“I just need to sit a spell.” The statement made no sense to Regi, but he did not understand fragile species. Most rarely left their home planet, preferring the safety of home where they could predict the dangers. Regi waited, expecting Dante to sit. However, it appeared that his language was metaphorical because he stood with his hand braced against the wall, his five digits splayed against the gray metal. His hand had so many pink tones in it that it was quite distressing to see the color of his face.
After several minutes, Dante took a deep breath that made his entire chest heave. He made eye contact. “I'll pick my own room.”
Most of the rooms had already been allocated to crew, but Regi would bribe or intimidate whichever crew was necessary to give Dante this little piece of agency. Regi hoped Dante did not choose the captain’s quarters. Normally, Cota was an adequate captain who had an unusual talent for creating drills that made a routine patrol interesting. He handled an inexperienced crew and cantankerous trainers with equal efficiency.
But he was less confident when he was navigating an actual emergency, and that had made the captain easily aggravated. If Regi had to chase the captain out of the quarters he had chosen, the fireworks would be spectacular. And while Regi did not fear making an enemy of the captain, he did not want to have a verbal altercation in front of Dante, who appeared to suffer in the aftermath of his imprisonment.
Dante pushed the wall and used the force to propel himself down the corridor. Regi followed. Dante walked as though he were on familiar territory. “How long were you on this ship?”
Dante rubbed his face. “At first I could keep track by how fast my beard grew, but then the aliens did something to make it stop growing.” The confession appeared to bother him.
Regi wondered if a beard was some sort of defensive weapon, something like a specialized horn. Dante did have a rather prominent chin, so it was possible he had been mutilated in an attempt to render him more helpless. Regi was sorry that the aliens were already dead because for the first time in his life, Regi felt an urge to kill. The pirates deserved it.
Dante led the way to a storage area. When he reached a door that had been scorched with weapons’ fire, he kicked the foot control. This area was not meant to be lived in, which explained the foot controls suitable for someone carrying merchandise or using hands to control a mechanical sled.
But when this door opened, Regi could see that someone had modified the room’s function. Bunks stood on the sides. Two sets, three beds high. Since storage rooms had mechanisms to secure them, this would have been a slave dorm room that locked from the outside. Regi felt sick at the thought. A large open area had rough markings scribbled on the floor and bits of pieces of broken machinery lay in one corner as though stacked and waiting for someone to come back and sort it.
“I’d be most comfortable here,” Dante said.
That was the last thing Regi had wanted to hear. He would shave his own fur to avoid having Dante sleep in this room. There was no mistaking the function, and even if Regi disabled the locking mechanism, it wouldn't change Dante’s history of imprisonment in this very space. Regi regretted he didn’t have Ean with him. Maybe she could talk him out of such an inappropriate request.
“There are many other sleeping quarters if the one I suggested is offensive.” Regi’s hands fluttered and he forced himself to hook his thumbs into his belt. He hadn’t felt this uncertain since he’d walked out of the temple having failed the test to serve Gavd. Worse, the tests had been so stupid that Regi was almost sure the exalteds had just tortured Regi with stupid requests until Regi went away. But he had that same feeling of sinking defeat now.
Instead of answering, Dante picked up the broken end of a traliqu pressure valve. “Richard taught me how to play shuffleboard. This was his lucky piece. I'm not even sure if we were playing the game right or if he lied about the rules to make himself the grand champion, but he was a good man.”
Dante ran his single thumb over the edge of the valve and sat on the nearest bunk while he fondled the broken mechanical piece. The pain was palpable.
“The captain’s quarters are very nice,” Regi offered. Other than dangling the best quarters in the ship in front of Dante, he wasn't sure what to do.
Dante’s expression was a riot of contradiction. His eyes were moist, but the edges of his mouth turned up in a way that Regi had thought meant humor. “We had some good laughs in here, you know?”
Regi definitively did not know. He hoped to never know. Since manipulation had failed, Regi decided to engage in painful honesty. “I dislike the idea that you would choose to stay in a room where you were kept prisoner.”
The corners of Dante's lips curled farther. If that was his equivalent of a smile, he was amused by Regi's discomfort. It was possible that Dante was a difficult individual.
“I appreciate your concern, but this is the one room on the ship that has any positive memories for me. I am fine staying right here.”
Regi closed his fists and had to intentionally relax his hands. Dante lacked the logic of a sane creature. Manipulations, bribery and honesty had failed him to take a logical position, and Regi didn’t know what tack to take. He was starting to wonder if the gods could move Dante if he had decided to be unmoved.
One of Dante’s breathy laughs caught Regi’s attention. “You’re worried. I get it.” He hesitated. “At least I assume you’re worried about me.”
“I am,” Regi said firmly.
Dante gave a sharp nod. “Fair enough. I’m not going to pretend you’ve got no reason. But I’m not going to go running amuck, and you can lock the door if you’re scared I might.”
Regi’s hands flew to his temples and he touched the back of his fingers to his temples in a silent plea to the gods.
“It’s fine,” Dante said in such an earnest tone that Regi was, again, left speechless.
Once he had gathered his thoughts, he slowly lowered his hands. “I am worried that this ship is unhealthful for you. I do not fear you or your actions.”
“Really?” Dante shifted around to face Regi. “Are you sure that you don’t worry that I might try to off myself and use the ship to do it?”
“I do not understand the words ‘off’ and ‘myself’ when used in conjunction.”
Dante laughed again, but Regi could perceive nothing of humor in this situation. “Off myself,” Dante repeated. “Kill myself. Take myself to the great beyond. Visit the big cattle ranch in the sky. Aren’t you a little worried that I know how to sabotage this ship so I could end everything, including the rest of you schmucks on the ship?”
Regi was shocked to silence again. The translation of schmuck aside—and that was a shocking term to bring into such a conversation—Regi was not sure how Dante could speak of such horrors with such a lack of solemnity. The Lady Sihitva of language, Lord Gyrity of psychology and the Lady Jinja, goddess of the unknowable could confer with one another while sacred animals flitted about their godly feet, and those three would not be able to decipher the mind of one Dante, the huuman.
