Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [13]
Dev almost worshiped his masters’ courage in coming so far and risking so much for the good of the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium and the liberation of other species. If a Ssi-ruu died away from a consecrated home world, his spirit roamed the galaxies alone forever.
Dev shook his head and answered, “Outside, I sense only the quiet winds of life itself. Aboard the Shriwirr, mourning and confusion in your new children.”
Firwirrung stroked Dev’s arm, his three opposable claws barely reddening the tender scaleless skin. Dev smiled, empathizing with his master. Firwirrung had no clutchmates on board, and the military life meant lonely hours and terrible risks. “Master,” Dev said, “maybe—some day—might we return to Lwhekk?”
“You and I might never go home, Dev. But soon we will consecrate a new home world in your galaxy. Send for our families …” As Firwirrung glanced at the sleeping pit, a whiff of acrid reptilian breath trailed across Dev’s face.
Dev didn’t flinch. He was used to that smell. His own body odors sickened the Ssi-ruuk, so he bathed in and drank special solvents four times daily. For special occasions, he shaved all his hair. “A clutch of your own kind,” he murmured.
Firwirrung cocked his head and stared with one black eye. “Your work brings me closer to that clutch. But for now, I am weary.”
“I’m keeping you awake,” Dev said, instantly repentant. “Please get your rest. I’ll come along soon.”
Once Firwirrung lay nested in his cluster of pillows, with his body warmed by below-deck generators and triple eyelids sheltering the beautiful black eyes, Dev took his evening bath and drank his deodorizing medication. To take his mind off the abdominal cramps that always followed, he pulled his chair over to a long, curved desk/counter. He withdrew an unfinished book from the library and loaded it into his reader.
For months, he’d been working on a project that might serve humankind even better than he served it now (in fact, he feared that the Ssi-ruuk would entech him into circuits to complete this work rather than into the battle droid he hoped to earn).
He’d known how to read and write before the Ssi-ruuk adopted him, both letters and music. Combining those symbologies, he was devising a system to write Ssi-ruuvi for human usage. On the musical staff, he noted pitches. Symbols he’d invented signified labial, full-tongue, half-tongue, and guttural whistles. Letters showed vowels and final-click blendings. Ssi-ruu required a full line of data: The half-tongue whistle rose a perfect fifth while the mouth formed the letter e. Then a puckered labial whistle, down a minor third. Ssi-ruu was the singular form. The plural, Ssi-ruuk, ended with a throat-click. Ssi-ruuvi was complex but lovely, like birdsong from Dev’s youth on the outpost planet G’rho.
Dev had a good ear, but the complicated task invariably overwhelmed him at the late hour of his free time. As soon as the cramping and nausea passed, he shut down his glowing reader and crawled in the dark toward the faint fetid smell of Firwirrung’s bed pit. Too warm-blooded, he stacked a pile of pillows to insulate him from the quarters’ below-deck heat. Then he curled up far from his master and thought of his home.
Dev’s abilities had caught his mother’s attention from a very early age, back on Chandrila. A Jedi apprentice who hadn’t completed her training, she’d taught him a little about the Force. He’d even communicated with her over distances.
Then came the Empire. There’d been a purge of Jedi candidates. The family fled to isolated G’rho.
Barely had they settled in when the Ssi-ruuk arrived. Her Force sense vanished, leaving him far from home and bereft and terrified of the invading spaceships. Master