by Calista Skye
“I don't know which language to translate to,” she says with a little bit of indignation.
”To Spaceish! We know he speaks it.”
”So do you!” Ingrid protests.
“Kind of, but not that well. Fine, I'll do it. Hello, blue man. My name is Mila.” I reach my hand out as if to shake hands, immediately feeling silly.
The guy looks at my hand, but makes no move to take it.
5
- Xan'tor -
She looks like she wants me to give her something, but my hands are empty.
I should move past this ridiculous standoff and maybe introduce myself. “I am Xan'tor.”
The female withdraws her hand. “You speak Spaceish?”
It takes me a little moment to realize what she's saying. Her accent is strange, but pleasant. “I speak Interspeech. And so do you.”
“Interspeech? We name something else. Yes. I speak. Some Interspeech I speak.”
I tap my lips in thought. Conquered aliens on invaded planets are typically neither encouraged nor allowed to learn any language in use among the spacefaring powers, least of all the extremely useful Interspeech. And I know that her planet was conquered and invaded, because I did that myself. So how is this possible?
“Where did you learn it?”
She looks away. “This place and that place.”
“Here and there?” I suggest.
“Yes.”
“Where specifically?”
“Um. Earth?” She points to the floor.
“I see.” I should be pursuing this topic, but being this close to her makes my head swim, and the pressure in my pants threatens to rip them. The magnetism she exudes is too intoxicating.
“Mila, was it?”
“Yes. And you're Sando.”
“Xan'tor!”
“Sandor?”
I sigh deeply at hearing that proud name, a traditional hero's name from my clan, solemnly given to me as a young adult in an elaborate and sacred ceremony, being spoken like that. “Yes.”
Turning away to hide my obvious excitement, I give the lounge a quick evaluation. Thankfully, it's not too messy.
I walk a couple of paces away from her to clear my head. Even her scent clouds my thoughts. What is it with this female?
For that matter, what is it with me? Why did I do this? Why did I take her from Baron Pantoflir? And why today, right after the Bululg offered me a genuine fortune for the next mission?
I can't hold back a groan. This was an infinitely stupid thing.
But I just couldn't bear to see this spectacular creature being taken by the baron, knowing that she would be bred in his pleasure parlor, giving birth to endless broods until she'd die.
That was the reason.
The whole reason.
And in order to free her, I committed piracy against one of the Bululgs' best customers. The price the baron paid for this female was the highest ever recorded, enough to buy a planet. He's bound to complain to the Bululg, and they will have to reconsider their extremely generous offer to me for the big new mission.
I may have just ruined my own future. And, worse, that of my clan.
Maybe I can give her back! With my apologies and a promise to pay for the damage to the baron's ship.
But before I can even turn around to look at her again, I know it's impossible. I can't give her back. Not to that fate.
Not to any fate.
“Make yourself comfortable,” I say and point to the couch.
Then I step onto an elevator plate and zoom up to the control room.
“Maybe you can give her back?” Frox suggests the moment I appear. “With your apologies and a promise to—”
“No!” I bark. “They would only kill her. By forcing her to make a thousand little hybrid Baron Pantoflirs. I can't do that to her— to the universe, I mean.”
“The question is, can you do this to us?”
I sit down heavily in the captain's chair and rest my head in my hands. “I have done it. Now we have to make the best of it.”
Frox spins around me once in sheer frustration. “I have seen you do weird things before. But then it always turned out that you had a good reason and you knew exactly what you were doing all along. But stealing this female – that's different, isn't it?”
I just groan.
“I have never known you to act irrationally,” Frox goes on. “Not once. And this is a doozy. The Bululg just offered you all the money in the universe, pretty much. Then you go and do this to their best customer. Are you feeling all right? Shall I get the diagnostic kit?”
My fists clench all by themselves. I have commanded armies. I have commanded fleets of warships. I have conquered fifteen planets with sentient beings on them. I have done everything I could to further myself and by extension my clan. And now it could all be undone by that tiny, round little female with the dark eyes and the long hair and the strong spirit.
She's only one floor below me. Maybe I can go down there and pretend to do something, just to see her again? To confirm that those curves of hers weren't something I imagined?
“Yes,” I sigh.
Frox points an eyestalk towards me. “What was that?”
“I said, yes. Get the diagnostic kit. I have to find out exactly how crazy I am.”
6
- Mila -
“Not exactly Ikea,” I mutter to myself.
I sit down on, and partly in, the only piece of furniture in the room. I first thought it was some kind of artwork. It consists mostly of metal bars and curved glass surfaces and doesn't look like any kind of chair I've ever seen. It's plainly made for aliens with a body different from mine, but even though my legs are dangling in the air, it does give me some support.
Okay. So I'm still in space, but at least I was rescued from that forced breeding thing. And the chains are gone. So while I'm much worse off than before Emma and I started the mission, right now things are better than they were an hour ago. That has to count for something.
I rip my cellphone off my back. “Ingrid, what is this place?”
