I start to measure the material, making marks with a piece of charcoal from the fire. It’ll be the first time I make shoes of any kind. But if it’s one thing Xren does, it’s forcing you to try new things. These boots aren’t going to be pretty, but they will bemine. The next pair will be better.
Getting out my little knife, I start to cut into the dinosaur skin sheets. They’re tougher than they look, and I wish I had better tools. At some point, I’ll need a needle and solid thread, too. But I’ll find a way.
“Always working,” Kenz’ox says as he and Aker’iz come out of the greenery that separates the clearing from the beach. “If only the tribesmen would work as hard as you do.”
“Work must be done,” I tell him as I finish the first piece of the boot. “So things get better.”
Aker’iz demands to be carried around the clearing, and Kenz’ox obliges. “It’s the only way they get better. The hut for drying meat will give us better food. Right, Aker’iz?”
The baby seems to have no opinion about that.
“That’s abokeranbush,” he tells her—and also me, of course, since the baby doesn’t understand yet. “It bears no fruit and its roots are sour. But they can be used as strings when twisted. This kind of grass is very common. We just call it grass. It’s soft and smells fresh, so we often get it to sleep on. That tree over there is asmeker. That’s all I know about it. This is a sapling from some other tree…” He keeps narrating.
I change my position so I can see them as they slowly walk around the clearing. If I had my phone and could film them, and then publish it on social media on Earth, that video would definitely go viral. A giant father, all muscle and vivid blue stripes, wearing only a loincloth and a long sword, carrying his small baby girl in his arms and quietly explaining what they’re looking at… the contrast between the way he looks and what he’s doing is so stark and sweet that every woman on Earth would just melt. And a good few men, too.
I know it has an effect on me, despite me fighting it. Could he be the perfect male? It’s like he’s using a cheat code and is bypassing all my control mechanisms to make me helplessly attracted to him.
I try to convince myself not to be so starry-eyed about him.
He’s a savage!
Yeah, but right now he’s teaching me about the planet while pretending to teach Aker’iz.
He’s killed three men!
Sure, but that sounds a lot like self-defense. And he was protecting his baby daughter.
He just moved into my home!
What was he supposed to do? He has to keep that baby safe. And he’s being a pretty good houseguest, doing much more than his share of the work. Also, he’s extremely talented with his tongue. Did I notice that?
He… sigh. Okay, fine. Suit myself.
I suspect that discussing with myself is the kind of thing that crazy people do, so I decide to focus on my work.
I’m not falling for this guy, of course. We have very different lives and goals. And my life is on Earth, not here. So he might make my life a little easier while he’s here, before I can figure out the saucer. What’s not to like?
Getting attached to him and his baby,says the quarrelsome part of me. But I ignore it.
Kenz’ox places Aker’iz in her backpack and leans it up against the usual rock. “She was so bored she fell asleep.”
“Babies get bored easily,” I state and get to my feet. “But now she can be in charge of the hut building like a real chief. Not work, only watch.”
He chuckles. “It sounds like chiefs are the same on Xren as on your homeworld. I will cut some suitable pieces of wood. Perhaps you can cut the branches and twigs off them?”
I’m happy to let him take the lead for this. I’ve never built a hut, and he may have built hundreds. And he has the sword.
He cuts down some saplings close to the clearing, and I strip them of leaves and twigs.
“The hut doesn’t need to be big,” he tells me as he chops. “Just big enough to hang meat in. And to light a fire in, perhaps.”
I have some idea what he means, but I’ll wait and see.
We dig holes for the bottom parts of the thin logs and steady them with rocks, tying them together at the top so they form a teepee-like shape.
“Hmm,” Kenz’ox says as we take a couple of steps back to admire it. “It doesn’t look right. It should be wider high up.”
I grab a cut-off branch and place it between two of the logs on opposite sides, forcing them apart so the cone shape only tapers high up. The saplings are more than soft enough to bend, giving the skeleton of the hut more of an inverted U-shape instead of an inverted V. “How about that?”
