“Why did you leave?” He asks the question with genuine confusion, as if he really can’t think why I wouldn’t want to hang around him for all that much longer.
“Oh, why?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Right.” I hit him with the finger guns. “Because you’re a maniac.”
He looks offended. I’m actually going to have to spell this out for him.
“You bribed me into getting onto your ship with my life and then you planned to sell me to aliens in some kind of dangerous scam, and then you went absolutely mad with plans to get rich quick. I just want to see the universe, and these ladies will let me do that without any hassle.”
He looks around the bus load of ladies, then back at me. “And this is what you want.”
“It is.”
“Your choice,” he says with a little shrug.
“Yes. My choice.”
“When I have to come and rescue you, I am going to thrash you, and punish your ass inside and out,” he says. There is not much tonal menace in this threat. He says it casually, as if it is an inevitability.
“I don’t think I’m going to need you to rescue me, but thanks anyway.”
He laughs, and in that moment, he is handsome and charming in spite of all his terrible machinations. I’m going to kinda miss him, but I’m not staying with someone who doesn’t give a crap about me and is constantly scheming for wealth and power.
“I’ll see you soon,” he says. “And I’ll make sure I have plenty of lubricant, even though you don’t deserve it.”
He turns and leaves, getting back into his incongruous cruiser. There’s probably a lesson in all that, but I’m not in the mood for lessons. I’m in the mood for good company, candy, and a real chill time.
The space bus gets back on the interstellar highway. The ladies pretend that they didn’t hear any of that conversation, except for one who offers me candy tells me it is never easy having a lover’s tiff. If only she knew.
* * *
A couple hours later, the space bus pulls up on an asteroid, or maybe a planetoid. It has enough gravity to make water stick to it and grow some mossy type of grass, anyway. It also has an orbit of one of the most stunning purple and gold nebulas I have ever laid eyes on.
“It’s dinner time,” the ladies announce to one another with no small measure of excitement.
I am peckish, now they mention it. The sweets were nice, but I am ready for something more substantial.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Something very sweet and tender,” the lady nearest to me says. I’ve mentally called her Doris. I’ve given them all human names that I promise myself I’ll switch out just as soon as I get my tongue around their unpronounceable ones. I’m not just being lazy; from time to time they seem to speak in a way that would require my mouth to go inside out. They make an effort to speak more slowly and simply to me, which I appreciate.
“Sounds nice.”
“Oh, very nice. We’ll just put the pot on, and you can take all your clothes off, dear. They tend to be chewy and ruin the mouthfeel of the stew. Besides, we’re probably going to want to dice you, aren’t we.”
“Definitely! It takes hours to pot roast a whole human. I don’t have that long,” another one says.
It occurs to me that they are talking about eating me in the same dulcet, kindly old lady tones they have been using the entire time. I walked onto their bus like a roast lamb delivering herself. No wonder they’ve been giving me candy. They want me to taste nice.
“I’m not really an eating human,” I try to explain. “I’m a companion human.”
“There’s no real difference, dear. You are young, but not too young not to have developed flavor. You have a good fatty covering too. We’ll be able to save the lard for later meals. Don’t worry, no part of you will go to waste.”
This is apparently supposed to be comforting. It does not have that effect on me at all. I am terrified, looking around for an opportunity for escape. Here’s the problem—the space bus landed on this little asteroid, and I can’t fly through space on my own power. So I’m stuck on a green rock where a very large pot is being prepared for me.
“What do you think, dear? Spicy dressing, or sweet and sour?”
One of the ladies with green and pink hair shows me two boxes. They both have smiling people on them. One of the boxes has orange alien text, and the other has red text. I can’t read it for whatever reason, but I can deduce what the meaning is. This is seasoning for people. It’s a big box too. Heavy and chunky. Enough seasoning for all of me. Maybe for a few of me.