Page 19 of Ava Greasemonkey

Errant feathers went everywhere once they were no longer contained. Ava glanced at Ebel’s reaction to seeing so much mess on his immaculate floors, but for once he seemed to not care.

Ava picked up one incredibly long tapered green and purple feather. “Did you pluck this from yourself right now?”

“No, silly, this is from my last molt.” Nuor opened another package containing even more feathers that she had started to weave into an elaborate bow. “I thought that if we are going to do this thing, we could do it right and give you a little tail we pin on or something. Not that the Tuxa are smart enough to really think too hard about it, but it can’t hurt anyway just in case one of them is a bit bored and a bit more curious.”

“Ah.” Ava picked up the plain cotton robe that she had worn whenever she and Nuor went off ship. It covered her head and made her inconspicuous enough.

Nuor picked the robe out of her hands. “I brought this just in case, but it really is too simple. So it’s just a backup. Here’s my ceremonial robe. Try that on.”

From the leftmost bag, Ava pulled out the beautiful robe Nuor had shown her from when she used to work as a courtesan. She held it to her face briefly. It felt incredibly soft and shimmered in the light.

Nuor, impatient, took it from her arms, put it on her, and tied it up. It fell past Ava’s knees, where it normally would fall on Nuor. Then she took the feather bundle out and tied it in the back, where there was a seam that a tail would normally poke out from on a true Vali.

The robe did not have a hood, so Nuor then took the whole thing off, put the plain robe on Ava with the ceremonial robe over it, and pulled the hood over her head to shade her face.

Ebel came over with a small hologram and put it behind her ear. He tweaked the hologram until it looked like it seamlessly blended with the rest of the outfit.

Then with shoes and gloves put on, Ava finally walked to the mirror and studied herself.

It will work.She turned her head side to side, admiring.I look like a smaller version of Nuor.The hologram made her eyes a bright aqua and projected feathers on her face and a beaklike nose over her regular one.

Nuor stuck some more feathers on the cuffs of the sleeves and in the areas the clothing joined to complete the look.

Ava poked her face and wound up poking her real eye, as the hologram projected an inch or so out from her actual face.

“Oww.” She squinted her real eye and noted with fascination as the hologram attempted to squint as well. She turned around and admired it from all angles. With Nuor’s actual feathers and robes it looked better than she would have thought.

“Where did you get the hologram from?” Ava asked Ebel, pretending to shake her tail.

“I kept one from the last time you grabbed some off the transport. I keep a few extra things here just in case to give the queen if I need to. Shh. No one needs to know. You owe me an extra now though, so be sure to get one from this transport before this is all over.”

Nuor walked around Ava, thinking critically. “This looks okay. You just need the thermal suit underneath in case you smell, or they can sense body temp differences. You can’t talk though. No offense Ava, but not only do you not speak our language, you don’t sound like us at all. Unless we have a voice synthesizer?” She looked at Ebel hopefully.

“Nope.” He shook his head, antennas flying.

“Ah, okay. Well, you are my cousin or sister who has taken a vow of silence and are in deep meditation.” Nuor’s eyes suddenly looked tired as well. “Let’s sleep and then meet up here when you’re due to go up. Is there any answer from Wert?”

“Nope,” Ebel repeated. “I doubt you’re going to get one either. The best he will do is turn a blind eye and not report the getup we have Ava in to see the prisoners. Her biosignature will register the same on the file we’re keeping logs on. The queen won’t know what we’re doing to keep her safe.”

Nuor and Ebel stepped back and looked at Ava for a minute, then both agreed it would suffice.

Ava took off the outfit and put it on her desk in the control room, then bent over with Nuor to pick up the feathers that she didn’t end up using. After putting them back in the bag, she put the bag on top of the counter.

Ebel went into the closet and pulled out a vacuum cleaner and cleaned up any loose ends they didn’t collect.

“Ping me when you get up and I will walk with you to the prisoner cells to introduce you. That should be good enough,” Nuor said.

They all stared at Ava for a minute, until Nuor broke the silence and put a hand on Ava’s shoulder. “Let’s try to get some sleep for now.”

Ava murmured thanks and checked her com to see that a schedule had already been drawn up for who would be on duty next. Her turn would start roughly ten hours from now. Enoughtime to hopefully get some sleep. Now that a solution had been found, all the tiredness from the previous cycle hit her like cement, visibly making her shoulders sag.

Nodding to Ebel, who looked up from his vacuuming to nod back, both her and Nuor walked back out to the engine hall, saying goodbye at Ava’s little alcove. Ava sat on her pallet bed and listened to Nuor head out of the engine room.

Ava pulled off her jumpsuit and lay down on her bed on her side. Fluffing out her undergarments, she reached down and rubbed her aching bare feet.What a cycle.She rolled her shoulders, stretching. She still felt stiff from the vents.

Ava put her com a little too forcefully on the side table next to the magazine cutout, making it fall backward.

“Whoops! Sorry Joy,” Ava muttered, apologizing to the picture before picking it up and putting it back upright. She carefully refolded the back that contained the auction house’s digital code behind the smiling picture and placed a small gear on the flap so it sat upright on her stand. Ava didn’t know Joy personally; she didn’t even know if that was really her name. She just assumed it was since it was next to the auction lot number, but Joy was the only picture she had of a Human smiling. The Phor logs had pictures of Humans, but they all had dour, despondent expressions. Ava doubted Ebel ever would have realized how important the picture would become to her when he gave it to her one day after finding it in some subscription pamphlets.

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