by S M Matthews
I try and save this a little bit, “They can’t stay here; they certainly can’t fend for themselves, and they can’t stay in stasis indefinitely. We couldn’t just leave them where they were…it doesn’t leave us with a lot of options.” She seems to be actually thinking about what I’m saying; “At least amongst us they…well, they should be safe.” I don’t want to point it out to her, and I certainly don’t want to upset her but…she has no say in this.
She sits quietly, I think she may be coming to that conclusion on her own.
“What about…keeping some sort of record? So at least we know where they are going? Maybe we can stay in touch?”
I scratch at my mane thinking; “So, where we plan to…trade them is not exactly…mainstream. So the trade isn’t monitored. As such. And…well, there’s a lot of trust between the people buying and selling there. If it got out that we were keeping that sort of list we might not be welcomed there again. Also…there’s sort of laws about owning sentient beings so…”
“So it’s illegal,” she waves a hand helplessly, “You’re going to sell those innocent women at some sort of illegal black market and what? Just hope for the best for them?” I shrug and nod. She’s making this sound really callous of us…and to think we’d started off thinking we were rescuing them.
Ceph huffs, “Maybe we should have kept her asleep until after-” Lam elbows him this time.
“I am right here you know, I can hear you! Forgive me for being concerned about my fellow human beings!” She puts her head in her hands again. This isn’t going at all well, we should probably have kept her asleep but…lying to her after would have been much worse, somehow.
Lam makes an attempt to change the subject, “You want to wear clothes? Should I see if I can find you some? Soap, for a shower?” He stands. Practical Lam, he would be the one to think of her needs like that.
Cora nods enthusiastically, “Yes please…”
“Lam,” he says pointing to himself, and then he identifies myself and Ceph again too, before moving off amongst the stock.
Cora shakes her head, “I’m never going to get this; can’t you just wear name tags?”
“You will get it,’ I tell her, “it will just take a little time.” She scrunches her funny little mouth at me.
She rubs at her short mane again, looking away, “Can we cover them up? I know they don’t know what’s going on, but they are all very naked, and it’s not fair on them.”
I nudge Ceph, and he goes with a huff. It’s just the two of us, for the moment. “Ceph’s the youngest,” I tell her, “he can be a little insensitive sometimes.” She does that little dismissive wave again; she looks deep in thought. The two strange tufts of mane above her eyes are drawn down and together. It wrinkles up her whole face. I don’t know what to do for her really. I try to imagine her situation, and it’s difficult.
Even though I thought I knew I was going to be dealing with another sentient being…I hadn’t actually had any real empathy for her until she was awake and trying to deal with it. Now that I’m actually watching her trying to process this, she’s become more real. I hadn’t had any appreciation for what she was about to go through.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask, tentatively.
She rubs at her eyes and gives a little shuddery breath before looking at me, “I just…I’m trying to process, you know? I was not expecting my life to take this sort of a turn. Who could ever have predicted this? And from what you’re saying there’s not a lot I can do about it.” She pauses for a moment, thinking again. “Why have you only woken me? Will I be sold too?”
I shake my head, “No we won’t sell you…” Thank the Stars, Lam appears just in time, his arms filled with a bundle. “Lam’s got some clothes, would you like a shower? We have an empty room.” I hope she takes the distraction and doesn’t push the subject. It’s not really the sort of thing I wanted to go straight into.
She nods and we both stand, she makes a sharp noise, dragging air in through her bared teeth. I look to her, quizzically.
“The floor’s cold,” she gives as an explanation. I instinctively turn to offer to lift her, but she backs away a step. “It’s okay thanks, I’ve got legs.”
I turn to make my way across the bay to leave, flicking my ears back to listen, to make sure she’s following. What a strange thing to say. Of course she has legs, I can see them.
Odd.
CORA
Thankfully as soon as we get out of the storage bay, the floors seem to be much warmer. I follow along after Neb. I think it’s Neb, and Lam follows along behind us with an armful of different coloured materials, all scrunched up into a heap.
I wonder if they all look the same, or just these three. The more I process what’s going on, the more questions I have.
I think I’m going to have a lot of questions.
We came up out of the bay into a corridor with doors branching off either side, and we stop at one. Nothing happens.
Neb reaches up to a panel above the door, and gives it a really hard thump. The door slides open halfway, then freezes and does a little jerk. A moment later it opens the rest of the way.
He turns back to me, grinning apologetically, “Sorry, I will fix that.”
Lam chuffs behind me, “The day the fish jump onto the spear.” He says quietly. And if I’m not mistaking the tone, ever so slightly sarcastically. Neb scowls at him over my head. Yes then, definite sarcasm.
We go in, and I do a lap of the room. There’s another door on the opposite side, which Neb points to and tells me is a bathroom, I follow him in, and he demonstrates how the shower works. He puts the soap onto a tiny holder near the panel that controls the water.
