“Sedate me and see what happens when I sober up,” I say. “I will set this whole ship on fire.”
He gives me a raised brow look. “I know you have your memories intact now,” he says. “So I am entirely uncertain why you are risking the consequences of this behavior.”
Just his tone makes me blush furiously.
Some of my memories were all the way back in an instant. Others are trickling in slowly. I have a faint recollection of the vet, but it’s too faint to know if I should be scared, or if I should be terrified. I have enough memory of Sharp to know I should be careful, though.
“I don’t want to be sedated.”
“I understand that, but you will be if you become unmanageable. We can handle you, but the vet can’t be asked to deal with your acting out. You need to behave yourself. No screaming. No cursing. No biting. No hitting. No kicking…”
I smile to myself.
“No elbows, knees, or weapons,” he adds. My smile fades.
We land at a station that looks pretty well appointed. Legit, in other words. I am taken off the ship by all three mates and allowed to explore a little. I know they don’t entirely trust me yet, and I can’t entirely blame them.
There are other humans here, but they seem happy and for the most part, uncontrolled by aliens. A couple of them are on leashes, but they look like they’re enjoying it.
“We could get one of those for our pet,” Kronos muses.
“If you tie me up, I will freak out,” I say when Kronos so much as suggests it.
“If you move more than five feet away from me, I will absolutely leash you,” he says. “This is a busy station, and it is a lawful one. You are expected to be under effective control.”
“My skull is still stuck together with craft glue,” I say. “What do you think I am going to do?”
He extends his hand to me, and I take it, though it’s easier to hold a few of his fingers than his entire hand. I have to trust him, even as I sort through a jumble of memories that effectively took place in completely different timelines.
We walk through the station, which is as big as a small city. There are businesses and shops and aliens and… it’s almost pedestrian, and not just because we’re walking. It feels wholesome here. I can see low-slung houses all the way down the very far ends.
“Are there suburbs here?”
“Hmm? Yes, I suppose so,” Sharp says. “This is a well-established station. Very law abiding.” He says the last part of the phrase in a sort of pointed way, as if I might not be law abiding, or well-established, for that matter.
The station orbits a sun that emits a kind of liquid warm glow. It feels like I’ve been transported back in time, somehow. It gives me nostalgia for things that never were. It’s like part of my mind that has memories from my species and not just my own memories has been activated.
My mates lead me through the streets, until we come to a place that has pictures of happy smiling humans romping through fields on the windows. This has to be the vet clinic.
I am not the only human here.
There are two others. One is a tall, lanky man with a balding pate. He is wearing a chunky red sweater and blue shorts forreasons I’ll probably never be privy to. He also has a pair of cowboy boots on.
The other is also a man, heavyset, bearded. He has a trucker cap, a top coat with tails, and he’s wearing jeans with sneakers. Both men are barely being held back at the end of harnesses held by gray aliens with six eyes on stalks and a sort of round body with two flappy feet at the bottom.
“Nice hat, asshole,” the bald man says.
“Bro! Come at me, bro! I’ll fucking kill you, bro!” trucker hat shouts back.
“I’m not your bro, bro,” the other guy responds.
“Steve! That’s enough!” One of the aliens snaps the leash, but it doesn’t do much.
“I’m sorry,” the other one says. “He’s a rescue. He was used for breeding. We’re going to get him fixed to try to curb some of this aggression.”
“I’m sorry too,” the first alien says. “My boy just gets so excited when he sees other males. The vet says he’ll calm down if we keep socializing him. He suggested sports, but he’s already put more than one human in the vet hospital.”
“Oh, I know,” the other alien says. “You don’t have to tell me. My human is absolutely feral. I think he could easily kill a man if I let him.”
