Chapter Five of my current wip. All and any comments very much appreciated

Canipse slowly shook his head, his mouth tight and twisting. He didn’t want to concede the point to that Zem-Jess-What’s-His-Name but, shit! He checked the pages again. Item after item after item on his stock list, the figures didn’t tally. As well there was still time to restock before the STC transported everything away to some distant galaxy. He ought now to be feeling a wave of relief – except it was only at the Zem’s insistence that he’d double-checked everything, and that rumbled in his belly like a Pendoling rock—volcanic at that. He sneered. He needed some way to bring that Zem down. And now, before he started covering the camp with his swell-headed weight.

A sudden disturbance of air sealed the green silk of his caterer’s garb against his back. An increase in the wind off the sea, sharply rising on meeting the land? But no. As he turned he saw the flier’s approach.

He didn’t understand half of what the Techs did or could do; he certainly didn’t understand the construction materials. It scrambled his brains that something could be reflective and yet not shine. That made no sense to him. Sure, he could just about figure out how the hives’ reflective surfaces helped to blend them with whatever the many alien environments presented. But why didn’t those surfaces at least gleam or shimmer in sun? And the fliers’ outer surface was the same material. Invisible in the sky, the sun not even catching the dodecahedron’s many edges. The only thing that warned him of the flier’s approach were the eyes of the Obs, seen before their faces.

So, here was Zem Jess, returned with his stolen flier. Time to deflate the Zem’s swollen head before he could take credit for the double stock-take. Though the fly-port lay at the outer rim of the camp, it wasn’t so far away that he wouldn’t arrive at the same time as the Zem.

With his determined stride across camp, Canipse had arrived and was already in place as the flier settled again on the ground. Its door shushed open.

“Where are the Techs?” Zem Jess asked even as he was stepping out, anger hardening his voice.

“Apparently not here to see you return that flier. You ought to thank the Pendoling Heights for that,” Canipse spat, and had to wipe dribble before he said more. “And where in the spheres did you learn to control it?”

Zem Jess didn’t respond, looking base-ward no doubt for signs of a Tech.

“Oh, they’ll come,” Canipse said with vicious satisfaction, “come running, we both know that. Techs are never far from an altercation.”

“Is that what this is?” Zem Jess asked – yet he looked beyond Canipse to the camp. His anger seemed to have cooled. No doubt he was worrying now of the likely consequences of his folly.

“They’ll skin you,” he said, enjoying the misery he thought he could see forming on the Zem’s face.

“Skin?” Zem Jess’s anger returned. “What do you know of skinning? And what do you know of showing respect to a Zem?”

“One who deserves it. Not one who thieves the Techs’ property.”

“Who is thieving Tech’s property?” asked a Tech arriving from behind Canipse.

Canipse spun on his heel to face the Tech. “Him!” He pointed at Zem Jess. “Stealing one of your fliers.”

“He did not take without our knowledge,” the Tech said in a calm tone. “Is that all this is about? You have the deficits for us?” The Tech held out a hand for the stock-take results. “Now, Ops Overseer. We have a Double-Ten slot before the STC is gone.”

Canipse handed the relevant pages to the Tech, his face burning and not from the sun – which anyway now was nearing the sea to bring a rapid cooling to the day.

“Before you go, Tech whatever your number –” and the Zem had said of respect! Now listen to him “– what do you know of a skinning down by the western perimeter?”

“The Sanki? An intruder,” Canipse jumped in before the Tech could answer. “I saw it. I reported it. The Techs dealt with it.”

Zem Jess turned his eyes to him. He could have lit a fire with what he saw there. Jealous, no doubt, because he, Canipse, had done as needed to protect their basecamp. So much for the Zem being base leader; the Zem had been away with a stolen flier.

“I don’t remember seeing you at the Briefing, Ops Overseer Canipse,” the Zem’s voice now was ice.

