Not surprisingly, considering the way the D'zd used them, the inner sides of their buildings' walls had the same flowing structure as their exteriors. Holes, furrows, and other features enriched the walls' curving surfaces to make the light of speech bounce and diffract in pleasing ways.

It took a while to explain the concept of stairs to them, mostly because they thought it was some kind of elaborate joke on my part. Dk'brr expressed the majority opinion quite well when he'd asked "Why waste the space?", and looking around the room, it wasn't hard to see why they felt that way. Much like ants, the D'zd had no trouble walking up walls or hanging upside-down from the ceiling, and used designated walkways along the surfaces in lieu of stairs. The way their furniture was arranged, often mounted in place in defiance of gravity, gave the place a funhouse feel, only without any of the manic edge you'd associate with the standard roadside circus attraction.

As I said, the building's interior was dominated by the big open space in the middle. However, it wasn't a totally open floor plan. The mouths of tunnels on the walls and ceilings led off to other chambers—washrooms, personal rooms, and the like.

That reminds me: another basic rule of D'zd table manners was that when you ate, you either sat around the dining pit, or on the ceiling directly above it, ideally from one of the recliners up there, which had built-in "tables" to keep the food held up.

The result was a constant drizzle of drained corpses and the fluids they'd lost raining down from up above.

As interesting as his world was to us, the Brrk'zk seemed even more interested in us and the world we'd come from. Considering the countless generations of D'zd that had lived and died in the Archive since their last contact with a Messenger from the Vyx, it was natural that they'd be so curious. Because of that, I made a conscious effort to limit my answers to the basics. The complexity and dynamism of the D'zd's Archive was orders of magnitude beyond that of the Treefathers' little slice of arcadia and, as such, I wanted to learn more about these beings before I started openly blabbing potentially sensitive information.

"As you said," I explained, from my recliner by the dining pit, "your world was as much of a shock to us as being put into your species' bodies was."

"That goes both ways," Dk'brr interjected, stabbing his stinger into an electro-potato skewer. Though the blades of the plants' propellers had been cut, the spinning nubs had grown back enough prior to harvest that they whirled around in protest as Dk'brr drained their Charge. "From the shine of it," he said, "I'd think your world was home to fire spirits."

"Is that so surprising?" Nina asked.

"Yes! To use fire so casually? It's insane!"

"If you don't mind," I said, turning to the Brrk'zk, "some of the details regarding our visit are rather sensitive, and I'd prefer to wait until tomorrow to share them, when we'll hopefully have a better understanding of the current situation in this Archive."

"I understand," the Brrk'zk replied.

A large, dead vrr't'k fell from the ceiling and onto the dining pit, hitting the floor with a loud, wet crunch.

"Speaking of which," Lark said, leaning off the edge of her chair. "What's the deal with those yeomen we keep hearing about?"

Brrk'zk Szr't't raised his head to the group of D'zd seated on the chairs mounted to the ceiling above the pit. Droplets of fluid fell from them as the diners drained their food of its charge. The discarded remains followed shortly thereafter.

I noticed some of the yeomen had brought the children. The adorable little things were having the time of their lives dropping their drained meals onto the pit. Their parents had to constantly keep them in line, lest they start throwing the refuse around.

"Why are they up there?" Nina asked.

"It's a place of honor," the Brrk'zk said. "Dining on high has always been a show of status."

"Well, if you're the leader," Lark said, "shouldn't you be up there with them?"

"Well, I would but…" Brrk'zk leaned in close, narrowing his flower, "they're very disagreeable."

"They're the leaders of the farming communities around T'kznd," Dk'brr said. "They're like nymphs who think they know better than everyone else. They're greedy, Charge-guzzling warmongers. They've brought all the worst aspects of the Southlands with them. Shoving a bvb (bvoob) in my spiracles would be more pleasant than spending an evening with them," Dk'brr added, as he tossed his finished electro-potato skewer into the pit. "

"That's certainly a… colorful metaphor," I said.

"I wouldn't go so far as to call them warmongers," Brrk'zk replied, "but it is certainly true that they have long been pushing me to step up military actions against the Vvz'zsh, so that we can drive them back to make more land available to be cleared for cultivation and husbandry."

"That sounds… reasonable?" I said.

"The Vvz'zsh disagree," Dk'brr replied, "and they disagree enough that they'd rather terrorize and kill us than simply acquiesce." He set a leg of something down in his bowl.

"Shouldn't you defend yourselves if you're attacked?" Nina asked.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"You think we don't?" Dk'brr said.

"The Yeomen don't want defense," Brrk'zk Szr't't said. "They want something more proactive, with some even calling for a full-blown military campaign against the Vvz'zsh—and that, I won't allow. I can't. We don't know the extent of the enemy's forces, nor their full capabilities, and without that information, I refuse to commit any more of our already-strained Charge reserves to feed an army that might not even be enough to seize a decisive victory."

"I agree with my progenitor," Dk'brr said. "The Vvz'zsh fight like savages, and with an enemy like that, you have to be careful. If we let down our guard, they'll attack; if we respond with too much force, they'll attack with something even worse than before. Overextending ourselves would be even worse. Not only could we easily fall into a Vvz'zsh trap—and those bastards love traps—but, in overextending ourselves, it might just give them a window to strike us while our guard is down."

My first impression of the young D'zd had been of a prudent, scrutinizing individual, and while that was true, the aura of seriousness I'd picked up from him was not the only aspect of his personality. Really, he just seemed to be very concerned with T'kznd's political situation. His father was getting on in years, and everyone was anticipating the moment the Brrk'zk would pass the torch to Dk'brr.

Brrk'zk Szr't't tossed some drained shrimp-snakes into the pit, over the ring of fresh food to the growing pile of refuse at the pit's center.

