hypnoSnatch (Xeno Relations Book 2)

by Trisha McNary

“I’ll tell,” said a high, squeaky voice of Apostrophe.

  “Tell him, then,” said Iiooonaa, gesturing her forward, and the smaller but rounder Eeeepp joined her front and center of the video monitor.

  Apostrophe took in a deep breath and started talking. “When M. Hoyvil was going to Earth to pick a pet, Mistress said, ‘Why don’t you take one of my Eeeepps into space with you?’ and he just laughed--you know how the Verdantes laugh by crinkling their eyes up--that’s what he did. Then he brought her back with her shiny pink hair! And Mistress said she was cute! She never says we’re cute! And then we found out that you were chasing her around the spaceship. You never chased us around!”

  Apostrophe sniffed and tucked her head against Iiooonaa’s shoulder.

  “Aw,” said Eegor. “That one’s kind of cute in a creepy sort of way.”

  Apostrophe looked up at Eegor and smiled an adoring smile.

  “Back to your place now, Apostrophe,” said Iiooonaa, giving her a shove.

  “So, Eegor,” she said. “Setting this up will be a lot of work for us. A lot of planning, a lot of people to talk to, a lot of our time and energy spent. So it’s going to cost you extra. I’m afraid that we’ll have to increase our price for doing this for you, Eegor.”

  “Increase to what?” he asked.

  “Instead of just attending one of our special parties, we want you here at least once a week--in twenty-five years when you’re released from confinement in your Master’s residence.”

  “Twice, twice!” said the Eeeepps behind Iiooonaa. “Party! Party!”

  “Twice it is!” said Iiooonaa.

  “Sorry losers, but that’s not the way it’s gonna be.” Eegor smiled a feral smile. “You’re not the only one who knows how to make a videotape. I’ve got you saying you were gonna try to rape and kill that pink-haired bitch. I might be kept in solitary for life, but you things will probably be put to sleep for what you’ve already done.”

  “Not tired!” insisted Pooquali.

  “Mistress would never allow that!” said Iiooonaa, “but I’ll call it a stalemate for now.”

  Imitating what Eegor had done earlier, Iiooonaa moved in closer to edge of the screen, getting as much in his face as possible. She lifted one eyebrow and glared beady yellow eyes into his beautiful blue eyes.

  “Just know that we intend to get what we want from you. We don’t give up, and we are one hundred times more devious and treacherous than you are!”

  “Whatever,” said Eegor, flopping down in his chair. “Just tell me how it goes.”

  “Video off,” he said at the same time that Iiooonaa was starting to say something else.

  Chapter 7

  Three months later, the Verdante spaceship carrying Antaska, Potat, and M. Hoyvil docked at Tri-Galaxies space station, the nearest station on their way out into deep space. While in the station for about a week, the ship’s captain and navigators would get the latest information from other travelers before heading out on their own explorations. The crew would also stock up on supplies to sustain them on the 100-year voyage through unknown space.

  While parked at the station, most passengers and crew wouldn’t stay on the ship. M. Hoyvil and Antaska each had rooms on the station sized for their species and designed to accommodate Potat. They planned to explore the station and observe some of other species who were peaceful allies of the Verdantes. Master Meeepp and some adult Verdantes, too large to comfortably travel into the far reaches of space, came along on the trip as far as the space station but would be returning back to the Verdante planet.

  Antaska couldn’t contain her excitement as she sat next to M. Hoyvil on a booster seat that raised her high enough to reach her food on the table. Hidden under the table, her feet kicked and floated in one-half Earth gravity. She looked up at her little cat Potat asleep on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder. At over eight feet tall, he was heavier than Antaska but still slim for his height. Between his collar bone and shoulder blade, Potat was curled up in the cavity that was just her size.

  It’s too bad Potat is asleep, thought Antaska. At last, we’re finally seeing some real aliens. Not just the mutant Earth humans some bored Verdante female created in her gene lab.

