Page 98 of Stripped By the Alien

- Krix’vorr -

I’m pondering the star chart when Sris climbs down from the ceiling and up my leg. “Greetings, Chief Harrower.”

“Sris,” I growl, moderately happy about the interruption. “What do you want to tell me?”

She crawls up and sits on my shoulder. “I hear many things. Did you know Deeg can play tunes on his metal bars? And that Nora enjoys listening to it?”

I make the start chart creature zoom in on a region of space. “I didn’t know that, no. How do you know?”

“Oh, I was attracted by the sounds, too. And I watched from a hiding place. It was the Inquisitor luring Nora there to interview her. I found the questions more important than the answers.”

A wave of anger goes through me. “He interrogated her? Without me present?”

“Actually, Chief Harrower, ‘interrogated’ is too strong a word. He did ask her questions, but he said she could leave any time she wanted. It was a short conversation and she told him nothing of interest. But he seemed to test a theory that Nora is an enemy agent who sought you out specifically to ruin the Brood. You and I know, of course, that it’s a silly idea. But now you know.”

“I suppose he has to try every angle,” I grunt. “But if he’d seen how she moved through the minefield and then blew up, he would know as well as we do that it’s nonsense.”

Sris tucks her many legs in under her. “Perhaps if you told him, he could abandon that path. But he does think she’s bad for you, and because you are who you are, bad for the Brood. It’s the Marankz thing, I’m sure.”

I glance down at her. “What do you know about that, Sris?”

“Just that you and Nora show every sign of being Marankz. I saw it from the first moment, when the lightning started. It creates immense problems for the Brood.”

I have the star chart focus on another area of the region we’re approaching. “I won’t deny that I have some affection for Nora, due to her bravery and skills. But the lightning is not conclusive. We don’t know enough about her species to be sure.”

The servant crab strokes her carapace with one sharp leg. “I won’t quarrel with you, Chief Harrower, after we had the… misunderstanding during our interrogation of Nora. But I will serve you as well as I can, even when I risk angering you. Sir, you are clearly a front runner for being appointed the next Royal Mate. And when you return with the location of the Gzet homeworld, you will become legendary. You will be the obvious choice.”

“I suppose so,” I sigh. Those things have crossed my mind, too.

“You will be the effective ruler of our Brood for ten longcycles,” Sris goes on, “possibly more. There’s every chance the new Queen will simply let you continue making decisions even when she becomes ready to rule herself. You will sire millions of offspring, maybe billions. You can make the Brood better than it has ever been, more powerful, more glorious.”

“That is what a Royal Mate is supposed to do,” I agree. “And this is a good time for it. The other Broods have been weakened by our Queen’s successes. We may attain total dominance, as the first Brood to be so clearly the strongest.”

Sris snaps her claws in her enthusiasm. “Precisely! And if you truly want to protect Nora’s world, which you obviously do, then there’s no better position than Royal Mate. You can simply forbid any exploration of space in that direction. You can outlaw any travel past the minefield. And Nora’s planet will be secret and safe.”

“But Nora will be gone,” I point out. “A Royal Mate only has the Queen.”

“If Nora returned to Earth, all your problems would disappear,” Sris says with a strange kind of patient impatience. “That will remove the Marankz problem and open a clear path for you.”

“The path will only exist if I find the Gzet homeworld,” I remind her.

“Yes, the Inquisitor will kill you both if you don’t find it,” Sris says cheerfully. “And I think he may prefer that. Because it’s become obvious to me that he’s also a candidate to be Royal Mate.”

I stare down at her. “The Inquisitor? You mean to say that the Queen sent a rival to decide whether I live or die?”

“It would be typical of Queen Szum-zic. She enjoys setting her male favorites up against each other.”

“She always did,” I ponder. “And it puts the Inquisitor in a difficult position. If he kills me, his chances improve. But then he also deprives the Queen of her best Chief Harrower. And he will need a really good reason for that. It’s a way for her to test his loyalty. If he murders me for his own gain, he fails that test.”

“She’s old and sly,” Sris says with admiration in her voice. “The new Queen has a big crown to fill.”

I zoom the star chart creature all the way out, so it shows the whole galaxy as a mass of bright points. “It’s the Royal Mate who must fill that crown. And the Inquisitor has never been in space before.”

“The best choice is obvious,” Sris agrees, climbing down from me and halfway up the wall. “But I won’t say who that is, Chief Harrower. You dislike it when I flatter you.”

Nora isn’t in the cabin when I go there.

For a moment I stand in the empty room, Sris's words still circling. Royal Mate, total dominance, billions of offspring. None of them satisfy the way they should. What comes instead is the absence of a particular scent, a particular warmth, a particular voice that would tell me exactly how absurd I'm being.