Page 31 of Alien Peacock

She gives me a sideways glance. “Are you including yourself in that?”

“I never think of myself as trouble,” I tell her. “But I can’t deny that you have a certain attraction. Like the way one slows down when one passes the site of a fresh spaceship crash. You know you shouldn’t look, but you can’t tear your eyes off it.”

Maeve sits down in a heap of cushions that have a vague chair-like shape. “Uh-huh. I’m sure that comparing someone to an accident is the height of flattery and politeness on your backwards planet, but people from more developed areas of the galaxy might be offended. I suppose it depends on the accident. Is it one of those with heavy casualties?”

I scratch my chin. “Not yet. But we got close.”

She looks all over me. “I noticed them shooting at us, but they didn’t hit anything vital. Although there is a new hole in your feathers. Thanks for standing between me and the shooters. That was very kind.”

I poke one finger through the small hole in my wing feathers. “I can take more hits than you without them killing me. It’s a simple risk calculation.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” she sniffs. “What’s your risk calculation for wherever we’re going next?”

“There shouldn’t be much risk there. Gigori is a friendly place.”

She leans back and crosses her legs in a smooth movement. “A friendly place in space would be a new experience for me.”

I can’t look away from her legs. Somewhere along the way she lost the rags and long strips of fabric that hid her shape, and she looks all the better for it. “For an Earth woman, it’s one of very few places you’ll be safe.”

“And then? You’re on some kind of mission, I think.”

I arrange my feathers to cover the bullet hole. “I am. Are you?”

“Sure.”

“A secret one?” I persist.

She straightens in her chair, giving me a searching look. “It should be kept secret from the Bululg, anyway. Are you one of their allies?”

“Oh, I’m a staunch ally of the Bululg,” I deadpan. “I fully support their glorious efforts to… um… do that thing they do. Build a business empire? No? Rob banks? Steal toys? One of those. I forget which.”

Maeve gives me a wry smile. “I never had you figured as the sarcastic type.”

I wander into the lounge, enjoying Maeve’s scent in the air. “Me neither. To clarify: I’ve heard of the Bululg, but I know very little about them. From context, I assume they are the ones that have occupied your planet.”

“That’s right.”

I pull one of the drapes to the side, finding only rusty metal pipes behind it. “And your mission is aimed at weakening them somehow?”

“My mission is aimed atfindingsomeone who could weaken them. What’s yours? That archmagus is involved somehow, right?”

I drop the drape and walk over to the wall, bending down to look out the porthole. But Cerak has taken the ship into hyperspace, and looking out at the chaos is unpleasant. “It’s a story as old as the galaxy itself: I want a certain job. The archmagus can prove that I’m the right candidate for that position. He can do it easily, not even using the amazing powers that he has. Well, you saw some of the things he can do.”

“From what he said, he knows that you have a good claim to whichever job that is,” Maeve says.

“Oh, he knows I should have it. But he didn’t seem that interested in helping me.”

“As far as I was able to follow your conversation, he was interested enough to drag you through space and to make us go through those crazy experiments,” Maeve points out. “I’d say he’s probably going to help. Seems like he’s invested a lot of time in making you prove yourself. It would be weird if he just walked away from that.”

I scratch my chin. “You may have a point. The Fire Mages are difficult to predict, and they do things for their own reasons. But I suppose having him get us out of that station using his special abilities is a good sign.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. I know it’s not real magic he did. But those abilities seemreallyspecial.”

I lean on the wall behind me. “Have you heard of the Elders?”

She frowns. “The ancient aliens that developed super advanced tech and then just left thousands of years ago, leaving all their stuff behind?”

“That’s them. The Fire Mages are a small group of aliens that have access to some outrageously advanced technology that was left by the Elders. They claim to be Elders themselves, but we don’t believe them. On my planet, the various Fire Mages had a special role as priests and advisors for most of recorded history. It made our planet powerful and secure. That’s why I need Yomeran to verify that the job should really be mine. His confirmation is crucial, especially because he’s an archmagus and so especially powerful.” It’s the soft version of my struggle, but it’s close enough to the truth.

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