Tally Road Original Story- Chapter 20

The room had barred windows, looking out on uninteresting and featureless darkness. It had old-fashioned furnishings, and paneled walls, and the stuffiness of well-preserved antiquity, and it had Rairate, Dene, and Boodins, all coming reluctantly awake, but it did not have Siertes.

Rai took stock of his surroundings with the professionalism of the trained Hse-Nerre. Gravity, a trace above what he considered normal. Air pressure, likewise. This was a Runge world, it would appear- certainly not Aintar. Odors suggested a mountainous, forested area... Rai considered briefly the wealth of information Boodins Earncy would be swimming in from a single inhalation, and then realised the young Resten would have no background to analyse the scents and draw conclusions.

Still, it was worth a try. "Boodins, sniff the air, 'aons."

Boodins obediently complied. He remained silent for some time. Finally, Rai cautiously inquired, "Have you observed anything?"

"I think this might be a Runge world!"

Rairate politely refrained from observing that he'd noticed that right away. "Anything else?"

"Um... smells like woods? It's not like anything I ever smelled before. I didn't know Runge worlds had woods on them. What sort of Runge place would have woods?"

"Zuransche." said Dene, rubbing her eyes blearily.

"I beg your pardon?" said Rairate.

"We're in Zuransche, back on the planet we came from."

Rai considered this with subdued alarm. Too many things were going without explanations for his comfort. Siertes was nowhere to be seen, and not to be trusted anyhow, and Dene had appeared safely understandable, except that now she seemed to know something he didn't. If she'd just woken up, how would she know that? Rairate's tail flicked about as he spoke with characteristic politeness.

"What makes you say that?"

Dene gestured to a painting on the wall- no, not a painting, a framed sign with elaborately painted letters. It said, "Annter Helt 4097, Zuransche-Estrig" with every evidence of great pride.

Oh.

"Zuransche Estrig?" said Boodins.

"That's the mountain this is on." said Dene. "Annter house, established 4097, Estrig mountain of Zuransche."

"Why does it use such old fashioned language?"

"Tourism." said Dene. "Notice how it just barely manages to be founded in the previous millenium? This place looks like it ought to be from the first years of the four-thousands, but I bet it's fake. Mostly fake."

"Does it ever bother you that your whole culture is one big lie and facade?" asked Rairate, fed up.

"Huh? What? A what?"

"I'm sorry." said Rai unhappily. "Please forgive my awful breach of decent behavior, 'aons. I am just so tired of dealing with these things..."

Dene couldn't be angry with him. "Aw- don't feel bad, that was nothing compared to how us Runge talk to each other. You're even right- well, kinda right. Is it so different where you came from? It sounds like you're homesick."

"No, I should not make such remarks." said Rai. "...but yes, it is different."

"Tell me?" cajoled Dene. Boodins was attentive, too- the little black Nerre didn't often talk about his home.

Rai earflicked, looking away, feeling uncooperative, but then the interest of his alien friends won him over, persuading him that he owed them an explanation. He was slow to speak, even so.

"Ause is a garden, Denenke. Not 'like' a garden- everything about it is a piece of art. Including us... we are part of it, and our every move and interaction is meant to be harmony and beauty..."

"What about the ones who aren't good at it?" asked Boodins.

"No, you don't understand. How can you not be good at simply existing?"

Boodins considered this. "I don't know. What about somebody who is no good at harmony and beauty and ends up mopping floors or unstopping toilets?"

"That is an honorable office, Boodins. It's distressing that you do not see the dignity in it."

Dene had been watching this byplay, and interjected. "But Rai- what about a janitor who wants to be a gardener? What then?"

The little Nerre stiffened. "That would be disharmonious. That does not happen."

"Well," said Dene skeptically, "it happens around here all the time."

"And it is still an abomination. That's... chos."

Boodins blinked. "Isn't that your curse word? What does it actually mean?"

Rai looked uncomfortable. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try us." said Dene, her ears pricked up with great interest.

Rai swallowed. "'Chos' means 'so what'."

"Huh?" said Boodins. "That's not a swear! A swear is a word for, like, having sex or, you know, number two."

Dene was thinking. "Siertes would swear 'is'. I never understood that either, but maybe I'm beginning to. She'd swear it when she was confronted with something that was very frustrating but she couldn't change it."

Rai nodded. He was bristling slightly with embarrassment.

"I saw you swear it when you'd killed a cop attacking us- and when the airline people tricked us and drugged us." said Dene. "These are all things that are so wrong that you can't just shrug them off?"

Rai nodded again.

"I guess maybe I do understand." said Dene. "A janitor wanting to be a gardener is like 'so what' about being a janitor. He doesn't care about being a good janitor because he's wanting to be something he's not. When you killed the cop, when we got drugged on the spaceship, the worst thing would have been to not care about what had happened, and that's how 'so what' becomes a swear for you. Is that right?"

"I have never really understood that word of yours." replied Rai quietly.

"What word?"

"'Care'. It doesn't translate."