  Antaska brushed back unnaturally bright pink hair from her almond-shaped gray eyes to get a clearer view. Close by, she saw more groups of adolescent Verdantes with their human companions. Off to one side of the young Verdantes sat a small group of larger adults, including Master Meeepp, and their own human companions, including Tabxi and Vorche. Antaska waved over at the elderly humans, and they waved back.

  Beyond the Verdantes around the huge room, more alien humanoids, distinctly different than Earth humans or Verdantes, sat bunched together in groups of their own kind. Only in a few cases, aliens of two different types sat at the same table. Antaska noticed that none of these aliens had human companions or companions of another species for each traveler like the Verdantes did.

  Why are the Verdantes different? she wondered.

  Just then, a small group of about six humanoid aliens approached. Like most humanoid aliens Antaska had seen so far, they loomed about a half foot taller than the average height of Earthlings. A lot of the extra height seemed to come from their much bigger heads. The tops of the Verdantes’ heads were proportionally larger than Earthling heads too, but of all these aliens, only the Verdantes were the size of giants. Antaska wondered about this too.

  As this group of passed, they turned to stare at the young Verdantes and humans. Antaska looked up at M. Hoyvil and was surprised to see him glaring at them—his enormous green eyes narrowed to slits with their corners lowered. The other Verdantes were glaring too, and all their conversation—both telepathic and sign language—was suddenly silent. The hum of telepathic conversion from aliens seated all around stopped too.

  The group paused right in front of Antaska’s table. She tried not to stare and lowered her face toward her food, but she couldn’t help peeking out through the curtain of shiny pink hair that veiled her eyes. Plain faced and dressed in forgettable clothes in shades of tan and brown, this group of aliens seemed to take an interest in M. Hoyvil and his friends. Antaska looked, but her eyes slid off the sharp yet blurred planes of their deep blue faces. In spite of her repeated curious efforts, she couldn’t get a good look at the newcomers.

  The absence of either telepathic or verbal conversation in the room became deafening. One of the aliens stopped in front of M. Hoyvil.

  He spoke in a smooth telepathic voice that resonated with musical tones. “Relax tree boy, we’re not interested in your primitive human pets.”

  Antaska gasped involuntarily, and the out-of-focus face of the speaker turned toward her. Large strange eyes misted by swirling white clouds sought her own grey human eyes. Antaska felt fuzzy. Then she heard the soft sound of fading telepathic laughter as the aliens walked away.

  “Who were they?” she asked M. Hoyvil.

  “Those are the scum of the universe Woogah. Unfortunately, they’re allowed in the space station because they trade the nutritional molds most species use on long space voyages. They’re the reason our females can’t travel in space, by the way. But they don’t bother with Earth human females, so don’t worry.”

  But Antaska knew M. Hoyvil’s moods by now, and he still seemed tense.

  Feeling like she had seen enough aliens for now, Antaska became interested in the other Earth humans seated around the table. She smiled and waved but didn’t talk to them. Their much larger Verdante ‘employers’ sat between them. This seating arrangement made it impossible for the Earthlings to talk out loud to each other. But it allowed the Verdantes to be together without being uncomfortable. The humans seated between them buffered the emotional coldness caused by the Verdantes’ mental shields.

  For the first time, Antaska wondered why the other aliens in the room didn’t have any companions of another species to provide the same effect.

  Of course, physical separation didn’t stop the telepathic Verdant
es from communicating with each other. M. Hoyvil immediately became involved in a mental conversation with another Verdante, M. Gruutin, sitting across the table.

  Except for clinking of silverware on plates, shuffling of feet, and other dining sounds, complete silence filled the large dining hall. Antaska was used to this from her time spent with the Verdantes. Mental telepathy evolved in humanoids along with the ability for sub-light speed space travel. So all the other species present, except the Earthlings, were telepathic. The loud mental speech of many alien diners in Antaska’s head more than made up for the lack of sound heard through her ears.

  Antaska turned her attention back to her food. M. Hoyvil was talking telepathically to M. Gruutin again. More robust than the lanky M. Hoyvil, his curly hair was a lighter green shade than M. Hoyvil’s straight, almost black, dark green hair.

