hypnoSnatch (Xeno Relations Book 2)

by Trisha McNary

  She lifted Potat up and hugged her gently. A single tear dripped onto Potat’s fur, but she didn’t complain. The soothing rumble of a purr grew louder inside her little cat throat.

  Suddenly, Potat heard a loud telepathic shout: “Absolutely not! Are you crazy?”

  She would have recognized that male adolescent Verdante voice anywhere. It was her other pet, M. Hoyvil!

  “That’s M. Hoyvil!” said Antaska, who had also recognized the voice. “What’s going on?”

  “Mistress Bawbaw and Master Meeepp are talking to M. Hoyvil about you,” Potat answered. “They’re trying to convince him not to take you along on the trip to outer space.”

  “What!” said Antaska. “What were they saying?”

  “Oh, some stuff about your sensitivity,” Potat answered with typical cat mysterious vagueness.

  “Can you tell me exactly what they said? I need to know this!” Antaska had heard M. Hoyvil’s loud telepathic shout, but she couldn’t hear the rest of the lower-volume conversation. Her telepathic hearing didn’t have the same powerful range as Potat’s.

  “I can tell you exactly what they said,” said Potat, “but I thought you said it’s wrong to listen in on people’s conversations.”

  “Humph!” Antaska fumed. “Well sometimes it just has to be done, and this is one of those times.”

  “That’s exactly what I told you, but you wouldn’t accept that,” said Potat.

  “OK, OK, I accept it. Just tell me what they said,” said Antaska.

  “Fine,” said Potat, with a smug lick of one paw.

  “When they first started talking about you, Mistress Bawbaw said, ‘This human is just too sensitive. The slightest thing upsets her so much that she drops to the ground. Even here on the Verdante planet! What do you think will happen when she’s exposed to the strange places and even stranger beings of the far universe? I suggest you take one of my special pets along instead. They’re hardy and they’re a mixed breed, so they shouldn’t have that kind of sensitivity problem with unusual species and places. And the younger ones have expressed an interest in going.’

  Potat continued. “Then M. Hoyvil said, ‘No! No way!,’

  And then Mistress Bawbaw said, ‘Now, M. Hoyvil, I know you’re young and emotional, so you may be letting your emotions lead you instead of being practical. You’ve become attached to this Earth human, but she isn’t mentally fit to go to space. And she’s too flighty. She’ll probably run off with the first attractive alien she meets.’”

  “Ooohh!” Antaska let out a shocked gasp.

  Potat gave her a pointed look and continued repeating Mistress Bawbaw’s words. “‘Please take the advice of someone older and wiser and take one of my Eeeepps along instead.’”

  “Then there was a pause,” said Potat, “and then M. Hoyvil said, ‘I know you’re older, but this is my decision to make, not yours. You say you’re wiser, but what about Zapop? Do you think I would prefer a companion who acts like that? Following me around like a lovesick puppy? What did you put into his gene mix anyway? And as for your Eeeepps, they’re barely humanoid. And from what I’ve seen of them, their mental fitness is highly questionable!’”

  “And then Master Meeepp said, ‘Don’t talk to your primary female gene contributor like that!’”

  “And Mistress Bawbaw said, ‘Oh, it’s fine. We were all young once. It’s a rough thousand years to go through. But please don’t criticize Zapop. He is the perfect companion for my lonely days on this planet. And it’s none of your business what I put in his gene mix.’”

  “‘My dear, I understand about you needing Zapop while I’m gone, but I don’t understand why you also created those Eeeepps,’ Master Meeepp said.”

  “‘Do you really think one human, no matter how loyal and devoted, could fill the emptiness of your absence? I had to create the Eeeepps to fill the yawning place left in my heart when you’re gone. You know I named them after you. And now M. Hoyvil is leaving too!’ Mistress Bawbaw said.”

  “‘Well, I’m sorry for being rude,’ M. Hoyvil said.”

  “‘I’ll forgive you, M. Hoyvil,’ Mistress Bawbaw said, ‘if you do me the favor of bringing your new human to visit my Eeeepps down in my hideaway tomorrow night. You’ve insulted them, and they’re sensitive too. It will hurt their feelings if they find out she visited the native Earth gene humanoids, but she won’t visit them too.’”

