3:21, Rotation 264 / 365, 232 AE, -67.673404, -68.106380, Reath

  “Issit krimped?” – Is it bound? Zholl yelled down from the deck.

  “Sha doubt me knots?!” Zahul roared back. Whether a sailor was worth his salt was often judged by the quality of their knots, so such a question was almost insulting to him.

  “Aight! Haulin’ sha asses!”

  Zhon grimaced as the hemp rope bit into his shoulder. He glanced over at his brother, who of course kept his ever-present stoic calm and cool while doing the same, though Zhon was sure that he too was straining. For his older brother could not possibly be that much stronger than he. Surely! The ropes were tied to each end of Zahul’s great paddleboard, with Zahul, Lawrah and Githarie balanced sitting precariously upon it, and it thankfully did not pendulate for their combined weight was heavy. They had already hauled the other boards up earlier. When they were finally hauled upon the main deck of the Defiant, Zhon had to collapse upon his back to recover.

  “Olog,” – big orcan – “watch sha weight!” Zhon chortled between gasps of air. “Sha gettin’ heavy, sharku!” - You’re getting heavy, old one! Impolite to say this to the gurls so Zhon simply singled out his Dad.

  “Watch that lip, boi,” Zahul snapped, “Sha just getting weak. Dinnae see Zholl complaining?” And Zhon harrumphed and strode away.

  Zholl, on the other hand, extended an arm to Lawrah for support as she gingerly vaulted the railing, though secretly his triceps were burning. Zahul strode over, his long legs easily clearing the short barrier, leaving Githarie to shimmy and pull herself over.

  Yahka Cordares and Melloh Bullox, two salty beekees, mariners, in the employ of Captain Thraxes, took a break from hanging up varieties of porphyra to dry – the usual algae that the crew harvested on the Defiant’s many trips out to the open ocean – to receive their captain and the gurls.

  Yahka was fat and stout, for some reason always in his heavily scratched raincoat even if it wasn’t raining, and with his ever present bucket hat drooping over his brow, and Melloh, tall and scrawny, wore his oversized scarf which he wrapped around his torso, and big khaki cargo pants filled with all sorts of jellyfishing knick-knacks – little nets and collapsible rods – and both had bushy beards, though not quite as grand as Zahul’s. Yahka’s beard was long and straight, but Melloh’s was bushy and curly, much like his afro.

  In the Exodus, Yahka wasn’t a marine like Zahul or Melloh – Zahul’s best mate – was, but rather a master cannoneer who defended beautiful Orca herself and had blasted many elves to smithereens. He tended to eat too much and was no good at transmogrifying, especially now that he had unknowingly left so many bastard children in the wake of his misadventures at different ports. No other orcan of Rothera had quite the mental knack for estimating artillery projectile arcs quite like he, even if their path reached so far it was practically unseen.

  Zholl threw his arms up in the air. “Oi! Where were sha two globs” – where were you two idiots – “when Zhonny and I were draggin’ Dad’s fatass up?!”

  Zahul struck Zholl hard on the back of his head.

  “Ah!” Zholl brushed his crew cut indignantly. The truth was, Zahul had actually lost weight, but the twins always seized an opportunity to make fun of their father, probably because Zahul would do the same.

  “We work-work, like sha know what that means, kid.” Melloh flipped Zholl a middle finger.

  “Donsha tell me I don’t know work work, been haulin’ rote after rote. Sha don’t even do skai! When was the last time you hauled, sharku?” – When was the last time you hauled, old orcan?

  “Snaga,” – subordinate – “I’m the nav - i - ga - tor.”, he said each syllable slowly as if Zholl had brain damage, “Sha dad’s so skint he can’t even buy a bloody auto-whirligig, so’s I gotta sit my nurd” – unlucky – “ass up on sha kroozer’s” – your boat’s – “wyvern nest, agh radio the glob” – and radio the fool – “to spot the best kelp patches. My naked eye! We could do better if we just put in for an upgrade once in a damn while, but sha cheapskate dad won’t do it. Brawn, brains. Sha dad’s op ain’t nuk” – ain’t nothing – “without me. So donsha say I don’t even do skai- a brainless fing could do your job.” – a brainless weakling could do your job.