We go back out into the main room, unlike the hall and bathroom, it’s actual carpet in here. Lam has dumped the clothes onto what is without doubt the absolute biggest bed I have ever seen. There’s a couple of cosy-looking, again larger than life chairs on the other side of the room, plus some storage and a desk with a stool pushed under it. It’s more bare hotel than homey, but it is definitely workable, and I am not in any position to complain. I pick through the clothes, aware that the two of them are stood watching me.
“Uhm…thanks for these,” I had started by just looking for things that would fit me, but after dismissing a few items I went back and lowered my standards to ‘anything I might vaguely be able to cover myself with’; these clothes are definitely not designed for humans. Which makes sense, from what they look like and what they’ve told me. I’ve got myself together a small pile of things that I might be able to make work, and I push the reject pile further away. “I think I’d like to try a few things on.”
They both just nod at me. Neb picks up my pile of rejects and then stands back, as if he’s waiting ready to take any more. They watch me, expectantly.
I try again, “So, do you mind?”
They both, almost choreographed, turn their ears back and shake their heads. “No?” And then they just stand there. Looking at me.
I frown at them. Are they for real? “Right, can I have some privacy then?” It comes out really snippy, but it gets them moving.
They leave, all mock flustered apologies, but then one of them – I lost track of which was which as soon as they started moving about – gives me the most shit-eating grin from the doorway, “Just call if you need any help.”
The door slides shut, still with the little stutter halfway.
Yeah, yeah. You two knew exactly what you were doing.
I allow myself a cry in the shower. It’s not about anything in particular I don’t think, just more of a cathartic, work through the shock kind of thing. It’s not like I’m leaving much back on earth…except for normality. And possibly my sanity.
I try and…sort of box it up in my head. Now is not the time to be moping over this, there’re other humans to think of. And for whatever reason, I’m the one they chose to wake up. Which means I’m the only one in a position to try and do something about this
.
Anything.
Anything, at all.
Even if all I can do is keep an eye on them whilst they are here.
I know the shock of what has happened isn’t being processed, or dealt with. I can sort of still feel it in there, bubbling away at the back of my mind. This is a lot to deal with…but I haven't melted into a puddle. I’m just going to have to take this one step at a time, and think about those ladies out there.
I wonder why they are all women. I’m pretty certain that in a group that size it wouldn’t be dumb luck, they targeted women for a reason. Hopefully no one’s been…messed with. I give myself a quick investigation…everything feels fine. Nothing feels at all sore…but that doesn’t mean much, I have no idea how long ago I was taken. Scratch that – we. I don’t know how long ago we were taken.
I give myself as thorough of a scrub as I can, I don’t like the idea of where I’ve been. Or what may or may not have happened in that time.
The shower comes with a full body blow dryer, which considering they are covered in fur, makes a lot of sense.
I go and get dressed as best I can. I feel like I’m wearing a bin bag with a flappy open backed jumper over the top, but it works for me. The jumper is pretty huge on me, so I tie the flappy back bits together to make me feel a little more secure. It’s made of an almost reflective material, and shimmers a little. At least this is pretty.
There’s nothing to go on my feet though. I have a split second of mourning fluffy socks and slippers, then square my shoulders.
I am ready to march out there and have a…a serious conversation with some aliens.
I head to the door, my confident stride halted when I have to wait for the door to unstick itself. Well that sort of spoils the effect, but I head out to find someone anyway.
I almost immediately hear them talking, this main corridor isn’t actually that long, and I go to the door I think the voices are coming from.
This door slides open smoothly, and all three of them turn to look at me.
“Are you hungry?” One of them asks me, I nod. There’s a little shifting around, and another one of them tells me to come and sit at the table, so I do. I have to pull myself up a little, my feet don’t touch the floor once I’m sat. They are all probably at least a foot and a half taller than me. It makes sense that the furniture is all a little bigger. I sit quietly and watch whilst they all mill about. For three really big dudes in what is a relatively small space, the manage really well. They seem to be totally aware of where the others are, no one gets in each other’s way. They don’t seem to need to talk much, taking on jobs and handing things off to each other with practised ease.
Sitting here whilst they busy themselves gives me time to really take them in. It’s not at all like when you see a monkey walking on two legs, or an animal that’s been trained to do something clever. They look…well, they look like people.
No, they look purposeful, sentient, clearly complex; like a human. But then trying to marry that concept, that undefinable human purposefulness, to what they actually look like is...jarring.
They have large, furry, cat like heads, cat shaped green eyes with slitted pupils. Huge, dark ears emerge from their short manes, their ears seem to be able to move whichever way they want, completely independent of each other.
Their ears have little tufts on their tips.
They all wear tight, short trousers that end at the knee, so I can clearly see their cat feet on their cat back legs. Their feet are a very dark grey, but it starts to turn into a marbled spotting pattern as it disappears up into their trousers. All their fur seems to vary from very dark grey, almost black, right the way through to very bright white on their stomachs. All the trousers are very low slung, I assume to accommodate the two tufted tails they are all sporting. Again, the tufts at the end, much like a lion’s, is very dark, but their tails lighten towards the base.