  “‘No! No way! Are you crazy?’” M. Hoyvil said.

  Potat stopped and walked around to face Antaska.

  “So that’s everything about you,” said Potat.

  “Waaahhhh!” A loud trembling telepathic wail blasted into Potat’s head, and she batted at her ears with her paws.

  “I guess you heard that too,” said Potat to Antaska, whose hands were squeezing her head, causing her shiny pink head fur to mold into interesting lumpy shapes.

  “Now Mistress Bawbaw is saying, ‘Look what you’ve done! You woke up M. Bomp! I’ll have to go check on him.’” Potat told Antaska.

  “So I guess that conversation’s over,” said Potat. “Anyway, there’s something important I need to ask you. While you were with the other humans, were you able to hear what they were thinking?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Antaska. “Why do you ask that?”

  Potat explained. “Because now that you’re telepathic, there’s a good chance you’ll start hearing the thoughts of your own species. Like with the Verdantes. They can hear and speak to other telepathic species using mental talk, but they can only hear the thoughts of their own species. That’s usually how it works. Except for cats, of course; we’re special.”

  “Special how?” asked Antaska.

  “Never mind that,” Potat answered. “Anyway, you’ve just started to become telepathic. Maybe you’re not all the way there yet. So at any moment, you might start hearing the thoughts of your kind. And that will be very disturbing when it happens for the first time. But don’t worry, I’ll be here to talk to you about it. If I’m not asleep. Just wait for me to wake up, and then we’ll talk.”

  “What? What?” said Antaska.

  Then little Potat jumped off the bed, walked to the curved wall of the room, and patted it with a tiny paw. A small cat-sized opening appeared.

  “Where are you going?” Antaska asked.

  “M. Hoyvil is on his way back and in need of a cat psychiatrist. Since you adopted him, he’s my p..., responsibility too now,” Potat answered.

  “Wait a minute! What about me? Are you going to just leave me at a time like this? I’m still very upset too!” said Antaska.

  “You are very sleepy. You are tired. Go to sleep.” Potat projected subliminal suggestions.

  “You stop that right now!” said Antaska. “I know you’re trying to do that hypnotism thing, and it’s wrong. I want you to promise never to do that again.”

  “Just this one more time, and then I promise never again,” said Potat, and then she left through the small wall opening, her tail waving goodbye.

  “Anyway, it’s not going to work now. I was able to stop Mistress Bawbaw!” Antaska protested as she flopped down backward on the bed.

  “Hahaha! I’m a lot more powerful than Mistress Bawbaw!” said the little gray cat face in Antaska’s mind just before she fell asleep still in the long gray dress.

  Chapter 4

  That night after dinner, Mistress Bawbaw took a transport tube down to her personal room—the cavernous dwelling of the Eeeepps far beneath the Verdante planet’s surface. As usual, Mistress Bawbaw felt the strong, irresistible need to be with her semihumanoid pets. They didn’t dine with the rest of the humanoids in the large hall higher up in the underground residence. The Eeeepps, genetically part reptile, ate only live bugs, and they were uncomfortable away from the soil of their marked territory.

  On the fast tube ride down, Mistress Bawbaw thought with pride about her Eeeepps. How smart of me to mix the genes of the mysterious huge lizards native to this planet with Earth huma
n genes.

  Although not sentient or very intelligent, the Verdante planet lizards had high emotional sensitivity in a complex way Verdante scientists did not yet understand and continued to study.

  Mistress Bawbaw had known the results would be uncertain when she mixed these lizard genes with human genes, but that hadn’t stopped her. Genetic tinkering was illegal for creating Verdante offspring, and most Verdantes who custom-created their own humanoid pets used genes only from Earth human stock. But Mistress Bawbaw believed in creating out of the box, and just about anything was legal when it came to the use of Earth human genes.

  Two thousand years of creating the same old pets from the same old batch of genes had become boring. Mistress Bawbaw knew from vast frustrating experience that no matter how much she mixed up those genes, she wouldn’t get anything different in any kind of interesting way.

  ‘The Eeeepps are very interesting and very different,’ she had concluded upon their experimental production. But she had no idea how right she was.

  The tube door opened, and Mistress Bawbaw, with superhuman hearing, heard Iiooonaa talking to the other Eeeepps. “Here she comes. It’s time to put our plan into action!”

