Alien Pets, Trisha McNary [free novel 24 .txt] 📗

looking over all their new students. Antaska felt grateful for the looseness of her clothes when she felt the eyes of first one, then the other, raking her body from top to bottom.

The stares of each of them made her uncomfortable but in different ways. A powerful thrill that somehow combined desire with fear twisted through her when the man’s eyes moved slowly up her body. His face wore a slight, somewhat lecherous smile. The woman’s cold, hard stare followed soon after, with her mouth set firm in a tight line. Finally, they finished their visual inspection, and the female spoke.

“Welcome new students. I am Tilde, and my partner is Eegor. I see that most of you aren’t used to a regular, intense exercise program. Starting now, that’s going to change. In the three months you’ll be in this class, we will work you hard. You will sweat, and you will strain. We will push and push you until you are in the best shape of your life. Do not even think about resisting; we are experts in what we do.”

Antaska was trying to pay attention, but Tilde’s first words distracted her.

She just called him her partner. Does that mean teaching partner or something else? Antaska wondered.

“You will do intense cardio to burn off your extra fat and train your body to run fast if you need to,” Tilde was saying. “You’ll lift heavy weights to build up your puny muscles, and you’ll learn martial arts for self-defense. You’re about to go on a trip into unknown space where unexpected things can happen. You can count on your Verdantes to keep you safe. But they want you to be in top physical condition and to be able to defend yourself in case of an unlikely emergency. Now we’ll get started.”

For the first hour, the instructors had the students alternate ten minutes of running around the gym or jumping in place with ten minutes of lifting weights. The two trainers circulated among them. They corrected their form and demanded that they work faster or harder. Anyone who slowed down in their running or lifting got embarrassing personal attention. Either the male or the female trainer would stand directly in front of the slacking exercisers shouting into their faces.

“Why are you stopping, you weak, pitiful excuse for a human? Keep moving, or I’ll throw you on the floor and knock the wind from your body, and your Verdante will thank me for it.”

This motivation was effective, and Antaska was relieved to see that, so far, no one had ended up on the floor gasping for breath. She exercised as hard as she could to avoid personal attention. But she still found the male instructor standing in front of her when she was doing shoulder presses—lifting a heavy bar above her head twelve times without stopping.

“Your form is all wrong. I, Eegor, will show you how it’s done,” he said in a thick, rough voice.

He struck a pose to display his muscular arms and chest, and Antaska’s mouth dropped open. Then he took the bar from her hands and easily lifted it above his head.

“Now you try,” he said.

He walked behind her and stood inches away from her back.

Antaska was stunned by his overwhelming attractiveness and flustered by this sudden unaccustomed, uninvited physical closeness, but she obediently raised up the bar. Her mind seemed to go completely blank as she lifted and Eegor pressed up next to her. He placed his large, firm chest against her back while grasping her forearms in his hands.

Eegor guided her arms up, saying, “Yes, this is the way.”

It didn’t seem much different from what she’d been doing, but Antaska didn’t say anything. She was both relived and disappointed when finally he moved away from her. Looking to the front of the class, Antaska met the narrowed, angry eyes of Tilde. She looked down in guilty confusion.

The second half of the class began. The trainers demonstrated basic kicking and punching moves and made the class repeat them many times each. Anyone who got tired or winded and stopped to rest was subjected to the intimidation of the trainers. Antaska was exhausted, but she kept going with the right-foot kick the class was practicing. In spite of her best efforts, she looked up to see seven-foot-tall muscular Tilde glaring down at her.

“You are wrong, I will show you,” said Tilde in a hostile, clipped tone.

Displaying perfect form, Tilde bent one knee to support the weight of her body as she leaned to that side. Then she swung and kicked her powerful opposite leg hard into Antaska’s rib cage. Antaska fell backward to the cushioned floor and curled up into a fetal position, clutching her stomach. She lay there momentarily unable to move from the painful blow. The instructor looked down at Antaska with a satisfied expression.

“That was my warning shot,” said Tilde.

Then she turned and walked away.

Antaska groaned. She felt her sore ribs. Were any broken? She had no idea how to tell that.

The woman who had been exercising next to Antaska stepped close to her and looked down at her with concern. She was short and slightly plump with bright red hair, pale skin, and freckles.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a soft, concerned voice.

Tilde spun around and faced her.

“Do not talk in class, or you will join her on the floor,” she said gruffly.

The small red-haired woman returned to her place.

Antaska wanted to stay down on the floor, but she pushed herself to sit up.

What is her problem? she thought about Tilde. That female has some real jealousy and anger issues! Obviously this relationship isn’t healthy for her. Or that poor guy. I would be doing them both a favor to break them up, right?

