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This one awakens, alone. This one hears the low hum of electronics, at varying distances from itself. This one struggles to open its eyes, and it finds itself in what looks like a medical facility of some sort. The room is bright—painfully bright, in fact.

This one is on a bed. It’s…soft? This one is having difficulty processing the concept. This one has never been on a bed, before, and the sheets are white. This one’s…body? Is that this one’s body? This one raises its right arm, sluggishly, and it perceives a thin object with a furry, deep brown surface moving at its command. It must be this one’s body, then.

The last thing that this one can remember is trading laser fire with enemy henut kutsati in the equatorial jungle of some two-bit planet this one didn’t bother storing the name of. This one’s Liege had commanded it and its kin in defense of Her territory, and everything had gone black just as this one had shot the last of the henut kutsati.

This room does not resemble anything that belongs to Her. If this one suffered battle damage, it should be in Her flagship’s Milav, where Her technicians conduct repairs and routine maintenance, and perform whatever other services this one, and its Liege, require of them.

A door opens, and a human walks in. This one doesn’t recognize them, but they have the general air of a…‘doctor’, this one thinks is the word? They walk over to stand next to the bed this one is lying in, examining the electronics before turning to it.

“Finally awake,” they say. Their voice is somewhere between a tenor and an alto, but this one recognizes the language. This one believes it is called ‘Terran Standard English’. It doesn’t say anything; it was never taught to speak. Its Liege’s hand-picked kukizey don’t communicate with mouth-words. This one tries to scan for devices it can communicate with, but there is an absence in its consciousness where the necessary equipment should have been, and this one is suddenly distressed.

The panel emits a sonic alert, causing the human to look back at it for a moment.

“If you can understand me,” they say, “please raise your right arm.”

This one does so. The human nods.

“I’m going to guess,” they say, “that you’re one of Lady Shavrikha’s men, then. Your mech was so badly damaged when we recovered it that we had to extract you from it.”

The panel emits several sonic alerts, just before this one loses consciousness again.

This one is in what appears to be the same room the next time it opens its eyes. The human who was talking to it is still there, looking weary. And wary. This one thinks they’re afraid it might lose consciousness again.

“I’m sorry,” they say. “I knew that that revelation would be disturbing, but I didn’t expect…well. Never mind. I know this is all deeply disturbing to you, and I wish there’d been any way at all that we could have communicated before all of this.”

This one doesn’t think this human understands what it’s like to go from being a fusion of machine and animal to being just the animal, with no way to communicate without the machine because it was never not part of this one. The sound this one makes, when it uses its muzzle for something other than simply breathing for the first time in its life, is a whimper. Its vision blurs with liquid. Is this one…crying? This one decides that it must be.

This one feels the human place a hand on its left shoulder; it wishes they’d go away. This one wishes it were in its Liege’s Milav. Its Liege, even at Her worst, had never done anything like this to this one or its kin. There have been executions, each of which was done by throwing a henut tsati into the reclamation equipment, however. One of the most recent that this one can recall, unaided, was a kizey who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time…

…This one is rambling. It turns its attention to what the human is doing, which turns out to be a physical examination. This one learns that its body is furry all over, but the fur not a uniform color. It is surprised to find that it has a tail. The human’s dictated notes include the information that the tail is a common color for this body, auburn with a white tip. They also say that this one is female.

This one has no frame of reference for this; none of its Liege’s servants use what it thinks humans would call “gendered language”. This one is a kizey. The technicians are technicians. This one’s Liege is its Liege, and the only reason it keeps referring to Her in the feminine is because that is how the humans refer to Her.

Which brings this one back to what this human is doing. They have completed their examination of this body, and this one is told to sit up. It struggles to obey, and eventually the human just adjusts the bed so that this one is reclining rather than supine. Inwardly, this one is cringing; its Liege would have punished its failure to obey with alacrity, and it keeps expecting the human to. But they don’t.

This one tries to communicate an apology, and again the gulf where the necessary equipment would be causes it to panic, and it whimpers again. This one doesn’t lose consciousness this time.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the human says in what this one thinks is meant to be a soothing voice. “You’re okay.”

