6. Yva

6

YVA

A fter so many years of hunting and fending for myself and my brothers, it is very strange to turn up at the dining hall and be given food. I’m not sure what I am eating as it is all prepared the human way. While dinner was good enough, breakfast is terrible.

Apparently, they brought seeds from their world to grow, but they aren’t having much success moving crops from what they called the greenhouse to the farm.

Instead of sitting around a fire after dinner and talking, and telling stories, we ended up returning to our rooms. In part because the humans stare, but also because we aren’t sure what we may do, or what the humans do in their spare time.

I intend to find out today.

After the almost inedible breakfast slop, I return to my room to await collection. Which gives me plenty of time to think about the woman who said my name last night at dinner. If she hadn’t been looking at our table, I might have brushed it off as a mishearing.

This morning, all my brothers are being collected and taken to wherever their help is needed. Hrad is going to be doing something with animals. He thinks the humans plan on catching and taming some. Last night as we laughed at the idea of taming the screamers, we drew attention. Today as we talked, we were more careful.

Although there wasn’t much to joke about over breakfast.

I don’t know what they put in the bowl, but it was the worst thing I have ever eaten, and I ate some pretty bad things in the first few months I was banished. However, it was the only food on offer and even the humans didn’t seem very impressed by it, so I shoveled it down. The meals they serve are not big enough for a Honey warrior.

Tiril said it’s because food is rationed.

Another reason we should be out hunting and bolstering food supplies. Food should be a priority, not an afterthought. No one can work if they are hungry, or thirsty, or cold.

It is no wonder the humans revolted against their previous leaders.

But the humans also do not want our help to hunt, so we will all starve together. We were eating better on our own.

Hrad steps out of his room and leans against the wall.

I nod my head at him.

“I never want to eat that slop again,” Hrad grumbles. The food was so bad it’s caused Hrad to speak.

“Agreed, brother. Can we convince them to let us forage?” While the tubers are a little different from the ones growing at home, they are sweeter and smaller, we have been eating them for months with no effect.

“I’ve already spoken to Tiril.”

“Perhaps they should farm our tubers instead of the plants from their planet. Are we allowed to create our own garden?” We had started in our little village, but all that work has now been lost.

He shrugs.

Tonight, over dinner, we need to discuss the severity of the food situation some more. That is where I should be working, even if they don’t trust me with a weapon.

The short-haired woman who said my name last night walks towards us. Her dark hair drapes over her forehead, almost covering one eye. And while she is so short she doesn’t reach my shoulder, it is clear she is fit and strong.

Her gaze flicks between the two of us. “Which one of you is Yva?”

I peel myself away from the wall. “I am…and your name is?”

“Harper. I run laundry and repairs.”

I place my hand over my heart and incline my head. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Same.” She smiles, and it’s clear she’s trying to keep her teeth hidden. I like her already. “Do you have any laundry? Clothing that needs washed or mended?”

We both nod.

“Right. In your room, there should be a bag with the room number on it. You put your dirty clothes in it and drop it off at the laundry.” She stares at me as if she’s waiting for me to do something.

“You want our dirty clothes now?”

“Yes, unless you don’t want them washed. You can tell your friends what to do tonight, because no doubt they have dirty clothes, too.”

If I didn’t know about the laundry, I would’ve washed my clothes under the waterfall. But I don’t tell Harper that. Instead, I do as she asked. Finding the bag in the wardrobe and placing my worn clothes inside.

She takes the bag from me and shows me the number on the bag. “Can you read?”

“Of course I can. Your markings are different from the ones I can read, but the ones on the bag match the ones on my door.”

“So delivering the clean laundry won’t be a problem?”

“I do not expect it to be. Nor will it take me long to learn your numbers.”

Hrad returns with his bag and hands it to me.

I’ll see you at dinner. I say silently.

He nods.

And I follow Harper.

The laundry isn’t too far from the dining room. I guess it makes it easy for people to drop off their dirty laundry on the way to breakfast. I’m aware of people staring at me as I walk around. Of the whispers.

Some are curious. Others seem to already bear a grudge.

I hope that this isn’t a mistake. I would much rather be living in our own little village than in this massive colony. Though my answer may be different in a few years.

While leaving to be on my own is a fast way to die…living here may be the slow way. Sometimes a warrior needs to choose the manner of his death. I accepted mine would not be a peaceful one from old age, with a mate at my side. I expected us to die on the voyage to this continent. And yet here we are.

What would my mother, and my tribe, make of the humans?

I believe she would be intrigued by their technology, as am I. But having sat in the place they call a hospital, it was easy for me to tell that their technology all came from Earth, none of it has been created here, by the people who live here. Can it be recreated?

If they cannot grow food, they will not be creating anything.

“What is the stuff that was served for breakfast?”

Harper snorts. “That was fifty percent of your nutritional requirements. We call it sludge.”

“I call it inedible.”

She glances at me, teeth showing in a savage grin. “So do we, but at the moment, we don’t have an alternative.”

“It came from Earth? What happens when it runs out?”

