No One Likes Humans (Detectives in Space 1)
First Novel of the Science-Fiction Series
By Clare Solomon
Amazon Kindle Edition
Copyright 2020 Clare Solomon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the prior permission in writing of the author, except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews.
All names, places, characters and incidents in this book are fictional and any resemblance to any person, business, place or event is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Amai Designs.
Chapter One
NICK TOOK fast shallow breaths which echoed back to him inside the moist confines of his oxygen suit and, over of the sound of that, leaves rustled and darph roots snapped underfoot as their pursuers got closer. Arm around his sister’s waist, he took as much of her weight as possible but, with her twisted ankle, they could only hobble along – like some three-legged creature – and the suit’s awkward shape made it impossible for him to carry her. Poppy was his little sister, his responsibility: he had to do something to protect her.
“Stay still,” he whispered, pausing. “I’m going to make as much noise as possible and lead them away. Give me a minute to make sure you’re free of them and then get back to the ship. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
“Don’t get caught.” She put a hand against the golden bark of a tree to steady herself as he let go of her.
He squeezed her arm and left her alone, immediately doubting his decision even as he hurried in the opposite direction. Her ankle would cause her a lot of pain and she would struggle to reach the ship, let alone outrun any pursuer. He swept his hand through dry leaves as he ran in the opposite direction, hoping the sound would attract the attention of the approaching aliens. He paused, fear rushing through him at the thought of them catching Poppy and, as he looked round, he glimpsed the green suit of one of the aliens. The woman shouted to her colleagues and raced towards him, more clomping steps following.
At least he didn’t need to worry about Poppy now. He put on a burst of speed, slowed by the bulk of the oxygen suit which didn’t fit properly and clanked against his back with his every movement. If he survived this, he would be covered in bruises from the damned thing tomorrow and he could feel blood dripped from the cut on his arm but there was no time to worry about that.
The footsteps remained right behind him no matter how many times he changed direction. Had he given Poppy enough time to reach the safety of the ship? Not yet, he answered himself and kept going, ignoring the stitch in his side and his blurry vision from where his breath was fogging the glass of the oxygen suit.
He counted out another five minutes, forcing himself not to slow down despite his body’s pleas to do just that. He still hadn’t shaken off the aliens and, having got their kingdom accused of espionage and murder, he wouldn’t survive if they caught him.
Close to collapse, he finally turned and headed back in the direction of the ship, nearly colliding with one of the aliens. It reached out several long double-jointed arms towards him, two of them holding knives, and he only just evaded them, dodging round the huge bulk of a tree and racing on.
He could have cried with relief when he saw dark shape of The Prince, sitting beyond the edge of the forest like a giant slug. The docking bay door slid open as he approached and he ran inside and sank to his knees, reaching for the fastening of his helmet. Poppy closed the door behind him and slid down the wall to sit on the metal floor opposite him. She had got halfway out of her own oxygen suit before, presumably, giving up and her face was pinched, her injured leg pushed out stiffly on the floor in front of her.
“Are you okay?” he checked and she glared at him. “Fine: dumb question. At least we’re alive.”
There were sounds from the corridor and, holding his bleeding arm, he turned towards them as Prince marched in, dressed in one of his ludicrous outfits: all high boots and a billowing shirt. The captain looked down at them, sprawled, bedraggled on the floor and said, “Where’s my fee?”
Poppy slowly reached into a trouser pocket, within the lower half of the oxygen suit, and drew out a pouch, which she tossed to him. Prince opened it and pulled out one of the gems, his expression brightening as he gazed at it. “We have another case – you’ll begin work tomorrow,” he said as he turned away.
“Could you tell Keith we need his medical help?” Nick said but the captain didn’t bother to answer, still absorbed in his study of the jewels as he left them. Nick ignored a stab of anger and dragged himself to his feet, walking over to lean down and hold out a hand to help his sister stand.
She stared at it, unmoving, and then they both jumped at the sound of people pounding on the docking bay door: the aliens had found them.
He sighed and let his hand drop, walking instead to the intercom on the wall. “Lyn, could you get the ship going? We have some unfriendly aliens trying to break in.”
“I’ll check with the captain,” she said and disconnected the call.
“Fine,” he muttered to himself, giving up. The ship was titanium-sefajom alloy designed to survive the enormous pressures of space, so it wasn’t as if the aliens could get inside. He reached for his sister again and she grabbed his hand and held on tightly as she pulled herself up onto one leg, the other bent and held off the floor.
They nearly toppled over as the ship began to move, taking off and leaving one planet behind them to move towards whatever new disaster lay ahead.
Chapter Two
“PURPLE-ASS cares for no one,” Dee said in a sympathetic way as Nick told his friend what had happened on the planet. Keith had stitched up his arm and, although he hadn’t used enough anaesthetic, Nick had injected himself with a large dose of painkiller afterwards and was feeling vaguely trippy, the colours around him brighter than usual and he had to an unexpected desire to giggle. Poppy was resting safely in her room with bags of ice against her swollen ankle and Nick had come to Engineering in the aft section of the ship in search of company.