Dene favored the small feline with a very shrewd glance. "I'm not all that surprised. I guess it's so central to you guys that you can't imagine it as just an ordinary word. To us it's something you do if you feel like it, and to you it's something you are. You have the word for the opposite, though!"

Rai bristled worse. "I am sorry. I will try not to use it again."

"Oh!" said Dene. "No, I'm sorry. Say it all you want, it doesn't matter."

"Please!" said Rai, distressed.

Dene shut her eyes, pinching her muzzle with her fingers as her brain tried to keep up. "Argh. Let me rephrase that, please? Um, I am grateful for your courtesy, and, um, do me the honor of being patient as I try really hard to get this stuff right?"

Rairate visibly relaxed. "Thank you, and of course. Forgive me, I should try to remember how difficult this must be for you. Ki-Nerre are known for not asking about such things. I am expecting too much."

"No, no," said Dene, "don't worry about it, it doesn't ma... um, I mean, uh, thank you for not being angry with me as I try to learn?" She pinched her muzzle again, squeezing her eyes shut as she went over possible conversational gambits with attention to whether they implied lack of caring.

Something touched her hand, and she opened her eyes.

"Erre." said Rai softly as he withdrew his gentle paw. "Not to regret. You are yourself, and ever more of yourself."

Dene didn't entirely understand this, but it sounded nice. "Um. 'Erre'?"

"Harmony of being just what you are meant to be." said Rai.

"I saw a movie once where two Nerre kitties said that to each other and then they were starting to have sex but it faded to black before you could see anything!" said Boodins brightly.

"Boodins!" snapped Rai. "Be decent!"

"Well, it did!" began Boodins, but he was denied the chance to argue the point, because a continuing expostulation was approaching down the corridor outside. Part of it was a familiar voice, and part was a stranger. The bolts on the door banged, the door was flung open, and Siertes burst into the room in a state of high outrage, and announced "Okay, this time you get all of the truth."

Rai hissed at her, and she stopped dead.

"Now what?" she said. "Is! If you move on me, kitty, well, that would just figure, wouldn't it? Shut up and listen, now."

"Say 'vraonse'." suggested Dene.

"Why?"

"Oh, I just thought it might be nice to act a little civilized." snapped Dene. "What do you mean, now we get all of the truth?"

Siertes glared, incensed. "Crazy wolfess! Call us uncivilized? You have no idea of the history of..."

Dene cut her off. "Well, we don't lie to each other. You've been lying to us?"

"I had to." said Siertes. "That's over."

"Say 'vraonse' to Rairate." Dene caught another glare from Siertes, and her annoyance-fueled bravado started to leak. "Uh... please. Please say 'listen to my story, vraonse'. It'll help, okay?"

Siertes snorted. "Right. Guess I owe you that. Well then- shut up and listen to my story, vraonse. I have to tell you the truth."

Rai didn't look very impressed by the Tompar version of Nerre protocol, but he stayed quiet and listened.

"I am not working for Finn and his damn puppet master anymore..."

"What?"

"You heard me!"

Sierte's blunt statement had provoked a threefold 'what?', and now Rai, Boodins and Dene stared at her in suspicion, astonishment, and confusion respectively. Finally Boodins found his voice. "She really is a Mued, huh?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Siertes.

"Well, in the movies they always turn out to be working for the bad... um..."

Siertes glowered, and Boodins fell silent. Finally, the Tompar spoke again, and it was in a despairing tone they hadn't heard from her before. "Well, damn..."

Rai started to become interested. It was true that Mued were expedient and treacherous, and this one had established she was all of that, but contrition wasn't part of the pattern. Siertes was acting like she needed something from them, and plainly thought she'd blown it. It seemed to matter to her, and that was strangest of all.

"What's wrong?" asked Rai, cautiously. Siertes glared at him as well, apparently out of habit, and then began explaining, in a dull, exhausted tone.

"I'm not working for Finn and his damn puppet master anymore. I never liked not knowing who pays the bill, but after I saw the inside of Dinsam and saw Finn there it was just too much. I've got to find out what's happening, who's trying to make war on my people. Maybe I already helped them without meaning to. You people seem to be on the other side. I'd want to join you and help, but you'll never trust me again. I'm going home and probably be killed over this, there's no way I can explain it to authorities. Could you get to the bottom of this for me? It's important."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Who has us?" asked Rairate.

"It's Finn's people." said Siertes. "There's a guy waiting outside the room. They are, shall we say, not happy with me. I was supposed to be following you because somebody heard you were assigned to track down Finn, and Finn's people don't like that."

"Who are Finn's people?"

"They're punks. You're punks!" she yelled at the door. "It almost reminds me of home. I can kill them if they don't get projectile-weapon at me too much, but I need to find out what they're doing."

"What do you think they're doing?"

Siertes glowered. "I think somebody's allying with Xarnax."

Boodins looked shocked. Dene looked sick. Rai looked startled.

"I think," said Rairate, "we had better talk to Finn's people."