Page 8 of Defiance
“You must be Caillghrid Singh,” he rasped, clutching her ancient, knobby hands. “Thank you for coming.”
She petted his teal arms, fuzzy ears turned towards his voice. Her eyes were milky with cataracts, but she was observant and sharp. “Ah, the tadau-to-be. Good. How is she?”
Ezraji let out a tense breath. “She’s uncomfortable. It comes and goes. And she’s shaking, but her skin is warm. She refuses to eat anything. Just ice chips.”
Themidwaifnodded. “Yes, we wouldn’t want anything in her stomach, just in case.”
“In case? In case what?” Ezraji stopped breathing. “It’s been twenty-eight turns since her water broke, shouldn’t she havesomething?”
The yiwreni elder blinked up at him with an indulgent smile. “Why don’t you take me to the mamau now. Is anyone else with her?” Ezraji let the old woman take his elbow and lead him towards a levicart set to chair level. She swayed to-and-fro like a drunken sailor on dry land, but vertigo hardly seemed to phase her after a lifetime in the stars.
The father-to-be caught Novak’s eye and he nodded, inhaling the old woman one last time. Cataloging her herbal, musty scent in hiscolearawas second nature. He committed her to memory as their voices faded off and the levicart hovered down the path.
Once they were gone, Novak’s ear twitched. “How’s the human doctor?”
“Mel.” Vin winked, but didn’t smile. “It’s been an entire sol already and no spats. Doesn’t seem normal to me, but the other humans aren’t panicking yet, so I’m not either.”
Novak dropped his long nose in understanding, staring down the hill where the burn of themidwaif’sscent pricked his vision with little pale pink and yellow dots. The effect would fade in a few minutes, but left him feeling like someone had shined a flashlight in his eyes. Vin nudged his ribs with a plated elbow, pulling him back out of his thoughts.
“Come on, brother. Let’s unload and do a little early celebrating, huh?” Vin glanced back at the other members of their guild who stood like the world’s edgiest welcome party. Hunar with all four hands in his coverall pockets, Fasach rubbing the base of some new serious horns, Sizzle smiling a thousand-tooth grin, Imani crossing her spotted arms, and Pomahrutvi just happily kicking a little sack of rice with her foot, oblivious to the sort of company she grew up with.
“You brought the whole wrecking crew, I see,” Novak hissed affectionately. He squinted, pointing in their direction. “I don’t believe I’ve seen guild dues from anyone here in at least three satbits. Our guildmates on Huajile rely on you deadbeats.”
Imani raised her hand, grinning ruthlessly. “I’ve only been a member for two.”
Pom Pom also raised her hand. “I’m a minor.” She missed kicking the little sack and it flopped to the tarmac. “Aw, nuts.”
Sizzle guffawed up at the trees, scaring a flock of birds.
Vin and Sizzle both coughed up enough cache to cover Imani and Pom Pom while Hunar and Fasach unloaded Ferulis’s ostentatious delivery from Helion. The softest blankets and towels, nutrient-infused oils for delicate shilpakaari infants, and realpersicifruit from his clan’s estate on the capitalstation. Their scent was powerful and sweet, drawing a hum of appreciation from both Imani and Pom Pom. Novak’s eyes narrowed on Vin’sviraas her throat bobbed with a wet swallow of thirst.
He looked away and swallowed too, the peachy scent and venom mixing in his mouth.
Now that the plasma odor was fading away, Novak breathed in shallow gusts, his nose slitted only enough to take what he needed. Vin watched him, sniffed against his thumb, then slung an arm over the kral’s shoulder.
“Walk with me, brother.”
Novak leaned into Vin’s familiar scent, letting it drown out anything else that might be lingering. He turned his head towards him and relaxed his ears so they slanted in a casual tilt.
“So,” Novak hedged, tail gliding across the soft mulch of the foot path behind them.
Vin grunted, gauging the distance to the three white home towers still half a mile away. He slowed their pace. “Excited to meet the little ones?”
Novak’s tail whipped with a snap at its slender tip. “I probably have hundreds of progyny, Vin.”
Vin’s tone was bitter when he responded. “Yeah well, none from volunteering.”
The kral stopped, crossing his arms. They were shielded in both directions, standing near a bend in the path that was overgrown with bloody red ferns. “Vindilus.”
His venandi brother snapped his mandibles, scrubbing a hand over his short, broken spires.
“Imani got an invitation to this human charity thing on Piaoguo, but there’s too much at stake here to go. Pretty sure it’s a lure anyway.”
“What do you mean there’s too much at stake?”
Vin pulled a tiny black puck from his pocket and activated it.Vwump.Both he and Novak went temporarily blind, all of their bionic systems down. Their optics, linguitors, transitors, holotabs… Both of them blinked as their eyes adjusted.
“EMP. You good?” he asked. Their voices were rough and heavily accented without linguitors to help bridge the physiological differences, but both of them spoke Hja Erle thanks to their lab rat youth.
