Chapter Five

A fter a difficult night of tossing on his thin mattress, Dante gave up and decided to get dressed. His schedule would have changed after yesterday's disaster, but life on the ranch had taught him to get his day started even when he would rather lie in bed and contemplate the many things wrong with his life. He found contemplation was more a city skill. He was almost dressed when the door chime rang.

Dante opened the door to find Vk on the other side. "I'm getting my shoes on. Come on in." He turned back to his bed and started the process of lacing up the alien boots. The fastenings had to go around pockets for the tools aliens preferred to carry on their feet, so even though these various pouches were empty on Dante's boots, he still had to thread the laces around them.

"You could move furniture into this room or move yourself to one designed for sapient occupation," she said as she walked the perimeter.

"I like this room." Dante was comfortable here, but he could also admit to himself he liked that when Regi visited, they would sit next to each other on the bed. Dante hadn't recognized how serious his crush had become until Regi had asked him to stop touching. The man had been nothing but supportive, and Dante was borderline sexually harassing him.

That was not his style. At least, it hadn't been since sixteen when he'd been ruled more by hormones than common sense. Back then he'd turned dancing in the gay clubs into a full-contact sport, much to his father's embarrassment when a few pictures turned up. His father had either bribed or threatened people to keep them out of the press. Dante had insisted it was normal to rub on complete strangers, but now he found the idea as embarrassing as his father had then, although for a different reason.

And yet, despite knowing how creepy it was to touch without invitation, he still did it to Regi. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"I assume our ride is canceled," said Dante.

"No, Regi insists that we should keep to our schedule. He said that the temple needs to see we are unconcerned."

Dante snorted. "Funny because it seems like we're all worried out of our minds."

"How much worry does it require to leave one's own mind?"

Vk had the eyebrows of humor going. At least that was what Dante thought of them as. Since she didn't have hair on her face, that was a misnomer, but her skin wrinkles did take on eyebrow shapes when she was amused.

"A lot."

Vk squatted down, her back to the wall. "Regi has gone to the temple to speak to the more reasonable members of the leadership."

"And Ter?" Dante asked. He still couldn't believe that a man intelligent enough to experiment with space engines would throw parts at a member of an alien species that was holding them hostage.

"He is yelling at his own junior engineers since there are no Kowri aboard to endure his temper."

Dante pulled the boot laces tight and slapped them into place on the sticky strips holding them closed. "Is it safe to go out on a ride if Bekdi is out there trying to gather a mob?"

"I have not seen him this morning. I met the person who tends pebafri when he brought the animals, and there were few Kowri about. However, I saw none I recognized as having authority."

"People without authority can fire weapons as well as anyone else."

She sucked air through her nose. "Regi insists it is safe, and while I believe him a dunce in some matters, when it comes to security, I have every faith in his ability to assess threats."

Dante studied Vk. In the weeks they'd known each other, he'd never heard her speak a word against Regi. Something had changed. Dante's face grew warm as he wondered if Regi had explained how Dante had made a fool out of himself. Everyone on the ship was so worried about protecting his feelings that maybe Vk thought Regi should have allowed the harassment.

"You shouldn't talk about Regi like that," he said.

"I've known him longer than you. I recognize his flaws."

"Yeah, well this crew is not making life easy for him. Between Ter throwing things and the engineering crew deleting things and me overstepping good manners, we've made his life difficult."

Vk snort-huffed-vibrated her nose. "You have not overstepped any manners, not even imaginary ones. Regi is so convinced that you are a victim to be protected that he has lost any courage he once possessed."

Dante frowned, not sure he followed her meaning. "I'm not a victim who needs protecting."

"You are a victim, but I agree that you can protect yourself. I just believe Regi doubts that because if he allowed himself to see that you do not require protection, he would have to address his own emotions."

"No," Dante snapped.

She blinked at him, and the eyebrows of good humor vanished.

"Don't dismiss his feelings."

She stood. "I speak the truth I know. My people, the heor, live in bond groups. Always groups. We are gregarious and proud of our bonds and bondmates. From the time I was young, I knew I was different because I avoided courtship behaviors instead of playing at them from the time I was old enough to walk. But I never denied my identity, even when it was at odds with my culture. Regi embraces your identity as a victim to avoid his own emotion."

