Voyage by E M Gale

Author:E M Gale [Gale, E M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightbulb Works
Published: 2019-10-31T06:00:00+00:00

* * *

With His Teeth, I Guess

We were back on board ship an hour before it took off. I watched us leave Antigua Nuevo behind from my quarters. Then, even though I thought I ought not to need it, I crawled under my bed again and fell fast asleep.

I woke up a few hours later, showered, and was thinking about how to enjoy my shift off when there was a knock at the door. I opened it. All five of the orcs were there–Bron and Grom at the front grinning and the other three, Gragle, Logtar and Henry.

‘Great. An alien invasion.’

“Hi,” I said warily.

“Grogram,” said Bron.

‘Ah, great, orcish. They do expect me to know it. I’m pretty sure that means hello. Brilliant. Oh, well, I suppose I need the practice, right?’

“What’s up?” I asked in orcish. The literal translation was something like, ‘How’s the hunting going’, which sounded an almost vampirish phrase to me.

Grom grinned. Bron and Grom were obviously the leaders of this little party. The other three were more deferential towards me. I guessed they got less polite after you slept with them.

“We were after some coffee,” said Bron, grinning.

‘Oh? Five orcs have just invited themselves over for a coffee morning? How funny is that?’

“A nice idea, but unfortunately I haven’t got enough cups,” I said. At this point they all grinned and held up bright yellow mugs they’d nicked from the canteen.

I laughed at that. There was something so ludicrous about the whole scenario. I threw the door wide.

“Food and shelter,” I said in orcish, which is the rough equivalent of ‘come in’. I wandered over and put some orcian coffee on.

‘If this sort of thing becomes a habit I might need to start buying more on planet leave. And it’s bloody expensive.’

I watched them come in. They were much taller and wider than me so I was wondering how they would arrange themselves on the low sofa. The coffee machine started to gurgle and bubble, giving off the fantastically pungent aroma that makes it easy to catch orcian coffee drinkers. The orcs didn’t bother with the sofa, but just folded themselves up cross-legged in a rough circle on the floor.

‘That’s one way to do it.’

‘How do orcs live on their home planet? Do they sit around in cross-legged circles there too, or use chairs? They are a tough, militaristic species, I suspect they aren’t going to go in for soft pink sofas, but you never know.’

I brought the coffee over and took the empty space in the circle.

“Good coffee, Clarke,” said Bronwich.

“Thanks, I smuggled it myself.” I looked at Henry. “So… why are you called Henry?”

‘It’s an odd name for an orc. Doesn’t seem to have enough ’gr’s in it.’

“My mother’s idea,” he mumbled.

“You don’t like it then?”

“Well… it’s OK. It was her father’s name.”

‘Eh? Still doesn’t sound orcish.’

“He was British or something.”

‘Really? So… he’s a half-orc? Or maybe a three-quarter orc. Looks orcish to me. He is, well, green. Hold on, does that mean that

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.