H.A.L.F.: The Makers by Natalie Wright Page B

on the hard table waiting for death to take her, she wished her mom was there to hold her hand.

13
U’VOL
    U’Vol quietly uncoiled himself from the arms of his first wife and slipped from their warm bed. Shree’ka moaned softly and rolled onto her back. Her belly was swollen with their child. It would be U’Vol’s twentieth. He hoped it would be a daughter. He already had twelve sons. More than enough to fight over the right to become head of the household and manage his growing holdings when he was too old to do so.
    He donned a simple, everyday robe. It was red, as was the customary color for any captain of a Vree ship. Though it lacked any embroidery embellishments, it was woven from the fine, silky threads spun by the giant arachnids of Ghapta. It glided smoothly over his hairless skin and caught only slightly on the deep, silvery scar on his shoulder.
    U’Vol’s long legs carried him quickly to the mach, where he relieved himself of the prior evening’s danx wine. He had only to push a button and a servant would appear to attend to him. He’d been born into the space-faring hunter subdivision of the Vree class known as the Vree’Kah. The Vree were respected, feared even, but not part of the ruling elite and did not have servants. He had ascended to captain of his own ship only four years ago, a wisp of time for the M’Uktah. He was still unused to the luxury of servants and disliked the practice of bathing and dressing attendants. He lived for years in space and on foreign lands, the head of a company of Vree’Kah. To them he was simply U’Vol Vree’Kah – Vol the Noble Hunter. Aboard his ship, the Dra’Knar , they did not stand on ceremony when bathing off the blood of the kill.
    U’Vol tended his own bath and oiled himself. His fingers were slippery from the thick, pungent oil that Vree’Kah used to keep their hairless skin from becoming dry.
    All too soon his legs would ache from spending days inside his krindor, but even after three years home he felt naked without it. While on hunting missions, Vree’Kah spent most of their time wrapped in the mechanized exoskeleton custom made for each of them. The graphene skin of the krindor bonded to Vree skin like a form-fitting glove and was powered by the wearer’s bioelectric energy. Vree’Kah skin was hairless so that it maintained the conductivity required to power the suit as well as the nerve impulses from his brain to issue commands to the armor. As U’Vol thought about wearing his krindor, his pulse quickened and his nostrils flared as if trying to open wider to catch the scent of prey.
    U’Vol entered the dining hall of his compound amidst the cacophony of voices of his large family. The children argued and joked while two of his wives, Threka Tu’Vol and Ghozam Tu’Vol, huddled in quiet gossip. They spoke intently as though the fate of the Council of U depended on what they said. Likely their talk consisted of nothing more than chatter about the two wives not present at first meal that morning.
    The lively noise died down as he entered the room. His family rose from their seats and the threkka, the lead servant serving first meal, clapped her hands and announced him.
    “Welcome your badi,” she said.
    U’Vol’s children, all nineteen of them, fell into line from oldest, Vrak Tu’Vol, at nearly eighty years old and soon to observe the rights of manhood, to Vij Tu’Vol, no more than eight and still suckling at night. U’Vol kissed the forehead and spoke the name of each child as was the custom each morning. U’Vol figured that the custom was created by an angry wife after a husband forgot his children’s names.
    Once U’Vol pecked a kiss on each child, they waited for him to give the nod to begin eating. Sometimes U’Vol took his time with the morning procession, hovering over each child, speaking to them, catching up on their news. When he first came home from a hunting expedition, he cherished this time with his brood.
    But he’d