Inktober 2019 #25: Tasty

[alara]

This is set in the same universe as #5: Build, but features a completely different species and set of characters.

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Rrahe’nek stared at the tiny, coatless creature looking up at him, its teeth bared but its digits bereft of weapons. Instead, there was a rich-smelling ceramic dish in its hands, hot, steaming and wrapped in a cloth. It spoke incomprehensibly.

He had come here expecting a battle. Hoping. The newest species to enter galactic territory was a protégé of the Diwar, and Rrahe’nek despised the feathered ones. They were arrogant, but pathetic. Their weapons were superb, no one denied that, but their warriors were cowards, planting bombs and running away. Rrahe’nek had heard that their proteges had far inferior technology, were smaller, and had no natural physical weapons. Either they were the weakest prey-sapients the Kai had ever encountered, or they had ferocious battle techniques to make up for their biological inadequacies. When one had come alone toward the Kai encampment, Rrahe’nek had been delighted, assuming it was the second option. He had come out alone himself to meet the alien warrior in battle, take its measure… and defeat it, of course, no aliens had ever defeated a Kai warrior in single combat, but the contest would be exhilarating before Rrahe’nek won it in the end.

Instead, here he was faced with a small alien with a curled mane, but no fur elsewhere on its body, holding out what smelled like a dish of cooked food.

He poked his tongue into the bead at the back of his mouth that activated his voder as a communicator. “Warrior Fifth Rank Rrahe’nek to den.”

“Den here, Warrior Fifth. Heat signature says you’re in range of the alien, but have not engaged?”

“That’s correct. It – it seems to be trying to give me food.”

A moment of silence. Then, “What.”

“Its teeth are bared, but it has no weapons, it’s made no threatening moves, it isn’t running away, and it’s trying to hand me a dish that smells like fish.”

“Hold position. We’re getting eyes on your location.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Udahn uhnis’tanmiyai noo, buyanoo aiwoh nurcha, rai’?”

The language wasn’t in the Kai language database yet. No one had thought they’d need it just to engage hostilities and take over the planet. The alien colony was small and had very little detectable weaponry; it was assumed that as soon as the aliens made the first move, and attacked, it would be simplicity itself to rout them, either kill them all or send them running with their nonexistent tails between their obligate-bipedal legs. Being able to speak the alien language wouldn’t have been necessary to fight them, and given the tiny size of the colony, almost certainly not necessary to win, either.

But this alien was breaking the pattern. It was clearly not a warrior. It had the exaggerated mammaries that Rrahe’nek remembered hearing about in the briefing, marking it as a female – so it might be a leader or ambassador or an assistant to an important alien, but nothing it was wearing was any kind of rank or class signal that Rrahe’nek could read. It had no weapons, and the only sign Rrahe’nek could see of any fear or battle readiness was those bared teeth.

The alien stopped baring its teeth and set the ceramic cooking dish down on the ground, and then joined it, sitting down in a position of complete vulnerability with its legs folded in front of it. It leaned forward slightly, and Rrahe’nek tensed, but it was only rubbing its knee.

“What is it doing?” Rrahe’nek’s ear jewel asked him, carrying the transmission from den.

“It’s sitting. On the ground. Rubbing its knees.”

“Does it have a gray mane? A gray mane means an elder in this race.” Kai were mostly color-blind but in very bright sunlight like this, they could make out a few shades.

“No, a dark mane.”

“Eyes in place.” A pause. “Mother of all. That creature looks ridiculous. Doesn’t it know you could swipe its head off?”

“It must, it’s baring – oh, wait, no it’s not. That’s odd. Its mouth has pulled upward on the sides as if it’s about to bare its teeth, but it’s holding position there. And it hasn’t broken the gaze since it sat down.” The gaze, between Kai, was a challenge for social status. In ancient days, a Kai who stared at a higher-status Kai might be killed, but they were civilized now, and followed the Way. None who followed the Way would initiate a physical combat, and any who could not keep to the Way were outcast, so nowadays Kai staring contests were purely social challenges, where whoever broke the gaze first lost the game and took the social penalty. Rrahe’nek didn’t dare look away. It was a matter of honor; he would not lose to this puny alien.

His mouth watered. The hot fish thing smelled so good.

“See if you can scare it,” den ordered.

Rrahe’nek lunged toward the creature with a growl. It shrank back, and then sat back up, lowering its gaze to admit submission… but it didn’t get up and leave, or run, or freeze in position. It said something incomprehensible.

“It won’t initiate hostilities,” Rrahe’nek reported, frustrated.

The Way demanded that no Kai ever initiate hostilities. Insults were acceptable, pointedly mocking poetry was acceptable, competitive games and gloating over winning them were rude but acceptable… but physical attacks were not. However, once an opponent opened hostilities, the Way of the Kai allowed them to use all force at their disposal to end the threat.

