Despite Ten’s absolute determination to immediately go to his room and read everything he had on Ab’ed and Y’tzur, his original decision not to, based on feeling like wet garbage, turned out to maybe not just be laziness. Kat’s medicine was helping, but he still wanted nothing more than to simply curl up and groan. Well, that was untrue; he wanted to take enough painkillers that this ceased being an issue, but that unfortunately was not in the cards for someone being forced through detox.
He was sitting, hunched over at his desk, which had a chair with a solid back that made sitting at it uncomfortable. His tail could twist around his back, but it was less flexible at the base so this was slightly painful, and it was getting pinched by the arm of the chair. The other option he’d experimented with was flopping it straight up the back of the chair, which was somehow even less comfortable. It was kind of an annoying oversight, since most Levir had a tail shorter and even less flexible than Ten’s, and Void only knew how they would manage to sit in this kind of a chair.
Judging by the style of chair and bed, not to mention the massive couch in the lounge, the Scrap Victoria had either originally been Human-make, or had been refitted by them at some point. Or, Ten supposed, it might be Y’tzur in origin. The captain had looked remarkably Human, just significantly larger, differently colored, and, Ten was pretty sure, a different kind of ear, although he hadn’t gotten a close look. There were probably other differences, but they really were incredibly Human-looking. Same number of limbs, same number of eyes… If they were like Humans culturally, maybe this planet wouldn’t be so bad. Humans had been violent and primitive in a lot of ways at first contact, and some parts of that hadn’t changed. But they were also wildly friendly, extremely adaptable, and curious to a fault. Ten liked these traits. If the Y’tzur were like that…
The only way to find out was currently spread open on the desk. Paper. Actual freaking paper, because Ten had paid some back alley surgeon to get his implant the fuck out of him years ago. Looking at the paper was making Ten’s eyes hurt and his head throb, though. The text was too damn small, the paper too damn white. It wasn’t even that he wasn’t used to reading or didn’t know how… you couldn’t implant an infant while their brains were still developing, so reading physical texts was a necessary skill even for species that had a tendency to all have implants. Not everything was available digitally, after all, even if some people liked to act like it was. But trying to do it right now with a sore body, pinched tail, and throbbing headache was making him long for the ability to close his eyes and read everything inside the comfort of his own mind.
Well, grumbling about it wasn’t getting him any closer to the information he needed. Ten scooted back in his chair a bit—ow—and started rummaging around in desk drawers, wondering if he’d be lucky and find some kind of magnification device. What he found instead, however, was even better. A lightpad! This had been in here the whole damn time? Also, the rooms on this ship came with lightpads?! Manjeet had seriously booked him an incredibly fancy trip. He hoped the detox side effects passed quickly so he could actually spend some of the journey properly appreciating the luxury. He doubted whatever accommodations they had on Ab’ed for refuges would be even close to this… probably, they would be closer to his accommodations on Jandith-3.
Manjeet had included a data port in with all the papers, because he wasn’t stingy despite how long he’d been working on Ten’s case. However much he was getting paid, it was obviously worth it, and he didn’t seem to be focused on pocketing as much as possible. As if that weren’t obvious by the private ship—with a doctor!—he’d selected to transport Ten across the galaxy. Ten eagerly turned the lightpad on and plugged the data port in. He stood as it pulled up the information, taking the two steps to the side necessary to flop down into his bed. This would be much more comfortable than that stupid desk chair, and the pad could make the text as big as he needed.
Now, where to start?
Ten was more curious about the captain than the planet he was headed to, so even though starting with the planet would have probably made more sense, he scrolled past the information on Ab’ed to open up information on the Y’tzur themselves.
It hadn’t just been Ten’s imagination, they really were super Human-looking. Ten was looking at diagrams first—they were easier to digest at the moment—and there was a full body image, back and front, of a Y’tzur… beyn, according to the description, whatever that meant. This particular Y’tzur had skin with a light green tint, and a long mane of dark green hair to match, but other than that, and their two-pointed, two-holed ears, it was like looking at… well, kind of like looking like old Human science fiction, honestly. They’d never be able to actually pass for human, but… two legs, two arms, no tail… Oh, hey, only four fingers and toes, though!
