Chapter 177 (2/2)
That made T'Nok sit up straight, reaching for the power-smoker to mask his pheromones of anger. ”Don't go there, J'Vik. You and I are the same birth-caste, but that does not give you the right to insult me.”
”Insult is never given only taken,” J'Vik quoted, sounding smug. ”I thought a prime example of the warrior caste such as yourself would be more inured against perceived insults.”
Really? Quoting Terran stoicism at me? Well, let's see about that. I've about had it with your subtle insults, T'Nok thought, not bothering to pick up the power-smoker in order to let the other male realize how angry T'Nok was.
”J'Vik, if you feel your ability to attract mates is so threatened by my very existence to the point of attempting to goad me into joining a profession I would be incompetent at, in hopes I would be killed in some far off struggle, then perhaps you should attempt to reconcile that with the obvious issue that you are too cowardly to sign up to go to war despite being warrior caste yourself,” T'Nok said, tapping the edge of his spoon on the bowl.
Every female in the ice cream parlor, even the waitresses, burst out laughing. The high pitched squeals, the humming of wings, even the chirping of matrons rubbing their back legs together filled the parlor.
J'Vik went completely still.
Finish him! T'Nok heard in his mind and he tapped his ice cream bowl with a bladearm tip making it ring as he continued speaking, delivering the final bladearm thrust.
”I'm sure if the enemy attacks you can drive them off with that detestable whining you insist is poetry that you instead inflict upon us all every time you see another male that appears to be content with his own life due to the glorious fact that he is not you,” T'Nok finished.
Even the other males joined in with the laughter.
”Ice pack for table nine to treat that burn!” A male called out.
”Confederate statutes don't allow you to own someone like that!” a female laughed.
”Quick, molt your shell and run off before he realizes your husk isn't you!” another female giggled.
Someone threw the image of J'Vik up on the ice cream parlor's display with the caption ”LOCAL MALE MURDERED BY WORDS” underneath. The image of J'Vik looked up as a shadow covered him just in time to be crushed by the words ”U R PO-EHT!”
J'Vik didn't move the entire time, pheromones of anger rolling off of him.
The three barely mature females sniffed the air and perked up, clicking their mandibles and rubbing their bladearms together in excitement. One dipped the tip of her bladearm in the ice cream in front of her and carefully cleaned it as she stared at J'Vik's head.
When the laughter died J'Vik slowly looked around, then back at T'Nok.
”You're caste...” he started loudly.
”We're the same birth-caste, J'Vik,” T'Nok answered slightly louder. T'Nok held up his gripping hands and flexed his fingers.
”Insult is only taken never given,” T'Nok quoted back.
”How dare you insult me in such a manner,” J'Vik said. ”That quote is not meant for someone intentionally insulting someone the way you have.”
”Put up,” T'Nok said, raising his gripping hands and flexed his fingers. He flexed his wrists. ”Or shut up,” T'Nok finished.
J'Vik clattered out of the booth. ”A Gripping Hand Challenge it is, then, T'Nok. In the parking lot. Right now.”
”Traditionally I would choose the location,” T'Nok said, moving out of the bench seat. ”But that's fine with me.”
J'Vik was opening and closing his gripping hands, obviously trying to impress everyone with his grip.
The matrons, mature females, and the three just mature females all hurried out of the ice-cream parlor with almost unseemly haste. The mixing of anger pheromones of two males making the veins in their wings flush with blood.
Even the waitresses and ice cream sculptors came out.
The males of course, hung back. Not wanting to get involved.
A matron, a half-dozen small hatchlings hanging on her abdomen, moved forward with grace and elegance. She sniffed at the air, tasting the anger pheromones in the air.
”Can this only be settled by challenge and not a cigarette and conversation?” She asked. ”Perhaps a cigarette or two will mask the scent of your anger and allow you to discuss your emotions with more cultural maturity than you are feeling now?”
”If J'Vik wishes to submit I will accept,” T'Nok said, looming over the smaller warrior-caste male.
Several of the females breathed deep.
”Insulted I have been
”Words cutting most cruel
”I will not remain
”Insulted without response,” J'Vik quoted poetry that made several of the females snicker. He looked around almost smugly. ”I created that.”
More giggles and J'Vik went rigid.
”Gripping hand challenge it is,” the matron said. The little ones one her back raised up their bladearms in joy, their immature minds reacting to the angry pheromones in the air.
One had ice-cream on his head, between his eyes.
T'Nok held still as J'Vik moved into position. They locked hands, interlacing fingers. Their bladearms clashed, held away from each other's bodies and pointed away from one another.
