The detective grunted and pulled on my arm, leading me to an exit. “No danger my ass. Sir, did you know there are people out there who still think Xalanites should be hunted? We’ve had three envoys attacked in the past month. You’re lucky my partner and I were attending the game today, or else you might have had worse than the cops to deal with.”
I did not understand her meaning until we neared the raised seats where the humans gathered for this “game.” One of the humans threw a metal cylinder at me. It bounced off my chest and hit the ground a short distance from me, exploding in a fountain of tiny fragrant bubbles. The odor was reminiscent of our alcoholic beverages on Xalan.
The detective shouted at one of the black-garbed guards nearby, and three of them swarmed into the seats to apprehend the culprit. She placed her hand on my chest where the cylinder had hit. “Are you okay, sir?”
Smiling back at her, I covered her hand with my own. “Your concern is admirable, but I am not harmed.”
She jerked her hand out of my grasp and continued leading me out of the stadium. I followed her through a maze of corridors, past gaping humans, until we reached a vast expanse of stone covered with vehicles, which were lined up in neat rows. A parking lot, my nanites informed me.
“Are we taking him in your car or mine?” the male detective asked.
Detective Millwood frowned. “I guess I’ll take him. You go back home with your family. They’re going to have to cancel the game anyway. No way they’re gonna get that massive ship off the field in time.”
Once the older detective left, I asked Detective Millwood if we could get some human food on the way to wherever we were going.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said, shaking her head. “Just get in the back of the car. I have some phone calls to make.”
I did as she asked, bending my body to fit in the strange vehicle. There was little room for my legs, but I made do for her sake. While I waited in the car, she pulled a small device out of her clothes and started talking to a voice inside it. The voice changed several times as she was “transferred” from one voice to another. There were many clicks and beeps, and she touched the glass of the device many times between voices. Finally, she gave a frustrated grunt as she jammed the device back in her clothes. She got into the front of the vehicle and put a metal stick into a slot, turning it. The car sputtered to life, and I jumped in shock.
“Oh, chill. It’s just the engine starting.” The detective moved another stick between the seats and the car began to roll backwards while she turned a circular item in front of her. “Jesus, I can’t believe I’m stuck with you for a few days.”
“Days?”
She pushed with her foot, and the car stopped. After moving the stick again, the car began moving forward. “Yeah. The AARO seems to be having trouble keeping up with all the new visitors from your planet, so they don’t have anyone free to come pick you up for intake. That means you’re my problem until someone can come get you.”
I frowned as I tried to follow her words. She spoke almost too quickly for the nanites to translate, so I struggled to understand the meanings. “Intake?”
“Yep. It’s going to be a pain in the ass, too, because you’re apparently undocumented. Freakin’ A. I didnotneed this in my life right now.” She flipped yet another stick on her left, and a light flashed on the control panel. The light seemed to pointin the direction she turned the circle, and sure enough, the car moved in that same direction. The circle must be a navigation device, then.
“Apologies for the … problem.”
I did not understand why the detective seemed so angry. The one time I met Amber of Earth on my home planet, she was quite friendly and amenable to interacting with Xalanites. This woman acted in a diametrically opposite manner. It was as though she disliked me from the start, but I could not think of anything I had done to cause such anger.
Detective Millwood sighed as she navigated the vehicle. “Oh, hell, don’t apologize. It’s probably some cultural misunderstanding. Don’t they tell you on Xalan that you need the proper papers to come here? It’s against our laws to come to this planet without making the necessary arrangements.” Her eyes met mine in the mirrored glass affixed to the front viewscreen. “Sorry for yelling. I’m just having a bad week, and I was looking forward to relaxing at the ball game. Now I’ve got to babysit you, and that wasn’t part of my plans.”
My eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “You sit on your children?”
She pinched her nasal bone with two fingers. “No, no, no. It’s not literal. It just means I have to watch you.”
“Watch me do what?”
“Everything.” She sighed. “Listen, we got off on the wrong foot. Hi. My name’s Timber. And before your translator probes give you any ideas,nolumberjack jokes. What’s your name?”
What did feet have to do with anything? And what did a tree feller have to do with it? Human language was so confusing. “I am N’kal.”
“Well, N’kal … welcome to Earth.”
Chapter 2
Timber
My first few hours of Xalanite protection duty were eventful, to say the least.
First, N’kal declared himself “hungry enough to eat a whole bovine,” so I stopped at a drive through and ordered him seventeen burgers—onmydime. I kept the receipt, because I’d be damned if the department or the AARO orsomeonewasn’t going to cover my expenses for this little sojourn. He ate every single burger, then proceeded to very politely ask where the rest of the bovine was, as he was still hungry.
Three stops later, I’d finally sated the dude. Apparently, he was so excited for his trip to Earth that he didn’t bother packing enough food for the whole flight. He did, however, bring eleven weapons that I had to confiscate, a large, questionable-looking locked box of “tools for mating” (since I refused to mate with him, he refused to open the box for me), and enough clothes for a whole damned fashion show. The last items were brought to me by the uniformed officers assigned to search his ship forpotential threats. Nothing too threatening, unless you consider crotchless leather chaps a threat. I guessed some fashion trends transcended species barriers.
After the six-foot-four purple-scaled dude flipped through the entire catalog of cable channels available in the hotel the AARO had me put him up in, he frowned and handed me the remote.