"That's your truth, but you can't speak for other people," Dante said. "If we're going riding, we need to go before the sun gets too high." The last time he'd been out in the midday sun, Bevit had been horrified at his sunburn and had treated it like a medical emergency. He shuddered at the memory. He scooped up Peaches and headed down the corridor.

The ship's noises had become familiar over the weeks, but now silence hung heavy in the air. The crew moved on tiptoe and whispered, as if the danger of their situation had only now occurred to them. Dante wondered what was going on in engineering. If Ter wasn't careful, his own underlings would gut him and toss his body out of the airlock to appease the natives. He hoped Regi had taken that into consideration before he left for the temple and ordered his second in command to go horseback riding.

Outside, one of the Kowri stable hands stood holding the reins for both Divashi's Brown and the huge, lazy beast Vk preferred. "Dante a'Texas," the man said. In previous days, he had been respectful and had even asked about horses and how they differed from pebafri, but now there was a coldness that didn't invite conversation.

Ignoring his discomfort, Dante took the reins for both animals. Part of him wanted to abandon this ride and hide in his room, but Regi might have good reason for wanting him and Vk to keep to their schedule. Dante didn't want to damage those plans. Still, Dante had never been so reluctant to ride.

Vk must have felt the same because she was slower than usual to approach the animals. The stable hand had left the immediate area before she came over. "I don't think we're popular."

"I don't think we ever were, but they seem more willing to show their disdain." Dante swung up into the saddle and led the second animal closer to the ship so Vk could use the steps to get on. She was not built to vault into the saddle.

The day was cool. The planetary rings cast a glow in the sky that backlit the flat-bottomed clouds. It was stunning, and Dante allowed Divashi's Brown to wander towards the edge of town. The cobblestone lane had crowded townhouses on one side and untouched forest on the other. Apparently, no Kowri had invented suburbs. However, it made a beautiful ride with dappled sunlight drifting through the canopy of leaves and bright flowerboxes and rugs hanging from the townhouse windows. He felt as though he'd escaped into some idealistic German painting.

Peaches was not as happy. She held his collar and chittered in anger when he let Brown start trotting, so he slowed to a walk. Vk was behind him, gripping the front of the saddle.

Smaller paths intersected the trail. Kowri carried baskets and pushed wheelless carts that hovered above the brickwork. Every time, the Kowri would either glower at them as they passed or rush away as though expecting Dante and Vk to fling heat tiles at them. One female scooped up two small children and ran in the opposite direction. Dante wanted to chase her down and explain that he was a good person–a nice person. But chasing someone down wouldn't improve his reputation.

They followed a curve around another set of three-story townhomes when the growing season temple came into sight. Like the cold season temple, it was an enormous structure that dominated the landscape. Kowri crowded the walks leading to the arched entry, even more than at the cold season temple. However, instead of being white stone with bluish accents and blue tinted carvings, the builders had used variegated brown rock with both live ivy and stone carvings of plants climbing the sides.

A Kowri on a hoverboard came gliding out of the temple and made a beeline straight for them.

"Incoming," Vk whispered.

Dante pulled Divashi's Brown up short and waited while Vk's hand rested on her thigh near her pocket. Dante assumed she had some Regi-approved weapon in there.

"Only temple officials use the hover boards. Apparently Kowri are religiously opposed to vehicles."

"They are religiously opposed to common sense," Vk whispered back.

Before Dante could answer, Gimi a'Onidba called out a greeting. She was an exalted of the Lady of logic, and their most ardent supporter. Dante smiled and offered a wave.

"Good morning," he said as she slowed and then stopped the hover. She had deep black and warm cream stripes that contrasted sharply, and her ears were larger than most Kowri. It made it easier for Dante to judge her moods. Right now, they were angled backward in an aggravated tilt.

"The gods' twin blessings on you this morning, Dante a'Divashi," said Gimi.

"Good morning," Dante said. He was not in a mood for verbal sparring, so he asked, "What new disaster or danger has you out this fine day?"

Her whole body twitched. "I had hoped that you would attend the temple today."

Dante shifted in the saddle and took a tighter hold of his reins. Divashi's Brown shifted sideways, not liking the change, and Dante urged him back to the side of the path. "I had planned to return to the ship after my ride."

"I believe your presence would help your cause."

Dante snorted. "I think the exalteds have seen more of me than they want."

"Ah," she said with a twitch of her ear. "But there are far more exalteds now. Two ships have arrived."

Dante's blood went cold. "Because of the incident with Ter?"

