Page 9 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded (Rogue Bonds #2)

Dax

F ifteen minutes later, with a few more details nailed down and more ideas under my belt, we were heading back into the house, ready to tackle the next step in Aiden’s bold plan.

My master was waiting for us in the living room. He looked up at me as I entered the room and gave me a wobbly smile. “Take a seat on the sofa,” he told me, gesturing towards one end of it. I sat down. Was it ridiculous how relieved I was to be given that one single instruction? It was clearer and more direct than almost anything else he’d said to me in the last year.

Kade sat beside me, while Aiden perched on the arm of the chair beside Kade. A moment of silence followed… and then my master cleared his throat. “Right, so… Dax,” he said, glancing nervously at Aiden. “In Alliance culture, the term ‘sir’ is used to address men as a general mark of respect. In the military, it’s a way to address one’s superior officers, and in the general public, it’s a respectful way to talk to customers in a shop, for example, or people in positions of authority. So from now on, I… uh…” He glanced at Aiden again, who gave him an encouraging nod. “So from now on, I’d like you to call me sir, instead of master.”

The order took a moment to sink in. But when it did, I felt my gut lurch. I’d been calling him by the wrong title this whole time. No wonder he was annoyed with me! “Yes, sir,” I said hastily. This was definitely one of those human cultural things. I wasn’t aware of any other species that objected to being called master.

“Good. Right. Good,” my master said. He seemed to be floundering as to what to say next. Instead of speaking, he started tapping at his comm. A moment later, mine beeped. “I’m giving you access to your own bank account. I’ve set up an automatic deposit every fortnight, so I’d like you to use this money to buy groceries, clothing for yourself, minor repairs for the house… anything that falls within your duties. And I’ll be giving you a full list of your duties a bit later,” he added, before I could start to panic about not knowing what he wanted me to do.

“Now, I need you to go into your account – there’s a link in the message I just sent you.”

I opened the message in my comm and tapped the link. I had to go through a brief authentication process, as my comm scanned my face and my master confirmed that the biometric data collected was correct. Then a projection popped up above my comm, displaying the details of my account and the amount of money available. At first glance, it seemed like a lot. But then again, the house had been rather neglected over the last year. Perhaps my master was anticipating the need for a few repairs?

“Over on the right, there’s an option to put restrictions on the account,” my master went on. “It can do things like let people set a limit on how much they can spend each month, or prevent them from buying particular types of services. Go into that section.” I obeyed, anticipating that he was going to set a limit on how much I could spend – which would be a perfectly reasonable precaution. But what he said next caught me by surprise.

“I want you to select the block on purchasing any form of alcohol.”

I glanced up at him, and then over at Aiden. It was an order, of course, so I obeyed, tapping the ‘no alcohol’ icon. Thankfully, my comm had been configured to display writing in the Eumadian script, rather than whatever script the Alliance used. I could read perfectly well, but with over three hundred different written alphabets available across the galaxy, it was impossible to know them all.

“Zeke has also blocked his own account from alcohol purchases,” Aiden filled me in, once I’d completed the process. “The ban can’t be revoked and it lasts for six months. At that point, we’ll be following up with Zeke to make sure he bans himself again. After two years, he’ll be able to put himself on a permanent ban.”

“What this means,” Zeke explained, avoiding looking at me, “is that even if I order you to buy alcohol for me, you can’t. And that’s a good thing.”

I frowned at that news. “So if you order me to buy alcohol, you want me to disobey you?”

He looked startled for a moment, and glanced at Aiden again. I wondered exactly what sort of conversation they’d been having without me. “I’m giving you long-term permission,” he said, slowly and carefully, “to disregard any order I give you about acquiring alcohol for me, whether it’s by buying it, bartering for it, stealing it, or any other means.” Well, that certainly covered all the bases. “I’m also giving you permission to disregard any order I give you to make you stop disregarding orders about alcohol.”

I had to repress a smile at that one. I understood what he was trying to do, but ultimately, it was entirely possible to logically circumvent his own attempts to block access to alcohol. But I took his point. He was trying to stop his addiction, and he needed my help, rather than my inadvertent thwarting of his efforts.

