Shalia's Diary by Tracy St. John Page B

goes extinct.”
     
    My mouth dropped open at that.  I hadn’t known they were that close to dying off.
     
    When I got over the shock, I asked, “So what’s changed?  Why aren’t you just carting us all off to breed with now?”
     
    Esak answered that one.  “Our empress.  She’s Earther, like yourself.  She presented a very moving case against coerced or forceful clannings.  She argued until the Royal Council agreed to suspend such actions once the war was over.  There are to be no forced clannings for at least the next five years.”
     
    Dusa nodded.  “I don’t want a clanmate who doesn’t want me in return anyway, not even to save my culture.  I can’t imagine it.”
     
    We reached the dining building.  The semi-private room we went to had perhaps a dozen Kalquorians, and yes, a couple of Earthers.  A woman slightly older than myself sat with what I guessed to be a full clan.  They looked to be in their forties.  The other Earther was a young man, who looked about Dusa and Esak’s age.  He sat with a Kalquorian who could have been in his late thirties, if he was an Earther.  I was aware Kalquorians lived longer than us and aged slower.
     
    I wanted ronka, of course.  I thought I’d be adventurous and try something called bywes too, but Esak warned me against it with a chuckle that made him utterly charming.  “I have yet to see a single Earther like bywes.  I’ve heard your people compare it to sewage.  I will order some for myself and you may have a bite if you wish.”
     
    We put in our orders.  I thought there might be some awkward silences after that, but that wasn’t the case at all.  It turned out the men had a bunch of questions for me.  They wanted to know all about my work before Armageddon, about hobbies I enjoyed, about Mom’s illnesses and prognosis, oh lots of stuff.  I told them about the films I’d done, glossing over the worst of the propaganda stuff and what I knew of Armageddon before it happened, of course.  I mentioned how I’d wanted to work my way from behind the camera to in front of it; I’d always planned to go into broadcasting once I had saved the funds to return to college.  I was a pretty decent speaker and writer, which was why my productions did so well.  I wanted to get more into that realm of vid.
     
    I managed to get a little bit of information from my dinner companions as well.  Dusa and Esak both liked to play music.  They’d met at a lemanthev concert, which was what they preferred to play themselves.  From what I could gather, lemanthev music consists of a lot of banging on metallic and wooden drums and playing a low-pitched instrument that sounds like wild animals growling.  Then someone accompanies all that with shrieking at the top of his lungs.  How that is different from just pure noise I’m not sure.  Esak is involved in the drumming, or spenruk ... he says the closest Earther word for what he does is ‘pounder’.  Dusa plays the growly instrument known as a trasbu .  (My spellings are phonetic, by the way.  I don’t know the first thing about the Kalquorian language.)
     
    I didn’t have the guts to ask them if they were bisexual, as Earth Gov claimed all Kalquorians are.  It was just too intimate to bring up, so my curiosity will have to go unanswered on that front.  They didn’t act in any way that could be construed as blasphemous.  Dusa and Esak were like very good, longtime friends, and that was it.  Maybe they behaved that way to avoid freaking the sensitive Earther girl out.
     
    We were at ease, the three of us.  I really enjoyed just sitting and talking to the guys, getting to know them.  They had a good laugh when I tried the bywes.  Esak was absolutely right about how foul that stuff tasted.  The smell alone was enough to turn my stomach, but I dared to lick the forkful I took from the Nobek’s plate.  Then I drank two glasses of water in the desperate attempt to get the taste out of my