I Was An Alien Cat Toy (24 page)

mother. “I wish to hear the jopa belonging to the son of Kadit, sing.” A ripple of agreement ran around the

hall, with calls for ‘Gredar’s jopa’ to come forward.

Martek looked at Gredar, ears flattening a little in concern. “
Can
he sing?”

Gredar had no idea, but he doubted that was going to be the problem. “He can’t, Martek, not in front

of all....”

“I too wish to hear the jopa sing.”

Gredar turned at the lazily drawled words, and scowled at Filwui lounging at the side door. He nearly

told him to shut up, but in point of law, Filwui had as much right as any other to be there, since he was only

barred from the clan head’s home. Gredar decided to ignore him, but he’d reckoned without Filwui’s

hangers-on and his brothers, all of whom took up the call, and began to stomp their feet in support.

Gredar’s mother, her tail snapping back and forth, looked about to intervene, but Gredar held up his

hand, meeting her eyes. “Let me ask,” he said, careful to sound pleasant, as if this was nothing untoward.

She held his gaze a moment longer, then nodded. “If he’s well enough,” she said, glancing at Filwui

and then back to Gredar as if Filwui wasn’t worth wasting time on.

Martek was actually holding his own tail in his hands, he was so worried. “But can he sing?” he asked

in an anxious hiss as Gredar passed him.

“No idea, but it can’t hurt to ask.”

T’meen was sitting very still, clearly aware there was something wrong, but there was no way he

could know it was to do with him. Gredar crouched in front of him. “T’meen okay?”

“Ye-ess. Thing bad?”

“No. T’meen sing? Huu-man song?” He waved at the assembly. “Daiyne want listen huu-man song.”

“Sing? Like Gredar sing?”

“No. Like T’meen sing. Huu-man song. Is okay,” he said gently, stroking T’meen’s hair. “Is good

thing, T’meen song. Good for Gredar mother.”

“Mother...want?”

“Ye-ess. Very. T’meen sing?”

T’meen got to his feet. “Ye-ess.” He looked over at Gredar’s family. “Ye-ess,” he said more loudly.

“T’meen sing huu-man song to Gredar mother.”

His mother nodded, and there was a definitely satisfied air to the way she flicked her ear in the

general direction of Filwui and his crowd. Gredar put his hand on T’meen’s shoulder and led him to the

centre of the stage.

“Ugh, how torgu,” he heard someone—someone
male
—say, but when he looked, Filwui was staring

innocently back.

Gredar decided not to respond. He stood beside T’meen, hand still on his shoulder. “Clan of the forest

plain, this is my friend, T’meen. T’meen is huu-man, from far away. He will give us his singing, as my

mother wishes.”

No one spoke, or made a sound. T’meen looked up at him, and Gredar attempted to look reassuring,

but was suddenly seized with worry—what if T’meen made a fool of himself? But it was too late now.

“T’meen sing now,” he said, and stepped back.

His huu-man looked so small and strange in the flickering lamplight and his dark red cloze, and it

struck Gredar how T’meen was unlike any other creature he knew. Perhaps his fanciful tale of his home

among the stars was really true—but paznitl! Nothing lived in the sky, everyone knew that.

T’meen cleared his throat, then bowed to Gredar’s mother, who smiled and nodded at him—she was

used to his ways now. “Please begin, T’meen.”

T’meen straightened, and then began his song.

Even used to his speaking voice, which was rather guttural and flat compared to a daiyne’s, Gredar

was unprepared for the peculiar sounds that emerged from T’meen’s throat. It wasn’t as loud as a daiyne’s,

though it was clearly audible, but the range of notes and the rapid changes between them, not to mention the

very disjointed rhythm, sounded utterly repellent at first. He found his claws starting to extend in purely

instinctive response, as if his body thought the noise was a threat. He glanced anxiously at his family to

check their reaction. His mother was listening with apparent interest, Jilen was expressionless, and his other

sisters were holding their unclawed hands politely in their laps—impossible to know what that meant. He

feared this wasn’t going well.

