Taji From Beyond the Rings Read online

  The Shavian in question hadn’t moved but hadn’t looked away either. That happened only after Taji’s DD pinged with another message. The other two at his table also turned at the sound. Their eyes went to the device, not Taji.

  Taji laid a hand over it without thinking. He wasn’t expecting to be robbed—if anything, thievery seemed beneath the dignity of every Shavian he’d seen—but he knew what they were thinking. That device was IPTC, which meant even though the model was not current, it was newer and faster than anything available to them.

  Shavians had survived the collapse of a civilization that had colonized and terraformed their moons, but spent centuries trying to restore or repair what tech had remained behind, not innovate anything new. When the Interplanetary Trade Coalition—lazily pronounced ‘Iptick’ by those who worked for them but the I.P.T.C. to everyone else—had first arrived here, it had been immediately apparent to them that though the cities had power and retained their original beauty, the people of Mirsa were no threat to their dominance of the local star systems.

  Once that was clear, there was nothing to stop them from sending settlers to open up trade. Not even the desires of the Shavians.

  Taji straightened, flirtatious mood gone. It was careless of him not to think of that. He had no idea how these people regarded IPTC. He knew what he thought of it, but no translator could convey to strangers the idea of having to choose the least unpleasant of two bad options because they were the only choices he had to make—or maybe it could. This wasn’t the Garden District, after all.

  Regardless, he wasn’t going to explain to anyone tonight. He grimaced and finished his wine in one swallow. Midye was a liquor that the literal giants around him only dared to sip, and Taji had thrown it back like a student at his first pub. His fingers twitched over his data device but he refused to call for help. The one thing Taji did not need was help. He’d lived among the miners on the shepherd moon, for fuck’s sake. He could handle this.

  He’d wait. Maybe order something innocent to quench his thirst and then take a walk to get some air. The streets were well-lit, pale green and amber orbs lighting the way as though the lavender haze from the planet’s rings wasn’t bright enough. He had made his way here, he could find a way back. Although, the twinge in his leg from sitting in this position for so long was sharp, even with all the wine. Walking here had already taken its toll.

  “Fuck,” Taji murmured, then sighed. He’d try walking. If he couldn’t, he’d contact someone. Nadir, maybe, or Rodian. Not Lin, and definitely not Trenne.

  He shook his head as if he had to emphasize this point to someone who wasn’t there, then stilled as he fell into shadow.

  Tipping his head back made the world tilt with him, but gave Taji a better view of the new Shavian staring at him. This Shavian was small, by their standards, and wearing the decorative knife that meant—as far as Taji knew—that this one identified as male. He also had on a bright soria, silver piercings in his nose, and very long, straight hair, and Taji was a little too intoxicated to recall what, if anything, that all meant. He had money though, this one in his golden slippers, so he was probably a business owner. His swirled coloring was pale cream and yellow like gold, and he’d emphasized that with shimmer at the curve of his eyelids.

  Taji felt plain and underdressed but smiled anyway. “I am searching for something,” he explained in ‘Asha.

  Technically, all he said was, “I search,” because ‘Asha didn’t have a present progressive tense…or past or future tenses, for that matter. Everything was assumed to be present unless something else in the sentence said otherwise. They also didn’t have a word like something as Taji had used it. By not saying what he was searching for, Taji was indicating that either he didn’t know, or wouldn’t say, and that was enough to indicate “a thing” and maybe even imply he was being secretive. He wasn’t sure.

  He was so distracted by the implications of a language having words or concepts that could be expressed by no words at all that he almost missed the quiet answer. “Anyone can see that, human.”

  Or really, as the stranger said it, “All can recognize, human,” with the that also silent. But Taji’s job involved a lot of him taking literal ‘Asha, grasping the meaning, and then trying to wrangle it into Anglisky, so Taji tended to automatically translate that way now.

  The tone was harder to interpret than the words. Taji continued to smile despite that. “Taji. Instead of human.”

  “This is not the place for searching, Taji.” The Shavian repeated his name in a way that, jha or no jha, made Taji shiver.

  Taji struggled to make sense of what he was being told. “For studying?” The constant murmur of overheard and translated words made Taji pull his translator from his ear. He stuffed it into a pocket and did his best to maintain the limited amount of eye contact that the Sha preferred.

  “You are not here to study,” the pale, shimmering Shavian repeated, and swept a look over Taji that got him heated.

  “Oh. Well, then,” Taji said, which he didn’t think was translatable. He got lost in thoughts of conversational pauses and discourse markers, realized again how drunk he was getting, then shook his head and repeated himself. “Oh?” he asked, putting some challenge in his voice to get the idea across. “I am pretty sure I can do both.” Although, in translation, “I am confident I can do both,” came off as more arrogant than flirtatious. He would have batted his eyelashes if it would have helped; it didn’t work with humans, but with other species anything was possible.

