I try a different tack. Straight up defiance isn’t working. Maybe I can pretend to go along with his plan and then escape him. He’s distracted. He’s running from evil.
“Fine. But before we go, I need to stop by the ship and see if I can get some stuff…”
“‘Fraid not,” he says, his grip tightening on me. “I’m going to need to bring you with me, and the two of us are going to have to get on board a departing vessel as soon as possible.”
“Okay,” I say. “But I had things I was doing before my ship tried to kill me, and I…”
“We really have to go,” he says, pulling me along the way. When I try to dig my feet in, he just picks me up under his arm and carries me like luggage. “I thought I saw a transport vessel embarking over here.”
There is indeed a massive freighter being loaded at the docks. I do have to wonder what the hell his plan is going to be here. He reckons he just escaped a secret facility on another planet, so there’s no way he’s going to have a reservation on this ship that neither one of us even knew existed minutes ago. Are we just going to sneak on?
He marches right up to an alien at the end of the gangplank, an officious looking gangly thing with a very formal uniform on. Does Freak know that he’s in his underwear? Back on my colony, you can be refused service for no shirt or shoes. People would lose their minds if you tried to go anywhere without pants.
The food court was one thing. When you’re hungry, nobody cares that someone else is in their underwear. This is a busy station, and there’s all kinds of weirdness here.
But trying to get on a freighter in this state of undress seems, well, a stretch.
The alien at the gangplank is holding a tablet. He glances up at the pair of us with what I can only describe as mild interest.
“Name, sir?”
“Caducaeus Caliperhorn Stendate,” Freak says. “And my human pet, Mixie.”
“Mara,” I say. He guessed my name pretty close to accurate, though. Must be one of those Psyon things.
The correction goes nowhere. Nobody pays any attention to me. I might as well be a bird chirping.
It has been a long time since I’ve had interactions with aliens like this. My father used to take me out and about sometimes, and I got to see all kinds of interesting alien beings. He’d ensure I never had direct contact with most of them, but I got to look and be curious. Most of the people from our colony never leave it, so it was very exciting for me. I used to dream of a time I would wander the stars as he did.
It’s not going like I thought it would.
The man with the register makes a big show of looking at the list. I am tense, waiting to see what happens when we are inevitably not on there.
“Here you are, sir,” he says. “Berth 1223-V.”
“Thank you,” Freak says.
“How did you do that?” I whisper the question as we board.
“Magic,” he winks.
It’s not magic though, it’s something else. He had a peculiar effect on that man, and I think he already has an odd effect on me too, for that matter. I am almost willingly getting on a freighter and leaving all my things behind on this shuttle with barely a word of dissent.
I told him I’m not going to be his pet, but I’m not screaming and kicking and fighting him. He’s not even carrying me right now. I’m just with him.
Once on board, we follow the signs to the berth the alien with the tablet indicated we should go to. It’s a surprisingly nice room. There’s a big bed, and an area to sit and to dine. It’s civilized. It’s far nicer than anything I’ve ever stayed in, and anything I’ve ever seen, for that matter. The colony I come from isn’t known for luxuries.
How did he know about this room? There’s no way he could have. From the beginning he said he thought he saw this ship loading. That means he didn’t prepare a berth. He’s an escaped experiment.
But that alien didn’t question a thing about him. Even though he’s doing the alien equivalent of walking around in his sleeping bag.
The pet line worked so well too. People look at me, and look at him, and assume he owns me. I guess that’s actually the least mysterious part of the whole mystery. Why wouldn’t they? He is big and blue and covered in spikes and claws and I am a soft little human trotting about by his side.
“Aren’t you worried the people actually assigned to this berth are going to show up and ask us who we are?”
“That won’t happen,” he smirks.
“Okay. Tell me. How did you do that?”
