6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Tarrian

Tarrian watched Aubrey wade into the shallow stream. He wanted to follow but stayed on the bank, ready to jump in at any hint that her balance was compromised. Aubrey was rock hunting, and when she was concentrating, she hated it when he “loomed over her like a villain from an Old Earth horror movie.”

He didn’t have to know what a horror movie was to know that being labeled a villain wasn’t good. Still, he wished she’d let him get a little closer. When she was focused like this, it was common for her to lose her footing. He didn’t want her to suffer a fall when it was completely unnecessary, but Aubrey was stubborn, so he kept his distance.

“Ah ha!” Aubrey cried out, straightening up with a wet, moss-covered rock clutched in her hand.

“What prize have you found?” he asked, using interest in her rock to join her in the water.

“I think it’s a fossil,” she said, rubbing at a corner of it. Then she held it up. “Do you see the hole? It was probably a spine.”

He’d spent his entire adultlette and adult life in service to the Talin military. He knew all kinds of things associated with battle. The science he learned centered around weapon trajectories and ballistic resistance of various materials.

Now that he’d dedicated his life to Aubrey, he was discovering joy in other things, such as finding a fossil. Aubrey brought light and laughter to his life; how could he not delight in anything that made her this happy?

“We can take a detailed image scan of it and send it to experts,” Tarrian offered. “They would be able to tell us what animal it was originally.”

Aubrey smiled even as she shook her head. “Nope, I want to figure it out myself. Before I decided on geology, I was super obsessed with paleontology. It’ll be fun to dive into your Unibase and figure out who this vertebra belonged to.”

“As you like,” he agreed. “Would you like to head back now?”

“Let’s go a little further downstream,” Aubrey said, tucking the fossil in an outside pocket of the bag slung over her shoulder. So far, the bag only had a few small rocks and the fossil, but there would be more. The bag was always full to bursting by the time Aubrey agreed to stop. Only then would she let him carry it; until it was at its heaviest, she wouldn’t let it go.

It was another example of how stubborn his sweet human could be.

“We should walk along the bank, not in the water,” he said, ready to fight her on this point. “There are spin slugs, and I might be able to see them fast enough if we’re walking with the water.”

“Sure,” she agreed, and he sounded a rumble of relief before picking her up and walking her out of the stream.

Aubrey let him carry her the short distance but then demanded to be put down and allowed to walk so she could see the rocks better. This stream was a solid two-mark journey from their compound by ground transport but was secluded enough that Tarrian didn’t worry about getting mobbed by curious Talins.

Their seclusion meant he could touch her without worrying about being reported to the Committee of Pet Welfare. They also got away from the crowded compound for the day. There were few negatives and many positives. If he wasn’t concerned about Aubrey overexerting herself, he’d plan trips for them every rotation.

“Tarrian, look there!” Aubrey exclaimed at the same time she moved to jump off the short embankment and into the water.

Tarrian’s swift reflexes kept her on dry land. “Aubrey, we’ve discussed this! You need to let me check for spin slugs first.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes at his admonishment. “Then go check!”

Tarrian hurried to do a sweep of the creak, finding only one spin slug. Picking it up, he broke off the stinger and tossed it in the shallows at the other side of the stream where it would be safe while the stinger grew back. Spin slugs were important to the ecosystem but dangerous for humans; this was a compromise he could live with.

“It’s clear,” he declared after several sweeps.

“Great!” Aubrey jumped in and splashed over to the spot she’d pointed at earlier. She pulled several rocks up and examined them, her brows furrowed with interest. She started mumbling things about metamorphic rocks while selecting one and tossing the rest back into the water.

Looking up, she squinted at the horizon. Shifting in place, she shielded her eyes with her free hand and stared into the distance.

She pointed to something. “Are there any hydrothermal vents upstream from here?” she asked.

Tarrian sounded a happy rumble because he could actually answer her question. “There is one in that mountain range in the distance, the Ancestors’ Belt.”

Her gaze remained fixed on the mountains. “Can we go there?”

“There’s a philosophical monastery built right next to the hydrothermal vent.” He pointed to a spot near the second tallest peak. “It sits there. This river is fed by the snowmelt from the Ancestors’ Belt.”

“That’s interesting but you didn’t answer my question. Can we visit?”

Tarrian sounded a questioning rumble. “For what purpose? The place is cold and inhospitable. You have to take ground transportation from the base of the mountain to the top, as flying near the mountains is prohibited. Due to the severe shape of the mountain, there isn’t one single lift-carriage that goes all the way up. There are several places where you have to travel by foot from one lift-carriage pad to another. It can take up to eight marks to make the entire journey to the top. You have to spend the night at the monastery, and the accommodations there are very rudimentary. It’s a place of contemplation not pleasure.”

Aubrey turned to face him, her head tilted down a little and her eyes looking up at him. “Getting to visit a Talin monastery would be an honor.”

Tarrian knew his human well enough to know she didn’t care about philosophy, meditation, or contemplation. She wanted to see rocks!

Sounding a derisive rattle, Tarrian picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. Her laughter filled the air as he stomped back to the bank of the stream.

“You’re obsessed!” he declared as he found a shady spot to sit and pulled her from his shoulder to his lap.

Aubrey was unrepentant. “You’re only now figuring that out?”

“Why is visiting the Ancestors’ Belt that important to you?” he asked.

Aubrey bit her lip and pulled out one of the rocks she’d collected. To Tarrian they all looked the same, but this one seemed to fascinate her more than the others.

