I’m not sure how smart it was. The booze made me careless and more eager to have some pleasure on this damn planet.
I decide not to worry about it for now. What’s done is done. It was incredibly good, a bright spot in the darkness of my life in this jungle. And seriously, what are giant cavemen for, if not for that?
I pass him with a flirty smile and a bump of my hip, then curl up in my usual spot on the floor.
The next morning, both of the others are up before me. Aker’iz is eating her fruit porridge and spilling a good amount of it. I make a mental note to explain to Kenz’ox the concept of a bib.
Finding the new mug, I check it out in daylight. When I made it, I engraved some things on it, and it came out reasonably well.
I hand it to Kenz’ox. “Aker’iz’s new mug. This is her name in the speech from my world. They are called ‘letters.’ A-k-e-r-i-z.” I point to each one.
“Wonderful,” Kenz’ox says, puzzled. “And what do these ledrs mean?” He points to the other side of the mug.
“On Earth, they mean… umm…” I don’t know the word for heart, so I point to my own and simulate a heartbeat.
“Chest?” Kenz’ox guesses.
“No, inside. Goesdondon-dondon.”
“Aker,” he says with confidence, using a word that’s new to me.
“Aker,” I repeat, then stop as the penny drops. “Aker… and her name Aker’iz? Mean my heart?”
Blue eyes sparkle. “She is.”
A Spanish name flashes past in my mind:Corazón. Heart. The same concept for naming a beloved baby girl.
“Heart,” I ponder. “On Earth, heart means love. The love of a father for his baby.”
He puts his palm on his chest. “I see. It means the same here. And there are two of them on the mug. A small one inside a big one. Aker’iz’s heart inside mine. It’s remarkably fine. Thank you. Look, Aker’iz! You have the finest mug on Xren. With your name on it. Three times.”
She just whines, not too interested.
“We will use it for our next meal,” Kenz’ox says. “Which will not be long from now, I think.”
I eat a quick breakfast while he goes to the beach to do laundry, bringing Aker’iz in her front pack.
When he returns, we agree to start building the hut at noon. Because I’ve been dreaming about the saucer tech again, and I want to tinker with it for a couple of hours.
In the dream, the glass shapes were less complicated, bigger and more uniform. And they all turned red when I touched them, and when that happened, I knew the saucer would work.
“But dreams are not reality,” I remind myself as I sit down by a random console and gaze into its complicated internals. Yesterday, I think I saw a change in the light inside the saucer, and it gave off a little bit of a hum that only lasted for a minute. But when I checked inside the consoles, it looked much the same as before. And so it does now.
I’m gaining confidence in touching the various parts. I can predict what will happen when I twist a cone or press on a cylinder or reach all the way inside to turn a part around or squeeze it or push at it. The colors change and the shapes change. But nothing about the saucer itself changes. The light is the same, the water and paste generators are the same, the hum doesn’t start again. And the saucer is most certainly not flying.
“If they’d made something just to waste my time, they couldn’t have done any better than this,” I mutter to myself. “It’s as if it’s not connected to the saucer at all.”
I switch to another console and tinker with it, too. It’s the most complicated one of them all, and also the one that is the most mesmerizing to stare into. There must be several thousandcrystal pieces of various shapes, slowly pulsating with light in many colors. It’s by far the most “alive” of the consoles, and also the one I like the least.
“In the other ones,” I mutter to keep myself from just staring, “thattube is usually blue. And that cube is usually green. And there’s none of those circles in the other ones…”
When I get back up, I don’t feel that I’ve made much progress. Or any at all. I think I should find a way to make all the consoles look the same inside, or at least have the same color. But finding out how could easily take me years.
Still, it doesn’t bring me down the way it used to. My pussy still tingles from the incredible experience yesterday, and I catch myself wondering how I can make it happen again.
“I could just ask,” I mutter, standing in the hatch opening and gazing out at the clearing. “But is that appropriate behavior in the caveman culture? I don’t think it is in mine.”
I take the prepared skins off the frames that have stretched them out. They’re as stiff as cardboard after the treatment, but that’s fine. I want to make boots, after all, and those shouldn’t be that supple anyway.
