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“This for me?”
He gestures at the tray between us and I nod like an idiot. Like I don’t set a tray out with a snack every time, just in case he’s hungry after working all day. If he’s hungry, he might leave quicker, and for some reason, I’m loath for him to leave early.
Or at all.
Jrrru takes a bite of the cold chicken (well, “bird”) and makes a sound of pleasure in his throat. A moment later, he starts purring, and the sound fills me with happiness.
“Fresh water, too,” I point out. I know I’m weird about water, but there really is nothing better than a tall glass of fresh, clean water. I never forget how lucky I am to have some.
He nods at me with approval. “You knew I was thirsty.”
Jrrru takes a drink, and because seeing someone else drink makes my throat feel dry and unpleasant and reminds me of all the times I nearly died of thirst, I grab my drink and take a gulp.
“I told you my new job is on a ship at Port, right?” When I nod, he continues. “They told me there was a hole punched through a wall that needed to be welded, and that’s all they said about it. I asked how big’s the hole. They said average. It’s a cargo ship, so I thought, well, anything could have done that. Wrong piece of equipment in the wrong place, a greenhorn not paying attention on the job, shoddy repairs the first time around. Nothing makes me think twice. So I tell them I’ll take the job, and how many credits it’ll cost. Everything sounds fine. Should take a day for me to gather the materials and a day to do the work. All good, right?”
I can hear a hint of humor in his voice, and it makes me tense with anticipation. “Oh no. What’s wrong?”
“They didn’t tell me the hole was the size of my sled there.”
My eyes widen. I let out a snort of disbelief.
“Right? And you want to know what made it worse? Apparently they keep eels in the hold of their ship.”
I blink. “I’m sorry, did you say eels?”
“Eels,” he agrees. “Did you have those on Earth? Big long fish with wiggly bodies? And I said to the male, you want me to fix that hole? In the eel tank? How am I supposed to do that? And he told me to jump in.”
For the next half hour, Jrrru tells me all about his day. He gets all kinds of weird jobs—I guess people figure a praxiian won’t ask questions—but this one is definitely one of the stranger ones. I love hearing about his work and his observations, and more than anything, I love watching his expressions. His ears twitch and flatten and move to emphasize his words, and by the time he finishes telling me the story, my shoulders are shaking with laughter and Jrrru has eaten every bit of chicken. He’s reclining against the door, his big frame relaxed, and the look he gives me is soft with amusement and makes me feel so warm inside. Then it’s my turn to tell him about my day, and even though I don’t have much to confess most days—just sharpening knives and making a new nail-studded club—he listens intently.
Today I’ve got a bit more than usual, though. “Oh, and the veterinarian’s assistant is coming by tomorrow,” I offer shyly. “To check the DNA machine in the barn.”
His ears swivel forward and his whiskers twitch. “Your barn? It’s empty, though.”
I nod. “When I first got here it felt like a lot to be in charge of other living, breathing things. I worried there wouldn’t be enough water for all of us and…” I trail off, because I don’t know how much to say aloud without sounding like an idiot.
“And you didn’t want other things to suffer like you suffered,” he guesses.
I lick my lips. It’s involuntary, like if I don’t check I’ll find they’ve turned to sandpaper and are flaking off in sheets from thirst. But my mouth is soft and healthy, and I’ve got a glass of water in my hands. I take another sip, wetting my mouth. “It’s silly.”
“It’s not silly. If you get deprived of something for a while, you pay a lot of attention to it in the future. Look at me and Hrrrusek. We lost our mother and ever since, we’ve found a way to be together in the same place. When one person is all you’ve got left, you value that person. When you’ve been without water for a while, I imagine you learn to appreciate it and you’re careful with it.”
I nod. Sometimes it’s hard to realize that I have a well full of fresh water and I can drink as much of it as I want. That no one’s going to take it away from me. That I’m not going to be penned up and forgotten, or skipped over when it comes to water shares because a human is “unimportant.” I don’t know if I’ll ever get past that particular anxiety, but hearing Jrrru’s words of understanding makes me feel less unhinged about it. It’s nice to talk to someone that grasps just how momentous it is to share water, even if it’s just with potential livestock.
