Chapter One
Prologue
Planet of Sintaz
“Women.”
Izotz remembered precisely three times when his youngest brother had a great idea. One, jumping off snow cliffs into the drifts below to avoid being eaten by a hungry bearguar. Two, giving unauthorized permission to the spaceship full of Galaxy Playmates to land on their ice-covered planet. Now that was how a man heated up the wintery nights on Sintaz. Three, traveling north to avoid an unpredictable ice storm.
This new idea? It didn’t make the list. Not even close.
“Women,” Edur repeated as if saying the word in an excited tone would make the idea better. It didn’t.
“No,” Izotz stated, his tone final. He was the oldest, and it was his responsibility to look after the other two.
“But, women,” Edur persisted.
“He has a point,” Tushar chimed in, supporting their youngest sibling. “Women.”
“Do you even know where this Erd is?” Izotz asked.
Tushar gestured that he did not. “I think it’s called Arth.”
“And it has women,” Edur added.
“Our mother should have dropped you in a snowdrift as a baby and left your blue ass there.” Izotz tried to turn back to his meal. Things tended not to stay warm for long and already his broth was the temperature of the outside.
Well, maybe that was a little dramatic. Outside the broth would have been frozen solid.
“You could have been raised by a bearguar or a hairy bellaphant,” Tushar added, also teasing Edur, “walking around on all fours and roaring for your supper.”
“Rawr,” Edur roared. Only to add gruffly, “Women.”
Tushar bit back his laughter.
Izotz sighed in resignation. “You’re not going to stop until I agree to listen, are you?”
“No,” Edur and Tushar answered in unison.
“Fine. Show me the hologram.” Izotz crossed his arms over his chest as he balanced on the stool. It had been built to his taller height so his feet could comfortably touch the floor. Their Sintazian home had three of almost everything—three stools, three eating utensils, three bowls, three beds. They didn’t need anything else. After their parents had met with an ice storm while hunting, it was just the three of them.
Edur lifted his hand from beneath the eating platform sticking out of the wall and set a holographic chip on the surface, proving he had been holding it the entire time. He activated it.
The transparent image of a strange blue and brown planet swirling with white appeared in rotation as if it hovered over Izotz’s food. He automatically pushed his bowl aside even though the hologram would not contaminate it.
“Is yours one of the many stagnant civilizations without enough women to produce offspring? Do you come from a monogamist culture with no one to marry? Or a polygamist culture in need of more food makers? Are you lonely and looking to reassign your assets? What if we told you there is a planet whose name is called Earth that could solution all your needs? Would you be jolly?” The deep male voice asking the questions was clearly a computerized translator and not a very good one at that. Foreign words from the original recording could be heard low in the background.
“Yes,” Edur answered needlessly.
“Earth,” Tushar said. “That’s what it is called.”
“Let me guess,” Izotz muttered sarcastically, unimpressed with the sales pitch. “It has women.”
“Earth has women they are willing to share,” the male voice said.
Izotz smirked. “This translation is horrible, or the Earth people have awful grammar. Solution our needs? Earth is a planet, so it would be it is not they are, and?—”
“Shh, just listen,” Edur waved his hand for Izotz to be quiet.