So when the Kai wanted a colony world for themselves, and another space-faring race was already on it, the Kai had a technique that never failed. Land near the other race, build a den, posture a lot with weapons, and the aliens would either initiate hostilities or run away, every single time.

All races feared the Kai. They were tall, broadshouldered and thickly furred, with sharp fangs on their upper and lower jaws for holding prey in place while their other pointed teeth ripped holes in pelts or skin or flesh. Pointed ears on the top of their heads that could swivel in the direction of sound, their eyes with a tapetum to reflect light and a vertical pupil that could shrink to barely a sliver, and whiskers on their faces, shoulders and wrists to tell them when they were entering an area too small for their entire bodies to fit. They could drop to all fours and run like the wind or leap like bouncing rubber, or stay on two legs and use their delicate digits to manipulate the world. All of their digits were adorned with retractable claws. Fur kept them warm even in frigid climates

There were animals very similar to the Kai on every planet that had complex life forms. Their scientists speculated that it was because Kai-formed animals were perfect predators, so convergent evolution had shaped the creatures of many planets to make Kai-formed creatures. Some saw it as proof that the Great Mother had intended them to den on every world. Some thought ancient Kai-formed beings had gone around to every planet, planting a genetic template that would someday create a Kai-formed creature. Regardless of the reason, every sapient species in space knew that Kai-formed creatures were the ultimate in dangerous predators, and so they were primed to be terrified of the Kai. Which meant that the simplest show of military force, the tiniest presentation of threat potential, and fight-or-flight compelled them to open hostilities or run, and if they opened hostilities, the Way allowed the Kai to fight them and drive them off the planet.

And yet here this small alien sat with a dish that smelled of delicious freshwater goodness, and no weapons.

“We’re implementing translation drones. Stand by.”

The drones flew down and surrounded the creature. This did startle it, and it got hastily to its feet again, but it still didn’t make a threatening move. The drones showed holograms of various things – Kai, trees, spaceships, textiles, minerals and so forth – and spoke in Arrnehukai, the standardized language of the Kai Empire. Then they played back the sounds they’d already captured from the alien, to persuade it to give its own names for things. It was plainly fairly intelligent; it caught on quickly and started to describe everything it saw, pointing at things and saying their names.

Within half an hour, the translation algorithms had analyzed enough of the language for communication. Which was good, because Rrahe’nek was very bored by this point. Knowing now that his voder would translate it into something the alien could understand, he spoke harshly, hoping to provoke the alien into a threatening move.

“Identify yourself, alien creature! This planet now belongs to the Kai Empire, and you should know that every other time we conquered a planet, any aliens who remained on the planet were destroyed!”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s true,” the alien said, its words being translated by his ear jewel, “but this planet doesn’t belong to the Kai. We hyuminz did colonize first, so by interstellaw law it’s our planet – but I’m sure we’d be happy to share! It’s a very big world, and surely there’s room for both of us.”

This was such a preposterous suggestion, Rrahe’nek could only stare. In lieu of his response, the alien gabbled on. “Now, you see, when I heard that you had landed near us, I knew it would only be neighborly to greet you and give you a gift, and my homeland’s traditions – I’m from uur’th, and specifically a place called mihnehsohtuh, don’t you know – well, we give gifts of homemade food to our new neighbors, to greet them and be friendly. And I didn’t know what you folks ate, but everyone says you’re just like uur’th kahtz, and I’ve never met a kaht that didn’t love fish. So I baked you up a nice fish casserole, with cheese – I don’t know if you can eat cheese, but I hope you can because it really adds to the flavor, but if it turns out you can’t, why, I’ll just take this fork and pull out all the fish for you onto a plate.”

This was mind-boggling. Unprecedented. The Way was very, very clear about hospitality and the treatment of neighbors. If another Kai approached you with arms raised in threat, and you responded by raising your own arms, it was understood that as soon as the weaker one broke the metaphorical gaze by initiating violence, you had the right to defend yourself with full force. But if another Kai approached you with arms bearing gifts, and no weapons, and their posture was one of friendship, the Way required that you accept the gift and return one of equal value, and accept the other as a friend.

Rrahe’nek couldn’t read the alien’s posture to know that it was a friendly posture, but everything the alien had said, now that the translator was working, expressed a desire for friendship, hospitality and no hostility. This was impossible. Only Kai ever expressed friendship and hospitality to Kai. Aliens had never done such a thing in the entire history of the Empire.

“I – you – but aren’t you afraid of us? I could harm you! We could wipe out your race!”

