Page 69 of The Alien's Little Sister

“I did,” he admits in a rush, like Inara’s dragged the answer from him before he was ready. “Sincerely, I apologize.”

Smoke curls from Inara’s nostrils, and I don’t know if he knows she can breathe fire, but I’d be nervous if she were giving me a look like this. “I suspected before that you were an Academy graduate. Are you?”

“I am,” he confirms, swallowing hard enough to make his Adam’s apple fly up and down.

Inara sighs and flicks her tail. “Forgiven, then.”

He bows his head, sagging low enough he’s almost hidden behind the ladies standing guard in front of him. “Thank you.”

“What is going on here?” I ask.

Inara bends down and starts scooping up my gum and cramming it in her bag on the side that doesn’t have a giant tear in it. “Hobs are selectively bred for biddableness.Veryselectively. If, say, a well-bred hob were informed that a lone Rakhii female had braved the dangerous skies to visit Earth, and if he was asked to inform her family if he came across her—he would obey.”

“He’d rat you out.”

Every alien in the room cocks their head.

The women protecting the Jonoh guy aren’t thrown by the idiom though, and they pipe up, protesting, “He didn’t have a choice!”

Inara closes her bag, and lets me take it up by the handle, not fighting me this time now that she doesn’t feel she has to smuggle the contents. “I say I understand that, and he’s been forgiven. Allow my mate to ask his questions. He knows nothing of hobs.”

She says this nicely, but she says it with authority, her mane of hair and her straight back and her cute horns and her chest (with her breasts, which have gotten even plumper in the last couple weeks, much to my delight) thrust out. A defensive stance. Her tail snaps, the blades flashing, and Jonoh takes each woman by the arm and tugs them back.

Inara relaxes and adds, “And I appreciate what he did for me.” She inclines her head, her tail soothingly rubbing up and down my shin like it wants to prevent me from being jealous at this impersonal interaction with the male. “Thank you, Jonohkada.”

Then she motions to me. “What of your collection of inedible fish?”

Dropping her bag at the door, I send her a look. “Oh,nowthey’re ‘inedible?’”

“I’ve apologized for the ones I’ve consumed,” she says penitently.

“Youatehis fish?” Christian cries before Stacy muffles him with her hand.

Inara looks at him in some surprise, not expecting judgement from a stranger.

I wave the fish-murder question away. I tell everyone, since everyone is looking at us, (and from the aliens in the room, there’s a sense of weird curiosity), “I can’t take them.” Because if you’re going to transport fish, you need an established setup to move them to. This is especially true of marine fish, when the water quality has to not only be perfect as far as the ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites go (plus the pH and temperature), the salinity has to be calibrated too. You can’t just toss salt in a tank and add the fish; the sodium can take days to dissolve.

Waiting for all that is not feasible in this case, and rather than risk my fish, I don’t intend to transport them at all. I turn to my sisters. “Just find them a good home if none of you guys want them. There’s a reef enthusiast’s forum—”

“ReefCentral?” Christian asks, voice timid, arms around Stacy, not unlike Inara’s brothers are holding their women.

I blink at him. “Yeah. You know it?”

Eyes wide behind the glasses he’s wearing today—which make him look older and more studious—he nods. “I’ve been a member since I started raising corals in junior high.”

“You’re into reefkeeping?” I ask, stunned. I look to Stacy. “How did I not know this?”

She’s crossed her arms over her chest, his fitting under hers at her waist. She’s giving me a glare that might light me on fire. “You never asked.”

I tip my head in apology. “Sorry, Christian. Would have been cool to know.” Swallowing, I gesture to my collection. “Would you be interested in them? If you don’t want to keep them, you could sell—”

“Oh, sir, I’d love to keep them,” he says earnestly. His eyes go to my tanks. “These are beautiful setups.”

I release Inara’s hand and cross to him and Stacy. I extend my arm, positioning my hand in the air over the pair of them. When Christian cautiously puts out his own hand, I drop my keys into his palm. “Move them at your leisure. The heat and electricity are paid here through the end of the month, so you’ve got some time to acclimate them to their new place.”

“Awesome,” he says. “Thanks… Matt.”

I give him a chin jerk and step away. Throat tightening, I look to Stacy. “What’s the most important thing to remember?”

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