by Dylan Keefer
Finally they wrenched the door open, and Nivea's heart jumped as she saw Meg. She had an orange oil on her fingers like liquid iodine, and tears in her eyes.
Nivea couldn’t help the surge of hope and maybe even affection that pulsed through her at the sight of Meg. Unfortunately she only saw her for a moment before the men entered and the door slid shut behind them.
It almost didn’t register to Meg that they were speaking to her. They spoke her language, but did so with thick accents associated with their planet, and her brain was rattling full of the mysterious English Nivea had given her.
“Speaking?” she asked, in her language which was a normal way in their culture to tell another person they may not have heard them correctly or at all.
They looked at her like they couldn’t believe she would dare to not listen closely.
“You have committed a great insult to Master Jiom. Not only this, but you have done a foolish thing, as you could’ve easily died out in space in the escape pod,” said the shortest of the men.
“If I have done such terrible things, why not just leave me to die?” asked Meg.
“You are Master Jiom’s fiancé. He claimed it was not right to allow harm to come to you. But there are things Master does not need to know,” he said, stepping toward her.
He picked her up off the floor by her throat, and held her against the wall. She gasped for air. The others did nothing.
“You will not disrespect Master Jiom again, do you understand this?” he sneered in her face, so close she could smell his breath.
She wheezed out a yes, and he nodded, but kneed her in the stomach for good measure. He dropped her onto the hard floor watching her wince as though he enjoyed it. He turned around to leave saying, “That could’ve been much worse, Meg. Much worse.”
Once they were gone, Nivea rushed to the door. Meg heard a tapping, and her body stiffened. Slowly she pushed herself up from the floor and made her way to the door. She leaned closer as she heard a small voice whisper her name, “Meg?”
“Nivea!”
Hope sparked in both of them suddenly, but Meg tried to hold it down. She pressed her palm against the door as though she could somehow touch Nivea through it.
“I wish I could get the door open, but I don’t understand the systems here─”
“Nivea, it’s fine─”
“Are you okay? I heard a bang…”
“I’m fine, I’m fine, Nivea. Listen, I think you came onto the ship by accident. I don’t think they know you are here. This is to your advantage. Our advantage… if you are willing to help me…”
“What else am I going to do, Meg? Leave?”
“I just… You should keep going, but… if something happens and you do end up with a way off this ship, a way to get home to Earth, just go. Go, okay?”
“You’re right.”
Meg was slightly surprised by Nivea’s response. “Oh─” she started, but Nivea continued.
“I can’t do anything else here. I can’t break you out right now. I’ll keep exploring, but I’ll be back. I will be back, Meg.”
“Peh… Okay.”
“Meg?”
“Yes?”
“You know these people better than I ever could… is there anything you can tell me to help me if something happens?”
“Oh… Peh… I could tell you… Well, if you come across any people… Don’t raise your pinky finger in front of them, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And remember these words: evolisnics, brovana.”
“What are they?”
“The first is a respectful apology. The other is a plea… for mercy.”
“Oh…” Nivea said fearfully.
“I could tell you other things, but I don’t want to bog you down with too much to remember.”
“No, that’s fine, evolisnics, brovana. That’s good. Thank you. I’ll be back.” And she was gone.
Meg knew there was little use in carrying on trying to get through the door, but she couldn’t just wait.
She clenched her fists together and hit the middle of the door as hard as she could. She felt a very slight give, so she tried it again, and again. Beating the door so hard as she was, she didn’t hear the footsteps outside, and the door opened unannounced. It was slower this time, as the door was now slightly dented, it scraped along itself as it slid open.
“Come with me,” said a lavender-skinned woman. The light from the hallway was blinding. Meg stayed silent, seeing no reason to ask any questions.
She took in her surroundings. She wondered if this was the same ship she had originally left her planet on. The rooms and hallways she’d seen of it before were plush and connoted richness, but this hallway was bare, cold and lifeless. It didn’t even have carpeting.
They came to a door that slid open quickly, and she was led inside.
“Leave us,” came a voice from within, and the woman guiding Meg disappeared back into the hallway, the door shutting behind her.
Sitting in a large white chair behind a similarly blindingly white desk, was Meg’s former fiancé.
“Hello, Meg,” he said, his accent soft and inviting.
“Hello, Jiom.”
“I’m so glad to see that you are safe. Were you hurt on your little foray into space? You haven’t been seen to?”
