Page 12 of Shadows of Stardust

The relief doesn’t last.

Almost as soon as she’s gone, the screen lights up with an announcement about the welcome dinner—just three hours from now—and I feel the clock start ticking.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Find something to wear. Get through this dinner.

And tomorrow my real work starts.

4

Zandrel

Mate Match kicks off production each season with a welcome dinner for all the contestants.

Well.Dinnermight be a stretch.

There’s food available, and drinks, but the main sport of the evening is getting all the contestants in the same place to allow them to start socializing and strategizing and parading around in front of the cameras. A pageant, all of it, and I watch dispassionately as those familiar mechanics are put in motion.

Not that they’vebeenfamiliar to me for very long.

Research. I watched every season of the show I could find on the vidcomm network for research. Certainly not because it provided any true entertainment value.

If I was going to be demoted to working security for such a frivolous endeavor, the least I could do was try to understand it better.

Only, as it turns out, there’s not much to understand.

Flirting, fighting, fucking. Jealousy and love triangles and ‘true’ mate pairings played out for an audience of billions across the sector.

Nauseating. All of it. In a strangely addicting sort of way, if that’s the kind of entertainment that captures your attention.

Not that I would know anything about it.

So far, the beach has been calm as all the contestants settled into their accommodations. No fights to break up, not a hell of a lot to do other than ignore my colleagues and take advantage of the dull afternoon to start my research on humans. I scoured the comms networks to learn everything I could about where they come from, what their culture and military are like, and how one of them might have found themselves so very far from their abandoned homeworld.

Roslyn.

That’s the human’s name.

I’ve heard it no less than a hundred times in murmured conversations amongst the cast and crew. She’s already causing a stir, and is apparently going to be a feature amongst the contestants, according to chatter from the producers.

A curiosity. An oddity to draw in more views.

I’d almost feel bad for the sideshow they’re making of her, if she hadn’t signed up to be here of her own volition.

But she knew what she was getting into, and I’m here to keep her and the rest of these fools in line, so I’m not going to spare any time concerning myself with her feelings.

Especially not now that filming’s officially started and Roslyn is mingling among the rest of the contestants at dinner. Moving through the shadows at the edge of the main pavilion, I position myself with a line of sight directly to her.

She hovers near the edge of the crowd as Geeno bounds up the stairs to address everyone. He launches into more dramatics about the ‘journey kicking off’ the ‘noble pursuit of following your heart to happiness’.

Fates above, does anyone believe this nonsense?

The Volbherran female standing next to Roslyn leans in to whisper something into her ear, and the corners of Roslyn’s mouth quirk up into a smile. She says something in return, tooquiet and far away for me to hear, and the two of them share a laugh.

My mental file gains a new page, more research to do on the Volbherran and a possible conspiratorship between the two.

Geeno finishes his address, takes his leave, and after a couple of suspended moments of shared hesitation amongst the group, the games begin.

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