“Go! Go! Go!” little Potat shouted too. Then she climbed into Kamphone’s jacket pocket.
M. Hoyvil turned and ran, looking back just once to see Kamphone with Potat in his pocket following at a more dignified pace.
M. Hoyvil, younger and faster, soon caught up with the four crew members. He followed the larger, young adult aliens through several force fields and long tubular passageways, which finally led to a vast dock containing hundreds of space ships of all shapes and sizes. The four Jalapeno lieutenants passed dozens of ships, ranging in size from smaller ones designed to carry one or two beings to the larger carriers that could accommodate hundreds. They stopped at the walkway that led into a medium-sized ship shaped like its namesake, the jalapeno, and motioned M. Hoyvil to follow them inside.
He stepped in and then followed them down a narrow curving hallway to the bridge. Six chairs facing monitors and equipment were arranged around its perimeter. More monitors, built-in cabinets, equipment, and consoles took up all the available wall, floor, and ceiling space. Through a doorway behind the chairs, M. Hoyvil could see a narrow hallway that led to other open doors to what he assumed were small cabins.
“Strap down in the spare chair,” said one of the female lieutenants to M. Hoyvil, pointing to one of them. “As soon as the captain arrives, we’ll take off.”
“And don’t touch anything,” said another lieutenant.
“Is there cat food and waste elimination facilities for my cat on this ship?” M. Hoyvil asked with the sudden realization that this could be a problem.
Without further discussion, the dark green-haired female took off running out the door to the bridge. M. Hoyvil admired how she made a quick decision and acted on it. Most of the adult Verdantes he knew were only comfortable with taking any kind of action after having long discussions.
“While we’re waiting for the captain and lieutenant to return, we’ll give you some basic training on operating this ship—standard procedure for passengers in case of an emergency,” said the pale green-haired female lieutenant. She sat next to M. Hoyvil to sit in one of the chairs, and one of the male lieutenants stood behind them.
“But don’t touch anything,” said that lieutenant.
Together, the two crew members led M. Hoyvil through basic training on how to operate the ship. M. Hoyvil was a fast learner and quickly understood basic flight procedures. They explained that he would have time to study the more detailed functions on the ship’s computer during the month-long trip to the Woogah planet.
Several minutes later, the dark-haired female lieutenant returned pulling a magnetically powered floating hand cart filled with machines to produce recyclable cat litter, cat food and other cat necessities. She passed through the bridge and loaded the supplies into one of the small cabins just at the captain arrived with Potat in his pocket.
Everyone, including M. Hoyvil, stood up and saluted as the captain walked onto the bridge. Potat looked happy and pleased in his pocket. M. Hoyvil felt abandoned. Just as he started to think that Potat was leaving him for the higher-status Verdante, she climbed out of Kamphone’s pocket and took a flying leap to land on his head.
“I was wondering if you were going to leave me,” he said to Potat in a soft telepathic whisper.
“Of course not,” said Potat, jumping from his head down to his shoulder. “I was just making sure he completed this mission.”
She began cleaning her paws in a self-satisfied way.
M. Hoyvil addressed the group of older Verdantes in his most polite and mature manner. “You have my deepest gratitude,” he said.
“Time to get movin’, soldier,” said the captain in a friendly but no nonsense tone. “I understand you have the tracking device with you that’s programmed to the chip in your human’s ear?”
“Yes, I have it,” said M. Hoyvil.
He reached into his pocket and then handed over the small tracker.
“All hands prepare for flight,” shouted the captain.
Feeling somewhat flustered but ready to go, M. Hoyvil sat back down in the chair and strapped himself in. Potat climbed in his pocket, and he secured it closed.
Six-fingered green hands flew on consoles, lights flashed, sentient trees hummed, machinery whirled, and they were gone.
Chapter 13
The next day, back on the Verdante planet, Eegor pounded his frustration out on the punching bag hanging in his room in a blind flurry. Streams of sweat flew off his bare chest into the air around him.
“Thump! Thump! Thump!” pounded back on his ear drums. And then, “Thump! Beep! Thump! Beep!.”
