Alien Pets, Trisha McNary [free novel 24 .txt] 📗
- Author: Trisha McNary
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M. Hoyvil stopped what he was doing. He turned and stared at the other man, who returned his silent stare. Antaska knew that the Verdantes were telepathic, and she guessed that they were talking.
Still, Antaska felt an inner chill while she waited and watched the two large beings stare at each other in silence. Antaska couldn’t hear their mental talk, but she had a strange feeling of coldness that wasn’t caused by the cool but comfortable ambient temperature of the space ship hallway.
Now Antaska caught up with M. Hoyvil. She stopped a few feet away from the two men. The strange cold feeling seemed to warm and melt away. The second alien turned and looked down at Antaska. The corners of his eyes lifted up too, but he didn’t say anything to her. Then he turned and walked away.
This job seems strange already, Antaska thought. Will it be like this for the next 300 years?
Her new employer looked down at her and then continued on his fast walk. Antaska sped after him. He stopped in front of what seemed to be a tall, narrow doorway. It was unmarked and only distinguishable as a door by the seam around its edges. Still ignoring Antaska, M. Hoyvil pressed his large palm against the wall in a spot that seemed no different than any other spot. A panel opened up at his chest height, which was just over Antaska’s head.
M. Hoyvil lifted his arms and began waving the long six fingers of both hands against something inside the recessed opening. Antaska couldn’t see in from her much shorter height. He finished what he was doing, and the panel closed.
A chime sounded, and the door silently slid up and open. M. Hoyvil went though without stopping to wait for Antaska. The door began to slide back down. She rushed in after him, pulling her cart with the still-sleeping Potat behind her. Thinking of Potat calmed some of Antaska’s nervousness.
The Verdantes let me bring my pet I’m so attached to on their space ship, so they must be a compassionate species, she told herself.
More Verdantes passed by as Antaska and M. Hoyvil walked along, some also followed by humans pulling luggage carts. Antaska and the other humans exchanged glances as they passed. A quick breathless smile, a wave of the free hand.
They’re all nervous too, Antaska realized.
Etchings of tall, narrow doors appeared at random intervals along the interior corridors. The high doorways rose to a dizzying height of about fifteen feet within the even higher hallways. The doors seemed to dwarf even the eight-foot-tall M. Hoyvil.
Antaska tilted her head all the way back to look up. She felt unbalanced by the view of the walls and door markings curving gradually in toward the ceiling.
The behavior of M. Hoyvil was even more unsettling. It was true that their only meeting had been brief, and they had spoke only with sign language. But even with the clear barrier between them in the viewing room, Antaska had thought he was warm and friendly. Now on the space ship, M. Hoyvil seemed like a different person. His continued silence and blank expression seemed to show a complete lack of interest in her.
Antaska had learned in space school classes to expect long periods of silence from her Verdante employer. But the actual experience of being treated as invisible was disturbing. And now, she noticed that the tan ship suit she had been so happy with—made of comfortable stretchy fabric—was the exact shade of the walls. All of the Earth humans wore ship suits of the same color.
M. Hoyvil and the other Verdantes they passed all wore fitted ship suits designed like Antaska’s. But theirs were a bright blue color that showed up in the tan hallways. Both the males and females were around eight feet tall. All of their faces wore the same blank expression as M. Hoyvil’s. Like Earth humans, their hair colors, textures, and eye colors varied, but they all had an un-humanly green shading in their skin and features.
They walked along, and Antaska noticed that M. Hoyvil sometimes looked at the others, but he didn’t acknowledge them. They looked at him but also said nothing.
Of course, they could be speaking telepathically, she realized.
They passed more Verdantes, and still no one spoke out loud. But they didn’t walk in complete silence. Since boarding the space ship, Antaska had noticed a low, soothing humming noise.
It must be the ship’s machinery or ventilation system, she thought.
In silence, M. Hoyvil led Antaska down more long, tall hallways that curved endlessly in toward the space ship’s center.
What do I really know about him, and what have I gotten myself into? Antaska asked herself. In any case, there’s no way I’m staying on Earth. This trip has been my dream for my entire life. A little nervousness would be normal for anyone leaving on a life-long journey into the unknown, working for an alien on an alien space ship.
In her mind, Antaska pictured the images of star systems and galaxies she had spent so many hours studying. Once more, she was filled with the familiar longing to see them up close and to explore their planets.
Antaska stopped worrying about M. Hoyvil’s behavior. Like most Earth humans, she had always accepted the superiority of the Verdantes. Wasn’t that proved by their advanced technology, medical knowledge, ability to travel through space, and mental telepathy?