“It’s true,” he said, belatedly agreeing with Dee’s assessment of the captain, Dee’s swirling blue eye having a more hypnotic effect on him than usual as they faced each other, the other engineers working around them. No one liked Prince – apart from Sycophants One and Two – but, unfortunately, they all had to obey him. Nick missed Earth and the rest of his family – he hadn’t seen his parents in two years now and he had no idea if it would ever be safe for him and Poppy to spend time with them again.
“Purple-Ass wants Dee to leave ship.”
It took Nick a moment to mentally translate the words and he straightened and stared at Dee, the youngest and gentlest of the engineers, in horror. “What are you talking about? Do you mean he wants to fire you?”
Aae – who was sitting with Bee nearby on chairs that were too large for them, repairing a maintenance bot – answered, “Captain said couldn’t pay for four engineers any longer and Dee must go. We said captain could find himself new ship and he shouted that he owned our ship and could do what liked.”
The captain had won the ship off the engineers through trickery and they had stayed because they felt a connection with it but the bond they had with each other was just as strong. Prince couldn’t split them up: it was beyond heartless. “I’ll talk to him. We won’t let him do that.” He reached out a hand to touch Dee’s blue arm, avoiding the row of ears running down it. “It’ll be okay.”
“Nick is good friend,” Dee said. “Don’t get unemployed too.”
“I won’t.” He got to his feet and went in search of Prince who was relaxing in his chair in the control room. Keith – aka Sycophant Two – had a station behind him a
nd Poppy was here too instead of resting her leg, the virtual human avatars of their computers filling the rest of the small room. The captain was telling her about the new case, something about another murder, when Nick interrupted from the doorway.
“How could you threaten to fire Dee?” he asked. “Dee belongs with its companions and this ship.”
“One is speaking,” Prince complained, putting on airs as if his name meant that he really was royalty. “My staffing decisions are nothing to do with you.”
“It would kill Dee to have to leave the ship and the other engineers. Do you get the fact that, in some ways, they’re one person?” Their biology meant that the four of them could meld into one larger lifeform. “They can’t function properly without each other.”
“I do not run a charitable organisation.”
“You’ve just been paid a small fortune because of the work of me and Poppy. I know how much those gems are worth...”
“Nick, stop it!” Poppy hissed. “This is nothing to do with us.”
He looked at her in shock. “How can you say that? They’re my friends and this could destroy them.”
“The only people I’ll keep aboard my ship are ones who earn their keep,” Prince said. “Your sister is right – you should worry about your own job, not that of anyone else.”
“Then the engineers will all leave together and I’ll go with them. Good luck running a ship and a detective agency without any of us.” He could feel his sister glowering at him but he kept his eyes on the captain.
“It’s not hard to solve crimes,” said Prince, who had never solved anything in his life. “I’ll reduce everyone’s salaries to keep Dee here but you had better make sure it’s worth my while to allow you to stay. You’re not particularly clever or useful so don’t think I can’t replace you as easily as that.” He tried to click his fingers together but, encased in silky gloves, they slid away. He pulled off one glove and attempted the gesture again but still couldn’t manage it. He made a shooing motion instead. “Oh, just depart – you have ruined my good mood. Keith?”
Sycophant Two jumped up and hurried to the captain’s side as Nick left, Poppy on his heels, a crutch in her hand to take half her weight, but she still looked as if she was in pain.
“Be careful of your ankle,” Nick said, reaching out to her.
She slapped away his hand. “Are you a total moron? Why would you goad him like that?”
“Dee needs...”
“I don’t give a damn about Dee or anyone except for the two of us, because I know that none of them would ever stick out their necks to help us. Given how volatile Prince is, you’d better be careful from now on. You really let me down in there and if you end up getting us both fired I’ll never forgive you.”
She pushed the metal crutch down on the floor with a thud and then took another step with her good foot, leaving him behind. He watched her go, smarting at her comments. She didn’t understand the link between the four engineers. At least Dee was safe now, though; that was mattered the most.
Working on The Prince, he had tried to develop a thick skin. Where the captain was concerned, he had mostly succeeded, since it wasn’t as if he cared what Prince thought of him. Poppy was a different matter, though – no one could make him feel more useless than his sister could. He didn’t believe what she had said about not being able to depend on anyone else, but the captain was more than capable of sacking them over the tiniest issue. They had nowhere else to go so Nick should have found away to make his point in a more diplomatic way.
If he worked hard to get the next case solved quickly, perhaps they would get over their anger with him. He pushed away his unhappiness – a soul-deep depression that seldom went away these days – and followed Poppy to find out about the new investigation.
