The Pearl (Galactic Jewels Book 1)

by Jen Greyson

  She tilted her head and softened her voice. “Face it, Lility, you’re a delicacy. These males haven’t had a chance to meet a human girl, let alone court—and potentially marry—one in an official union. What guy wouldn’t get a little nervous with all that on the line? Not to mention the stress of the Union alone.”

  She studied me like she was seeing me for the first time. I was nothing extraordinary. I mean, last human, sure, but that was a relief not a highlight. I was dull looking, nothing like Fransín’s pretty green skin or our pilot’s luminescence, I was just… fleshy. My brunette hair didn’t stand out unless Fransín dyed it. My blue eyes didn’t shimmer like the night sky above Pwil, or glow like the sea on Foley, they were just… blue. Big butt, bigger boobs, lots of curves… but human curves that made me look like a boring old hourglass, not extra curves like a Tyrill.

  Don’t get me wrong, I knew how to use my curves. A girl doesn’t spend a decade on Samaria without learning a skill or two. They’d said I was the best student they’d seen in ages—destined to be a Pearl. As the 642nd one, I’d given the compliment the weight it had deserved.

  “And that brain,” Fransín said, feigning a swoon and lifting her wrist to her forehead. “You’re the trifecta of perfection.” She dropped her arm and grinned. “You’re a lot to handle, Girl. I’d be intimidated by you.”

  “Shut up,” I teased. All the pearls were extraordinary, being human wasn’t special. “That’d be a first. No one intimidates you. It’s just… Different than it was in school.” After three years as the Pearl, I’d met, studied, and scrutinized all but one galaxy's presentations. I’d taken their offerings seriously, knowing they’d submitted their best, males culled from tens of thousands of candidates. Offering for the Pearl was a great honor, and my choice held weight that reverberated across the universe. Unions were serious universal business, and now that my final decision was pending, I’d received my first assignment. Whether I chose last month’s Hemperklu or tonight’s Spiznwix, we’d team up to negotiate things like trade routes through the Pai Galaxy, whether or not to allow Mercers to obtain citizenship in the neighboring galaxy, and generate offspring that was the most elite group of beings to exist, so my choice was not a decision to take lightly. I needed a serious partner in this union, not a guy who got flustered across the table and couldn’t keep his hands off my hair.

  I unclipped the buckle at my throat, ready to shed my uniform, a unique creation chosen specifically for the Spiznwix, made of a precise amount of a specific Gubun leather and adorned with buckles and hinges made from metal ored off their seventh moon. Nothing about these meetings was left to chance and I’d been looking forward to this one after the way we’d hit it off in all our previous interactions. We’d fizzled almost immediately in this first face-to-face. Not that it mattered, the Hemperklu was a great choice and we got along splendidly. Picking him didn’t bother me, I’d expected more viable options instead of accepting him by default.

  “Nothing’s ever the same as school,” Fransín said. “You roleplayed with guys who’d trained in the artistry of dating, the artistry of seduction, of course they’re suave and impossible to best.” She gestured toward the space beyond our walls. “That Spiznwix wasn’t chosen because he rocked at dating. He—and all the other candidates—were sent because they’re the best at furthering science and trade and all the important things you’re in charge of solving now that you’re the Pearl. This is a political union, Lility, not a romantic one. How many times do we have to go over this?”

  “I know.” I sighed. A passing ship streaked across the inky blackness beyond the window. I rubbed little circles above my heart, hoping to ease the ache. I could do this if I trusted my instincts, my training, my dedication. “My nerves are getting to me.”

  “You only have one more. Can you handle it?” Fransín teased.

  I straightened, grateful to have Fransín supporting me when my position of the pearl overwhelmed me. “You know it.” After tomorrow, I’d announce my final choice for the upcoming wedding and be on to the next stage of my life, one I’d been groomed for since the choosing over a decade ago.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight was our last free night and Fransín had planned every detail for days.

  The bridge door whooshed open and our pilot came in to take his shift. “Ladies.” The Twilip inclined his head, the tops of his long pink dreadlocks brushing the ceiling, their silver-tipped ends tinkling together. At eight feet tall, M’s slender body and three pair of gangly arms were perfectly designed for endless hours at the consoles. His nearly translucent skin glowed bright enough that the overhead lights detected him as a light source and flickered out, casting the room in his subtle illumination.