But then Martek picked up the strange, random rhythm with his drums, and after a few moment,

Jaijair began to tap the tune sticks in counterpoint to T’meen’s song. His huu-man faltered, but then picked it

up again as he realised Martek was trying to match him, not compete. Gredar listened closely, and when he

felt he had picked up the backbeat, he began to tap it out with his foot, an extra loud thump on the downbeat.

T’meen smiled and kept up his song, and when it was over, someone called out ‘Again’. So he repeated it,

this time with more of the assembly imitating Gredar’s actions. By the time the repeated song ended, easily

fifty daiyne were keeping time, and Gredar’s mother was nodding along.

T’meen bowed, and there was an appreciative chorus of yowls and foot thumps—more than

politeness, somewhat less than complete enthusiasm. What one would expect for one of Martek’s less well-

known songs, in fact, and much more than Gredar had hoped. He walked over to T’meen and stood beside

him, tail wrapped around his huu-man. “Thank you,” he said. “The song was very good. Good,” he repeated,

looking down at his smiling friend. He looked over at Filwui and sneered—his erstwhile lover growled, ears

flat against his skull, and slunk out the door. Gredar couldn’t resist a little hiss at that.

Gredar’s mother held up her hand and the assembly quieted. “Thank you, T’meen. That was unusual,

but very nice.”

T’meen bowed, and looked at Gredar for translation. “Mother say song is strange, good. Is okay. Very

good.”

“Thank you. Go Gredar’s home now?” he added quietly.

He patted his shoulder. “Ye-ess. Well done, my friend.”

But it wasn’t that simple or quick. Daiyne crowded around Gredar and T’meen as they came off the

stage, wanting to hear more of T’meen speaking, asking him to sing again, and when Gredar had finally

pushed through them all, Martek pounced, and dragged T’meen over to Gredar’s mother, apparently at her

request. “Kadit ask, what is song about?”

“About? Uh....” T’meen looked like he would like to bolt. “Words...not know words.”

Behind his mother, Jilen spoke up. “Take your time, T’meen. We know you don’t know many

words.” Gredar stared at her in surprise. “Explain, Gredar,” she added.

“T’meen, Gredar song about pottery. T’meen song about...?”

T’meen held his hands out. “Uh...is song about...T’meen home, T’meen clan head. About luff for

home, clan head.”

“‘Luff’?”

“‘Luff’, uh. Very like, truly like.” He wrapped his arm around Gredar’s waist and rubbed his face

against his stomach. “‘Luff’. Protect, like, want thing very much. All,” he said, mimicking squashing several

things together. “‘Luff’. T’meen protect T’meen home, clan head. Want very much. Is sad if huu-man no go

home.”

“Sounds like it’s a song of loyalty to his clan, Mother. A declaration that he will protect it and is

devoted to it.”

She nodded. “Very proper sentiments. A fine song to sing. T’meen?” He looked up at her. “Is a good

song. Kadit say, thank you.” She looked at Gredar. “That’s right?”

“Perfect,” he said, smiling. T’meen bowed. “And thank you,” he added quietly. “Paznit Filwui.”

“Yes, he was trying to stir trouble.” Her tail swished a little. “But there was nothing I could hold him

down for, other than being a thorn in the taeng.” Jilen and Wilna grinned at the vulgarity. “If he keeps it up,

he’ll find himself banished, or worse. A good singing, Gredar, Martek. Well done.” She allowed Gredar to

rub his face against hers, and briefly twined her tail with Martek as a sign of approval. Then she turned to her

daughters. “Jilen? I’m leaving.”

Gredar and Martek stepped back to let the females and kitlings pass, and the assembly began to break

up as the clan head left. Martek heaved a great sigh. “That was....”

“Better than hoped,” Gredar said, ruffling T’meen’s hair.

“I want to try and write that song down. I hope you aren’t going to take our little friend away from me

any time soon, Gredar.”

“No,” he assured him. “In fact, I’ll need your help more than ever, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. He’s no trouble, and now I have something else I can ask him about.”

T’meen, who’d been listening to the back and forth with a confused expression, piped up. “Whaat?”

“Is okay,” Gredar said. “Martek want learn T’meen song.”

“Okay. Go Gredar home now? T’meen tir-ed.”