Ten searched for the word “beyn,” curious, and it pulled up a section on sex, specifically on sexual trimorphism. Oh, beyn was a gender marker, like male or female. That was interesting. Most species wound up getting gendered mostly based on who was dealing with the eggs, with male and female applied as widely as possible due to Levir-centrism. For instance, female Osith were fully capable of penetration—as had been vigorously shown to Ten himself not that long ago—but they were the ones that produced the ovum and carried the children to term, so… female. Osith didn’t necessarily conceptualize it the same way, though.
According to this, Y’tzur were in possession of three sexes, known as avush, beyn, and o’millui. Avush… That was one of the words that Captain Eytan’kyo had used that hadn’t translated. It must be his sex, although that he introduced himself with that fact was a bit unusual. Humans had a tendency to introduce themselves with pronouns, which for Levir was the same thing as announcing their sex, but was more complicated for Humans, which as far as Ten understood, was why they did it. Levir often offered them the same courtesy—it was a cultural thing for Humans, and anyway they got extra confused by the sex of leviroid species—but it wasn’t a habit that was common amongst most species. Maybe the Y’tzur really were very similar to Humans! The three sex thing was different, though. He read on.
Oh, this wasn’t that complicated. Scanning through, it seemed as though the o’millui produced the eggs—making them the female-equivalent in Ten’s mind, although he knew that wasn’t really culturally appropriate—and the avush fertilized them. Literally eggs, too, they were an egg-laying species, looked like, different from Humans there but more similar to Levir. The beyn were where it got interesting, with their capability to do either. It said here that they served to maintain an even balance between the sexes in shifting populations. Ten knew of aquatic species in his home system that worked like that, but it was neat to see it in a sapient species, especially one that looked so… normal.
The actual word was ‘leviroid,’ not normal, but really, they did seem pretty straightforward. They were three-sexed, egg-laying, and vaguely Human-adjacent! Their body language was potentially very different, though, at least if the captain was a good representation of his—no, it was vis—species. Not all species had pronouns that translated well to Ten’s actual language, but most wound up using ones that translated either to ones for the male or female sex, for children, or for objects. Ten would have to adjust quickly and prepare himself for reciprocated confusion. He supposed that by Y’tzur standards, he would be an avush too, like the captain. In his own species, he was the one who would be fertilizing the eggs, and he certainly had no capabilities to switch that around. He’d have to get used to those ve/ver pronouns fast, in case the aliens’ language didn’t have a direct translation for his own yet.
It said here that avush competed for mates, which might explain the captain’s behavior if Ten was seen as another avush hanging around vis partner—who was a human woman, but that was a rough analog for an Y’tzur o’millui, if he was understanding this all correctly. Some people—all kinds of people, although certain species were more prone to it—were the jealous types. That was easy enough to understand. Ten obviously couldn’t be trusted in that regard, as much as he’d like to think he could be, considering he just got finished cucking a drug lord. He’d just have to be a bit more careful about how he acted around Kat, especially where Captain Eytan could see.
With that important cultural tidbit in mind and a general idea of Y’tzur biology, Ten did the sensible thing and skipped back to planetary information. As he’d expected, the planet had an oxygen-based atmosphere, a single moon, and a ring system made up of mostly rocks and ice. It had an appealing looking climate in most places on the planet, and one well within Ten’s survivability range for the entirety of it. Not that he particularly wanted to be placed in a frozen wasteland or another sand-filled desert, but it was good to know. Oxygen levels were high enough for breathing not to be a concern, with particulate levels far below what Ten was used to, even before he wound up on Jandith-3. Swimmable oceans, rivers, and lakes, too! Ten wondered if it was too much to hope that he might be placed near one. He hadn’t gone swimming since his exile, and missed it terribly.
He skimmed through, picking up basically all good news about the planet, and then found information about the spaceport. Apparently the entire planet only had one open to alien vessels, which was absurd for such a moderately-sized planet. Built up around that space port was a visitor’s city that was currently… the only city on the planet open to aliens?!
