Big Big Good

Lissette watched Igrud run around the track in his loping, knuckle-walking gait. The others of his kind engaged in various sport on the pitch surrounded by a track. For his part, Igrud had a standing race against one of the humans every Thursday.

His muscles sufficiently warmed up, he stood up in a bipedal stance, the foreign sun of this planet shining off his dark brown scales in shimmering rainbows. “Are you ready, Kel?” he asked the human.

Kelly Brady, former professional sprinter dressed in exercise shorts, a tee-shirt that said “STAFF” on the back, and running shoes, smiled at the maukan. “I won’t go easy on you, Ig. You going to win today?”

“I think I might,” he said. “400 meters. Let’s go.”

Lissette Deschamps, dressed in the polo shirt, slacks, soft boots, body camera, and utility belt with keys and a radio, that made up her standard uniform, stood by the starting line for the 400-meter dash. “Come on, you two. Let’s get this show on the road, so Kelly can get his skinny, glow-in-the-dark white legs back into a uniform.”

They lined up, and Lissette gave them the signal to go. The human, in his long-legged stride, led off the line. It took a maukan some time to build up speed in their quadrupedal, knuckle-walking gait. Once they did, though, they could far outstrip the speed of a human.

The conventional wisdom was humans win at 100 and 200 meters, they tie somewhere around 400 meters, then maukans win at distances up to five kilometers; the outside range for maukan endurance. At long distances, humans always the upper hand.

Kelly ran like he had the devil on his tail, head forward, arms pumping, back straight. Igrud built up speed like a locomotive, gaining on Kelly on the oval track. Lissette watched the finish line along with a few of the other maukans, most of whom cheered for Igrud, but Lissette noticed a couple of them cheering for Kelly.

 She positioned herself so her body camera was pointed straight down the finish line. It was going to be close. They came across the line, Kelly slowing after with the few long, arm-swinging steps she’d gotten used to seeing. Igrud, however, dove across the line so hard that he rolled into a ball on the other side and came to a stop in a heap.

Ignoring the question of winner for the moment, Lissette ran to his side along with Kelly. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

Igrud unrolled himself and they could see he was laughing. “That was my best run ever. If that didn’t beat you, I don’t know if it’s possible.”

A voice came across her radio. “Lissette, we’re watching the replay in control. Igrud won by about two millimeters.”

Kelly helped the exhausted Igrud to his feet and congratulated him before going in to prepare for his shift. Lissette finished out the afternoon with the maukans until it was time for them head back inside.

As they filed in, she greeted them each by name and they responded in kind. She had just stepped inside and locked the outside door when her radio chirped.

She put in her earpiece and set the radio to talk to send. “This is Lissette. All counted. Some of the guys are making a celebratory dinner for Igrud. Some variation of a traditional dish using local ingredients.”

Lissette nodded. “Yeah, I’ll handle it. I’m off tomorrow anyway, so I can handle staying a little late. … Will do.”

“Hey, Lissette, are you having dinner with us tonight?” Igrud stood tall on two feet, his long arms held out a bit from his body. That stance from a human, would be a warning that he was about to get violent. In maukan body language, however, it was equivalent to a human standing stock straight, their head high, their chest puffed out: pride.

“I bet Kelly will, when he gets here,” she said, “but I’ve got some other things to take care of. It sounds good, though. Could you save me a plate, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“We’ll make sure of it,” he said.

“I have to welcome a new guest, so don’t be too hard on Ivan and Waylon. I’ll be back later. You can be as hard as you want on Kelly, though.” She laughed and the maukans — and Kelly — laughed with her.

She walked through the common room where a large holo played a popular sitcom. Various board games were stacked on the shelves, along with a wide selection of books, both human and maukan in origin.

The open kitchen — with all the needed amenities — was a hub of activity as it seemed at least four of the maukans were all trying to make the same dish with a surprising lack of dissent or disagreement. The most common noise coming from the group in the kitchen was laughter, including from Ivan, who was helping out.

Lissette opened a panel near the elevator and turned her key in the recessed keyhole. The elevator doors slid open, and she stepped in. In the dormitory she’d just left, there was nothing that felt like a prison at all; nothing to suggest that entire dormitory was, in effect, a giant prison cell.

Stopped on the level where tunnels ran beneath the dormitories and sport field, that illusion was shattered, even without a single bar anywhere in the prison. She entered control, the literal and metaphorical center of the prison.

After finding out what time the new guest was due to arrive, she waited in the intake office just inside the outer walls of the prison.

When the maukan was led out of the ground car, hands and feet shackled, Lissette stood just inside the door, her arms crossed in a close approximation of a maukan greeting stance.

The military police unlocked his shackles, handed his file to Lissette, and said, “He’s all yours.”

Freed of his bonds, the maukan returned the greeting stance, seeming bewildered.

Lissette spoke to him in the most common maukan language; one that over eighty percent of the prison population spoke, and the only one she’d learned. “Welcome, Jigan Mantun. I am Lissette Deschamps, the man there is Jorge Mendez, and we will be handling your intake.” She offered a hand to shake.

Jigan looked at the extended hand and shook it in the human gesture he’d learned during his brief detainment. “You speak Hantu. This is not…the reception I expected.”

“I speak some, but getting better,” she said. “Do you speak Common?”

He made a fist with one hand held low, the sign for small. “I talks can little good-bad. I listens can big good.”