“Yes, sir,” I said, determined to be as helpful as possible. Pointing out any potential loopholes in his logic was not what he was looking for.

But that, it seemed, was the limit of my master’s ingenuity for the moment. He looked to Aiden again. “Now what?”

“Let’s deal with the mail next,” Aiden said. “We’ll tackle the hard things first, then get to the easy ones once everyone’s tired. Give Dax access to the house messaging system.”

He did, and for the next half an hour, I was treated to an intensive education into my master’s financial and administrative affairs. He received a regular disability pension, along with a payment for my care. I wasn’t quite sure about the logic of that second one, but according to Aiden, the government understood that my master needed someone to look after him, so they were compensating him for the cost of feeding and housing me. If it meant we had extra money for better food or more repairs, I wasn’t going to argue with it.

There were various bills to be paid from time to time, regular food deliveries, medical appointments, scheduled inspections for pests; all the things I had been trained to manage during my teenage years, and I accepted the workload with a combination of relief and trepidation. The relief was because I finally had something meaningful with which to occupy my days. The trepidation was because so far, my master had been entirely unconvinced about my ability to manage such things, and I was wary of making the slightest mistake, and of him swiftly removing the responsibilities again.

I supposed that if that happened, I could call Aiden and ask him for advice, but the thought lingered, nonetheless.

“Right, the next thing is to show Dax what household chores need doing, but before we get to that…” Aiden eyed my master sternly. “We’re going to clean out your cupboards.”

This was apparently something they’d discussed beforehand, because my master slumped slightly in his seat, but nodded. He got up and headed for the kitchen, where he systematically opened every cupboard, removing every bottle of alcohol and passing them to Aiden. Aiden, in turn, poured each and every one down the sink. To be fair, there weren’t all that many – three bottles of beer, one of cider and two bottles of wine, one of them already mostly empty.

“Is that everything?” Aiden asked, when he was done.

“No,” my master said. “There’s probably some in the bedroom.” He and Aiden headed that way, and I glanced at Kade, not sure if we were supposed to follow them. He held up a hand in a ‘wait here’ gesture, and soon enough, they were back, with an empty bottle of vodka and a mostly empty bottle of whisky.

“How are you doing?” Aiden asked my master, once the last of the bottles had been disposed of.

“I feel like I’m free-falling without a parachute,” he muttered in reply.

“If you’re feeling that way, the first thing you should do is go and talk to Dax,” Aiden told him. “That’s what he’s here for.” I experienced a momentary panic at the announcement. I didn’t know anything about how to deal with my master’s mood swings. The only thing I could offer him so far was the suggestion that we go for a walk. But then Aiden continued. “I’m going to send him a number of documents with information about how to support someone with PTSD, and various people he can contact for help – your new psychologist being top of the list.” Well, that sounded more promising. Though the prospect was still rather nerve-wracking. After a year of doing very little, and being told off for most of what I did do, stepping back into the role of organiser and planner was going to be a challenge.

“So what’s your biggest concern right now?” Aiden asked, and I took careful note of the question. He was the only example I’d had so far of how to help my master.

“That you’re going to leave, and then I’ll be bored and alone, and then I’m going to start craving alcohol.”

“You won’t be alone,” Aiden reminded him, more gently than I might have expected. “Dax is here. You can talk to him. You can watch the video channels with him. You can tell him about a book you read or an interesting news article. You can complain about politics, or rant about how much you hate me. And we talked about the boredom, remember? You’re going to find a hobby. You don’t have to come up with one on the first day, but you can start looking around. Try a few different things. Contact some local community groups. But don’t just sit on your ass and think about how awful the galaxy is. That’s where the downward spiral begins.”

I took note of every detail of the conversation. My master needed to find a hobby to fill in his days. If he was too idle, I needed to help him find interesting things to do with his time. And I should start reading the news myself. If I was going to be expected to have conversations with him, it would certainly help to have something interesting to talk about.

“Yeah. Hobby. Right,” my master said. “Okay. So… let’s tackle some of the cleaning then, shall we?”

