She tosses the seaweed greens in a dark-looking sauce. "If the scorpions are not stewed yet, he needs to get them to Sabrina. We're behind and I don't want to waste food."
"Stew the scorpions. I'll tell him." I don't exactly know which guy Valmir is. Maybe I should, given that I know most everyone else's name at this point, but the gladiator clones who were dropped at the same time with us are a weird lot. They tend to all stick together, whispering and staring at the women. A nice guy named Vordis (also a gladiator) told us that they're not usually around women and this could be why they're being weird about the situation. I suspect Valmir is one of the cat ones. Him and Chalath. There's a lizard one named Skarr, but I know him because he bothered poor Vivi until she gave in to him. There's a big gray dude named Kyth and a human guy named Jason, but the two cat men keep to themselves.
Sabrina would know, though. Sabrina knows everyone.
When I go to find Sabrina, she's stirring a bowl with a spoon in one hand and gesturing at two people butchering meat with her other hand. Someone runs up to her and asks a question before I can swing in, and nearby, a pot bubbling over one of several cookfires overflows and begins to hiss. "Grab that," Sabrina shouts, surging into action and handing off the bowl she's stirring. "Who's got the seed cakes?"
You know what? Sabrina looks a little busy at the moment. I'll come back.
I step away from the madness that is the food prep area and look for a friendly face that also doesn't seem too busy. My friend Dawn is nearby with a large platter on her legs, dicing chunks of not-potato, a vegetable the size of a beach ball that everyone seems to go nuts over around here. I head in her direction, my bowl of spices on my hip. I'm told that if the stewedscorpions need a bit of zhuzh, I'm to flavor them up with no less than two handfuls of spice. "Hey, Dawn. I don't suppose you know which cat guy is Valmir, do you?"
"The shitty one," my friend replies.
"Like that narrows it down?"
We both chuckle at my joke, and Dawn makes a "mic drop" motion with her bone knife. It's a truth several of the women have acknowledged between ourselves. The clone men we've been stranded with are hot, but man, some of their personalities suck. Valmir and Chalath seem to be fighting each other for the "most unlikeable" title, which is hilarious considering I thought Skarr was going to run away with that one. Ever since he set his eyes on Vivi, though, he's calmed down and now just talks about how amazing his new mate is.
Which, okay, is a little cute. Not that it redeems him, but it bumps him up on the list from "the worst" to "slightly less bad."
"He's the cat guy with ears and the tail," Dawn tells me.
I nod thoughtfully, comparing the two feline-like aliens in my head. "As opposed to the cat guy with the ears and no tail." Now that I'm thinking about it, one of them has a stumpy little bit of fluff for a tail instead of a full-length tail. "Gotcha. Thank you."
"What are you up to?" she asks, wiping her brow. "I feel like I've been cutting vegetables for hours."
I heft the basket of spice to show her. "I'm seeing how the stewed sand-scorpion is coming along. By the way, did you know we've been eating stewed sand-scorpion?"
Dawn just shakes her head. "I learned not to ask what I was eating a while ago."
I laugh, because we have to. "Yeah, I feel like I'm going to need some serious therapy after this is over...except my therapist is one billion miles away."
"And you're a clone," Dawn points out helpfully. "Which means it wasn't your therapist in the first place."
"And I'm a clone," I agree. I'm trying to take things in stride here on this new planet, but it's hard to be relaxed when the world around me is so strange. At least I'm here with a big, warm, friendly community. "More fodder for the therapist! She'd say I need to be moreainokea."
My friend pauses. "Huh?"
I pause, too. My head really thought thatainokeawas a word, but the translation chip has nothing. "Never mind. I think my brain hiccupped."
She chuckles and picks up her knife again. "Drink some water. The last thing we need is your chip short-circuiting. Meanwhile, I'd better finish this chopping before Sabrina notices I'm not done. Enjoy hanging out with the cat guy."
"I'll tell him you said hello," I comment dryly before heading off again. Valmir is the one with the tail, I remind myself. I wind through the encampment, dodging people who are busy at work on the feast. Some are decorating, stringing together painted seeds onto a garland. Others are getting fuel for the fire, and one of the kids is painting the faces of the other children. Some days this beach feels like it's empty, and some days it feels as if it's overflowing with people. Today is the latter, I decide, as I dodge two of the hunters coming in with a horse-sized dead animal, its legs tied to a pole that they have braced on their shoulders. U'dron begins to play his drum, and someone picks up a bone flute, making a little music.
So domestic. So happy. SoOutlandermeetsClan of the Cave Bear. Everyone's delightful and I love how they work as one big extended family. There might be two dozen huts on the beach, but everyone is in everyone else's business. If someone needs something, they all pitch in and help out. No one's astranger, and everyone is automatically community. No, more than community. There's a word for it…but it escapes me.
At any rate, I adore the new beach family I have, and I adore the beautiful (if cold) nature here. It makes me feel like this place is already home…not that I can remember home. I have warm, vague memories of a place I was very fond of and a life I was happy with…but not much more than that.
I think it helps that our memories of home back on Earth are all fragmented and messy. Since we're clones, I guess we don't get the full factory install, just pieces of it. I think if I remembered everything I'd left behind on Earth (assuming I wasn't a clone, of course), I'd probably be going mad with grief at this point. As it is, memories feel distant and foggy and crop up only when I least expect them.
Natalie and Vivi might be the luckiest of us all because they don't remember anything. Factory reset for them.
I'm envious. I remember just enough about home to make me frustrated that everyone here is sokumbayaabout dead animals and their bones being everywhere. I'm pretty sure Old April would have a nervous breakdown. I remember Old April liked her corner store. She also liked running in a park every morning. I vaguely remember morning coffee and a freshmalasada. I have even vaguer recollections of a guy with perfect teeth and a fun laugh who would sometimes run beside me, and who'd pinch my soft belly and tell me I was gettingmomonafrom all the donuts.
Idoremember dumping that fucker and continuing to see him on the jogging trail, awkwardly, for months later. Plus one in the ice planet column for no longer seeing that guy around. Fuck that guy, anyhow. He was probably a lousy lay and I'm glad I can't remember otherwise. And fuck him for being the only person I remember.
Otherwise, it's all good. Whatever pieces of my old life show up, I'll take them as they come, with a spirit ofho'omau.
The translator in my head pings a mismatch again, and I put my pinky in my ear and wiggle it, as if I can somehow itch at whatever is bugging my translations.