Page 63 of Tempted by Celestial Bodies

an indelicate negotiation

jem zero

an indelicate negotiation

The third timeI’m passed over for a promotion to Peacekeeper, I strongly consider throwing myself out the airlock. It wouldn’t accomplish much, considering theMainstayis currently grounded on ?ie, but the melodrama might make me feel better.

This time I was certain I’d make it. I started writingPeacekeeper Chance Landfallin my notebooks like a middle schooler with a crush, except the crush was on the position of intergalactic negotiator. My current job is a government position I don’t hate. I reach out on behalf of various earth companies seeking to license trade agreements. The past three weeks, I have worked as a liaison for a hydroponics company looking to acquire harvests of aquatic grasses from brackish ?ie waters.

It's not a bad position. Of my six-person team, I’m the one most consistently pulling in high ratings for successful deals. I’m confident I’ll be able to get this company their seaweed in a timely manner.

I take my role in intergalactic trade very seriously. However, my skills are wasted on negotiating issues such as the exchange of CO2-rich fertilizer for a company that wants to make luxury rugs using wool from a species of alien fauna. Not when I could be leading campaigns to halt potential conflicts and initiate first contact with the inhabitants of other planets.

When each new planet or species takes months to prepare for introductions alone, professionalism is integral. Eight years of encounters and I’ve never experienced a total loss, unlike several of my coworkers. Researching customs and social etiquette makes a good impression, and I enjoy learning. If I were a Peacekeeper, the fruits of that labor would goso much further.

And yet! Not this time. Maybe not ever.

With my office lights dialed down to minimum brightness, the professional space sinks into a hazy, low-vibration liminality, its atmosphere demanding stillness. No one ought to disturb the humming, empty halls ofMainstay’s business wing, and yet I’m here, feeling terribly out-of-body. It’s late, and I should be in my pinhead-sized bed quarters. Asleep.

Except the stress of yet another rejection has snapped my self-control like a brittle twig.

After switching off the automatic opener for my office door, I manually slide it aside just enough to slip into the dark hall. I stay close to the entryway so as to not trigger the motion sensor lighting panels built into the walls.

It’s an unnecessary precaution, because a figure turns the corner a moment after I emerge, their armless silhouette a void within the shadows for a scant second before the first light flickers on. As each subsequent panel clicks to life, their progression seems akin to the descending of a celestial being. I can tell when they’ve spotted me, because the forward march of their powerful raptor legs evolves into an upbeat trot.

A thrill races down my spine.

By the time the ?iet spokesperson, Nuj, stops in front of me, the hall has become fully illuminated, and I feel as if I’m being stared down by a marble statue come to life. ?iet can present a variety of colors, opalescent like polished gemstones, while a closer look reveals a landscape of tiny scales. Nuj’s scales are pink shot through with white streaks, and as they shift in the artificial light, bright green highlights erupt across their form.

“Greetings, Mr. Landfall,” Nuj says, their voice fractured by static. The translator implanted in their long, sloping neck hasn’t yet been properly adjusted to the ?iet voice box.The engineers are working on it, but for now, Nuj’s speech assumes a surreal quality, as if they’re speaking to me through distant radio waves even though I could reach out and touch.

As the representatives of our respective species, Nuj and I have spent most of the past three weeks in each other’s company, but we’re not usuallyalonetogether. Tonight is the first time we’ve agreed to meet outside of professional hours, and I’m full of wild, nervous energy.

Clearing my throat, I say, “We’re not in negotiations, Nuj. Don’t you think you can call me Chance?”

“That would be improper,” Nuj responds, and gives me a light, playful shove using their radia—an orb of kinesthetic mental currents ?iet use to manipulate their surroundings.

The sensation is like being hit by a wave of strong, warm water, reaching deeper than my skin, applying pressure I can feel around my bones. Being invisible, the radia allows Nuj to jostle and nudge me during our meetings without anyone else knowing, leaving me to blame my flustered blush and shortness of breath on my asthma, if questioned by other coworkers.

I’ve sat with aliens possessing an endless array of unique traits and features. My training ensures I treat every species with the respect they deserve, but the ?iet can be unnerving. Most stand slightly shorter than average human height, bearing resemblance to Velociraptors from the earth’s Cretaceous epoch. Below angular jawlines ?iet have no arms, just a torso descending into muscular hips and thighs, raptor legs, and a massive reptilian tail. Thus the radia, because as Nuj has explained, orthotic manipulation is annoying, as their clawed toes frequently fumble and puncture items they’d rather not ruin. None of that even begins to address the alarming fact that they don’t haveeyes.

They are generally a curious, peaceful species, but as ignorant as it may be, the ?iet’s appearance screams ‘Predator!’ to the average human.

Still, I don’t fear for my safety around the ?iet; if I did, I wouldn’t be meeting Nuj alone. No, the reason I’m here is because the predatory way they regard me, the way they smile while drawing inappropriately near, fills me with the most delicious terror I’ve ever felt.

And I’m painfully into it.

Nuj leans in so close I can see the shallow hills and valleys of skin above their wide rictus smile, thin lips peeled back to reveal hundreds of short, needle-thin teeth. Visually, ?iet faces are nearly impossible to differentiate. They identify one another using a combination of their radia and a type of echolocation to trace the contours of their facial folds; to a sighted species, discerning one from another might as well be palm reading. ?iet don’t wear clothes other than the occasional neck wrap with names and credentials. To make things even worse, their pronoun designators are untranslatable—or, at least, the Intergalactic Standard Trade language to which the translators are programmed isn’t yet broad enough to grasp the cultural complexity.

All-in-all, a political relations nightmare.

Fortunately, Nuj always makes sure I know who they are, having established unique ways of invading my space. Can’t guarantee I wouldn’t lose sight of them in a crowd, but I’ve become deeply attuned to their presence.

I pause to consider them properly—their wholeness, not just their appearance and whether it does or does not intimidate me, and for which reasons. This is a do-or-die moment. Finally, I open my mouth, murmuring, “Well, Spokesperson Nuj. Maybe we can forego propriety if we find some way to be alone.”

A laugh crackles in Nuj’s throat. “Quick thinking, Landfall. I might be able to arrange that.” Then they hip-check the door to my office the rest of the way open and saunter inside, tail swishing behind them.

Tonight is merely a blip in my usual standard for maintaining professional distance. I’ll go back to being a perfectly respectable coworker tomorrow.

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