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We go down through the kitchen, where several other saurians who look a great deal like the one I am with are working industriously, cleaning and cooking. They have pale green and blue skin and less in the way of scales. They all have these protrusions rising up from their heads in scoop type shapes. I wondered what they were for when the servant by my side found me, but down here I suddenly understand exactly what they’re for. They’re a sort of musical appendage, in a way. There are cooks humming to themselves as they work, and the sound reverberates through the extended areas of their skulls in a beautifully haunting and sonorous way. The kitchen is filled with the sound which is complex and rich in a way that soothes a part of me I didn’t know was agitated.
“The music is so pretty,” I say.
“It is native to our kind,” my escort says.
“What is your name?”
“My name is Sona,” he says. “I am the major-domo of this house.”
“And the staff all report to you?”
“This is my family,” he says. “My wife, Allegra, and my daughters and my sons and I run the household for Alpha Thorn. We have been doing so for a very long time. Thus far, I have served three alphas.”
“Alphas come and go?”
“A saurian alpha can be deposed or displaced for any number of reasons. Power struggles are constant in this world. There are many with designs on Thorn’s station and home. An alpha must incessantly defend his position. A servant need only remember his or her place. You should keep that in mind as you embark on your career of servitude. Your place is where you can do the most good in the world. It is not shameful to serve. It is necessary, and it can transcend power.”
“Wow, Sona. You are incredibly wise. I’m sorry I can’t stay and learn more from you.”
He smiles and ushers me out of the kitchen, out to the back of Thorn’s massive saurian mansion. I didn’t see this properly when I first arrived. Now, looking up at it from the outside, I see how incredibly impressive it is. No part of the building is a straight line. Instead, it is built in the form of a rampant primal beast. It is somewhere between sculpture and architecture, and I could stare at it for days.
But Sona is already flagging down one of the vehicles sliding around the street. It has a pleasant, cheerful bubble shape and a friendly yellow color. It is being driven by another one of the servant class, who slides to a smooth and precise stop next to Sona and me.
“To the port,” Sona says, handing over a few silvery coins to the driver up front. “This should suffice for the trip. Make sure the young creature gets there good and safe.”
He doesn’t know I am a human. He doesn’t know what the hell I am, and yet he’s still being so incredibly nice to me.
I get into the vehicle, barefoot and lightly clad in my gown. I don’t like that I am leaving my suit and tools behind, but escaping is the highest priority. I can get a new suit and new tools. I can steal, I can borrow, I can charm, and I can lie. All the tools I truly need are locked away in my skull. Except for the implant, which is entirely broken.
“Thank you, Sona,” I say. “You’re more generous than I deserve.”
He smiles, shuts the door, and I am swept away into the city.
I should be celebrating at the smoothness and slickness of my escape. What I just did was textbook social engineering. I could teach a master class in it. But instead of working to contain my glee, instead I just feel guilty.
I find myself worrying. Is Sona going to get in trouble for helping me escape? Will he even be dismissed? He spoke of his place as something very important for not only him, but for his entire family. I could get them all thrown out on the streets, and then what would they do?
It was a lot easier when I didn’t think so much about wider consequences, when all I thought about were my own short-term impulses.
I suppose it doesn’t really make a difference that my thoughts are different when my actions remain entirely the same. I’m going to do everything I would have done with my implant functioning. I’m just going to feel worse about it.
“Excuse me, driver. How far away is the port?”
The driver doesn’t respond to me. I notice he has something in his ears. Maybe he can’t hear me.
Oh well. Doesn’t matter really. I sit back, close my eyes, and let events unfold as they have been set in motion. The closer the port, the more likely I’ll get off this planet before Thorn notices. If it is further away, it will probably be the first thing he locks down. I’m taking a lot of chances here, but I take a lot of chances everywhere, I suppose.
The vehicle slows to another halt, and I get out of it. I am very underdressed. It would be a good idea to get some clothing that will make me look a little less like I escaped from a hospital.
The port is bustling though. There are aliens of all kinds around here, the majority of them not actually saurian. I move through with the crowds as they sort of filter up and into the busy building, which appears to sit at the edge of the city. That makes sense. Most cities don’t put the port at the center.
I move through the port until the way to the docks themselves is barred by security personnel who predictably ask for my papers. Of course I don’t have any. I am barely clothed, for gods’ sakes. What I do have, however, is my ability to readily spin a tale.
“You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve managed to lose my passport with the rest of my baggage, which contains my clothes and shoes. I was transiting through the Gemini system and I think they probably ate it, stole it, or sold it. Anyway, if I don’t get to my sister-in-law’s wedding in the next solar cycle, I am never going to hear the end of it. She’s been planning it to coincide with the astral flares of three separate suns for the last two decades, and the conjunction doesn’t last all that long. I had the rings in my suitcase, and losing them is going to be enough of a blow…”
The agent, losing interest in my story, waves me through. Obviously, I am not from this planet. I am not a saurian. I do, however, look like exactly the kind of human whose sister-in-law has an overly complex dream wedding the entire family will be forced to travel to the ends of creation to accommodate.
“Thank you,” I say. “May you never have to attend a destination wedding.”
