaned. "Shadey, please. This is ridiculous."

Shadhahvar huffed. "Y'know I got us through Enigma II when things went wrong last time."

"Point. Mostly," Jake had to admit. He turned to Kirindi. "How likely is it for you to get aboard that Eingti ship without Eliath?"

"He's already halfway through melting and digging out the floor," she said. "He doesn't like me going to danger."

Jake sighed. "Okay. Fine. We'll go."

Shadhahvar clapped her hands. "It's gonna be great, Jake! We'll finally be proper mercenary heroes, ever treading the edge of the law as we save the galaxy!"

Jake dragged a hand over his face, then noticed the unfinished doll. "If that is difficult on you, just decide later. You don't have to figure out everything at once, kid. You're probably immortal anyway."

"Oh ... okay," she said. Jake was thinking rather hard about the concept of future, and time passing, and learning. He'd done some of that too. Growing up. He thought that he as an adult should be making these decisions, and kids like her shouldn't even be involved.

It hadn't occured to her that she hadn't done that, when she might need to.

· · · · · · ·

Author's Note : I was so torn between the new i. rex and the tacky ultimasaur from the Chaos Effect line. On another note, the poleepkwa are from District 9. And on yet another note, I can finally move on to get Noasyvé out of the tin can, myself out of this dragging part of the story, and Karga'te on the way to his new job.

· · · · · · ·