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The new admiral led all of those gathered to a different room on the station. Its walls were a uniform gray plastic, its floor un-softened by carpets. A rectangular table stood surrounded by chairs, the fabric on the seats worn shiny and smooth. There was not even a window to provide a view of the planet that had brought both our species to ruin. Did they really hold important governmental functions in such a nondescript room?
The admiral sat toward the middle of one of the long sides and gestured that I should take a seat across from her.
I bared my teeth but complied. It was a compromise that allowed neither party to hold the powerful position of the table’s head. So be it.
Lun took the chair next to me, still silent.
Deirdre Hutchins sat at her mother’s side, in easy view and only a couple of arm lengths away. Her smell overrode every other, and my nostrils flared wide, setting my zural heart speeding. I ground my teeth.
Lun’s head whipped around, his eyes narrowing as he studied my chest. He had heard. I refused to look down, to acknowledge the new pounding of my zural heart and the visible pulse it created in the very center of my chest.
It should have beat for a woman of my people, not the daughter of my enemy. I glared at her.
Her eyes narrowed, and she glared back.
“King Storr, we need to finalize the documentation,” Admiral Hutchins said.
Yash stepped forward to stand behind my right shoulder. As the new lord of ambassadorship, he had taken over such duties upon his predecessor’s death. He offered me a screen. The thin piece of clear plastic lit up, displaying all the pertinent forms.
I sat it on the table and signed my glyph on the requisite spot, then slid it over to the admiral.
The older woman slipped on a pair of goggles that must be the human’s alternative to a translator chip. She stared down at the screen, a frown marking her light-brown face.
“Is there a problem?” I asked. Impatience ate at me. The sooner I could consummate this marriage, the sooner the zural heart would calm.
“I can’t read it,” she said. “My translation program doesn’t recognize the language.”
Gah! Could such petty disputes not be ignored?
“It is High Varoolian, the language of binding contracts.”
Yash pulled out another screen and tapped at it, his long fingers flashing across its surface. “I have sent you an updated translation program.”
A high bell tone sounded from the admiral’s person, and she said, “Yes. It’s working.” She read for a few minutes and pressed her thumb to the screen. “Now ours.”
One of her women sat a clunky tablet in front of her, and the admiral used a finger to sign. She offered it to her daughter. Deirdre Hutchins stared at me for long moments, her expression blank and impossible to read.
She shivered as if waking, signed, and slid the tablet over to me.
I picked it up. It was heavy, and its screen only displayed on one side. Primitive. Yash leaned over my shoulder to point to a specific flat line toward the bottom of the form. He had coached me a few days ago on the procedure, and I pressed a finger to the surface to write my glyph.
Medics stepped forward, one for each of us. A sting pinched my bicep, and Deirdre Hutchins winced as the injector pressed into her throat. It was done—we could now successfully breed.
“Well. That’s all taken care of,” the admiral said, standing and rubbing her hands together. “King Storr, I’d like to invite you and all of your people to a celebration. We’ve arranged a party in the main atrium.”
They expected me to celebrate this mockery of a mating?
“No. No party.” I shoved to my feet, anger tightening my muscles. “We consummate now.”