  To speak among themselves, the humans imitated the Verdantes and used their own more basic sign language. The Verdante adolescents chewed their food and drank their beverages while carrying on multiple conversations with both mental speech and sign language.

  Antaska tried not to pay attention, but the intense telepathic conversation between M. Hoyvil and his friend was difficult to ignore.

  The brief encounter with the Woogahs had left M. Hoyvil too angry to eat. He stabbed his food with his fork, then spoke telepathically to M. Gruutin across from him.

  “Something must be done to stop these Woogahs! They’re destroying the hopes and dreams of our species! I understand the philosophy of not interfering with the breeding practices of other species, but this is nothing less than kidnapping and slavery. And it’s not their own species that they enslave. And not only that, but it’s unfair to all the female humanoids in the universe who want to travel in space but can’t. I think it might even be making some of them mentally unstable.”

  “I agree with you. The Woogahs are despicable,” said M. Gruutin, “but rules are made by the adults, as you know. We’re just adolescents, and they don’t take our ideas seriously. They’re not going to change the galactic laws because of our opinions. The only thing we can do is wait until we’re adults in about 400 years and then try to do something about it. In the meantime, relax friend. They’re not here on the space station to steal our females. These people are just merchants, here to sell the molds we need for our trip.”

  M. Hoyvil glared down at his food.

  Is this mold? he wondered.

  “I know you’re right,” M. Hoyvil said to M. Gruutin, “but I can’t shake this weird feeling that something’s wrong.”

  “What looks wrong about them to me is they’re so plain. Are they natural breeders? I guess that’s what happens when you leave things to chance,” said M. Gruutin.

  “No, they’re not natural. The ones they send to do business with other species are bred to look bland and unnoticeable. So they can get away with who knows what! Did you notice how your eyes slid right off their faces? This look was carefully crafted and intentional. And it’s not close to some of their most outrageous experimentation. But I guess I can’t really say much about that,” M. Hoyvil muttered the last sentence.

  He stared across the dining hall at the group of Woogahs.

  “I know this sounds paranoid, but I have a bad feeling about them. My gut tells me they’re up to something.”

  M. Gruutin laughed mentally. “You have some imagination!” he said.

  Now Antaska was worried too. It sounded like being a telepathic female was dangerous. That was why the telepathic alien species didn’t bring their females into space. And she was still keeping her telepathy a secret from M. Hoyvil. A flush of shame turned her light tan skin a brownish red.

  In her sleep on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder, Potat made a tiny snuffling, snorting sound.

  Antaska stopped listening to M. Hoyvil’s conversation and looked around the large table at the other Earthlings. The young male across from her was M. Gruutin’s companion. He winked at her.

  Hmm…, thought Antaska. This might have possibilities. Unlike the weird situation with Zapop.

  M. Gruutin’s companion smiled a raffish grin, and Antaska smiled back. He was stockier than most humans designed for space travel and quite muscular with tattoos and a fierce hairstyle.

  He moved his hands. “Do you like fighting? For fun, I mean,” he asked in the human sign language.

  “Yes, I played a lot of virtual reality fighting games on the space ships since Earth,” Antaska answered also with hand symbols.

  She felt encouraged.

  He looked at her with big green eyes.

  The rounded bite scar on Antaska’s neck felt itchy. She reached a hand up to scratch its bumpy surface. The human doctor on the Verdante planet had promised all the venom was gone, but it still itched and burned a bit sometimes. The doctor had offered to remove the scar with skin replacement treatment, but she had refused. She kept her scar as a reminder of when she’d ignored her inner voice.

  The man was making more movements with his hands.

  “Do you like real fighting? What are you doing later tonight?” he signed with his hands.

  At the same time, Antaska heard something else coming from his direction. Something strange. It sounded like a mental male voice talking.

  “This bitch is so full of herself,” Antaska heard the voice say.

  Her eyes and mouth widened. She saw him looking at her, so she clamped her mouth shut.

