FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Roger looked around the room at the dozens of Rukot in grey robes seated in five circular rows around the perimeter with her and Captain Rels standing in the large space in the middle. Apparently this was the Council of Conglomeration, called to an emergency session due to her arrival on Wrulov. The serval had lost count of the councillors after 40 and she fidgeted nervously as she felt their collective gaze upon her, speaking in their unintelligible language. From what she'd been quickly told by the Captain, each was a representative of a mostly autonomous colony world and that the council controlled their collective military, made decisions that affected the Conglomeration on an galactic scale, ensured inter-colony trade, and maintained intelligence operations in the empire but otherwise stayed out of day to day affairs affecting the individual colonies. The Rukot Conglomeration was exactly what it said on the tin, a grouping of all Rukot working together for collective benefit and protection. To Roger it sounded like a space version of the United Nations, except that it was a government of some kind with actual power.

<<How is this the human stowaway you reported aboard your ship several weeks ago, Captain Rels? I see a frail child who could've been plucked from the tunnels of my colony of Jinem, not the strange man that has the empire in uproar,>> asked an elderly-looking tiger.

Captain Rels held up a small empty vial and answered, <<What used to be contained in this changed her from human to the Rukot you see before you. My doctors analysed one of the others she took from the invasion carrier that captured us and concluded that it is how the humans make their spies, like the one who betrayed my ship and crew.>>

<<This whole tale of a time travelling old Earth human sounds like a sundream, yet reports indicate even the Emperor himself believes it to be true,>> the old tiger mused.

<<Roger is from Earth's past, she arrived on my ship with many items that are manufactured with lost technologies and materials that even the empire lacks the ability to make,>> Captain Rels stated factually.

Councillor Kudri Rels had remained quiet during the time her daughter relayed the harrowing tale of betrayal, capture, and escape with over a hundred freed slaves. She betrayed none of the emotional turmoil over the near loss of her only child when she spoke, <<We would like to see these items and vials so that our own researchers can analyse them.>>

<<I have the vials here,>> the younger doe indicated half a dozen vials filled with viscous yellow fluid on a small table in front of her and the serval, <<Rogers belongings are on my ship.>>

<<Send for them,>> another councillor, with the appearance of an otter, ordered.

Captain Rels looked at the speaker and replied, <<I will once you obtain her permission, it is her decision whether or not to turn over her possessions.>>

<<She is human, by law she has no rights here!>> the otter replied hotly.

<<Roger was human,>> Captain Rels corrected, <<Now she is a Rukot who has lost nearly everything. I will not be the one to take away what little she has left nor will I let you do it without her permission.>>

<<Daughter!>> Kudri Rels exclaimed, <<You forget yourself!>>

<<No, mother, I do not. By law no Rukot can be forced to give up what they legally own. Roger is Rukot, you must ask her permission. I would not be standing here before you if she had not already sacrificed so much to ensure our escape from the humans.>>

Captain Rels' words sparked an argument between many of the councillors and the chamber filled with loud voices. Some agreed with her while others did not.

Roger gently tugged on Captain Rels arm, drawing her attention. "What are you all arguing about?" the serval asked.

"They want to study your belongings to prove your story and demand I hand them over without your permission," Captain Rels answered.

"Why would they need my permission? There's little I could do to stop them from taking what they want."

"No Rukot can be forced to give up what is theirs, it is one of the basic tenets of our legal system."

"But I'm not really one of you, I know nothing of Rukot culture or your ways," Roger stated sadly, "I'm not human anymore either."

"The slaves we freed know nothing of our culture or ways either, Roger," Captain Rels said in a reassuring tone, "You are Rukot and I will defend your rights as one as you have defended the freedom of my crew and I."

The arguing voices slowly calmed down and several councillors stared angrily at Captain Rels while more either smiled or hold looks of passive indifference. It looked as if the majority of the council agreed with her.

The tiger from earlier spoke once the chamber was quiet again, in English, "Roger, these are unusual circumstances, some of which I'm sure you understand are hard to believe. Do we have your permission to examine the items you brought with you? They will be returned once we are done."

"I don't think I have much choice here, but go ahead and examine all you want," she replied.

====================================

Roger sat on a bench in a park-like courtyard near the council chambers. She found the lack of birds and insects a little disturbing but that feeling was outweighed by the familiar sight of grass and what looked like large and old oak trees. The air even smelled fresh in this place and she lost herself in thought about all the questions the council's researchers asked her over the last few days. How her firearms worked and how they were made. She'd demonstrated how her truck operated, though with the extra leg joint she had some trouble driving it. Many of the Rukot she'd seen over the past few days stared at her belongings with wonder. Some even found her collection of rock music appealing, though most described it as noise.