  “Skai sha hai!” – Fuck you! – “We on my dad’s kroozer, it ain’t yers. I ain’t yer snaga, yer snaga to me dad.” – I ain’t your bitch, and you work for my dad – “So, sha gotta give me respect, sha hai! ‘Cuz I’m duruk!” – Because I’m the boss!

  “Hah! Duruk! Thinkin’ sha da ash gof?” Hah? You, boss? Thinking you’re a bad motherfucker? “Let me tell sha Zholly, shanna nada nuk-nuk.” – You’re not.

  “Go gerekt pokgai, Mell!” – Go get fucked and die!

  The two orcans dropped into a crouched stance, Zholl growling but Melloh silent, as if they were squaring off for a brawl. Zholl lunged at Melloh, and while the younger orcan was indeed stronger, the battle-hardened Melloh was slippery and agile, and quickly reversed Zholl’s takedown attempt into a headlock.

  “Ahh! Ah- Hah!” Melloh jeered, but of course, he did not tighten his lock to choke Zholl out, but merely gave Zholl a playful noogie, digging his knuckles into where he surmised Zahul had smacked him. “Augh! C’mon Mell, thrak your boi a break!” – give your boi a break! Zholl finally did complain.

  “Look who got rekt in the end! Haha, ha.” He tightened the noose.

  Zholl, trying to gasp for breath but finding it impossible, could not respond, and weakly kept trying to slap his free hand on Melloh’s thigh, tapping out. Finally, Melloh released him, reminding himself not to haze the boss' son too hard.

  “Work on sha timin’, orcboi. Sha always rushin’. Slow down,” Melloh advised. Zholl sulked at the humiliation for just a second, before bursting into laughter himself, and the two then pounded a fist. “Dinnae count! I got nurd!” – I got unlucky, this time! Zholl exclaimed this to delegitimize the win, pointed a finger gun and added “I’ll getchu’ next time we roll.”

  As this was happening – that the brief wrestle was anything but mock was never in doubt – Yahka clapped his hands on Githarie’s shoulders, he always had a soft spot for her, maybe because she was just about as tall as he was, though he was far wider.

  “Happy Birth-rote, nakaz zug!” – Little gurl!

  “Ahh- it’s sha birth-rote, innit, Githie? Pardon me didnae gesh that.” – Didn’t remember that.

  “Psh-aw, ‘sfine, Uncle Melloh!”

  “I saw sha pumpin’ out there Gith! Sha gettin’ better every rote. Soon sha shall be better than nakaz Zhonny. Mog.” – Trust me. For some reason everyone loved burning on Zhon, but probably because Zhon always reacted like a snaga. That is, a little bitch.

  Githarie blushed, but she knew it was just flattery, it wasn’t likely that she would catch up with her brothers anytime soon. “Aw, thanks Yakky.” She gave his thick neck a squeeze.

  “Psh, likesha know kop” – what’s good – “surfing Cordares, sha don’t even surf yerself! Lay off!”, said Zhon, reacting like a snaga. That is, like a little bitch.

  Hai! He was trying to make the birth-rote gurl feel good on her birth-rote! What was wrong with the captain’s boi? Yahka quickly struck him in the solar plexus and left him doubled up gasping for air.

  “Mind sha manners in front of sha betters, snaga boi.” Once again, a little bitch.

  But before Zhon could lunge back Zahul took their attention with a thunderous clap of his meaty paws and roared, “Oi, sha lot o ya! Quit sha orcin’ around agh let’s eat, eh?” - Quit playing around, and let’s eat, eh?

  Gnosta poked her head from behind the top cabin. “Brekkie is rea-dy!” she said in Thraxes family singsong lilt. Yahka and Melloh rushed off to meet Zhon by the giant pot of boiling kelp behind the cabin, the same place it always was.

  Gnosta Thraxes nèe Luyee had her hair tied up in her usual bun held tight by her chopsticks, stray strands of silvery green hair falling all about. She was fit for a middle aged orcan lady, tall and with wiry taut muscles, but she had a golden proportioned hourglass figure. Like her husband she had fought in the Exodus, indeed she was a terrific marks-orcan, though she had long ago retired her sniper rifle. A thick hemp cloth bundle was wrapped about her ample bosom, leaving a bare exposed midriff, but below her navel she was modestly adorned in elastane yoga pants.