“…No? I wasn’t hurt out there…” she said, not knowing why he would ask this.
He pointed to her head, where an orange oily liquid dripped down her temple. “You are bleeding.”
She touched it, and looked at the blood on her fingers. “One of your men,” she replied. “It was just a warning. A warning of what was to come if I… disobeyed again.”
“Speaking?” he replied, confused, “That happened on this ship?”
“Men… There were four of them. They came into the storage room I was in to check on me. One of them,” she gulped and put her hand to her neck.”
“He put his hands on you? He strangled you?”
She nodded.
Jiom dragged his fingers in a plus sign shape along a black box sitting on his desk.
“Tamare?” he said.
“Yes, Master,” said a woman’s voice from the device.
“Have the Jesex team ejected.”
“Speaking?!” shouted Meg. “You can’t do that!”
“Are they not guilty of hurting you?” asked Jiom.
“Well, one is─”
“And the others stood by and did nothing?”
“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to die! Even the one that hurt me was doing it only out loyalty to you!”
“Were you in my position… you would spare them?”
“Yes.”
“Meg… why did you try to escape before? Did you not promise to marry me?”
“Yes… I did… but I…”
“And did I not provide you with everything you would need. Did I not thoroughly enough show you my wealth and power?”
“Yes… you certainly did those things…”
“But you had a change of heart, why?”
“It was your insensitive nature and cruelty. Everyone on your ship was in fear. I can’t live like that, Jiom.”
“I see. Come with me,” Jiom said abruptly, standing up.
The door slid open for him immediately and he left the room expecting her to follow, and she did. They twisted down corridors until they came to a room separated in the middle by glass.
“Master Jiom,” said the woman whom he had contacted before. “I gathered Jesex, but I haven’t sent them out yet, because I was waiting for word from you─”
“Yes, yes, Tamare, that was appropriate.”
The men stood on the other side of the glass, a row of buttons in front of them.
“Meg, I shall grant mercy, but the one who hurt you must be dealt with. Please press the button in front of the one who did this.”
“Peeehhh, okay,” she said nervously, and pressed the button that indicated the shortes
t of the men. Instantly he screamed and fell to the floor. Jiom slunk up behind Meg and pulled her into his arms, kissing her shoulder.
“How did that feel?” he asked her.
“I… what just happened?”
“You have killed him.”
She paused for a moment. “…How dare you? How dare you make me think that you were doing me a favor and then trick me into killing him?” she said with tears in her eyes.
“It wasn’t a trick, the rest of them are free to go,” Jiom said to her, and then lifted his head to address the other three men. “I was going to kill you for standing by while your coworker hurt my fiancé, but it was her who stopped me. She claimed this wasn’t your fault, that you did not deserve to be punished. This was her decision, not mine. Next time you are in a position to be so careless, remember that it is her that has shown you mercy.”
Meg fell to her knees and started to cry.
Nivea stumbled along in silence. It was dark again in the corridors, the utter dark of a space without windows, without any proximity to natural light. The light had gone off some time while she was talking with Meg, but she had been so focused on her she hadn’t noticed.
She needed to find somewhere she could see. She started walking away from the room again, trying to commit her path to memory so she could find her way back.
It was half an hour before she found her way out of the maze of pitch-dark corridors. A door opened, and suddenly she was blinking in full light again, wincing at the contrast. She froze, realizing the light contained a humanoid presence.
As she blinked to look at the man’s face, she tried to contain her shock.
“Mr. Harrison?”
“Ah, hello, Nivea, how is my son?”
“I… what are you doing here?”
“Oh, just some business. I’ve been trying to get a hold of Jack, but your communications seem to be down.”
“You… Jack… I’m sorry, Mr. Harrison, Jack is dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, he, uh, I don’t know what killed him, I couldn’t figure it out, he was just… gone.”
“That coward.”
“Coward…?”
“He’d rather lose his life than come back into this job. He was always childish.”
“I’m sorry, but sir… what the hell are you doing here?”
“The Velions asked us to look into their little missing princess. They knew she was in our galaxy and wanted our help. We just happened to have a ship heading home that would be near enough to capture her. Unfortunately, when I sent the information to my dear son Jack, he must’ve offed himself instead of responding, and I had allowed the Velions to pick me up post haste for some in person diplomacy. I suppose it’s better than what we thought had happened. Jack thinking he could betray me in that piece of crap Earth shuttle, and whisk this little girl away with him. But no, it was just you being obliviously uninformed. I always told Jack you should know more, but no, he didn’t want to bring you into it.”