Canipse snorted. And what’s that about? He looked to the Tech, but the Tech was away in a comms-trance, relaying a request for the missing stock.

“Had you been there, Ops Overseer, you would have known this intruder by its size must be a juvenile. Now, while I’ll agree that intruders must be discouraged – no contact allowed – I’ve often found that the young of most species are easily discouraged by a simple fright. They do not need skinning.”

Canipse could feel his face blanching, the sweat of the day drying in the chilled evening air. He tried to reply though at first all he could manage was a stutter. “The-the Techs … I…I merely reported. I did my duty while you were away.” There, he had said it, reiterated. By Pendol’s great weight, he would yet have that Zem sent to the darkest sphere.

The Tech returned from the comms-trance, already in full knowledge of what had been said. “We set the example. We cannot have Sankis intruding.”

“And if you were an Obs,” the Zem ranted – didn’t he know how dangerous it was to rant at a Tech? “you would have known at once that this Sanki was a juvenile, a young one, and your actions inappropriate. But no, you Techs can’t distinguish such things, can’t reason it forward as we Obs can. And that is why I, as the Zem, will manage this team as I see fit. And will broke no interference from you Techs. And in case you’ve forgotten, you Techs are here to serve the Obs team, nothing more.”

Canipse watched Zem Jess stalk from the fly-port, his Obs team falling in around him. It sickened him, the way they seemed to rejoice. But Canipse would yet bring him down. The Obs had to eat, and he was overseer of the catering team. Though he had assigned three of his operatives to the farm, far from base, and another to the textiles team, again away, yet the others would remain here at base. Let’s see how miserable they could make this Zem’s life.

*

Intent on easing the tension stirred by the sight of the skinned immature Itamakku, Jess slid the outer screen-door closed and sank into the deeply padded seats.

“Music?” Kookka prompted. He’d brought along his harp.

Jess would usually accompany him on one or more of his drums, but this evening he shook his head. “Though I expect Armar will riff with you.”

Armar’s harp was smaller than Kookka’s, with only fifteen strings compared with Kookka’s thirty-four. Together, Jess swore their sweet limpid music could transport the listener to the Animosphere. But not this time. Instead, Jess thoughts remained stubbornly on that Itamakku.

He up-slapped his head as a thought shot through him. “I should have asked, I should have. Kookka, Armar, why did you let me walk away without a say?”

They stopped playing and looked at him.

“Don’t you see, this shouldn’t have happened. The Techs have the base ringed with holos, supposedly so scary not even the bravest will pass beyond. Yet here was this youngster intruding, and close enough to the base to be found by Canipse?”

Jess pondered that awhile. Not that it took much reasoning. “Question,” he said, looking from Armar to Kookka. “Are all the holos functioning? When was the last time the Techs checked them?”

“You could ask,” Armar suggested.

Kookka scoffed at that. “Checking base security isn’t our responsibility.”

“No,” Jess agreed. “Yet it’ll be us to blame if the pool is distressed by more of these deaths. No contact! The bumbling Techs. To skin one of the pool no matter its age and hang it from that pole for all to see – as a deterrent?”

Fury filled him, a fury he didn’t know how to express. He couldn’t sit, he had to pace, fisted hand thudding into open palm. Such disgust and broiling hate of the Techs, he’d not felt this since his sister’s death.

“I see only one thing for it,” he said. “We override the Techs and make the checks ourselves. We’ll divide the perimeter, take a section each.”

“That means locating and triggering every holo,” Armar objected.

Jess grunted.

“And to trigger a holo requires we go outside the perimeter,” Armar said.

Jess looked at him. But still all he did was to grunt.

“We’re not permitted outside the perimeter,” Armar said.

“Access to the breeding pool’s lands is forbidden,” Kookka quoted, quietly.

“Contact with the skein is also forbidden,” Jess said. “So, tell that to the Techs next time they’re skinning a—what did Canipse call them? A Sanki?”