  The excited flick of the pale Shavian’s ears was far too interesting for Taji to stare at anything else.

  “Do all humans act this way?” Now he seemed younger than Taji had first thought. Like the child of a rich man slumming it in a slightly poorer part of town. Taji didn’t know if sex with a human was part of that experience, and if his pride should outweigh his horniness in how much he ought to care about that.

  “How am I acting?” Taji lowered his gaze to take in the Shavian’s body. The Shavian had on tight dark pants beneath his soria, which barely fell to his knees. Taji had been forced to listen to older, elite Shavians despair of this style, popular among the young.

  “Out of control.” His Shavian was nearly breathless and sounding younger by the second.

  “Out of control?” Taji echoed, his eyes narrowed as though his lips weren’t numb from all the midye and he wasn’t afraid to stand up lest he fall over.

  “I watched you,” the youth confessed shyly, making Taji sigh in despair for the sex he would definitely not be having. Their ages could not be—relatively—that far apart, but Taji suddenly felt too tired to deal with this. “You had three cups,” the kid added, making the words even softer.

  “Yes,” another voice interjected. Taji turned to find them under the scrutiny of the three from the nearest table. The one who had been watching Taji before stood up. His shoulders were back. The knife in his belt—the kind Taji had always assumed was purely ornamental, some sort of symbolic sign of respect to primitive weaponry—drew Taji’s sudden, fixed attention.

  “B’lyad,” Taji swore again. Those knives were probably not decorative. He’d gotten too used to seeing the heavily bejeweled hilts in the Garden District. Anxiety started to make his stomach churn.

  “The shehzha has been drinking and does not need your foolish offer.” The first Shavian, with the lovely swirled coloration and dark jewelry didn’t take his gaze from Taji, although he was speaking about him as though he wasn’t there. “You are not capable of giving what you are offering, ersrheh.”

  The noise from the other two at his table was a shocked sort of hiss. Taji’s skin prickled. He got that ersrheh was an insult, from the tone, but it made no sense to him.

  “I was already politely refus…” Taji’s language skills failed him so he patted his pockets looking for his translator. “What was that word? Sheh-zah? With a faint stop in the middle? Or sort of a breathless emphasis? I do not know that one.” When blind se
arching didn’t help, he reached for his data device. “Say that again, please.”

  “Say a word?” demanded the first Shavian, sounding bewildered.

  “You are shehzha?” The pale one was quietly shocked.

  “If that means I love cock, then yes, although I don’t understand the problem with that.” Taji hummed as he scrolled through different screens until he brought up several files on Sha sexuality. “I asked if that was an issue before they forced me down here.” He realized, belatedly, that he wasn’t speaking ‘Asha anymore, and looked up to find four Shavians watching him. They seemed confused.

  He tried to explain in ‘Asha. “That word is not listed.” He pointed helpfully to the screen while yet another message for him popped up. “Though I am guessing the spelling. But it says you guys do not mind people with cocks liking other people with cocks, or male-identified types getting penetrated, next to some biological information about your birth rate. Huh.” He shrugged—the hard sciences were not his area—then realized shrugging was a human gesture. He glanced between the one on his feet to the three still seated.

  Everyone’s ears were very upright. Any other time, Taji would have found it oddly hilarious and then been ashamed of himself.

  “What?” he asked, into the silence, and the first one sighed.

  “You are wild.” It did not sound like a complaint. If anything, Taji’s toes almost curled at the warmth of it.

  “Me?” Taji blinked several times, then frowned. “What? No. Perhaps I am different than what you are used to. But I am boring, not wild. I am hardly allowed out. My entire life is this.” He briefly held up the DD, then noticed the info screen still up. “This is the problem with translation—something is always lost. I am hearing the word ‘wild’ but is that what you actually mean? Because your voice got…different. How many words for wild do you have? I am going to guess more than one. Anglisky has more than one and each has its own buried meanings.” He slipped into Anglisky and slipped back out again once he realized it. “Translation devices do not give you the layered meanings. They just give you the simplest one.”

  He shut off the data device and slipped it into the bag behind him on the floor.

  “Many words,” the pale one exhaled.

  Taji popped a hand over his mouth to stop his intoxicated rambling before it sank in that the kid liked the rambling. Taji must be drunker than he thought he was, because he felt like he had missed something.

  “They must love words,” the first one observed, which was an odd thing to say, even if it was true.

  “I do not speak much at work. Or, the way I work does not require it—the way I used to work.” Taji didn’t know why he was explaining himself, except it felt necessary. And also he could still taste the midye on his tongue. “Not about this, anyway. Fuck. What…what language was I speaking just then?”

  “Other humans are not like this,” one of the seated ones commented.

  Taji gave a start, but bit back his argument that of course all humans weren’t the same. They were from different systems, planets, countries. Only their appearance was roughly similar.

