“That is a particularly violent look on your face, stranger. Should I be worried?” the snake man asked, his voice a touch wary but there was an underlying tone of humor that set my teeth on edge.
I shook my head and shrugged, careful not to lower my hands. “Nah man, I’m cool.”
He frowned and looked around. “You're cold? We keep it at optimal temperatures down here. What kind of species thinksthisis cold? Are you from one of the unstable desert planets? I heard a few of them are so close to their stars that the surface gets scorched during the daylight.”
“What? No. I meant I’m not a threat. Like I said, I stumbled into your territory by accident. Just point me to the exit and I’ll make my way out.”
His grin widened and the black slit of his pupil narrowed into a thin vertical line. “Territory? Female, this is just the road to the Undercity. It's not my territory. It's my job.”
He slithered closer and I stared, a little hypnotized by the way he pushed in small increments with his thicker belly scales to move forward. He stopped an arm’s length away and I had to use every ounce of my willpower not to take a step back. He held up his long fingered hand and pressed hisdoublethumbs into his palm in what I assumed was a type of greeting. “I’m Horak,the lead engineer for the station. Just what exactly are you doing down here, surface dweller?” His tone was cheerful and friendly and a wash of relief that I wasn’t about to be crushed inside of the coils of a snake man nearly made me fall onto the floor. I breathed out a huff of air and shrugged helplessly, finally lowering my hands to my sides. “Uh, I’m trying to get to the ship hangars. I got lost.”
He snorted and with the way his nostrils were smaller and vertical it sounded more like a hiss than a snort. “I’ll say. Well, come on then, I’ll take you to the lift that goes up to the docking bay. It's how we get our parts down here. It’ll take you directly to where you want to go. Can’t have some moron getting lost down here and dying. I’d lose my chance at promotion for sure.”
I ruthlessly shoved down the excited squeal that tried to climb up my throat. It was too early for a victory dance just yet. I’d been here before, so sure I’d won, only for Rathal’s stupid ass to pounce at the last second.
I jerked to the side when Horak slithered past me and then winced at my reaction. This place made me jumpy. I hoped the nice snakeman didn’t take offence, but when I snuck a glance at him as I followed beside him he seemed to be oblivious to my reaction. In fact, he seemed to be happy for the company with the way his too long smile spread across his face. I got the impression that Horak was a cheerful male. He probably whistled while he worked. We rounded another curve in the tracks and started down an incline that dipped nearly at a forty-five degree angle. Just what I wanted, to go deeper into the underground. Yippee.
“So, how did you end up down here? It's not an easy place to access outside of the docking bays.”
I contemplated lying, but honesty had always served me before so I sighed and told him the truth instead. “I’m running away from a covetous crazy person who kidnapped me and hasdecided that marrying me is the very first thing on his to do list. I figured if I can get to a shuttle, I can jump far enough out of the system that he won’t catch up to me until I’m safely back with my own people.”
Horak stopped and stared down at me, his eyes wide. “What? You were kidnapped? That’s horrible!”
The way his deep voice pitched higher and the outraged shock plastered all over his serpentine face made me feel a lot better.
“Right?! You are the first person on this whole damn station that has acted like I’m the wronged party here.”
He huffed, his hand coming to his chest as he continued forward down the tunnel. “Of course you’re the wronged party! You were brought here to be married against your will! That’s down right barbaric! Well don’t you worry, I’m going to get you to that shuttle if it's the last thing I do. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Is it a spurned suitor? My sister had one of those. I had to pull his tail off to get him to leave her alone. And my sister is three times my size! You’re so small and alone. Would no one help you? This station has gone to hell. I’m going to bring this up in the next Assembly.”
He talked a lot with his hands and a laugh escaped as I ducked to avoid being taken out as he swung his arms about as he ranted. He was so incensed on my behalf that the tension between my shoulder blades loosened and I took a deep breath, then let it out and grinned big enough to put an ache in my cheeks. “No, No. Not a spurned suitor. It would be less complicated if that was all it was. But no, I had to garner the attention of the king of the space pirates and he decided he just had to have me for his ‘collection’,” I said, adding air quotes, a sneer twisting my grin into a nasty caricature.
Horak came to a sudden stop and looked down at me like I’d just said I wanted to kill his mother and chop her up to make soup.
“Rathal?Rathalis the one who kidnapped you?” he asked, his voice coming out a hissing squeak before his eyes widened and he pointed a shaking finger at me, slithering backwards against the wall like I had mange and he didn’t want to risk contamination. “Oh dear sweet gods of creation,you’re his prize aren’t you?” He covered his face with both hands and shook his head back and forth. “I’ve aided and abetted hisprize!” He groaned long and loud and slunk down the wall, his coils gathering around him. “I’m dead. Dead and buried! My mother is going to weep over my mangled, chopped up corpse while Rathal pats her shoulder and lies through his narrow, filthy,lyingteeth about the tragic accident that befell me. Ooohhhh why me?! What have I done to anger you, oh gods? What?!”
Okay. That was a bit much, wasn’t it?
I looked around the darkened tunnel like someone was just around the next corner to help me out of this situation before returning my gaze back to the still moaning snake man on the floor. He’d taken to throwing his arm over his eyes like a dandy in a historical romance novel. Was everyone on this station drama queens?
“Uh, Horak? You going to be okay there, buddy?” Do I pat his shoulder? Hug him? I was not good in these situations.
He jerked his arm away from his face and glared at me, the orange of his sclera brightening with his ire. “I amnotyour ‘buddy’ and I willnotbe okay! Do you have any idea what Rathal does to people who steal from him? Horrible things, female! Horrible things!”
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “Alright, first of all, my name is Callie, not ‘female’, and second of all, you didn’t steal me, fool. I ran into you in my escape attempt and you offered to help me before you had all the facts.”
Horak surged upwards until his scaled head brushed the ceiling some ten feet above me. “Do you think Rathal cares aboutfactsorlogic? The crazy bastard is insane! You—”, he pointed two fingers for emphasis, “—you are going to have to come with me. It's the only way to salvage this.” He lowered himself to a more normal height and gave me a look I didn't much care for. There was a crazy light in his eyes. “ I—I caught you! That’s right. I caught you in the tunnel and I’m bringing you to the Undercity for collection. Don’t fight me, please. I like my life and I would prefer to keep on living it, thank you very much.”
Mother. Fucker.
twelve
Callie
TheUndercitywasn’tsomuch a city as it was an industrial complex. Or maybe a giant boiler room? I guess I’d put it somewhere in the middle. It smelled like metal and dust. The kind of dust that clung to the lining of your lungs. There were a lot of squat concrete-like buildings tucked into an organized labyrinth of piping and tanks. It kind of reminded me of that scene in Aliens where the colonial marines got ambushed in the basement of the colony on LV-426, only the aliens here weren’t trying to stick me to walls with their spit and incubate a chest burster inside me. Though thinking about a marriage to Rathal, I’d almost prefer the facehuggers.
Horak had an iron grip on my upper arm and was nearly dragging me through the grated streets, his long tail slithering and pushing him faster than I could walk comfortably. I wondered how long it would take to cut through his thick lower half with an ax. How many swings would it take to get to his sticky center? Those probably weren’t normal thoughts.
Steam billowed out of various corners and pipes, rising up to hang just under the larger pipes that made up the ceiling above us. Lights were dim and far between and with the combination of steam and the suffocating heat down here, I was about at my breaking point. Patience, it would seem, was not one of my virtues. I distracted myself from my impending rage fueled mental breakdown by people watching.