Anyone would feel intimidated by all that, she told herself.
Antaska was breathing fast and her leg muscles were burning when M. Hoyvil at last stopped at the tall, narrow etching of a door in the wall. She smothered a sigh of relief.
Strange alien symbols marked the door. At the height of M. Hoyvil’s chest, a raised circle glowed dim in the well-lit hallway. He pressed his large palm against it. The door slid silently up, and he walked through. Antaska followed, with her luggage and Potat, into a circular open space.
A curved Verdante-sized dark green couch rested against the far wall. A large elliptical table, anchored to the floor, stood in front of the couch. Soft dark-brown plush material covered the floor. Instead of the tan shade of Antaska’s uniform, the walls were colored a soft blue. She tipped her head back to see where the walls curved in to form a domed ceiling several feet above M. Hoyvil’s head.
There were no visible light fixtures, but bright but not harsh light glowed uniformly from the walls and ceiling. Two doors led from this big circular main room.
After his long silence, M. Hoyvil spoke to Antaska.
“That door leads to your room,” he said, pointing to one of the doors. “You can go in there and get settled. I’ll get you at 1800 hours when it’s time for dinner in the space ship’s dining hall. Place your palm here to open and close your door. It’s coded to your hand print.”
Antaska went into her new quarters, pulling the cart in with her. She sealed the door closed behind her. This round room was smaller than the outer room. Walls in the same blue color curved up to a much lower dome-shaped ceiling. M. Hoyvil would have to bend down to fit in here, Antaska realized. She felt a sense of relief and comfort to be in an Earth human-sized room, with human-sized furnishings.
A round bed filled about a fourth of the room. Another door led to a small bathroom. Antaska lifted Potat out of her travel cage and gently placed her on the bed. Then she flopped down beside Potat and stared at up the domed ceiling. Her mind turned back to what she had been taught in space school to expect from this job.
“You might experience culture shock when you first go to live with the Verdantes. That’s normal, and it will pass when you get used to your new surroundings,” her teacher had said.
“What I’m feeling is normal,” Antaska said to the sleeping Potat.
The idea of living in shared quarters with her employer had seemed strange when Antaska first learned about it. But that was the usual arrangement for Verdantes and the human assistants who worked for them. Antaska was used to living alone in her dorm room with Potat for many years. But as an assistant, she would need to be close by when needed.
“It’s like being a live-in house servant, except your position will be more administrative,” her teacher had said. “And you’ll have your own room and bathroom.”
It had seemed normal when put that way. But now that Antaska was here, she felt a bit uneasy at the thought of sharing a common household with an alien being.
“This is strange, but I still don’t want to go back,” she told herself and Potat, who continued to sleep.
A runt among her species, Potat was larger than a kitten but only about half the size of most adult cats. She lay curled up tightly in a small ball—her snowy white belly fur surrounded by darkening shades of gray. A wide, dark stripe flowed down from her ears and ended just before the white tip of her tail.
Antaska felt a sudden stab of guilt that Potat had no choice about being moved from the home she was used to into this new and different environment.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She hoped Potat could understand her even though, of course, that was impossible.
Experiments had shown that domestic cats had evolved and were far more intelligent than their early Earth ancestors of a million years ago, but they had no language and were not sentient beings, Earth biologists insisted.
Antaska got up from the bed and explored her new quarters. A miniature alcove contained cat food and water in small bowls. In the bathroom, Antaska found a cat litter box as well as the standard human plumbing fixtures. She experimentally pushed the small brown button above the litter box. It sunk down and disappeared under the floor, which closed over it. Antaska heard a dumping noise and the sound of more litter filling the box, and then it reappeared.
“Fantastic!” Antaska said out loud.
An hour later, she had stowed most of her belongings and the floating cart. Potat woke up, but she was still groggy. Antaska sat next to her and told her that this would be their new home. The small gray cat didn’t seem frightened. She rubbed against Antaska and purred. Then she sat and stared up at her.
In times like these, Antaska could almost believe that her pet wanted to tell her something. She hoped it would be something like, “Don’t worry about me, my home is where you are.”
Potat looked up at her with what looked disturbingly like an amused cat smile.
Potat gazed with affectionate frustration at her pet Antaska. She lifted a tiny white paw to scratch at high speed behind one ear. Potat knew Antaska could hear her mental speech, but she refused to listen. At times, this could be a problem. Like today, when Antaska insisted on giving her a tranquilizer for this trip.
“Don’t drug me. I don’t need that. You need it more than I do,” Potat had tried to tell her telepathically.
But Antaska had stuffed the pill in Potat’s mouth, held it shut, and rubbed her throat to make it go down. The memory
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