A17 Daskatoma (Patreon)

I've really enjoyed having this week off! It's let me make so much progress on Executioner's Gambit!

This scene marks the beginning of the big changes I have in mind for this book. If you've read prior versions, you'll note that Daskatoma is a lot friendlier in this initial meeting than before.

———

In the morning, a call from the captain interrupted Tori’s investigation. Normally, she accepted calls audio-only, but she felt weird about keeping her camera off for the captain. A heavy-set male in his fifties winced when he saw Tori’s face, but otherwise didn’t react.

“Um, hello, sir?”

“Investigator Tori,” he said with an official tone, “I haven’t received a copy of your investigation report.”

Tori blinked in surprise. Was she supposed to produce one? No one had said anything about that. “My … report?”

He explained, “Security Chief Tipohee informed me that you’re running your investigation independently from his department.”

Was she? She had said she would, but the chief hadn’t exactly confirmed whether that was okay or not. “Yes, uh…” she said. She experimented with wordings in her head for a moment before saying, “We decided that it might be more efficient—”

“Well, if you’re working independently,” interrupted the captain, “then you can’t exactly expect him to file your paperwork for you.”

Lowering her eyes, she agreed, “No, sir, I suppose that would be unfair. I could write it up now—”

But the captain was already shaking his head. “It’s too late for that now, Tori. The commissioner is going to be here any moment, and I have a long-standing policy that any supervisor who fails to get me their paperwork on time for the commissioner’s bi-weekly inspection is expected to deliver it orally.”

Her throat tightened, and she swallowed a lump. “Oh, okay,” she said quietly. “Well, I’ve been re-interviewing the witnesses—”

“Not to me, Inspector,” he said, cutting her off. “Report to the airlock outside the commissioner’s office, and wait there for him to call for you.”

Her eyes opened wide, and she whimpered, “The commissioner?”

“And in the future, Tori, make sure you get your paperwork in on time.”

# # #

The liaison explained the airlock’s controls, and Tori tried to listen, but she was shaking so hard that she could scarcely concentrate on what he said. “Th-thanks,” she mumbled to the tall male. He raised a paw to touch her shoulder, but when she flinched, he pulled away.

“You’ll be fine,” he promised. Then, he stepped back into the corridor. He turned and gave her one more reassuring smile before closing the hatch and sealing her inside.

Tori panted, trying in vain to control her emotions. She felt that she’d done a good job pretending to be fearless so far, but she hadn’t had to face another krakun. Entering a krakun’s quarters was how she had been injured, after all. She stared at the hatch leading back out to the corridor and contemplated cranking it back open. What would happen if she fled?

Forcing herself to move forward, she put a trembling pad on the intercom button, and it clicked with a thunk that echoed off the tiny chamber’s metal walls. “Hello, sir?” she barely managed, her throat constricted and dry.

“Investigator Tori?” she heard in the deep throaty tones of the krakun language. “I was just reviewing your transfer records. We’ve got lots to discuss. Please, come in.”

No! No! No! her brain screamed. Don’t go in there! “Um, well, I would,” she explained after a long hesitation, “but I’m still recovering from sulfur poisoning. My doctor forbids me from any additional exposure. Perhaps we could just discuss the case over the intercom?”

I can’t believe I just told the commissioner, “No.” Has anyone ever done that before … and lived? Her pulse raced so quickly that she felt lightheaded.

She closed her eyes, taking deep, calming breaths for a long moment before the krakun replied, “Okay.”

She started to relax, but from beyond the metal hatch, she heard the whir of pumps. Staring at the airlock’s status panel, she watched in horror as the sulfur levels in the chamber beyond started changing. They dropped lower and lower until the pumps switched back off.

Then, the handwheel on the hatch in front of her spun, and the krakun pulled the door open. “C’mon out.”

Tori ducked her head slightly so she could peer through the hatchway into the enormous room beyond. Swirls of drab colors—yellows, oranges, browns—covered the walls, and picture frames that were each as large as the apartment she shared with Druka hung here and there. Her eyes flitted from frame to frame, but they were all blank—at least in the spectrum visible to geroo.

In the middle of the six-story tall room sat a krakun, his back covered in black scales, his belly in orange. Unlike the geroo who walked upright, the krakun preferred to stand on all fours, then sat back on their haunches when they needed to use their front claws to manipulate objects.

The krakun opened a refrigerated cabinet in the far wall and pulled out a bottle. “I’d offer you a drink,” he chuckled before flicking the lid aside with his thumb talon, “but my visits tend to be short enough that the crew has taken to stocking only a single beverage in my refrigerator.”

He took a swig of the white liquid, and when he set it back down on the deck, Tori saw something long and yellow squirming inside the glass. She clenched her jaw, resisting the urge to vomit.

The commissioner gestured with a single talon that was longer than Tori was tall. “Come on out. I’ve reprogrammed the atmosphere to match what you’re accustomed to. There’s no reason to be frightened.”

No reason to be frightened? thought Tori as she looked up at the creature towering above her. Yeah, right! But still, she swallowed down her fear and took a cautious step over the hatchway’s rim. In a louder-than-normal voice, she announced, “So, I’ve only been aboard the Sailor’s Gambit I for a few days—”

But the enormous krakun interrupted almost immediately, “Yes, I see that, but how did you get here?”

