First Contact Captives

by Enid Titan

  One

  The Creature

  DAMIR UL’HAD

  The onyx bowl squirmed with a thousand mealworms that smelled like sand and fear. They were about to die and each one knew it. Their bodies wriggled and writhed together. Uraz stuck the claw on his index finger through the center of one; white flesh spurted from the center of the worm.

  "A big one," I remarked.

  Uraz growled satisfactorily and wrapped his long tongue around the still squirming creature sucking the guts out of the exoskeleton and biting down on what remained with the satisfied crunch.

  “The first bite is the best.”

  Those were the first words he said to me since I arrived, ready to do business. Business, I scoffed quietly to myself as Uraz stuck his hand deep into the onyx bowl, pulling out another squirming handful of mealworms.

  I waited for him to finish before dipping my hand into my own bowl. I could feel the mealworms squirming around my fingers with their delicious scent of fear wafting up to the slits in my nose. Uraz and I ate slowly without much talking, me staggering behind him until that last delicious bite. Once we were finished he let out a long loud belch. I followed suit.

  Uraz growled, “Are you ready to talk business?"

  I had been ready since this senseless postponement which had sated Uraz’s need for power for more than it stated his appetite. To make people wait lent you a certain control over them, control Uraz had over me considering he had something he was sure that I wanted.

  “You don't have to look far to see what I'm offering. It’s right here. Firuza, turn on the lights,” he announced, feeling pleased with himself.

  To our left, the women in Uraz’s household sat on the floor at a low table for women, each one of them veiled in black with only their eyes exposed. Those beautiful eyes characteristic of Taurean women were the only temptations allowed to men outside of their household and family clan. The women all possessed eyes that were a shade of brilliant lime green like their father’s eyes.

  Firuza got up silently, obeying her father’s commands with a lowered gaze. She raised the lighting from a dim red to white light just bright enough not to disrupt our eyes which were unaccustomed to light outside our subterranean dwellings.

  With Firuza’s tiny adjustment, I could see the glass cage Uraz had bragged about for weeks and the tiny creature that crouched in the corner with spiny humanoid arms wrapped around its legs. Its fingernails weren’t like ours, they were short and stubby. And its flesh wasn’t scaled. The creature stank of fear. The new pet that Uraz had on offer didn't budge as I examined it through the glass.

  "Does it move?"

  The creature appeared mammalian, but there was no species quite like it in our star system, or any of the neighboring ones. He must have traveled months to find a creature like this one. So rare. So pink. So different.

  “Mostly during the day,” Uraz explained.

  “How much sleep does it need?"

  "Too much. Eight hours."

  “Hm… And is this one female or male?"

  Uraz tapped on the glass. He raised two fingers and then the creature rose to its feet legs still trembling.

  “Firuza has been helping me to teach it basic commands. Female. Mammalian too.”

  "A mammalian biped. Interesting. And it isn't sentient?"

  Uraz smirked as if it were more logical to blindly trust him than to ask questions.

  “It took me weeks to teach the creature those commands. I don't think sentience is a problem."

  "Father, I —

  Uraz growled, “Quiet, Firuza.”

  The girl’s mother grabbed her arm and ushered her out of the room. Uraz’s first wife had eyes filled with anger. Firuza had defied her father but I didn’t think it so extreme to warrant her mother’s reaction. The girl had just come of age, I’d heard. I raised a brow, but no one took notice.

  "I apologize," Uraz hissed, parting his lips into widest smile.

  I returned his false salesman smile with another one.

  "I'm certainly intrigued. Perhaps we can work out a deal. How much do you want for her?"

  "50,000 credits for her. There is a male as well. I will offer them both for 95,000 credits.”

  Curious. This was the first I was hearing about two exotic creatures. As I suspected, Uraz had something up his sleeve. He presumed I might want to breed them, perhaps. He took far too much pleasure in pulling the wool over my eyes. If I could make it out of this deal without being cheated, it would be a miracle.

  "I'll have to think about it."

  “With a price that high?” Uraz boomed, “I can't blame you. But you are welcome in my home. I will send one of my daughters to you later.”

  "No need," I replied, with regards to the daughters, not caring about whether or not Uraz would take offense.

  "Let my wife show you to your quarters then."

  I didn’t turn Uraz down then to avoid him pestering me over small matters of hospitality. I allowed his wife, the eldest one, to show me down the tunnels two floors and down the hallway. The lights grew dimmer as we passed down a dark hallway and ascended another level beneath their home. The guest quarters were darker the further we sank below ground, taking winding pathways further into the palatial home. Good. I loved the darkness.

  My best guess was that the tunnels in Uraz's estate went seven or eight levels deep. With three wives, each one producing twenty offspring at a time, Senator Uraz must have been a very busy man. And very rich to afford so many wives. As a senator, he’d expanded his fortune. The last time I’d come here, his home spoke to his success but now it dripped in opulence. Black onyx sparkled in the earthen walls and the integrated home computer was state of the art.

  His wife came to an abrupt halt in front of a little arched door. I stared at her veil trying to glimpse the expression in her eyes, the muscles surrounding her cheeks and brows. Would she fear the proximity of another male? It would be perfectly within my rights to steal her, whisk her onto my ship and mate her with an egg brood of my own. If I could win a duel against the Senator’s best man, it would be easy…

  I probably wouldn't make it 10 feet off Uraz's property without getting gunned down by one of his security fleet if I tried such a thing, but the thought of getting one over on him for once spread a twisted smile to my face. Then I smelled it wafting into the slits on my face. Her fear.

  "You have nothing to fear…” I whispered.

  Click here to keep reading: www.books2read.com/tau

  An Invitation

  Hi there,

  * * *

  Did you enjoy this book? If you did, would you please consider leaving a short comment as a review and your star rating, letting other potential readers know that you enjoyed this one?

  I would really appreciate it.

  You might not think that your “little comment” could make a big difference, but I promise you, I would be eternally grateful.