Galaxy's End: Book One by LeRoy Clary (popular ebook readers txt) 📗

had finally caught up. The additional weight made my legs and arms appear normal. I still couldn’t catch a ball thrown my way, I tripped on shadows, and sprinting was beyond my abilities. I could run awkwardly, with my knees rising too high and too slow to be a sprint.

However, the added bulk had centered in my backside and my walk must have changed substantially because men began looking at me there instead of at my face. Yes, some looked at my chest, but the loose clothing concealed my small breasts. My rear end was not.

Women looked at Bill and his chest. I found myself scowling when they did. They didn’t even know him or what his personality was, and they lusted after him. Thank goodness I was there to keep him out of trouble.

Within a few heartbeats of mental stress, I was asleep as if I’d taken a hit on my head. When I opened my eyes again, the pressure and headache that had plagued me after the incident with the pirates were thankfully absent. I felt almost normal. Both had occurred as I had sent out a sense of fear. It had built inside my head like my brain was growing too large for my skull.

That had never happened before. Or had it? Bill had once told me that I was cranky after using my empathic skills. One thing was certain; I’d never concentrated that hard or been so scared.

Fang was waiting in the passageway a with flipper full of dehydrated insects, each as long as my middle finger. They crunched as he chewed. He had a portable mist unit and fan set up beside him and on the other side was a black rectangular object in plain sight. It was a taser. Not the civilian model seen at local stores, but the one issued to the highest levels of law enforcement. On the side were the settings in easy reach of a thumb, tentacle, or flipper.

The lower settings were for smaller beasts, intelligent or not. The higher ones disrupted electrical impulses throughout the body, including the brain. A mistake in power settings resulted in death.

“Is that a threat?” I asked, nodding at the evil taser beside him. I didn’t believe he’d placed it there by accident.

“A promise to everyone on this ship. They will be respectful and allow you to sleep as long as your mind and body demand.”

I snorted with laughter.

He didn’t.

I said, “Well, you can relax. I’m awake now.”

He reached for the taser and concealed it in a hidden holster under his belly. I wondered if it had always been there. If so, he’d allowed Captain Stone to take his credit chip when he could have drawn the weapon and prevented it.

“Problems?” he asked perceptively.

I hesitated, then plunged onward, “You’ve had that thing with you all the time, right?”

“I’m small. For that reason, some believe they can abuse me.”

“Not my point, Fang. You allowed us to capture you, knowing that at any time you could pull your taser and be free. My question is why.”

Fang’s smile looked evil with the rows of jagged teeth and the remnants of partially eaten insects visible. “There is a story from my youth. I’ll try to tell you the basics in terms you will understand.”

“Go ahead.”

“There was once a man who chased a dog until he caught up to it and was bitten.”

Not a remarkable story. But short. I saw the point. “You’re the dog.”

Fang shrugged.

I went on, “You didn’t bite.”

“I was going to. However, there is a difference between the four of you and the other intelligent beings I meet that I appreciated. Each of you is unique, that is clear. However, there is a connection, a love if you will allow me to use that word. I wanted to share that closeness—to be one of you. I wanted that more than the offered reward.”

His confession had come in stutters and hesitations. Instinctively, I believed him. If the words had spilled forth smoothly, they would have sounded false. I sat with my back to the wall and allowed the ideas and thoughts to spill over me as if it were raining and the drops of water falling were innovative ideas.

I didn’t speak, nor did I have to. My eyes were unfocused. Fang had given me far more to consider than his bare words, as he had hinted in his little one-sentence story. There were meanings and implications hidden behind the words, and my mind tried to unjumble them.

He could have taken us as his captives instead of the other way around. His interactions with us since then showed he was researching us as much as we were him. Both sides wanted something of the other.

He wanted to be part of us—whatever that was. I didn’t know what we were. While the three of us had been together for years, Stone had only come into our lives a couple of days ago. Fang shortly after. We wanted a future together.

I said, “We just met Captain Stone a few days ago. It isn’t fair to call us a unit or whatever term you used.”

“And yet, you have integrated and assimilated her into your core group.”

“She integrated herself,” I corrected.

“That is untrue,” Fang replied without animosity or hostility. He was simply stating a fact as he knew it.

I reconsidered my standpoint and found he might be right. At any point, the three of us could have resisted her friendship, yet we had accepted her generosity as repayment for helping her escape. After all, the Coliseum police were after her, not us.

We had placed ourselves in jeopardy for leading her to safety. That begged the question of why we had done it. Turning her away with a warning of the approaching grav-sled would have been more than kind. But