The Captain's Heart CH 98

Jeremy let the hot water fall on him, relaxing his sore muscles. “How are you doing?” his instructor asked, and her voice brought with it

Jeremy let the hot water fall on him, relaxing his sore muscles.

“How are you doing?” his instructor asked, and her voice brought with it the other sounds in the gym’s shower room. The running showers. The conversations.

The presence of other Kelsirians. The programming tried to turn that into an alarm, but he’d grown too comfortable around them, even if they’d be naked; like he was.

“I shouldn’t be this sore. You didn’t even have me fight.”

“Motion repetition is a strain when you aren’t used to it. We start young.”

He slicked the water out of his face and faced her. “It’s weird to me how even your simplest strength building exercise is based on fighting. There has to be less violent ways to do it.”

She kept lathering herself. “But would they be as fun?”

The visits to the reservoir with his friends, before he’d been tortured, had gotten him comfortable being around naked Kelsirian. There had been those who clearly put themselves on display. But other than a handful of incidents because of his alienness, there never was anything outright sexual. He was finally getting back to that level of comfort.

Kelsirians were serious about keeping lewdness to places where it was accepted, which he avoided.

The gym’s showers weren’t one of them. Here the business was only washing the sweat and strain of the training.

“Something you need to remember,” she continued after rinsing her face, “is that on the scale of species, we were savages until recently. Thuruksamian made us full of energy, with claws and teeth and hunger. We were going to use them. We were basically made to use them. Violence is at the core of who we are.”

“I’d say you have that under good control.”

“Control doesn’t remove what you control. We channel it. We train. Those of us with a stronger affinity for it join organizations that will let us make use of it for the good of the most people.”

“Like the hunters.”

“Or the military, or civilian security. Or one of the sports.”

Jeremy stared at her. “Right, I’d forgotten you guys have sports.” His friends, when they’d gone on the second station, had gone to watch a match while he’d followed Xenial’s directions and ended up meeting other humans.

She chuckled. “Everyone has sports.” She stared at him. “ Are you saying Earthers don’t?”

“We do. I’m just not into them. My sister played football at school. I had to play baseball during my first few years, but never enjoyed it. There’s at least one volleyball league on Einstein. Lucy’s part of it. There are probably others, but I never looked. Weight lifting is enough for me.”

“We have all sorts. Back home, colosseums will be filled every time there’s a clawrak match.”

“Claw rak?”

“Two teams of nine. Last standing wins it for theirs.”

“Last standing…. Please tell me you don’t mean last one alive.”

“Of course not. There hasn’t been an accidental death during a match for at least three decades.”

Jeremy shuddered at the idea of such violence in sports. Earth history had them, but the violence had been taken out of those which still existed. Tackling in football was one thing, but the piling on hadn’t been allowed well before his grandfather had played.

But as his trainer said, Kelsirians had been savages until recently.

Which he thought made it interesting they’d attained the level of space flight that put them in contact with another species so much earlier than humans had.

    *

Thuruk was the first to arrive, but only by a strand of fur. Xenial nearly shouldered him aside, trying to reach the table first. Might have succeeded, but Thuruk had moved with the impact, then pulled the Ta’halan behind him with a smirk. Xenial grinned and sat on Jeremy’s other side.

“I better not have to send you to opposing corners,” he warned them and earned himself puzzled expression.

He’d decided on a leisure alley because he hadn’t wanted so many people in his quarters, and he didn’t want to impose by asking one of them to host the game. And leisure alleys were in part about playing games there, so they fit. He’d just made sure to ignore the sounds coming from the few occupied benches leading to this room.

Hopefully, the mix of his friend, without an atmosphere of supervision, wouldn’t lead to some of them letting their animosity escalate.

He’d invited everyone, and only two had declined. Alix had categorically refused once Jeremy explained he wanted to teach them an Earth game. The Engineer had more important things to do than play games. Atarikna was busy with a project for a hunter and couldn’t stop the work.

Prertiros was next, nuzzling someone who continued on their way. Then Leiha Tergrobar. When Jurani Joramsjon joined them, she got a surprised stare from Thuruk.

“You two know each other?”

“Her pack and mine worked together on a few hunts,” Thuruk said. “I didn’t know you knew other hunters.”

“I needed help with programming something, and Atarikna said I should talk with her.”

“And you became friends?” There was suspicion in the tone.

Xenial looked around Jeremy. “There’s someone other than me you don’t like?”

“Hunter Thuruk sel Minial disapprove of those like us,” she said, smiling, “who regale in using guile as much as brawn.”

“You’re from one of the covert ops packs?” Xenial asked, surprised.

“Investigation,” she replied.

He frowned, then smiled. “You’re the one who got us the Earther movie database.”

Her ears folded back in embarrassment. Jeremy hadn’t known she’d been the one who had. Most of their conversations had been about computers and programs.

“Hi?” Scarif Driguen’s hesitating greeting caused the others to look at him, which made him uncomfortable.

“Scarif Driguen,” Jeremy greeted him. “Take a seat. This is Scarif Driguen Tomitar Drumin. He’d a technician with Repairs.”

“I work on the shuttle. Propulsion is my specialty.”

Jeremy introduced the others while Scarif Driguen took a seat. Having him between Jurani Joramsjon and Leiha Tergrobar made the softness of Scarif Driguen’s body apparent. Even the Psychologist was more defined.

“I have gathered you all to introduce you to a human game called Poker.” He produced the deck of card he’d reconstructed and set the cards on the table to help him explain how the game worked. “Those at the types of hands we’re aiming to make. The highest value hand wins.” He added the box of chips. “We’ll use this for the bets, instead of money.”

