Alien Pets (Xeno Relations Book 1), page 1
Alien Pets
Xeno Relations
Copyright © 2018 Trisha McNary
Published by Trisha McNary
All Rights Reserved
Formerly, Pets and Masters in Space: Part 1: The First Journey
by Elfa Tordai (a pen name of Trisha McNary)
Includes chapter 1 of hypnoSnatch
and chapter 1 of Bonded in Space
by Trisha McNary
Cover art by Heather Hamilton-Senter
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
hypnoSnatch
Chapter 1
Bonded in Space
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
A few short weeks after she graduated from space school, Antaska stood in front of a clear barrier, waiting and hoping to be selected. She held her small gray and white cat Potat in her arms. Energized with excitement and high-strung nerves, Antaska watched the gigantic green alien Verdantes. Crowds of them walked in the curved corridor outside her “viewing room.”
The aliens, Antaska’s prospective employers, looked in at her and the other humans in similar “viewing rooms” built by the Verdantes to suit their purposes. The walls on the sides of her viewing room blocked Antaska from seeing the other humans and which aliens were taking an interest in them.
Now one of the aliens looked at Antaska and paused. The eight-foot-tall giant approached and stopped right in front of her. Antaska looked up to see enormous slanting green eyes staring down at her. Above the eyes, green curly hair covered an enormous cranium. The alien lifted a large six-fingered hand and waved at her. Antaska waved back and smiled.
Maybe I’ll be selected already! she thought.
“Grrrr!!” she heard and looked down.
Potat stiffened in her arms. She hissed and spat at the Verdante in front of them.
The big eyes of the alien got bigger.
“Stop that!” Antaska said to Potat. “Shush!”
But the tiny cat wouldn’t stop.
“Rrrowwwwwwwww!” Potat let out an endless angry meow.
The alien shrugged big shoulders and shook his head. He lifted up his hands as if to say, “What can I do?” and walked away.
Potat stopped meowing and settled back down in Antaska’s arms.
“What is wrong with you?” Antaska asked the little cat.
She didn’t expect an answer, of course, and she didn’t get one.
“Are you crazy? You might have just blown our only chance to go to space! My life’s dream! Don’t you dare do that again.”
Antaska talked out loud to the cat. It was a habit she’d got into. Sometimes, it almost seemed like Potat understood what she was saying.
This had better be one of those times, thought Antaska.
She felt a slight movement and looked down to see the Potat cleaning a snow-white paw.
Antaska looked up. Another alien, this one female, was standing in front of the clear barrier. She wore the same bright blue space suit as the males. But she had a smaller, more delicate feminine body and features. Shiny bright-green hair brushed her shoulders. Large pale green eyes crinkled up as she looked down at Antaska and Potat.
Maybe Potat will like this one better, Antaska thought.
Antaska smiled up at the alien and waved. The female alien waved back and then made signals with her hands. She pointed at herself, then at Antaska and little Potat, and then up toward space.
Antaska nodded and gave her a thumbs up.
Yes! she thought.
“Grrrrr!” Potat started growling.
“Oh no! You bad cat! Not again!” Antaska admonished her.
But the cat paid no attention.
“Reyowwwrrrrrooowwwww!” Potat let out her endless howl.
The Verdante female’s smallish mouth formed an “O” shape. She shook her big head from side to side.
“No! No! Stop! Stop!” Antaska pleaded with her cat.
But of course, Potat didn’t listen.
The alien lowered her chin and closed her eyes for a moment. Antaska read that as disappointment. Then the large green female turned and walked away.
Antaska’s hopes took a dive. She turned, walked a few feet back, and plopped down on the couch built into the back wall of the small viewing room.
“Are you trying to stop me from going into space?” Antaska asked Potat as she set her down on the couch.
Potat, now calm and settled, looked up at her with innocent gold eyes.
Maybe cats just aren’t adaptable to new things, thought Antaska. Maybe they’re just not that intelligent.
A tiny paw reached out and slapped her leg kind of hard.
“That wasn’t nice!” Antaska told her.
“Am I going to be stuck on Earth with a crazy cat?” she said out loud to no one in particular.
Potat ignored her and began to take a bath.
Antaska sighed and leaned against the back of the couch. With dimming hope, she watched the large aliens walking past outside her viewing room.
A few minutes later, the nutty cat jumped off the couch and walked to the front of the viewing room. Potat sat down there and watched the Verdantes passing by as if she were the one they might pick. Then she looked back and stared hard at Antaska.
I think she wants me to go over there now, Antaska thought. Or maybe this cat has finally drove me crazy.
Grumbling about the problems with cats, Antaska got off the couch and walked over to Potat. She picked up the tiny cat and whispered in her ear.
“OK. You’ve got your way once again. As usual. I hope you’re happy, whatever you’re up too.”
Potat purred back in her ear.
Among the other Verdantes, lanky, thin M. Hoyvil took long strides around the circle of rooms containing Earth humans. It was his second or third time circling around. So many of them! How was he supposed to choose? The humans stood near the front of their viewing containers, watching the passing Verdantes with wide, round eyes. Except at a few of the containers.
