“Get your hands off my heart-mate!”
Jaspar stepped from behind a hovercraft, and Roger let out a startled, high-pitched shriek. Jaspar grabbed Roger by the torso and lifted him overhead as La La released his boot.
Then he hurled him twenty feet through the air, into a row of black-fur-covered bushes.
“I am not your heart-mate, whatever that is, but thank you for getting rid of that jerk,” Liza said. She felt her body starting to do that pulsing, tingling thing again, and backed away several steps. It didn’t help. She stared up at him as he towered over her, his silky hair like an ebony waterfall. She yearned to run her fingers through it…tangle her fingers in his hair…
“We will discuss your foolish denial later,” Jaspar said, his handsome mouth quirking into an amused grin. “Right now, I need you to sign this.”
He held out a sheet of plastic, and she read what was printed on it. It was an offer that would allow him and his clan to book rooms at her family’s bed and breakfast for the next two weeks. Since she legally owned the B&B, she was the one who would have to sign it.
She looked at the figure he was offering to pay for his entire family to stay there, and gulped aloud. He’d increased the prior offer ten-fold.
Not only that, but he had added in the offer to let her and her family stay at the bed and breakfast, for free, for the next five years.
The fee that he was offering would pay for off-world transport for at least one of them. And if the rest of them could stay at the bed and breakfast…well, it didn’t really solve anything long term, because when the rest of the colony migrated off-world and the tourists stopped coming, they’d have no way to make money. But at least it would buy them some time.
“You still haven’t told me why you need to be here early,” she said suspiciously.
La La began tugging on his leggings. “Sriii, sriii!”
“La La, stop that! She just wants candy. Don’t give it to her – she’s not hungry at all and she needs to stop pestering people. Damn it,” she added, as Jaspar reached into a leather sack hanging from his belt, pulled out a piece of chocolate, and tossed it to La La. La La paused to thumb her nose at Liza and then ran off behind a hovercraft with her prize.
“I will knock you out with a snowball!” Liza yelled. She heard a shrill, high-pitched sound which, she suspected, was the Srilaa version of laughter.
“The Harbingers are also here,” Jaspar said. “They have booked rooms at Santa’s Chalet. They have filed a legal challenge to our purchase of this planet, and have hinted that they might declare war if they do not prevail. Therefore, the Galactic Federation has decreed that we will meet on this planet and hold a meeting with an Arbitrator, as per the Universal Concord.”
The Universal Concord spelled out very specifically the steps that two warring parties must take before they declared all-out war on each other. The Concord had been agreed on by all members of the Galactic Federation after centuries of warfare had nuked entire planets and sometimes solar systems.
First, the warring parties had to attempt to reach a peaceful agreement in a meeting that was mediated by a neutral party.
If they failed to reach an agreement and war broke out, it had to take place in a location that would not affect any other parties who had not been involved from the beginning. There were lengthy lists of rules and exceptions and exclusions, which Liza had glazed right over in civics class because she had never thought it would affect her; who would ever go to war over Far North?
But the bottom line was, nobody defied the Galactic Federation, because if they did, the Galactic Federation’s fleet would vaporize them.
“When is this meeting?”
“The day before your Terran Christmas. But we must be here early. The Harbingers are likely to attempt to sabotage the meeting somehow; it’s the only reason that they would be here so early. And also, of course, I need time to seduce you.”
Liza made a choking sound. “Well, at least you don’t beat around the bush,” she spluttered.
“Not around it, no,” Jaspar said, completely straight faced. She stared at him. Was he serious? Was he kidding? She couldn’t tell at all.
She took several more steps back, cleared her throat, and tried to clear her head.
“But you say that the Harbingers can’t lie, so how could they sabotage the meeting?”
“Female Drakken can lie, and they have brought a sizeable female contingent. Also, just because they are genetically incapable of speaking an untruth does not mean they are honest. They have very treacherous natures. So. Do we have an agreement?” Jaspar prodded.
Liza considered it. A thought occurred to her. The Drakken were highly technologically advanced – she was pretty sure that they always traveled with a mechanic. There were a lot of families who’d be stopping by their bed and breakfast hoping for a Santa ride, and she really hated to have to disappoint them.
She looked up at him. “I will agree to this if you will agree to repair our Santabot by noon,” she said.
“And I will agree to that additional condition if you will agree to three…” Jaspar appeared to think for a moment. “I believe that you humans would refer to them as dates, but for our kind, they are actually a part of the wooing.”
“That is ridiculous,” she said. “You have absolutely no chance of winning me over.”
“Then what do you have to be afraid of, little human?” He grinned fiercely.