“It is produced in several vats. And is now self-sustaining.”

“It is brewed?” Our liquor is brewed in vats.

“It’s algae. Very easy to grow. Your friends should be able to help us get the farm running…why are you not helping with the farming?”

“That is not a skill I have. My mother is the chief of my tribe. I was raised to be a warrior and a hunter, so I could survive being banished.”

“You say that as if it doesn’t bother you.”

It doesn’t, and even if it did, what am I going to do? Fight my own tribe? “I understood from the time I was old enough to speak that was my fate. There is no shame in being banished.”

She pushes open the door to the large building, which I assume is the laundry. “I’m sure you’d rather be hunting than doing laundry.”

“Both are necessary. Your people do not trust me, or my brothers, with a weapon.” I offer a more tactful excuse to hide my frustration. “Or perhaps they are worried that whatever we hunt will not be enough to feed everyone, so then there will be tensions.” If the people of my tribe were fed that sludge for breakfast every day for an entire moon, there would be fights and demands for a hunt.

“True…though most of us have never eaten meat.”

I stare at her. “You have never enjoyed a roast cooked over the flames? Stew that has simmered all day and is rich with flavor?”

Harper shakes her head. “No, I’ve only eaten what has been provided.”

We are standing in the doorway, but she doesn’t seem bothered.

I lower my voice. “I have a little leftover jerky.”

Which is not the same as fresh meat, but better than nothing.

“What is that?”

“Dried meat. We prepared it at our village. Most of it was eaten on the trip.”

She pulls a face, which wrinkles her nose. “That doesn’t sound very appealing.”

“I have tried your sludge…it is polite for me to offer you a taste of my jerky.”

A laugh bursts out of her mouth, and she covers her heart with her hand. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t laugh. But if a human man offered me a taste of his meat…” She shakes her head, still laughing. “You actually mean jerky.”

“I am not sure if the whisperer translated properly, but are you insinuating that a human man would offer you a taste of his meq?”

“Meq?” Realization dawns on her face as her whisperer catches up. “Oh…mating equipment. Yes. That is what I was implying.”

“I can assure you; I am only offering jerky.”

She laughs again. “I’m going to be thinking about jerky in all the wrong ways.” She covers her mouth with her hand.

Her heart rate has increased, and her scent has changed. “You are not thinking about jerky at all.”

While her mouth might be covered, her dark eyes are filled with merriment.

“Sure, I am…So many men have offered me their meat, but you are offering me meat.” Harper sighs. “No one has made me laugh that much since we landed. Thank you. I would like to try your jerky. It can’t be worse than sludge, right?”

I lift my eyebrows. “If it tasted as bad as sludge, I would be too embarrassed to offer it to anyone.”

Once when I was surviving on my own, I found a carcass that was at least a day overripe, but I was hungry, and I didn’t want to waste it. I cooked it well over the fire and smoked several pieces to last me for a few days. Smoking did not improve the flavor, though it was better than the time I ate the entire animal, including its brains. Sludge has much the same texture though sludge tastes as though it was boiled in a sock that hasn’t been washed in ten days.

“Come on, I’ll show you how to put the laundry on, and then where everything is.” She steps inside a room full of shiny metal boxes. “This is where we wash and dry the clothes.”

“You do not hang them outside to dry?”

“No. The machine does both.” She holds up my bag and opens the door to a machine, tips the clothes inside, then tosses in the bag. “Really simple. If the machine is full, you turn the dial this way. If it’s half-full, you turn it the other.”

“Hrad’s clothes can go in with mine.”

“No. It’s one bag per machine because it makes it easier to keep track of which clothes belong where. You put his in a machine.”

It’s not hard. I tip in the clothing, toss in the bag, shut the door and turn the dial to the not full setting.

She’s watching and assessing me. “You act like you’ve seen washing machines before.”

“No, we wash our own clothes in the river, or sometimes in tubs if it’s in the middle of winter. We always hang our clothes out to air dry. Do you not use soap?”

“We do. It is automatically added.”

“The soap came from Earth?”

“It did. In a powder.” She presses a button and the machine containing my clothes makes a noise.

I press the button on the machine I filled. “What happens when your Earth soap runs out?”

“We hope our scientists can make more…or I guess you show us what you use for soap.”

“What is it doing to the clothes?”

Harper opens the next machine, and puts her hand, spinning the inside. “When it’s full of water and soap and clothes, it’s much the same as you washing your clothes by the river. Then it rinses, it switches to drying them.”

I put my hand on the front of the machine containing my clothes. There is now charge running through the machine. “How do you make…electricity?” I use their word for it. Sabine says that is what our kams make, and how we talk silently and hunt so well. We can sense the charge of our prey.

“You know about electricity?”

I touch one of my kam, with my other hand I let a spark arc between my thumb and finger. “Yes.”

Her eyes widen. “They didn’t tell us that in the briefing.”

“Maybe they do not want people to find out, and I should not have shown you.”

She lifts her eyebrows and grins. “You probably shouldn’t be offering to share your jerky either.”

I’m not sure if she is referring to my jerky or my meq.