  He’d be here until morning watching for errant asteroids and unmanned satellites. In all the time we’d been up here, he hadn’t had to make a single adjustment, our route planned in on the very first day to account for all the space activity and possible collisions. The long days and longer nights of no action would have driven me batty, but he said he loved the meditative state he accomplished, watching space whiz past. I was too fidgety and easily distracted. Thank goodness for he and Fransín, or I’d never have made my way across the cosmos like I was supposed to. We made a good team.

  Fransín gave M a rundown of the day’s events and possible collision courses on the way to my next and final location. He took the chair. “Do have a splendid evening.”

  “Night!” She looped her arm through mine and we headed to our room to change.

  CHAPTER 3

  WE HURRIED OUT the main door and onto a curving, sloping walkway, giant silver tubes that encircled the entire ship. “What’d you design for us?” I asked. Fransín’s famed simulations had grown to urban legend status as she’d completed design requests for ships throughout the galactic underground. Her ability to hack the regulation sims was one reason M had her running the bridge when he needed a break and she had plenty of downtime to help him with the presentations coming to an end.

  I might tease her about the sims, but in truth, I enjoyed them. A lot. They gave us interactions I craved beyond our tiny trio and my plus one during the bi-weekly presentations. And they also reminded me of all the ones she’d created during our schooling which made me less homesick. While I’d been ecstatic about finally getting to be the pearl, I hadn’t been prepared for how alone we’d be after spending a lifetime surrounded by hordes of Samarians and Bevis during school and I still hadn’t adjusted.

  She’d hinted about tonight for a week now, finally giving up a big one this morning as a tiny birthday gift. We were going dancing, but she hadn’t said where or with who or any other details about the big party.

  We turned left in the wide hallway, our footfalls silent on the rubberized path. “You’ll see.” She bumped my shoulder with hers and quickened the pace, breaking into an eager run and dragging me along.

  “Should I be scared?” The first time she’d designed a sim back in training, there had been unexpected… glitches. I still had a scar on my inner thigh. If she’d spent a ton of time on tonight’s, she’d hopefully designed the right parts and no untested scenarios. I didn’t have time to heal before the wedding.

  Laughing, we raced along the empty halls. Forty feet from our door, I hip-checked her and took off. “Last one there has to clean the sim room tomorrow morning!”

  She squealed, bouncing off the wall and running up the other side, leaning into the manufactured gravity of the ship that didn’t quite mimic Earth’s, giving her an edge, since it was the exact makeup of her planet’s.

  “Jerk.” I laughed and pumped my legs.

  She ran perpendicular to me, her body parallel to the floor, our heads nearly touching. Strands of her green-gray hair came loose and tangled with my glossy violet ones.

  My breath came fast and she inched ahead of me. We neared the door and I leaned forward, straining to finish first. My legs burned with the exertion but I would not quit. She dove for
the door, pushing off the wall and catapulting herself through the air and into our bedroom. She tumbled and rolled across my path and I had to cut right to keep from mowing her down. I laughed and tripped as I leapt her rolling, spinning green body. “You’re such a cheater.”

  “Never called no cheatsies,” she quipped gaily in her sing-song lilt as we crashed into each other. I flopped on my back while she pinwheeled lazily on the floor.

  I pushed her with my foot, taking advantage of the better gravity in here and sending her spinning away before her body adjusted. “Guess that goes for the club tonight?”

  “Oh yeahhhh,” she said, grabbing the bedpost and stopping her momentum. She winked and purred, wiggling her hips provocatively agasint the satin carpet beneath us. “Definitely cheatsies with tonight’s sim boys.”

  I laughed and let my arms fall to the floor, the day’s stress washing out of me as I stared through the transparent ceiling. Stars and ships raced by, their green and yellow and white flashing lights mimicking one another against the velvet backdrop. I’d visited only a handful of the planets currently winking above me, so many more yet to explore. On the right, a time gate opened, sending a cruise ship through, then closing the pull of the black hole at its center. As a child, I’d always been drawn to the night sky and the endless travel locations. Now, as the pearl, I’d have a hand in keeping them all safe and prospering while we searched for new ones to bring into the universal council.

