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“Iown a farm,” I tell Azlan. “My family has been farming an asteroid for several generations, way back from when my great, great, great grandmother left Illinois, which is a place on Earth, or was, before, well, the events happened. Anyway, that farm is being invaded by Growlers, and I’m the last of my family’s line, so there’s nobody to help me slay them, unless you count Buttface. I’m outnumbered.”
Azlan listens to me, folding his big, furred arms over his chest. Each of those muscular limbs is thicker than my entire body. He is so much larger than any single entity I have ever been in contact with before. Now I am standing in front of him, I do wonder what I was thinking. How am I going to control him? He could snap me in two if he wished.
“So you need someone prepared to destroy a horde of invading Growlers.”
“Yes.”
He gives a curt nod, as if that’s nothing to him. “Let’s go.”
“Really?”
I can barely believe he’s agreed to this so readily.
“Under one condition,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“You understand that I own you.”
I think about that for all of a second. I should probably devote more time than that, but I am in a hurry, both to get out of this illegal slave trading haunt and to get back to my family farm which could very well be in ashes by now.
“Sure. Whatever. My ship is this way.”
“So is mine,” he says.
We start to walk back toward the harbor and the docks, where all the ships belonging to customers are berthed. I did not pay too much attention to the other vessels when I arrived. I was far too nervous about obtaining my alien.
“Are we going to take separate ships? I suppose we could.” I’m babbling, really, very nervous about the potential outcomes of this strange alliance. I thought this would be a more formal arrangement. I thought I’d feel in control. I don’t feel in control. It’s literally impossible to feel like I am in control when in Azlan’s presence. He has an easy majesty and aura, a certain bearing that makes me feel every inch the flat-footed primate descendant I am.
“We’re not going to take separate ships. We will take mine, and I will put yours in my tractor bay.”
I have to wonder how big his ship is for him to make that assertion so confidently. I might be able to tow another vessel, but I don’t have a tractor bay. That’s a high spec feature, and nothing about my ship, or me, is high spec.
“This is me,” he says, stopping in front of the biggest ship in the docks. This isn’t the sort of place that attracts cargo transports or military ships. This is a place where people dock fast ships with getaway capacity. Most of the craft here are either old bangers like mine, or super sleek speeder-type craft, the kind that can cover a light year in the time it takes to sneeze. They’re all clad in radar rejecting material, so they shimmer and shine with faint outlines, just barely visible to the naked eye.
Azlan’s ship is like none of those ships. It is an incredibly large and interestingly angular golden craft, sitting proud in the harbor with a nonchalance that belies its majesty. Everybody knows space craft have to be mostly smooth in order to not have bits break off during atmospheric entry and exit, but somehow his has a great Leonid figurehead on what I am going to imagine their ship builders probably call the prow. It’s a ship that speaks to wealth, power, and incredible ostentatiousness.
I am impressed, and also immediately ashamed. I decide he must never know how poor I am compared to him, though I am about to take him home to my ancient farm house and barely livable asteroid.
“Which ship is yours?” He asks the question so he can grab mine and put it in his transport hold, but I am too embarrassed to point out the patched up old junker I’ve been flying. It used to belong to my grandfather. It was his absolute pride and joy, which only makes me feel more shame now that I am betraying his memory.
“Wow!” I exclaim. “I’ve got no idea. So weird. Huh! Do you think it has been stolen? Aw, man. Damn. Shucks!” I start pulling out phrases from the very long ago in order to pretend to be very angry about all this. Azlan’s golden eyes flick over me. We just met. He doesn’t know me very well. There’s a chance he might fall for this act of mine.
Azlan plucks the parking ticket sticking out of the pocket of my overalls and locates my shameful ship with his eyes in about two seconds flat, which means now I’m embarrassed about my shitty ship, and about being caught out lying about it.
“There it is,” he says. “You must have missed it.”
“Oh. Right. Yes. Of course. There it is. Haha! Silly me! LOL!” I say LOL just like that, another incredibly outdated acronym that doesn’t appear in the general galactic tongue but makes significant appearance in my own vocabulary of cringe.
“Easy to do in a busy port,” he rumbles.
He’s very charitable, but we both know what just happened here. Azlan, I am learning, is a gentleman. That makes his presence here even stranger. Gentlemen of his calibre and riches do not come to backwaters to buy mates. They are absolutely swarmed by hopeful females begging to be mated.
“Oh yes! I couldn’t see it because of the, er, you know, the angle.”
“Indeed,” he says, continuing to let me save face. “Angles can be very difficult.”