  “You offended them,” the darker one remarked, without tearing his gaze from Taji. “And now I have as well,” he added, when Taji focused on him. His ears were up and his attention was fixed in a way that seemed friendly, if not happy. Like a smile. Taji didn’t think Shavians smiled unless they had been around humans for a while.

  “I am saving you from this one.” The darker Shavian gestured toward the paler, younger man lingering in front of Taji’s table. “He does not belong in this place any more than he knows what he is doing. You might be after fun, but this one will get attached. He will have dreams of approaching you. Not that I blame him, if this is how you are.”

  “Okaaay,” Taji said, a little helplessly, perfectly aware that ‘okay’ would not translate even if any of them had been wearing a device for that. “What is happening?” He could not let the others find out about this. He would never ever be allowed to live it down.

  The darker one, with his plain jewelry and lack of shimmer, stepped forward. “But I can give you what you need.” His meaning was clear even if Taji couldn’t fully believe it.

  The paler one made a sound of protest, or anger, and Taji put his hand to his bag. Obviously, midye was some sort of hallucinogen, because Taji was being fought over by two good-looking giants who seemed to find the rants of a half-assed linguist fascinating.

  That was not what he’d come here for. Pride be damned, he needed help.

  “You should watch your tone.” The younger Shavian raised his voice only slightly, but it sent a shockwave through the room.

  Taji went hot in embarrassment and clenched his jaw to keep down his hysterical laughter. He gripped the straps of his bag and distantly heard the rapid pings of several incoming messages. He had no idea how he was going to explain this. He didn’t even want to think about it.

  “You are a spoiled child. A shehzha is not a toy,” the older one argued, sharp and insistent, and Taji’s higher thinking switched back on for several startled moments, long enough for him to look at the knives in their belts and the status on display in their clothing and jewelry, and to realize that the proud, warrior culture the old families played at might still be somewhat serious to the lower classes. If that was what this was even about. “You do not keep and discard a shehzha like a bit of shiny hardstone. This is about their honor!” The older one took his gaze from Taji at last, to stare down his rival—or not rival—for Taji’s honor.

  Taji hadn’t realized his honor was in question.

  “Help,” he said faintly, in the version of Anglisky used by the I.P.T.C., not that he really expected an answer. His device was still buried in his bag and there was no one to hear him but the two dickheads fighting over him—or over their class issues with Taji as a stand-in, whatever.

  “The shehzha has no honor,” the pale one tossed back. He looked pointedly to Taji, but was now also talking about Taji as if Taji had no voice of his own. If Taji hadn’t been groping for his DD to try to call for help, he would have said something about that. “Look,” the pale one went on, with Taji directly in front of him. “The kahne must have already given to someone unworthy if they show themselves here like this but sit alone. I can do what I please with the wild one.”

  Honor being a nebulous concept, difficult to pin down even when Taji was fluent in a language, Taji didn’t have an immediate rebuttal. But he didn’t need one. A few people in the immediate area gasped and the two Shavians still seated in front of their table rose to their feet.

  One of them was covered in shimmer and had the curves that suggested someone who had borne children. But his knife was fully on display.

  The Shavian next to them put a hand on their arm, which stopped them. “Kahne? You do not insult them, rich boy,” she said, and everything went very quiet except for Taji’s racing heart.

  Kahne was another new word, something outside the vocabulary Taji needed to assist the ambassador. But context was everything, and judging from the silence, the context here was real fucking critical.

  Taji was going to rewrite the entire fucking translation program by the time he was through this cursed assignment. He’d vow it in the first temple he could find. His first night out on his own and he’d started a diplomatic incident because the words were wrong.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, and then, “Trenne,” although the whole point of this evening was Trenne and the rest of them not being here.

  “You insult me!” The pale Shavian really was just a kid. His voice cracked when he shouted. “You think I could not handle one thirsty human?”

  “You could not handle anything without the Guard or your family behind you,” the dark one bit out, making the kid tremble. “Nobles play at being warriors, but they do not recognize the world outside their garden walls.”

  The paler one widened his eyes before reaching for his knife.

  Taji scrambled to his fee
t. “Wait, wait, wait!” he exclaimed, waving his hands to stop them.

  Which was when the full force of the midye and the sudden return of feeling to his artificial leg sent him to the floor. He caught himself on his hands, although not without banging his side on the table, and thankfully didn’t bite his tongue at his sudden stop. The cushions around the table broke some of his fall, but his plate and empty cups clattered to the ground as everyone looked down at him in horror.

  Above him, several things seemed to happen at once. People pushed away from their tables and hurried from the room. The slow, metallic slide of a blade being drawn made Taji freeze. Someone yelled something about the Guard—probably a warning to the two about to fight over Taji’s honor—and Taji realized once again that people were fighting over his honor. What the actual fuck.