  “Remember, you all know what to do if she tries to say no,” hissed the oldest male Eeeepp.

  “We know; we know,” hissed the others.

  How cute! thought Mistress Bawbaw. They have a plan. They are so playful and adorably mischievous.

  “Greetings again, my darlings!” she boomed the words out loud in her soft but powerful voice. Mistress Bawbaw approached the Eeeepps where they sat bunched together on two stone benches just outside the entrance door to their private inner grotto.

  Looking down at them from more than twice their height and with love in her huge slanted eyes, the green Verdante woman gazed at the six beings she had created. It was not her way to have physical contact with them. For some reason, this never felt right, although she wouldn’t admit to herself that their part-reptilian skin repulsed her in any way. Instead, she used her telepathic power to beam strong waves of emotional love toward them--in much the same way that she often beamed her love to the Verdante offspring created from more than fifty percent of her own genetic material.

  She knew the Eeeepps weren’t telepathic, but she believed they could feel the love she sent to them. Didn’t wide smiles always spread across their faces after such sendings? And there was that powerful feeling of something sweet, cloying, and unnamable that she always felt them sending back.

  “Aaah!” she sighed at the mere thought of it.

  “How are you doing today, my little ones?” asked Mistress Bawbaw out loud, as the Eeeepps weren’t telepathic.

  “We have missed you, Mistress,” said Iiooonaa.

  “I’ve missed you too, but you know M. Hoyvil is here, and I’ve had to spend time with him and Master Meeepp too of course before they go back out to space,” said Mistress Bawbaw.

  “Ah, M. Hoyvil!” said Iiooonaa. “Ah!” said all the other Eeeepps at once.

  “Didn’t he bring his new human pet with him? We’d so love to meet her. The new pets always visit with the house pets upstairs, but they never spend time with us.” Iiooonaa ended with a sniff.

  “Sad, sad, sad, so sad,” said the rest of the Eeeepps.

  “Oh her!” said Mistress Bawbaw with a dismissive wave of one giant six-fingered hand. “That pet was nothing but trouble on the space ship, and so far, she’s been nothing but trouble here too. I’m sure she could benefit from your superior influence, but M. Hoyvil refuses to allow it. I’ve already asked him actually.”

  “Oh no! All our plans ruined!” wailed Pooquali.

  A loud slap.

  “Ouch!” yelled Pooquali.

  “What was that?” asked Mistress Bawbaw. “What did he mean?”

  “Oh, nothing, Mistress. He’s just a little strange. Anyway, we understand that M. Hoyvil’s pet is young and comes from the barbaric planet Earth. We don’t judge her for rude behavior that would offend less tolerant and intelligent creatures. And of course, she doesn’t have the benefit of your most illustrious ownership. She’s owned by a young and rash adolescent. He should respect your wishes, but we know he doesn’t, and he’s often rude to you too. He should take your advice when you know what’s best for his pet.”

  “True, sad but true,” agreed Mistress Bawbaw with a powerful mental sigh combined with a wave of admiration for her precious pets. Intense emotion tore at her, and a giant tear threatened to fall from the corner of one enormous sea green eye.

  “Ummmm, ahhhh!” sighed the Eeeepps as a group, all with sad smiles.

  Ah! thought Mistress Bawbaw. Their concern for me and for other lesser humanoids is so admirable! But I can tell their feelings were hurt by M. Hoyvil’s refusal to let his pet visit them even though they are too psychologically advanced to say so.

  “M. Hoyvil must apologize to you!” insisted Mistress Bawbaw. “His behavior was rude and unacceptable, and an apology will at least alert him to his failings.”

  “No. No apology is necessary, Mistress,” hissed Iiooonaa, waving her bony-fingered talons up and down. “All we ask for is the gift of his pet’s delightful presence in our personal living quarters. We know she has some behavior issues, and it would be somewhat of a sacrifice for us to have her here, but it would be so good for her! Can you arrange this for us, Mistress?”

  Once more, Mistress Bawbaw stared down at the Eeeepps from her towering height. The flickering light cast by fabricated wood-burning torches haloed her hair and skin in a greenish glow. She stood still as a statue, deep in thought, as the wheels of her gigantic brain slowly turned.

