hypnoSnatch
Xeno Relations
by Trisha McNary
Copyright © 2018 Trisha McNary
Published by Trisha McNary
All Rights Reserved
Includes chapter 1 of Alien Pets
and chapter 1 of Bonded in Space
By Trisha McNary
Cover art by Heather Hamilton-Senter
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Alien Pets
Chapter 1
Bonded in Space
Chapter 1
Prologue
Over one million years in the future, an alien spaceship returned from Earth to its home planet. Antaska, a young adult human, had accepted a job as assistant to M. Hoyvil, an eight-foot-tall Verdante alien. Antaska brought her telepathic cat Potat along on this exploratory journey to outer space.
On the two-month trip from Earth, exposure to the powerful Verdante telepaths had broken Antaska’s natural human barriers to telepathy. Staying in denial was no longer an option. Antaska could hear and understand the telepathic words of the Verdantes and even the mental speech of little Potat. But she hadn’t told M. Hoyvil yet. If the Verdantes knew, they wouldn’t allow her to travel with them. They valued humans as companions for their lack of telepathic abilities. It was uncomfortable for Verdantes to be around their own kind for long because they had to maintain emotionally cold mental shields to keep from reading each other’s thoughts.
Antaska needed time to think over some confusing things she had heard the Verdantes saying mentally to each other. For one thing, it seemed like this wasn’t a typical job. And she had often heard the word ‘pet’ when the Verdantes were talking about their human companions. Also, M. Hoyvil, although 650 years old, was only an adolescent, not an adult. And the Verdantes didn’t allow their females to travel in outer space for some reason having to do with mental telepathy.
“Don’t tell him yet,” advised the little gray and white cat. “Do you want to be stuck on one boring planet for the rest of our lives?”
“OK, I’ll wait, but I hate deceiving him like that,” said Antaska.
“You’re not deceiving him, you’re just waiting till the time is right--like as soon as we get moving into warp space,” said Potat, who had always been able to persuade Antaska to her point of view even before Antaska became telepathic.
Chapter 1
Several hours later, Antaska sat engulfed in the deep cushions of an enormous blue chair. Three other humans sat facing her in similar chairs arranged around a floating stone table. Flickering flames crackled in a huge stone fireplace nearby, muffling their voices. The chairs faced the far side of the large, cavernous room. There, ten-foot-tall, beautiful, and pale green Mistress Bawbaw lounged on an enormous adult Verdante-sized divan.
The three resident humans kept their words soft and sparse, and Antaska took a cue from them, answering and speaking in the same way. The conversation moved at a slow pace. Many pauses to sip a hot brown liquid from delicate but hard plasti-mold cups. More pauses to nibble crumbly food items provided on small plates on the floating table.
“So tell me my dear, have you bonded yet?” Tabxi, an elderly human female, asked Antaska.
Antaska considered the question. ‘Bonded?’ She looked toward Tabxi and Vorche, an elderly man sitting next to Tabxi. On Vorche’s other side was a younger man, Zapop, whose soulful golden eyes were focused across the room on Mistress Bawbaw. Antaska’s turned to look at each of the humans. Her slight movement swished and rustled satiny petticoats under a voluminous gray skirt.
She thought about her regulation tan spaceship suit with regret. So comfortable, so quiet.
But her telepathic cat Potat had insisted that she could not wear it. “No! You can’t go to this party in your ship suit!” Potat had said. “Wear the weird dress they left in here for you, or they’ll be offended.”
Antaska’s thoughts returned to the present question.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand what you mean,” she finally answered.
“Let me explain,” said Tabxi, leaning forward. “I’m talking about that mysterious bond that happens when two beings of two entirely different species meet for the first time and become so attached to each other that they stay together for the rest of their lives--the life of the shorter-lived one anyway. I mean that kind of bond.”
“Oh! I know exactly what you mean,” said Antaska with quiet excitement in her voice. “When I first met my cat Potat, right away, I felt so attached to her that I wanted to keep her with me forever. But I knew I was going to space, and it was best not to take a cat along. I kept planning to take her to the shelter, but for some reason, I could never do it, and we ended up staying together. So yes, I have bonded. I bonded with my cat.”
“She means, ‘have you bonded with M. Hoyvil yet,’” said Zapop in a loud whisper.
“M. Hoyvil? Why would I bond with M. Hoyvil?” Antaska asked in confusion.
She turned toward Zapop, again with a rustle of skirts. But his eyes were already back on the gigantic Verdante woman. Without removing his eyes from Mistress Bawbaw, he lifted his cup to his lips. He sipped and sighed, Antaska already forgotten.
Tabxi resumed the conversation. “Well, you did agree to be M. Hoyvil’s companion for the rest of your life didn’t you? After just one meeting?”
“Yes, I did, but…” Antaska began.
“But there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what all Earth humans do when they’re adopted by a Verdante, and that’s not a problem. The reason I’m asking you this is that sometimes some humans take the bonding too far, in my opinion.”
