Chapter Thirty-Two

A few days later, I was at the park, mid-air, grabbing the tennis ball before I realized that I was going to land in the water. I recalled a human saying, ‘Look before you leap’, I had enough time to realize the wisdom of this expression… just not enough time to save myself.

I did catch the thing in my mouth. It’s a funny thing my species still does. A holdover from our predatory days, even though we have hands that allow the manipulation of tools and can grab with almost the same strength as a full grown human (they do have a greater grip strength) we still instinctively grab things with our mouths if we’re not thinking about it.

And the lure of the ball was far, far too great. So I, in my unthinking state, grabbed it with my jaws… and came crashing down into the water below. My fur at least had an oily undercoat, my particular variety of dlamisa was very good with water, and as such even if I didn’t have the fans to help, I would drip dry if given time.

I heard my human laughing while I swam to shore, Fauve was dressed in jean shorts that have been popular on Earth for centuries, it was hardy, durable clothing and as such barely changed over time. Much like shoe design, there comes a point where maximum efficiency, durability, and performance are achieved, after which improvements are mere ‘tweaks’ to the existing form.

She also wore a loose fitting short sleeve shirt emblazoned with the artistic stylization of a demon princess from her favorite anime adaptation of the novel series ‘How Misunderstandings Made a Demon Lord’. She had particular, even peculiar tastes, my human. The character in question was as far from Fauve’s personality as could be. Fauve was an introvert, and seldom had any real interest in leaving her home by nonelectronic means. Though not fearful of travel, it had no interest to her, she lived more in her own mind than any other human I knew, including her parents.

But the character in question was the demoness ‘Lamashi’ whose story had her actually running away from her home in the castle of the Demon Lord and becoming a pirate. Strangely enough, the story came full circle with her returning to her father and to her responsibilities… but her adventurous and outgoing nature carried her far away for a good long time.

As I swam to shore, I saw her laughter stop and she turned her attention to my datapad which sat on a park bench near the water. “Bailey! You’ve got an incoming message! It reads ‘Urgent!’ you might want to look at this!” She called out and I pushed myself to my feet and began to race up toward where she stood, water flying about as I shook off what I could, splashing her in the process.

“Yeah, I had that coming.” She said as she wiped her face free of ‘most’ of the water that struck it.

She snorted and I picked up the datapad, she was right, I opened up the device and saw a priority message pop up. My jaw dropped but no words emerged.

“Well?” Fauve asked as the ball rolled out of my mouth, bounced off the screen, against my body, and then down to the ground where it came to a stop at her feet. She crouched down and picked it up, “What’s up?”

“They’re here. Are they insane?!” I almost shouted my disbelief.

“What? Who’s here? Are we in danger?” Fauve asked, her face looked like it was going to drain itself of blood for a moment, going as pale as a vampire’s.

“No… not unless you’re prone to heart attacks.” I said when I found my voice again, the merchant vessel. I knew their captain was a reckless sort to have done a slingshot maneuver from a rogue star, but this takes it to a whole nother level. This is from the ambassador, the ship did an atmospheric skip maneuver and used an integrated human pulpultion device to…” Fauve’s face went from pale, to blank.

“Say what now?” She asked, and I picked up a stone from the ground. “They did this.” I said, and launched the smooth round stone toward the water, it skipped along the surface until it bounced against an ancient boulder that I could see must have broken off from the stone above.

“According to the ambassador, the Captain finished the slingshot maneuver by heading toward a planet. Normally you have to slow down in space and avoid centers of gravity, that should have slowed their arrival time somewhat. This one though?” I shook my head, even thinking about it was dreadful.

“They aimed for the atmosphere of some of your larger planets and ‘skipped’ across the surface to slow down, it means they never had to make a slow maneuver until they were closing in on Earth. It’s…” I could see Fauve still hadn’t grasped the sense of danger involved in that kind of thing.

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Her head was cocked a little, “I kind of get it.” She said, “But your sense of what is ‘dangerous’ is kind of conservative, Bailey. So how dangerous is it really?”

