Nobody Left Behind 9

Things have mostly returned to normal around here. There's still more doctor stuff ahead for Ky, but the house has been repaired and insurance gave me a check, so we're no longer in a desperate state.

In other news, Ky's birthday is on Tuesday.

This Sarsuk episode continues on after he tells Siki about the embarrassing incident at Solar Bark.

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With his eyes closed, Sarsuk stumbled out of his front door and into the breezy corridor that connected his apartment to the stairs. He felt his way to the neighbor across from him, and with a palm resting against the door’s surface, he knocked.

The door didn’t open, but of course, if anyone was yelling, “Who’s there?” he wouldn’t have heard. He couldn’t answer if he had. He knocked a second time and waited once more. Still no answer.

He climbed the steps and repeated the process with the two neighbors on three, knocking harder each time. Then, he went down to the first floor and tried there.

Were his neighbors looking out their peep-holes at a headless Sarsuk? Were they screaming and piling furniture in front of their doors? He had no way of telling, but he suspected there were no other people in this simulation—just him in an empty apartment complex, no slaves, no neighbors, no grumpy superintendent.

“Then again,” he realized with a smile, “if all of this is going to reset when I fall asleep, then it doesn’t really matter what I do in this sandbox, does it? I could kick down all the doors. I could take a dump on the floor. I could break all the windows. It’ll just go back to normal, tomorrow.”

And with that, he kicked the downstairs neighbor’s door just as hard as he could manage.

“Ow-ow-ow!” gasped the krakun as stars swum behind his eyelids. He leaned against the wall and wrapped his claws around his wounded ankle.

If there’s some sort of “technique” for kicking in doors, that wasn’t it! Was his ankle broken? How could he call an ambulance if he couldn’t speak?

In agony, he stumbled away. Instead of trying to climb back upstairs with a ruined ankle, he decided to sit in the grass. So, he worked his way carefully down the last couple steps, leaning hard on the peeling handrail to keep his weight off his throbbing claw. But as his uninjured claw touched the bottom step, something changed. His ankle stopped hurting, and the claw that had been grabbing the banister was now squeezing a couch cushion.

“Wait, what?” he whispered. He sat forward and touched the two regular shapes on the coffee table. “It’s reset!”

Sarsuk stretched out his leg and spent a long moment rolling his ankle this way and that, but the injury had completely vanished. “Yes!” he laughed. “I was not looking forward to nursing a twisted virtual ankle.”

But then, his expression fell and his mood with it. He realized, Shit. I’m trapped here.

# # #

Sarsuk felt lethargic this morning—not so much in a funk, but he was having a terrible time shaking off the sleepies, trying to focus. Though he had no stomach and it’d likely just run down a wall in the adjoining room, he’d kill for a triple shot, whipped, Mocha Sulfusion. He missed Solar Bark. He missed staring at Ashiok when the handsome barista was busy with other customers.

“Hey, you with us?” asked Siki for the second time.

“Barely,” he grunted. “I need caffeine.”

“You don’t have a stom—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” groaned the krakun. “Could I just smell yours, please?” He smiled as sweetly as he could manage.

Siki frowned. “I’m not allowed to come any closer.”

“That’s fine, fine,” he moaned. “Just hold the mug up, okay? Let me smell it?”

Her ears frowned. “You’re not gonna spit in it, are you?”

“Ew. Gross.” The krakun frowned.

With little more needling, Siki stood and raised her mug in outstretched arms. Sarsuk sniffed and sniffed, drawing in deep … fanfuls? He no longer had lungs. Regardless, despite the mug’s small size, it still held a facsimile of the deep, warm, roasted goodness he missed.

Eventually, he sighed contentedly, and she retook her seat. “Honestly, it smells like a dreadful blend,” he admitted, “but I’ve been without for so long that I’d lick used filters from the prison dumpsters just to get a taste.”

“Well,” said the little geroo, dropping her voice low, “Dad has this old watering can at home. If you wanted, I could swipe it. You might not be able to drink without a stomach, but maybe I could get you a taste tomorrow. A pot-full might be enough to swirl around on your tongue or something.”

His eyes popped open in surprise and he glanced to the back of the lab where the lio was working. Despite the language barrier, he kept his voice very low, “Do you suppose Palani would allow that?”

She snorted a laugh, not even taking a moment to consider before replying. “No! But easier to get forgiveness than permission, right?”

Despite his tiredness, the promise of a sip of javea was enough to lift his mood. “Oh, bless you, my fuzzy savior.” He rested his chin on the floor, explaining, “There’s a javea maker here in my apartment. I can make a mug. I can warm my palms on it, but I can’t even smell it. If I try to drink any, I can feel the mug against my lips, but there’s no liquid, no anything. It’s like I’m tipping back an empty glass.”

“Sorry.”

“But if I brewed a mug of my good stuff and ‘drank it’ while you gave me a sip of whatever vile sludge passes for javea on this planet, that’s bound to be really close,” he said. “I really would be grateful.”

“Yeah?” she asked with a knowing smile.

“Yeah.” He studied her for a bit. “You’d really do that for me? Break what’s likely against the rules even if it’s not explicitly stated?”

She lowered her ears. “You wouldn’t tell, would you? I need this job.”

Sarsuk shook his head, glancing back at the lio once more, but the cat still seemed preoccupied with his computer. “No, of course not. Why would I do that?”

Siki grinned. “Yeah, I’d risk it … but you understand how this works, right? Nothing’s ever free.”