But before we could get any further, there was a knock at the front door. “That’ll be the food delivery,” Aiden said. “I took the liberty of ordering something this morning, otherwise you’d have nothing to eat until your regular delivery arrives tomorrow.”

“Right. Okay,” my master said again. “I should get that-”

Aiden stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Zeke,” he said, the word laced with hidden meaning. He then very subtly nodded in my direction. Of course, I had been trained to pay attention to the slightest nuances of pleasure or dissatisfaction from my master, so the gesture was rather obvious to me. But even so, I wasn’t sure what Aiden expected me to do…

Until my master glanced my way and said, “Dax, could you please answer the door? And bring the delivery into the kitchen?”

I was so shocked that for a moment, I simply gaped at him. He wanted me to…? I’d never been allowed to receive any deliveries before, and I’d reached the conclusion that my master didn’t think me capable of even that simple a task. But now he wanted me to…

“Yes, sir,” I said, snapping myself out of my daze. I rushed to the door, opening it to find a huge Denzogal man on the other side, his thick fur a chestnut colour, and three heavy grocery bags dangling from each hand.

“Ezekiel Rhodes?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, then quickly amended my answer. “I mean, he lives here, yes. He’s my master. But I can receive the delivery.”

The man set down the bags and tapped his comm, and then my own comm beeped. “Please confirm receipt of the delivery,” he said, in a rather deadpan voice.

I tapped the ‘received’ option on the notification I’d received, and then the man lumbered off back to his delivery van.

I gathered up the first four bags and hefted them off to the kitchen, expecting one of two things to happen as I did so. Either my master would tell me not to move them and do it himself, or he’d come to collect the last two bags – a silent reprimand that I should have been able to move all of them at once.

But as I returned to collect the last two, I saw that he had done neither. Instead, he was standing where I’d left him. He was wringing his hands a little, and I noticed that Aiden’s hand was resting lightly on his forearm, but aside from that, he made no comment about my task.

As I set the last of the bags on the kitchen counter, I heard Aiden mutter something to my master, but it was too soft for my translator to pick up the words. A moment later, my master arrived in the kitchen. “Let me show you where everything should be put,” he said, sounding rather apologetic about it. “I know you probably know half of this already. I mean, you’ve lived here for a year. But…” He glanced at Aiden again, who was now loitering in the kitchen doorway, a hint of resentment in my master’s expression. “But it’s probably best to set it all out clearly, and then you can take over properly next time.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, not at all offended by his offer. I’d never been given any clear instructions as to where anything should be kept, so I’d been guessing as best I could, copying my master’s somewhat haphazard placements, and just hoping for the best with the rest of it.

My master unpacked, being surprisingly methodical about it, and I paid close attention to his running monologue; flour and sugar on the top shelf, pasta and sauces on the bottom shelf, along with canned vegetables, condiments on the middle shelf, beside the biscuits. Cold goods in the fridge, frozen vegetables and a joint of meat in the freezer, coffee on the shelf with the cups, dishwashing detergent under the sink. The cupboards were in dire need of a thorough clean, but I knew better than to push my luck. My master had let me do more today than he had done for the entire past year combined.

Once the food was unpacked, I got the next shock of the day. “I want you to make a list of all the housekeeping chores,” my master said, though he didn’t sound terribly convinced about it. “Um… laundry, vacuuming, scrubbing the bathroom…”

“How about we go one room at a time?” Aiden suggested, giving me a reassuring nod as I rushed to pull up the list-making function on my comm. So we did. For the next half an hour, I made notes, asked questions, and trotted about the house after my master, as he detailed all the things he wanted me to clean or tidy. Aiden suggested at one point that I just do the most urgent tasks for today – laundry, washing the dishes, and giving the bathroom a cursory scrub – and then I could tackle one room each day, giving it a deep clean to get rid of a year’s worth of dust and grime, until the whole house was looking presentable.