"There's also the possibility of a threat from within," Szr't't added. "I wish I could say I'd trust the yeomen to raise armies that would obey my orders and respect the chain of command, but I can't. Though they don't have quite enough political clout in the capital to get away with ousting me outright, I would not put it beneath them to arrange some mishap whose fallout would have the Dominion strip my lineage of its titles and give the Brrk'zkhsip to one of the yeomen, probably Kvz'd'dk Tn'nd (Kihvuzdadek Tinnind) that damned upstart." The Brrk'zk rapped his claws on the rim of the dining pit. "No, if we are going to strike the Vvz'zsh, we need to be able to give everything we have, without worrying about internal disputes."

"So… what are you going to do?" I asked.

"Deal with them," Szr't't replied. "After the meal, I'll resume talks and politely tell them to go fuck off. Winter is coming. We need to focus on filling our storehouses instead of coming up with more ways to waste what little Charge reserves we still have."

"Once this nonsense with the yeomen is done," Dk'brr said, "I'll be heading off to the academy to train as a Chanter. After that, I'll come back home and declare my candidacy for Brrk'zk."

"And with my endorsement and zyr record of public service," his father added, "Dk'brr will be a shoo-in to win the election."

"Election?" I asked. "I… thought your position was hereditary."

"It is both," Szr't't explained. "We are vk'vv'dzz (Vikvuv-Dizz). This means we are allowed to both run for office and vote in the Brrk'zkal election. Vk'vv'kztk (Vikvuv-Kiztuk) like the yeomen can vote, though not run."

"You don't have universal suffrage?" I asked.

The Brrk'zk just stared at us. "Really, you have the strangest ideas."

I guessed it took one to know one.

Aside from the dining pit, the other main feature of the room was the centrally located space heater. The kiln's "roof" rose up from the middle of the room in a large dome. The dome had many niches carved into it, to snuggle into and get comfortable. Like the rest of the building, the dome was made from D'zd concrete, and was several feet thick. A chimney tube emerged from the top of the dom. It rose through the center of the building like a column, reaching all the way up to the chimney opening in the middle of the roof, which was covered by a fibrous tarp or overhanging wood plank. The warmth it radiated was positively divine. Yet, as Dk'brr had explained, living in the Northlands, central heating wasn't just a luxury.

"Any home worth living in will have a kiln in their basement," he'd told us. "This isn't just a matter of comfort; it's life and death."

"Why?" Nina had asked.

"For our people," the Brrk'zk had replied, "heat is as deadly as cold. The kiln's thick shell insulates us from the fire burning within it, reducing the heat to safe levels. We'd all die if it broke. You saw what happened when the barrack's kiln broke."

Everyone in earshot of the conversation turned morose at that remark, and understandably so.

I decided to change the topic. "If you don't mind me asking," I said, slightly lifting my torso off the recliner, "what's that trapdoor in the middle of the pit for?"

"Clean up," Dk'brr said.

"It is connected to a chute that leads into the cesspit in the basement," the Brrk'zk said. "One of the house servants opens the trapdoor and shovels all the Charge-drained bodies into it once the feast is over."

"A cesspit?" I asked. "That… uh… doesn't seem very sanitary. When was the last time you cleaned it?"

My words attracted several stares, particularly from Tchk'tk—the Brrk'zk's retainer—who was approaching the pit with a bowl of electropotatoes in his hands.

"Why would you clean a cesspit?" Rzt'zk asked. The heavy had been sitting on a chair not far behind us, relaxing in the aftermath of his meal.

"Why wouldn't you?" I said.

"Crops grow by breaking down organic refuse," Rzt'zk said. "That's how the bvbs build up Charge. Cleaning it all out would defeat the purpose. You wanna starve the plants? 'Cuz that's how you starve your plants. My lineage has farmed these lands for generations. My grandprogenitors would wilt if they saw your shines."

"Huh," I said, "I guess this means your plants really aren't plants—at least, not in the way we understand them."

"What's a buh-voob?" Nina asked.

"Those things," Dk'brr said, pointing at the bowl of electro-potatoes in Tchk'tk's hands. He bobbed his head eagerly. "Gimme!"

"Here, Dk'brr." Tchk'tk handed the Subcommander the bowl of potatoes.

Nina stared at the potatoes rather intently, though, without a human face, it wasn't clear to me what her interest in them was.

Dk'brr drained their charge with gusto, stabbing his claws and stingers into them.

The D'zd was clearly enjoying himself.

"Fresh bvbs straight from the cesspit are my favorite," he explained. "The charge they produce develops different overtones depending on what they've been fed."

"It's an acquired taste," T'zz said. The Chanter reached in to grab a dripping leg of… something.

Nina nodded. "I can imagine."

"Do you have any bvbs leftover from last year's harvest?" a feasting D'zd asked Tchk'tk. "Some of those would be lovely. And if they've fermented a little…" The D'zd joggled their head excitedly.

"I'm not your servant," Tchk'tk said, in a blunt reply.

"Uh uh uh," the Brrk'zk interjected, "tonight, Tchk'tk, you are very much our servant. After all, you were the one to insist on my presence."

The retainer responded with some poorly feigned offense. "Oh, what could I have possibly done wrong now?"

The Brrk'zk scraped one of his claws along the dining pit's ceramic edge. "I'm no fool, Tchk'tk. You'd have to be daft to think I haven't noticed you speaking with the yeomen behind my back. I dislike backroom dealings, Tchk'tk and dislike backroom dealers even more."

"But Sir!" Tchk'tk said, his concern now genuine.

"No buts," Szr't't replied. "Now, hop to it, and let this be a lesson for you. When you're done with that, go to the tower."

"Yes, sir." The retainer marched off, bowl in hand, mumbling furiously.

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