“We can teach you,” she said. “If you don’t understand anything I’m saying just stop me, and I’ll try to translate. First, though, we need to get you checked out by the doctor…and get rid of that silly orange uniform. We have a closet full of donated maukan and human clothes. Feel free to take anything that fits you.”

She led him to the elevator and Jorge followed behind, joining them in the elevator. They exited in the tunnels below the prison, where they went to another elevator to the assessment wing and exited right next to the doctor’s station.

Jigan selected three changes of clothes from the donations closet. After his physical exam, the ill-fitting orange jumpsuit was put into a box marked, “MP return” and he dressed in one of the new outfits. Lissette then led him back to the elevator and up to the dorm.

When they exited the elevator at the dorm level, she led him to his quarters and held the door for him. “This is where you’ll be staying. A counselor will be by tomorrow morning to learn more about you and figure out what we can do to make you comfortable.”

Jigan looked around the room as Lissette pointed out the bed, closet, desk, holoscreen, shower, toilet and sink, and the interior lock on the door.

“Any time you feel you need to be left alone, you can come in and lock the door. We can open it with a key, but we won’t unless it’s necessary. If you follow me, I’ll show you to the shared kitchen, where you’ll be expected to cook your evening meal for yourself and clean up after yourself. Morning and noon meals are delivered.”

She handed him a card with a matrix code on it. “Don’t lose this. This is your identification and how you can buy things you need from the store through that double-door there, when it’s open. It’s not required that you work, as you get a small daily stipend, but we encourage it, just to keep you occupied, and not molting on your own tail.”

Jigan titled his head at her use of the Hantu phrase that equated to going stir-crazy. He sniffed the air and pointed at the plate covered in foil that sat near the microwave. “What is that?”

Igrud stepped in, speaking Hantu. “It happens to be a ho-kun tapah, made with local ingredients. It’s missing that sharp tinganuru note, but cooking in human wine comes a close second. I saved it for Lissette, but if you’re hungry I bet she’d let you have it.”

Lissette nodded. “It looks good, but I doubt the MPs fed you very well. Go ahead, Jigan, I’ll try it next time.” She showed him how to use the microwave to reheat the meal and left him in Igrud’s care while she moved to join some of the others watching a holo.

She heard snippets of their conversation as Igrud replayed his racing victory over Kelly. After a few minutes, Jigan walked over and stood next to her. “I don’t know what to make of this. Guards and prisoners mingling, and you carry no weapons.”

“I get that a lot. I know you’re a prisoner of war, and you know it, but that’s no reason to treat you badly. Our job is to make sure you’re safe and comfortable, and well-cared for until the war’s over. We’d rather act like a helpful neighbor than an overbearing guard.

“That said, though, if you cause trouble, there will be consequences. There are 214 guests here, and 307 staff. We do everything we can to solve problems before they get that far, though.

“If you need anything tonight you can ask your dorm mates, the staff on the floor, or the intercom on the wall near your door. Just push the button to talk and let the staff on duty know what you need.”

Jigan relaxed his posture. “Good, no torture, but you haven’t even asked me any questions. When are you going to interrogate me?”

“Why would we do that?” Lissette asked. “Torture doesn’t work, and we can’t trust anything you might have to say about military plans or anything of the sort. Trust me, I would make up all sorts of wild stories to muddy the intelligence picture.”

“Then why do you take prisoners, if not for information? Why not just kill us instead?”

“Killing you is against the rules…our rules, at least. The war may still be going on, but it will end, and when it does, would we be better off having treated you with kindness, or with punishment and deprivation? One promotes the ability to someday live side-by-side, while the other promotes more hatred.”

“You speak the truth.” Jigan sat on his haunches, head bowed low, his long arms behind him. Lissette recognized it as a submissive posture, and one used during formal apologies. “I big sorry,” he said.

“For what?” she asked. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Our peoples are at war, but all you’ve done is be a soldier for your people. Look, you didn’t start the war, I didn’t start the war…nobody here started the war. Politicians did that, and no matter how mad we are at them, that’s not a reason to take it out on each other.”

“I big big sorry,” he said again. “On behalf of my people…I worked at a POW camp before I got sent to the front. Even the guard quarters were worse than this. It’s day and night lockdown and questioning. And even though I was shooting at your kind just two suns ago, you are treating me with dignity and respect.”

Lissette knew maukan body language and knew how to respond to a formal apology. She placed her palm on his forehead and said, “Your scales are clean, your blame molted. I forgive you, Jigan. Now you need to forgive yourself.”

He raised his head to meet her gaze, and the oily tears she saw often from some of the prisoners — usually when talking about family and home — gathered at the edges of his eye-pits. Many of the other maukans had stopped what they were doing and watched Jigan's formal apology.

Igrud brought Jigan a cold beer from the fridge. “Your scales are clean, cousin. This will help.”

Ivan cleared his throat calling attention to himself, where he had been playing chess with one of the maukans. “It’s your move, man.”

Igrud laughed. “Way to read the mood, Ivan.”

Lissette joined in the laughter and the holo started up again as Jigan rose from his position. “I believe I need to sleep now, if I may be allowed.”

“Sure,” Lissette answered. “You don’t have to ask. We’re all adults here, so make yourself at home. I’ll be leaving after this holo and I’m off tomorrow, but when I come in on Saturday, I’ll check in with you first thing to see how you’re adapting.”

Jigan walked on three limbs, knuckle-walking with his left arm while he drank the beer with his right. “I don’t know what this is, but I like it,” he called out. “Big good. Big big good.”

Ivan called out, “Beer. Big big good!” and got a laugh out of everyone, including Jigan.