Eegor paused and looked over to see an incoming call from the Eeeepps on his video screen. He considered ignoring the call but decided to accept it.
This better be good, he thought.
“Accept call,” he said moodily.
The screen lit up to show Iiooonaa Eeeepp with the others packed in tight around her as if for protection. The five other Eeeepps were trembling, causing their head hair or scales, or whatever that was, to wiggle and wave.
Good. They should be worried, thought Eegor. Could that stuff be hair? he wondered.
“Unh,” he let out a partly satisfied grunt.
“Greetings, Eegor,” said Iiooonaa in a voice that was much too cheerful.
At the same time, she lifted a bony clawed hand in a friendly wave.
“Right,” said Eegor. “What do you want?”
“Now, Eegor,” Iiooonaa answered. “Pouting doesn’t look good on your handsome face. Anyway, cheer up! What we have to tell you will bring back your ever-so-charming smile.”
“Oh really?” said Eegor, not at all convinced. “And what is that?”
“We have a plan,” said Iiooonaa, “a plan to get Antaska back!”
“A plan! A plan!” all the other Eeeepps squeaked and squealed, jumping up and down a bit in their excitement.
Eegor, still unconvinced, approached the video screen. He crossed his bulging muscular biceps under his bulging muscular chest, then leaned forward to glare at the Eeeepps—the picture of raw physical menace.
“OK. You have my attention,” Eegor spoke to the Eeeepps. “What’s your plan?”
“Well, it’s quite simple and quite brilliant, if I do say so myself,” Iiooonaa answered. “We know you want Antaska back so you can enjoy the sight of her torment on a daily basis, and so do we.”
The Eeeepps around Iiooonaa nodded their muzzled heads in agreement.
“So,” Iiooonaa continued, “we have come up with a way to get her back.”
“Let’s hear it already,” interrupted Eegor.
“Yes, I’m getting to that,” said Iiooonaa, with a sniff of her snout. “We just found out from Mistress that Master Meeepp is returning early from the space station. He’s on his way back right now.”
“So? So what?” asked Eegor.
Iiooonaa sniffed again. “Eegor, if you would please let me finish?” She leaned forward on her own side of the screen and fixed him with the glare of reptilian eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, go ahead,” said Eegor.
“As I was saying, Master Meeepp will be here in a month from now. When he gets here, we’ll take his space shuttle, go to the Woogah planet, and get Antaska back.”
“What! Are you crazy!” said Eegor, making punching motions at the Eeeepps. “Master Meeepp will never give you his space shuttle, and even if he did, you wouldn’t be able to fly it. I knew you people couldn’t get this right!”
He sighed in deep disappointment.
“Video of…,” Eegor started to say.
“Wait! Eegor! Just listen before you doubt us,” said Iiooonaa raising on bony hand in a stop gesture.
“OK, what?” said Eegor, crossing arms over chest again.
“We can get the ship from Master Meeepp. We have our ways,” said Iiooonaa.
“What ways?” asked Eegor.
“It’s best for you if we don’t tell you in case you’re questioned later,” said Iiooonaa, a
nd the other Eeeepps nodded in agreement. “Just trust me on this.”
“Unh,” Eegor grunted without commitment. “But even if you get the ship, you still won’t be able to fly it.”
“Well, that’s where you come in, Eegor,” said Iiooonaa. “You’ll have to come along to fly the ship.”
“What!” said Eegor. “I can’t fly a Verdante spaceship. Only Verdantes can fly them because they have to communicate with the sentient trees on board to get the things going. And only Verdantes can communicate with those trees because they’re telepathic, and they have some tree genes in their mix. Everyone knows that! I’m only made from Earth human genes. I can’t do that. What’s wrong with you people? Why do you keep stringing me along like this and wasting my time?”
Beyond anger, Eegor slumped down in his chair and pouted.
“Ooh!” said Iiooonaa. “You’re so attractive when you sulk! But anyway, if you would please let me explain?”
Eegor waved a hand her way.