She stared up at him, confused by the question. How did he think she got there? She couldn’t exactly put on a space suit and leap from one ship to another. “How? Well, Commissioner Sarsuk dropped us off here, sir.”

“No. No. I mean; how did you get here?” he asked again. “I specifically remember declining your transfer application, so why did your commissioner deliver you?”

Oh, that made more sense. “I don’t know…” she started to say before her brain fully dissected his words. “Wait. Why did you decline my transfer?”

“Because… Honestly, my reasoning is none of your business—and beside the point,” he huffed. “If I declined your transfer, then how did it go through?”

Tori swallowed. She hadn’t actually filled out any paperwork as Aziz had arranged the transfer. She’d presumed he had arranged everything above board, but perhaps not? Aziz was certainly well-connected enough to push a transfer through the computers even if Daskatoma had declined it. “I … really wouldn’t know, sir. Computer glitch? I’m not a computer expert.”

The krakun closed his eyes halfway and glared at her as if looking for a lie. “That seems highly unlikely—”

“I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t want me here,” the geroo said. “The Executioner is killing off your crewmembers, Commissioner—”

“Deputy Commissioner,” the krakun corrected her.

“Deputy…?”

“Deputy Commissioner Daskatoma. Or just Daskatoma if you prefer,” he explained casually. “My title isn’t exactly official or anything. My uncle just made it up.”

Tori stared a long moment, at a loss for words. “Your … uncle?”

“Commissioner Troykintrassa,” said Daskatoma. “Yeah, he’s my uncle.”

Tori raised her paws to her temples and closed her eyes. “Okay, I’m confused,” she said. “If your uncle is the commissioner, then why—?”

The krakun sighed. Setting his drink to the side, he lowered himself onto his elbows so that his enormous maw was only meters from Tori’s trembling form. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t understand. How could you? Krakun society and geroo society are so different, it’s amazing we can communicate at all,” said the deputy commissioner. “What you need to understand is that not every krakun has a job. Only about half the population does.”

For Tori—or any geroo, really—that was a baffling statement. Didn’t work? Apart from the young cubs still in their mother’s pouches, everyone aboard a gateship worked—even if that “job” was just going to school to prepare a young geroo for a real job. They got weekends off and the occasional holiday, but just … didn’t work? What did they do?

“Wow. That sounds blissful,” she sighed, not realizing she’d said it loud enough for him to hear.

“Ha! No,” coughed the gigantic beast. “Being unemployed is anything but blissful.”

He sighed and opened his enormous claws as he searched for words. “Again, you probably can’t imagine because the company has crafted geroo society so that you have safety nets. No matter how bad your luck, no matter how crappy you are at sticking to a budget, you’re never going to go hungry, you’re never going to have to sleep out in the corridor.”

Tori nodded. Both the free mess and the barracks on Level 25 were open to the public, but she’d never really understood how any geroo landed there. Food and housing grew progressively cheaper on the lower decks, so what did destitute geroo blow their paychecks on that they couldn’t afford to live on the ship’s lowest decks?

“But krakun society doesn’t work that way,” Daskatoma explained. “If you can’t afford food, you’ll go hungry. If you can’t afford rent, you’ll be out on the streets.”

Tori’s eyes opened wider. He was right. This was hard to imagine. “Why?”

The krakun paused, clearly surprised by the question. “Why what?”

“Why doesn’t krakun society work the same way?” she asked with all sincerity. “If the company can accomplish that for the geroo, then why can’t they do that for themselves?”

He stared down at her for long moment, his maw slightly agape. “Y’know, honestly, that’s a terrific question, and we could debate politics all day,” he said, “but it’s really beside the point. All you need to understand is that there’s a lot more krakun than there are jobs.”

Okay, that she could kind of imagine. If there were only half as many jobs as there were people, then that left many without—no matter how skilled or competent they might be.

Daskatoma explained, “We need to work not only to pay our bills but because our entire social standing is based on how much we earn.”

Tori frowned. “And I’m guessing,” she said quietly, “that you’re in the fifty percent that’s unemployed.”

“Yes, exactly!” he said with a grin, relieved that she understood. “So, a really common tactic on my world is for someone with a job to hire a family member who doesn’t have a job to do the work for them.”

She blinked. All the understanding that she thought she’d worked out vanished. “Wait. What?” she asked, “How does that work?”

The krakun shrugged. “Just as simple as that, honestly. The company pays my uncle to do this job, and he pays me half of his salary to do it for him,” he said. “We both have to economize to survive on half-a-salary, but he can’t complain because he doesn’t have to do any work. I can’t complain because I wouldn’t have a job otherwise.”

She shook her head. “And if the company realizes that he’s not doing his job?”

That made the gigantic reptile boom a room-shaking laugh. “Oh, they know, Tori! Like I said, subcontracting to a relative is really common on Krakuntec. And the hope is that if I do a really good job, then when a position opens, the company will hire me, and my uncle can go back to doing his own job.”

She tried to imagine paying someone half her salary to do her job. What would she do with her days? And where would she find someone who wasn’t working his own job every day? She asked, “And … how long have you been working for your uncle, Daskatoma?”

The levity drained from his scaled face. “For the past two hundred years or so.”

She blinked. “Oh, wow. I guess new positions really don’t open up very often.”

“No, Tori,” he agreed, “they don’t.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JdZTWXcQ6lNdTbK6-fPEGfI-oeECyqZtjergKzGn6ME/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?