A snort escaped from the somewhat large nose of Zapop, who sat slouched back in soft tan pants and a brown knit sweater. He pulled his attention away from Mistress Bawbaw for just a moment and absently scratched the furry chest hair that showed at the top of his comfy sweater.
“Yes,” said Tabxi, “many humans become so attached to their Verdante Master or Mistress that it interferes with their forming a normal human relationship.” She looked meaningfully at Zapop. Antaska looked at him too. Zapop looked at Mistress Bawbaw.
“Zapop!” Tabxi addressed him sharply but quietly.
“Huh?” he asked, vigorously shaking the shaggy brown hair on his head as if to clear it.
“Doesn’t Antaska look lovely tonight in her becoming gray dress?” Tabxi asked him.
Zapop turned toward Antaska and looked her up and down.
“Why, yes she does. As you know, that dress is one of my favorites. She wears it well,” he answered before his eyes pulled back to the enormous green voluptuous sight of Mistress Bawbaw.
“So, Antaska, do you think you might be interested in forming a romantic bond with an affectionate but lonely human male here on the Verdante planet before you take off into space?” asked Tabxi.
Antaska froze. Her gray eyes n
arrowed, and her kicking feet stiffened.
“Someone to think about on the long, tedious days of the voyage. What do you say?” Tabxi pressed.
Antaska looked at Zapop again. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the conversation. Antaska’s mind felt blank. She could not think of a good answer.
What is going on here? Antaska wondered.
She felt uncomfortable.
I wish Potat were here. She’d know how to handle this, she thought wistfully.
At that moment, the little gray and white cat was fast asleep on a pillow on Antaska’s round bed in her round dome-covered room.
Just before going to sleep, Potat had complained to her telepathically. “Those annoying trees are sending me another message! It’s less of a bore to hear it from dreamland. That booming collective one-word-per-hour voice is too tedious! Don’t they know cats live and think at seven times the speed of an Earth human?”
A telepathic sigh.
“Oh well. I’m five hours short of my seventeen hours’ sleep today anyway. Sorry I can’t go with you, but I think you’ll be safe enough without me this time. I smelled some evil reptiles when we landed on this planet, but they aren’t close by right now.”
Then Potat had curled up in a small furry ball, asleep in an instant.
Once again, Antaska pulled her mind back to the present to answer Tabxi. “Well, I don’t really know what to say,” she said lamely.
“Ah! That means you might consider bonding.” Tabxi’s soft voice held the satisfied tone of one who had scored a victory.
Vorche’s space-tanned balding head nodded as if pleased, and Zapop’s younger brown-haired head nodded too, his attention back on the humans. Zapop uncrossed his legs and leaned toward Antaska.
All three humans looked at Antaska, as if waiting for her to say more.
“Well…well…,” she began, “actually, thank you, but we were encouraged in space prep school not to get involved romantically because I’ll be in outer space for the next hundred years, you know, and that kind of involvement would only result in a painful separation,” she finished in a rush, proud of herself for being so diplomatic.
“But maybe the Verdantes would let you take him along with you,” Tabxi pressed. “I’m sure M. Hoyvil wouldn’t mind.” Vorche smiled and nodded in agreement.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Antaska.
“Well, of course he won’t mind. You know he’ll be out every night this week at the Verdante adolescent social events looking for his future life mate. That’s all he’ll be thinking about,” said Tabxi. And Vorche, Zapop, and Tabxi all chuckled.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Antaska. “I meant I just don’t know about that.”
“Well then, what do you know about?” asked Zapop with a slight growl in his voice.
Suddenly, Antaska felt even more coldness in the room. Extreme coldness. Emotional coldness.
The other humans sat silent, waiting for her answer, sipping and nibbling. They didn’t seem to notice the coldness. Tabxi straightened her already straight dark blue fabricated-wool skirt. Her wrinkled hands, darkened almost black, evidenced a long-time spacer’s exposure to starlight. Smooth-skinned Zapop scratched behind a large ear, absently twitching a foot at the same time, and then turned back toward Mistress Bawbaw.
Antaska looked across the room. Master Meeepp and another enormous Verdante man had entered the room and were storing large unidentifiable objects in compartments in the walls. They kept at least six feet apart, but they had raised the mental barriers that blocked them from reading each other’s thoughts.
Instinctively, Antaska rubbed the tawny skin on her bare upper arms, but it made no difference. The movement tracked Zapop’s eyes sideways from Mistress Bawbaw to Antaska’s toned arms. Then up to shapely shoulders and bright pink hair, lustrous in the fire’s glow, that brushed the shoulders. Small dusky mouth, pointy nose and chin. Just for a second or two.
Antaska, unaware of Zapop’s brief stare, looked at Master Meeepp, in brown work clothes instead of the bright red ship suit that adult Verdantes always wore on space ships. Lethal muscles bulged under plain brown cloth. From this distance, she could see the sharp features in his deep green face, large upward-slanted blue-green eyes now hard and narrowed. For once, he looked less like an eleven-foot-high mountain and more like a humanoid--a dangerous humanoid.