Ten stared in astonishment. It wasn’t unusual for newly-discovered planets to have strict immigration rules in place for any alien visitors. There were a lot of inherent risks involved, both biologically and culturally. Plus, everyone was a little xenophobic for a generation or two, at first. It was natural. But Ten hadn’t realized that Ab’ed was that new to the intergalactic scene. Normally, planets like that were far from attempting to join the Union, and were certainly not in a position to be accepting alien refugees. It was astonishing that they had any system for that whatsoever. Perhaps their culture was one deeply invested in caring for the unfortunate? The combination of having a single city for alien visitors and having a refugee program implied that they were doing things extremely outside of the usual order of progression.
This changed things. Until they opened up the wider planet to aliens, or even just other parts, it seemed like Ten would be limited to the singular city of Hes’ger. It was, at least, a full and proper city, according to the information provided. It was large, as these things went, the size of a major capitol on most planets. A few years ago, Ten would have immediately balked at the idea of being stuck in a single city on some alien planet. While it still wasn’t exactly ideal, it wasn’t as if, as a refugee, he’d have a lot of money for traveling anyway. Depending on their set-up for refugees, he might be lucky just to be able to find a menial labor or customer service job that would give him enough money for a glorified box.
It would be better than Jandith-3, he supposed. And if it was in the early stages of development, there was room for improvement. He flipped down to the technology section of the culture document, attempting to battle off despair. It looked like they were in the middle stages of galactic development. The document spoke proudly about how they’d successfully integrated Union technology like lightboxes and completed the process of making the implants Union-compatible. They looked every bit like a planet industriously working towards joining the Union; Ten couldn’t help but smile a bit. Once again, it reminded him of Humans. They’d been in the Union for a while now, of course, but historical media about their battle to join the Union was popular. Ten wondered how close the Y’tzur were to meeting Union standards. Hopefully not very, or else his presence there might become an issue. “Not harboring a Levir exile” was not technically a requirement, but it would be so like his people to be petty about it.
Skimming through the other parts of culture, he learned a few more interesting tidbits… Powerful political leadership roles were filled by couples, which were referred to as bonded pairs. They campaigned together as a pair, and for these roles, it seemed like non-bonded Y’tzur weren’t eligible. Reading between the lines, it seemed a bit as though mating was considered a life stage, much like becoming an adult was for Levir. The information here used bonded pairs and mated pairs, Ten supposed interchangeably, so it seemed like it was something akin to marriage or life partnering. It was unusual to find a species so developed that still placed such an emphasis on partnering, but not unheard of. It was really just a cultural difference. The information here didn’t go into details on child-rearing, focusing more on the culture of already-grown Y’tzur, but Ten supposed it was probably similar to the Levir method, given their biological similarity to both Levir and Humans.
Alright… alright! Mixed bag, really, what with the ‘being limited to one city’ thing, but overall it didn’t seem to be as bad as Ten had feared. Medicine and technology would be behind what he’d been accustomed to on his home planet, but that was true of any nonunionized planet. But there was a difference between a planet that wasn’t in the Union yet and a planet like Jandith-3 that had no intention to ever be. Jandith-3 was a glorified mining operation. Its purpose wasn’t to be pleasing or even particularly livable to its inhabitants. Most colonized planets and space stations outside the Union were like that. Ab’ed, by contrast, was the Y’tzur’s singular home planet, and appeared to be working towards Union membership. Even if they didn’t make it in Ten’s lifespan, it promised nicer living conditions than anywhere else Ten had been since exile.
Ten didn’t particularly like thinking about his lifespan, so he dropped the lightpad onto the bed, deactivating it with a flick of his thumb. If he wasn’t going to read, and certainly wasn’t going to sleep, and Kat was probably busy comfort-fucking her partner… Ten rolled off his bed with a groan. Time to see if any of the other cabins were unlocked, and also if the rest of this ship was just as evocative of a past lifetime of hosting space orgies.