Some have been taken already! Hoyvil thought. I’d better pick one before they’re all gone.
He walked past an empty spot to the next one where a male human was performing martial arts moves. The red-haired male was stockier than the usual design for space travel, with cool genetically designed tattoos along his arms and chest.
M. Hoyvil stopped in front of the Earth man and watched him. The man smiled and kicked high in the air.
Hmm. It might be fun to have someone to practice fighting with, thought M. Hoyvil. Of course, it would all have to be pretend. They’re so much smaller and weaker and slower. I could easily kill him by accident if I wasn’t careful. That wouldn’t be good.
M. Hoyvil stood there watching, trying to decide whether taking this one would be a good idea or not. Out of nowhere, he heard the sound of a small female telepathic voice.
“Here! Over here!” said the voice repeatedly and insistently.
Who’s that? he wondered.
He looked around, but there were no female Verdantes close by. And those walking by weren’t paying any attention to him at all. They might have been interested in the human male, but they wouldn’t approach the container when another Verdante was already there. That rule stopped people from fighting over the same pet.
No. The strange, tiny voice wasn’t a Verdante, and it seemed to be coming from the direction of the cube next to him. M. Hoyvil looked over. Now a human female stood there. She held a teeny, tiny gray and white cat in her arms.
Could that Earth female be telepathic? M. Hoyvil wondered. No. That’s not possible.
M. Hoyvil lost interest in the martial arts man. He walked over to stare at the young woman with the cat. The tiny voice stopped.
Did I really hear that? he wondered.
He shook his big green head. The pink-haired Earth female smiled up at him.
This is the one! M. Hoyvil suddenly knew it for sure without knowing why.
He made the hand signs asking the human if she would like to go up to space with him.
She didn’t answer right away. She lifted her cat, stared at it, and talked to it.
Could that cat be sentient? M. Hoyvil wondered. No. That’s not possible either.
But the young woman seemed to be asking the cat’s opinion. The cat leaned toward M. Hoyvil behind the clear barrier and reached out her paws toward him. Then the Earth female nodded her head and gave him a thumbs up.
M. Hoyvil placed his palm on the pad outside her viewing container to select her.
Chapter 2
From the moment she landed the job that would take her away from Earth for the rest of her life, Antaska had been thrilled and excited. Now she felt nervous. She stood at the entrance to the space ship. The door slid silently open. M. Hoyvil, her new employer, stood there. He looked down at her, but he didn’t greet her. He didn’t smile or change his expression. But his enormous upward-slanted green eyes s
Hmm. He seemed friendlier when I met him in the viewing room. Was I imagining that? Antaska wondered.
M. Hoyvil stepped back from the door and motioned Antaska inside. Then he turned and took off walking fast. Antaska followed him as fast as she could through the bare, high-ceilinged, curved hallway that circled the space ship’s outer rim.
Never once looking back in her direction, M. Hoyvil walked fast, taking huge strides on his much longer legs. Antaska brushed away the pink hair that kept falling across her almond-shaped gray eyes as she rushed after him with high bounding steps on the spongy floor.
She hoped nothing would fall off the floating cart she pulled behind her. All her few possessions were on the cart and also Potat. The small cat was tranquilized and sleeping to protect her from the shock of this drastic change to her living situation.
Antaska walked as fast as she could, but she fell farther and farther behind M. Hoyvil. In the distance, she saw M. Hoyvil stop and open a panel high in the side of an inner wall. Another tall, thin alien male approached him and stopped about five feet away.
In contrast to M. Hoyvil’s dark, almost-black green hair, this man’s hair was a light lime green shade. Their features were different, but they both had the green skin of their species. They looked kind of like Earth humans. But the tops of their heads were bigger in proportion to the rest—faces with large foreheads and huge eyes that narrowed down to pointed chins.
As Antaska walked toward the two men, she slowed her pace. Her eyes grew large and round with a curiosity that went unnoticed.
M. Hoyvil stopped what he was doing. He turned and stared at the other man, who returned his silent stare. Antaska knew that the Verdantes were telepathic, and she guessed that they were talking.
Still, Antaska felt an inner chill while she waited and watched the two large beings stare at each other in silence. Antaska couldn’t hear their mental talk, but she had a strange feeling of coldness that wasn’t caused by the cool but comfortable ambient temperature of the space ship hallway.
Now Antaska caught up with M. Hoyvil. She stopped a few feet away from the two men. The strange cold feeling seemed to warm and melt away. The second alien turned and looked down at Antaska. The corners of his eyes lifted up too, but he didn’t say anything to her. Then he turned and walked away.
This job seems strange already, Antaska thought. Will it be like this for the next 300 years?
Her new employer looked down at her and then continued on his fast walk. Antaska sped after him. He stopped in front of what seemed to be a tall, narrow doorway. It was unmarked and only distinguishable as a door by the seam around its edges. Still ignoring Antaska, M. Hoyvil pressed his large palm against the wall in a spot that seemed no different than any other spot. A panel opened up at his chest height, which was just over Antaska’s head.