  She reached down and hugged her dear, sweet, though somewhat naughty daughter Githarie and wished her, “Happy Birth-rote, dear daughter.”

  Githarie wrapped her elbows around her mom’s neck and squeaked, “Thanks, mummy!”

  “Hello Missus Thraxes!” Lawrah waved.

  “Lawrah, darling gurl! How nice to have sha. And Miss Luyee, please. Or just call me Gnosta.” Gnosta preferred her maiden name, it made her feel young, but of course Zahul shot her an annoyed squint as she said this. Lawrah and Gnosta embraced – orcans were quite the huggers – as she did so. Lawrah gave a polite and light air peck on each cheek as she did so, as was the habit passed to her from her own mother.

  As they released Zahul grabbed his wife from behind and lifted her high up. Gnosta squealed.

  “Is me name not good enough for sha, Miss Luyee?” Zahul made sure to dig his beard deep into Gnosta’s neck, knowing she loved it.

  “Skai! Unhand me sha gezzno brute!” – you stupid brute! She chortled between gasping laughter as Zahul tickled her in her armpits. Finally, Zahul threw her up in a spin, and caught her again, scooping her head into his by cradling the nape of her neck, and giving her a big fat smooch on the lips. One of Gnosta’s legs bent upward at the surprise.

  Zholl and Githarie had to look away, while Lawrah looked on with shock. “Sha glob- Da!” – You dork, Da! Githarie had to protest. “Really? In front of my friend?”

  Pulling away from his lover, Zahul smirked back at his daughter. “What, cannae a sharku show some love for his dear wife?” Gnosta put a hand up to her face in embarrassment.

  Zholl leaned down and whispered in Githarie’s ear, “Don’t react, olog be trollin’ sha,” – the big orc is trolling you – “he’s as bad as Trollorcs,” Then he straightened his knees and swung around to face Lawrah, “He always does this, sha.”, but he had swung very close, their tusks nearly touching, and now it was Lawrah’s turn to turn away. But of course, she was hiding a grin.

  Githarie buried her face in her palms, completely mortified by her father and brother.

  In her brief unawareness, Zhakkathan Thraxes leapt up to Githarie and wrapped his arms around her neck in a glomp.

  “Happy Birth-rote, Rie Rie!”

  “Haha-hah! Thanks, Zhakkyboi.”

  “That was so ghash ‘Rie! Big Yakky and I were watching from the railings! I told sha it would work!”

  The bookish Zhak’s cropped curly brown hair fell about his buck-tusked face like a mop. Dressed in a simple T-shirt and shorts, Zhak was by far the scrawniest runt of the pham, skinnier and shorter than even Githarie. This was partially because Zhak was the youngest, but also because Zhak, like Yahka, didn’t care much for transmogrification, which came difficult to a restless mind like Zhak’s.

  Instead, the youngest Thraxes boi preferred to study. Despite his unassuming frame, Zhak was by far the child that Gnosta and Zahul were fondest of – although of course being responsible parents they would never admit their favoritism even if their body language betrayed it clear as the long day – because unlike Zholl, Zhon and Githarie, he took his education seriously and was poised to be a master magickian.

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  Githarie snuggled against Zhak’s moppish hair and gently set him back down from the embrace to hold him at arm’s length so she could beam at him.

  “It did! The foil- it was fiyah!” But then she cast her eyes down, “I cut Zhon by accident though.”

  Zhak frowned, beset with guilt. He was also by far the most conscientious of the four. “Ai-sha. Githarie, why were you surfing so close to them? Be more careful.” Of course, he uses her full name when he’s lecturing.

  Githarie shrugged, “Just nurd.” – it was just an accident – “I was having too much fun. Wasn’t paying attention.”

  Zahul had already carried Gnosta off to eat with the rest, while Zholl had thrown an arm over Lawrah’s shoulder to guide her there and continue flirting, so the two youngest hung back and strolled.

  “Have sha studied for yer history quiz yet? Gesh and grok?” – Do you know, and understand?

  “Er-” Githarie stuck her pinky finger into her ear to clear out the briny sand.

