M. Hoyvil was still sitting on the floor looking absent-mindedly at Potat when Antaska entered the room.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” Antaska said. “Some other Earthlings were in the bathroom, and they wanted to talk.”
“Oh. Were you gone for long? I didn’t notice,” said M. Hoyvil. “But we’ll still be on time for dinner.”
Although M. Hoyvil was preoccupied with the upcoming social events and various young Verdante adolescent girls he already knew or might meet, he took his responsibility for Antaska seriously, and she was still in his thoughts. With his powerful Verdante sense of hearing, he’d heard her running down the hall toward the room, and he wondered why. Even from a sitting position, he didn’t need to look up much to see her face. He noticed the slight pink flush under her tan skin that made her look healthier and more energized than when he’d last seen her.
Was she running because she’s not getting enough exercise here? he wondered.
“Most people take the week off from exercise when they visit the home planet. But you don’t have to if you’d rather work out. There’s a gym in the residence I can take you to tomorrow if you want. There’s also a big community gym we can visit while we’re here. But if you want to rest instead, it’s completely up to you. I heard you running down the hall, and I thought you might be feeling restless,” he explained.
“Yes, I’d like to do that. Thank you,” said Antaska.
M. Hoyvil noticed that Antaska’s tan skin flushed even pinker.
Hmm. That’s odd. She must be embarrassed about something, he thought.
But he didn’t ask her what.
“Are you ready to go to dinner now? You don’t have to if you’re not up to it. It’s going to be noisy with so many Verdantes and Earthlings there. I can bring some food to your room if you want,” M. Hoyvil offered, trying to be accommodating.
“Oh, no thanks. I want to go. I’m feeling a lot better than when I first got here,” Antaska said.
M. Hoyvil, a growing adolescent, suddenly felt very hungry. Faster than the fastest Earthling, he sprang up from his seated position on the floor in one swift motion. Then he led Antaska to the dining hall at his natural long-legged swift pace. When she’d first joined him on the trip from Earth to his planet, M. Hoyvil had slowed down when he walked with her to accommodate her much shorter legs. But he’d increased his walking speed as she became more and more fit and told him she didn’t mind going faster.
As she approached the dining room with M. Hoyvil, Antaska heard soft bits and pieces of both vocal and telepathic conversations, and she braced herself for even more. The effects of the drug Freeta had sprayed on her made her feel mentally dull.
Will I be able to deal with a big noisy crowd of new people? she wondered. I’m not sure, but I’m not going to hide in my room.
Just as Antaska expected, a loud clash of vocal and telepathic noise assaulted her ears and mind as soon as they passed through the tall, wide-arched entranceway.
Dozens of humans and Verdantes of various ages sat mixed together, in chairs that fit their individual size and species, around an enormous oval dining table that filled the center of the large round room. The table, made of turquoise stone, glowed beneath the soft golden shine of late afternoon sunlight reflected down through the top of the room’s domed ceiling.
Many heads turned in Antaska and M. Hoyvil’s direction. Antaska could hear several loud mental conversations of the Verdantes happening all at once. The vocal talk of the Earthlings with each other and the Verdantes next to them was much softer, continuous, and almost lost in the combined din of Verdante telepathic speech that blasted in Antaska’s mind.
Loudest and clearest were the mingled mental shouts of the child-sized Verdantes. “Sit with me, M. Hoyvil. Sit with me!”
Antaska jogged into the room to keep pace with long-striding M. Hoyvil.
“Thanks for the offer, everyone,” said M. Hoyvil. “But I have to sit with Ms. Janeez because she’s the oldest of my relatives to ask. Tradition, you know.”
The three Verdante children sitting to the left of Ms. Janeez shoved over to make room for M. Hoyvil and Antaska.
“Antaska must sit next to me,” Ms. Janeez insisted.
“Yeah! M. Hoyvil sits next to us,” said one of the big Verdante children.
“Don’t be rude to Antaska!” M. Hoyvil admonished them.
Antaska’s mood lifted, and she laughed. “It’s OK,” she said.
Then she turned to look at Freeta on Ms. Janeez’s other side. Freeta smiled and waved at her. Antaska remembered the drugs and all the bathroom talk. Her mood crashed back down.
She forced a calm, composed demeanor on her face and stood next to Ms. Janeez while M. Hoyvil and the three children retrieved suitable chairs from those arranged on the side of the room.
“Let us carry your chair!” insisted the children to M. Hoyvil in telepathic unison.
He agreed with a silent wave of six long green fingers, using the convenient third form of communication of the Verdantes–their own sign language.
M. Hoyvil selected and lifted a chair for Antaska and quickly carried it over to the table. The Verdante children were slower to carry his chair. Between the three, they awkwardly balanced a chair that was twice the size of the largest of them.
The situation with Freeta was fresh in Antaska’s mind as she climbed up the attached steps to her raised Earthling-size chair and sat at the table between M. Hoyvil and Ms. Janeez.
