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Loka scratched the base of one horn. “Could it be somebody is manipulating matches?”
“If they were, they wouldn’t get far. Every match is checked by human eyes. We have the final say on whether a match goes through. I was ready to turn down almost all of the last batch.”
“It’s possible an alien race who wants fertile human females could try to jump the queue. I know there is general disharmony about how long it takes for an alien to find his match.”
Heather frowned. “We have high standards. Most of our matches are a success. There are very few separations. That’s thanks to us doing a good job. If we didn’t scrutinize every match and induct every alien, there would be a lot more chaos. There would also be far fewer babies.”
Loka raised his hands as he saw the passion in Heather’s eyes. “It was not meant as a complaint. I was suggesting that could be the reason My Single Alien was targeted. Whichever race implanted the code meant to target you and ensure they got themselves a match. Perhaps the code took on a life of its own and infected the whole station.”
“Let’s see if I can pull up My Single Alien’s database from here. If there is a particular alien intent on upping the number of matches they get, it will be easy to spot.”
Loka watched Heather work, her fingers skimming over the keys as she expertly skipped around the system.
“I can’t get onto the live system, but I’ve got my history up. Let’s take a look at last week’s matches. We had seventy cases come through.” Heather glanced up at Loka. “We have to match ten aliens a day to suitable females.”
“You have high targets.”
“Tell me about it. When you have a boss as scary as Diadora, you find an incentive to keep on working.”
Loka nodded. “It would explain why you spend so many hours working.”
“You notice all the overtime I do?”
Loka shrugged. He hadn’t intentionally kept tabs on Heather, but somehow, he knew her movements almost as well as he knew his own.
Pictures of aliens seeking matches flashed across the screen. “There were two Dackins, a Koob, two Galaxars, and five Draxdans. The rest were Vincoles, Monomars, and Bantis, which is plain wrong.”
“I’m surprised to see Bantis using the services of My Single Alien,” Loka said. “They eat human flesh.”
“You’re not the only one surprised.” Heather rubbed the end of her nose. “They shouldn’t be there at all. I haven’t seen any of these files. If Vegas or Nell had happened across matches with Banti, they’d have alerted Diadora. They’re banned from using our services. They want to mate with us, but their overwhelming urge to have a snack afterwards, or sometimes even during sex, is too much.”
“Which means they must be behind this.”
“I don’t think so. Well, I don’t think it’s just them.” Heather slid a dozen more images onto the screen. “I remember these matches. These females should never have been matched with Vincoles. They like their females to look a specific way.”
“Why were these matches made if they are not suitable?”
“To bring the reputation of My Single Alien into question? If we had taken any of these matches forward, the Vincoles would have a legitimate reason to complain. That might have caused problems with our annual review with the Council of Representatives.”
“It’s nothing that can’t be explained away. Logs will show this code is the reason for the poor matches.”
“It’s not that easy. All eyes, human and alien, are on our work. As the only licensed agents in space to offer alien and human matches, we get a lot of questions. There are also a lot of people envious of what we do. Rival agencies can’t operate because we have the exclusive license. There’s competition out there. They just can’t go up against us. That is unless we mess up.”
“The Vincoles want to start their own agency?”
Heather pulled up a separate data stream. “I knew I’d read something about this. Here it is. The Vincole High Council objected to the recent renewal of our license. They said it gave humans an unfair advantage.”
“You are in the best position to run the agency,” Loka said. “If another alien decided on the fate of humans, you’d have no way of defending yourselves. You are weaponless.” His hand traced along a horn.
Heather’s gaze went from his horns and then to his claws. “We don’t come with our own attachable weapons. We have guns. We’d fight back if another race took over and tried to match us unsuitably or mistreated us in any way, forcing matches when they weren’t suitable. It would be messy, though.”
“You would lose. You are ill-prepared to fight another alien.”
Heather’s lips pursed. “Fine. We’re pathetic genetic throwbacks that should have been extinguished, just like the dinosaurs. Lucky for us, we were so dumb we hadn’t even invented reliable space travel when Draxdans discovered us. If we had, we’d have been obliterated in the intergalactic war you heroes are fighting on the other side of the wormhole.”
“It is fortunate for us you have nothing to do with that.” Loka’s hand skimmed over hers. “If you had, we might never have met.”
The anger in Heather’s eyes faded. “I guess not.” She turned back to the screen. “It could be that the Banti and Vincole are working together. They hacked the system, planted the alien code, and then what? What’s their next move?”
