A small furred alien rose from the seat just behind me and made its way around and down to the Speaker’s stage. It walked on dainty pawed feet, its little claws clicking soundlessly on thestone floor. It reminded me of a slender Furby, with tall fox ears and four fluffy tails raised behind it like a poofy fan. Its fur was a deep maroon with darker black marbling under its beautiful flowing white robes. As it made its way up to the stage the crowd grew in fervor as the speaker tried to argue his point, his tentacles waving frantically.
The fox alien touched one of the speaker’s undulating limbs and the octopus rotated one of its dozens of eyes to look down at the fox who said something that was lost in the noise. The octopus looked like he wanted to melt into the floor in relief at what the fox said, and shuffled off the stage to take his seat… which was in a water tank set in the corner of the caged box.
The fox looked up at the podium and then over its shoulder, snapping tiny clawed fingers and I grinned when two hulking brutes hustled to bring a step stool like a fire breathing dragon had ordered them to instead of the little fuzzy alien. Once the steps were situated, the fox flipped the train of its robe out of the way and ascended the stairs, tapped on a disk that acted like a microphone and cleared its throat.
“Quiet.” The voice was feminine and old, like a grandmother. I got the distinct impression that this one was someone you did not want to fuck with… especially when the crowds noise died an abrupt death the second the word left her mouth.
The fox clapped her hands together softly, and then raised them in the air, delicate little claws splayed wide. “Thank you. Now, I know the pickup times are during the Lighting, but that is when the Grel are most active. We move the motion forward of adding a second pickup during the last hour of Dark. Is this acceptable?”
The crowd murmured for a few minutes before a resounding “Yes!” was shouted at full volume. Rathal’s ears turned backwards at the noise and my own hands rose to cover mine.
The fox raised her hands again and the crowd quieted. “Excellent. Moving on. Obert, you had a motion you wanted to put forward?”
A slender alien with a rodent-like face rose from his seat on the fifth level and bowed his head low before meeting the fox’s gaze. “Yes, Premiere Som’ae. I would like to address the garden hours. They are open longer during Dark, and it restricts the diurnal children’s after lesson hours during the Lighting. I would like to propose an extension of two hours during the Lighting so that our children may enjoy the beauty for themselves.”
The fox, Som’ae—though I didn’t know if that was her name, title, or her species—looked behind her to Rathal, her elegant brow raised in question.
Rathal raised his jewel adorned hand and waved it. “Yes, yes. That is acceptable.” He snapped his fingers and pointed out at the crowd and grew stern. “But be warned. If any of your little heathens should disrespect my garden, I will restrict it. No running. No swimming. No badgering the fish. No climbing the vines. No. Urinating. On. The. Statues.” He said this last part while staring down at a group of squat, horny toad looking aliens who were shifting their eyes all over the room, anywhere but at Rathal.
Som’ae nodded her head once and made a noise of agreement, returning her attention to the crowd once more. “Next on the docket…”
I leaned in close to whisper at Rathal. “Who’s the speaker?”
“That is Som’ae of the Voxias. They are a clever and vicious people who have something of a monopoly over trade here, outside of myself of course, and she is their matriarch. The respectful fear you have witnessed is duly earned. I believe she was accused of a few murders of prominent leaders of various factions that had raised votes against some of the motions she was trying to get approved, though nothing could ever beproven. That one is like the dagger that comes for you in the shadows.” He sat back against his seat and crossed his arms, grinning. “She is one of my very favorite people.”
Som’ae’s tall, wide ears twitched in our direction as I glanced at her and I caught the subtle curling of her lips. The reception on those things must be exceptional if she could hear us over the low hum of conversation as motions were passed or rejected.
“Do you not do anything during these?” I asked as the topic of wait times at the in-processing stations—of which there were fifty-three—were viciously argued over. The motion to open more was denied, apparently for the eighth time. There were a lot of irritated faces in the crowd over that one.
“I vote just like everyone else… when the topic suits me. As of right now, these things are well taken care of in the careful and thorough claws of our esteemed Premiere Som’ae.”
I stared at him. “You’re a suck up.”
He finally looked at me, his eyes wide in affront, though I could see humor behind the outrage. “Hardly! I just think that she is doing a wonderful job running the day to day operations of Erral, and I see no reason to interfere.”
A grinding noise came from the row behind us and I shifted in my chair to find a male who for all the world seemed to be made of wood—wood that had been through a chipper, and then pieced back together again with holes for black pupiless eyes, and a wide, horrifying mouth—take Som’ae’s vacated seat and the noise he was making was his version of laughter. It made all the hair on my body stand on end and gave me the same kind of cringing nauseous feeling as when a knife was scraped across a plate.
“Don’t let him tell you falsehoods, human Callie.”
I succeeded in suppressing a shudder at the coarseness of his voice—it sounded like someone was gurgling glass—andmanaged to smile at him. “Just Callie, please. And I think that lying is sort of par for the course for a pirate king, isn’t it?
The male laughed again and my stomach trembled. I had to clench my teeth in order to maintain my composure.
He slapped a heavy, shattered wood hand onto Rathal’s shoulder, patting him with heavy strikes. “Right you are, Callie. Right you are. Rathal here is indebted to our dear Som’ae. You see, it was her father who—”
Rathal’s hand settled on top of the wood alien's and squeezed hard. I could hear the creaking of wood against wood and the male winced, his beady eyes shifted from me to Rathal and his words died a quick death.
“That is quite enough of that, Broks. I trust you can find your seat again, yes?”
“Oh, forgive me. Yes, of course. Lovely to meet you, Callie,” Broks said, his horrible voice wobbling and the shattered pieces of wood that made up his head shifting and chattering together as his face twisted into a nervous expression and the big male got up and all but scurried to his chair on the opposite side of our VIP cage.
I side eyed Rathal, my stomach still in my throat. “What… was that?”
He cringed under his heavy tunic and fancy cape, and dropped his head with a sigh, shaking it slowly enough that his earrings didn’t clink together like they usually did. “That was Broks, and his kind are called Khits, after the trees in the forest of their home planet that they so strongly resemble. There are great flying predators called Scaiv’i, that are larger than most shuttles, that hunted them relentlessly and the Khits adapted a camouflage over the millennia. They wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for that God's cursed voice. Every time that male speaks I want to pitch myself into the void.”
A little tickle of relief under my breastbone had me breathing out a short breath. “Glad I wasn’t the only one.”
He shuddered dramatically and eyed my sidelong. “It is awful, isn’t it?”
