Steph's Outcast

To my relief, Raahosh and Liz absolutely agree we should share our food with the two Outcasts. I want to hug them both with gratitude, but Raahosh has their baby in his arms, so I settle for squeezing Liz twice, instead. Raahosh also has the practical suggestion that I bring only what can easily be carried, and I think that's an excellent idea, since I've looked and looked and Pak and Juth don't seem to have a permanent home of any kind. If they do, it's well hidden. Me showing up with an absolute truckload of dried fish would look super obvious and I don't want to infringe on Juth's feelings…but I do want to feed them.

I'll figure out how to balance it somehow.

I pack a basket with a castoff child-sized blanket that Liz offers, and then I stuff it full of dried fish and root vegetables. I figure I can bring a large portion to get them started, and then from there, just supplement them until the fish start showing up regularly again. Once my basket is sufficiently heavy with supplies, I see Devi on the beach with N'dek and head over to them.

Devi has one of the tiny shrimp-like things held up on a stick, and she peers at it. The thing is inches away from her eyes, and N'dek's head is bent close with hers, as if they're lab partners studying a particularly interesting specimen.

"Look at the legs on this one," N'dek says.

She makes an excited sound. "You're right. Good eye! It's not a juvenile either! I bet they're all adults, but I don't think they're breeding. It's so odd."

"Hi there," I say brightly. "You guys know what's causing this shrimp plague? And how long it'll stick around?"

Devi's eyes light up with enthusiasm and then she launches into a really long winded narrative that involves a lot of scientific words that go right over my head, and I'm close to my college degree. When I blink at her, she gives a self-conscious little laugh. "It's a migration," she tells me. "Once they've finished here, they'll move on."

That's all I need to know. "How long do you think that will be?"

"Depends on what they're getting from this situation," she says, and I can tell she's trying to keep it simple for my sake. "What are they eating? Why are they beaching themselves and excreting an exothermic chemical before they die?"

"Exothermic?" I ask, trying to keep my tone polite and interested. "You mean…the heat?"

"Yup. There's some sort of chemical that's reacting either with the shore or the water, or they're producing it. It's the slime, basically. I don't know if it's a by-product of what they're eating or if it's from the decay of their bodies. I wish I had a microscope so I could do more studying. It's so exciting." Her expression grows wistful.

Ugh, I really hope all this slick stuff on the beach isn't a by-product of rotting shrimp that are coming here to die. "So we don't know how long this will last? It's making the fish leave."

"Right, which is another fascinating thing. Back on Earth, when there were locust plagues, everything in the local wildlife food chain ate the locusts—other insects, birds, small vermin—but because these are giving off the hot juice, so to speak, no one's eating them. There has to be an evolutionary reason behind both their migration and the chemical. I just don't know what." Her expression grows distant, the wheels in her mind turning. She turns and clasps her mate's bicep, causing him to drop the stick-and-shrimp he was holding. "This is SO EXCITING!"

I chuckle, because at least someone is excited about this mess. I just hope the beach stops being slippery and the fish come back.

Which reminds me…I need to take my food to the regular meeting spot. My heart thumps at the thought, because I'm making such progress with Pak and Juth. Juth, especially. He tried to talk to me yesterday. He kept motioning about the beach, and I suspected he was telling me to be careful.

When I slipped, he caught me. Twice. Just hauled me up against his big, naked body like I was nothing at all. I've always been a stout, heavy-set girl. To be lifted up against someone like I weigh nothing? I'm a fan. A real big fan. I could tell he was fascinated by me, too. He kept staring, his nostrils flaring as if there was something in my scent he'd picked up. And when he'd let me go…I noticed his cock was starting to get hard. Not a full-on erection, but it had definitely grown.

I've been thinking about that a lot since yesterday. It's probably because he's big and strong and I haven't been laid in over a year. It's also probably because he “needs” me and I fucking love to feel needed. He's a mystery. A big, loincloth-less mystery that I'm dying to figure out. That's why I'm attracted.