This one is most emphatically not okay.

The human decides to call this one “Rousse”, and says that it is a “reynardine”. They explain that both of these are “French”, which this one assumes is another human language. This one tries to pull information from its databanks, but of course that equipment isn’t present either. This prompts another panic attack.

After this one calms down again, the human presents it with a shiny slab that they call a “tablet”. They place it on a cantilevered table, which allows this one to read it. They say it is set up with a program they’re calling “AAC”, which they explain is short for “augmentative and alternative communication”. This program has a grid of buttons which, when pressed, cause the tablet to emit an English word corresponding with the symbol on the button.

This would be so much easier if they’d just put this one back in its real body.

Another human comes in, and informs this one that it will be subjected to something the new human calls “physical therapy”, and that this is intended to help this one move this body. By now, the first human and this one have established a system whereby it can answer ‘yes’ or ’no’ questions put to it. Before the new human can even begin doing anything, this one signals ’no’ hard enough that it hurts.

This one can’t tell them that it doesn’t want to learn how to use a body that isn’t this one’s. The humans ask this one questions, but of course without being able to communicate more than ‘yes’ or ’no’, they give up before this one can get anywhere near its objection, and instead let it rest.

This one instinctively tries to query the time and how long it has been here. Another panic attack ensues. This time this one lets itself lose consciousness.

This one wakes up with the first human again. Now that there’s more than one, this one decides to assign names to them. This one decides the first one is Hun Mayr, ‘doctor Mayr’. The other one, the one who wanted to teach this one how to use this body, is Mukhutdokhay, for now.

Hun Mayr makes the “tablet” available again, but this time, they say, the AAC program is set up to use eye-tracking. This one experiments, and eventually gets the tablet to say, “Fuck you.” The human laughs.

“Glad to hear it,” they say. “So, I have a question for you, Rousse: why didn’t you want to do physical therapy yesterday?”

After some thought, this one has the tablet say, “This not this one’s body.”

Even with eye-tracking, using this tablet is agonisingly slow compared to the lightning speed of this one’s henut tsati, a thought that is again painful to deal with. Why can’t this one have its henut tsati back?

“Oh. I can understand that.” Do they? this one wonders. Hun Mayr pulls a stool over and sits on it. “Our techs are trying to figure out how to interface with your technology, but until they can manage that, this is the only body you have.”

“Want go home.” Why is the symbol for ‘home’ an irregular pentagon with some squares on it? This one’s home is its Liege’s flagship. It’s fortunate that this one was taught to read Terran Standard English, and that this AAC program provides text labels alongside the symbols.

“Understandable. I can’t help you return to Lady Shavrikha”—every time Hun Mayr uses that name is like a psychic grater being rubbed on this one’s brain—“but I can at least work towards your comfort. Is there anything you need or want?”

“Not understand,” the tablet says. Which is actually true, this one reflects. It is its Liege’s faithful kizey, an extension of Her will. Any needs this one would have had would have been addressed by Her technicians or the henut tsati without it noticing. And what is a ‘want’, anyway?

Hun Mayr is talking…to themself? to someone else? while this one ruminates, and then they talk to it again. “Let’s try this, then. You’re not our first reynardine guest. If you cooperate with us—undergo physical therapy, at least—I’ll introduce you to her.”

Wait, what? They stole another of Her kukizey? This one signals ‘yes’; maybe the other kizey can help this one return to its Liege.

Physical therapy is…exhausting. This one endures, however, and soon it starts to be able to determine the passage of time. It’s not a skill it needed before.

In between sessions, this one learns laboriously how to eat and, more important, how to make mouth-words. Like the AAC tablet, it is agonizingly slow compared to the lightning-fast messaging this one was born to, but in some ways it is easier than the tablet.

This one graduates to solid food after about two months of physical therapy. To celebrate, its first piece of solid food is steak.