“Sweep me around so the camera can— yes, like that. Mila, this is a room of some kind. Judging from the movements and the view out the window, it could be suspended in space. I sense some acceleration. You appear to be sitting on an exotic piece of art.”
“It's alien furniture, not art. This is a spaceship, I'm pretty sure. What do you know about blue aliens with white spots?”
“I have data on two kinds of blue aliens. The names of their races are unknown to me. One species resemble dandelion seeds and tend to float on the wind in much the same way. They are six inches tall and only infrequent visitors to Earth. We believe they came to assess the possibility of selling Earth rocks, but they have not been seen for some time. Probably, they lost interest. The other species of blue aliens are only known from one specimen. It was probably in charge of the whole invasion of Earth. It was dark blue and extremely large and deadly. It had two legs and two arms, but was otherwise not very humanoid. It is not known to have white spots.”
Huh. Not much to go on. And if there's one thing I remember the most from that nightmarish time of the invasion, it's the images of blue monster. It was as big as an elephant and horrific to look at, with teeth and spikes and claws and indigo skin that was impervious to the bullets that the army guys and marines were shooting at them.
I shudder at the memory, refusing to pursue that memory any further. Those were by far the worst days of my life.
Shaking my head to get those images out of my mind, I shift my position on the alien chair to try to get more comfortable.
So I guess I have discovered a new species for the resistance. Two, if you count the baron and his kind. Of course, we all knew that space is full of aliens. And that as long as Earth is pretty much a Bululg-owned farm, we humans are considered livestock and slaves that will never be allowed to participate in what we think is a vibrant community out there in the stars.
I cross
my legs and try to lean back, but the backrest just swings loosely and is not firmly attached, so I scramble to catch myself before I fall to the ground.
It is a very alien spaceship. But can it be so alien that they don't have some pretty important facilities?
“Xan'tor?” I call softly. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing happens for ten seconds. Just when I'm about to call again, the little elevator plate comes down. But that's not Xan'tor.
“Yes?” says the strangest alien I've ever seen, though I vaguely remember spotting it next to Xan'tor at the auction. Back then I thought it was some kind of suitcase. It's round and seems to roll like a wheel. “You called?”
“Yes,” I admit in Interspeech. “Sorry, I wanted ask Xan'tor about thing. Something.”
“Xan'tor is busy right now,” the wheel says and rolls closer. It has a whole bunch of eyes on the ends of thin, wriggling stalks, and it keeps moving them around. “Perhaps I can help? Frox is my name.”
“Hi, Frox. I Mila is. There is such thing as… um… water room on this… vehicle?”
Frox stops and his six eyes all focus on me from different angles so I have no idea where to look. “Water room?”
“Small room. With water. For cleaning. And for… hm. Other thing.”
The weird alien scratches itself with several eye-less tentacles. “Water?”
I guess there is a chance they don't have bathrooms in space. Or water. “Water. Flows, waves.” I try to draw an ocean in the air with one finger. “Cleans. For the… trash. No, not trash. Waste.”
“Oh,” Frox finally says. “The hygiene facilities. There is no water in there, though. We have other ways of getting clean. Right there.” He points with three tentacles.
“Ah,” I say, spotting something that looks like a door. “Thank you.”
“Will you be all right in there? I'll stay here in case you need help.”
I get to my feet. “That is kind. I be quick. If I can.”
Entering the alien bathroom, I find that I am actually able to make some sense of it. But the latex suit gives me a conundrum until I realize that it's self-sealing – I can rip it off me, and when I put it back on it will meld with itself along the torn edges and make a seamless connection.
The relief is very welcome, and by the end of the process I actually feel pretty clean despite the lack of water.
“Mila, you appear to be close to an ultrasonic device,” Ingrid pipes up. “There is no cause for alarm, it can't hurt you. Those devices can often be used for cleaning purposes when there is no water present.”
Well, that explains it.
“All done?” Frox asks when I exit.
I climb back onto the weird chair and try to find a way to make it less painful to sit in. “Yes. Thank you.”
“We will soon bring food and some fluid for you. We must just find out what a being like you can safely consume.”
Frox rolls over to the elevator plate and disappears up.
Okay, this is actually not looking so bad. At least I'm not alone with Xan'tor. He gave me a creepy feeling back at the auction, and I'm still not too sure about him and his intentions. He absolutely had a large bulge in his pants, but that doesn't mean he wants to breed me.
Or maybe that is exactly what it means. Somehow, that idea isn't nearly as repulsive to me as it should be. At least he's somewhat human-ish. And he is pretty attractive. For an alien.
The elevator descends in the blink of an eye, and then Xan'tor is back.
My heart skips a beat at the sight of him. He's ditched his robe, so now his entire upper body is bare. He's all muscle and spikes and yellow suns where his eyes should be.
I want to play it cool, so I swing one leg over a metal bar and try to look relaxed, casually dangling one foot and leaning back as much as I dare without falling.
Xan'tor gives me a weird look.
I look down myself. Did the suit not seal properly, after all? But I see no bare skin. “What?”
