I make my way to the diner, hoping to see Ava there. I see nobody. Not even the lady alien behind the counter who took such pride in her baked goods yesterday.
“Hey!” I catch sight of the old fellow walking past the window and dart outside to question him.
He greets me with an easy smile, the expression of an alien who has very little to worry about and even less to lose.
“Have you seen the human who was with me?”
He looks around and shrugs. “Can’t say I have.”
Well, that is not good news. I look around. Maybe she’s in here and he just didn’t notice. She can be quite understated sometimes. She just fits in, becomes part of the world around her.
She’s not in here. She’s not on the blasted station. She’s gone and done something incredibly human and run away, I’d put money on it. The old station keeper is my only hope now.
“Have any other ships come or gone since we docked?”
“A handful.”
“Can I see the manifest?”
He shrugs and pushes the book over to me. It’s a manual system, which means it is an honor system. Let’s hope that she didn’t get herself kidnapped by someone with less than pure intentions. Someone like me.
According to the manifest, three ships have departed since we docked. One of them is a mining freighter full of rock-headed monsters known for extreme hostility to any and all species, one is a high-speed skimmer run by a private courier which was only in dock for 0.05 seconds, which means it’s probably running weapons and drugs, and the other is a tour bus of ancient flurbs.
“Not the flurbs,” I mutter to myself. “Any one of them but the flurbs.”
* * *
Ava
“NINETY-NINE BOTTLES OF BLORP ON THE WALL! NINETY-NINE BOTTLES OF BLORP!”
I’ve taught my travel buddies a new song. They don’t quite have all the lyrics yet, but they have the general gist of it and they certainly have the spirit of it. My new companions are all over two hundred years old, so they tell me. They are traveling through the universe on what my perception tells me is a big yellow bus.
They have rubbery blue and purple skin, sometimes tending to green. Their eyes are big and cheerful. They have no noses, which means they’re all mouth breathers. They have sharp teeth, like needles, which could freak me out if I was the prejudiced kind. There is nothing else even remotely threatening looking about them. Their limbs are quite spindly, their necks are so skinny that their bigger heads and the generous puffs of hair atop them is comical in appearance. I think their hair has gone white with age, but nobody on this bus is giving in to that. There’s a rainbow of colors displayed in a great sea of generous curling locks.
I sit amid it all, thoroughly disguised. Nobody asked what I was doing when I got on. They had absolutely no objections with letting me tag along with them. Several of them have given me candy. I’m doing well so far, feeling like the universe may not be such a hostile place after all.
The bus comes to a sudden and screeching halt.
Someone has parked a round ship with potted plants on the windowsills directly in front of the bus’s path. I feel like the bus could probably have gone around, considering there’s not really any actual road, but convention apparently dictates that they go about as if there were one.
It’s Zed, of course. He’s chased me down and he’s going to try to snatch me back. I feel a little thrill of excitement at that revelation.
Sure enough, Zed boards the bus. He is so massive he barely fits. He can’t get past the bars at the front and where the seats narrow down the aisle. He can’t see me either. I’m lost among the colorful hair, stuffing my hand into my mouth to prevent myself from making some involuntary noise that might give me away.
“AVA!” Zed booms my name. “I know you’re here.”
I peer out from among the ladies. I don’t think I’m in any kind of danger from him. He can’t physically reach me, after all, and as much as the ladies on the bus are tolerating the interruption with some interest, I get the idea that he doesn’t really want to cross them, either.
“Hey, Zed, how’s it going?” I lean out from my seat and give him a little finger-y wave. It is very satisfying to see his eyes narrow.
“Come out of there,” he says.
“I think I’m going to stay.”
“Ava. Come. Here. Now.” He tries ordering me in a strict staccato.
“Yeah. Nah,” I refuse, feeling very smug about it. He’s been calling the shots since we met. Now I have something like an advantage. He can’t physically get to me, and the ladies on the bus aren’t exactly handing me over so much as they are trying to politely pretend that none of this is happening. I don’t care about making a scene. Turns out I’m really only wired to care about embarrassing myself in front of humans. When it comes to aliens, I can be as much of a pain in the ass as I like. What freedom!