Page 22 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded

That might be true, but we weren’t going to get there without my master ending up punching someone. “But I… Um… Maybe…” Oh, fuck it. I was going to lie to him, and tell myself it was for his benefit. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been around so many people,” I said, doing my best to look meek and overwhelmed. “Perhaps we can do some more another day?”

He stopped in his tracks, turning to look me over with a more studied expression. “Oh. Yeah, of course,” he said, suddenlyall concern and sympathy. “Sorry, Dax, I… I’m sorry. I hadn’t realised.”

Did this make me a terrible dimari? I’d always been taught that obedience was paramount, that nothing but my master’s wishes mattered. But that had been before I’d been bought by a man who was drowning in his own pain so much that he didn’t know what he wanted. Or what was good for him.

“Let’s go back to the train station then,” he said, switching direction, and I followed, keeping an eye on the shops to make sure we were going in the right direction. I’d been memorising the way around the shopping centre all day – my one act of diligence, as a good dimari should know which shops his master favoured, and where to find them.

Was I a good dimari? After all the twists and turns of the last few days, I really wasn’t sure.

We got halfway towards the exit when a bright display in a shop window caught my master’s eye, and before I could stop him, he’d darted off, his attention captivated by what appeared to be a children’s toy shop. I followed, frowning.

“I want one of those,” he declared as I arrived, pointing to a colourful box in the display. I peered through the glass, then had to pull up my comm to get a translation of the writing on the box. And when the Eumadian script popped up, I blinked in surprise. It was a jigsaw puzzle.

“Okay…” I said, not sure what the sudden fascination was. But as odd as the request might have been, there was nothing objectionable about the game, so I headed for the shop entrance. After a moment, my master followed.

“Do you like any particular picture?” I asked him, once we’d arrived in front of the shelf that housed the puzzles. I was familiar with the concept of these, though I hadn’t done one myself since I was a young child. But with upwards of two thousand pieces each, these were clearly not children’s toys.

There were dozens of them, some with images of cities, some of space, some of animals or nature scenes. My master took his time letting his gaze wander over the pictures, finally settling on one of a beach scene, gentle waves lapping at a sandy shore, with some kind of tree I wasn’t familiar with growing further back from the water.

“This one,” he said, picking up the box and cradling it. Another check of the box with my comm told me that this one had three thousand pieces in it. It would certainly keep him occupied for a fair amount of time. I hadn’t intended to ask why he wanted it – I was curious, but a good dimari did not question their master – but before I could head to the counter to buy it, my master said, “I’m supposed to be finding a hobby. I don’t know what to do at the moment but… Fuck…” He glanced around with a hunted look. “Sitting around doing nothing is gonna drive me crazy. So this will…”

“It will give you something to do,” I said, when he didn’t continue. “Something moderately interesting, while you look for a more permanent solution.” I hoped I didn’t sound patronising by saying that.

Clearly, I hadn’t been very convincing. “It’s a stupid idea, isn’t it?” he said, his shoulders drooping.

Had I been rude in saying that? Or had I just been entirely unconvincing? Or maybe…

Maybe it wasn’t actually about me at all. The dimari were taught from a very early age that if our master was displeased with us, it was our fault, and we had to find a way to fix whatever the problem was.

But when I’d first met my master, he’d been attacked by a fearsome alien species. That was most certainly not my fault. Yes, I’d wanted to help him recover from it – I still did – but there had to be a line somewhere between being responsible for causing a problem, versus simply wanting to help solve it.

“I think the puzzle is an excellent idea,” I said. My heart rate kicked up as the words left my mouth. A good dimari did not contradict his master. But here I was, openly disagreeing with what he’d said. I was saying what I believed he needed to hear, rather than blindly agreeing with him. There was a monumental sort of arrogance in that, thinking I knew better than my master.

He grimaced. “Sorry, I’m… I used to fly ships and explore uncharted corners of the galaxy. And now I’m…”

“Recovering from a large amount of trauma,” I finished his sentence again – another display of bad behaviour, according to my training. “I believe the orderly thinking required for a puzzle would be mentally soothing.”

His brow creased as he stared down at me. “God, you’re a nerd,” he muttered. I wasn’t overly familiar with the term. Was that an insult? Or a compliment? I couldn’t tell from his tone which way he’d meant it. But either way, he took the box over to the counter, letting me complete the purchase. I’d started doing that partway through the morning, when the endless questions about packaging and delivery times had started to get the better of him.

“We’ll take it with us,” I said to the cashier, placing the box neatly into one of the shopping bags I’d brought with us. There were only a handful of things we were carrying home, but I suspected that my master was going to need a distraction the instant we got there, and if I was lucky, then this puzzle would provide the required entertainment.

We made it the rest of the way to the train station without incident, and then boarded the train. We travelled to the first stop uneventfully. The train was busy, but not excessively crowded. We had to stand up, and I glanced warily at my master, wondering how his leg was feeling after a busy morning of walking around.

At the second stop, a large human got onto the train. He was tall and bulky, unshaven, middle aged, dressed in a flannel shirt with holes in the elbows, and he stank of piss. He took a slow look around the carriage, then stepped towards us.

“You want to get out of my way?” he asked my master, standing over him and glaring down at us. I tensed, uncertain as to how my master was going to respond.

“There’s plenty of room to go around,” my master said, calmly but firmly. I could only assume that the man was trying to get to a row of seats behind us. But my master and I were standing neatly against one wall. There was plenty of room for him to go around.

The man took a step fractionally closer to my master. “How about you fucking well move.”

I rapidly but subtly assessed the man. Was he drunk? On drugs? Or just trying to pick a fight? Was there any security on these trains? Cameras? I didn’t know, never having been on one before, and aware that now was not the right time to be asking.

“I’m not moving,” my master replied, and I recognised that tone. It was the same one he’d used when we’d been coming in to dock at the Delaville Space Station and he’d had to bully the docking controller into letting them jump the queue. It was a voice that said ‘I’m not taking any bullshit and Iwillget what I want’. But in this case, the other human, his eyes bloodshot, his pupils too narrow, also wasn’t going to back down. He was on some kind of drug, though I had no idea what it might have been.

Thinking fast, I stepped in front of my master, having to tilt my head way back to look up at the other man. He was taller than my master, and my master was a good head taller than me. “You don’t want to do that,” I said to the man, dropping my voice to as deep a tone as I could manage. It wasn’t particularly impressive, but letting my master get into a fist fight in an enclosed space would be a disaster.

The man sneered down at me. “Oh look. The little puppy’s defending his master.”