“I'm glad you found a use for that thing,” he says and lightly kicks at the weird chair I'm in. “But perhaps this would be more comfortable?” He touches a patch of the floor with his toe, and a white couch and a low table grow out of the floor in a fluid motion.
“Perhaps,” I say sheepishly. “I thought this be only chair in vehicle.”
“I think that's less a chair and more a piece of art,” he says and places something on the table. “A sculpture, they said. It came with the ship. Supposed to make it look classy.”
“Hmm,” I offer, carefully disentangling myself from the artwork. “Frox not tell me.”
“Frox has trouble understanding furniture in general. He never uses it. I hope this is something you can eat. If it's not too bad for me, it probably won't kill you. But let me know if you think it will.”
I sit down on the couch, which is much more comfortable than alien art. On the table is a square plate with a heap of a rice-like substance on it. Sniffing it, I realize it smells pretty good and I haven't had a bite since that slop in the Bululg prison.
“There is spoon?” I ask. The fact that Interspeech has a word for that object has to be a good sign.
Xan'tor takes a step over, reaches under the edge of the table, and comes back with what looks more like a spork. “In the usual place.”
“Different from Earth,” I explain and dig the spoon into the food, half expecting a mass of worms to slither out. But there is only the rice, or its nearest space equivalent. And it tastes just as bland as it is supposed to.
Xan'tor looks at me. “Will it kill you?”
Well, it doesn't sting my mouth or make me gasp for air. “Is likely it will not.”
He nods towards the green cup that's also on the table. “The drink was suggested to me by the Bulu— hm. By someone. Good for humans.”
I carefully sniff the clear liquid. It's fruit juice, but which fruit I couldn't tell. I take a sip, and the flavor reminds me of lychee. It's sweet, anyway.
I munch on the food and glance up at Xan'tor, who is still standing. “So, I think we soon be back on Earth?”
“Earth?”
“You taking me to Earth, is right? My home.”
He stares at me for a good while, and I have to look away.
“Earth is not a good place for you,” he finally states. “You were sold. You're not supposed to be there. The Bululg will find you again.”
That's probably true. It's hard to avoid detection on Earth. “Then what the plan is?”
He stares me down and growls deep in his throat, then turns on his heel and zooms up again on that elevator.
And I'm left speechless. Because now that his robe is gone, when he turned it was very obvious that he has a tail.
I feel like I'm going to faint. A freaking tail!
Furry and long and tactile, like that of a tiger. Or like that of a blue leopard with white spots.
He's more alien than I thought.
Shit. I hope I didn't offend him. He looks like the kind of guy you probably shouldn't insult.
But I asked a legitimate question. What will become of me? As he said, Earth is probably not an option for now. I was caught in the middle of a break-in at a Bululg base, the most off-limits place on Earth. If they catch me again, they'll sell me once more. And they'll make absolutely sure I don't escape again.
In other words, my fate depends entirely on Xan'tor. He can pretty much do anything he wants.
I'm not completely directionless. My orders from the Resistance are clear: kill myself and as many others as I can. Make Earth slaves seem not worth the trouble to buy or to abduct.
I will keep that in mind. But the one thing I have to know is what happened to Emma. She was not at the auction, and I didn't see her anywhere. I can't even be sure that I heard her call my name back at the ship taking me to space. It might have been just wishful thinking, a much-wanted sign that the fresk didn't kill her.
So yeah. I am a soldier. I will do my best to follow orders and blow
myself up along with a bunch of others. But first, I want to find out what happened to Emma.
The bland alien food fills me up fine, and I force myself to eat all of it and finish the juice. There might be a long time before I get anything else.
Getting up and walking over to the window to space, I see nothing I recognize. Just black space and the bright pinpricks that are stars. Nothing seems to be moving. But there is a constant, low-pitched hum in the ship, so some of the machinery must be on. For all I know, I could be moving through space at the speed of light.
7
- Xan'tor -
“So you stole that intoxicatingly attractive female,” Frox says calmly. “And now that she's down in the lounge, you prefer to be up here.”
“What about it?” I growl, wiping down the barrel of a ray gun.
He concentrates on the instruments. “Just stating facts. A suspicious mind would have thought that maybe you were avoiding her on purpose.”
“Would it really?”
“Yes. It would. Did you get any results from the diagnostic kit?”
I sigh. “I'm no more crazy than usual, apparently. Some hormones are off the charts, though.”
“Let me guess: hormones that tend to spike during some kind of mating ritual?”
“Maybe,” I grunt, annoyed that he hit it right away.
“You never told me much about the ritual of your species.”
I put the gun down and grab another. “There's no ritual. The clan finds a female from another powerful family, and I marry her. Thus creating a bond between the two clans. Very simple.”
“All a part of your duty to your clan,” Frox says. “Doesn't it get annoying? Always having to consider their opinion whenever you want to do something?”
“Not until now,” I admit.
“I never got that arranged marriage thing. Your wife will be the most important person in the world to you. Why let someone else pick her? Oh, perhaps the wife is not that important to every male of your species. But I know you. When you commit, you're not joking. You mean it. Now, take this alien female, for example. She clearly awakens something in you.”
