Sleeping With the Enemy

    Anka shrugged. “I have to be able to get inside their minds to deal with them.”

    Mortzay grunted irritably. “Just don’t begin to behave too much like them! What do you plan to do with the woman? It’s unseemly to keep her in your quarters. It simply isn’t done! And you can’t expect to preserve the relationship when the two of you are under the same roof, so to speak.”

    “We will have to work harder to preserve it,” Anka responded. “Housing is one of the many shortages and until we have permanent residences there isn’t an alternative.”

    “What about the matriarchs?” l’Bevridge suggested. “Perhaps one of them could be persuaded to adopt her? The poor things are lost without their families to cluck over and beyond that, they are too old to live alone. They need young people to help with the chores, or will when they are assigned to housing.”

    Reluctance immediately tightened in Anka’s belly. It was… strange to live with his lover. He would’ve never considered it before, but it was also true that he’d lost his own family and he was reluctant to give up the closeness of living with someone again-however uncomfortable that could be at times. “I think they’ll have plenty of young people to choose from to adopt,” he said finally. “But that’s something that will have to wait.”

* * * *

    Sybil searched Anka’s face worriedly when he joined her in the storage unit where the seeds were kept after his meeting. To her credit, she didn’t ask him anything in front of Cerek, who was with her, sorting through the seeds the Americans had provided.

    She lifted one of the packets and shook it. “They took these damned things right off the shelves! None of them have been altered in any way for the special conditions here. We’ll be lucky if any of them sprout!”

    Anka instantly felt a surge of both anger and anxiety. “We used the same seed in the greenhouses.”

    Sybil looked at him in surprise. “I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe the soil is more similar to Earth’s than I thought even if the conditions aren’t?” She shrugged. “I’ve picked drought resistant plants indigenous to the hotter regions on Earth. I’m sure these are our best bet.”

    Anka gave Cerek the bucket full of seed packets and sent him ahead.

    “What did they say?” Sybil asked breathlessly the moment he was beyond hearing.

    “We will negotiate.”

    She’d expected as much and she still had to struggle with the churning fear that surged inside her. It was going to be worse if she had to go back. She’d shown them she’d never had any real intention of doing what they wanted. They’d ship her directly back and probably to jail.

    Anka tapped her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Trust, nodia. I will protect you… whatever it takes.”

    Sybil swallowed with an effort and nodded instead of telling him that putting himself in danger wouldn’t make her happy either.

    An elderly Sumpturian woman joined them when Sybil and Cerek made it to their garden project. Sybil had noticed her slow progress toward them and wondered at it. She hadn’t realized the woman had them in her sights until she upended the empty bucket she’d carried out and sat down on it.

    She looked Sybil over with frank curiosity and began to babble at her in her native tongue. Sybil stared at her dismay. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand your language.”

    “She said we were doing this all wrong,” Cerek translated and then spoke to the woman.

    The woman snorted in disgust.

    “What did you tell her?”

    “That you couldn’t speak or understand hiutzu.”

    “I’m guessing that’s your language? I suppose I should try to learn it,” she said a little doubtfully. Smiling at the older woman, she held out her hand. “I’m Sybil Hunter.”

    “We don’t shake hands,” Cerek said in a low voice. “You smile and bow politely.”

    Sybil reddened. “Sorry.” She tried to comply with Cerek’s suggestion.

    The old woman snorted again. “Look like cow squat!”

    Cerek uttered a snorting laugh and tried to pretend he was coughing when Sybil sent him a narrow eyed glare. He shrugged. “She’s old. They figure they’ve earned the right to be rude. You should watch the way the other young rilous greet older rilous.”

    “Oh god!” Sybil muttered. “Don’t tell me! You have different greetings for everybody?”

    He considered it frowningly. “I guess so… sort of. It’s more a… variation. You bow one way to elders and a different way to peers. And then a little differently if it’s someone of great respect.”

    “They’ll think I’m being rude for staring.”

    “Well, I guess I could show you,” he said a little doubtfully.

    The elder woman obviously wanted in on the conversation. She spoke rapidly to Cerek, no doubt asking what had been said. Clearly, she understood just enough English to be insulting!

    “She wants to know why you aren’t wearing a hat to protect your skin for your lover.”

    Sybil stared down at her arms in dismay. “I don’t have a hat.”

    The old woman promptly removed her own and handed it over when Cerek had translated. “You use. Me old. Look like…,” she paused, frowning, “mertirz anyhow.”

    Cerek chuckled and the old woman swatted him.

    Sybil bit her lip. “What was that about?”

    “She said I was disrespectful for laughing.”

    “What’s merirz?”

    Cerek turned red faced. He cleared his throat but finally shrugged. “It’s a bad word. Well, not polite to use.”

    “How do I say thank you?”

    He demonstrated the correct bow and said, “Shumitzfa.”

    Sybil tried to mimic him, but could see from his face that she didn’t pull it off very well. The old woman confirmed it, uttering another snort and then babbling at Cerek. “She said I looked like a she-man and you looked like a man-she.”

    “Her polite way of pointing out that you look effeminate when you do that and I look like a man trying to be woman?” Sybil guessed dryly.

    Cerek looked surprised. “Exactly!”

    “I think I’m getting the hang of figuring out her insults.”

    Sybil had no idea why the woman had singled her out for insults, but she stayed and pointed out what they were doing wrong all the way through the process of planting. Anka arrived just as she was contemplating knocking the old woman in the head. The old woman immediately went into a tizzy, leaping off her bucket and standing between Anka and her. Sybil simply stood gaping while they argued. Finally, clearly disgusted, the old woman wandered off with her bucket, flinging insults, Sybil didn’t doubt, over her shoulder as she left.

    Anka looked at her with amusement. Jerking a dismissal at Cerek, he helped her up.

    “What in the world was that all about? I didn’t say anything to upset her! I swear! I was really careful.”

    “She was offended that I showed up when you were working,” Anka said, laughter threading his voice.

    “I’m sorry, what?”

    “The… uh… lecture was for me. On Sumptra, we live in the home of our mothers. My sisters would never have allowed their lovers to see them working in the garden and their lovers would’ve had better manners than to show up before they’d had time to groom themselves.”

    “Oh,” Sybil said in dismay, wondering abruptly just how bad she looked. It didn’t take much imagination when she could see she was filthy from crawling around in the dirt.

    “I told her that you were always beautiful to me.”

    Sybil couldn’t help but be pleased. “What did she say to that?”