“Is the smell a problem?” One of the squire Caterri came up beside me, watching me with careful, inquisitive eyes. I hadn’t thought black eyes could look inquisitive, but I was proven wrong.
I stared at it for a long second, because it sounded almost concerned. Given the Caterri looked like a vampire crossed with a fly, I hadn’t thought concern was even in their wheelhouse. The Caterri were tall, at least six foot, with normal torsos but darkly scaled, bug-like legs. I half expected to see antennae buzzing at me, but instead they had long white hair that never seemed to bother them or tangle. They also seemed underdressed for the weather, with leather-like vests and pants that didn’t look nearly thick enough for how cold it got at night. Hell, I was wearing clothes from the ship and a blanket I’d found in the bottom of whatever cart they’d shoved me in and I was still freezing.
Walking with them would have helped, but I wasn’t allowed to, probably because it would have spread my scent too much. Whatever creepy-ass bug people they were, they were smart.
“You can’t like that smell, can you?” I finally asked the Caterri, not sure what to make of it. “It’s like paint thinner.”
The Caterri’s frown was thoughtful. “I do not think we have this thin paint you speak of.”
I fought a smile despite the situation, another tick on the list of things I had never expected to happen. That a Caterri would make me smile or even consider a chuckle or a laugh (beyond the hysterical sort) hadn’t seemed to be on my radar. Or anyone’s radar, I figured. “It’s how you paint walls back home, sort of. You use paint, and if it’s too thick or you need to clean some up, paint thinner can help. But it smells nasty.”
The sound the Caterri made was close to a fly buzz, but they didn’t look alarmed. “Where are you from?”
I mentally dubbed the Caterri Squire, because it was getting exhausting referring to it as ‘the Caterri’ every time I stared at it. “A planet called Earth,” I answered truthfully. “What about you?”
“I am from here,” Squire said with an oddly human shrug. “I was born in Kohta, as is all of our race, but I serve at the Cordelain outpost.”
“The what now?” I wasn’t even certain that was a word. Still, I had my supervisor distracted, so I needed to take advantage of it. I scratched at my head, trying to seem nonchalant at the behavior while trying to pluck out single strands of hair.
“Cordelain. Are you well?” Squire moved closer, which made me freeze, but it didn’t seem annoyed as much as alarmed. “Does your head ache?”
“My species scratches their scalp frequently,” I told it, figuring that was as good of an excuse as any.
“Very strange,” Squire said, but simply nodded. “Do you have many other Earth customs we should be aware of?”
Instead of answering its question, I flicked a strand of hair over the edge of the cart nonchalantly, as if I was just getting some air for my hand. Squire didn’t seem alarmed, which I was grateful for. “We Earth beings have a lot of strange customs,” I said. “Such as wearing lots of furs because we have limited coverings.”
“You are chilled?” Squire frowned, a strange expression on its oddly human face. “You are female, are you not?”
I glanced down at my chest and then at Squire. “You didn’t know that?” I’d admit, I was hella suspicious. Why else had they kidnapped me if not because I had a vagina?
“You are not a race I recognize,” Squire answered calmly, because it was apparently unflappable. Strange. “I did not wish to assume your females had the same mammary glands as ours.”
‘As ours’… “So that means…”
“That I am male? Yes.” Squire merely cocked his head to the side. “You seem surprised.”
I pondered that for a moment. “Not really,” I admitted. “Do you guys suffer from the same problems the N’Akron do?”
“Problems?”
It confused me that Squire seemed genuinely confused. Did they not suffer from a lack of females, then? Or was it something else? Did he really not have knowledge about what his people seemed to be doing?
“The lack of females,” I explained, figuring that was some information he already knew, whether he was lying or not. “I assumed that’s why you were expecting them as tithe.”
Squire’s uncomfortable expression told me more than he probably wished. I may have been human, but I wasn’t dumb, and he was definitely hiding something.
I flicked another hair out of the cart nonchalantly, taking advantage of the momentary silence. “What do you know—”
“I must go.” Squire turned and walked away without another word, leaving me sitting there on the cart, back to being bored as hell without any form of entertainment. Yet, I knew more things than I had five or so minutes ago. I knew the Caterri weren’t suffering the same lack of females—or if they were, there was a specific reason behind it. I knew that they weren’t all the terrible, unfeeling kind they seemed. Whether Squire was the exception or more common than I expected, he was still something to take into account.
His inability to answer told me things, too. I was getting too close to something they wanted to keep hidden, something he didn’t trust himself to not tell me. For whatever reason, I was persuasive. He had mentioned being stationed at an outpost. Was that like a
