Chapter 147 · Castaway

Two weeks later, the animal was still aboard.

This had not been the plan. The first few days had been spent largely pretending otherwise.

They identified it during one of their stops, when the Faded Glory remained in realspace long enough for Eli to get a stable HoloNet connection and work backward from Peloran Reach agricultural records. They had a juvenile kivren on board.

Small carnivorous mammal. Native originally to warm, dry ecosystems several sectors away, though populations had been established on agricultural worlds across a surprisingly broad stretch of the galaxy. Their diet consisted mostly of insects, burrowing pests and anything else small enough to catch. Farmers valued them around grain stores, greenhouses and produce depots.

Eli had read that part aloud.

Stent had looked toward the cargo bay. “That explains the crate.”

It did.

The next part had been more problematic.

Kivren had lived around settled populations for centuries. Some colonies maintained feral populations, but many were effectively domestic: accustomed to people, machinery, enclosed spaces and regular feeding. They were frequently kept in warehouses, farms and transport depots as pest control.

Nemi had leaned over Eli's shoulder to read the entry. “So it's like a farm tooka.”

“It is not a tooka,” Stent had said.

“It lives around people and eats things people don't want in their food stores.”

“That does not make it a tooka.”

“It makes it tooka-adjacent.”

Dara, from across the table, had said, “I wouldn't use that phrase where he can hear you.”

The kivren itself had settled the question of how wild it was over the following days.

Once the initial panic faded, it stopped throwing itself against the enclosure whenever someone entered the cargo bay. Then it stopped hiding immediately beneath the folded remains of Stent's shirt.

Then it started watching them.

By the fifth day, it would take food while Stent remained nearby. By the sixth, it would take it from a shallow dish placed within arm's reach. On the seventh, Stent decided this constituted sufficient progress to attempt handling it.

That had resulted in blood. Chiss blood.

Not much. But enough. Eli had found him at the galley sink disinfecting two small punctures at the base of his thumb. “It bit you?”

“Yes.”

Nemi appeared almost instantly from the corridor. “It bit you?!”

Stent's expression hardened. “The situation is under control.”

“That means yes.”

“It was frightened.”

Eli looked at the neat little arc of tooth marks. “Apparently frightened of precisely one part of you.”

Stent ignored him.

The more interesting detail was that, after biting him, the kivren had not fled to the far side of the enclosure. It had remained exactly where it was.

Ten minutes later, when Stent returned, it had approached him again. That changed the problem.

By the end of the first week they could open the enclosure without immediately triggering panic. By the beginning of the second, the kivren had begun coming out voluntarily, first only a few centimeters, then onto the cargo deck itself.

Always supervised. Mostly by Stent. Tee objected to the arrangement on principle.

Keeping Tee away proved considerably easier than keeping Nemi away. “No.”

“I haven't done anything.”

“You are approaching.”

“I am standing.”

“You are approaching while standing.”

“That isn't how standing works.”

Stent pointed toward the cargo-bay threshold.

Nemi retreated exactly one step. “This is discrimination.”

“It is animal management.”

Tee beeped loudly from behind her.

“And you are not helping.”

Tee's objections intensified.

Dara watched all of this with the patient expression of someone who had decided long ago that intervention would only make the situation worse.

Eventually Stent allowed Nemi inside.

Under conditions. She had to sit on the deck. She could not reach for the animal. She could not attempt to touch it. She could not feed it until Stent said she could.

Nemi listened to the list with growing delight. “You have visitation rules.”

“I have precautions.”

“You have visitation rules for your pet.”

“It is not my pet.”

From beneath a cargo brace, the kivren emerged. It paused. Its pointed nose moved rapidly as it sampled the air. Then it crossed the deck in a low, fluid run, ignored Nemi completely and went straight for Stent. Before anyone could react, it hooked its claws into the fabric of his trouser leg and climbed. Fast.

Stent looked down just as the kivren reached his hip. He caught it carefully with both hands before it could continue any farther, supporting its body without pinning it.

For a second, the animal remained still. Then its nose started working. It twisted in his hands, leaned toward his chest and began investigating the pocket of his shirt with determined little snuffling movements. The kivren pushed its nose deeper against the pocket seam. There was nothing there.

It checked again, evidently unwilling to accept this. Then, with startling speed, it scrambled upward, planted its forepaws against Stent’s chest and climbed onto his shoulder, as Stent reached into a trouser on his pants.

Nemi made a tiny delighted noise.

Stent gave her a warning look. “I didn’t do anything.”

The kivren barely paused. It crossed behind Stent’s neck, balanced effortlessly along his shoulder, then started down his arm, claws catching lightly in the fabric of his sleeve. Stent turned his wrist. The animal followed the movement immediately.