By the time the list was made, it was nearing lunchtime. Lunch had always been a bit of a mystery to me. In the training camp on Eumad, the dimari were given only two meals each day, breakfast and dinner. It had taken me a few weeks after arriving on Rendol 4, to understand what the video channels meant when they talked about ‘lunch’. That confusion had not been helped by the fact that my master rarely ate lunch, either waking up so late that his breakfast was nearly at midday, or refusing to eat anything at all as he drowned his woes in a bottle.

So when Aiden turned to me and asked me to make some lunch for everyone, I was stumped.

“What would you like me to prepare?” I asked, attempting to disguise my bafflement. A good dimari should know how to prepare food for his master’s guests. I’d attempted to learn to cook for myself, using the scant ingredients that my master had ordered and recipes I’d found via my comm, but with no human to taste-test my creations, I had little idea if I was succeeding or not.

Aiden, too, seemed a little stumped by my question. “Have you ever made sandwiches before?” he asked, a note of caution in his voice. I felt my good mood slipping as I shook my head. I’d been so pleased to be allowed to clean the house, been so optimistic about sorting my master’s finances for him. But at the first slightly unfamiliar task, I was already failing.

“Kade, could you go and show Dax how to make some sandwiches for everyone?” Aiden asked his dimari, and Kade nodded.

“Yes, sir,” he said obediently, and I found myself longing for the day when I could respond to my master with such ease and confidence.

In the kitchen, I followed Kade’s simple instructions; butter on bread, then add sliced meat, dala greens, a slice of cheese and a sprinkling of grated baswal. Humans nearer the equator liked tomato or cucumber on their sandwiches, he explained, in a running monologue, but Hon was too cold for things like that to grow here. And the other Alliance species had also picked up the human practice of making sandwiches, with the Derelians invariably adding spiced mesal to theirs, while the Denzogals preferred meat-only sandwiches. Denzogals in general didn’t have a great love of vegetables. There were other vegetables that could be put onto sandwiches as well, he added. Each of the Alliance species had brought a variety of plants and animals from their home planets, and the ones that grew best on each of the Alliance’s colonised worlds had been put to good use by all six species in the Alliance. By the time we had a plateful of food ready to go, I’d been given a lightning-fast history lesson in both the art of sandwich making, and the colonisation of Rendol 4.

I carried the plate to the dining table. There wasn’t really a ‘dining room’, as such, with the table situated at one end of the living room, but given that there were only two of us living in the house, I supposed there was no need for a whole separate room, like there was in most grand estates. Kade trailed after me, bringing four smaller plates and a bundle of napkins.

“Lunch is ready,” I announced to the two humans, who were once more deep in conversation on the sofa. I felt a thrill of achievement go through me. I had just prepared my first ever meal for my master and his guests. As little as six hours ago, I would have scarcely believed that such a thing was possible.

Aiden glanced up at us, then murmured a last few words to my master, who nodded. Then my master stood up and came over. “Wow, looks great,” he said, assessing the food. “Well done.”

I felt an entirely unfamiliar sensation rise up in my chest, one that I had dreamed about for years during my training, but had never before experienced. It was… pride? Or… satisfaction? It was a sense of fulfilment, combined with a profound relief. My master was pleased with me. For the first time since he’d tried, and failed, to open my crate, he was actually pleased with me.

Kade’s eyes were glued to his own master, as Aiden approached the table. Aiden put his arm around Kade’s waist, giving him a quick hug, and then kissed his forehead before sitting down. “Thank you,” he murmured.

My joy suddenly evaporated as a hot shaft of jealousy shot through me. In the entire time I’d been here, my master had never once touched me. He’d never looked at me with anything like the fondness on Aiden’s face. And I’d certainly never had cause to smile bashfully – as Kade was now – or to rub my head against his shoulder in a gesture of affection.

One step at a time , I tried to console myself, as we all took our seats. We’d taken great strides forward today. This was a huge improvement to where we’d been yesterday. So I should be patient, and prove to my master that I was capable of serving him as diligently as Kade served his master. Planets were not colonised in a day, as the saying went. My master picked up a sandwich and took a bite. Then, to my relief, he didn’t set it aside or spit it out. Instead, he took another bite. This was fine, I told myself firmly. Everything was going to be fine.