“That depends on the ship, you’d have to talk to your father, he’d know better than I. But just at a guess? From what little I remember of learning about those kinds of things? A nearly three percent chance that everybody dies.” My tail bristled at the very idea of taking that kind of risk.

“Why would they do that?” I couldn’t imagine any reason why they might take such a wild chance.

“Three percent? That doesn’t sound so bad.” Fauve replied.

“It is.” I said, “From my perspective, it’s insane. Optimal risk management reduces the chance of fatal incidents to one percent or less. Most captains won’t do anything with even a one point five chance of serious damage, and they’re considered the crazy ones if they’ll do that much… let alone death in the void.”

“So could they be in trouble? Is that maybe why they took the risk, if it’s so bad?” Fauve asked and started walking over the long dirt path that would take us out of the park. We walked through the stream of Cherokee Park, it was a wide thing, fairly flat at the crossing, but you’d still get your feet wet to go through it. The water was cool, crisp, and clean, a fish jumped from the deeper section and flopped its way over the stone to reach the other side.

It wasn’t a very large creature, it wiggled, flopped, and angled its way toward us. Fauve crouched down, grabbed its tail, and flung it in one smooth bending motion of her hips, all the way toward the deep section where it landed with a little splash and vanished out of sight.

It was a casual gesture on her part, a trivial kindness really, but the unthinking act had me marveling at the duality of human nature. Reflexively responding to a creature’s needs, and then moving on as if it never happened. ‘Would I have done that, if she hadn’t?’ I asked myself that question more than once before we even reached the dry stone and moist ground on the other side.

I doubted it. Acting for my human was one thing, I know her. Acting this way toward a stranger, or a random creature with no higher intelligence that is basically food? It was bizarre. Most of the time, Fauve seemed very dlamisa-like, to me. Pragmatic, logical, and relatively cautious. But in little moments I was reminded that she was still very much a human girl, a wide gulf existed between us that no amount of affection could ever truly cross.

But I could still be impressed by that difference.

Her question, though, rattled around in my head, and no matter how I thought about it, I just couldn’t come up with anything. If the ship were damaged, remaining in place and calling for help from a human patrol would have made more sense. They were heavy in some areas, humans had more manned vessels in space already than some species that had been traversing the void for centuries.

It lent some credence in some quarters to the Zenti myth that humans were not a naturally occurring species, that humans seemed to love the idea of sailing through the deadly void of space.

As much as I wanted to say I had an answer, I didn’t.

By the time we finished the walk home, I had typed out and sent an answer to the ambassador promising I would be there in hours.

“No, none.” I answered as we walked the last stretch toward the house in silence. “Just, none. I guess I’ll have to ask.”

“Can I come?” Fauve inquired, she batted her eyes up at me the way she did when she asked her parents for something.

I was reminded of something I wrote in my first volume, ‘Cute can be weaponized’ or something like that. And Fauve was a master at using it effectively. “Please? I won’t get in the way, plus it’d be neat to see one of those ships up close, and to meet the crew of a people who spend their lives in space? Who wouldn’t want to do that? That’s so cooooool!” She interlocked her fingers together and held her clasped hands against her chest, “Please? I’ll be quiet while you do… whatever, and I can take the hoverbus back by myself.”

I had learned one other valuable trick on Earth. When dealing with a human child, putting the question off on the parents was always an effective strategy.

“I don’t mind.” I genuinely didn’t, but I couldn’t be sure about how the others would respond, so I gently cautioned her, “If your parents don’t mind, I don’t, but I have no idea how the others will react to you, the ambassador and his staff are getting used to humans. But this crew has probably never seen one of your kind before today. If they want you to go home, you have to leave without complaint, OK?”

Fauve gave an enthusiastic nod. “You’re the best Bailey, I promise I won’t be any trouble.” She gave me a sudden and impulsive hug that probably drenched her shirt, then ran inside ahead of me.

Before I even caught the door I heard her shouting, “Mom, dad, Bailey says I can go see the ship come in if it’s okay with you, the aliens are here early, can I go?!” Her enthusiasm was infectious beyond reason, and I went to get myself ready for what was no doubt going to be yet another unique experience.