Arsun's Run

[The Pakkrat]

There was a sea of thoughts in the crowd that received us. Everywhere I looked, Humaniti, Akumgeda and Gvegh were thinking thoughts of curiosity and mixed welcomes. My telepathy let me Listen to each of them on first eye-to-eye meeting. The charisma of this wall of sophonts was parted by a mental silence, a gap in the stream of consciousness about one female Vargr. There were no thoughts issuing from her! I had to double-take her thoughtless silence as I took in what must be Governor Khoset Darrtha.

She was tall even for a female Gvegh Vargr. She wore a two-piece sari and choli dress ensemble decorated by belts of gold accented by the sharp, shard-like ornaments prevalent to the Gvegh fashion. Such had carried along even into this era of integration inside the Solomani Preserve. Over her midriff-revealing ensemble, the Governor wore a draping, layered cloak that looked official and was colored in a palette that Humaniti would call garish. Oval ruby gems accented each piece of jewelry, a metal choker-collar, (no digit rings or earrings that I could see), especially the silver gossamer of a headpiece that framed a cowl hood that enveloped her head, ears and spilled down in gathers about her neck mane and shoulders.

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And still I could not Hear a thing from her mind! The light beige pelt was tawnier than Donrairr’s egg-white pelt and she stood an almost-Human, upright stance. Governor Darrtha stood taller than usual for a Vargr with one arm out from under her cloak and threaded through the arm of a Human man dressed in a black suit with a Vargr-garish tie down his chest from his neck. Given all the camera drones pointed at this meeting, I guessed this Human was the Bath Senator to the Solomani Preserve. Him I could Hear. But not her. Khoset Darrtha was a silent hole in the sea of minds, an eye of the storm much like the tropical storm outside the Downport concourse. It was strangely a relaxing void amid the throngs. Those penetrating green eyes locked onto me and a quirky half-smile which crooked one side of her muzzle. There was age behind those eyes though she moved like a young adult. Was she on some brand of Vargr anagathics?

Her mind was a silence that was not unwelcome in the background hum of the crowd’s thought streams and the pelting rain on the concourse view panes. And I was inwardly baffled as Donrairr urged me by my arm, feigning the need to help my handicapped leg. I could feel her strengthened grip and Hear her seething envy at the lavish wear of the Governor. I rapped my red cypress staff on the floor as if to summon up my personal charisma as we approached the reception party. Perhaps I needed to get closer to better Hear the Governor. Ancients, I was so outclassed!

I heard voices of media field correspondents as they spoke commentary to their camera drones. They were another wash of sensory input for me but nestled in the roar of aerospace jets taking off or landing, I was able to tune them out and keep my dignity. Me, Arsun Unrralarr, a nobody was representing the Kechk Unity. I never more felt like a backwater, Desert world bazaar hawker than I did this day as I approached the Governor and the Senator.

I almost lost my pace of steps when I Listened to the Senator next to the empty nothingness of Governor Khoset Darrtha. His Solomani birthname was Keegan Albrecht but his Pack name was Vruegh (truth in the Gvegh tongue). Wait. He had a Pack name? I almost stopped in my tracks as Donrairr and I came closer. My staff missed a beat. This Human man was in a Pack – her Pack? He was her panet? I could not help probing him when I could not so much as catch a surface thought from Governor Darrtha. And her smile sharpened just then. It must have registered on my face. The heights of her personal charisma, enhanced by her official position, shadowed my own like an eclipse. Senator Albrecht seemed ignorant to the unspoken exchange between the Governor’s reactions to my discoveries. Split seconds flew by almost too fast for me as I searched his memory for the definition of panet.

I digested the definition and the current connotation of panet in those last few steps with no time to generate my own reaction or judgement. I received the Senator’s mental description and had to accept his perception and accepted worldview. I was before the Governor in a few seconds to come.

 

[The Pakkrat]

A panet, or so I read from Senator Albrecht was a portmanteau of two words crushed together. ComPANion and pET are both used as a term of endearment of deep friendship sharply bordering a mate relationship between two sophonts of different species and is a positive connotation of psychological compatibility even if genetics are a hard barrier. When they aren’t killing each other, Humans and Vargr generally like each other on a fundamental level, perhaps due to some shared originality in the distant and forgotten past. The Senator had been welcomed into the Governor’s Pack, specifically her nuclear family as her panet. It flashed to me that he considered her his panet, but there was more to that to which I had no time to unpack. They were in love! Though mating was genetically (and hopefully physically, I shuddered in my core) out of the question, the panet relationship was real to this couple. Real and often met with scandalous reactions from the public eye, especially between a Solomani Human and a Gvegh Vargr. The tumult these two must have had what with their Careers, reputations, and charisma! And still, I had no time to sum up a reaction as my claw came up to answer the outstretched Human hand of Senator Keegan Albrecht. Stills shots with flashes from levitating camera drones caught the meeting as the reporters’ voices raised sharply in volume.

