Chapter Seven

The Sound of a Pearl

“In the hierarchy of Octavian society, there are eight special groups of octopuses.”

“Of course, there are,” Jenna said to Sardius as she threw an octopus-shaped stress ball at the wall and caught it like she was in prison, and throwing the ball was her only comfort.

“You cannot pronounce the names of any of them,” Sardius informed her dully.

“Figures.”

They were still on Octavia Three. Lucy was unfit to travel, and everyone thought it better to give her a good night’s sleep and to try to leave in the morning. Of course, the night was not the same number of hours as it had been on earth. Octavia Three was tidally locked with Octavia Prime, and it would be eighteen hours before daylight came.

Jenna waited in her room. Charm was under the bed, obviously wondering what she had done to deserve a hospital room on Octavia Three. It was the smell, the unfamiliarity, the lack of a litter box, and the noticeable absence of her chicken dinner. It was going to be fish from then on out and Charm did not particularly care for fish.

Jenna tried to pay attention to Sardius so she could acclimatize to her surroundings as quickly as possible. The only thing she was able to absorb was about one species of octopus that was three times larger than the others and if they didn’t get what they wanted when they wanted it, they had a tendency to go Godzilla on a human-run hospital. Sardius tried to make the rest of the information package interesting, but Jenna couldn’t listen.

“I’m too distracted,” she muttered.

“Would you like to go to sleep, Madam Diplomat?” Sardius’s smooth voice asked.

Jenna started speaking slowly, “That program you use is something else. I’m finding it really hard to believe that you’re a tiny octopus in my ear. Sometimes I think I can hear you breathing. If you were a computer program, why would they add breathing?”

“Don’t you find it comforting for me to sound like a man?” his tenor voice prompted.

“‘Like a man’,” she repeated slowly, tossing the ball between her palms. “Why would a man’s voice be particularly comforting to me?”

“If it isn’t, would you like me to switch to a female voice?” he asked, sounding amused. “There’s a setting that allows me to do that.”

Urgently, she stopped him. “No. No. I’m good. I just feel weird here. I hate Armen. He’s supposed to be the man of my dreams according to their little study? He looks like he should be, but I just hate him. Why did none of those two hundred and twelve people talk to me about what was going on? Why didn’t one of them walk up to me and say, ‘I need to talk to you about the thing you’re hiding in your hair’ and take me aside?”

“Try not to think about their mistakes now. After you make your appearance on Octavia Prime, I’ll help negotiate a new deal for you. What Lucy said was true. If you can establish stability, you can retire and go back to Earth if you want to.”

Jenna dropped the ball in her hand. “I don’t think I want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not completely convinced that their little study wasn’t bang on,” she admitted mournfully.

“You think there isn’t a man for you on Earth?”

“I never met one I wanted very much when I lived there.”

“And you want someone?” his voice drawled saying the word ‘someone’ with all the intonation of unattainable romantic love.

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“I’m starting to think there isn’t anyone for me if Armen is the man they produced for me out of the whole universe. I hate him.”

“Maybe you just like him so much you…”

“Shut your mouth, Sardius,” she said like she’d been telling him off for years and it wasn’t the very first time. “I’m not a teenager with conflicting emotions boiling so hotly that I can’t tell the difference between love and hate. If I can’t love him, and I really can’t, then I’m left to conclude that I can’t love anyone.”

“Hmm… that’s fine. It makes you better at getting important things done. Focus on what you need to do and do those things with precision. You’ll be exceptional. Just wait and see.”

She hesitated to give her reply. “I was expecting you to resist my way of thinking more. You know, I still think it’s really hard to believe you’re a little octopus talking inside my ear using a computer program to sound like that. You sound so amazing, I keep thinking you’re a man.”

“It’s the program,” he said firmly.

“Is it?” she questioned. To her ears, his voice was so full of emotion, amusement, and a layer of understanding that almost went straight through her. “If I ask, can I change your personality so you pander to my every whim?”

“No. This is my personality. I am not a computer. The program does its best to interpret my communication to the closest human equivalent. I assure you, I’m an octopus. I can’t speak. Most octopuses can’t. I’m clucking away at a keyboard with my suckers,” he scoffed. “I don’t know why my computer-generated voice sounds so pleasant to you, but we’re both lucky that it does.”

“And you’re going to live and die in my ear?” she asked disbelievingly.

“After a fashion,” he replied.

“What do you mean, after a fashion? What’s it like in there?”

He hesitated. “My last diplomat did not ask me questions about my home.”

“How did he treat you?”

“He didn’t trust me.”

“Why?”

“He was afraid he would die. He thought if he confided in me, someone would hear him talking and it would hasten his death.”

Jenna huffed. “He did die, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Sardius confirmed. “His name was Arvantis. He tried to use me as little as possible before the assassinations started. He didn’t want to have an octopus in his ear or in his brain. He took me out every time he got the chance. He wouldn’t sleep with me inside his ear, and my home was not inside a pearl back then. It was inside malachite. Jisbet has the same model in Armen’s ear.”

“Do you like the pearl better?” Jenna asked.

“Yes. It’s a promotion. Not only is it more beautiful on the inside, but it’s safer, and you are a more important diplomat.”

“Should I sleep with you in?” she asked.

“Yes. You should do more than get me glued in your ear. You should get the magnetic connectors installed in your ear so that it’s not possible for me to fall out without your permission. It also makes it easier on treatment day when you get your ear cleaned.”

“Magnetic connectors?” Jenna was aghast as she asked the question.

“I’ve been told it’s not more upsetting than having one ear pierced in two places at once and it will make everything about our jobs easier.”

Jenna thought about it. It did make sense for him to not want to fall on the floor should she get bumped or something. He would die the way Letty’s assistant died.

Suddenly Sardius said something she did not expect. “You should not be afraid that I’ll die if I fall out of your ear. What’s more important is that I can give you the information that will protect you. That’s why you don’t want me to fall out. I may not be able to protect you in a moment of urgency like a knight in shining armor, but I’m a good hacker and in this situation, that’s probably better.”

“What?” She asked, suddenly lost for breath. “Aren’t you worried about yourself?”

“This job is dangerous,” he continued, “but you should worry about yourself first. An octopus or an Adamis could assassinate you because they don’t want you to do your job. The diplomats deposed before you have their graves in a line. You’re going to find this is a much more precarious job than the one you used to have on earth.”

“Do you know about the job I used to have?” she whispered.

“Of course, I do. You worked in advertising. It’s prepared you for this more than you know. All you’re going to do in intergalactic relations is sell Octavians to Adamis and Adamis to Octavians. The other diplomats were killed and their deaths were made to look like accidents. I don’t want you to get the magnets because I’m afraid for myself. If I fall out, I won’t be able to help you. That is unacceptable.”

Jenna sighed and put her forehead on her folded arms. Sardius sounded so comforting, like someone strong with muscles like pythons and confidence like a fighter pilot. There was even a sliver of him that sounded like her grandfather speaking gently in her ear without being him at all. “It’s very hard to believe you are a microscopic octopus in my ear.”

“Perhaps it would help you if you just thought of me as a man who’s far away, talking to you on the phone?” he suggested.

Jenna bit her lip. “I’d like that.”

A knock came at the door.

“It’s Armen,” Sardius informed her. “Shall I let him in?”

“Yes.”