“I could be wrong, but I think this is tektite. This type of stone happens from a meteor strike.”

He looked at the stone then the mountains in the distance. “If this stone is from a meteor strike, why didn’t you ask me about craters instead of thermal vents?”

She held the rock closer to his face. “Do you see the spots in the tektite?”

“If you hold it any closer, I’ll be tasting the spots,” he answered.

Chuckling, she pulled the rock away. “I need to use the equipment back at our place to be absolutely positive, but I’m pretty sure that mineral inclusion is zircon formed after the tektite was created. This secondary mineralization would've happened when the tektite was immersed in mineral-rich hot water like a hydrothermal. It makes sense that the closest one would be up in those mountains, and that’s why I found so many of these in the river. I’ve been finding more and more as we move further upstream.”

“Why would you want to visit where the tektite was formed?”

“Because all kinds of fun minerals are created with asteroid impacts!” Aubrey announced, as if he was being particularly obtuse. “And there’s an added bonus of secondary mineralization!”

“This is not a trip to be undertaken on a whim,” he warned her.

“I agree. It sounds like a great adventure. I did some rock climbing before the Great Cataclysm, and I bet there are some great spots for it there. The rest of your planet is pretty flat.”

The idea of Aubrey scrambling up unstable and dangerous rocky surfaces filled Tarrian with panic. He could easily picture her slipping and falling to her death.

“No climbing!” He didn’t mean to roar those two words, but his concern over Aubrey’s safety made him louder than expected.

She pulled back, blinking in surprise at his vehemence. “Okay, I won’t climb when we visit the monastery. Besides, the trip up there will probably be exhausting, and I’ll want to save all my energy for walking around at the top.”

“Yes, that’s much more reasonable,” he agreed, then realized what he’d agreed to and sounded a rumble of affection for his clever human. “Did you just trick me into a trip to the top of the Ancestors’ Belt?”

“Only because you love me.” She cupped his face with both her hands. Her palms rested on his scent glands, making pleasure zing down his spine. “When do we leave?”

“Let me see about making arrangements,” he murmured, giving up on talking her out of the trip. He could always hope she’d turn back early when faced with the daunting walk between lift-carriage pads.

Aubrey

Aubrey looked at the fluorescent spectra data flowing onto the display as the little machine on the table behind her hummed. Inside the reinforced and shielded box, one of her rock samples was being bombarded with ionizing radiation. If she could see it, the colors being produced would probably be pretty.

All the information displayed told her what she’d already guessed, the sample was tektite with zircon inclusions.

“I know what that smile means,” Tarrian said as he came up behind her and nuzzled her cheek.

“What do you think it means?” she asked without turning her head.

“It means that the display is revealing data you already surmised,” he answered, sounding a loving rumble. It had taken her months, but she was starting to discern the more subtle differences between similar rumbles. Soothing rumbles were like the purring of an Old Earth cat, while loving rumbles were slower, lower, and had a distinct tone change every few seconds.

She loved that Tarrian never took offense at her passion. She might not be an astro-geologist anymore, but she could never give up her first love—rocks!

Not that she didn’t love Tarrian too. He was one of the best things to ever happen to her, especially considering they met during the worst time of her life. The humans on the mining colony hadn’t received supplies for a year. They’d all been starving, clothing nothing but layers of rags and blankets, and they were forced to all gather in the one room they could keep from dipping below freezing.

And yet she’d been even worse. By the time Tarrian and the rest of his Advance Squad found them, she’d run out of her medication and was suffering anxiety attacks and emotional meltdowns on an almost daily basis. At her first sight of the Talin warriors, she’d been sure they were all about to be killed and eaten.

As anyone in her condition would, she’d had a proper mental breakdown. She’d screamed and sobbed, making Tarrian and the other Talins think she was dying. Desperate to save her life, Tarrian picked her up and tried to carry her to the medical suite on his ship. She’d refused to let go of Ari, so the two of them were hauled off to what she was sure was their doom!

When she woke up later in the ship’s medical suite, she’d felt the familiar calm that came with a properly medicated brain. Sweet, sweet relief!

That was when she started falling in love with Tarrian.

At first the humans and Talins couldn’t communicate, but throughout that difficult period, Tarrian stayed close to her. He worked hard to keep her calm and comfortable while all of them tried to figure each other out.

She’d happily live her life pretending to be a pet as long as she got to do it with Tarrian at her side.

“I’ve communicated with the monastery,” Tarrian told her, his loving rumble still going strong. “We have a spot reserved for the rotation after next.”

Letting out a squeal of delight, Aubrey turned in place and threw her arms around Tarrian’s neck. “This is the best Christmas gift ever!”

“Christmas?” he asked as he wrapped his arms around her body and hugged her close to his.

“It’s a holiday a lot of people celebrated back on Old Earth,” Aubrey explained. “One of the traditions was to give gifts to the people you loved.”

“I’ll make a note of the date and make sure to give you another gift next year,” he announced with a sharp, decisive rattle.

“You don’t have to do that,” she assured him, secretly delighted by his words. “This year’s gift is enough. Besides, I don’t have anything to give you.”

Tarrian angled his head and started rubbing his cheek against the top of her head. Bonding oil from his scent glands soaked into her hair, making his peppermint scent fill the air. The smell never failed to make her feel calm and centered. It was like walking into a home and smelling someone baking your favorite food. It was the scent of love and security.

“You’ve already given me the best gift I could ever receive,” he murmured as she melted into his arms. “Your love.”