  The voice kept going. “She’s kind of cute, but she’s nothing special. We’re all designed in the lab to look good, but she thinks she’s better than us. Messing around with that Eegor. What a slut! This will be so easy.”

  At the same time that Antaska heard the disturbing mental words, the man’s hands continued to sign. “We could meet up in the gym for some martial arts practice. It’s so great to meet someone who likes fighting too.”

  Antaska hand signed back to him. “I don’t know. I’m kind of tired right now. Maybe another time?”

  Feeling confused, she didn’t look for his answer but sat back in her chair and looked down at her food.

  The voice in her mind continued its unpleasant tirade, and now she could hear other voices too. As if coming in through several points in her head.

  “Of course, she would end up sitting with us!” came from the direction of the female human on the other side of M. Gruutin.

  Antaska looked over at her in surprise, and the Earth woman smiled and waved at her.

  Antaska’s confusion increased. Her head was pounding. She ran her hands through her hair, puffing it up unintentionally. The three men at the table looked her way.

  “That dirty piece of work just has to show off for the all Earth men!” said another female voice in Antaska’s head coming from the other side of M. Hoyvil. “There’s no other way a plain thing like her can get attention.”

  Antaska leaned forward to look in that direction. The other Earth human female leaned forward too, smiling a huge smile and giving her a thumbs up gesture.

  Antaska’s tan skin, already blushed with pink tones from embarrassment, grew even rosier when she heard a male voice in her head from the other direction: “Nice! Sweet!”

  Even more embarrassing were words coming from the other man: “Finally, some new, fresh meat! And this one is already hot to trot. I’ll get to work on her after Lestofer is finished, but it shouldn’t be hard get her in the sack—it never is [sigh!].”

  Antaska turned in shocked surprise to look in his direction. A charming smile shined bright at her from a classically handsome face.

  Antaska looked up at Potat still asleep on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder. This is exactly what Potat warned me about, she thought. I’d like to wake her up, but she told me not to except in an emergency. This is awful, but I guess it’s not an emergency. The important thing is that I can’t let anyone find out I’m telepathic, so I’ll just pretend like I didn’t hear any of this and act normal.

  She plastered a fake smile on her face and looked around the tab
le.

  The Earth female next to M. Gruutin made hand signs. “You must be M. Hoyvil’s companion we’ve all heard so much about. Nice to meet you.”

  “Thank you; it’s nice to meet you too. Your outfit and hair are wonderful,” answered Antaska, who was impressed by her ship suit, black instead of tan, and marked with a unique silver pattern. Matching choppy silver hair coordinated with the suit.

  “Thanks,” the Earth woman hand signed, but again, Antaska heard a mental voice saying something quite different.

  “Who does this bitch think she is, making fun of me?” said the voice. “M. Hoyvil obviously picked her for her appearance. Because the lab that made her broke the rule of using natural human genes only. That hair color is unnatural, and those eyes are too big to be from unaltered genes.”

  The woman ran a hand through her bright silver hair. “It’s so unfair! And she’s not the only one. And I have to be friendly to all these inferior sluts for the next hundred years [sigh!].”

  Antaska smiled her fake smile and then looked down at her food.

  I don’t know how long I can keep this up, pretending not to hear this weird stuff, she thought.

  Antaska pushed the colorful food around her plate with her fork. Her appetite had been lost somewhere between the idea that it might be mold and the disturbing things she was hearing from the other Earthlings. Words from the five of them continued—mixed together, confusing, and disturbing. She couldn’t tell if they were talking about her, each other, or someone else.

  “What does she even need clothes for?” a female voice said. “I hope we’ll be allowed to go shopping this week."

  “You’ll be sorry when I get through with you!” said a male voice.

  Another voice said, “I’ll pretend to be her friend. They always fall for that. I’ll find out her most embarrassing secrets. Everyone has something to be ashamed of. Then I’ll tell the other Earthlings and maybe even M. Hoyvil. ‘I’m sorry M. Hoyvil, but you really should know this about your human, Antaska.’”