Elizabeth had seen many strange and exotic, exciting, bizarre things in her time on the winged aliens’ world. She had narrated them all, not that anybody was listening to her. Now she had an audience, she was suddenly reluctant to speak.
Konan looked down at her, his silver brow rising as if he had forgotten she was there.
“You,” he declared in an accusatory manner. “Are a spy.”
“I’m really not. I promise.”
“My man said you were looking at everything and speaking out loud, describing it with dangerous amounts of detail.”
“What level of detail becomes dangerous?”
“The point at which you come to my attention.”
“Fair. Yes. This does seem to be a dangerous situation. Me, here, before the glowering gaze of a massive, mysterious king, whose brutality is as clear as day, whose eyes sear into me with a glare which makes my stomach…”
“Enough!” Konan thundered. “You will get nowhere by flattering me.”
“I am sorry, sire. Narration is my compulsion. I can stop it if I start writing things down instead, but you didn’t like that either, so now I am entirely at your mercy…”
“That is correct. You are. Now tell me whatever lies you have prepared to tell me in event of your capture.”
“I have no lies. I have only the truth, which will sound like a lie, I know.”
“Tell it, and let me decide.”
“I was abducted from Earth by Dominax.”
“So you are the human he has so famously made his pet.”
“No. I am the human he, er, didn’t notice he had taken with him. I was standing sort of next to them when he activated the whole beeeoowoop transport beam thing that whipped us both up from our planet.”
“You expect me to believe he didn’t notice you?”
“Well, the other girl has blonde hair, and I have brown, and according to almost every narration that means I’m not going to be the favored female.”
“It’s not your hair which makes you recede from attention,” Konan said. “You have a sneaky demeanor. Like a spy. Tell me the truth, and I will spare your life.”
She bit her lower lip and tried to work out what kind of words might sound like the truth to him. Obviously, the truth was not going to work. The truth was too ridiculous to be believed.
“I couldn’t believe it myself,” she said, appealing to his credulity. “I hid in the storage bay of the ship while Dominax leered at the blonde girl. She’d passed out when she was transported. I didn’t. I was aware of every single second of being ripped through space and time, strung out like a noodle and then snapping back together. It was not a pleasant experience. So when I found myself standing behind Dominax, I sneaked away and hid behind some crates in a storage bay instead of getting his attention. Then, when they parked the ship in the spaceship car park, I sneaked out. I figured it would be best not to draw the attention of dangerous aliens.”
“Well. You have found the attention of a much more dangerous alien than Dominax,” Konan said. “And there is no such thing as a spaceship car park.”
“Well, you know what I mean, sire.”
She knew she wasn’t going to be able to talk her way out of this, but she couldn’t help trying. Nervousness made her blather away before the monstrous king.
“The ship was parked in a city for repairs, it seemed, and then I found myself among thousands of strangers and all sorts of aliens and I’ve been describing it all ever since.”
“So you are a spy.”
“Only for myself, your most Highness. I have never had anybody else to report to.”
“I do not believe you. I believe you spied on Dominax, and having done so, you have moved on to spy on me. You are working for the humans, aren’t you.”
“I’m not working for anyone.”
“LIES!” Dominax thundered the word. “You lie with every breath, look, and word, human. You expect me to believe that you were torn from your world without warning only to come and get handsy with my ship?”
He grabbed her by the hair, a thick handful right at the back of her neck, which gave him complete control over her entire body. She stiffened with fear as he dragged her up from his lap to face him properly. Compared to her small form, he was frighteningly large, built in biological superscale. But the mass of his body and the ferocity of his demeanor was not breaking the human being one little bit.
“I didn't know you were inside.”
That was possibly the worst thing she could have said.
“You didn’t know the ship of Konan of Masih contained Konan of Masih?”
“I told you. I’ve been abducted. I don’t know anything. About anybody. I just thought your ship was the most unique, beautiful craft I’d seen out of any of the thousands that docked in Dominax’s berths.”