  Growing up, I’d watched numerous pearls impact everything from alliances to architecture. I’d never wanted to be anything else and while the cost was high—I was willingly giving up everyone I loved in exchange for a union with a mate I’d only researched—the payoff had always more than outweighed the cost. Together, my mate and I would serve the entire universe as ambassadors and supreme decision makers. The far-reaching impact of my laws and policies was worth more than a love match, more than being able to spend every day near Fransin. My heart pinched at the thought of going years without seeing her. There would be the occasional meeting where our lives would intersect from now on, but they would be few—the inauguration of the new galactic jewels, perhaps a feasting celebration on Samaria, the bi-annual meeting of pearls, both former and future, but those would come years, perhaps even decades, apart. I blinked back the sudden rush of tears; we’d had more time together than most common couples and I needed to cherish that time, not taint it with the sorrow of what was to come.

  Last night’s dream plucked at the edges of my consciousness, lured closer by the darkness of my thoughts. “Do you remember that sim we did the lasy week of schooling? The one where you died?”

  Fransin scooted closer so we could look at each other. “Why would you go there again? Sorry that sim went so bad, I’m better now, promise there will be no deaths tonight.”

  “I don’t think I could survive a death like that. Of someone I love. Not that I'll ever care about someone as much as I do you.” It was as close as she’d let me get to talking about how much she meant to me.

  “Better not!” she teased, shunning the depth of what I’d said. “But you will, you know. If you pick the Hemperklu, you'll come to love him. You didn't even like me the first time we met.”

  “You turned a hose on me!”

  “Well, you were filthy. How was I supposed to know you'd fallen off your Kiia and into the river?”

  “Most people would have asked if I was okay before they sprayed me.”

  “I was five.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nice excuse.”

  She shrugged. “You're changing the subject. Why is falling in love with the Hemperklu so detestable?”

  “Love is so human. Why do we have to go there? Why can't I find someone who's good at sex and talking and reasoning? I need a guy who can handle himself during negotiations and when he's naked. Love isn't part of that equation.”

  “But it could be.” Her sing song voice made it sound like a lyric. “You know, for a Mercev, you're surprisingly human.”

  She laughed. “One of us has to be.”

  Moments like this made me want to rewind the last few years and do them again. At least we still had tonight. “Enough mushy emotions. I’m getting dressed!” I jumped up and raced to the closet, Fransin in close pursuit. Our antics flushed the emotion and we batted each other’s hands away from every outfit. I grabbed a blue skirt, she reached it first and held it up before discarding it over her shoulder. She went for a pink, frothy dress, I jumped in front and held it against me while I twirled across the closet. This was our norm, and the only time we touched all the unworn clothes the Ambassador’s staff had had sent to fill the pearl’s vast closet—biggest room on our ship.

  “Who’s job is it?” Fransín had wondered one day while M piloted us between the Foley and Mercev dates. We’d come down before bed, racing like always and flopping to the floor of the closet amid dresses and shoes and purses and necklaces strewn about one night, post-sim; she'd built a disturbingly gruesome one, rife with murder and mystery as she'd tried to unravel a notoriously human historic event. If I'd have been able to scrub my DNA of each human cell that night, I would have. There had been a timidness about both of us afterward while we'd looked for meaning in anything to calm our disturbed minds.

  “Dunno,” I’d non-answered, breathing in the clean air of the ship and trying to convince my mind we were safe while fingering the satin hem of a white ball gown that I’d never wear. Strict guidelines dictated my attire for each meeting with the chosen galactic representative. Typically, the galaxies agreed after several negations. Clothing was a big deal; colors, shapes, textures all had to be considered. What one galaxy heralded as the finest cloth of their textile mills, another had used only to clothe slaves during textile wars. Peaceful times these might be, but they’d come at a cost as war-torn galaxies had searched for a better way. We all bore the scars.

