Wolf Boy, Chapter 1, Part II

Panfilo was on this way back to Allec and Quin’s quarters from the restaurant where Panfilo worked as a host. He greeted regulars. He prepared tables for parties. He took orders for special dishes since many visitors and regulars had specific dietary requirements. He wrote up specials on hand-to-lettering billboards.

He started as a busboy. Allec was one of the first people to help Panfilo when his Anthros’s nature was discovered by enumerators. These officials were still apologetic about the reveal and the subsequent political fallout. Panfilo minded a great deal at the time. He didn’t now.

I like what I do.

Allec and Quin talked about Panfilo returning to Earth, visiting Earth forests. He would go if they did, but he didn’t care much one way or the other.

Quin

Or maybe he did but drumming up care about an entirely abstract possibility was too exhausting. There were days Panfilo thought that the matters he ought to fret and worry about—I was adopted, I was brought to Mars, my foster mother died, I became the center of a political controversy—were like the walls of the space station, like the space suits one had to wear aboveground on the planet: constant reminders that to go too far in any particular direction was death. Or, at least, emotional nuttiness.

He turned into the corridor heading to the apartment on the outer rim of the level and saw Quin at the door. Quin had been up early—for the station’s “day”—to oversee a shipment of food containers to the planet. He was likely returning to take a nap. He and Panfilo would join Allec at the restaurant for dinner.

Quin had pulled out his keycard. He turned, eyes creased in a ready smile—except he frowned. He yelled and then he was rushing at Panfilo.

Quin was a big guy. Panfilo had an Anthros’ instinct for blood-fueled presences. He flung himself sideways, hardly knowing why, and Quin barreled into the assassin behind him.

Quin got slashed across his chest and arms, shallow cuts since his sheer momentum sent the assassin—an Anthros of the hare variety, so devilish quick if slight and wiry—crashing into the wall. Two punches from Quin knocked the Anthros out and sent the knife, clenched into the furred hand, clattering to the floor.

“Sly lupine lunatic,” Allec said. “What? I’m not supposed to say that? Forgive me for not adopting the proper deference to killers.”

“He didn’t succeed,” Dr. Culstee said absently, eyes focused on Quin’s wounds. Across the infirmary, the assassin lay strapped to a bed, still unconscious.

“I know a lot of friendly lupine-like Anthros,” Stan Culstee said.

“Sly murderous lupine lunatic,” Allec snapped.

Panfilo sat on a nearby cot. He’d already been examined—by the doctor and by Allec. He was fine, despite a sore shoulder from hitting the wall when he move out of Quin’s path.

He didn’t mind Allec’s prejudice or whatever. A short life and inherent snarkiness—what Quin called “piss and vinegar”—made Allec indifferent to expected social cues. He knew them, he learned things very fast, but he didn’t care about the good graces or approval of anyone except the people he valued. Panfilo wasn’t feeling too gracious about Anthros in general these days, so he wasn’t going to get offended. 

Quin didn’t mind what Allec said. He also didn’t pay attention when Allec went off the rails. When Allec paused in his rant about animal natures being used to excuse animal reasoning, Quin said to Panfilo, “You know it isn’t personal,” 

Allec stiffened, opened his mouth, closed it again, and frowned.

Panfilo said, “Sure.”

Except he wasn’t so sure. ‘Not personal’ in the sense that he’d ever met the assassin. But he had met Anthros who treated him with the slightest hint of distaste, even after months of contact.

Not Anthros Sandy, who arrived in the infirmary shortly after Monseigneur Rhys and Lider did. 

Monseigneur Rhys came almost as soon as Quin and Panfilo arrived in the infirmary, Lider at his shoulder. Panfilo assumed Dr. Culstee called for them because as well as the station's primary religious leaders, they were the station's primary detectives. 

Lider was a Cubus, like Stan, only Stan was fully corporeal now. Lider was still in the process. He was a ghost-like presence these days, his shape and face visible in the right light. Others, besides Monseigneur Rhys, could hear him.

Lider sat with Panfilo while Monseigneur Rhys conferred with Quin and Allec. Panfilo curled on the cot, arms crossed around his tail. Lider couldn’t touch him and couldn’t really protect him, but Panfilo found him comforting anyway. Lider was truly religious and reflective.

He said, “I don’t think you have to forgive him. Evil people are better ignored.” And Panfilo relaxed beside Lider’s shimmering form, a human man of near thirty with tousled hair and sharp green eyes that shone even when the rest of him faded.

Forgiveness wasn’t on Panfilo’s mind, but Lider’s statement absolved him from having to consider the matter at all. He slept.

Everyone else decided to send him to the planet. He woke on the shuttle, his head against Sandy’s soft deeply furred side, and he was grateful the decision was made while he slept, that he was going where he wouldn’t have to listen to the assassin’s justifications.

Whatever Quin wanted to believe, the assassin’s motives were very personal.