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Melinda now speaks to me softly around her little sweet treat, changing the subject to one she is capable of engaging with.
“My owners are very high up in the government,” she says, smirking at me as if their achievement is hers.
“Okay,” I say blankly.
“What does your owner do?”
I knew that question was coming somehow.
“I have no fucking idea. And I couldn’t begin to care.”
She looks me up and down, judging my attire, which is outlandish and ridiculous, but not as fancy as hers.
“By the looks of it, probably a simple merchant. His wife probably works. And I imagine their children go to a common school.”
I have no idea what she is talking about, and I have even less interest in finding out.
“Did Kahn sell you?”
She asks another question in that same smug tone that implies she is better than I am. Any hope of getting any useful information out of her is starting to dwindle, but I have to assume she’ll eventually accidentally tell me something I can leverage.
“I don’t know who Kahn is.”
“Kahn sold me. He’s one of the brothers who owns the Human Pet Store. The Voros family. They’re very influential and incredibly powerful.” She speaks the words of that human trading hub with a certain emphasis that implies capital letters and a simpering excitement. “They keep that little shop for appearances, but their family owns half the city, you know. The Wrathelders own the other half. My mistress is a Wrathelder. Jessamine Wrathelder, she’s cousin to Phenix, who…”
I cut her off as she embarks on a long tirade of names I neither recognize nor care about. “I was sold by some asshole.”
She makes an expression that strongly indicates she does not like my disrespectful tone. Then she keeps talking about the thing she intended on talking about in the first place. “That might have been Arkan. He’s good too, but I think Kahn is the best trainer. He’s just so elegant. Never rough. Arkan always struck me as far too aggressive.”
Of course she thinks her human slave trader is better than the other human slave trader. This woman is under the illusion that she is better than any other human on this, or any other planet. She has fully identified with the role of pet and seems very happy in it.
Gross.
She falls silent once more as the alien woman passes by.
“Are you afraid to speak?”
She shakes her golden head swiftly.
“The aliens don’t like it when you speak out loud. It’s best to stay silent when you can. They prefer eye contact and signing. Words are very primitive to them. Our speech is like a dog barking. You should learn to lower your voice and speak only when you absolutely have to. It will make your life much easier.”
I am deprived of any further pearls of wisdom from Melinda, for her owner returns, clips the leash onto her collar without so much as a word of warning, and proceeds to walk away, leaving Melinda apparently happily trotting in her wake. I am shocked and dismayed.
I am also keen to escape this gathering. It’s fortunate that the aliens like an ornate style of dress, especially the women who favor full skirts. It means that if I stoop just a little I am quite quickly hidden in a sea of fabric.
All the heads of the aliens turn in one direction at once as an unspoken word gets their collective attention.
My owner has worked out that he has lost me, and appears to be silently, but rather frantically, asking for help in retrieving me. I’m sure it’s not because he cares about me, but because he just spent what seems to be a lot of money on me.
The aliens start to look for me en masse, and I realize there’s about ten seconds before one of them grabs me. I do not want to be caught. The nearest door is on the other side of the hall. I think I can make it. There’s just one obstacle in the way, a great big long obstacle in the form of the table that holds all the food everybody is shoveling into their mouths.
They spot me.
If this was a group of humans, someone would shout THERE SHE IS! Or GET HER!
But in this group of largely silent aliens, all that happens is several dozen heads swivel toward me at the same time, and a series of eyes lock on me all at once. It is like being spotted by a horde of silent, statuesque, superhuman predators.
Adrenaline spikes, and I decide there’s nothing for it. I run and I jump, intending to vault the table and dash down the other side of the room. But the table is taller than I expect it to be. It’s made to their scale, not mine. So instead of jumping over it, I sort of fly into it and slide, belly down, through a banquet-length table of delicacies. As I crash through the plates and treats, accumulating a great deal of food on my person, I see a look of pure horror on Melinda’s face.
