“You would like your garments to be dry,” he stated thoughtfully.
The naked, muscular human glanced up at him. “Damn right I would. Kind of an impossibility, though, out in the Viisiiviisii. Even if your rain gear stays fully charged and keeps the rain off you, your clothes get soaked with sweat while you’re working or walking. Either way, a man ends up sopping wet by the end of the day.”
“Would you like have them dry for little while, anyway?”
Pale blue eyes narrowed. “What is this—Sakuntala humor?” Holding a half-full cup in one hand, Hasa gestured with the other. “You can’t make a fire out here. Nothing’ll burn. And I’ll be damned if I’ll use up the charge in my cutter to dry my underwear.”
“True so. But can find heat.”
He disappeared into the tangle of branches and vines. An apprehensive Masurathoo watched him depart. “Whatever he is thinking of, is it wise to go looking for it? The darkness conceals many dangers.”
“Shut up, two-trunks.” Hasa’s expression was as sour as his tone. “Something I’ve always wondered. If a Deyzara presses the end of his breathing trunk against his eating trunk, can he snort food out of his own stomach?”
Masurathoo’s own eating trunk recoiled at the image that was raised by the human’s words. This Hasa was by an order of magnitude the most unpleasant example of his species Masurathoo had ever encountered. Brutish, uncouth, racist, devoted only to his own well-being, he was not the sort one would want to encounter at a party or official function. How well such characteristics were suited to survival remained to be seen.