“First of all, you are telepathic. All you Earth-gene humans are evolving to mental telepathy right now. Isn’t that exciting! Didn’t you notice from the video we watched yesterday?” Iiooonaa asked.
“Well, no,” said Eegor, “and I don’t feel any different. I don’t feel telepathic.”
“Well, how would you know?” asked Iiooonaa. “You’re never around anyone else in person except your Master, and he probably doesn’t speak to you telepathically.”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Eegor. “And he hardly spends time with me anymore. He never wants to work out. He just wants to go sit and listen to the trees. I go with him sometimes, but it’s just a bore,” Eegor ended with a sigh.
“OK, but when you’re sitting with the trees, do you ever hear anything?” Iiooonaa asked.
“No, I can’t hear them talking,” said Eegor. “All I can ever hear is some weird humming sound. Grates on the nerves.”
“There! I was right!” Iiooonaa exclaimed.
“Right! Right!” shouted the other Eeeepps, and Eegor heard the sound of them rustling their feet in the leafy ground cover on the floor of their lair.
“Huh?” said Eegor. He squinted his beautiful blue eyes and rubbed his handsome cleft chin with a burly paw.
“That humming is the trees’ telepathic speech, but only advanced telepaths like the adult Verdantes can understand it. The Verdante adolescents and Earth humans becoming telepathic, like Antaska and now you, can only hear the humming, but that’s enough. That’s all you need to fly the space ship,” said Iiooonaa.
“If everyone’s telepathic, and it’s that easy, why don’t you just fly it?” asked Eegor.
“Oh, we’re not telepathic like that,” said Iiooonaa. “We’re different.”
“Very different,” said Pooquali, and all the Eeeepps giggled and squeaked.
“We have our own form of nonverbal communication, but it’s emotional, not verbal,” said Iiooonaa. “The Verdantes don’t understand it yet.”
“And they never will if we can help it,” murmured an older male Eeeepp next to her.
“Anyway, you’re the perfect pilot for this mission,” Iiooonaa went on. “Even if we could hear the trees, we’re too small to work the controls, but you’re really big for an Earth human, not that much smaller than a Verdante adolescent. It might be a little awkward for you, but you’ll be able to do it. And not only that, I’m sure no one told you, but you have some of the Verdante tree genes in your mix. Just a little bit. That’s even more important for flying their spaceships.”
“What!” shouted Eegor, jumping up out of his chair. “That’s impossible! That’s illegal! You people really are crazy. You don’t know this. You can’t know any of this. I don’t know why I wasted my time listening to this defecation!”
“Wait! Wait!” Iiooonaa urged, making calming motions with her long-clawed greyish hands. “Let me explain. We do know this. We have complete access to Mistress’s computer. We read all her private emails, and we’ve hacked into all the genetic information on every humanoid ever created on this planet. So yes, we know everything about everyone, including you.”
“No. No,” Eegor muttered, while his agitated fingers mussed the perfection of his pale hair.
“Yes,” said Iiooonaa. “Why do you think you and Tilde are so much bigger than the other humans? And haven’t you noticed your skin has a greenish cast to it?”
“I thought that was just the lighting,” said Eegor. “And we’re taller because Mistress mixed together the tallest available Earth human genes, just right.”
The Eeeepps laughed and hooted.
“You’re greenish in any lighting,” said Iiooonaa. “And your Mistress didn’t have the skill or the time to find the perfect mix of human tall genes. It was much easier to throw in a pinch of Verdante genes—the same genes that include the sentient tree genes mixed in when the original humanoids arrived on this planet.”
“What? I can’t absorb all this. It’s just too much,” said Eegor, still squeezing his head in his powerful hands. “How would you know what she did anyway?”
“We read her emails too,” Iiooonaa. “Your Master and Mistress didn’t want the thousands of years’ responsibility of Verdante children, but they wanted the feel of having children. So they compromised and created two mixed breed humanoids—you and Tilde. You’re bigger then Earth humans and related to your Master and Mistress, but you don’t have much more than the limited lifespan of Earth human pets.”