Only then did Nemi notice the small piece of food in his hand. “Oh.”

The kivren reached his forearm, stretched, and neatly took the morsel from his fingers.For a moment, Nemi simply stared. Then she said, “It just climbed you.”

Stent watched the animal eat. “It identified the most efficient route to the food.”

Nemi looked at him. Then at the kivren. Then back at him. “Sure.”

Stent ignored the tone.

By the end of the second week, the enclosure remained in the cargo bay mostly because they needed somewhere secure to put the kivren during hyperspace transitions, docking procedures and any situation in which having a small carnivore exploring the ship would be inconvenient.

The rest of the time, under supervision, it came out.

It learned the galley meant food. It learned Tee made noises but could be avoided. It learned Nemi would sit perfectly still for absurd lengths of time if that increased the possibility of being approached. It learned Dara was safe, though not particularly interesting.

And it learned Stent.

That was the part Eli found funniest. The kivren would tolerate all four of them. But it would actively seek Stent.

By then, even Stent had stopped pretending not to notice.

One evening Eli found him sitting on the cargo-bay floor with a datapad in one hand while the animal investigated the folds of his trouser leg. “You realize we have a problem.”

Stent did not look up. “Yes.”

“We can't release it.”

“Not indiscriminately.”

“I mean we probably can't release it at all.”

That made Stent look at him. Eli gestured toward the kivren. “It's used to people. Really used to people. The records say juveniles raised around farms can become dependent on regular feeding.”

“I read the same records.”

“Of course you did.”

The kivren climbed onto Stent’s thigh. Stent remained perfectly still.

Eli folded his arms. “So.”

“No.”

“I haven’t asked anything yet.”

“You were going to.”

Eli looked down at the small animal, then back at him. “I wanted to keep Tee.”

Stent’s expression shifted by the smallest degree. “You did.”

“You didn’t.”

“I considered the expense unnecessary.”

“You threatened to vent him.”

“He was carrying Rebel intelligence.”

“And now he plots our jumps, complains about our maintenance standards and saves us a considerable amount of work.”

Stent glanced toward the corridor, as though Tee might somehow hear the accusation.

Eli smiled. “My point is, I insisted on keeping something you didn’t want aboard, and it turned out pretty well.”

The kivren shifted against Stent’s leg, caught a fold of fabric between its teeth and tugged vigorously several times before abruptly giving up and settling again.

Eli let the silence sit for a moment. “Now you want this one.”

Stent looked at him. “I have not said that.”

“You don’t have to.” The denial did not come. Eli’s smile softened. “And I’m not going to argue.”

Stent lowered his gaze to the kivren. For the past two weeks he had fed it, checked its water, cleaned its enclosure, learned what frightened it and what did not. He had been the first person it allowed close, the first it had climbed willingly, the one it sought whenever he entered the cargo bay.

Somewhere in the process, responsibility had become familiarity. And familiarity had become something Stent was considerably less willing to define.

The kivren curled tighter against his thigh. Stent rested one hand beside it, not quite touching. “This was not the intended outcome.”

“No,” Eli agreed.

A few seconds passed. Then Stent’s fingers moved, brushing once, carefully, along the small animal’s back. “No,” he repeated. But there was no longer any argument in it.

Eli pushed away from the bulkhead. “All right, then.”

Stent looked up. “All right?”

“We have a pet.”

Stent’s expression tightened.

For several seconds he said nothing.

The kivren shifted in his lap, caught another fold of his trousers between its teeth and gave it two determined tugs before abandoning the effort. Stent looked down at it.

His hand settled carefully along its back.

Then, almost reluctantly, he inclined his head. “Ch’eth.”

Eli paused. “What?”

“Ch’eth.”

The kivren lifted its head at the sound.

Eli looked from the kivren to Stent. He knew the cheunh word: castaway.

For a moment, neither of them said anything. The kivren shifted in Stent’s lap, caught another fold of his trousers between its teeth and gave it two determined tugs before abandoning the effort. Stent looked down at it and carefully freed the fabric.

Eli smiled faintly. “That fits.”

Stent’s hand settled along Ch’eth’s back. “Yes.”

The little animal immediately started climbing onto his wrist. Stent intercepted it before it reached his sleeve. “We have acquired another responsibility.”

Eli leaned against the doorway. “Yeah.”

They both looked at Ch’eth.

Tee had been an accident. The Faded Glory had been an accident. Most of the journey, if Eli was being fair, had been one long succession of things they had never intended to become responsible for.

“We seem to be collecting those.”

Stent adjusted his hold as Ch’eth tried once again to climb his arm. “Yes,” he said.

There was considerably less reluctance in it this time.