And I so dearly wanted the time to digest what I had Heard from Senator Albrecht as our extremities clasped. It was only my life experience as a telepath that I was able to conceal my frustration. His hands were soft, warm, and Human. A genuine grip, no digit claws, well-manicured nails, no rings or even a bracelet or chronometer he in his mind called a watch. (Stop wasting time on useless Listening!) The Solomani symbol was again a pin in the lapel of his suit jacket. I envied his tie for under a second. Drones swarmed about us with still shots and panning orbits. I was out of time.

“Emissary Arsun Unrralarr,” greeted Albrecht. His Gvegh was perfect. He spoke it better than I could have despite his Human anatomy. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I present you to Governor Khoset Darrtha. Welcome to Bath and the Solomani Preserve on behalf of the Preserve Senate of worlds.” He turned me to the female who had released the Human arm to put out a claw. I took it only upon invitation.

“Governor,” I managed to say only by grace of my training as an Agent, “It is my honor to meet you at last. This is Dr. Donrairr Zuutig, my physician and first officer on our ship, the Ninth Square.” Khoset’s scent was sweet and hard at the same time, much like her higher-charisma claw grasp atop mine. Only later would I learn that the scented oils she wore over her own, personal scent was a mixed myrrh and frankincense. Sweet and feminine to ride the hard of her position as Governor. It was suggestive on two fronts and in her void of mental silence. She was alluring and yet official as the situation would allow her. But above it all hung her personal charisma against which I felt dwarfed. It likely showed on me.

And still the silence. At this proximity, most sophonts’ sense of Self is strongest but I’m that good at penetrating mental shielding. And still I got nothing! But I did learn that it was not her Self that was voiding her thoughts. It was something else. Clearly, she was having thoughts. They were in her paralanguage, her grip and on her face. But nothing via my telepathy. I was again without one of my greater senses and her grip seemed to be suggestive that understood the delicacy of this meeting. I had to open myself further to mundane cues and sensory input. I had relied on my telepathy for too long.

Graciously, Khoset Darrtha clasped claws next with Donrairr and said, “Welcome to Bath, Dr. Zuutig.” Her voice was liquid silver, bright but with a hint of sharpness couched in her charisma. Agenda was behind her voice as I analyzed her speech in Gvegh, not my first language. Ambition rode in the way her claw tips had touched my wrist. This Khoset had goals. “A special welcome to my Gvegh cousins from rimward.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

“Thank you, Governor Darrtha,” answered Donrairr before taking charismatic place beside me as the four of us turned to take group stills and live captures for the media. All grins, diplomatic and heartfelt. The press launched questions into the air while the Downport Administration beamed that such an important meeting had taken place at their establishment. The concourse was clean and still smelled faintly of ammonia and freshened air though the atmosphere of Bath was Standard, breathable without aid or filter. It was a garden world of gravity and atmosphere despite the huge ocean coverage.

“I am pleased to receive the Emissary,” Khoset Darrtha said. She took the initiative given her by charisma. “Let us talk details of the coming Akumgeda and Gvegh tomorrow. Tonight, I am throwing a celebration gathering to welcome your successful leap over Yaskoydris’ Cry. Do say you will come, Arsun Unrralarr?”

The dip out of titles was a cue and I saw it for the private venue invitation it was. Nodding my head dumbly, we turned again to the crowd to answer as many safe questions as we could before leaving the terminal and concourse via large gravcar limousines.

 

[The Pakkrat]

This is where the author lost momentum and the story foundered and ends. It can be imagined that Arsun's mission was completed after a survey of Bath, signing of agreements, and a return trip to the Kechk Pact and Kechk Reversion to report that the Solomani Preserve was ready to receive refugee Transports full of migrants, Vargr willing to try a changeover to Social Standing as opposed to Vargr Charisma. Such a deep-set change would require generations of Vargr after the migrations, but the Preserve had their means to aid the newcomers.