  Zhak furrowed his brow, “‘Rie Rie, you’d better study! Or else sha gonna flunk.”

  Githarie rolled her eyes. Why did her brother take ancient history so seriously?

  He flipped open his pipboi to tap upon an arcane wandpad, his dexterous fingers furiously weaving summoning spells through the shell by tapping on the runes with a clickety-clack.

  “Alright, I’m going to give sha one of the questions.”

  “Shoot.” Wait. If he had all the questions and answers, couldn’t she just-

  He interrupted her thought, his intonation suddenly crisp and serious, “What were the constituent states that eventually combined to form the superstate of Jhirya?” Professor mode.

  Githarie had no idea. She hazarded a poorly educated guess. She wasn’t even sure what ‘constituent’ meant.

  “Um. The state of Jhir. And.”

  Pause.

  “Uh.”

  Pause. “The state of Yah?”

  Zhak facepalmed. “Rie, you know that’s wrong! Take this seriously!”

  “Ah, it’s multiple choice, innit? Process of elimination. Gimb ash, mog.” – I’ll figure it out, I promise.

  Zhak sighed. His sister was going to flunk this quiz, for sure. But he knew he wasn’t going to change her studying habits any time soon.

  “Just tell me the answers, why donsha. And thrak the questions too.”

  “No, glob!” – No, you dummy! – “Sha hafta study for yerself!” Zhak scolded. “Shanna even gonna remember” – you’re not even going to remember – “if I just toldsha the answer. I ain’t helpin’ sha cheat!”

  Githarie nodded. It was true that she wouldn’t remember even if he told her. Who cares about history, anyway?

  Now the pham, Zahul, Gnosta, Zholl, Zhon, Githarie, Lawrah, Zhak, Yahka, and Melloh, were all gathered around the cauldron, sitting upon a hearth stove built into the deck, palms open and facing to better absorb the comforting heat through their glabrous skin glands.

  The cauldron was simmering with kelp, blocks of fresh tofu that Gnosta picked up at the market, the jellyfish catch of the rote, a big block of thin buckwheat noodle, and more kelp. Though it tasted plain, it was nutritious. Gnosta took a dinged up old aluminum ladle and began pouring out the kelp stew for all the diners into dented steel bowls. There was no cutlery, save for Gnosta’s chopsticks, which when used unfurled her long silvery viridescent hair, so they all had to tip the bowls to their mouths to drink the salty stew, slurping up the softened pieces of kelp and jellyfish as they did so, the same bowls that they would later drink barley tea from set heated in a separate clay pot.

  Lawrah was the daughter of the Chief of their village, Rothera. Chief Raigo was industrious, having overseen the manufacturing of munitions during the Exodus, though never having seen battle himself, and in the revolutions since had turned his factories towards the production of mining explosives, a common necessity for all the Horde, and had turned great profits. Most of his mine holdings were in faraway under-villages, places with less opportunity cost than the humble seaport village Rothera. Plainly, the Varokas were richer than the Thraxes. She tried to hide it, because she returned Zholl’s crush, and the food was plentiful, but she could not help but feel a little disappointed at the lack of variety. Moreover, she was accustomed to eating with at least a fork and spoon!

  Gnosta, mindful as she was, noticed Lawrah picking away at a piece of kelp with her fingers, and offered Lawrah her chopsticks. Though the young orcan gurl politely tried to feign satisfaction, it wasn’t hard for Zholl to notice either and he furrowed his brow. “Sha want some more, Law?” But more would hardly help.

  Githarie’s mother leaned in, popped out a small pouch hidden in a fold in her pleats, “Would sha like some salt, Lawrah?”

  Lawrah had already shoved another piece of kelp into her mouth with the chopsticks, chewing slowly, and said, “Mmm! Mmh-” she couldn’t really talk with her mouth full, so she took a gulp, but it didn’t go down easily. Indeed, the briny kelp was too salty for her. “No thanks. Yum!” But it was damn unconvincing.

  ‘Krimp’ - orcish for ‘to bind’, in this instance to bind with a knot.

  Don’t call me Shirley.

  ‘Olog’, orcish for a big orcan, often implied to be somewhat dim and slow-witted.

