Page 11 of Smart@ss Cyborg

I walk over to the man, who is struggling mightily now against my hold, and force him to his feet. Then I snap his neck.

He thuds to the floor, twitching.

“Th-thank you,” the woman manages, her teeth chattering. Likely from stress. Maybe shock, if I’m any judge of a human’s brain.

Turning back to her slowly, I consider her for the length of a heartbeat. “Say,” I start, a common opener among Traxian folk, per all I’ve gathered. “May I take this dead cowboy’s horse?”

The woman’s mouth gapes open, and I applaud myself for hiding my wince when a string of mucus drips out of her nose and splatters somewhere on her blood and tear-soaked dress. She doesn’t even try to brush herself clean. Humans are a dirty species; I never knew.

“Ma’am?” I prompt.

“You… what?” she asks softly. Her system is inefficiently shivering. Her pupils seem overlarge compared to earlier; I gather from her brain activity this is a fear response. Her eyes run up and down my frame, and she curls over her protruding stomach a little more. Her eyes dart up to my face—or perhaps my head.

My head… Abruptly I remember that a man is supposed to remove his hat when he’s in the presence of a lady. I rip mine off and the woman falls back against the stove, hands flying up, positioning herself so that the undersides of her forearms are between me and her, her hands splayed, fingers outstretched wide as if to ward off… something.

Frowning, I press my hat over my heart and explain slowly, “If you don’t need the dead cowboy’s horse, may I have it?” I gesture to Paco. “You can have this donkey in trade, if you’d like. He might work as a pack animal.” I narrow my eyes on him. “Although I have my doubts. If I can be frank, I believe he has a flawed character.”

She’s lowering her hands with every word out of my mouth, and although tears still stream out of her eyes, she’s not bent over sobbing over her mate anymore, so I begin to hope we’re about to engage in an authentic Traxian conversation.

But she doesn’t say anything more. I raise my brows at her. “Well? What do you say?” It occurs to me that after this statement, many of the vids I watched had the actors smile, so perhaps I should smile too. Ignoring my nerves and past failures, I grit my teeth, spread my lips as far as they’ll stretch horizontally, and peel my upper lip up to reveal my glowing smile, showing her my sharp teeth.

(I opted not to have them filed. I was advised that most Yonderin have the procedure done, but I wasn’t keen on flat grazer teeth.)

She twitches back. She also gasps a wet, tear-watery breath.

I hold still, waiting. The vids I watched always showed the hero being patient and polite with ladies. But perhaps I’m not smiling properly. Although I practiced smiling by swimming to the oceansurface at high noon and peering at my reflection in the water, I’m uncertain that I mastered it.

When I don’t move, not even to relax my cramping face, something steals over the pioneer woman’s expression. I can’t read what it is, but she’s staring at me fully now, and the difference in her attention is so distinct I feel a bolt of pride go through me, because this must mean my smile is taking effect. I’m making an impression.

“What are you?” she asks.

This was so different from the simpleyesI expected her to grant me, I accidentally let my smile fall. In doing so, a sigh of relief slips out of me and I surreptitiously drag my knuckles over my sore cheeks, trying to fix the damage the smiling caused. “I’m a Yonderin.”

She’s staring at me. “One of those… alien mermen?”

I open my mouth to correct her, but I’m aware it’s how her people see my kind here on her planet. It’s simplest to agree. Expedient. “Yes, ma’am. Now about the horse—”

She stares at me even more. “You just want the horse?”

Has she not been listening? I try not to be insulted and attempt to stifle my dismay as I reply. “Yes.” I congratulate myself on the level of patience I manage to convey in the word.

She blinks up at me rapidly. And for the first time, her tear production slows. “You don’t want… anything else?”

I’m beginning to suspect she might be of lower intelligence than I first assumed, in which case she may not be able to cognitively work through even a simple request like I’ve made—I shake my head. “Do you think I need anything else here?”

She edges back from me, saying quickly, “No! Take the horse!”

Relieved, I tip my forehead to her in the way that I studied, and fit my hat back on my sweaty forehead. I wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for this planet to suck moisture straight out of my pores, let alone that I had anything left in my body to evaporate—yet here we are. “Then I thank you, ma’am.”

I turn around and walk out.

Paco doesn’t follow me. He’s found a colorful fluted container on a table and he’s pulling white and yellow-topped weeds out of it, eating them.

I leave him to it. This good woman can keep him.

Metal spurs affixed to my boots make tinking sounds as I cross the wooden floor, exit the door, and clomp down her porch. But I stop as the three horses tied to the hitching post come into view, because I realize I should have asked for more information.

Clamping down on my impatience, my spurs goingtink! tink! tink!as I make my way back into the little house, I find the woman folded over her dead mate, her face pressed to his slackened shoulder. She’s weeping again.

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