“I know you are uncomfortable with all of this, with me, but I thank you for doing this, L’tani.”
“It is my pleasure to serve, Lord Marmaduke,” she said, stepping off the wooden deck and onto the brick-paved patio, with swirling of skirts in the slight breeze.
“You look great, by the way,” he said, breathing deeply, thinking she smelled wonderful, too. He was getting used to that. Oxana had done well ordering clothes. Red summer dress with big leaves outlined in white, and simple sandals, which were probably another person’s idea, since he knew Oxana’s love of heels. He guessed Angelina or maybe Julia had made the footwear choice.
His deep breath had not been lost on L’tani. She knew—just knew—he could smell her, not in the vague, human sense of perfume or body heat, but in the deeply V’ren way that meant everything. It changed the timbre of his voice, the weight behind his words.
She would try again later, though she knew she shouldn’t. He was a High Lord now, and tradition demanded he take someone more elevated than her. T’mari had told her the same thing, gently, but hadn’t said a word about him reacting to her scent.
“Leonard, Marie, I see you’ve met K’rem T’all,” Matt said, extending a hand to the general and his wife. “This is his niece—my cultural advisor, and my date for the evening, L’tani.”
K’rem raised an eyebrow, then glanced at L’tani, who held her posture with grace, but not quite certainty.
“Your date?” he asked, carefully neutral.
“You can’t expect the host of a party to show up alone,” Matt said with an easy grin, clapping K’rem on the shoulder in that disarming, confident way that turned tension into acceptance. Don’t worry, the gesture said. I’ve got this.
Marie saw the flash of alarm in the girl’s eyes and stepped in smoothly. “I understand you’re a medical student, L’tani?”
“Yes,” L’tani replied, her voice formal. “Though there isn’t really an equivalent to what I’m doing now in your Earth-based education system. I have been on this path for nearly nine Earth years under different mentors. That is half my life. Recently, I have rotated back into genetic medicine, though I am actually looking more towards cross-species medicine. I think it is going to be far more valuable for our future, especially how it relates to genetics.”
“Fascinating,” came the warm voice of Dr. Mahira Sloan, one of the Columbia delegation’s more prominent physicians. “I’d love to hear more about that system. Earth’s credentialing bureaucracy could use some fresh eyes.”
She took L’tani gently by the arm, steering her away from the awkwardness with practiced ease. Leila Carson followed, notepad already out, sensing a quote worth publishing.
As the women drifted off into their own conversation, Matt turned his attention back to Leonard. Others were already approaching: a small cluster of academics from the Columbia Collective—two linguists, a cultural historian, and a computer science postdoc who had once worked at a reconstruction archive in Denver. All wore expressions of polite curiosity edged with suspicion.
“Matthew, may I introduce Professors Cai, Hernandez, and Dr. Alder?” said Sloan over her shoulder. “They’re here to observe the interface and evaluate joint educational potential.”
“Welcome,” Matt said, shaking hands in sequence. “If you’re hoping to poach my crew for faculty slots, you’ll have to wait until after the barbecue.”
“We’re more interested in building bridges than stealing talent,” Hernandez said. “Though I’d be lying if I said L’tani’s published notes didn’t cause a stir.”
“She’s a hell of a first impression,” Matt said. “But I assure you, the rest of the V’ren aren’t slouches either.”
Dr. Cai, the linguist, leaned in slightly. “Would your advisor permit a formal interview tomorrow? We’re especially interested in T’mari’s acquisition of multiple Earth languages so rapidly. There are implications for cross-species neural-linguistic modeling.”
“She is already off planet,” Matt replied. “I can arrange for you to use the neural interface while she is away and speak at length with others.”
Leonard gave him a sidelong glance, noting the gentle possessiveness in Matt’s tone. “Do all your advisors double as dates now?”
Matt smirked. “If I could be so lucky. Excuse me for a moment,” Matt said, seeing an unexpected vehicle with an unexpected driver breaking too hard in the gravel, and it left him running in that direction.