The matron lifted up a handkerchief and waved it between the two males.
Several cars had stopped to watch. Challenges were exciting to witness. They were less common over the last few centuries, but still occured with enough frequency that they could not be outlawed.
The handkerchief fell from her hand and danced away on the breeze. The larger of the three just-mature females hurried over and picked it up, bringing it to her face and inhaling deeply as she moved back over to her friends and passed it to the next biggest one.
T'Nok didn't notice. He just locked his wrists and tensed his fingers as he pushed out and down with his bladearms.
You're grip is nothing. I used to play this with my drunk frat-brothers in Bongistan, T'Nok thought to himself as the other male squeezed tightly, attempted to twist T'Nok's wrists backward, and pushed ineffectively with his bladearms.
Getting a Doctorate in Architectural Engineering with a minor in Materials Science had required over a decade of study, and during that time T'Nok had tempered his natural aggressiveness by socializing with his Terran Descent Human school mates.
A matron tittered as J'Vik had to open his wings slightly to breathe as he kept struggling to move T'Nok's wrists or bladearms.
”Yield,” T'Nok ordered. The sun was shimmering down, warming him, and the sweetness of the day's nitrogen level gave him strength.
”No,” J'Vik's feet ground against the tarmac as he attempted to lean into the gripping contest. The way his back feet scrabbled on the pavement made several females giggle and the smell of his anger increased.
T'Nok began to bring his hands forward, squeezing tightly.
He knew that J'Vik had figured that T'Nok's grip would be weak, that T'Nok spent his days working with architecture and computer programs.
T'Nok also shaped the crystal of his creations with his own hands rather than robots. The tiny imperfections is what gave his works their beauty.
J'Vik's hands began to bend back and his bladearms were forced down and outward to the point of pain and still T'Nok just stared at the other male as he increased the pressure.
J'Vik's legs gave out and he crashed to the ground, giving a high keen of pain. T'Nok released his hands and stepped back as J'Vik moaned and lifted his hands and arms protectively against his thorax. The thick sour smell of defeat emanated from defeated male.
The matron stepped forward, an ornate and bejeweled power-smoker held up to her mandibles with one beringed hand as she inhaled deeply and expelled smoke from her legs and abdomen. The smoke covered the two males, wiping away the smell of anger, contention, and defeat.
”Thank you, your grace,” T'Nok told the wealthy matron.
”Of course,” she replied. The little ones on her abdomen raised their bladearms and gave small shrieks of victory to him.
”And thank you, little ones,” T'Nok said.
The three just matured females, their just-molted carapaces shining and glittering in the sun, rushed forward to comfort J'Vik.
The gathered Treana'ad moved back into the ice cream parlor, gossiping about what they'd just seen, many of them showing one another the recordings they'd made of the contest, admiring one another's angles or artistic filters.
T'Nok was thinking. He had been struggling with nitrogen release in the garden of the birthing chamber. Enough to encourage the eggs to hatch and the grubs to mature, but not exposing it to the air or depend too much on computerized systems.
Tantervellian ferns. They uptake, fix, and release nitrogen on a steady pattern, he mused as he returned to his table.
The ice cream parlor's central air system had cleared away the heavy pheromones of anger and T'Nok sat down, moving the holo-emitter from next to the radio to the center of the table. He transferred his planning file to the holo-emitter and idly moved things around with one bladearm as he slowly ate and savored his ice cream.
J'Vik left with the three females, who were comforting and praising him. One of them had a fancy hover-disc, painted bright attention getting hyper-blue with ultra-violet accents. All four of them sat on the comfortable seats and the bigger female activated the privacy screen as the hover-disc floated away.
Paying attention to his work, T'Nok didn't notice J'Vik leaving or the interested looks from the females. He went through another bowl before he was finished, leaning back and looking at the chamber. The ferns provided just the right edging. The grubs, which would burrow under the ground and eat roots, would avoid the ferns due to dirt, sticking to the sand of the middle of the chamber.
It would give the chamber the right nitrogen cycle in the right levels without requiring HVAC systems that the matron was concerned might harm her grubs.
On the way home, relaxing in his hover-disc, one of the public warning billboards caught his eye.
J'Vik was featured prominently.
Below him a scrolling banner read: ”UNCONTROLLED EMOTIONS KILL! DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD LIKE HE DID! 836 LOST IN THIS CITY THIS WEEK ALONE! SMOKING SAVES LIVES!”
Right as he passed the huge sign a stamp appeared across J'Vik.
”DON'T BE THAT GUY!”
T'Nok laughed all the way home.