“Bring me into what?”
“Human-alien relations, of course. It can be dirty work. Anyway, Nivea, you’re free to stay in here while I deal with the situation. And then we’ll go home to Earth together, and start planning a funeral for Jack,” said Mr. Harrison, standing and moving for the door.
“Sir, what do you mean deal with the situation?”
“I need to assure our alien friends that no harm was meant by you taking their princess for an overnight joy ride.”
“They’re… They’re angry with me?”
“They don’t know it was you. They don’t even know you’re aboard. I’ll just tell them that you’re one of my assistants when we have dinner this evening. You will come to dinner this evening?”
“With the aliens?”
“Yes.”
“…Okay…”
“Alright, my assistant, Gina will come give you some appropriate clothes. Oh and, Nivea?”
“Yes, Mr. Harrison?”
“Now you have somewhere to be,” he said gesturing to the room around them. “No more sneaking around the ship, okay? The Velions do not take well to snooping.”
Nivea nodding and took a seat.
A woman came for her a few hours later with a blue full body suit that was supposed to be appropriate attire for an evening with the Velions. She felt like she was going to fight crime in it.
Once she was dressed they walked together to the dining hall, where Nivea set eyes on the saddest looking Meg she could’ve imagined. The hall was filled with long tables, and there were dozens of these purple-skinned people in varying levels of darkness and intensity. Scattered around the room were a few human-looking people, but Nivea guess they weren’t human by how downright pale they were. There were two seats open next to Mr. Harrison and across from Meg and the man who must’ve been her fiancé. When Nivea and Mr. Harrison’s assistant came to fill the seats, Meg lifted her head and her eyes lit up.
Nivea smiled, but stopped herself before saying anything. “Hello,” she said and then looked to Mr. Harrison. “I’m assuming you… speak their language?”
“No,” he replied harshly.
“I speak Anglish,” said the man sitting next to Meg. Nivea wasn’t sure if it was that he had an accent or if he just sounded like he was speaking for the first time after getting brain damage.
“Oh, he speaks English. That’s convenient,” Nivea said glancing at Mr. Harrison.
“Their method for learning languages is unfortunate,” said Mr. Harrison in a monotone, absentmindedly dabbing at his mouth with a napkin even though they hadn’t eaten anything yet.
“It is a plea-jure to meet you,” said the man sitting next to Meg and extended a hand to shake.
Nivea took it and asked, “You shake?”
“I am shaking?” he said, looking down at himself.
Meg spoke to him in another language, at the end of her sentence switching to English to say, “Handshake.”
“Oh, yes, well as a Senator I must communicate properly and be polite. I will do as the humans do.”
“Oh, a senator, I… I guess I thought you were a prince.”
“After analyzing English for a time,” spoke up Meg, “I believe that you are a Governor.”
Mr. Harrison shook his head, “He’s a military commander.”
“I thought he was the son of the president,” whispered Mr. Harrison’s assistant.
Suddenly Jiom laughed. “I suppose our politics do not parallel, yes? It does not matter. You may call me Jiom. There are no titles among friends.”
“Aw yes, and as your friend,” said Mr. Harrison, “I would just like to apologize for the mix up. Not all of our people are aware of our relationship with your people.”
“As is the way with us as well. It is lucky the situation was not reversed, or your lost woman might be dead.”
“Yes, right, of course.”
This obviously made Mr. Harrison uncomfortable, and Nivea was glad of this at least. His strange relationship with his son notwithstanding, she was glad he wasn’t entirely unresponsive at the idea of an innocent human dying because they came across the wrong aliens.
“What did you say your name was, brown one?” asked Jiom. Nivea flinched. She tried to convince herself that he was an alien and that wasn’t insanely rude for him to call her that.
“Nivea.”
“Niv-ay-hah,” he repeated. “Conniving.”
“That is not the case on Earth,” said Mr. Harrison immediately.
“I wasn’t insinuating anything about you, Ms. Nivayha, only commenting on the word meaning in my own language.”
Nivea paused a moment to look at Jiom, really look at him. He wasn’t what she had been expecting. She and Meg obviously had very different taste in men. Given, he had well defined bone structure, and clear skin, but he just looked like sort of a dork to her. Yet she could see a perfection to him. He looked like someone who would play a dork on television.