“Wrong! Wrong!” a tiny female voice spoke in her mind, accompanied by the image of Potat.

Antaska felt her head.

I must have banged my head when I fell down, she decided. Anyway, back on Earth, people were always grateful to get broken up. Because we were taught not to get attached. Because we would all have to go our separate ways with the Verdantes. It’s kind of like that now, right? she asked herself.

“No! No!” said the unwelcome voice in her head.

Ignoring the voice, Antaska stood back up and got back to kicking and punching, feeling the painful burn in her ribs with every movement.

During the workout, M. Hoyvil had been anxiously watching Antaska, and he saw when Tilde kicked her. Then he kept watching after that to make sure she was OK.

Should I go over there? he kept asking himself.

“I know you students are distracted on your first day in the gym with your new pets,” the gigantic adult trainer Master Mytaar addressed M. Hoyvil’s class. “But I warn you that distraction is a weakness that will be exploited by your opponents. And to prove my point and teach you this lesson, I will take advantage of that weakness right now.”

Master Mytaar looked around at the class. But M. Hoyvil wasn’t paying attention to the master. The big adult was more heavily muscled but shorter than most adult Verdantes, and he moved surprisingly fast for a being of his enormous size and bulk. He attacked M. Hoyvil in a blur of motion. He dropped M. Hoyvil to the floor with a kick to the legs, similar to Tilde’s kick to Antaska’s ribs but less painful.

That got M. Hoyvil’s attention. He looked up almost ten feet at Master Mytaar. The master was staring down at him with a stern expression. But the lifted corners of the huge green eyes in his broad-featured dark green face indicated some amount of amusement.

“Of all the students today, you are the most distracted by worry for your new pet,” said the master telepathically. “Your concern is a sign of great strength of character, but it can also become your greatest weakness if you let it.”

M. Hoyvil stood up to face Master Mytaar, decreasing their height difference to less than two feet.

“I understand that, but I can’t help being worried about her. It looks like her instructors have singled her out for their personal attention. In fact, I would call it bullying. I think you should talk to them about that. And also, I would prefer if you call her my companion, not my ‘pet,’ if you don’t mind,” M. Hoyvil asked with some courage.

It was not the place of the student to instruct the master in what he should do.

The gigantic Master Mytaar chuckled. Then he spoke in the prophetic manner that was often used by the adults and that M. Hoyvil found so annoying.

“You are a brave and passionate one. I see that you are destined for greatness. Whether that will be great success or great suffering will depend on your actions and your reactions. Looking at the smaller picture, I don’t have a problem with calling her your companion,” he answered, pronouncing the word with extra emphasis.”

“Thank you, master,” M. Hoyvil replied with a nod of his head.

“I don’t really care what she is called,” the master continued. “But those two fitness instructors are my personal pets—my most perfect creations—and I won’t interfere with their classes. They are the product of genes I carefully selected from the most athletic of the human pets I’ve had for over a thousand years. During that time, I chose only Earth’s top athletes to join me as my pets and as physical trainers for the Earth humans who travel to deep space.

“My life partner wanted beautiful pets, so I allowed her to design their physical attractiveness chromosome mixtures using DNA she selected from the most beautiful of Earth humans. The final result is what I believe to be the two most physically powerful and beautiful humans who have ever lived,” said the master.

M. Hoyvil rolled his large green eyes, but Master Mytaar didn’t seem to notice.

“Over the hundred years Tilde and Eegor have been working with me as trainers, their unorthodox methods have proven successful and beneficial to the human pets they have trained. I designed them as the world’s two most attractive humans with the intention that they would become a romantic couple. And they are truly fond of each other, although their relationship has its rough spots,” said Master Mytaar.

“Oh. Rough spots,” said M. Hoyvil.

“That’s only to be expected from humans. As you know, they don’t have our ability to form deep bonds between life partners. Still, there are a few human couples who have stayed constant to each other while living among us as pets. Perhaps the influence of our positive example is what has made this possible for them,” said the master.

M. Hoyvil shuffled his feet. He felt like this explanation was more information than he needed, but the student did not interrupt the master.

“In any case,” said Master Mytaar, “I don’t think you realize that your companion also played a part in this drama. In your excessive observance of her today, didn’t you notice that she encouraged the advances of my pet Eegor. Or at the least she didn’t discourage him? If she hadn’t shown such a weakness, Tilde wouldn’t have become jealous and felt the need to defend her territory.”

“Huh!” At a loss for words, M. Hoyvil let out an exclamation of offended indignation. “Are you saying that Antaska is responsible for the bad behavior of your pets?”

M. Hoyvil’s resentment of