Chapter 4: Round Table

Schaffer sat at the kitchen table, a dozen Polars crowding around it as they dug into their supper, Osha doling out portions to the other aliens as they waited patiently for their share. Shrimp sat beside him, Shrimp and the mischievous twins were present too, along with a few of the hunters and some of the larger females. Tonight they were feasting on a large native animal that had been brought down the night before, its meat seared and served with some canned vegetables than the pack had taken a liking to. Despite his attempt to teach the Polars to use plates, they preferred their meat served on the metal table and they ate with their claws, hooking the slabs of dripping meat that the pack’s matriarch passed them and tearing into it with abandon.

The base was built to human spec, and so there wasn’t room for the entire pack to eat at one table as they had done in their longhouse, so they usually alternated by splitting the pack into two groups and having one forage and hunt while the other was on downtime. Schaffer ate with a knife and fork, lacking the hooked claws of the Polars, he had to stay pretty active these days lest Osha overfeed him in her endless quest to ensure that everyone ate their fill. For them it was a matter of survival, or at least it had been before they had moved into the outpost with him, their insulating fat could mean the difference between life or death out in the frozen wastes. They still had to range quite far to find game, and with no environment suits that would fit them, it was still a good idea to stay plump.

Schaffer looked up from his plate to see Zagza enter with the newcomer alongside him, Riya, that was her name. Her hair was damp, she must have just returned from a shower, and she waited hesitantly in the doorway as Zagza lumbered over and selected a large cut of meat for himself. Sensing that she expected some help, Schaffer rose from his seat and walked over to her.

“You’re surely hungry, come sit with us, the large female over there will give you a share of the food.”

She seemed ... happier than she had been when she had arrived, that was good, she must have gown accustomed to the Polars by now. She eyed the table apprehensively, the giant, furry aliens bustling and brushing shoulders as they chewed hunks of steak and shared side dishes between their neighbors. Though they had human cooking utensils, the Polars still preferred to cook their food in the traditional manner, the appetizing scent of food roasted over an open flame hanging in the air.

“I’m uh ... I’m a vegetarian, I don’t eat meat.”

“Oh, well we have some vegetables too, I’m sure I can find you something that you’ll like.”

He returned to the table, Riya trailing behind him, the Polars making room for her as she pulled up a chair and sat down. The aliens simply sat on the floor with their legs crossed, tall enough that it put them at chest-height to the human-sized furniture, only the smallest members of the pack were seated in the same manner as their human counterparts.

Osha seemed delighted that their guest had decided to join in on the feast, immediately selecting a sizable hunk of flesh and dropping it heavily on the surface in front of her. Riya turned her nose up at it, looking to Schaffer for help, and he attempted to signal to Osha that their new visitor didn’t eat meat. She seemed perplexed, but she got the picture when Schaffer reached across the table and handed Riya some canned vegetables, humans were still an oddity to Osha and she seemed to just accept all of Schaffer’s comparatively strange habits rather than attempt to understand them.

Riya was able to secure some red beans and rice from a can, along with some tomatoes that Schaffer had roasted over the fire to supplement his own diet. The beans were popular with the Polars, they had the texture of meat and tasted similar when seasoned, and so there were always ample supplies in the store room.

Their guest seemed to relax a little more as she ate, unperturbed by the curious stares of the younger pack members, it occurred to Schaffer that they would not have been aware that humans could come in so many different skin colors. He felt as if he should strike up conversation with her, but he had spent so long alone with the aliens that he couldn’t remember human social conventions anymore. Maybe he really was going native, he’d better make an effort now that a chance to refresh his social skills had presented itself to him. Perhaps some alcohol would loosen both of their tongues.

“You know,” he said as he leaned over the table, “the Polars don’t take to alcohol very well and I have quite a large stockpile left over from the previous occupants of the base. It’s good stuff, but I’ve not found a reason to drink it until now. You in?”

Riya considered for a moment, then nodded.

“I’ve had a very ... weird day, I could do with a pick-me-up.”

Schaffer left the kitchen and made his way down to the store room, locating a bottle of bourbon whiskey that he had spied a few weeks prior, retrieving the copper colored liquid from a shelf and dusting off the glass bottle to examine the label. Kentucky origin, aged in genuine oak barrels, about twelve years old if his math was right. He didn’t even know what month it was half of the time, there were fewer hours in a day here and the Borealan calendar was all screwy. If it wasn’t for the status updates he sent back to the UNN he might have completely lost track of Earth-standard time.

He took the bottle back to the kitchen and brought out a couple of shot glasses from a cabinet, the Polars watching curiously as he poured the drinks and passed one to Riya. She sipped at it daintily, the whiskey warming her belly, and sighed happily.

“Yep, that’s what I needed, they’re so stingy with their booze on the carrier.”

“Yeah I hear that,” Schaffer replied with a chuckle, “back when I used to work in customs on the Pinwheel the alcohol was always the first thing to go missing whenever we took inventory.”

He swilled his beverage around in his mouth, enjoying the flavor, this really was a good bottle. He wondered briefly who it had originally belonged to, had the owner been transferred off-planet, or had he been lost to the tundra or the cabin fever like so many others before him?

“So, where are you from originally?” Schaffer asked. “Before I was stationed on the Pinwheel, and before I came here of course, I lived in Michigan back on Earth. I joined the UNN when I was able, though I quickly found out that I was better suited to managerial positions than infantry.”

“Mangala,” she replied. “I grew up there before becoming a pilot.”

“Really?” Schaffer asked, intrigued. “That’s an Indian colony on Mars, right? That’s quite a pedigree, I’ve never met anyone from Mars before.”

