Chapter Fourteen
I knew immediately that Boatswain had never done this before. Who had? Nobody until me, at least among my people, as far as I knew. We sat down in our seats, secured our safety straps, and then the hoverbus rose into the air and accelerated. I wanted to see Boatswain’s severe, stern face when the impact hit, and I was not disappointed.
As the wind blasted him full in the face, I said, “Try opening your mouth!” He did, and his already big eyes grew larger, his stern expression was gone, his ears blew back and his tongue lolled out of his mouth.
“What is this ride?!” He shouted and bit at the air between letting his tongue hang out, “Is this what they call a bemusement park?!”
“Amusement park. And no. This is just what happens when you go somewhere really fast.” I explained and tilted my head back to let the wind batter me in the face, our excitement over it all caught the attention of most of the upper deck of the bus, and we found ourselves the subject of dozens of human stares.
But he didn’t care, and neither did I. The cool wind blasted our faces and drew my fur back, his own was much shorter, so it was less obvious, but his tongue was also longer and so was pulled back more the air billowed around us and made our ears dance beside our heads, we didn’t care when the humans, including my recent acquaintance, began laughing.
We gripped our seats like we were afraid we’d fall out as the hoverbus shot through the air and our cheeks puffed out, and with that air came a whole world of scents. Humans have very poor noses compared to ourselves, so they could never know the bliss that we could, the feeling of having so many racing smells from so many sources hitting us all at once.
From the taco stand on the corner to baking bread mere minutes away, it was a constant and wonderful assault on our strongest sense, not to mention the sheer blissful feel of the air hitting us all at once.
There is no dlamisan exact translation for ‘wheeeeee’ as humans say when they let out a cry of excitement, but we do have a kind of long high pitched ‘rooooooooo!’ and somehow I was not surprised to see my dlamisan bodyguard let it out. Military members of our race tend to be radical outliers in a number of areas, not the least of which is their reckless disregard for their own safety, at least compared to others of our species. I myself still didn’t like the crowd, but the pleasure of the wind in my face was enough to let me at least force that down for the time being, plus it helped being up in the open air rather than confined inside the lower floor.
It wasn’t until we reached our destination that Boatswain put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from getting up after I put away my datapad, and he asked me, “What exactly happened back there? Some drug of the humans?”
I shook my head, the other passengers were passing us by and had, for the most part, enormous grins on their faces that I knew indicated happiness. Boatswain now had enough familiarity to recognize the same thing, and their obvious positive feelings toward us set him much more at ease than the towering dlamisan guard would otherwise have been. “No, it’s just an effect of our velocity, I’ve experienced it a few times, and the faster you go, the better it gets.” I explained, and Boatswain began to pant.
“I want to do it again.” He said, and I shrugged. “You’ll have to see what the options are, they make things that go really, really fast on this world.”
I could see the hunger for it in his eyes, but I had things to do and wouldn’t allow myself to be distracted. I turned toward our guide, “Lisa, would you?” I asked and gestured toward the steps.
“Sure thing, just take it easy, everything is safe here, and kind of fun.” She answered and then when she reached the steps she offered an encouraging smile without baring her teeth and added, “This way.” then hopped down the steps while we followed behind her. I got my first good look at the campus as the hoverbus pulled up and away from us, and it was… unique.
The roads were no longer paved, but red brick with the logo of the school plastered every fifty paces or so. The buildings were as ‘eco friendly’ as the rest of the city, yet interestingly, the patterns also formed the logo and flowering plants kept the red cardinal, yellow beak, and white lettering consistent. There were garbage receptacles every so often along the sidewalk and it was notable to me that near each receptacle was a fruit tree, consistent with the city’s theme of readily accessible healthy food for all.
The roads consisted of multiple roundabouts, a necessity given the confined nature of the campus, the buildings were multiple stories tall, but they weren’t skyscrapers. Interestingly, there were open lawns between each building with paved walkways taking people from place to place, with benches of stone carved in the shapes of books. The seating space as books laid flat, the backs of the benches as open ones, and in a remarkable attention to detail, there were words carved into the pages.
“This way.” Lisa said and walked with a youthful skipping step which reminded me of Michael’s seeming need for constant motion. She stopped a few feet ahead when I paused to read the pages etched onto the stone. I will repeat a portion here as best I can.
“Even if we find a way, I’m not going home. What’s waiting for me there? I’m a succubus, a second class citizen even when they need my magic. If we go back and they’ve finished the summoning, they won’t even need me for that anymore. I’ve got no future there except ‘maybe’ working with another generation of potentials, and that’s if I’m not just thrown out as a failure. You’re an angel, all you have to do is exist and people will dote on you. At least here if I stay disguised as a human, I can have a future. I’ll stay with Albaer, and if you want to go back to where we came from, I won’t stop you, but I will miss you, Lialah…”
Lisa approached me and looked at the bench, “Oh you like that?” She asked, and while I nodded, Boatswain scratched his head and his ears all went down.
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“I don’t get it.” He said with his head cocked slightly to the right.
Lisa pointed to the top of the bench, “It’s from a novel series written in the twenty-first century, by one of their most influential indie authors, it’s called ‘Evolution of a Nobody’.” She pointed to several other benches along the way, “He was a student here for a time. Every bench in the area either has something by a local author, or somebody who contributed to the culture of their era. This one, I think… it deals with two sisters trapped on Earth and wondering if they can go back to their own world, only one of them doesn’t want to, even if they can.”
