Page 15 of Argurma Warrior (The Argurma Chronicles #1)

K aylar eyed the food that the human set on the table as he dropped down reluctantly into a seat. He had processed that she required a feeling of contribution and so had offered it to her considering his own unfamiliarity with human food, but now he was not so certain as he looked at the plates. What was it? It did not look edible. The meat was stringy and opaque colored in an unpleasant pale sauce and there were various unfamiliar plant materials that could easily be poisonous. Some of which smelled alarmingly sweet in a way that struck him as possibly unnatural.

“Stop staring at it like it’s going to bite you and dig in,” Meg said blandly as she took her seat and promptly picked up a pronged eating utensil.

When he didn’t move to reach for his own utensil, she paused with her food halfway to her mouth and arched her brow at him, the thin strip of hair on it accentuating the movement.

The corner of her mouth quirked. “Are you afraid?”

His vibrissae puffed out in offense. While there was no shame in fear when warranted, he was a hardened warrior, and this was merely food. Presumably food. Its status as such was still questionable. His eyes dropped to his plate and his lips thinned.

“No. I am calculating its edibility. What is this?”

A sharp sound of amusement escaped her, and his eyes lifted to her face to find her smirking at him.

“I guess now you know how it feels to just have something foisted at you without explanation. I guess I should be thankful that I at least had Degarath to teach me how to use the replicator. Even if what it produced was still unknown to me. And my kidnapper conveniently absent, leaving me to face it alone.”

That analysis of his actions was less than flattering but it was accurate. He had not processed what it would be like to be faced with unknown food that could be unrecognizable as such. Faced with it now, he recognized that it was a singularly unpleasant experience. One that she handled with far more bravery and grace than he was.

“My apologies. I process now how disconcerting that was for you. It was not my intention but to allow you some peace away from an unfamiliar being that logic dictated you were afraid of. My calculations were… mistaken,” he allowed.

Her smile widened. “That apology almost sounded painful. But also genuine, so I accept. As for what you are eating.” She pointed at the stringy meat clusters swimming in sauce on his plate. “That there is canned chicken. I spiced it up a bit with some seasonings I found and dumped gravy over it which is quite tasty.”

“Chicken,” he repeated slowly as he reached for his utensil and stabbed at it faintly with its pronged end, not entirely ready to commit to eating it yet. “This is protein, correct?”

Meg nodded. “Yes. I’ve seen a few live chickens. My grandmother kept some while she was living. Skinny, mean little bastards that they were. I believe The City has some too since someone collects eggs daily there. Not that I’ve had an opportunity to eat one. Eggs and the occasional slaughtered chicken tend to go the citizens of The City, which doesn’t include new arrivals they’ve mercifully taken in. This stuff has been canned for decades but it’s better than nothing. You learn to appreciate old, canned food when there is little else but hard to catch lizards around,” she chuckled.

Kaylar frowned. That did not seem like reasonable equity of resources. On Argurumal there was certainly benefits that belonged to the upper echelons of their society, but food was reasonably shared among each of the mother-line clans so that no one went hungry. Anyone, in truth, could petition a mother-line clan for food if they were without and far from kin and could expect to be provided for similarly if they were within their own clan.

“Is this unreasonable division of food why you left the safety of your human city?” he asked, his head tipping in inquiry as he regarded her.

Her mouth tightened a little, but she shrugged. “Yes and no, I suppose. On the surface, it wasn’t one of the things that I thought of when I left, but beneath it all it’s definitely part of the greater problem.”

“Which was?” he prompted.

He did not know why he cared, especially when he was certain that he would not have enough resources to recover additional humans when he would have to travel some distances on what repairs he could manage with what he had available. But he did. He wanted to know why it was this human who was embedding herself within his systems was so far from others of her kind.

She gave him a wan smile. “More that my life couldn’t seem to go forward there. I was stuck in the past and couldn’t seem to climb my way out of it no matter how much I tried. And no one there was the least bit interested in changing anything. We are all stuck in a sort of frozen status within the City, even if many of them pretend not to see it because they deem it better than living without the small comforts. I’ve sacrificed enough of my own self-worth for perceived comforts to be able to do it again,” she added with another shrug as her eyes dropped intently down to her food.

His vibrissae stirred with an instinctual need to comfort her but he ruthlessly restrained anything more than a subtle wavering of their lengths in her direction as he too resolutely turned his attention to his own meal. Her words struck him uncomfortably close to his own existence and the shadows within his systems that he couldn’t escape, born from his past. The calculated consequences of his actions had been more than acceptable when he left the mother-line compound, but now—he just wished for peace from them.

It was a forbidden and traitorous thought, but he processed that, if given the opportunity to escape the weight of the council that seemed to increase the shadows lurking within his processors with every mission, there was a high probability that he too would take the route of escape as she had.

Even if it means betraying the mother-line by making them vulnerable to the council? a shadow in his systems whispered.