Mars was humanity’s first colony, established long before the UNN had united the world’s feuding countries into a single organization. With their population ballooning in the 2200s, India had laid claim to large swathes of the planet and had settled the plains of Utopia Planitia and Arcadia, establishing extensive habitats and cities there. Mars was rich in minerals, and before long the planet had become a gigantic shipyard, the low gravity and thin atmosphere facilitating the production of large spacecraft that had greatly extended the reach of human exploration. If she was born on Mars, Riya must have belonged to a wealthy merchant family, it was uncommon to see Martians abandon that lifestyle and venture out into space.

“Everyone who finds out where I’m from inevitably asks why I left, so I’ll save you the trouble,” she said as she poured herself another glass of bourbon. “Mangala is a wasteland, sure the parks and gardens beneath the domes make a pretty picture for tourism pamphlets, but you take one step out into the big red and it makes the Sahara look like a more desirable vacation spot.”

“Big red?” Schaffer asked as he cocked his head, a habit he had picked up from the Polars.

“The planet-spanning desert, thousands of miles of dust and sand that’s ten times colder than the tundra beyond these walls. You have to wear special environment suits to venture outside, because the sand is so fine that it gets into everything, it’ll mess up the joints on a standard issue.”

“Surely that isn’t a problem if you’re inside the domes?”

“Not if you don’t mind living in a snow globe,” she scoffed. “The planet is dead, inert, has been for millions of years. My ancestors started a new life there to get away from the crowded cities of Earth, but ironically Mars is even more restrictive and confining. People are stacked shoulder to shoulder like sardines these days, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. They act like it’s normal, but I don’t understand how they can spend all day looking out of the windows at miles of emptiness and still think everything is perfectly fine. Sure the standard of living is high, and the habitats are designed to trick your brain into thinking you’re taking a stroll through a forest rather than living in a glass blister on a corpse of a planet, but you can’t walk ten feet without running into someone.”

“I didn’t serve on many ships,” Schaffer replied. “The Pinwheel is very spacious, never had any feelings of claustrophobia or overcrowding while I worked there. So you’re saying life on a jump carrier is more tolerable than life in Mangala? I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true,” she said, waving her half-empty glass to punctuate her statement. “Don’t judge the colony based on beauty shots of the domes, I have larger quarters on the carrier than I did back home. I’ll always resent that my ancestors never claimed a planet during the great expansion, they thought their little slice of Mars was so desirable, but now look at us. Did you know that the damned Amish have an entire planet to themselves, and we don’t?”

“So I’ve heard.”

Shrimp watched them drink as she sat beside Schaffer, perhaps feeling left out as the two humans chatted, her claws drumming on the table impatiently as she glanced between them. She was used to getting her friend’s undivided attention, and now this newcomer was getting in her way. Schaffer poured another glass of bourbon for himself, and Shrimp tugged at the sleeve of his jacket, giving him her best puppy dog eyes. She pointed at the drink, but Schaffer pulled it out of her reach.

“You won’t like this, buddy, it’ll probably shut down your kidneys.”

The little Polar pouted, tugging more insistently, it was probably Schaffer’s own fault for encouraging her to be more assertive. Oh well, one sip would probably send Shrimp scurrying across the kitchen to wash her tongue under the faucet, a small amount wouldn’t do her any harm. He drank from his glass, downing the amber liquid within until scarcely a mouthful remained, then slid it across the table towards Shrimp. The alien examined it, tapping the glass with a sharp claw, then lifted it to her lips and took a sip.

To Schaffer’s surprise she didn’t spit it out, closing her eyes and hissing at the unpleasant taste, the fur on her tail standing on end to make it look like a black and white feather duster. The Polars were primarily carnivorous and they couldn’t metabolize alcohol nearly as well as humans, they’d get black out drunk on beer alone and drinking human-sized portions risked poisoning them.

“Good?” Schaffer asked.

Shrimp shook her head, returning the glass to her human companion, who reached over to scratch her between the ears apologetically.

“That one seems to like you a lot,” Riya said as she poured herself another helping, they had downed almost half the bottle already. “Is she like your pet or something?”

“She’s the runt of the litter,” Schaffer replied as the alien rubbed her head against his shoulder, “so I named her Shrimp. I guess she gravitated towards me because we’re about the same size. If she has a name of her own she’s never tried to correct me, when I first arrived here I couldn’t even communicate as little as we do now.”

“I wanted to ask about that,” Riya said as she started on her next glass, “but I wasn’t sure if I had the clearance. Just what the hell are you doing out here, and why are these Polars living with you? If you’re even allowed to talk about it that is, I don’t need some Naval Intelligence spooks breathing down my neck because the bourbon gave you a loose tongue.”

“No, I can tell you most of the story. I got stranded here a while back, I’m under obligation not to reveal how or why to anyone as part of my agreement with the UNN, but I ended up alone in the outpost without food or heat. With my options running out, I walked into the tundra to try to find help, my environment suit’s charge depleted and I ended up passed out in a snow drift. I should have died, but these guys found me and nursed me back to health. They fed me, took me in as one of their own, and eventually we came back to the outpost and repaired it. The UNN needed someone to man the base and I had nothing to go back to, so we came to an arrangement whereby I would operate the equipment here, and my pack would be allowed to live with me. Most of their kind had already been relocated to a refugee colony in Siberia, this group had been left behind, and they had been eking out a living in the wastes before they ran into me. I might have called it fate were I a more superstitious man.”

“You don’t miss living with your own kind?” Riya asked. Schaffer shook his head, swirling his drink in his hand and watching the liquid as it formed a small whirlpool. “You don’t miss living on the Pinwheel? I’ve been there on shore leave, that place is more like a damned resort than a military installation. A lot of people would kill for a chance to be stationed there.”