“Ah, here it comes,” laughed the krakun. “Anyone who can talk Palani out of seven-and-a-half sovereigns is going to destroy me! I’ve never been a good negotiator.”

She just grinned at him.

“You do realize I’ve got no money, no job,” said Sarsuk. “I don’t even have a body. You could scrape some scales off my snout if you’re brave—”

“Tell me about that cleaning crew you had in college…”

The cheer he’d been feeling crumbled. Figures. How could he not have seen this coming? Was he that tired? He grumbled, “Every damn morning, week after week, you’re on about that cleaning crew.”

Siki just smiled. “Well, tell me about them.”

He ground his palms into his eyes. “There’s nothing more to tell. I failed the exam. I dropped out of school. I didn’t see them again,” he moaned. “This was thousands of years ago. They’re all long-since dead.”

Siki shrugged and leaned an arm on the lab bench. She shoved her snoot in the mug and inhaled the scents. “Mmm, I really love this roast. Higglenut is the best.”

Sarsuk groaned.

“Okay, so not that cleaning crew,” said the lab tech when she pulled her muzzle back out and licked any loose drops with a pink tongue. “You said there was a cleaning crew you had other problems with. Tell me about them.”

Sarsuk glared at her for a moment, then curled up tight on his couch with his eyes closed. He mumbled, “I don’t want to.”

The geroo’s long ears grinned wide. “I know you don’t want to, but do it anyhow. This is a fair trade.”

“Don’t say that.” His lower lip jutted out, and he wallowed in silence a long while. He thought about his ringel crew. They had been vulgar but obedient, and he wished he had kept them. The geroo crew? They’d been awful—constantly sneaking out to roam the apartment when they thought he wouldn’t notice. Taking them had been a mistake. He should have bought a new crew instead—or done without, if he was feeling that poor.

He shook his head slightly and curled ever tighter. “It’s not even the cleaning crew,” the krakun muttered. “That wasn’t the problem.”

Siki’s right ear perked higher. She waited a moment, but when he didn’t continue, she asked, “Well, what was the problem?”

“The problem was…” He fell back into silence for a long while before opening his eyes and studying her. “Do you understand what generation ship commissioners do?

She studied him with a squint before saying, “Uh, generally, I guess. I mean, I’m sure I’d need some training before I could take over for you, but my folks have mentioned the commissioner of their old ship.” She shrugged. “…You tell a fleet of ships where to go, where to search for new planets.”

Sarsuk chuckled a deeply disturbing sort of noise. “No, that’s not even vaguely correct.”

Her ears stood tall. “It’s not?”

With a serious expression, he shook his mighty head. “No. My boss could do that by herself. It wouldn’t even be that hard,” he explained. “A couple times a week, a ship finishes surveying a system, and she could e-mail them. ‘I received your report on that star system. Your next destination is the Eridani A system. Survey it and e-mail me back.’ That wouldn’t even keep her busy.”

Siki nodded. “Oh, yeah, that’s not bad.” She tilted her head. “So, bringing the ships more fuel?”

That made him laugh. “I have to do that about once every five years.”

“Oh, well then…” She scratched at the long fur on the back of her neck. “So, what is your job?”

Sarsuk stretched forward so his face filled the geroo’s entire view. In a low and gravelly voice, he said, “I put a personal face on the company. The geroo don’t work for some vague corporation out there in space. They work for me.”

He stared down at her and watched as she slowly lowered her head, cowered away from him. “And if they don’t do what the company wants,” he said, quieter now, “then I’m the guy they have to deal with. I’m the reason that ship actually heads off to Eridani A instead of going off wherever they like.”

Siki swallowed. “So, your job is to scare them?”

He shrugged his invisible shoulders. “Essentially, yes. The geroo have their own laws, and they can enforce them just fine without my help. But every now and then, I have to insert myself into the process, make a crime personal, and punish the criminal myself.” He leaned closer so she fell under his shadow. “And not in the clean, antiseptic way everyone would prefer. I need to make sure the crews understand that I’m not afraid to do something horrible, and that defying me will lead to a very dire consequence that they don’t even want to contemplate.”

Her jaw hung open, and she tried multiple times before she could manage to make a sound. He felt a little bad, scaring her when there was no real reason for it, but he wanted her to understand. She whispered, “That’s awful. Why would you do that?”

Sarsuk sighed and lowered his chin to the floor. “These are the sorts of jobs available on Krakuntec, Siki. No one’s going to pay me to make agar plates or talk to a head.” He looked away, unable to meet her eyes. “If I want to eat, then I need to work. If I want to work, then the best someone with my skills can hope for is a job scaring slaves into doing what they’re told.”

Her expression hardened. “Don’t you dare use that word—”

“But it’s the right word, isn’t it?” he interrupted, taking her aback. “These people who worked for me were never my employees. My job only existed because they were slaves. If the empire treated them as people and gave them rights, then I wouldn’t even have been in the picture. They’d just work for my boss.”

Silence hung over the two for a long while before Siki stood up. She headed off toward the javea pot, as if to refill her mug, but Sarsuk could see that it wasn’t empty yet.

She paused on her way and turned her head over her shoulder—far enough to indicate that she was talking to him, but not far enough to actually look at him.

She asked, “How do you live with yourself?” But she didn’t wait for him to reply.

“I live just fine—or I did, at least,” he said, speaking up a little at her back. “I did what I had to.”

But did he live just fine? If punishing slaves didn’t bother him, then why was his mind so focused on the cleaning crew?

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-7JtR92HSvylAs3ypb0xSbm70sZsIFP4c4Ql26ihTs/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?