M. Hoyvil lifted his arms and began waving the long six fingers of both hands against something inside the recessed opening. Antaska couldn’t see in from her much shorter height. He finished what he was doing, and the panel closed.
A chime sounded, and the door silently slid up and open. M. Hoyvil went though without stopping to wait for Antaska. The door began to slide back down. She rushed in after him, pulling her cart with the still-sleeping Potat behind her. Thinking of Potat calmed some of Antaska’s nervousness.
The Verdantes let me bring my pet I’m so attached to on their space ship, so they must be a compassionate species, she told herself.
More Verdantes passed by as Antaska and M. Hoyvil walked along, some also followed by humans pulling luggage carts. Antaska and the other humans exchanged glances as they passed. A quick breathless smile, a wave of the free hand.
They’re all nervous too, Antaska realized.
Etchings of tall, narrow doors appeared at random intervals along the interior corridors. The high doorways rose to a dizzying height of about fifteen feet within the even higher hallways. The doors seemed to dwarf even the eight-foot-tall M. Hoyvil.
Antaska tilted her head all the way back to look up. She felt unbalanced by the view of the walls and door markings curving gradually in toward the ceiling.
The behavior of M. Hoyvil was even more unsettling. It was true that their only meeting had been brief, and they had spoke only with sign language. But even with the clear barrier between them in the viewing room, Antaska had thought he was warm and friendly. Now on the space ship, M. Hoyvil seemed like a different person. His continued silence and blank expression seemed to show a complete lack of interest in her.
Antaska had learned in space school classes to expect long periods of silence from her Verdante employer. But the actual experience of being treated as invisible was disturbing. And now, she noticed that the tan ship suit she had been so happy with—made of comfortable stretchy fabric—was the exact shade of the walls. All of the Earth humans wore ship suits of the same color.
M. Hoyvil and the other Verdantes they passed all wore fitted ship suits designed like Antaska’s. But theirs were a bright blue color that showed up in the tan hallways. Both the males and females were around eight feet tall. All of their faces wore the same blank expression as M. Hoyvil’s. Like Earth humans, their hair colors, textures, and eye colors varied, but they all had an un-humanly green shading in their skin and features.
They walked along, and Antaska noticed that M. Hoyvil sometimes looked at the others, but he didn’t acknowledge them. They looked at him but also said nothing.
Of course, they could be speaking telepathically, she realized.
They passed more Verdantes, and still no one spoke out loud. But they didn’t walk in complete silence. Since boarding the space ship, Antaska had noticed a low, soothing humming noise.
It must be the ship’s machinery or ventilation system, she thought.
In silence, M. Hoyvil led Antaska down more long, tall hallways that curved endlessly in toward the space ship’s center.
What do I really know about him, and what have I gotten myself into? Antaska asked herself. In any case, there’s no way I’m staying on Earth. This trip has been my dream for my entire life. A little nervousness would be normal for anyone leaving on a life-long journey into the unknown, working for an alien on an alien space ship.
In her mind, Antaska pictured the images of star systems and galaxies she had spent so many hours studying. Once more, she was filled with the familiar longing to see them up close and to explore their planets.
Antaska stopped worrying about M. Hoyvil’s behavior. Like most Earth humans, she had always accepted the superiority of the Verdantes. Wasn’t that proved by their advanced technology, medical knowledge, ability to travel through space, and mental telepathy?
Anyone would feel intimidated by all that, she told herself.
Chapter 3
Antaska was breathing fast and her leg muscles were burning when M. Hoyvil at last stopped at the tall, narrow etching of a door in the wall. She smothered a sigh of relief.
Strange alien symbols marked the door. At the height of M. Hoyvil’s chest, a raised circle glowed dim in the well-lit hallway. He pressed his large palm against it. The door slid silently up, and he walked through. Antaska followed, with her luggage and Potat, into a circular open space.
A curved Verdante-sized dark green couch rested against the far wall. A large elliptical table, anchored to the floor, stood in front of the couch. Soft dark-brown plush material covered the floor. Instead of the tan shade of Antaska’s uniform, the walls were colored a soft blue. She tipped her head back to see where the walls curved in to form a domed ceiling several feet above M. Hoyvil’s head.
There were no visible light fixtures, but bright but not harsh light glowed uniformly from the walls and ceiling. Two doors led from this big circular main room.
After his long silence, M. Hoyvil spoke to Antaska.
“That door leads to your room,” he said, pointing to one of the doors. “You can go in there and get settled. I’ll get you at 1800 hours when it’s time for dinner in the space ship’s dining hall. Place your palm here to open and close your door. It’s coded to your hand print.”
Antaska went into her new quarters, pulling the cart in with her. She sealed the door closed behind her. This round room was smaller than the outer room. Walls in the same blue color curved up to a much lower dome-shaped ceiling. M. Hoyvil would have to bend down to fit in here, Antaska realized. She felt a sense of relief and comfort to be in an Earth human-sized room, with human-sized furnishings.
