CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kade

O nce I understood what my master actually wanted from me, I’d begun to find the shopping expedition rather fun. The choice of different colours and designs was a bit overwhelming, but by the time we’d chosen t-shirts, pants, underwear, shoes and a suit in a very dark grey, I had gotten the hang of all the odd questions my master kept asking me. On issues of style, I asked for his help, since I didn’t know anything about the fashions on Rendol 4. On matters of colour, I steered our choices towards darker greens, muted blues and the occasional black item. I liked being able to stick to the shadows, and vibrant yellows and purples were never going to achieve that. And when it came to sizes, I became more confident in explaining the fit of the various items, telling my master when one pinched across the thighs, or when the sleeves were too tight around my biceps. And even when I rejected a piece of clothing, he was delighted with my response, eagerly discarding it and picking out a different one.

I’d even worked up the courage to ask him about some of the things I saw other people wearing. I saw a human girl with a set of bright pink straps secured about her torso, just barely covering her breasts and doing nothing at all to ward off the cool autumn weather. There was an elderly Wasop man who seemed to be wearing a bedsheet, and my master explained that it was a mourning shroud; someone the man knew well had died recently. Several of the Denzogals wore nothing at all on their top halves, their thick fur keeping them warm, but on their bottom halves, some of the young males were wearing pants with neon colours in such a chaotic pattern, I thought it must have been a mistake. Apparently, that was the fashion at the moment, though my master was sure the craze would wear itself out soon.

When we had bought everything on my master’s list, with the single exception of a civilian-grade comm, he paused outside a small café. “Come on. It’s nearly lunchtime,” he said, tugging me inside. “Let’s get something to eat.”

I was still adjusting to the Alliance standard of eating three times a day. During my training, we’d eaten once, most days, and twice if we were performing high intensity physical activities.

“What do you think?” my master asked, staring up at what I assumed was a menu. Without a comm, I wasn’t able to read any of the words. “A sandwich? A pie? Do you like Wasop food? You could get a ridoli.”

I gritted my teeth. More decisions. The endless need to choose one out of a number of items was exhausting. For the last twenty years, I’d been told what to wear, told what to eat, told where to go. Which wasn’t to say I couldn’t think for myself, but I would have much preferred to be given something and told to eat it, rather than having to choose. “A sandwich,” I said, purely because it was the first thing my master had suggested. I braced myself for more questions; What did I want on the sandwich? Did I want some fruit with it? Did I want a drink? Did I want to sit in the café or out in the plaza?

“Meat or salad?” my master asked, and that was just one question too many. I closed my eyes, trying to control the hot, thrumming sensation in my chest.

“I am here to serve your desires,” I replied, because I couldn’t just ignore him.

He was silent, and I opened my eyes, staring at the floor as I waited for him to launch into another long explanation about how my opinion was important. Instead, I felt his warm hand circle my wrist, and then he was leading me out of the café and towards the seats down the middle of the plaza. More than half of them were full now, given that it was coming up to what the Alliance species considered to be lunchtime.

“Sit down,” my master said softly, and I obeyed, still not looking at him. He sat opposite me and took my hand in his, holding it gently but firmly between us. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve upset you.”

“I am fine, sir,” I said. I couldn’t outright contradict him and tell him he hadn’t. But I was also not entitled to be upset.

“I don’t think you are fine,” he said. “And I’d like to understand what’s wrong. Am I right in thinking you haven’t been to a shopping centre before?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied flatly.

“Is it that there’s too many people?”

“No, sir.”

“Is it too loud?”

“No, sir. ”

He was silent for a moment. “Kade, look at me,” he said, and I did, because it was an order. “I’m not angry with you. You haven’t done anything wrong. But I want you to tell me what the problem is.”

It was a more direct order than almost anything else he’d said to me today. And so I obeyed him easily. “I’m not used to making so many decisions. I don’t see the difference between a sandwich and a pie. Both are nutritious. Both assuage hunger. I don’t understand how to indicate a preference when I don’t have one.”

My master sat back in his chair, watching me closely for a long moment. “You don’t like garlic, do you?” he said eventually. I didn’t know what to say to that. “It’s okay, you’re allowed to say that you don’t like garlic,” he said gently.

“I don’t like garlic,” I mumbled.

He nodded. “So what I’m trying to do here is to avoid making you eat anything that you particularly dislike. I could choose some food for you, but I don’t know if you’re going to find it unpleasant. And you’re not very forthcoming in telling me.”

Humans were such strange creatures. “I have been trained to eat a wide variety of foods without complaint.” Did I sound petulant saying that? But how else was I supposed to explain this?

“I worry that making you do things you don’t like will make you unhappy.”

“Pleasing my master makes me happy.” Though how the heck I was supposed to do that, when he had such convoluted ideas, was a mystery.