“Kinsey?” he said, then seeing who was in the back, both her parents. “Shove over,” he said in a moment of decision, and decided going back to the road and around to the ship would be faster. “Hold my phone”, he said, pressing Angelina’s icon. “We have two injured, one is Janie Hart, 8 plus months pregnant. Get that cargo bay door open and have teams waiting. Tell us what happened, Kinsey,” Matt said to keep the girl talking.
“Dad flipped the tractor, and when mom came to see, she slipped in the mud and now she is bleeding. It is my fault for not being able to get Dad out.”
“You did ok,” he said, making the turn and putting the pedal down.
“We got him out, but Aaron messed up his leg even more. He is with the littles, and I told him I would come back for him. Ellen is with them.
“Ange, get”
“Just shut up and drive, I am on it.”
Matt knew he had saved time using the road rather than cutting across the farm tracks, but he didn’t think speeding like a bat out of hell had really made that much difference. Still, it felt good to have something—anything—under control.
He hit the new service ramp hard, tires thudding up the concrete lip and onto the cargo deck of the shuttle. He knew the weight limit was over a hundred tons. No problem there.
They were waiting—two counter-grav stretchers, V’ren medical staff already in motion.
“She’s nearly full term,” Matt barked as he jumped out. “It was a good pregnancy, but she slipped—appears to be hemorrhaging. He flipped a tractor—leg’s bad, but that’s not the worst of it. Look at his abdomen.”
He didn’t realize he’d switched into V’ren until one of the medics responded with a clipped, “Understood, High Lord.”
Kinsey moved like she wanted to follow. Matt caught her, held her back. “They’re in good hands.”
“Uncle Matt,” she sobbed.
He pulled her to his chest, not caring who saw. She was shaking. He wrapped both arms around her, solid and silent, and whispered the prayers Lola Rhea had taught him all those years ago.
To a god he didn’t believe in.
But right now, he needed miracles.
He saw Ange pulling up the ramp but hadn’t even noticed the crew standing by, and sidled out of the way, dragging the girl who was dead on her feet with him.
“Compound fracture, left tibia,” he heard her saying, and realized she was saying most of that in V’ren and pointing to her own. He watched as they maneuvered the boy out of the back of his truck. He was pleased to see T’monn and K’rem were with her. He almost missed the young V’ren woman who did this half-kneel-bow thing he was not yet accustomed to receiving.
“Lord Marmaduke, we have an update for you, she said in excellent English, which he thought was why she was bringing him an update.
“If it is bad, don’t use English,” he said in V’ren, and she nodded, realizing he didn’t want the girl to hear bad news.
“Both will be fine, but require time to heal. Her mother has asked to see you both,” Trell Wath said calmly.
“They are going to be fine,” he said, whispering into the girl’s hair, placing a kiss on top of her head, which only made her hold on tighter. “If you squeeze tighter, I am going to pee on you,” he finally told her and got a giggle, which he took as a good sign and an even better one when she finally slumped and took on her own weight again. “Ange,” she said, waving her over.
“We are all going up to see Ray and Janie, after I pee,” he said with a chuckle. “Did you teach this girl to grapple or just beat them up with sticks?”
“Learned that because Aaron thinks 14 extra months matter. How is he?”
“His leg is broken, but he should be able to kick his ass now,” Angelina said, giving the girl a good, tight hug but not letting her grapple. “You must have squeezed tight; he is already gone.”
“Janie,” Matt said, not letting the woman’s daughter in just yet. “You’ve looked better, Cuz.”
“I have never felt weirder; I can’t feel anything below my tits.”
At a loss for words and pain for this woman he had long called friend and called family all his life, he made a face she instantly read.
“Oh, it isn’t that. They simply have me on a spinal block after surgery. I broke a rib, and it punctured the amniotic sack. “I got my eldest daughter to thank for getting me in the van and getting to you fast enough to save my youngest daughter.”
“You are a little early, aren’t you?”
“A little bit. They said she was strong enough, but her lungs are a little underdeveloped, just like big mouth out there,” she said. “They put her in an embryonic tank, and she is floating in there with 3 other little girls. Kind of weird, but they do good work, because I don’t feel this huge slice across my belly or the rib. They told me Ray is in bad shape but will live.”
