In the corner were piles of blankets made from animal hides. I poked at them with my foot to scare away any rodents—or something much worse—before I picked them up. Most were damp and no good for us to use. But one was dry and much softer than I expected.
It was a little musty, so I took it outside and hung it over the doorway of a neighboring hut. I found a solid stick that looked like some sort of sports racket and beat at the blanket. Clouds of dust broke free and made me cough. I didn’t stop until it was clean. Well, as clean as it could be.
I took it inside and placed it on the stone bed. Then I slowly and gently—no jumping this time—lay on it.
Much better!
I got up and stepped on something. I bent down to pick it up.
It was a small child’s toy. A coconut husk—or what passed for coconut husks in this part of the galaxy—had been painted with bright colors. Rain drained much of its vibrancy but I could still make out the front window and wings. A spaceship.
I dusted it off and placed it on a tabletop. Then I picked up some other items dotted in the dirt. Polished stones. They were pretty. And there, a series of silver and gold rings. Two of each. I added them to the tabletop, forming a little heap.
Fragments of a broken life. Whoever these people were, they were self-reliant. They probably hunted in the jungle and farmed some of the better fruits and vegetables too. Not dissimilar from humans long ago.
I glanced at the door. Nighteko had been gone for over an hour. Too long to be out collecting firewood. I stepped from the hut. A stiff breeze whispered over my arms, making the hairs stand on end. I folded them over my chest and rubbed some warmth into them. I was thankful we had a hut to sleep in tonight. It looked like it was going to be chilly.
I saw Nighteko on the other side of the village, crouching at the doorway to a hut similar to the one we would be staying in tonight. He held something in his hands. A stone tablet of some kind. He ran a finger over the inscription.
As I approached, he dropped it and immediately stood up. He didn’t turn to face me.
“Is everything okay?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Everything’s fine. I’ll get the firewood.”
He drifted off again, this time heading for the jungle’s edge. He began collecting scraps of fallen twigs, looking all the world like a lost soul.
I edged to the hut he’d crouched in front of and picked up the stone tablet he’d thumbed. It was etched with some unknown alien language. It took a moment for the translator strip on my neck to turn the language into something I could understand.
It said: HONOR. DUTY. FAMILY. THESE ARE THE TRAITS THAT WE, THE TITANS, HAVE LIVED BY SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME—”
That’s where it snapped off, but it was enough.
Titans? So this was a Titan village.
I gasped and my hand leaped to my mouth.
Mommy… Don’t go…
Father… Don’t leave me…
This wasn’t just any Titan village. It was Nighteko’s home.
He’d learned to fight, he said. And he discovered he possessed his father’s fighting skills. Had he been forced to fight against his will?
He’d been taken. Enslaved.
He wouldn’t trade child slaves because he had been a child slave himself.
He was taken from his parents, from his home.
From here.
I returned to the hut and waited. I would let him have as much time as he needed. It couldn’t have been easy coming face to face with your past.
He returned with an armload of dry wood and dumped them in the middle of the hut. He shifted a stone aside in the floor that twined the one in the roof where the smoke would go. No sooner had he bent down than the fire was lit. It added a great deal of warmth to the hut and made it feel cozy.
I wanted to talk with him about his past, but how did you broach such a subject? He could only talk with me about it once he was ready. Still, maybe he needed a little prod to get him going first.
It was easier to keep the ball rolling once it was already moving.
“This is a Titan village, isn’t it?” I said tentatively.
He paused in stripping the skin off a pair of lizards he’d found somewhere. It surprised me that the sight of dead animals didn’t cause me to doubletake.
“Yes,” he said.
He didn’t look at me and focused on preparing our meals. He fell silent again as he slid the lizards onto a pair of sticks and placed them over the fire.
“This is your home, isn’t it?” I said.
I hated pushing him but I was intrigued. I wanted to know everything I could about him. If he didn’t want to talk about it, then all he had to do was tell me.
He took a seat with his back to the door. “It hasn’t been my home for a long, long time.”
He picked up a stray stick and snapped it into tiny pieces.
And he still wouldn’t look at me.
Maybe he felt like he couldn’t tell me he didn’t want to talk about it. His body language didn’t exactly say he wanted to discuss this subject.
“I’m not going to ask about it anymore,” I said. “But I’m here if you want to talk. I know it can’t be easy. And it’s not my business unless you decide it is.”
He nodded but said nothing. We both watched as the lizards heated up, popping and squealing as the meat cooked. The juices rolled out of it.
“These lizards were always my favorite as a kid,” he said. “My parents knew that, so they refused to let me have it except on special occasions. I never understood that. They always said it’s better to keep something special so that when you
