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I pick her up and I carry her to my bed. How many times have I warned other owners not to ever let pets sleep in their bed? Dozens. Dozens upon dozens. I’ve given extensive lectures as to how allowing a human pet to sleep with its owner can result in an inflated sense of importance in the pet and create behavioral problems.
Now I am carefully tucking a feral, disobedient, and outright naughty human into my very own bed. I am stroking her curls back from her head and making little soothing sounds that aren’t even words, just crooning.
She closes her eyes and grips the covers, pulling them tight up to her chin. She wants to hide. She wants to be kept safe. As chaotic and wild as she appears, she has all the needs of any well-behaved pet. She needs to be protected.
Silently, I swear to myself to always protect her.
Even, and perhaps especially, from herself.
* * *
Ilock the human in my room, safe and sound, and turn to address the next major problem. Arkan still insists that it is a good idea to transport Euphorian-slaying humans to Euphoria. My older brother has a kind of arrogance which cannot be argued against. Logic is not enough to stop him from doing something insanely stupid. He wants power. He wants domination. He is eager to return to Euphoria and rub the death of Phenix Wrathelder in the faces of his family and our traitorous mother. Arkan believes we are returning to Euphoria in triumph, and the human soldiers are like our dogs of war. They will strike awe into the hearts and minds of all those who see them.
I think we are returning to a civil war, and that we will get a great many killed, humans and Euphorians alike. I believe we should return the soldiers to Earth, and perhaps consider not returning to Euphoria ourselves at all. Though we may have very well been treated unfairly, we are a toxic presence in the world from which we came. The feud between our family and Wrathelder has already expanded into wider society, bringing chaos and destruction.
Landing back on the planet, declaring the patriarch of Wrathelder dead, and allowing a contingent of Euphorian-slaying humans to set foot on our soil seems to me to be an act of war against all that is good and safe and proper.
The human soldiers we now have in our midst happily destroyed an entire Wrathelder crew. They are dangerous, and my brother and I are outnumbered. Stella believes in my power, but suddenly I am seeing through her eyes. Feeling her powerlessness. Knowing that our cargo is more dangerous than Arkan or I would like to admit, and wondering if our arrogance will be our downfall. We waged bitter covert war against Phenix Wrathelder for years, and in the end it was a human who slew him.
Humans are dangerous creatures, but Arkan believes our alliance with them will hold. This, in spite of the fact that human alliances historically never hold. They are a warlike, vicious, terrible little species, and our decision to turn them into pets now seems like a laughably arrogant aim.
I’ve had this conversation a hundred times. It’s time to have it for the hundred and first time.
* * *
“Ihave the human contained,” I inform my brother. He is on the bridge, piloting the ship even though the ship does not need to be piloted. His human pet is happily curled up in his lap, her pink hair and his long blue locks mingling with their casual intimacy. I have to admit, they make a fine pair. Arkan’s pet is more than someone to own. She has become his mate, his confidante. Dare I even say, his equal.
I cannot imagine ever allowing a human to take such a position in my life. Stella might be cute, and perhaps I may very well end up in charge of her for an extended period of time — but I see the animal in her very clearly. She could never be an equal to me. She will always be something to be looked after.
“Thank you,” he says.
“Poor thing,” Jennifer says, peeking out from the curtain of his hair with a little smirk. “I bet you were so mean to her.”
“I am never mean,” I reply. “I am always firm. But that is not what is at issue now. Stella — that is her name, by the way. She says that the soldiers we have on board are a lethal threat to her life. I believe it is time to reconsider our plan.”
Arkan sighs. “We are going home,” he insists. “We are taking them with us. I won’t keep having this conversation, Kahn.”
He will, though.
“We are going home as murderers. We are going home bringing chaos and war. I wish you would reconsider our course of action, Arkan.”
“No matter how many times you say that, I have no intention of changing my course of action, or the course of this vessel.”
Arkan can be an absolute idiot sometimes. He wants to go back to prove something to the world. He absolutely refuses to understand that what others will perceive is not what he wants to project. He thinks everybody will be wildly impressed at the sight of what he imagines to be a well-trained platoon of soldiers obeying his every command. I know better. I know the soldiers will follow the commands of their own commander. I know that they will quickly become entirely uncontrollable. I know that the disappearance of three vessels of our family’s greatest enemy, including their patriarch, will be looked upon with suspicion.
Sometimes, I grow very tired of being correct. There are only so many times one can sayI told you so.
But what options do I have? I could demand he let me off the ship and avoid the chaos which is almost certainly coming, but I am loyal to my family. My other brothers are not burdened with the same level of dedication. Someone has to try to keep things sane. Someone has to be responsible. Arkan thinks the latter position is his. It is not. It is mine. The burden of keeping this family alive has been mine since our father passed.
I try not to be bitter, even as my efforts go unacknowledged. I am the one who runs the human pet shop books. I am the one who understands the accounts. It is I who presents to the council of Elders, who negotiates with others. Arkan is eldest, and that is all.
I leave his presence before I lose my temper. These unbalanced familial dynamics are fast coming to a head. I cannot cover for every one of my brothers’ rash actions. One of us has abandoned the family completely, the other now makes his home among humans, and Arkan, Arkan seems intent on war.
The human soldiers have given themselves the run of the ship, another decision of Arkan’s. He believes they will be more settled and less aggressive if they do not believe themselves to be prisoners. I believe them to be arrogant and destructive regardless, and if it was my choice they would be confined to a single bay on the lower deck.
Instead I am forced to endure yet another indignity at the hands of Arkan’s guests: small talk.
“Big guy!”
