My father is sensing opportunity.
The Kerz next to me speaks again after a few moments of this awful display of animalistic mating rituals between my sister and the monster.
He speaks his own language, not loudly, and without looking at anyone in particular.
I look at him.
All Kerz eyes and heads turn, simultaneously, toward him. Including the general’s.
Except… they aren’t really looking at Quietly Bossy, here.
They’re looking at me.
There is a moment of very tense silence.
The general looks me up and down. He says something while he stares.
Quietly Bossy, who I’m still clinging to, speaks again. He’s not big on words, in English or Kerz.
Whatever he says seems to take all of them aback.
But then… the general smiles, and shrugs. “Very well,” he says in English. He turns to my father. “This is Anya?”
No one understands.
“Anya Mann, this woman,” he points to me as he looks to my father, “your daughter. Is this her?”
“I don’t… I… she… this is Anya…” my father stammers.
“Anya Mann will be married to the Kirigok clan. This is acceptable to all.”
The general swipes a drink from a drone that is still passing, uselessly, among the slumped guests, and slams the whole thing before smashing it on the floor. “I look forward to our close business relationships, Mr. Mann!” he shouts.
The whole scene changes almost immediately. The Kerz sheathe their swords and begin swiping drinks from the drones, my mother turns to my father and starts whispering frantically. Fiona looks over at me in a murderous rage.
I haven’t really processed what has happened.
“Her?” she practically screams, petulantly. “Anya?”
For the first time in my life, I’m in total agreement with Fiona.
A shaky breath leaves my chest and my knees feel like they are going to give out. “Um,” I say, and then I turn to look at Mr. Quietly Bossy. I’m shaking my head, and I can feel myself smiling. “Uh, this is… a mistake, I’m not really… so much… on the market…”
Halfway through my sentence, he rotates his head, very slowly, to look at me, and his feral stare makes every word of the English language disappear from my head in a puff of smoke.
I look back at the rest of the room in disbelief. My knees really do give out when I see that everyone is actually… relaxing. My father is nervously clinking glasses with the now jovial general and smiling, and I hear something about the guests not being dead, just sleepy. Fiona is scowling with her arms crossed over her chest, and my mother, who seems to have forgotten entirely that her dress has been cut clean off her skinsuit, isconsoling her.
As I feel myself falling, I hold on tighter to the hand I have clasped onto. Pretty soon all my weight is hanging from his arm. He doesn’t even seem to notice. I’m not saying I’m a big person, but this place is adjusted for Trygar-17 gravity and so it’s no joke holding onto something as big as me like it’s a glass of wine. His forearm doesn’t even drop a centimeter, and his muscles don’t shift.
My father looks over in my direction, narrows his eyes, and marches forward. As he approaches, his face goes through several transformations. By the time he reaches me, he has settled on pleading.
“Dad,” I start to say. I regain my footing and drop my hands.
The Kerz lets his own arm drop to his side, gracefully, as though we chose this movement together. “I amnot—”
“Just one moment,” my father says to the Kerz at my side, reaching for my elbow. He is smiling, and shuffles me off to the side with what is probably a forceful grip, but feels like putty compared to Krazy Kerz here. I jerk my elbow out of his grip when his face becomes serious.
“Anya,” he hisses. “Listen to me. Listen to me.” He repeats this three more times, like I am arguing with him.