He was staring at me with that strange intensity again. Long seconds ticked past, until he finally spoke. “And how do you know if you have pleased your master?”

“If he is pleased with me, he will reward me.” It was a statement the trainers had repeated a thousand times.

“What sort of rewards do dimari get?”

I glanced at the nearest tables, aware that some topics were not suitable for public discussion. Thankfully, we were largely alone for the moment. “Sex,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Praise. Attention. We might be allowed to sleep in the master’s bed, for example.”

“I see. And that’s what you want most of all? To know that you’ve pleased your master?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied. I was just so very confused about whether or not I was doing that.

He squeezed my hand. “Thank you,” he said, his tone contemplative. “I think I understand that now.”

He did? Okay, but… wasn’t that the fundamental principle of what a dimari was? Someone designed to please their master ?

“Come back into the café,” he instructed me, standing up. “I’ll get us some food.” I followed him in and sat at the table he pointed me to. He went to the counter, without asking me any further questions, and a few minutes later, came back with a tray of food. “There’s a camel and salad sandwich,” he said, setting the plate in front of me. “And I got you some coffee as well.”

I froze. Did he seriously want me to…? My mind raced. Had the morning really been going that badly? Okay, I’d had a minor tantrum, which was really not acceptable, but we’d made some excellent progress with the clothing. But now he was giving me coffee ?

But maybe… Maybe this was just a misunderstanding? “Sir?” I said, my voice thin, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Yes?”

“Are you aware, sir, that caffeine is toxic for Vangravians?”

His eyes opened wide, and he grabbed the coffee cup, snatching it back. “Fuck. Shit, I’m so sorry. No, I was not aware of that. God, I’m sorry. I am absolutely not trying to poison you here.” His denial was so emphatic that I had to smile. He took a deep breath, and then said, “Thank you so much for telling me. That was absolutely the right thing to do. And I’m going to make that a standing order from now on; If I tell you to do anything that’s going to harm your health, please tell me. It doesn’t just have to be food. It could be handling certain cleaning chemicals, or standing in the sun when it’s too hot, or whatever. Although…” He frowned, his shoulders sagging a little. “I’m not sure how that would work, actually. I mean, we’re going to be going on missions that are necessarily dangerous. So is there a difference between ‘Please drink this coffee’ and ‘Cross this bridge with me while Geshtoch try to shoot us’?”

I tried to hide my amusement, but I don’t think I was entirely successful. “I have been trained to understand the nuances of different situations,” I reminded him. I’d said much the same thing in bed that morning.

“Right,” he said. “Good. So, no coffee. Is there something else that Vangravians can have that’s suitable as a generic social drink?”

I glanced up at the menu board again. A number of the items had pictures next to them, and there was one that looked like what I was looking for. “Does the café sell meloto juice?” I asked.

He skimmed over the menu board and nodded. “Yes. It does.”

“Meloto juice has a mild stimulant effect on Vangravians. Much like coffee does for other species.” Both coffee and the meloto plant had become popular across a significant number of planets. Coffee, with its stimulant effect, had created a stir when it had arrived in the region, with half a dozen species taking an instant liking to it. The meloto plant, on the other hand, had originated on Basub, but it was a hardy plant, and a nutritious one, so it, too, had spread rapidly to other planets. It grew large, purple fruits that were used to make juices and desserts.

“Good to know,” my master said, before going to buy a cup.

By the time we made it back home, it was the middle of the afternoon. We’d found a comm to buy for me, then we’d stopped at a supermarket, ordering more food for the week that would be delivered to my master’s house that afternoon. My master didn’t ask me to make any more decisions, choosing the model of comm for me, and simply asking that I push the shopping cart for him around the supermarket. I paid attention to the types of foods he was buying, so that when it came time to order more, I would be able to get the right things.

The shopping was delivered shortly after we got home, and I helped unpack the food, with my master showing me where everything should go. And then finally, after a bit of awkward fumbling, my master gave me a list of instructions that I actually understood. He showed me around the house, detailing what needed cleaning and how often. Vacuum the floors once a week. Scrub the bathroom thoroughly once a month. Laundry twice a week, or whenever there was enough of it to fill the washing machine. It was a relief to have tasks to do and a sense of routine to give structure to my days.

Early in the day, I’d been alarmed when I’d discovered that my master didn’t have any clothing prepared for me. His disastrous mission had been disruptive, of course, but planning clothing and bedroom arrangements should surely have been done a week or two in advance? And his instructions for cleaning the house had been haphazard, almost as if he was making it up as he went along. My mind flitted back to the moment we’d first met, when he’d been so disappointed to see me, and hadn’t even known I was Vangravian. There had been a dozen more instances of small details that seemed slightly out of place. He hadn’t known about my combat skills. Colonel Henderson hadn’t seemed prepared to have a dimari in the military. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like…

Like my master hadn’t been expecting me to arrive at all.