Xenial tapped the table, then scanned his bracelet. “This is set up for bets. Without the game’s rules programed in, we’ll have to adjust things manually, but it should work.”

Jeremy watched as the others scanned theirs until only he and Leiha were left.

“I don’t think Jeremy is comfortable about this,” Leiha Tergrobar said.

She was right, but why was it? He and his friend had occasionally played for money, much more when he was at university and more stupid about some decisions. They all seemed okay with betting money, eager even.

Was it that this was the first time he had to think of money? He swiped his bracelet each time he bought something, but that had grown casual well before he officially had a job on the ship. Back when it was—

He stopped that thought.

He scanned his bracelet with his tablet and accessed his account. Much more money than he expected. He hadn’t looked into what being a technician paid, but he doubted it amounted to what was there. Which meant—

He stopped that thought.

“Okay. But the limit is a hundred kruron. Once I’ve gone over my account and figured out how much I can afford to lose on a game, we can have higher bets.”

The others nodded, they adjusted the amount on their display, and Jeremy proceeded to deal the first game.

    *

“When the gods were young,” Scarif Driguen intoned, “Before the Father God imposed order on them, they went to war.” He motioned to the table. At the center was a stone with cupped hands on it. Thuruksamian’s symbol. Around him were blank stones. The wall behind which he was hidden. “This is the story of the last of them. The one so violent that the walls came tumbling down and forced him to bring order.”

He sat, and the swirl of stone that moved around stopped.

Jeremy pulled eight to him, then turned them. He had Syntarina, Danirag, Lovers, Haters, Insanity, Gralgiran, the Fist, and the Sea. Only Danirag and the lovers worked together; if he remembered how the stones interacted. H needed more, if he wanted to win.

“How can this be the story of that war?” he asked, looking over the other players’ stones. Scarif Driguen had been the one to suggest they introduce Jeremy to Roushgorar in return for him teaching them poker. “Wouldn’t the game end the same way each time if it was?” Thuruk had Gezbiliam, who was Syntarina’s neighbor, or sister, or possibly lover. But they had a connection. He also had Insanity, so that was two stones he could put into play to gain her. That would be three and two, if he could keep Danirag, or the lovers. Tutecamongartin wasn’t in play, yet, but that was only the easiest way someone could claim him. There were many ways to claim the god of sex and pleasure’s attention.

“This is a story of the gods,” Xenial said, arranging his stones. He had Salmialie, the Letter, Xeniila’haran, Chaos, Chance, and Pelterostafey Delgaromer, for stones that went together. Thuruk glared and muttered under his breath about Xenial’s namesake. “It changes with how they change what happened.”

“History can’t be changed,” Jeremy stated.

“Not anymore. Not once Thuruksamian imposed an order to what the gods could do. Before that, things fluxed.” He pushed his Chaos stone forward. “Chaos ruled.”

“And stories changed,” Leiha Tergrobar said, placing Order on the board. The others added one of their stones, and Jeremy pushed Syntarina forward and the mass of stone moved around the wall.

To win the war, they needed to form a string of allied stones.

The stones stopped moving, and they each took one for their hand. Scarif Driguen removed a stone from the wall.

When the last stone was removed, Thuruksamian would step up and bring it to an end. Whoever had the longest string won.

Outline section 

Jeremy’s combat training isn’t every day, but on the days they are he feels exhausted. He’s never considered himself unfit, but that mostly came from a good diet with only moderate vices. Exercise mostly came from running from one crisis to another in the engine room and a lot of walking through corridors. Not the endurance training he’s currently being subjected to.

It’s on one of those exhausting days, during his lunch hours with the techs, that Jeremy asks a question that has been bugging him. He notices a lot of cardio and aerobic equipment down on the training deck... but no resistance equipment. Which isn’t a bit deal he isn’t looking to get buff... but basically all of the hunters like Thuruk are stacked. He’s just curious if they have a different training deck or if it’s a kelsirian thing.

This takes a lot of explaining, including describing what resistance training is and how it’s needed to see the type of results Jeremy was trying to describe. The topic will drift, as no one at the table really has the answers to such a question, and eventually it will drift to how some humans do find the trait of being “buff” attractive.

This will result in Jeremy quickly backing out of any teasing in a panic, as he’s still Gral even though he can’t stand being in Gral’s presence right now and... it might result in him trying to excuse himself as he goes through a panic/depression attack. Thuruk won’t stand for anything like that... but he can also read the room to know that he shouldn’t be the one to go after Jeremy.

So he’ll goad one of the other techs into going, but those guys are just a list of names on one page with some food preferences, so don’t ask me to construct that conversation. Since they are being goaded into going, awkward will be the word of the moment. Jeremy will eventually go back to the group, chastise Thuruk for getting others to do his dirty work... and then thank him. To which there will be a reiteration that the crew is there for him.

Addition 

The first card game of Jeremy and his friends. Or maybe they teach him a Kelsirian game?

Little of the outline survived, mainly because a lot of that got addressed on previous chapters.

The card game has been planned for a while, since those will come into play in later books. Keeping them ‘alive’ will be interesting.

The game of Roushgorar came about because, why not? If felt reasonable that if Jeremy introduced them to a human game, they would return the favor.

And about sports. I know, it’s stretching credibility. It will probably be brought up way sooner in the second draft, but this is where it occurred to me for the first time that sports would be a thing.(addendum: I altered things slightly after my co scripter pointed out that sports had actually been brought up indirectly earlier)