Krakun Coming-of-Age 1

Dan Huber wanted a coming of age story for a krakun, and while the proposed idea was interesting, I really needed to step back a bit further than suggested. Comments appreciated!

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On my three hundred and sixtieth hatching day, my dad bought me the hottest new thing to hit the market: a whole, fully breedable set of sixty geroo. They were meant to be my first cleaning crew, to put on their little orange hazmat suits and waddle around picking up lint out of the carpet. They typically kept to themselves, looked after themselves, spoke among themselves, and had no way of escaping on their own, and so would live and die and reproduce inside that little metal box.

"Now, Amalatol," my dad told me, "Don't go getting attached to them. Mammals have very short lifespans, and there's no reason to concern yourself so deeply. Ignore them unless they start misbehaving, then you should kill one to keep the rest in line."

At that, my dad took one of the geroo and snap! Broke it in half. The others screamed in terror. There were now fifty-nine.

"Otherwise," he continued, tossing the corpse down the recycler chute, "just keep them fed and their air running and that should be sufficient."

"Yes, sir," I said, a little weirded out by having to watch something die in front of my eyes. I'd seen animals be butchered for meat in cooking demonstrations, so it was hardly an uncommon sight. And yet, as I looked at the red blood drip from the edge of the chute, something about this felt different.

In any case, they were a new experience for me, and I couldn't help but watch them all the time, sometimes just letting my trash fall to the floor at the foot of my bed to see what they'd do. They took a wide berth around me, as I laid perched upon my bed. As they dragged fallen snack wrappers to the recycler slot on the walls, their little helmets turned, glancing over their shoulders up at me. I smiled at them, and they scurried away. I frowned again. They were quite tiny, the tallest still hardly larger than my entire talon, fingertip to fingertip. I figured they needed time to acclimate to me, but months passed and they seemed no more comfortable around me than when I first got them.

I felt a clutching in the heart in my neck, the pang of rejection. Many school subjects bored me, if only because they came too easy, but this was suddenly a strange challenge: to bridge a gulf that I only seemingly wished to cross because it defied me. I wasn't planning on getting attached or anything, but I was nevertheless curious what went on in a geroo's head in the abstract. It was alien, and thus, fascinating.

I listened in on them. They had all the modern conveniences in their little metal box, including network access, which I was fully privy to observe fully. Their language had only recently been added to the universal codex, but I still scrounged to find language materials with which to learn to read it, and quietly at night, attempt to repeat the words I heard in their videos. It took me about a year, reading their emails and watching their dramas, until one night I decided to play a bit of a prank on them.

The next morning, while the geroo skittered about, I looked for the biggest one I could and suddenly plucked him from the carpet. He screamed a lot as I threw him down on my pillow.

"All right," I said. "What's your name?"

He stared up at me, his mouth working soundlessly.

"Oh come now, geroo! Can you not talk? It's a simple question!"

The little geroo attempted to clear his throat. "... Tuijai..." he muttered.

I laughed. "Tuijai! Yes, I have read all about you. Your mate is Rusih, and you have a cub, is that correct?"

"Please," the geroo suddenly started pleading, falling on his knees and pressing his paws together. "Please, if you're upset with me, don't do anything to them! Just take it out on me!"

I blinked. Now, my thought was that I was going to surprise the geroo by suddenly revealing how painstakingly I had perfected their language, and perhaps poke a little fun at their silly dramas, now that the language barrier had been shattered. I had no intention of harming any of them. But what I hadn't counted on was how terrified they all appeared to be. The others were writhing and squeaking in terror.

"Oh!" I said. "No--no no no! I'm not upset with you at all! I just--I thought you'd feel more comfortable if I could speak in your own language."

"Comfortable?" Tuijai asked. "Sir... You ripped us from our home to work for you!"

"I... I did?"

I supposed I had known that. I mean, they were literally doing the work of cleaning the floor because that's what my dad had bought them for. It was, too, against their will. But the moment that I could actually speak directly to one was the moment that their will suddenly started sparking in my head like a very real thing.

I knew right away what my dad would say: "A krakun's will should be absolute." Fear burgeoned. The moment I conceded to this geroo, his will might supplant mine. Was I to be a slave to my slave?

But looking down at them... they were all so very small, and I hadn't even finished growing.

"Oh... Tuijai, I'm so sorry," I said, apologizing as I might to a superior. "I'd put you back if I could, but if dad returned you to the store, they'd just resell you. Or euthanize you."

"Euthanize!" Tuijai exclaimed. His voice was so high pitched, I worried his eardrums might rupture. "You--you must be joking!"

I shook my head. "I'd rather it not come to that."

"Why?" Tuijai asked. "What do we matter to you? Didn't your father kill my mother, and for no reason?"

I looked at him with wide eyes, my jaw fell open. "She was your mother?"

Tuijai nodded, looking at me with sad, mournful eyes. I was in shock. Of course, many of the geroo were related--I knew that, too! But the connection suddenly had weight to it.

This was exactly what my father warned me against. I was starting to feel emotions on behalf of a slave, because I couldn't help but consider how I'd feel if my own mother were suddenly ripped away.

I grabbed Tuijai--gently this time--and set him back down on the carpet.

"Everyone," I said, to the rest of the geroo scattered about my room. "Please, go back into your habitat for the time being. I need... I need to think for a while."

One by one, they skittered back to their little metal box. When the airlock finally shut behind them, I pulled my pillow up and curled upon it.

I didn't come down when my mother called my mobile com to tell me dinner was ready--I said I wasn't feeling well. An hour later, she entered my darkened room with a bowl of fire broth and nuzzled my head.

"School problems?" She guessed.

I shook my head.

"Girl troubles?"

I gave my mom a look. "That's still four hundred years off."

She shrugged her massive shoulders. "Sometimes krakun are just like that even before there's any hormones involved."

"It's not anyone, mom." I said. "Or well... it's kinda about dad. And maybe you. And well... how often do you kill slaves?"

Mom was a bit surprised at the question, but she said, "Honestly, not all that often. It's not really good economic sense to kill more than you ought to, it's such a waste."

"So if I didn't want to kill my slaves, you wouldn't be upset with me?"

"I suppose I'd want to know why. It's your responsibility to see that they're properly disciplined."

"Okay, so I should do that. But I want to do it without killing any of them."

My mother sighed. "Mammals have very short lifespans, Amalatol. Your job isn't to get attached to them. Your job is to make sure they don't get attached to you. Otherwise you'd be spending your entire life working maintenance for inferior beings and their endless personal dramas, and believe me... it gets old fast."

I looked up at my mother. "Wait... do you mean..."

My mom nodded. "I had a colony of geordians when I was a little older than you. They were quite fascinating, but also incredibly needy. And sometimes you can do things to make them happy, but often there's just nothing you can do. And you realize, after years and decades and centuries of sad, horrible things happening to them... it's been affecting you, and coloring your life negatively. They've been holding you down, draining you. And you'll have to let go or be consumed by it."

"But... there has to be another way," I insisted.

My mother sighed. "Well, I don't want to see you so down, I just worry if I indulge you, it'll hurt all the more when you're older, and you realize you'll have to put away childish things." She pressed her muzzle into my neck and rumbled. "But... I am your mother, so I may just indulge you a little bit."

I smiled, leaning up and pressing my forehead to hers. "I uh... was thinking... can I get some of those expansion boxes for the colony? The transparent ones, so I can see what they're doing without the suits?"

"You'll have to buy your own," my mom said, nuzzling me down my side as she turned and headed back for the door. "Or wait another fifty-eight years to your next birthday."

I slapped my tail on the bed. "I'll start making a list! Love you, mom."