“Yeesh, my bad.”
“Don’t even worry, man. Her cooking can feed an army, and the more she makes, the better it is. And I’ll be calling over some old pals to join us later. They’re our buddies from the West Bookick Minchiu Team.” Durin’s eyes took on a serious sheen. “Some of the gang want to apologize to you for how they treated you.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, really,” said Jint, shaking his head. “I appreciate the sentiment, though. I want to see the gang, too.”
“Sweet. But first, we gotta talk business, the two of us.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get the boring business stuff over with first. Not least ’cause... well, you know how it is. Once everybody’s here, talking business will get downright impossible.”
“And I take it there’ll be alcohol, which won’t exactly help.”
“You crazy? Of course there’ll be alcohol. You remember Meerno Distle? Our old shortstop pitcher. Back when you were around, he used to be our cute little short pint, but now he’s got quite the frame, and he’s a bottomless pit for booze. Once I let him stay over for three days, and the crime prevention police came a-knocking for him. He’d bought so much hooch they suspected him of running an unlicensed bar.”
“That’s something else.”
“Oh, right, business before pleasure. Forgot.” Durin led Jint by the shoulder to the threshold. “C’mon, let’s go inside. Sorry it ain’t a mansion fit for a noble, but it’ll have to do.”
After briefly greeting Durin’s mother, Jint settled into the drawing room, where four lounge chairs were situated in the Delktunian style. Jint was seated in one of them.
“What’re you putting on airs for?” said Durin, who was sprawled on his chair, eyes reproving. “This is Delktu. Do as we do. You can play at being an Abh noble if you like, but I don’t know the etiquette for an Abh noble. All I know is how to receive a friend, the Delktu way.
“If you’re sure it’s all right...” Jint smiled, and lay himself down.
Delktunians only ever sat up straight on a lounge chair when there were more people than seats.
“So, are you serious about hiring me?”
“Hire, sure, but at the end of the day I’d just like you to help me out.”
“Is the pay worth the effort?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Then I’ll hear you out.”
“You asked where my servants are, earlier.”
“Right. Should I not have asked?”
“No, that’s not it... It’s just... I don’t have any.”
“I know that. I’ve got eyes, you know. Unless you created invisible people with Abh genetic modification?”
“I think that would be beyond us. Not to mention pointless.”
“Oh?” said Durin, with a perverted smile. “I can think of a use or two.”
“In any case, what I’m trying to tell you is that I haven’t brought any vassals with me. As in, to this landworld — or to the Vorlash Countdom as a whole. I do have some vassals to my name, but only a few. Right now they’re recruiting at the imperial capital, so I’ll be gaining a few more soon. For the time being, we mainly need engineers. As for administrative vassals, I haven’t got a single one, strictly speaking.”
“I figured as much.”
“You knew?” said Jint, blinking.
“Well, to be honest, the possibility just crossed my mind. Why’d you hide it, though?”
“I never hid it. I was going to tell you, but you changed the subject,” Jint pointed out. “Plus, I just thought there was no need to go into it beforehand, since we were gonna be meeting in private anyway.”
“So in other words, all you’ve got for vassals right now is engineers.”
“Yep.”
“That’s funny. When I think ‘vassals,’ I think number crunchers and negotiators who go over all the fiddly little things.”
“Well, I want you assisting me with the paper pushing, or maybe external affairs. Something like that.”
“Long story short, you’re telling me to become your one and only vassal, huh.”
“Nah, man, I’m thinking about how to assemble more. Actually, that’s another area I want you to help me out with.”
“Wait a sec. You’re forgetting something important,” said Durin. “I don’t speak Baronh. Unlike you, I never did any language ed.”
“Oh, that’s not a big deal. You can just use a translation device, in the short term. And if you cram for a month or so, you can speak on my level,” Jint assured him. Stemming from the Empire’s tradition of taking in landworlders as NCCs or servant vassals, Baronh language education methods had reached an extremely high level of sophistication.
“You say that, but ain’t Baronh way harder than Ricparl?”
“You know Ricparl?” said Jint, surprised. Then he remembered that the planet had been under UH control until quite recently. “Probably should’ve guessed, huh.”
“I know it, but that doesn’t mean I can speak it. They told us we were in an ‘interim grace period’ or whatever, so we were allowed to speak Delktunian until the last person who couldn’t speak Ricparl kicked the bucket. So I didn’t go crazy mastering the language. I dipped my toe and tried speaking a little, but it was bad. It’s just not my forte. To me, anybody who can speak two or three languages is practically a sorcerer. Can you blame me? We don’t learn those languages in school.”
“Really?”
“What, you didn’t know? We figure one language, our own, is more than enough. The weirdos who wanna learn a different language go to specialized schools. Like the Abh school you went to.”
“I see. But I’m telling you, it’s easy. You’ve just gotta give it a shot.”
“I’m sure that’s how it looks to you. But I just can’t work it out. Delktunian’s got hold of my tongue, and it’s not letting go. And my ears can’t discern anything besides Delktunian. I learned that when I tried comprehending Ricparl.”
“But you only dipped your toe. You didn’t try learning it for real.”
“Argh!” Durin tore at his hair. “You could stand to let me flex a little.”
“I’ve never seen you do anything