The Verdantes far surpassed humans in technological and physiological advancement. But to Antaska, seeing them so silent, huge, powerful and brooding, tense with unspoken emotions, gave them the feel of humanoids at a barbaric phase of development. Raw, earthy and animalistic. Culture shock threatened to raise its dizzying head. Antaska took a deep breath and pushed it away.
Across from Master Meeepp on her humongous divan, un-Earthly beautiful Mistress Bawbaw stretched perfectly shaped large pale green arms above her head. Alabaster statue-like sensuality in tints of green. Lips like slices of ripe avocado.
Antaska thought about her. Mistress Bawbaw looks so happy and content, but is she really happy stuck on this planet, always waiting for Master Meeepp to return? she wondered. Never to explore new worlds? Never to discover unknown and bizarre species?
Antaska sighed, once again attracting the attention of Zapop.
Then Master Meeepp looked at Mistress Bawbaw, light green skin covered only where propriety demanded in filmy deep green fabric. An intense, unreadable look. Static electricity sizzled through the coldness.
The other humans were still waiting for Antaska to answer. Tabxi nudged Vorche, who was leaning back in his chair with eyes closing. Zapop covered an enormous yawn with a large, somewhat hairy hand.
“Dear?” Tabxi prompted.
Antaska returned her attention to Tabxi. The tense chill remained. She tapped nervously at the hems of her petticoats with the pointy toes of black lace-up ankle boots.
I don’t really know to say without offending these people, she thought.
Her training in protocol for interacting with alien cultures had not prepared her for this situation. She crossed her arms and tried to hide her discomfort.
“I’m sorry, but must I decline your kind offer,” she said to Zapop at last.
“Tut, tut,” said both Tabxi and Vorche not quite in unison.
And Zapop said, “Did you really think I wanted to go to outer space with you? You’re much too skinny, and you’re much too short.”
“Now, now,” said Tabxi.
“I’m not short! I’m six feet tall!” Antaska answered, beginning to raise her voice.
“Whatever!” said Zapop, also getting louder.
“Shush!” said Vorche and Tabxi, and both made downward waving motions with their hands.
Zapop sucked in an offended breath. “Don’t you shush me!”
“You should know better, Zapop,” said Vorche. “She’s new, but you know we’re not supposed to disturb the Master and Mistress.”
“Now, now, it’s quite all right,” Tabxi said, patting Zapop’s arm. “They haven’t noticed, so there’s no harm done. But we need to drop this subject that’s getting everyone so worked up. We tried, but this young female has told us her preference, and we have to accept that.”
Zapop turned and snarled at Tabxi, and she removed her hand from his arm.
“Once again, you have tried, but you have not helped me at all,” he said. “I’m not sure why you keep trying to interfere in my life.”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” said Tabxi. “You know we’re concerned about you, and all we want is for you to bond normally with a person of your own species.”
“Now you’re saying I’m not normal!” Zapop criticized Tabxi in a whispery irritated voice. “You’re the one who’s abnormal. A freak of nature who left your Verdante Mistress for Vorche!”
Antaska’s almond eyes widened in surprise.
“Ah, that was an exciting time,” said Vorche, breaking into the conversation with his memories of the past. “The scandal--the tears--th
e eventual outcome of young love conquering all!”
Vorche and Tabxi turned to look at each other and shared a secret smile.
“You’re the ones who are abnormal,” grumbled Zapop, “and this woman is abnormal too. Bonding with a cat!”
“Don’t mind him, dearie,” Tabxi spoke aside to Antaska. “He gets a little grumpy when the Master is home. Unfortunately, as I was saying, the affection some humans feel for their Verdantes sometimes becomes more like obsession.”
Zapop muttered under his breath as Tabxi kept talking.
“But it only causes heartache for these humans. The Verdantes are only attracted romantically to other Verdantes. The affection they feel for humans is exactly what a different and very superior species would feel for a much lesser species they might adopt for companionship. Like what you feel for your cat, for example.”
Antaska didn’t reply. If Potat somehow found out that Antaska claimed to be a superior species, there would be trouble.
Zapop resumed his low-voiced rant. “Anyway, you two feel sorry for me because you think I’m bothered by Master Meeepp being here, but I’m not. Here’s only here for a few weeks out of every year. It’s Mistress Bawbaw’s other pets that bother me. You know, her ‘special creations’ she keeps down below in her personal chamber. She spends more and more time with those freaks and less and less time with me.”
“Well, they’re what worries us too, actually,” said Vorche. “In fact, we think it would be much better for you to get off this planet. And with those, ah…beings, in the mix, your relationship with Mistress Bawbaw is freakish by anyone’s standards.”
Zapop’s face flushed red. “Oh really!” he said. “What makes you the relationship expert, Vorche? Flying around in space with Master Meeepp for the past two hundred and fifty years is all you’ve done. What do you know about life and love? What do any of you know? You’re the freaks, all of you. So I guess this new one who claims to be bonded with a cat will fit right in. I’m the only one here who’s normal,” Zapop’s voice rose. “I’m the only normal human in a household full of freaks.”
Antaska and Tabxi both gasped, and Vorche muttered something incomprehensible.
hypnoSnatch (Xeno Relations Book 2) Page 1