She leaned back and closed her eyes, a joint would be a great thing right now but she decided against chancing it. Instead she let the light from Wrulov's sun that filtered through the dome at least a kilometre overhead warm her fur and started to doze off in this serene place that almost felt like home. The sound of Gahn's voice startled her back to full alertness.

"I found them!" came the wolf's happy exclaimation. In his paws he carried a canvas backpack and she recognized it as the bag she kept in the cab of her truck.

"They're in here," he continued and held the bag out to her while his tail wagged.

The sight brought a smile to Roger's face. She sat up, said, "Thank you Gahn," and took the backpack from him.

"Why are these things so important anyways?" Gahn asked as he joined her on the bench.

"You'll see." Roger pulled a small device out of one of the front pockets, it looked a lot like the device Gahn had seen her use in the truck to play music and she pressed a button on the side but nothing happened. "Or not, I guess, the battery is dead," she said with a shrug. Her phone would have to wait until she could recharge it and she placed it back in the pocket it came from. The serval then opened one of the larger compartments on the bag and pulled out a much larger thin and black rectangular object before setting the backpack on the ground and the object on her lap.

The wolf watched her curiously as she separated the object's two halves along a hinge, one had a blank display panel and the other was covered in buttons that had human writing on them. "What is that anyways? When Fynor and I first looked at it all we could do is get the display to turn on and it would ask for a passcode when we pressed any of the buttons. It'd turn off again when we closed it. It's some kind of console, right?"

"It's a computer, my laptop," she replied and pressed a button on it. Within seconds the display turned on and showed a grey background with the time and date '13:41 Thursday September 7th, 2023' as the only information on it in large numbers and letters. She stared at the date for a moment, not realizing that almost an entire month had passed since she'd arrived in the future. She pressed another button and the screen displayed a picture of Roger as a human with the name 'Roger Keene' and a small box under it that said 'Password.' The serval carefully pressed several buttons and a series of dots appeared in the box before she pressed the button bearing the word 'Enter.' The screen disappeared and then showed a black background with several small pictures along the left side, each underscored with text.

Gahn watched with a look of wonder on his face.

"Would you like to see the Earth as I knew it, Gahn?" she asked and without waiting for his answer she touched one of the small pictures on the screen with a finger on her right paw. A window opened and the young wolf stared in shock as a picture of a planet he recognized as Earth from historical records appeared. The shapes of some of the landmasses were a little different in a few places and they looked a lot more green. All were bordered with yellow lines that also divided the landmasses into regions.

"It's beautiful," Gahn whispered at the sight of the lost jewel world.

Roger placed her finger on the image and moved it, rotating the planet until the smaller of the two main landmasses came into view. "That is North and South America," she said and rotated the planet so that only half of it, which had fewer divisions, was centred on the display. Then she tapped the screen quickly on the central region and the view zoomed in on it as it quickly became divided with blue lines into many smaller regions and text appeared over each in the same colour. Some of the text was yellow though and it read 'United States.'

"This is my country, the good old U-S-of-A," she continued and then tapped again on one of the less green regions that was named Arizona and the view zoomed in further. On the bottom right of the screen was a red dot that had the text 'Willcox, AZ 85643' over it and Roger tapped on that several times until the sight of grey lines and a multitude of the tops of rectangular buildings appeared.

"What is this?" Gahn asked.

"Willcox, Arizona, my city," Roger said sadly, and manipulated the picture until it was centred upon a cluster of small buildings. She tapped on one of them, an especially small one with a brown roof, and suddenly the image changed until the perspective resembled walking on the surface, facing the building.

"And that's my home," her voice wavered with grief.

Gahn's eyes widened, he recognized Roger's truck in front of the building beside some spikey-looking plants and he turned to face her as she began sobbing. At a loss for words he reached over and held the serval as she wept for her dead world all over again.

Behind them unseen, Councillor Kudri Rels also shed tears. The elderly deer had come to question Roger some more and overheard most of the conversation between the cat and the wolf. After taking a few minutes to calm she made a mental note to ask Heoni to have Roger bring her computer before the council the next time they convened and silently slipped away.

====================================

"If you are going to be a Rukot serving on a trade ship, Roger, you must be able to speak our language," Councillor Dosip, the tiger who represented Jinem, said while standing in a hall outside a lab-like room in the same building that Roger's belongings had been examined in.

"I understand that, but the thought of having my head strapped into a machine to learn sounds more like I'll end up with a cooked brain," Roger replied.

Councillor Rels spoke next, "If you would reconsider staying on Wrulov, we could hire someone to teach you."

The serval shook her head, "No thank you, I want to stay with Captain Rels on the Teshar. Being here reminds me too much of home."

The two councillors looked at Roger sadly, they, along with the rest of the council had seen the proof and the images of Earth from her computer the day before. Many had been moved to tears by the experience and within the span of an hour it had been decided unanimously to welcome the cat into the conglomeration and allow her to choose her own path.