It is yishlo, language this one knows intellectually but has never used before. This one thinks the Terran Standard English word is ‘delicious’, but its only frame of reference up to this point is whatever formula they’ve had it drink. These formulas come in a variety of flavors, but they’re not calibrated to “reynardine” tastes. There is a human idiom this one found on the tablet at some point, which this one is not quite sure if it understands it correctly (what is a ‘canoe’?), but it goes like this: it’s like sex in a canoe. (Hun Mayr nearly fell over laughing when this one described the formulas this way.)

This one is still not sure how it feels about being called a “reynardine”. This one knows it doesn’t like being called ‘Rousse’, but its actual identifier is an alphanumeric code. In what humans call ‘duodecimal’, or ‘base twelve’. This one knows what you’re thinking: “Doesn’t [this one’s Liege] have a name for [it]?” Yes, but only She is permitted, by Her own command, to use it.

Anyway, the steak. Hun Mayr said, when they served it to this one, that it was ’teriyaki’. It tells them that it approves and want more, which causes them to chuckle and promise that this one will have it again, but first it has to eat the other things on its plate for this meal.

This one eats the…“Brussels sprouts” without comment.

After about six months, this one finally asks Hun Mayr about themself. It turns out that their name is actually Linda Glenmire. This one decides not to tell them what it had been calling them in the privacy of its head. Glenmire says they’d introduced themself the first time it had met them, six months ago.

This one decides not to tell Glenmire that it genuinely hadn’t noticed at the time, and pretends to be embarrassed about having forgotten. (One of the implants this one has had for as long as it can remember includes a playback feature, but accessing it apparently requires authorization from its henut tsati in order to function, so this is not actually much of a stretch.)

This one hasn’t talked about Mukhutdokhay, beyond its initial meeting with them, mostly just because there wasn’t much to talk about; they have the personality of a kashtu. Still, with their help, this one is able to walk. Running is a work in progress, however, because this one is much more inclined to use four-legged gaits, starting with the trot and moving up from there, rather than running on two legs as humans do.

This one is babbling. Today, it will get to meet the other hilipey after lunch. (This one refuses to use the Terran Standard English term any more; it is a hilipey.)

This one doesn’t recognize the other hilipey when it enters, but that is hardly surprising; in this one’s Liege’s service, it and its kin are never outside of a henut tsati. Even now, six months after this one woke up in this facility, it instinctively tries to scan for devices to communicate with, but it barely notices the twinge of panic the missing equipment arouses in it, now.

The hilipey is eyfay kukiy tall, roughly one and a half meters in human units, not including its ears, which add half a kiy; this one is a little taller, at bom kukiy. Its fur is a medium meys where this one’s is light meys—what humans call ‘orange’ and ‘brown’ are the same color in Tulma. Neither this one nor the other hilipey are clothed; modesty is a human thing, and this one’s fur is thick enough that clothing is unnecessary for environmental protection.

This one says, “Hish khay.” Hello, cousin. The hilipey, who was expressionless when it came in, perks its ears and its mouth drops open in a grin as its tail wags. This one wags, too, almost reflexively.

“Hish!” it says, “Tom b’steär shos?” Hello! You are well?

“Hom, may steär shos. Tom b’leär kikolar?” Yes, I’m well. What is your identifier?

What follows is an exchange of identifiers, both in Tulma and what the humans have chosen for it and this one. It learns that this one is called Rousse, and this one learns, in turn, that it is called Tír; apparently, its fur made Hun Glenmire think of the land or something. This one isn’t sure if that is a joke.

Tír remembers this one’s Liege. It was another of Her kukizey once, which this one knew from its identifier. But it doesn’t yearn for Her. Trying to understand this makes this one’s brain hurt. How could someone have been a kizey, but not want to return to this one’s Liege’s service?

Tír introduces this one to another human, someone named Irene Kaplan. Tír says they are a mekhen kiniv; this one isn’t sure what a ‘mind scientist’ is, and Kiniv Kaplan laughs when it says so.

This one is introduced to other kuhilipey, and other humans, all people who were part of ‘cults’, a word this one is unfamiliar with but which it has been told describes its Liege’s service. This one can’t keep track of all of the names; it is sorry.