“That’s horrible!” shouted Eegor shaking his head in anger. “To create and twist life to serve their own needs! I’m not a human, I’m not a Verdante, I’m like…I’m like not even anything! They haven’t created me; they have destroyed me!”
He sank back into his chair and covered his handsome slightly greenish face with his hands in deep despair.
The Eeeepps, calm and solemn, looked out at him.
“Now Eegor,” said Iiooonaa. “What you’re feeling is quite normal. Many people go through a phase of resenting their creators and blaming them for destroying their life. So go ahead and take your time with that. But don’t take too much time. We’ve got one month till Master Meeepp gets back, so you’ll have to get yourself together by then. In the meantime, I’ll be sending you the instruction manual for flying Master Meeepp’s space ship. So get over your moping as fast as you can. You’ve got a mission to accomplish, right?”
“Right,” Eegor mumbled. “Video off.”
Chapter 14
The chip that the Earth human veterinarian had embedded in Antaska’s ear allowed the Jalapeno to easily track to her exact position on the Woogah planet. M. Hoyvil, Potat, and the rest of the Jalapeno crew arrived at midday. Only a faint blue light cast by its distant sun lit the barren, desert planet. Most of the planet’s humanoids lived belowground away from the cold harshness of the planet’s surface, but the slave trade operated on the surface, away from more respectable residents.
Following the signal of Antaska’s ear chip, the Jalapeno’s Captain Kamphone navigated the ship in stealth invisible mode. They approached a squat, gray building that was barely visible in the planet’s natural gloom. As they neared, the Jalapeno’s radar detected a force field surrounding the building. The ship’s analytical equipment provided the information that this force field would alert the inhabitants of the building of any humanoid passing through but would not be triggered by other non-humanoid creatures.
Kamphone parked the ship a few feet away from the outer edge of the force field. In accordance with the universal law forbidding them to set foot on another species’ planet, he hovered the ship a few feet above the ground.
“Lieutenant XoXo, adjust gravity to zero for hover mode,” the captain ordered.
Once settled at this position, the crew set up the ship’s observation equipment, directing it toward Antaska’s signal.
The Verdantes had developed this technology to observe Earth humans as well as inhabitants of other planets that drew their curiosity, and t
hey continued to use it throughout the universe. There were no galactic laws against spying on beings of other planets. In fact, the members of the Universal Council encouraged this practice and appreciated the information it provided.
The sensors on the stealth ship gave a sharp visual image of the room Antaska’s tracking device emitted from. The sensors picked up sounds too, but that was almost useless because the Woogahs spoke to each other telepathically.
Silent trepidation filled the Jalapeno’s bridge. Potat, floating in the zero gravity next to M. Hoyvil, looked up at the screen for her first sight of Antaska in over a month. Lieutenant Sosha zoomed in the video camera, and there Antaska was!
Potat growled deep in her throat. And she heard the mental gasps of the humanoids around her.
Eyes stuck in a fixed stare, Antaska lay on a bare metal table in a gray-walled room that contained only what looked like medical equipment. Dozens of tubes connected to needles stuck in Antaska’s body. The tubes led to plastic bags of blue-colored fluid hanging above the table on hooks suspended from the ceiling. Two gray-robed Woogahs stood on either side of the table staring down at her.
The Verdantes’ telepathic powers weren’t strong enough to hear the Woogah’s mental talk, but Potat could hear.
“Well, Marroo, I have completed the preparations for the genetic enhancements you requested. As you can see, I’m beginning the injection of modified stem cells,” said one of the Woogahs.
Potat’s skin flushed red with anger under her fur. She recognized the other Woogah, Marroo, from the space station dining hall, although he had been in disguise at the time.
Potat growled again.
“What’s going on? Do you know what they’re saying?” M. Hoyvil asked her.
“Later, later,” she waved a paw to shush him.
“How soon will she be ready, Dr. Cheez?” Potat heard Marroo ask the doctor.
“The injection process will be complete in five days,” answered the doctor, “but the full cellular transformation will require at least two weeks more.”
hypnoSnatch (Xeno Relations Book 2) Page 10