"Oh, no. There has not been time for any of those angry about that dishonor to arrange for travel. These exalteds have been in transit for weeks, brought by news of Regi a'Divashi returning with outsiders under the protection of his goddess. There will be many who come to see you. I believe many are taken with the idea of an outsider so like us."

The Kowri were getting a skewed impression of humans, although humans were as xenophobic and religiously odd as any Kowri.

"I had also hoped to speak to you outside the temple where others might hear us. I hoped you would give me an insight into the character of this Ter. I understand from Regi that the deletion of the data was caused by Bekdi a'Gavd's order to breach the outsiders' ship; however, that does not explain the engineer's willingness to cause physical harm to others through his injudicious use of a heat tile as a projectile weapon." From her tone, Gimi was unimpressed by Ter's antics.

Dante couldn't blame her. "I believe he simply has a short temper. He's thrown things at me, and everyone else who spends any time in his engine rooms."

"Is this behavior in response to the stress of being on a Kowri world after narrowly escaping a black hole?"

Dante shrugged. "I haven't known Ter long enough to say." They both looked at Vk.

She must have tensed because her pebafri danced backward and she had to take several minutes to get the animal back under control. "I am not sure I should comment on a crewmate," she said once she'd gotten her pebafri to settle next to Divashi's Brown.

"Gimi has always been on our side, and she'll do what's most logical. She's not going to be led around by her own prejudices." Dante put a hand on Vk's arm when her nose wrinkled up. "Please."

She slumped. "You are manipulative," she accused him, and Dante had no ground to defend himself against the charge.

She studied Gimi for so long that the pebafri began to get restless. "Fine. I shall trust your judgment," she told Dante before she turned to Gimi. "He is crass and disagreeable. He will often threaten to remove random organs from improbable orifices. I have multiple times heard him threaten to remove lungs from an individual's excrement orifice or their excess caloric intake organ from their sexual reproductive orifice." She gave a dramatic shudder at that example. "And while he is less prone to physically throw items now, he has done so in the past, at least when the engineers were in areas secure from breakage."

Gimi inclined her head. "So it is possible that the stress of the current situation has exacerbated his disagreeable temper."

"Possibly," Vk said. "His species is far more independent than mine or many in the Coalition. Most Coalition members come from gregarious species, so showing respect for others is an innate instinct. Coming from such a self-reliant species, he has no such instinct."

"But surely someone has taught him that those of us who live in civil societies expect a level of respect for others."

Vk's nose tucked up. "I'm not convinced he listened to those lessons."

Dante wondered if Ter's work had anything to do with that. It sounded as though the Coalition gave him more leeway than most. "Among my people, we have a concept called ‘enabling,'" he said. "If we love someone enough or find their skills valuable enough, we sometimes make excuses for bad behavior because we don't want to create conflict." His father had accused Dante's grandmother of enabling him because she wouldn't dress him in a suit and push him in front of the press, but Dante was almost sure his father had misunderstood the term.

"That appears foolish," said Gimi, her ears twitching. "However, I have also seen Kowri too willing to make excuses for some while condemning others. It is an avenue of similarity I could bring to the debate. But first, I have made it a mission to ensure that you, Dante a'Divashi, attend the debate with me. Vk of the outsiders, do you require an escort back to your ship?"

"I promised to stay with Dante," said Vk, and she moved her pebafri forward.

Gimi stepped up onto the hover. "You are not allowed in the temple. You would need to remain outside while he speaks to the others."

Vk turned toward him. "We could go back to the ship," she said, making it clear that she would prefer that. However, if Dante had a choice between sitting in his room helpless to affect the outcome of the debate or attending the temple meeting, he preferred the latter.

"I'm going with Gimi. Feel free to head back to the ship."

Vk muttered under her breath before sitting straighter in the saddle. "I shall wait for you outside the temple, but please keep in mind that if something goes wrong, I shall not retreat without you. So I would prefer that you find me in case of utter disaster."

"I will ensure he returns safely to your side," Gimi said. "Come. Let us go to the growing season temple."

Dante frowned. "Growing season? Why aren't we going to the cold season temple?"

"Because an exalted with status that exceeds Nawr's has arrived by ship. Since she has seniority, the debate has shifted to her temple. But enough of temple manners. Come. Let us join the other exalteds." She whirled her hover around before racing for the ivy-encrusted temple straight ahead. Something in her abrupt manner infected Dante and he kicked Divashi's Brown into a canter and followed.