We didn’t have the chance for a quiet conversation during the provided meal, nor afterwards when they escorted us back to the shuttle and flew us back down to the main settlement, this time dropping us off in a landing area outside of what looked like some kind of military training field. Low lighting dotted around the area, which was filled with males sparring with swords off to one side, and on the other it looked as if they were doing calisthenics.
A few heads turned to look at us and I knew the moment Richard and I had been spotted, as friends were nudged and we were pointed at.
“I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass,” Richard murmured. “I bet that’s how Pilar felt back home.”
He didn’t need to explain where he meant by home; I understood readily that he referred to the human settlement areas in general.
“I felt under close scrutiny, indeed,” Pilar chimed in, his keen hearing having no trouble at all picking up our words as he approached. “Don’t worry, they’re just curious. We all learn your language and basic customs, but until now most of us will never have seen an actual human up close.”
He poked my nose. “I won’t let them whisk you away. You’re mine.”
Richard laughed as we followed Miljack away from the shuttle towards a structure whose design surprised me. Glass-fronted, it looked as if it was made of ground stone or concrete of some kind, the sides rising four stories to curve gently to form the roof. Plants covered the roof and grew in recessed alcoves that held integrated planters.
“You could have knocked me over with a breath when you told everyone you guys were getting married. I didn’t know you’d come to a decision.”
We hadn’t, but I didn’t care to elaborate on the subject out here, under so many curious gazes and where someone might possibly overhear.
“It seemed expedient,” Pilar responded.
“Well, I’m going to go head off to the tavern and see about some expedient mating myself,” Miljack drawled. “As soon as I have a shower and change into some clean clothes.”
“It’s still rather early for that,” Pilar said, casting his brother a disbelieving look.
“The better to meet up with you-know-who one last time,” he replied with a wink. He gave a small pelvic thrust. “Give him something to remember me by for a few days as it’ll be the last time he ever gets to have me.”
“So you’re telling him, then? Being quite plainly spoken about it and everything,” Pilar asked him with an eye roll at his crude antics.
“Yup. He can’t take a hint so I’ll just have to put it to him directly,” Miljack declared.
Pilar looked at him sourly. “You’d be better off simply telling him and go pick up someone else and take them elsewhere.”
“You might be right,” Miljack admitted.
“Stars above, did you hear that? The mighty Miljack has admitted I might be right!”
“No need to rub it in,” Miljack groused goodnaturedly. “We all can’t have a suitable and utterly gorgeous human drop into our laps with the full blessing of the powers that be.”
“What am I, burnt porridge?” Richard exclaimed, clutching his chest one handedly in mock dismay.
“No, but you’re another alpha like me and I don’t get off that way.”
He wasn’t kidding about how easily everyone here was accepting Pilar and I as a couple. I knew if we made this truly real and went through with our ‘engagement’, that we wouldn’t be so lucky among my own people. Sure, there’d be some who would think it all terribly romantic, the hardworking local sheriff finding his happy ever after with the exotic, intrepid Hunter who came to his aid. My own family, I had no qualms about either. Both of my fathers as well as Richard’s had raised us to be open-minded people, as had their parents.
I expected most of the backlash to be manufactured by the members of the Council whose families generationally had striven to keep a wedge between our peoples in order to keep control over the colonists. That didn’t mean that among the general public, I’d not become a pariah, seen as a pervert of some kind for mating outside of my species.There would always be some who chose to be narrow-minded. I wondered how that would affect the anticipated role I was to have, of giving humans a voice while bringing us together. Negatively, I supposed, but if we could get public opinion to swing our way, maybe not as large an impact as I feared.
Everyone who met Pilar took a shine to him, I reminded myself. Well, except for Lord Roe and his head groomsman, though I rather suspect that was because they were trying to hide something to do with that shed. If Jeddah hadn’t been murdered, I don’t think he’d have raised a stink so that the Council went along with his desire to have a Hunter come catch the killer on the loose.
“This is certainly some building. It’s a lot different than the one in that cave,” Richard said, changing the subject.
“It and the others in town are made using technology I believe your people call Bee Three Writing,” Miljack replied, reaching the set of double doors. They swung open on their own accord after he touched a featureless metal panel set in beside them and a pale blue light played over his palm and fingers where they touched.
“Bee Three— oh, you mean 3-D printing! Mason, that’s the guy who runs the general store by my house, he owns a small one of those. It came from the ship. He uses it to make stuff to order, like little gadgets for the kitchen. He made my dad an egg separator thing once so it’d be easier for him to make his meringues and stuff.”
“His fathers run a bakery,” I explained as I followed Miljack and Pilar inside.
“This is a big one. It makes buildings from recycled materials. As part of the reclamation process, decaying bridges and buildings of no great historical importance were scanned and visually restored inside a date block, along with their geographical coordinates. The rubble from dismantling them was processed and used to create everything you see here.” Pilar and Mijack looked proud of this and I certainly couldn’t blame them. It was quite the achievement.
“The glass blocks out the light during the day while continuing to convert the sun’s rays into electricity used by this building. If it’s not enough, then it pulls from the main power supply, which is generated exactly as I explained how the train was, only on a much larger scale,” Pilar continued.
“And the plants aren’t just decorations, either, am I right? Some kind of insulation?”
Both Hunters nodded.
“I knew it! I saw some pictures of something like that with plants, back in school. It was in the library databanks before they restricted access to ship’s mainframe to help preserve it.” Richard looked pleased as punch, though his words got me thinking. Was the mainframe really in any danger from people accessing the data it held? The terminals at the library were read only. My gut was telling me it was merely another move to restrict information and keep a tighter hold on the rest of us through ignorance and that really pissed me off. Something definitely had to be done about it, there was no two ways about it.