Chapter Three
NICK STRUGGLED through snow that nearly came up to his knees to reach the castle, home of the murder victim, Kass du Lissin. He had managed to convince Poppy to stay aboard the ship but she had still insisted on giving him a list of instructions, as if he were a child who’d never investigated anything before, or as if he was the idiot she had previously called him.
The ship had landed in a field to the left of a town and the castle was at the far end of the buildings. The planet Ocean was ninety percent sea and, ironically, many of its shops and houses were shaped like umbrellas and lifted up on stilts that stopped them getting flooded by the endless snow and rain. Wet and freezing cold, he could see no appeal in living on Ocean – he had only been here a matter of minutes and he was already looking forward to leaving.
He paused and glanced ahead, his eyes widening. He had assumed that calling the du Lissin home a castle had been an exaggeration but in front of him was one of the grandest buildings he’d ever seen: four storeys high and twice that width, it was made out of some kind of shiny purple stone that glittered even in this grey, stormy weather.
The long cobbled path in front of the castle had been cleared of snow, so he could walk properly again and he speeded up, looking forward to escaping the icy wind. There was six robicles – robot vehicles that encased their drivers in thirty feet of metal – blocking his view of the front of the house. Either the family had guests or they were showing off their wealth.
He headed between the legs of two robicles and the arched entrance was in front of him. The door opened before he even reached it so his arrival must have been expected. That wasn’t too surprising since no one could miss the noisy landing of The Prince.
“Ember du Lissin?” he asked the human inside the hall.
“The family and their legal professionals are alert for you,” she said or, at least, that was what his translator told him, but it was a useless thing that Prince had been promising to replace since they joined the crew. He usually had to guess half of what people said to him.
She led him past expensive furniture that glowed as if lit from within by a bright fire. Three-dimensional holo-paintings were hung on all the walls and the carpet under his feet felt thick and luxurious. They entered a room and he paused as nine pairs of eyes swivelled in his direction from the people who sat around a table that was larger than his quarters on The Prince.
“Er, hi, I’m Nick Thomson, an investigator with Prince Detective Agency.”
An alien with green fur disappeared from its seat and reappeared in front of him. “Seahorse!” it said and Nick wondered if his translator was just making things up to mess with him. The alien spoke again. “I am Gu, leader of legals for du Lissin family and I am forced to tell you that you are ruining your time in coming here. The family will find killer without wish for your shop.”
Well, that made even less sense than usual. “Are you saying you don’t want us to solve the murder? We were asked to come here.”
“Ocean government did not ask family before unknown word you to visit. We will deal with difficulties.”
“I...”
“Mr Thomson, I am Ember du Lissin and I say for my entire family. Your agency is not wanted and should go Ocean.” The woman had long brown hair and looked no older than her mid-thirties, so she had either had expensive beauty treatments or was using computer appearance alteration, since he had read that she was in her fifties. The two smartly dressed women with her must be her daughters or one of them could be a niece.
Prince would be furious if they didn’t get to solve the case and he was bound to blame Nick for them coming all the way here for no reason if he gave up now. “My agency was hired, whether by the planet’s government or you, and we won’t go anywhere without catching the killer, not unless the people who asked us to come here take back the request and pay a partial fee for wasting our time.”
“That is not family worry,” the solicitor said. “You should departure.”
Left with no other option, Nick let himself be led out of the castle by the woman who had shown him in. As he got outside, still trying to come up with a way to salvage the situation, he heard the distant whooshing sound of
the ship’s engines switching on in preparation for take off. His heart dropped. He fumbled for his hyper phone just as it began to ring. He pressed the receiver and Poppy’s face appeared in the air in front of him.
“What’s going on? Is the captain abandoning me over this case? Where are you?”
“Nick, calm down. Nothing’s wrong. We just have to collect some kind of permit so we can legally do work on Ocean or we’ll be arrested. The captain just found out about it and panicked, insisting on going straight away without you to the nearby government office, but we’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“No, Poppy, there’s no point...” His words were drowned by the high-pitched noise of the ship heading upwards and Poppy’s head vanished. He swore and, as the sounds receded, he rang his sister back to tell her they weren’t wanted here, but his phone couldn’t connect, which was weird. It was his own hy-phone not some rubbish Prince had bought cheaply and it should work anywhere in the universe, aside from the usual black hole interference or inter-dimensional difficulties. He tried once again but still couldn’t get through.
It was only when he shivered that he noticed how cold he was. He may as well take a look round the nearby town and find somewhere warm to wait for The Prince to return. As he began walking and put his phone away he noticed an alien behind him – it must be someone on an errand from the castle.
He headed into a residential area and two more aliens walked purposefully towards him. They were all the same race – one he didn’t recognise – with eight legs, slimy-looking skin and faces with long snouts. He glanced behind him and saw that the first one had speeded up. He had no idea what was going on but this wasn’t good.
He tried to cross the street but the aliens sprinted after him and, before he could react, one of them punched him in the stomach. He doubled over in pain and they grabbed his arms.
“Hey, what are you doing?” someone shouted.
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