Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best management books of all time .txt) 📗

doubt about it. Rex found himself thinking about fighting him, then remembered they were in space, and barely grown besides. If his unfamiliarity with zero gravity wasn’t bad enough, A’kef would probably kick his ass in pure experience. He didn’t even know enough about his own culture to know if such thoughts were acceptable. Maybe this trip is a mistake.

“Enough bull,” Sergeant Bana snapped. “We only got a couple hours to get our shit squared away. I catch anyone screwing around, you’ll spend our time in hyperspace cleaning Zuul dunnys.” He grinned. “I bet that won’t be fun.”

Rex grunted and moved to help the mechanics.

* * *

Shadow had had many respectful questions for every Human leader he’d ever met. But here, aboard the Paku, populated by more Zuul than he’d ever seen in his life…he couldn’t think of a single one.

For the moment, he was content to wander. They’d been issued bunks together, his siblings and their Humans, but his nose was more than up for navigating him back toward Zuul common areas.

While he could tentatively determine how many Zuul had passed through a particular hallway, there were so many intermingled scents, overlapping notes, and what seemed like related variations, he had little confidence in his estimate. Up until a few days ago, he’d only ever remembered the scents of five Zuul, including himself, and now he realized he and his siblings had more in common than set them apart. Before, each scent had meant only Rex, Ripley, Drake, Sonya, Shadow, innately and wholly them. Now, with a multitude of other scents layering through his sinuses, he realized that not only males had thread of commonality, as did females, but he and his siblings also…shared some base level scent. It had been hard to pick out before, when it had been all he knew. Even now, it was a forming understanding, but Shadow had always been good at trusting even his partially developed instincts.

Family, then, had a scent. Uufek and Teef hadn’t had much in common, so likely weren’t of the same family. Shadow tried to sift the various faint smells in the hall, wondering if only siblings shared scent so clearly, or broader families, or even clans.

“Earth pup.” A door ahead opened, and a tall, broad-shouldered Zuul pushed his top half into the hall. “We were told to let you settle in before extending invitations, but here you are. Come in.”

Shadow continued forward automatically, responding to the strange familiarity of the brown-and-black male. “My name is Shadow.”

“Is it.” The older male tilted his head, taking Shadow in with a stare the younger Zuul could feel in his gut.

The expression and tone didn’t indicate a question, and Shadow found himself too curious to risk whatever conversation lay ahead by pushing the matter. He nearly froze, following the other Zuul into the room on the other side; he’d never seen anything like it.

Sparsely furnished with anything he recognized, only a few benches studded across its relatively large space, the room was full of…cubes. Some clear, some filled with various photographic or holographic scenes, some mounted on the walls at various heights, some stationed on metallic plinths that rose from the floor or the ceiling. The cubes varied in size, but it astonished him how many fit in there without the space feeling crowded. He realized, as he floated fully inside and the door closed behind him, the room itself was perhaps the size of three of the bunk rooms, not even half the size of the mess at home.

He wanted to ask questions, but still the words didn’t come. The way the older Zuul stared at him, he felt he should already know the answers. But how?

After another small hesitation, he moved toward the closest cube, a clear, empty one that—he stopped short, hands steadying himself against it, and freezing in truth.

As he stood in front of it, the air around him changed. No, that wasn’t quite right, but a smell, too strong for him not to have smelled a step before, had definitely…appeared.

“They’re scent boxes?” he asked, words leaving his mouth before he considered them.

“Something like that.” The Zuul’s expression changed not at all, but something eased in his posture.

“Some of them have pictures to go with them. Memorials?” Shadow held himself still, fighting back the leaping readiness of his body, urging him to run and smell everything.

“Some. Memories, more like. Of home. Of clan. Of those we’ve lost. Those we fight for.” The other Zuul crossed the room, lingered at another clear cube, then settled on one of the angled benches.

“How do you capture the scents?”

“How do you capture images?” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug and gestured toward the other end of his bench with his muzzle. “Because Humans cannot do it, you imagine it could not be done?”

Shadow moved toward him, ensuring his path took him past as many of the cubes as possible. “Because Humans don’t have a strong sense of smell, I didn’t think what a world would look like where it mattered so much.” He shrugged as well and settled near the older Zuul. “Do you think I should have guessed at such things? Or hidden my surprise and curiosity at something new?” Genuinely unsure if that would be true, given what little he knew of his own people, he worked to make the question as neutral as possible.

“A fair point, Earth pup. No, with me, you have no need to dissemble.” He continued to regard Shadow carefully, his eyes a disconcertingly bright brown. “Do you remember nothing, then, of your time before the Humans?”

“We were not even a week old when the Humans saved us. Our mother died the day after giving birth to us, according to what the Zuul commander told our Human father. Do many Zuul remember their births, or have memories from so young?” Again,