He hastily brought up a bite of food and shoved it into his mouth as he restricted that private line of inquiry behind security walls within his processors. It did no good thinking about. He made this commitment to his mother-line and he could not abandon them no matter how much this human made him wish to calculate the impossible.

The texture and flavor of food flooded his taste receptors. Its lumpy-slimy quality created an abhorrent texture that was somehow still somewhat pleasing in flavor due to the seasonings that were added to it. He rolled the food in his mouth and chewed it as much as the mush contents allowed and rumbled with approval. The meat itself was a terrible, lumpy mess that could not quite be redeemed despite the tasty gravy coating it, but if he could hunt fresh meat, he processed that the female’s Earthen cooking could be quite satisfactory.

Without hesitation, he speared a bright colored vegetable and popped it into his mouth. His eyes widen at the flavor. Though they had a slightly malleable texture of cooked vegetation, they had a subtle sweetness complemented by the seasoning that promptly had him spearing another and then another in turn, eating them rapidly from his plate. Though he typically did not consume a heavy vegetation diet like many of his species, these were far superior to the tasteless meat in his opinion.

Meg’s eyebrows climbed as she regarded him, the corners of her mouth curving. “You seem to like carrots.”

“They are superior to the meat,” he admitted reluctantly, not wishing to insult her efforts at meal preparation for them.

Rather than look offended as she expected her to, her smile widened and she nodded, taking a bite of carrot from her own plate before speaking. “I don’t blame you. They’re my favorite. It’s not often I find carrots but this place has the sort of luxury in supplies that most people I know could only dream of.” She leaned forward as if to speak conspiratorially. “We have a whole shelf of carrots to ourselves. It’s incredible.”

Something within his processors twinged unpleasantly, his stomach dropping with the realization of the sort of hunger the female had faced. The sort he had observed enough from the gauntness of her features but had not given much thought to. But to imagine old, preserved vegetation as a true luxury stabbed deep, making him unreasonably uncomfortable.

“The gravy is pleasing. With fresh meat it would be far superior to a carrot,” he suggested in an attempt to steer her toward more pleasing things she might look forward to. Certainly among his own people, the council would see to it that she ate decent food. Of that much he was certain.

The female paused in her eating and regarded him with surprise. “You would want to do that, even if it will take away from the time you can devote to repairs?”

Delays would be inconvenient but when he looked at the wonder in her eyes as she stared at him like he was… somebody, and not just a hand of the council that was near universally resented… it sent a surge of rightness through his processors. He would gladly do this for her just to earn more of those looks. He nodded and a smile stretched across her face unlike any smile she had granted him before. There was genuine joy in that look, and she bequeathed it solely to him. He felt a moment of forbidden envy for those males among his kind who were mated and enjoyed the pleasure of their mate in whatever limited capacity that they might be capable of expressing it. And then there was his cousin with his human mate who must enjoy such regard frequently. The thought of it left a bitter taste in his mouth but he inclined his head in acknowledgement of her pleasure as seemed only right.

“What about the thing out there?” she asked hesitantly, a worried frown creasing her brow that he instantly disliked.

“E302, Biotech experiment 302, is ranging far from our proximity. I run my bio-scanners every two point five hours and have not detected its return to this side of the island,” he replied with a calm rumble.

Her brow wrinkled. “And you will do that before you go out? I would be really upset if that thing ate you while you’re attempting to find us food. Going out to the beach to fix the ship is dangerous enough, but hunting…”

“Is worth the small risk. And I will be sure to keep my bio-scanners running to detect game as well as E302,” he assured her.

“Okay, if you are sure,” she mumbled.

“There is a high probability of not encountering the creature. And my scanners work at a ninety-eight-point-seven efficiency rate. They have never failed me.”

A tiny smile pulled at her mouth. “That’s a pretty high probability. Okay, I will trust you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t worry every moment you’re out there.”

A strange warmth infused his systems again at her expression of worry. It was something that would have insulted him as a warrior from anyone else but from her… it was satisfying.

“After we consume our meal, we will go to the first laboratory floor and begin searching for suitable wires and metal,” he began conversationally, eager to please her once more.

To his disappointment, the hints of her smile faded and she merely nodded and quickly took another bite of her own food. “Sounds like a good plan. If you can show me what to look for I can better look for what you need—while staying out of your way,” she amended quickly, her face coloring with embarrassment as she corrected herself.

“That would be useful,” he agreed slowly, and she rewarded him with another smile that sent another shock of warmth through his systems.

Perhaps this was a new madness being brought on by his malfunction, but he could not bring himself to care. Not right now anyway. There would be time enough to deal with it once he returned Argurumal and his handler might seek new “upgrades” to excise it. The thought sent a wave of unreasonable fury through him that he might lose even this and that alone gave him a concerned moment of pause as he ran a quick systems scan. His malfunctions were possibly more concerning than he guessed, but there was little he could do about it right now… and he was not even certain he wanted to even if he could.