“So, why does it matter? You just do what you want if you don’t have orders, right?” Boatswain asked, and Lisa’s ruby lips formed the bare traces of a little smile.
I knew why that formed the way it did, and I answered him, “Your time here on Earth is a five year duty. Your time guarding the Walkers is not even one year. Before you know it, Byron will quit working entirely, and you’ll be back at the embassy. Before you know it after that, you’re going back to the homeworld or another assignment. When or if that happens, you will never see Byron again.”
I didn’t need to explain any further, his tail drooped, his ears sagged, and for perhaps the first time in my life, I saw another member of my race experience sorrow, at least on that scale. Boatswain didn’t say anything else, and Lisa’s smile vanished as the amusement was gone from the moment.
Perhaps in retrospect I was cruel to say that to Boatswain the way I did, and even at the time I wasn’t without sympathy, I suppose my own immediate fears were responsible for my reaction. But in my own defense, better he know now so he can plan for tomorrow, than not even think before it is too late to do anything at all. And if nothing could be done? Then at least he had time to prepare himself.
“This way, it’s around the corner, just one office to run things, easy to miss.” She explained and as we walked away from the bench, her stride changed from an energetic skip to a long and purposeful stride that had her hair fluttering around at her back.
As it turned out, she was right, the office was technically ‘part’ of the building. But finding it on our own would have been difficult, we had to descend a set of stairs that were obscured by a row of bushes, and enter through a basement door.
“So, how do you know this place?” I asked, and Lisa looked over her shoulder to answer me, never even breaking her stride as she walked.
“I was in the program once, it didn’t stick, I dropped out, but I still know people here, and of course, where the place is.” She answered, and Boatswain’s mouth dropped open in shock.
If we didn’t have three hearts, I would have expected him to drop dead of a heart attack at that moment. “You… quit. Quit your military service?” He asked.
She nodded, “It’s not required for you to stay unless you stick with it for a full year, before that you can sign yourself out on a neutral status, no benefits, no penalties. I liked cheerleading more than marching, and I got a full scholarship for it. The military would have gotten in the way, so I had to make a choice, and that was mine.”
She sounded, to me at least, a little wistful while she said it. I couldn’t help but think that she missed something about her time in the Earth military system, but it somehow didn’t feel right to ask her what.
“David, I got a guy for you, you expecting an alien?” She asked as she breezed in through an open door.
A wall of meat. That’s what stood up to greet me wearing the black and gray fatigues of the terran armada. He was lantern jawed and had piercing, ice blue eyes, clean shaven, even down to his tan skull. “Damn it, Blankenship! I’m on duty.”
“Yeah, well I’m not, David.” Lisa said with a smug look on her face, he sighed, instantly defeated.
“Right, you quit, whatever. Yeah,” he stopped and let out a low whistle, “a big one. Oh yes, yes he’ll do fine. You’re Bailey?” He said and held out his hand toward Boatswain.
“No.” He answered, “I’m Bailey’s bodyguard for the time being. Boatswain, with the embassy staff.” Despite the error, Boatswain stuck out his hand and shook the meaty hand of the wall of human flesh. I wondered how he got through the door into his office.
“Wait, so that means…” David looked down at my comparatively scrawny self and asked, “Seriously? This is the guy who had all those maniacs shitting themselves about an alien invasion?”
“He did put the neckbeard in the hospital.” Lisa replied, “I heard it from William himself.”
David looked no more enthusiastic, his eyes darting from me to Boatswain. “Can we take the big one instead?”
Boatswain straightened a little, I couldn’t help but feel a little insulted, but then, I’ve always known I wasn’t cut out for military service, so it wasn’t too much so.
“Just what am I supposed to do exactly?” I asked, and David sat back down after breaking the handshake with Boatswain.
“Not what I intended… but I do have something for you. How are you with paperwork?” He asked, and my tail wagged back and forth, before I could answer, he chuckled.
“I think I have my answer. You’ll take her old job.” He pointed at Lisa, “We need somebody who can be efficient with that kind of thing, but… can we still hire the big one?”
“If my embassy will allow it, an… exchange, might be welcome. But it is not up to me. Recent events being what they have been, I’m sure they would jump at the chance to build good will between our peoples.” Boatswain’s answer was the kind of noncommittal promise expected out of a subordinate dlamisan soldier, but it seemed direct enough to satisfy David.
“That’s your first job, Bailey. Get permission for him to work here, by the look of him, he’s got meat enough on him to handle what we need done.” David said and then pointed to a desk.
“Lisa, mind doing me a solid, just take him through the job, get him a sign on and everything. Not telling you, just asking a favor.” He clarified, and Lisa’s almost moment of tensing up faded away.
“No problem, David. I’ve got time before practice, it shouldn’t take long.” She said and led me to what I presume was her old seat, one of a dozen in the room, though we were the only ones present at the moment.
I noticed immediately that every desk was orderly, each one laid out in a uniform fashion such that no matter what desk you sat at, you knew exactly where everything was, from a little red stapler with the word ‘swingline’ embossed in white across the top, to a matching touchpad each of which was exactly in line with the desk several paces away.
‘The order… it’s so… beautiful.’ I thought, and cracked my knuckles, ready to get started while David chatted amiably with the matching wall of meat that was Boatswain.