  Orcish for old man in general, but almost always used to refer to sailors due to the word’s similarity to the cryptid leviathans known to the Godlikes as ‘sharks’, but they were long gone, having been indiscriminately massacred by said same beings who gave them their name.

  ‘Beekee’, orcish for mariner.

  Probably to hide his baldness, a result of transmogrifying his testosterone levels too high when he was a younger orcan.

  There are limited numbers of quadhelical essence archive cells in any orcan body, and while they were replenished slowly over time by molecular scribes, it was slow for it was a huge work. Passing on the archive cells to offspring meant diluting the parent’s stores, or at least for fathers, who passed on their archive cells to the mothers for future births- though the orcan body did have the ability to detect if the glob was just jacking off, and in those cases would preserve the precious cells. With fewer archive cells for referral, transmogrification came hard and slow.

  Yahka did have his own kroozer, a little dinghy with surprising range.

  He had properly studied trigonometry, unlike atul, and after more than ten thousand hours of loading shots and imagining their flight, it had become like a well-trained heuristic now, not dissimilar to perfect pitch. The transmogrified photographic memory didn’t hurt.

  ‘Glob’, orcish for ‘fool’, ‘idiot’, ‘moron’, ‘dumbass’.

  The Beings once called this ‘flipping the bird’ – that is, a cryptid wyvern – but because there were no more of them, save for the flightless chicken, this parlance fell out of use.

  ‘Fing’, orcish for mutant, an orcan before they were dipped, and since none were left it now meant an orcan who hadn’t transmogrified the body, or a ‘weakling’, ‘wimp’, ‘wuss’.

  ‘Snaga’, orcish for ‘subordinate’, although the prescriptive meaning was ‘slave’ this meaning was taboo to orcans, and so the actual descriptive use was much more like how the Godlikes might say ‘bitch’ or ‘pussy’, except ungendered. It definitely did not mean ‘pussy’.

  ‘Hai’ [閪] orcish for ‘pussy’, ‘vagina’, like pokgai it was inherited from the dead Jhiryese dialect the Godlikes called Cantonese. It was often used to generally address, as in the manner of the Oceanic ‘cunt’.

  ‘Duruk’, orcish for ‘aura’, ‘presence’, ‘charisma’, ‘respect’ or even sometimes ‘majesty’. It was a way to address the Horde Master. Here, it was Zhon saying he was ‘the boss’, ‘the hot shit’.

  ‘Gerekt Pokgai’, probably one of the most offensive things that could be said in orcish, literally meaning “go get wrecked / fucked, and die on the street, unloved and unwept”

  ‘Rekt’, orcish for defeated, or to have great misfortune befall one. Used very often by gamblers, it was slang from the Lost Age.

  ‘Nurd’, orcish for ‘unlucky’ or ‘bad luck’. Also means ‘nerd’.

  Especially within earshot of Lawrah.

  ‘Gesh’, orcish for ‘to know’.

  ‘Kop’, orcish for ‘head’, ‘highest’, ‘top’ or ‘most’.

  Yahka thought- what did I say now, that made the boss’s boi upset again? He’s so insecure.

  While her Lower Jhiryan heritage normally took the patronym, at the point that her great great paternal grandfather had married her great great maternal grandmother the practice of joining both patronym and matronym had come in vogue, and so her maiden name was Lu [盧] and Yi [易] or [盧易], together Luyee.

  Do not ask Miss Luyee her age.

  Gnosta Luyee’s passion was vinyasa, and she made sure to flow through her sun salutations and warriors first thing after she woke.

  The orcan culture, being mostly monogamous, still remembered what these words meant. But they very often didn’t bother with the ritual of marriage.

  Never ask Miss Luyee her age.

  ‘Gezzno’, orcish for ‘stupid’.

  ‘Trollorcs’, meaning orcans hailing from the village of Troll, for they were the most horrid trolls in all of Orca. The village of Troll had no greater village celebration than rote ninety-one of the rev, ‘Glob’s Rote’, known in the Lost Age as April’s Fools Day, the rotation they all played pranks on each other. As it so happened, it also led to a lot of banishments, and so nomadic trollorcs were found in every orcan village. Often not for very long.

  Getting into the flow of orcish lingo meant saying a lot of sha’s, and so even if it didn’t mean anything at all. It could be used as a sentence-final particle.

