Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 61982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
I drag my bag behind me for a bit, before he notices the repeated clanking noise, stops, turns, and plucks it from me. There is now a massive alien carrying my crystal pink bag. It looks about the size of a handbag in his massive paw, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
At first, I think that was a very gentlemanly thing to do. Then I doubt he has the same associations as we do in the human world. Probably just something practical. Still, the image of a massively tall alien in the most shining, resplendent armor I have ever seen, carrying my bag in his huge hand tickles the parts of my brain that have long dreamed for chivalry.
I follow him even closer now. If I get lost here, I won’t be able to find my way out and I won’t have the very limited supplies I still have in my bag. Getting lost in an alien port without a clean pair of underwear would be a very specific problem. And the last of my chocolate! He has that too.
We make it out of the port, through to what I can only describe as the universe’s largest garage of flying cars and super shuttles. Ones that have wings and fly about.
We wait for only a moment before a very shiny flying shuttle with all sorts of alien bits and pieces on it sweeps down in front of us and hovers in a frankly smug way. An Antari valet exits the vessel and Arkon hands him a token.
“This is us,” he says, opening two of his arms to usher me into the interior of my second ever space ship. This is smaller than the huge interstellar cruiser, but still large by human standards. Probably the size of two or three Inter City buses, if I had to make an anachronistic comparison.
Arkon stows my bag inside the door of a room we don’t go into and takes me with him all the way to the alien shuttle equivalent of a cockpit. Kind of can’t believe he’s letting me in here given what I did on the ship that got me put in a kennel, but he almost doesn’t seem to know about that. Maybe he’s not the same guy as the one who told them to put me in a kennel. Maybe someone else on the alien business org chart took care of that.
The cockpit is much larger and more spacious than someone who is used to human planes might suspect. Human planes have to be aerodynamic so the controls are all sort of crammed into one pointy bit at the front. This is more spread out. Like a big space-faring office that’s also incredibly high tech and has a lot of round buttons and shiny levers and I have the urge to touch things that I know better than to indulge.
I’m surprised that the ship seems to be just me and him as passengers. I want to ask questions about capacity, how much cargo it can hold, how far it can go, how fast it is. But I don’t, because I am experiencing the kind of awed shyness that makes saying a single word feel like eating a block of concrete. I could never.
I think he’s going to pilot the vessel himself. The chair in front of the main cluster of controls looks about his size. Which, as I think it, is a silly thing to notice because obviously all of these chairs are his size. Nothing in this place is scaled to human form. If I sit on any of these, my feet are going to be dangling a good way from the floor.
Arkon is very close to me right now, physically speaking. All the room in this cockpit and yet he takes up almost all of it.
“We are going straight to the work site,” he says. “We’re going to be in the field and the lab for most of your time here, so I hope you didn’t have any illusions of going shopping or seeing any concerts.”
“Uhm, no,” I say. “I’m excited to do the work.”
He nods. I am trying not to stare as he rotates the pilot’s chair toward himself before remembering about me.
“Ah,” he says. “Come and sit down. You need to be strapped in for takeoff. While gravity is still in effect you can be harmed.”
The chair he indicates is right next to his. I try to sit in it, but I have to effectively climb up into it, which I do. He reaches for me in that awkward way guys do when they kind of want to help you, but also don’t know if they should touch you or not.
I get myself into the chair, but once in it, I do struggle with what seems like a frankly massive number of belts and fasteners and whatnot, none of which were made for me. They’re obviously made for species who are taller and have four arms, so I’m not sure how I’m going to get them on.