  “Please, please, please!” all the Eeeepps hissed at once, lifting up their claw-fingered hands and pressing them together as if praying to her.

  “Ah, how humble and considerate, and yet so superior you are!” said Mistress Bawbaw, appreciating both the Eeeepps and herself, their genetic designer. “I want to please you, but I’m afraid M. Hoyvil has said no, and Master Meeepp will back him up. Verdante owners--even foolish adolescent owners--always have the final say on anything having to do with their pets. Always.”

  “If you really wanted to help us, you’d go to her room now and invite her while M. Hoyvil is away, Mistress,” said Iiooonaa in a voice dripping drool and sadness. “If you tell her our feelings will be hurt, she will come. We’ve heard she’s one of those sensitive types. You must go now while her cat is asleep; otherwise, cat will interfere.”

  “Nasty, nasty cat!” hissed the Eeeepps around her in a raucous cacophony. “Looks cute and innocent, but they are evil! They are killers!”

  “Do you mean that tiny fur ball?” asked the enormous Mistress Bawbaw. “I barely noticed that little thing. I don’t see how that could do anything. And how do you know it’s asleep?”

  “Oh we know, Mistress, we know,” said all of the Eeeepps.

  “Well anyway, I can’t really do that. If M. Hoyvil found out, he might never speak to me again, and Master Meeepp would be very angry too. And besides, it’s beneath my dignity to go personally to the room of an adolescent’s pet!”

  The Eeeepps said nothing but stared up at Mistress Bawbaw from silent gloomy faces. Some wet sniffles came from their snout-like noses. As if mesmerized, Mistress Bawbaw stared down into their eyes. Deep within her gigantic mind and body, a dark compulsion began to stir, but she fought against it and shook her big head ‘no.’

  “Yes [sigh!], Mistress is too dignified for us. We’ll just stay inside our grotto,” said Iiooonaa with deep regret.

  All the Eeeepps sighed in unison. They bowed their heads and turned their backs on Mistress Bawbaw. She looked down at the small creatures walking away from her single file, disappearing one by one into the dark hole of space behind the stone benches.

  Mistress Bawbaw crouched down and tried to look inside. The focused glow of a video console lit the otherwise complete darkness. A somewhat familiar humanoid face looked out from the console
, but she couldn’t recall who it was, and she didn’t pry into the Eeeepp’s personal intra-humanoid affairs.

  The last Eeeepp disappeared into the doorway. Again, Mistress Bawbaw felt the stirring of compulsion within her, this time even stronger--an unbearable pain--like the sharp pain of chemical substance withdrawal.

  I must do what they want! thought Mistress Bawbaw. I must make them happy!

  “Wait! Come back!” she cried after the Eeeepps. “I will bring you the human pet. Of course, I will! Yes, my darlings. I will go to her room, and I will stay there until she agrees to visit you!” said Mistress Bawbaw.

  “Oh, thank you, Mistress!” said all of them in perfect unison.

  Chapter 5

  Not long after, Antaska was sitting with legs crossed on the round bed in her round room. Her small gray and white cat, Potat, slept curled up in a ball next to her. The dome covering that served as walls and roof to the room was invisible beneath the holograph view she had programed it to play. From every direction, a scene of far-off galaxies in deep space spun slowly around her.

  A thumping sound coming from high up in the holograph made Antaska jump.

  “Hello! May I come in?” Antaska heard the sound of Mistress Bawbaw’s non-telepathic voice.

  “Um, yes?” said Antaska.

  The shape of Mistress Bawbaw’s face began pushing through near the top of the rounded ceiling, and then a hole opened, swallowing a large cluster of galaxies. Antaska shuddered involuntarily, remembering the similar face in her mind the night before. The large green face of Mistress Bawbaw protruded in through the hole.

  “Hello, Antaska,” said Mistress Bawbaw in a strangely monotone voice. “Since M. Hoyvil is out, and you must be bored, I’ve come to invite you to visit my humanoid companions you haven’t met yet. They’re very restful and relaxing to be around. They’re down in my personal room now. Would you like to go?”

  Antaska was already relaxed and didn’t feel like going, and besides, didn’t M. Hoyvil yell “No!” when Mistress Bawbaw made this suggestion in the conversation Potat had eavesdropped on?