All of their tufts are different, now that I’m paying attention. One’s quite long, whereas another is noticeably fluffier. One of them is wearing a vest, the other two are wearing loose, sleeveless jackets. All made out of some sort of dark material, like the short trousers. Every now and then one of them will reach for something, and the perfect snowy white will flash between the open halves of the jacket. It’s seriously difficult not to stare.
Every time I look them over, I spot something new. They are just so different, it’s quite difficult to take in.
Watching them prompts my first question, “Do all your people look the same, or are you related?”
The nearest one shakes his head at me, “We’re brothers.”
Oh right, “What, like identical triplets?”
Another shake, then he brings over some bits for the table and sits next to me. He seems to think, and then lets out a little chuff laugh, “It didn’t even occur to me that we would be different in this way. So…all our males come in threes, three brothers. One sister. It’s an evolutionary thing. The female then accepts a set of brothers as her mates. They then have four kits and so on. Some females will have a second set of four kits.” While he’d been talking, the other two had finished laying the table and sat down. The one on the other side of me takes my plate and puts a little bit of everything onto it for me, the one opposite pours me a glass of water. Normally I would be protesting, I’m quite capable…but I don’t actually have a clue what any of this stuff is, so I let them carry on and thank them.
I am in their home, to be fair.
I digest what I’ve been told, or try to. Always three identical brothers, that must get really confusing, really fast.
We eat, and I pick over a little of all the weird stuff, some gets rejected, whereas some is really good. They don’t seem to have any rules about sweet stuff and savoury stuff being on the same plate together.
They ask me about human families…they seem to just accept that people have no kids, loads of kids or anywhere in between. The idea of divorce and having more kids with other people seems to weird them out a bit though.
“Do you not do that then?” I ask, lifting some other weird looking thing to my mouth. I feel like being hungry is making me much less picky than I would normally be.
The one opposite shakes his head, “No. Your mate is your mate and that’s that.”
“But…what if you decide you don’t like them?” Everyone cocks their heads to the side…they are looking at me like I’m the one that just dropped out of space.
Actually, to them, I suppose I am. I smile a little to myself at the thought. I’m the weird alien here, not them.
“That…doesn’t happen,” the one on my left says. “Why would you not like your mate?” I shrug, I don’t have an answer for that. It sounds way too good to be true. Everyone gets happy ever after? Everyone? Surely not. I dismiss this line of thought.
“I’m sorry…can we do the names again?” Whilst we are all sat here, I might be able to get a handle on which one’s which since they aren't moving around. Lam to my left, Neb opposite, Ceph to my right. Right. I might get this. Eventually.
I try and watch them, study them without openly staring. I also seriously want to grill them, but where do I even start?
“So…we are on a spaceship? And we are on our way to some sort of illegal market to sell off the other girls?” I can’t keep the distaste out of my voice.
Neb nods, then sort of circles his fork in the air, “more sort of…unregulated, unsanctioned, unofficial…than exactly illegal.”
I shrug, I don’t exactly see the difference, but I keep my mouth shut on that one.
“So why did you wake me up?” I’m pretty sure I’ve asked this one before and I didn’t actually get an answer.
There is a few moments of the three of them looking at each other, then Ceph chuffs and says, “because you smell really, really good.” I turn to him, and I can feel my eyes go wide with absolute horror. He puts his hands up defensively, and I am suddenly very aware of those claws. “Not like food or anything.” The othe
r two snort laughter at us.
Oh, right. I let out a sigh of relief. For a moment there I honestly thought he was going to say they were fattening me up for a special occasion.
I poke mistrustfully at the bits left on my plate, “Like what then?”
“Like you were meant for us,” Neb almost purrs at me from the other side of the table.
I am getting frustrated with the direction of the conversation, “And what it that supposed to mean? Exactly?”
Lam puts his fork thing down and sits back in his chair, “It means that you smell exactly how I would expect our mate to smell. Better, even.”
I can feel my mouth opening and closing, I’ve gone full dumb goldfish trying to process that. Unsurprisingly, I have more questions.
“So how do you know what your…mate…would smell like? And why do I smell like that? And what exactly does that mean? What exactly have you woken me up for?”
I know my voice is rising in pitch, and I’m panicking a little. My mind had already run away to the worst possible answer to my questions.
Lam continues to answer me, the other two seem happy to defer to him. “So, millions of years ago, smell was really important when it comes to mating, you were getting the right one for you in a sense of it being a good mix, genetically. You’d have a strong set of cubs, your genetic material would get passed on,” he makes a twirling gesture like so on and so on, I nod to indicate I’m following what he means. “Now, it’s not really what we go by. You’re raising your cubs in a safe environment; we have the medical know how and the technology to fix almost anything. It’s now more about if the match is good, if the relationship works, if it’s…I don’t know, socially acceptable.” I nod again, all that makes sense and I can relate to it. I would imagine it was pretty much the same with humans, the strongest caveman kept the girl. Or something like that anyway. “So now, if you’re lucky enough that your mate also smells appealing to you then…” He does a downward twist with his ears and then they ping back up. He shrugged, I realise.