  Entire departments within the consulate presided over what I wore. Each date had an approved uniform that usually involved eight or nine pieces and had been signed off by both galaxies long before I’d boarded the ship. Details like clothes and scheduling were handled well in advance of my first day as the Pearl.

  “Do some pearls make it through all these clothes?”

  “We could look it up.” My hand dropped to the thick carpet. Most of the ship was polished surfaces—floors, ceiling, walls—but the ship designers had spent extra care and time making the closet a wondrous work of art. I’d never cared what historical period they paid homage to with the rows of clothes, the brocade chairs and gilded mirrors, the plush pile carpet, the moulded ceilings. Many things made the room our favorite. A coziness about it found us curled together on the floor most nights, talking nonsensical like we were now in the hours before bed. Fabrics lent themselves to the atmosphere; soft, flowing textiles mimicked the universe and galaxies beyond these walls, pinks and oranges of a star nursery, matte darkness of a black hole, glittering pinpricks of silvery stars.

  Whoever comprised the team of fashionistas supplying us with tonight’s clubbing selection had spared no expense or fantasy about the sims we’d be able to concoct under the guise of “practicing” for presentations. Fransín tried on a dozen mini dresses while I walked naked up and down the length of the closet, trying to find the right outfit, my fingers trailing from silk to satin.

  An incoming call startled us. We froze and looked at each other, instantly recognizing my boss’s ringtone.

  “DAMMIT!” I scrambled for a robe, shoving my arms through as I ran to answer before he wondered at the delay. “How did you let me forget to call him while I was still in uniform?”

  “Sorry.” Fransín retreated, her face flushing dark green with embarrassment and shame. I reached for her to apologize. It was my fault. I had one job. And no time to recall my outburst as the communicator rang again.

  I swiped my hand across the monitor to accept the video call and link me to my boss, a Tyrillian and the UN Ambassador of Courtesans: Milky Way Divisio
n.

  CHAPTER 4

  “GREETINGS, LILITY. HOW did this evening’s presentation go?” Ambassador Cannix had made clear his personal favorite with repeated comments about the bounties of the Spiznwix galaxy, the Spiznwix food, the endless array of Spiznwix contributions to both science and politics over the last century.

  Off-camera, Fransín made obscene gestures mimicking the multi-tentacled Spiznwix, grabbing at her boobs and groping her thighs. I tried not to laugh and was grateful for her ability to let our awkward moment pass quick as a fleeting asteroid. I ignored her and focused on the protruding horn in the center of the Ambassador’s aquamarine chin. “The Spiznwix made a proper offering. He was a suitable specimen and please send my appreciation to the galaxy for their contribution.” I placed my hands together at my breastbone and bowed in reverence to avoid any fallout from denying his favorite. A little supplication went a long way with this Ambassador—a lesson I’d learned the hard way after my first presentation three years ago.

  “Will you choose him as your mate?” He asked eagerly, leaning closer to his monitor until his horn bumped the screen.

  I took half a step back. “The Hemperklu male remains my first choice for a union. A spectacular presentation would be required to unseat him. While the Spiznwix male was superior, he did not make the top three contenders.” I lied. No need to tell him that the Spiznwix wasn’t in the top eighty percent of the candidates. I only picked one. They used to rank the top ten, but that didn’t go over well with some of the galaxies who’d found themselves in the bottom year after year.

  He sighed in defeat, but managed to keep it together. I’d often wondered if in years past the Ambassador had the authority to override the pearl’s decision and if so, when it had changed and why. Probably a governance handed down by a Pearl; one who’d been overridden like the Ambassador would have done to me this time with the Spiznwix. “I’ll let them know. This was their first candidate from planet A23. Concerns arose that he wouldn’t present well.” Ambassador Cannix would review the presentation tapes and make his own assessment. My opinion or further critique was unnecessary. We’d handled ourselves with grace, wandering tentacles and all. Between courses, we’d discussed varying topics from Holswiv testing to the atrocities of the Seventh Galactic War and the architectural feat of expanding the Twilip museum across thirty-two galaxies. He’d recited poetry at the culmination as most of them did. We’d been a mismatch, but not because of anything he’d done wrong. What one pearl loathed, another adored. Better luck to them next union.