“Told me the same thing. If you didn’t know, Aaron broke his leg too.”
“Well fuck! That is disappointing. We are going to need him?” Janie said, sounding as worried as she could manage.
“Oh, bullshit, you doubt me… Oh, you got me,” Matt said, seeing her grin.
“I knew you and the rest of the community wouldn’t let us down. That is why I love living here. Can’t believe I once upon a time living out on the coast would have been a good idea.”
“You learned something about yourself that you couldn’t have learned here. That made it worth trying. I will give you some time with Kinsey,” he said, stepping out of the small room.
“How is” Matt and Angelina said, starting at the same time.
“You can visit Janie yourself in a bit, so tell me how he is?”
“We are lucky you have a trauma center right here. He wouldn’t have made it to Marshal, much less Columbia, even as fast as you drive. His right lower leg is shattered, with low bone density and pig shit and other filth driven into the wound. He bruised his liver and kidney, plus perforated his lower bowels. Don’t bother asking to go in; they are keeping him REM sleep with a spinal block to kill all the pain. That is kind of neat.”
“They have Janie on one, and I thought the worst when she told me she couldn’t feel anything below her tits,” he chuckled. Heard anything about Aaron?”
“Not yet, but I have no doubt they will fix him up. Lola Rhea is over with the kids, doing her thing. Peter said he will look at the tractor in the morning. Dave wants to see if you can get some more people out there to help out.”
“Kitty texted me saying she heard and grabbed the older girls and was making her way over there.”
“T’monn and W’ren want to talk to you, but this whole high lord thing has them afraid to ask you directly for your time. It is like someone elected you pope.”
“It is more like Catholics electing me the Messiah and feeling the need to go through the whole religious chain of command before they should bother Jesus.”
“You are not the messiah.”
“Tell me about it, but I am feeling a lot more like Josh rather than Biff recently,” he said, referencing Lamb by Christopher Moore, the book she had gotten him for his last birthday.
“At least you aren’t the Stupidest Angel.”
“He’s good with barbecue,” he laughed. “If Kinsey isn’t going home, tuck her in at my house,” Matt suggested, since Kinsey and MJ were not speaking together again after Kinsey decided she liked kissing boys, too.
“The high lord of teen gossip,” Angelina said, shaking her head. “You probably knew they were making out before I did, and who they have moved on to as well. Go one see, T’monn and K’rem before they think you have ascended.”
“T’monn, K’rem,” Matt said, closing the door to the small room behind him.
“Are you alright? That is blood,” T’monn said, starting to move seeing the stain that must have transferred from Kinsey.
“Not mine, he said, sitting, knowing they wouldn’t until he did. “Sit.”
“Your people are,” K’rem started.
“Not just my people, my friends, Janie is a distant cousin, and we grew up together. I am godfather to Kinsey.”
K’rem wasn’t exactly sure what that term meant, but if it was what he thought the translation meant, then this was a special girl.
“I need the two of you to do two things for me. In private, I want you to stop treating me like a deity. I need the two of you to go back to treating me the way you have since you arrived. No, I need you to treat me the way Angelina does, or at least come as close to it as you can manage. Yesterday, I named you my brother, K’rem. Now you have to act like it,” Matt said with a laugh.
“Older brother or younger brother?” K’rem said, with one of his rare grins.
“What is the other thing you would have us do?”
“I need three things, actually. I need to know what happened at my party after I left, if you know. I need to arrange for about a hundred more laborers, teenagers preferably, maybe some from House T’all. I want them to help at the Hart Farm tomorrow. Janie Hart used to be Janie Marmaduke, and I want someone working on a media post that shows House T’all’s commitment to the Marmadukes.
I can spare a few people to direct them, but not many. My wheat harvests are set to begin tomorrow, and I don’t have many people to spare. In a normal year, I would be out there helping too. The last thing I need is the names of every single person who worked on the medical team, ran messages, or did anything for my people tonight. I intend to offer them immediate citizenship.”