“Ye-ess.” He picked T’meen up and hoisted him to his shoulders. “Martek, keep an ear out for any of

Filwui’s nonsense, will you? He was trying to provoke Mother tonight and that can’t be good.”

Martek’s smile dropped. “No, it can’t. We need to be vigilant. We have an excess of males right now

and that’s never a good thing during snowfall.”

“True. Might be time for some judicious de-balling.”

Martek clasped his hands over his groin. “Don’t go giving your mother ideas,” he squeaked, and

Jaijair, behind him, muffled a laugh. “Get on home. Well done, both of you.”

Yes
, Gredar thought. A good evening. One to write down in the clan’s history, and tell the kitlings

about in his dotage.

~~~~~~~~

Come on, big guy, stop talking and let’s get out of here.
Temin’s face ached from smiling over gritted

teeth for what felt like hours, and he wanted to be where he felt safe—at least, safer. He was shefting sick

and tired of being put on display, on trial for crimes he didn’t even know he was committing, and though

‘Great and Peaceful is our Home, Venshu’ seemed to have gone down a treat, he wasn’t stupid enough to

believe the request had just been an impulse by Gredar’s mother. He’d been watching that shefting thug,

Filwui, since he’d sidled in as Gredar was performing, and the bastard hadn’t taken his eyes off Temin the

whole time. The request to sing had something to do with him, and that meant trouble.

Gredar seemed happy enough with how things had gone, but it wasn’t just the abrupt transition from

the superheated meeting hall to the brutal cold outside which made Temin shiver and huddle into Gredar’s

furry neck. Everything—every meeting—in this village was some kind of test, and he had a pretty good idea

what would happen to him if he failed. Before Gredar had come into his life, and Temin was still a pet on a

leash, he’d seen a jopa killed, probably because it was a shefting nuisance and had bitten the wrong person or

kitten. One of the females had just taken it into the pump room and slashed out the back of its neck with one

sweep of her powerful claws—the jopa had died instantly. Temin could still see its limp, bloodied form—a

creature bigger than him—dangling from the female’s paw. She’d tossed it outside, for what purpose he

didn’t know, and had washed the blood from her hands under the pump without even looking at Temin, tied

to a pipe in the corner. A minor problem taken care of as emotionlessly as Temin would eat a bit of orkan

meat for supper.

He had no doubt at all that would be his fate if he pissed the wrong person off, and in this village,

there were too many unknowns—like who had authority and influence, who did not. Gredar and his

immediate family were high status, but he couldn’t really figure Martek, or why Filwui’s creepiness was

tolerated when he was obviously a problem for Gredar. All Temin could do was smile, obey, kiss arse, and

hope no one took a dislike to him more than they already had.

He’d have liked to ask Gredar about the politics, but his vocabulary wasn’t up to it. If he could have

revealed the handheld, he could have used it to help, as he was surreptitiously entering all his drawings of

day-neh words into the database, and recording Martek on the sly when he could. He was pretty sure he could

write a speech synthesis programme that would help him at least construct and artificially vocalise sentences

which didn’t make him sound like a toddler learning to talk, but he needed more time and overt cooperation

than he dared ask for. Give him a year here, if he lasted that long, and he might feel secure enough to ask—

not now.

In a year, he might be thousands of klicks away, if he could get the podpod’s sublights working...and

if he could bear to leave Gredar behind. That was a bigger consideration than maybe it should have been, but

after losing Jeng, Temin didn’t know if he could face leaving the only person who could come close to

replacing him. The fact that Gredar had some scary and not terribly friendly relatives was some incentive to

walk away, admittedly. Temin was still probably not in the best shape to make big decisions, and was trying

to concentrate on getting through each day—which was fine until his new best friend decided to shove him

on a stage in front of hundreds of hostile aliens and ask him to
sing
. He’d nearly pissed himself when Martek

started banging on his shefting drum—he’d thought it was the signal for someone to drag him away and kill

him. He grinned, remembering. He bet the Planetary President had never heard their official song performed

anything like that, in all the places in this galaxy she must have heard it. ‘Anthem, with drums and cats’.

Yeah—he could really see it being popular with street performers on Nixal.