My mother kisses me on the cheek the way rich people do, by putting her face next to mine but not touching. She has a glass of weird shit in her hand and she’s intoxicated as hell, which is par for the course. “Anya,” she says. Then she arches a little to look me up and down. “Lovely.”
My father sees me from across the room. He doesn’t scowl, so that’s as good as gets. I doubt I’ll even talk to him on this whole trip, which is pretty much fine. There is nothing new in his being too busy to talk to me. When we do speak, he just rattles off mineral speculation statistics that would put a cup of Jycran coffee to sleep.
It stinks of weird perfume in the enormous ballroom. I take a flute of the blue stuff my mother is drinking from a passing drone and look up at the glass-domed ceiling. It’s a spectacular view, all stars, a crescent of the intense red planet we orbit glowing angrily at the horizon.
“Darling, please be careful,” my mother says, leaning in to speak quietly, in her dos-and-don’ts voice. “It’s very strong. We don’t want a scene.”
“How long do I have to stay?” I say, sniffing the drink. “What is this?”
“Oh,” she says, waving a hand. “Plant extract from Zanora, it’s like Eskara but stronger. You’ll feel… very warm.”
She’s high as a kite.
I take a sip. The flavor is strong, and I immediately see what she’s talking about. “Whoa.” I resolve to hold this in my hand all night without having any more of it. “When, Mom?”
She blinks. “Oh, yes,” she says. “He wants to introduce you to the delegation from… oh, Brynek or Steagard or, I don’t know…” She sighs. “Then you can leave. Petlola!” She screams this last part suddenly, and departs, squealing, toward another woman of extraordinarily well-preserved trophy-wife looks and—incredibly—less body fat than my mother.
I’m left in the middle of the room, alone, looking stupid. As usual.
There is so much food here—expensive, crazy food—that it boggles the mind. I snatch something from the first passing drone and inspect it. Disappointing. It’s a tiny green dot on a tiny plate. I laugh under my breath and hesitate, before holding a finger above it. My plan is to stick it to my finger and eat it.
I don’t see what else I’m supposed to do.
“I wouldn’t,” a voice says from behind me, to my right. I’m startled: no one was there just a nanosecond ago.
The owner of the voice comes into view, moving without seeming to move. He is enormous, almost seven feet tall. I have to lift my eyes and tilt my head to look at his face.
His eyes are yellow-green and glitter as though they are a mosaic of jewels. Something about them sends a frisson of fear through me and it takes a moment for me to analyze it. The pupils of his eyes are curved diamond shapes, remnants of some reptilian lineage. I notice, then, that this lineage is also visible on his skin—an inky blue, deep and almost translucent. Streaks of golden-green scales transverse its branches, like a tree. The marks, scaly in some ways and yet almost like jeweled paint in others, stretch from beneath the collar of his black and imposing suit—heavy, expensive robes that fit snugly on his muscled frame—up his neck, cradling his jaw. A glimmer of the markings sneaks out from beneath an ordinary mop of rakish black hair. They travel across his forehead for a few inches, like a beautiful scar, before fading into his dark skin.
Otherwise, he seems like a human. Like a very fit, very strong, very attractive human man.
My jaw falls open, and I hold the plate with my finger hovering above it, like an idiot, while I rack my brain for what he is. It’s in there somewhere, and as it emerges from my subconscious slowly, it brings a cold, dark cloud of fear with it.
He takes the plate from my hand while I think, stunned.
After that, everything happens very quickly, and at the same time, in slow motion. The plate leaves my hand; the fear spreads cold throughout me. I wonder if I could be attracted to a guy like this, and if maybe Fiona has slept with one, so she can give me some pointers. In my peripheral vision, figures begin to fall to the floor. Plates clatter on the faux stone floor, I hear gasps.
Ah, I think.Eureka.
He’s Kerz.
* * *
There are maybe twenty people still standing in the room. The remainder are crumpled on the floor. The drones, eerily, are still humming about, trying to deliver food. Cleaner drones are taking the spilled plates away.
I turn, slowly, to take the scene in. My alien companion has friends: inky blue-skinned, golden-streaked giants wearing black suits that look like robes. They are holding weapons that seem to have appeared out of nowhere and take a moment to process: they’re swords. Ultra-light, ultra-sharp titanium swords that some of them are expertly swinging in some kind of impressive display of martial arts. The onlypeoplestill standing are my father, my mother, Fiona, the woman my mother attacked with her nasal screaming, and a few others. They are all, like me, frozen in fear.
I look down at my empty hand, and then, sheepishly, turn my head to look up at the Kerz next to me. He has no sword in his hand, but I see now that he has one in his robes.
“Fyodresk Mann,” a voice says, loudly and confidently from the middle of a cluster of Kerz who must have only just arrived. They are walking from the entrance, stepping over crumpled guests. I wonder if they are dead. I wonder if they are better off that way than the rest of us. I have no idea what is going on here, but I do know this, because everybody in the galaxy knows this: Kerz are not to be trifled with.
My father has a glass in his hand and it is shaking.
I look over at the alien, whose hand jumps out faster than I can see, like a karate chop. I expect to be hit in the chest, hard, and I think I see my whole life flash before my eyes. But when he touches me, in the center of my chest, it is gentle and warm.
But firm. And a clear message:don’t move.
I look down in disbelief. His hand is enormous, and the veins of gold scales are glowing now, pulsing. Something seems very dangerous about that, though I can’t say why.
