Eventually she reached a conclusion. To most aliens, she was the equivalent of a human hunter-gatherer. Someone who had to fight hard for everything and became resilient because of it. Modern life was easy for humans, but not as decadently effortless as it had been for many alien species for millennia. Most species had lost much of their heavy dentition because they no longer needed to chew. They were out of practice using brute strength because machines did everything for them. Protocols were so deeply embedded in daily existence that they rarely had to solve problems with their own logic. Life overflowed with amusements, so why struggle?
Measured against that, Lily might seem barbaric, but she had no desire to soften into the same comfortable inertia that marked the average star-citizen.
Well, if nothing else, I am definitely not ordinary here.
On Earth, Lily had been average in build. Brown hair, green-brown eyes, nothing remarkable. She was taller than most women, which she had usually experienced as a disadvantage. In the IMPERIUM, at least she was not diminutive beside representatives of Registered Spacefaring Species.
In truth, she liked herself more than ever. No one bombarded her with endless images of younger, prettier girls every single day, and she had never been in such good shape as now, when movement was no longer a duty but a joy.
Her two chrono-year introductory period, filled with hard lessons, passed surprisingly quickly. Then Lily had to find a source of income if she wanted to keep Helios. The ship was not very large, but maintenance was expensive, and the consequences for failing to pay taxes were severe: forced labor, or even conscription into “voluntary” experiments.
Fortune finally smiled on her when, after wading through an endless stream of dull and downright depressing job listings, she found a posting from Vegrun Fer’sink, an Algor oligarch.
“Seeking crew member of exceptional physical strength and endurance to maintain a Herion-12 class vessel. Familiarity with the class an advantage. Discretion essential.”
That was all Lily needed. She applied as best she could, and Vegrun immediately seized the opportunity to add another rare and valuable species to his service.
He even granted permission that, if Lily passed probation, she could dock her ship beside Vitromium at his expense, saving her a small fortune. Hard to compete with an offer like that. Lily decided she would do everything in her power to keep him satisfied.
She had never worked under alien supervisors, but she accepted they would be different from humans and resolved not to take offense at things that seemed strange to her. The priority wassimple: keep her marvelous starcruiser, the one that had carried her so far already. For that, she needed IMPERIUM credits.
The granite-gray giant who introduced himself as Khar and did not bother to ask her name struck Lily as a perfectly adequate colleague. He did not talk much and did not micromanage.
Yes, at first glance he was terrifying, with his massive frame, bulging muscles, demon-bright eyes, horns, claws, and sharp teeth. But Lily was past judging aliens by appearances. She shuddered as she remembered hearing the deep, almost resonant cadence of his voice, mixed with the strange, raspy quality of Divani speech, which made her very insides quiver. While her translator enabled her to understand the meaning of his words, it did not diminish the full effect of his alien way of communication.
Upon closer inspection, he looked exactly like the demon a particularly talented Earth sculptor might have carved from stone, which Lily found extremely funny and, in a disconcerting way, extremely attractive. Had aliens visited Earth long ago and inspired old human myths? Or did life stabilize along a few archetypal patterns, so that most aliens fit snugly into familiar human categories? Or was the human mind simply that inventive?
Whatever the answer, she had a feeling she would enjoy working with this space demon.
She knew Helios like the back of her hand, so handling the larger and far more prestigious Vitro came easily. It belonged to the same development line of Herion starcruisers, which meant the organizing logic and command trees were the same or very similar. If she had to use a human metaphor, Helios was a sporty yacht or speedboat, while Vitro was a luxury ocean liner drifting through space instead of water.
Throughout her two chrono-years of wandering, whenever Lily ventured onto a station or a planetary surface, she drew a lotof attention, and after her kidnapping, attention did not sit well with her. She preferred working with only a few aliens who would get used to her presence and stop staring at her like some curious exhibit.
From that perspective, Khar was perfect.
Khar did not praise her, but if Lily had had to rate her first day, she would have said it went well. Of course, she could have restocked faster, but she had needed to audit the existing system. In the afternoon, Khar gave her a simple coding task to correct a navigation subroutine. She fixed it quickly, and he dismissed her, saying he was busy and would deal with her again in the morning.
Maybe working with aliens was not that bad. She would learn a lot, and she might even make friends.
Besides, the uniform was perfection. Black, form-fitting material that somehow did not pinch anywhere, more like velveted silk than synthetic fabric, a second skin. The base layer was sleeveless and ran in clean, elegant lines from her neck to her ankles, paired with a jacket whose shiny silver inlays resembled a leather biker coat. Lily felt as if she were wearing a designer piece, and given Vegrun’s habit of sparing no credits on anything tied to Vitromium, she probably was.
She admired herself in Helios’s reflective panels, flexing her now-toned arms. The movement immediately made her think of Khar’s impressive biceps, which looked magnificent even without posing.
She flushed at the thought, then admitted to herself that so far, her new colleague certainly did not seem bothered by her presence.
The next morning, Lily felt even more cheerful when she noticed that Khar had followed her suggestion and raised gravity a little higher. It felt good to be considered. After two chrono-years ofnear-solitude, the small gesture warmed her far more than it otherwise might have.
She beamed at her unreadable colleague. Maybe today she would finally ask his name properly. By now she was almost certain they would get along.
“Vegrun, the owner of Vitromium, wants to speak to us in this chrono-cycle,” Khar said. “He can appear at any time, and we must be ready to launch at a moment’s notice. When he is aboard, we provide security and, of course, maintenance. Clear?”
“Yes, thank you, Khar.”
He answered with a noncommittal grunt, but it did not dampen her mood. Lily had not spoken with Vegrun yet, only with his secretary during the interview, but she hoped he would be pleased enough with her to let her keep this comfortable job.
Khar set their availability on the console, and the speakers chimed almost immediately.
Vegrun was calling.
