Page 17 of Ava Greasemonkey

Ava stared at him and pressed, “Is it a good idea for me to help out with them?”

Ebel didn’t answer; he seemed to fall into deeper thought. His antennas drooped farther. He turned back to his touch screen and poked it a few times absently, bringing a Tuxa picture up on screen. An ugly reptilian face stared at them.

Ava didn’t break the silence. Instead, she looked at the photo with him until Ebel answered, “Tell Nuor to come down here. She might have a few ideas to mask who you are.”

Stomach sinking, Ava pinged Nuor, who replied almost immediately that she would be down soon.

While waiting, Ava reached out and put a hand on Ebel’s fuzzy arm. “Does your queen know? Would she change the order and I could stay in the vents in the thermal suit or help some other way? The suit blocks everything.”

Ebel looked back at her, frown still on his fuzzy face. “I will message Wert to approach her again, but I don’t know what to do beyond that. The queen views you as one of her drone workers instead of a female capable of independent thought. In our species there can only be one female in her collective, so it’s a blind spot for her having you here.”

Ava looked down, her chest feeling tight, tears threatening. “So I’m a tool more than a living being. Only a pawn.”

Ebel put his hand on hers, covering it completely. The palm of his hand had a velvety texture, differing from the long fuzz on his arm. Not denying Ava’s words, he instead answered, “We will figure it out when Nuor gets here.”

Ava nodded and removed her hand from under his slowly. She went to her desk corner, sitting on the chair with her footunderneath her and picked apart a yavi to eat absently. She knew Ebel cared in his own way about her, but his biology always put his queen and her wishes first. She was lucky enough that he’d been able to come to regard her as a whole being at all. Wert also, in his own nervous way, had come to show some affection for her. The queen, however, had no affection whatsoever. They’d barely ever exchanged words other than an initial greeting when she first came on board. In fact, Ava didn’t even know how much affection the queen showed her drones, despite their undying devotion to her.

The queen is aware of me enough to use me though.Ava frowned cynically as she wiped her hands on her jumpsuit from the yavi fruit.

She pulled up the public trade agreement between the Vali and the Tuxa that Ebel had referenced on her much smaller touchscreen anchored to her desk. Nuor would be able to tell her more when she got here, but it was better to be doing something rather than just wait.

The public agreement was sparse on details, just signifying that if a Vali had a complaint regarding brutality during their services the Tuxa would be hit with a huge credit amount.

Curious as to why the Tuxa would be so interested in females of other species, Ava pulled up a picture of the Tuxa females. Despite the unease in her stomach she couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter. That was why. They were not depicted like that in the romance book she had featuring them. She couldn’t believe she never bothered looking up a picture of them before.

“What?” Ebel turned around to see what Ava was laughing at.

Ava shoved her screen toward him. “Ebel, in my book they do not look like that.”

He saw the picture and then chittered to himself. The Tuxa female was reptilian like the males, but short and squat with wide hips for laying multiple eggs. They looked like a puke-greenblob with legs. They never left the nest, and the notes said they were relatively mindless, without any purpose outside of egg laying. Judging by the fact that her romance book had the female Tuxas looking a completely different way made her assume that the male Tuxa felt the same way about their appearance.

Ava was still chuckling when a ping on the control room door signaled Nuor had arrived. Unlike the other contractors, Nuor had access to the whole ship and didn’t need to be manually let into the engine room. Ebel overrode her security clearances after her and Ava became closer and trust was built between the three.

Nuor took a look at the Tuxa logs on Ava’s screen and let out a melodic sigh.

“Right, that. I had to attend to a few when we visited one of their outposts. They hired our troupe to celebrate one stupid achievement or another. At any rate, I drew the unlucky lot and had to go.” She flattened her beaklike nose in a line. “Luckily I only drew the unlucky stick that one time.”

“But” she said, turning to Ava, “they have agreements with the Vali to keep them from being too awful. They’re restricted to just dancing, and they won’t mess with us if they don’t want to be blacklisted.”

Turning to Ebel she continued, “Does your queen hate Ava? Why would she send her to service them? They’ll think it’s for more than food.”

Both Ava and Ebel flinched at that. The previous humor was forgotten. Nuor continued, “I would even take her place, because they know to leave me alone.”

Ava was touched by Nuor’s words.

Ebel looked abashed. “You can’t. The queen checks the clearance scans frequently, making sure we are all doing the tasks she assigned. I did try to get Ava out of some of it, but our queen didn’t want to spare the drones all the time from their current posts.”

“Sorry, Ebel, but your queen is stupid.” Nuor whipped her head around and looked at Ava, her feathers floating behind her. “Not only would they see Ava for more than general housekeeping, but you are bringing Humans to their attention if they haven’t already encountered them in a close-up manner before. I’d never heard of Humans before coming here. So the Tuxa are probably unaware of them too, but here you are, dangling one, a female without any rights, in front of their snouts for them to report what they saw back to their home planet while they were on our transport.”

Ebel didn’t respond to the slight on the queen, frowning even further. Nuor’s assessment sunk Ava’s spirits even more.

Ava started to tremble. “I don’t want to do this,” she said softly to both Nuor and Ebel. “I help with the engine here and anything else she asks me to do. Isn’t that enough?”

Nuor put her arm around Ava, patting her on the back.

Why do I have to do this?She’d been so hopeful before, thinking that after she saw the prisoner setup it would help her to sleep this cycle. Now she was more keyed up than ever.

She pulled out of Nuor’s embrace to sit down in her chair, pulling her black hair over her shoulder and winding it around her hands nervously.

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