Antaska was even more disturbed when Freeta leaned around Ms. Janeez to speak to her. “I hope we can get together again after dinner tonight, Antaska. And I hope you remember what I told you.”
Is she threatening me? Antaska wondered.
Antaska was relieved to be interrupted from her worry about Freeta by the loud but kind voice of Ms. Janeez.
“Hello, Antaska. I’m Ms. Janeez. I see you’ve already met my human, Freeta.”
Antaska noticed that Ms. Janeez talked about Freeta as if she owned her, but Antaska knew most of the Verdantes thought of the Earthlings as pets.
I’m so glad that M. Hoyvil doesn’t talk about me like that! Antaska thought.
With her mind and ears bombarded by a confusing mix of soft human speech woven through with waves of Verdante telepathic conversation, Antaska was slow to reply, but Freeta spoke up to answer the question for her.
“Yes, we met in the Earthling female bathroom today,” she said in a friendly voice as she leaned around the huge Ms. Janeez again to look at Antaska with a sweet smile on her face that seemed fake. “Ms. Janeez is the most talented, artistic, and creative clothing designer on the entire Verdante planet. Even in the entire galaxy,” she added with sincerity.
“Oh, thank you Freeta,” replied Ms. Janeez with only the slightest touch of modesty.
She patted Freeta lightly on her puffy red hair, causing its waves to sway and thus demonstrating her artistry.
Freeta smiled up at her. This smile looked genuine and devoted.
“Anyway,” continued Ms. Janeez, turning back to Antaska, “as Freeta knows, I design outfits for Verdante family members and for my Earthlings. You’re a very unusual human, and I’ve been inspired to design an outfit that will express your inner spirit. I believe that you have the soul of a warrior as well as the physical appearance. I’d like to make fitting clothes for you to wear when you journey forth to do battle in the far-flung universe!”
“Thank you,” said Antaska. She wasn’t expecting to do battle on the exploratory space trip, but she didn’t think it would be polite to say that.
Although Antaska sat in a high chair that raised her to table level, she had to bend her head back to see Ms. Janeez’s face as she spoke. An older adolescent than M. Hoyvil, Ms. Janeez was over ten feet tall. But she still had a few hundred years of growing to do before she would reach her full height of about twelve feet.
Antaska watched Ms. Janeez’s deep green lips moving. They were fuller than M. Hoyvil’s lips. But they were still proportionally smaller than the lips of an Earthling compared to the rest of her head and face. She had the typical enormous, slanted Verdante eyes set in a huge cranium that narrowed down to a much smaller nose and chin.
Ms. Janeez’s voice was loud and clear, but Antaska was feeling fuzzy from the drug, and she was starting to have trouble separating the voice from everything else in the background. Particularly loud was a telepathic conversation taking place on her other side between M. Hoyvil and the three children who had visited Potat before dinner.
“Is really it true that Potat is your master, and you’re her pet?” They all asked him at once in loud, high-pitched telepathic voices that must have been heard by all the Verdantes who sat around the table.
Heads turned, including the heads of M. Hoyvil’s primary male and female gene contributors, Master Meeepp and Mistress Bawbaw. Antaska noticed that they seemed to be waiting with interest to hear M. Hoyvil’s reply.
M. Hoyvil paused and carefully considered the consequences that could arise depending on how he answered. He knew that if he said he was the pet of Potat, both Master Meeepp and Mistress Bawbaw, the heads of the family household, would be disturbed and displeased. Having to listen to a long drawn-out conversation that was mostly Master Meeepp lecturing him on appropriate behavior was a distinct possibility. Then he thought about what Potat’s reaction might be if the children told her that he’d said he wasn’t her pet.
“Yes, I’m the pet of the cat Potat and so is Antaska. We’re both her pets. Most humanoids don’t know this, but cats are actually superior beings. So that’s why our situation is different from other pet and master relationships,” M. Hoyvil answered the children.
M. Hoyvil felt quite pleased with his answer. Not only would it satisfy Potat if the children repeated it to her, but it resolved one of his worries about Antaska. He was sure that it was only a matter of time before she found out that the Verdantes considered Earthlings to be their pets. She seemed to have an uncanny way of finding things out that most humans didn’t notice or seem to care about. When that happened, and she asked him about it, he could truthfully claim that he’d accepted Potat as the master of both of them. So he couldn’t possibly think that he was Antaska’s master.
On the other hand, Antaska might be offended that he assumed that Potat was her master too. He pondered that possibility while he reached for the drink tube in front of him with one six-fingered hand. At the same time, he took a large forkful of the ancient Earth-style food that Mistress Bawbaw had ordered the residence to make as a special feast for this occasion.
The children kept asking questions about Potat. But M. Hoyvil swallowed a big gulp of the light green liquid and then chewed a large mouthful of spaghetti before answering. He noticed that Master Meeepp was rolling his enormous eyes. And Mistress Bawbaw’s upper eye corners were twitching somewhat uncontrollably, a sign of nervous laughter that was rarely seen on her normally calm face.