  Especially because Zholl had lightly slung his arm around her lower waist – casual but still intimate – at that exact moment and she couldn’t help but react. Zholl thought to himself, you got this.

  ‘Ghash’, orcish for ‘fire’, also meaning anything good or excellent.

  Rie Rie- only Zhak ever called Githarie this, but she absolutely loved it. She wished it would take, but it didn’t, atul just called her Gith, or Githie.

  It was not that Zhak had an attention deficit, far from it. Zhak just found learning new things extremely gratifying. The way he saw it, all fun came from some sort of learning. He just wasn’t patient enough to enter the meditative trance required for transmogrification. The Horde Master had removed many neurodivergent patterns from the orcan essence pool – he did feel remorse, but ultimately he judged that controlling his populace’s empathy overrode the cost of diminishing their neurodiversity – but arguably the berserker rage state is in itself a state that lies somewhere on the autism spectrum: hyperfocus and savant aptitude in inflicting violence.

  The other Thraxes children would tease that Zhak was a ‘nurd’ all the time. But Zhak took it with pride.

  An orcan gauntlet strapped to the forearm meant to secure an arcane wandpad.

  Arcane wandpad- what the Godlikes called the ‘smartphone’. Very rare for orcans to use, only magick users knew how to navigate a command line terminal - the only interface remaining, after most arcane runic inscriptions, or ‘code’, had been scrambled by dragonbreath aura, or ‘electromagnetic radiation’.

  A BASH shell. Most arcane magick had been wiped out by the electromagnetic pulses of dragonbreath. Some of it survived and could be scavenged, but had to be redeveloped, and like their forebears, orcans always paid user experience designers as little as they could. Therefore, the extent of orcan arcane magicks only reached the stage of the terminal command line, without any graphical user interfaces at all. The only operating system available to an orcan magickian was the open-source Linux kernel, preserved by its ubiquity, and which Zhak loved to customize to an almost unnecessary degree. His preferred distribution was plain Arch, and he often sneered at noobs who used Ubuntu or other Debian based distros.

  The correct answer was the state of Jhongguo and the state of Rossiya. The failure of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine – largely used as a marker for the beginning of the Million Wars period, the other landmark conflict being the failed Morquarran invasion of Iraq – severely depleted their military ability. As the temperature increased, desertification razing what little agricultural land was left in Jhongguo, their survival came down to seizing and occupying colder ground. And to get a better angle for attack, to reclaim their ‘Lost Province’. Eventually the conflict drew to a dead stalemate and in the ensuing anarchy of the Catastrophe both governments had to band together to survive, forming the oligarchic superstate of Jhirya. The vast cultures of Jhongguo and Rusya then forever became known simply as Lower Jhirya and Upper Jhirya, great swaths of each simply dying out with the Lost Age, preserved only in unscryed corners of the psionic legacy.

  ‘Gimb’, orcish for ‘find’.

  ‘Ash’, orcish for ‘da numba one’, ‘the one and only’, in this context meaning the correct answer.

  ‘Shanna’, orcish for ‘you ain’t’ – ‘sha’ meaning you – ‘sha not’.

  History Master Guldung made sure to change the quiz every semester because he knew the propensity for the orc kids he taught to cheat egregiously by passing each other old quizzes, so having the questions wouldn’t help Githarie anyway. Luckily, he made the questions easier every time, because his pupils would just keep getting them wrong.

  ‘Pham’, the Thraxes household personal orcish for ‘family’, or, really, just ‘fam’, it was the exact same sound, and don’t bother asking them why they spelled it that way- they didn’t know.

  Raigo wished he could move to McMurdo, but as long as he remained Chief, he was stuck here. Oh! McMurdo! Where lay the fortress-palace of the Horde Master, free for all to enter save for the Horde Master’s Sanctum. McMurdo! With its towering sky-scraping lugs, it was the only proper orcan polis. McMurdo! The schools there! Lawrah could go to college after graduating from her primary and secondary studies. Though- the tuition for those rare seats were astronomically high. Oh, to be an orcan elite, even in this supposed ‘egalitarian’ horde. It is, after all, easier to imagine the end of the world before the end of capitalism. And the world had already ended.