Kiniv Kaplan holds ‘classes’, both with individuals and with the group. These classes, they tell this one, are aimed at providing information about the universe away from its Liege, without judgement and without any suggestion that this one should prefer one over another. This one is taught, Kiniv Kaplan says, in the hopes that this one can find an informational difference between what it learned with its Liege that can be tested against the universe away from Her. This one isn’t quite sure what Kiniv Kaplan means by this.

After some consideration, this one feels like it was, as the humans say, “hit by a brick.” Why does this one know Terran Standard English itself? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for this one to have used a translation module in an implant or this one’s henut tsati? For that matter, why would this one have a spoken language at all?

One of the classes that Kiniv Kaplan teaches is history. They explain that this history is a combination of humanity’s encounters with kuhilipey, the dozens of kuhilipey that they have “liberated” (a word this one does not understand yet), and records from computers and other equipment they have captured.

This one’s people (a necessary oddness to it) were not, in fact, always its Liege’s servants, this one was surprised to learn. In actual fact, She had conquered its homeworld, Tulma, about a century or so ago, in human terms. Tulman adults were made into breeders, their children surgically altered into cyborgs like this one and pressed into military service as soon as they were deemed mentally capable of the tasks they would be put to.

And yet, that is not what ultimately causes this one to forswear its Liege.

No, the actual catalyst seems like a small thing, when this one thinks about it, but the name that it was given by Her, “kidvef kmenad,” which this one was never given any reason to think about until it joined these classes, literally means “caged dog.” (This one should clarify that kukmenad aren’t actually dogs, but occupy a similar niche in pre-conquest Tulman societies.)

When this one shares this name with Tir, it reveals to this one that its name was “kiseyrar kmenad,” or “hiding dog,” as it was trained as an ambusher. Somehow, this one is not surprised. Some of the other reynardines also have names which call them kukmenad, some of which are rather insulting. But, when it’s the only name that one is given, in a language one does not habitually speak, this one supposes that it’s normal to not think about the connotations.

This one is reminded of the executions that it has witnessed, particularly when it knew that the reynardine being executed was in fact blameless for the infraction that She decreed merited that punishment. Arbitrary and capricious acts are, Kiniv Kaplan says, not uncommon in abusive circumstances, particularly if it’s possible for a victim to avoid such acts by placing another in the crosshairs.

I am Ariadne Rousse Glenmire. It is a struggle for me to use pronouns to refer to myself, and this one will almost certainly slip from time to time…as I did there, ironically. Still, I continue to work toward becoming myself. All I ever knew before the Terrans removed me from my mech was war, tactics, and strategy.

In a way, that’s what Dr. Kaplan’s classes were really about. Yes, they were intended to give us reynardines a means by which we could liberate ourselves, but they were also meant to help us develop our own identities, separate and distinct from how we were molded by Lady Shavrikha. (Dr. Kaplan says nobody really knows who she really is; she isn’t Tulman, that much is known, but whether she is a construct or biological, or some fusion, is not.)

I want to be part of the effort to liberate Tulma and the other worlds under Lady Shavrikha’s dominion, but…in all honesty, part of how I came to be aboard the Comradeship is that I am old. Most reynardine warriors seldom reach 35 gon, roughly 30 Terran standard years, and I am 50 gon (nearly 43 years).

So, I will leave it to my younger comrades. I will be travelling to Earth; it is not my homeworld, but the cradle of humanity is still one of the best places to learn, and I intend to learn the history of my people. When we are all free, then I will return and help us rebuild our shattered cultures.

Notes

The language our narrator uses is ‘Tulma’, which follows Yiddish orthography; for convenience, if a vowel follows another vowel, it is marked by an umlaut to indicate that it is distinct.

Grammar:

Pron. Poss.
1st sg. may lok
2nd sg. tom ku
3rd sg. zo zeyn
1st pl. inc. zi me
1st pl. exc. ey d’vush
2nd pl. shayv tso
3rd pl. t’mi tu

Vocabulary:

Numbers: Tulma uses a duodecimal/base-12 numbering system: tmo, ni, nes, bne, a, lu, ses, dir, pu, eyfay, bom, po. Twelve po equals one tmed. Twelve tmed equals one zmosh.