Unknown to M. Hoyvil, who still didn’t know that Antaska could hear Verdante telepathic conversations, Antaska had heard his words. But she wasn’t upset by them. Whether or not Potat thought she was the master of Antaska and M. Hoyvil, and whether or not M. Hoyvil believed it, were the least of her concerns at that moment. Her biggest worry was that Ms. Janeez was speaking to her, and she was having trouble hearing her.
Antaska thought she’d look like a fool if she kept staring back at Ms. Janeez but not saying anything.
This could get embarrassing. What should I do? she wondered. Maybe if I focus on Ms. Janeez and ignore all this other noise in my mind and ears, I’ll be able to hear what she’s saying.
She looked directly at Ms. Janeez and concentrated as hard as she could on her words, and it worked! The other thoughts and conversations became muffled and faded, and Antaska heard the tail end of Ms. Janeez’s conversation.
“I’ve already started working on it, but I’m hoping you’ll take it with you when you leave on your journey. I’ll have to get M. Hoyvil’s permission too, of course, but would you like that?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Antaska to be polite and cover up the fact that she hadn’t understood the first part of the conversation, and she wasn’t sure what she’d just agreed to.
“That’s marvelous!” Ms. Janeez shouted out loud, attracting the notice of the Earthlings around the table.
Then Ms. Janeez turned toward M. Hoyvil and interrupted his conversation with a loud telepathic call for his attention.
“M. Hoyvil, stop talking to those children and listen to me. This is very important.”
As the oldest of them, Ms. Janeez had the right to demand their attention and to give orders for certain things like performing small tasks for her or ceasing from undesirable behavior. All conversation between M. Hoyvil and the three children immediately stopped, and all four younger Verdantes turned to look at her.
M. Hoyvil knew that Ms. Janeez had an artist’s personality–obsessed with her work and not really interested in anything else. As usual, she got right to the point.
“Your Earthling has agreed to accept the outfit I’m designing for her. It’s a costume that will express her inner self and set her spirit free! Of course, per custom, your agreement is required. But I’m sure that you’ll have no objections. Am I right?”
Ms. Juanita looked intently at M. Hoyvil with one gigantic eye slightly raised and twisted. This expression meant, “Yes, I know that your agreement is required, but if you don’t give it to me, you’ll be very sorry.”
M. Hoyvil had seen this expression many times before, but now he was more amused than intimidated by it. However, he had no problem with humoring Ms. Janeez in this matter. He hid his amusement by holding his eyes stiffly in the at-rest position as he answered her.
“As long as Antaska has agreed, it’s fine with me.”
“Fabulous!” shouted Ms. Janeez telepathically.
M. Hoyvil wasn’t surprised to see her stand up to leave the table in her enthusiasm to get started.
“Come, Freeta! I must go immediately to move forward on this design! There is so little time remaining!” she said.
“But you must finish your dinner, Ms. Janeez, or you won’t have the energy to do your best work on the costume,” Freeta protested.
“As usual, you are right, my faithful companion,” answered Ms. Janeez.
She sat back down and began to eat fast with pauses for huge sips of her chlorophyll water. Freeta started eating fast too.
“Ah!” M. Hoyvil heard Master Meeepp say telepathically to Mistress Bawbaw. “Now there’s an example of a truly devoted and helpful pet. If only M. Hoyvil could have chosen such a pet instead of that strange Earthling. She doesn’t seem to help him at all. And the small animal she brought along to disrupt the sanity of this household is even stranger.”
“I think you’re exaggerating about that last part,” answered Mistress Bawbaw. “I interpret the situation quite differently. The children are using their imagination to play fantasy games, which is perfectly harmless and normal. And M. Hoyvil is kindly playing along.”
“Hmm. Do you really think so, my dear?” Master Meeepp asked her.
“Yes. But as for Ms. Janeez’s pet, I’m more concerned about her. Like so many Earthlings who become our companions, she’s extremely attached to Ms. Janeez. But in her case, I believe the attachment has gone even farther than normal. I’ve seen her behave in a hostile manner toward other Earthlings whom she might see as a threat to her relationship with Ms. Janeez.”
“Really?” asked Master Meeepp. “I’ve never seen anything of the sort.”
“It’s passive aggressive behavior, dear. It’s subtle,” said Mistress Bawbaw.
“Well, if you say so, I’ll take your word for it,” answered Master Meeepp. “But to tell you the truth, I’m not as interested in the psychology of humans as I am in gazing at your beloved face. I won’t see you again for many months, and I want to see as much of you as I can before I leave.”
Mistress Bawbaw turned to look deeply into his eyes. M. Hoyvil looked away. They’d stopped talking about anything that was interesting to him.
Then Ms. Janeez pushed her plate aside, rose from the table, and rushed out of the dining room. Freeta got up and followed her at a much slower pace. M. Hoyvil noticed the lowered corners of her mouth–the Earthling expression for displeasure. He remembered Mistress Bawbaw’s concerns about her jealousy of other Earthlings.
Is Freeta mad at Antaska because Ms. Janeez is running off to design clothes for her? he wondered.