After a moment Roger asked, "Can I not learn Rukot while on the ship?"

Councillor Dosip answered, "No, you cannot tell everyone that you meet who you really are and wher- when you are from. The empire does not yet know that Roger Keene is no longer human, and keeping that secret from them will protect you. It has been decided that you will be a citizen from Jinem, my own colony. You need to speak with a Jinem accent which you will not pick up on a ship."

"I don't really have a choice then, do I?" the serval sighed. "Okay, put me in the brain machine, but I swear if I smell cooked after I'll be a very angry zombie."

"Zombie?" Councillor Rels asked in confusion.

"I'd rather not explain, let's just do this then."

The three entered the room and a border collie dressed in a doctor's uniform stood by a machine that Roger thought looked a bit like a MRI. He motioned for Roger to lay down on the table sticking out of it and she did so.

The serval grabbed the doctor's arm as he leaned over to place some kind of helmet on her, "This really better not cook my brain. I'm serious, okay, it's been through enough crap lately."

"It is completely safe. Now stay still and we will be done in a few minutes," the dog replied.

Roger closed her eyes and began breathing in and out slowly, the prospect of what was about to happen was both insanely cool and utterly terrifying. She was going to learn an entire language and how to speak it in about a minute's time. On the other hand it involved a big fucking machine shooting a lot of energy into her brain. She lay there waiting for it to happen, figuring that at any moment she'd smell burning grey matter.

<<All done! Can you understand me>> the doctor's voice said, and it didn't sound like English.

She sat up with a surprised look, "That was it? I didn't feel anything."

<<Can you understand me?>> the doctor repeated.

"Is the Pope Catholic? Do bears shit in the woods?"

The doctor turned to the two Councillors, <<Something is wrong, she is speaking nonsense and I don't think she understands me.>>

"Of course I understand you, and those questions aren't nonsense."

<<Try speaking in Rukot instead of English, Roger,>> Councillor Rels said.

"How? You said it would come natural to me once it was done, but," her voice shifted subtly, <<English comes natura->> She stopped and stared at the three other Rukot.

The doctor smiled smugly, <<Another successful operation.>>

<<I just learned a language without feeling or doing anything other than lying down,>> Roger looked excited, <<This is cool as hell.>>

<<Now then, Roger, there is one other thing,>> Councillor Dosip said.

"What is it-" she caught herself, <<Sorry, what is it, Councillor?>>

<<You can hardly go around with the name Roger Keene anymore, it is both human and male,>> Councillor Rels answered.

<<What? But I like my name, my mother gave it to me and I'm rather fond of it,>> Roger looked ready to argue the point.

Councillor Rels shook her head and said firmly, <<You cannot keep that name, at least not publically. What would the empire think when they start getting reports of a female Rukot named Roger Keene? You would be found out in an instant.>>

Roger's ears flattened, <<But it's one more thing, how much more do I have to give up? Why does this crazy future keep taking from me that which I should never lose?>>

<<It would also be advisable to leave your weapons and land vehicle here on Wrulov,>> Councillor Dosip added.

<<Absolutely not, my truck and guns go where I go.>>

Councillor Rels took on a negotiatory tone, <<Then pick a new name.>>

The three argued for nearly thirty minutes in the small lab while the doctor did his best to ignore what was going on. Eventually Roger threw up her paws and said, <<Fine! I'll pick a new name, but my belongings go with me. I thought you couldn't take my stuff from me.>>

Councillor Dosip smiled, <<We can't without your permission, which you gave us.>>

<<Fucking politicians, just as evil now as they were back home.>>

====================================

Captain Rels oversaw the final loading of the Teshar as they prepared to make another attempt at delivering mining equipment to Valkter. Gahn, her quartermaster, was nearby and directed the crew as to where to place the cargo containers.

<<Captain Rels?>> a soft voice asked her from behind.

<<Yes?>> She turned around to face the owner and her eyes widened when she saw Roger standing there, carrying a canvas backpack. "Roger, what are-"

The serval interrupted her by sticking out a paw and said, <<Hi, I'm Leina. I was informed you were looking for crew and I would like to sign on. Is it alright if I bring a land vehicle and antique weapons with me?>>

It took Captain Rels a few moments to regain her wits before taking Ro-, no, Leina's paw in her own, <<Can you follow orders? I knew someone with a bad habit of ignoring orders and it nearly got her killed.>>

Leina tried to hide a laugh, <<Of course, Captain Rels, I can follow orders.>>

<<You will need to ask my quartermaster, Gahn, who is in need of an assistant, where to put your land vehicle. Your weapons will need to be stored in the armoury. Welcome aboard the Teshar, Leina.>>