Page 18 of Taken to Lemora
He cuts me off. “Yeffa, we heard you the last hundred thousand times. If you’d take this tirade to your private quarters, the Rekkaru could get along with their business.” The Rekkaru make up the bulk of the foul miscreants littering my great hall at the moment. Small, dainty little creatures with wings, they make the best couriers and right now, my hall is packed with merchandise as deliveries continue trickling in from all the Eight Quadrants.
It’s Gorman’s job to coordinate where things go. It’s my job to meet the dignitaries making the deliveries and instill a fear of the afterlife into them when they land so that no oneevertries to cheat, lie to or steal from Lemoran. And no one ever does. Except for pirates. Bloody stinking pirates.
But I’ve been here since sunrise — before sunrise, because do you think I ohring slept? Nob! — refusing to meet anyone or do anything but lay here contemplating how well my life had been going and how things went so wrong so quickly. Gorman, the clever idiot, decided to bring the dignitaries into my ohring keep.I thought it was punishment but it’s even worse.
He’s using my current mood to help further last minute negotiations. He says that I’m actually doing abetterjob than normal and was particularly pleased with how things went with the Oroshi. Rather than linger and languish, eating all of our finest food stores, the Oroshi dignitary moved tentacle over tentacle to get back to his ship when I moaned at him. Apparently, he thought I was diseased and didn’t want to catch it. He also paid full price for everything.
I hated that Oroshi for it. I hate Gorman for this. I hate everyone!
Almost everyone.
Everyone but the one I can’t figure out how to claim…
“OUHHHHHHHHHHHH!” My horns burn. I croak in Gorman’s face.
His flat expression twists down at the corners, turning his small mouth to a near perfect arch. “Raingar, get up. I signed on to be your second, not your mother. Now that the dignitaries are all gone, you can take your tantrum to your private chambers. Or, better yet, get on your feet and help me with this.”
He shakes a log book at me, the pages worn and dog eared but immutable. Not like all of this fancy shmancy Voraxian and Niahhorru technology that’s known to be fallible and corrupted, we Lemoran rely on our own brains! Our hands and blocky feet! The occasional pad pad and holo screen are unfortunate consequences of having achieved inter-Quadrant flight. I wish we never had…
But then I’d never have found Essmira.
I start to moan again and he kicks me in the side. “Ouch! That hurt,” I lie, jerking up so quickly he starts back. I’m quicker than he is though, and snatch his book from him. Lying back down, I flip through the pages only to realize I’m holding it upside down. “What’s the issue?” I snarl.
He seems surprised by my answer because his orb eyes get bigger and his little mouth twitches in a small smile. “Here.” He flips to a page in the book, turns it right side up and hands it back to me. “You ordered seven crates of this liquid but no one knows what it’s for.”
I keep one eye open, but let the other stay closed — for effect — as I read over the pages. “That’s fire essence.”
His fins twitch, a sign that he’s really irritated with me and not just pretending. That makes me feel worse. “What?”
I grunt and shove up onto my elbows, forcing Gorman back a few feet. He stands up to his full height and tucks the book against his chest when I return it. He holds his ink pen down and to the right like a warrior might a sword at the ready.
“That’s what the Niahhorru called it.”
“You bought from pirates.” He raises the indented skin above his eye that’s sort of like a brow, but not. I nod. “At a fair price?”
“Yeffa!”
His slitted nostrils flared wide and I scrunch mine — well, as much as Lemoran skin can scrunch. A little embarrassed, I admit, “Well, I bought it ataprice.” Gorman looks ready to read me my final rites. I continue quickly. “It’s oil for the Eshmiri dome lamps. The floating ones. You know the ones we use for…”
“I know what Eshmiri dome lamps are,” Gorman huffs. “But I also know that they’re built for single use. That’s why the Niahhorru switched to yeeyar.”
“That’s how the Eshmiri built them, but the Oroshi use them, too. They made a small modification using ioni excretions to produce this oil that can be used to refill the Eshmiri lights. We can reuse them now, too.”
He blinks, eyelids closing from the sides. “Oh. This will save us a fortune on future costs for the lights?”
“Is that a question?” I growl.
“Nob. Just surprised.” He makes a note in his book. “Do you know how much we’ll be saving with this?”
“Seventeen pouches of kintarr’s worth every rotation.”
“Good. Very good.” He shrugs his shoulders back like he doesn’t mind his silk tunic at all. The ohring male has the gall to have another silk robe draped over the top of it. Pagh! Then, Gorman whistles loud enough to win a startled yelp from me.
“Would you knock it off!”
He ignores me and shouts loud enough that his voice carries throughout the crowded hall. “Mino and Closette! You can use that liquid to restore power to domes. Bring one here and Raingar will show you how. Raingar.” He kicks the side of my foot. “Won’t you?”
I grumble noncommittally but my legs still curl beneath me as I prepare to stand.