“I know you can,” the alien said. “Everyone says what mighty warriors you are. We hyuminz are much too weak to be much of a threat to you. But when we learned you had landed, I took a look at what other alien races said about how their conflicts with you started, and it sounded to me like they always started it! So I said to myself, I said, ‘naensee, maybe the problem here is that no one has ever approached you Kai with neighborly intent. Maybe, if I bake up a nice casserole and bring it over to you to express hyumahndeezdesire to be friends with you, it’ll turn out that you respect hospitality and friendship and you’d be willing to share this planet with us.’ It couldn’t hurt, right? I mean, if a battle broke out, of course we hyuminzwould lose and probably all of us would die, and if we didn’t die we’d have to evacuate, and I have spent far too many years trying to get my rhohz bushes to grow on this world to leave them behind, don’t you know. So either this would work, or, well, the worst would happen, but it would happen anyway if I didn’t try, so what harm could it do to make the offer?”

Rrahe’nek understood, then, that there would be no glorious battle, and that the Kai strategy had failed. The aliens – they called themselves hyuminz – would not be driven off this world. The Way would not allow it. He would not allow it, for one of the most dishonorable things a Kai could do was to violate the laws of hospitality.

“…I will taste your casserole,” he said. The Way demanded it. If the hyuminz were treacherous and had poisoned the dish, then he would have lost his life for an excellent reason, proving that a species who claimed friendship should be wiped out for being liars. And if they hadn’t poisoned it… his mouth had been watering since he met the creature and smelled the dish.

He sat down on the ground in front of the hyuminz. It unwrapped the cloth around the dish, revealing several paper plates on top and plastic utensils with smooth scoops. “It’s really better to eat with a fork, but I didn’t want to risk you poking yourselves,” the hyuminz said, as it – the mammary glands made it clear that it was a she, actually – as she scooped food onto a plate and presented it to Rrahe’nek.

It was delicious. He’d never had anything like it. Kai understood the concept of baking a casserole, combining meat in layers, sometimes with a starch to bind it together, but this took it to a new level. Instead of a starch binding, there was an incredibly tasty salty substance that smelled, just slightly, of mother’s milk. Rrahe’nek ate at a measured, careful pace, as befitting a follower of the Way.

His ear jewel, silent except for translations of the alien’s words for all this time, finally spoke. “Ask it how it knew that we follow the Way,” den instructed.

“I believe it is female. Large mammary glands,” he said to den. His voder didn’t translate, since he was transmitting.

“Is she a leader among her kind?”

He asked that first. The hyumin – he had learned that the -z ending meant many of them – laughed. “Oh dearie me, not so you’d notice,” she said. “My husband is the Mayor, but all I’m in charge of is a gardening club.”

Rrahe’nek wanted to ask what kind of beings put a male in charge when there was an available female, who was even his mate, to run things, but perhaps this species had more sexual equality than the Kai had managed to attain. “How did you know of our Way?” he asked.

“Your Way? I don’t know anything about that. I just know that it looked like you never attacked first.”

“But – all species fear the Kai. Kai-formed creatures on every world are fierce predators that terrify every sapient species. Why were you hyuminz not so afraid?”

“Well, if you were giant spiders, I might have done things differently! But you look just like big kahtz. I know, taig’rz and lai’ohz are also kahtz, and I guess if those were the only ones hyumandee knew about, we might have the same reaction. But I have three kahtz sleeping on my bed at night, every night.” She looked him up and down. “You’re frightening because you’re powerful, you know how to fight and we all know you’re willing to fight, but that was true every time a hyumin meets another one from a different place, all throughout our history, and that’s the best time to try to make friends. I’m not so scared of you just because you’re kahtz that I couldn’t think about being a good neighbor!”

These kahtz were plainly Kai-formed creatures. Why did this hyumin have Kai-formed creatures sleeping in her bed? Were hyuminz really that terrifying that even Kai-formed creatures submitted to them rather than taking them as prey? “What is a kaht?” Rrahe’nek asked.

“Well, it’s like you, but four-legged all the time, and about this big.” She held her hands apart to describe a very small animal, not even worth hunting.

What.

“You… have tiny Kai-formed on your planet?”

“Yes! We befriended them thousands of years ago; they help to keep vermin from eating the food we used to store for the winter, and they’re very cute and cuddly.” She lifted the dish. “Do you want seconds?”

“I should not. Gluttony is against the Way.”

“I understand. We probably want to save some for the other Kai, too, right? But I tell you what, next chance I get, I’ll bake you up another one. What’s your name?”

“Rrahe’nek.”

“Rahuhnek,” she repeated, not getting it exactly right, but close enough. “I’m Naensee.” Holding the dish with one hand, she reached out to him with the other. “My knees are much too old for this,” she said. “Can you help me up?”

And that made her an elder, deserving of respect and deference. Rrahe’nek easily pulled her to her feet. “Will you come to the den and talk to the leaders, Naensee? You can give them your fish casserole as well, and tell them about your plan to be friends to the Kai.”

“That sounds lovely. Lead the way.”

His ear jewel said wistfully, “Don’t feed it all to the bosses. Save some for us in Communications. It looks tasty.”