“Work.”
 
“Airport?”

“Freight.”

“Zhought so.”

The worker signaled for another drink. The owner poured less this time.

“You've been watching me all day,” the gray yinglet said.

“No.”

“Bus stop.”

“Patrol route.”

“Airport.”

“Also patrol route.”

The worker considered this.

“Fair.”

He drank the second glass more slowly, then looked at Koldin's uniform.

“You?”

“What?”

“Where from?”

“Akalos.”

The gray yinglet's orange eyes sharpened by a degree.

“Ah.”

That was generally the reaction.

Not where is that?

People knew where Akalos was.

Knowing what Akalos was presented greater difficulty.

It sat beside Dinnlan on maps as a less important shape. A hard territory of dry slopes, ranch country, small industrial towns, mining settlements, old stone villages, and long roads between places people elsewhere had no reason to visit.

Most histories mentioned it only while describing something that happened nearby. Most from the Heart that weren't born in Akalos could name historical details from there such as “The Lesson of Might” or “The Lesson of Obedience”, but not much beyond that.

Akalos had never possessed enough importance to become fashionable. Koldin liked that about it.

The gray yinglet nodded once.

“Makes sense.”

Koldin looked over.

“What does?”

“You.”

Koldin waited. The worker drank again.

“Quiet.”

“Zhat a problem?”

“No.”

“Good.”

They returned to their respective drinks.

Akalos bred the kind of people who did not consider endurance worth discussing. Humans from there carried it one way. Baxxids carried it another. Yinglets carried it in the manner permitted by their smaller bodies and instincts. It was not courage exactly. Courage implied the possibility of refusing.

In Akalos there was weather.

There was work, there were sick animals. Dry years. Debt. Long distances. Things broke. People fixed them, then something else broke.

The philosophy had never been written because anyone who attempted to write it would first have been told to finish what he or she was doing.

Koldin thought briefly of home.

Not in any sentimental arrangement.

A road across pale country. The smell of dust before rain. Tiplods standing behind fencing. A cold bottle taken from an icebox. Someone waiting in a house at the end of a day.

The image passed.

The gray yinglet spoke.

“Dinnlan's next door.”

“Yeah.”

“Never been?”

“Couple times.”

“Where?”

“Souzh.”

“Zhat isn't a place.”

“It was enough of one.”

The worker gave the faintest smile.

His accent was more pronounced now that Koldin listened for it. The softened consonants. The old Dinnish fek where another speaker might say something harsher. Small linguistic survivals carried through centuries of annexation, industrialization, schooling, televox, military standardization.

The owner set another glass down without being asked.

The gray yinglet stared at it, then pushed one coin forward.

“You working tomorrow?” Koldin asked.

“Six.”

“Morning?”

“Yeah.”

Koldin looked at the spirit. The worker noticed.

“What?”

“Nozhing.”

“You looked.”

“I look at zhings.”

“Zhat your job?”

“Basically.”

The gray yinglet took the glass.

“Zhen look.”

He drank it.

Koldin accepted the instruction.

The yinglet was not staggering.

His voice remained clear. His movements were controlled. Perhaps three fast drinks were ordinary after a day unloading aircraft. Perhaps they were not. Koldin was neither physician nor priest.

He went back to his stew. By then the broth had cooled enough to form a thin skin around the edges.

He finished it anyway.

The second pendelbeer remained unopened.

Koldin considered it. His body wanted sleep more than drink.

He left the bottle where it was. The owner noticed immediately.