So few content warnings.  This shit is gonna be Judy Blume before you know it.

Content Warnings:  Heartbreak, Inequitable Class System, Sci-fi Racism, Sex Work Mention, Murder Mention, Weapons, a Physically Abusive Relationship, Poverty, Delusional Fandom Behavior.

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CENTENNIAL HILLS CONTINUES

by Bébé Mélange

And then Tmai was gone.  The humans soon got their first look at Vinudians, as one came through the lobby on an errand, and another answered Snar at a kiosk window.  The creatures were human-sized and roughly humanoid, but their arms emerged from chest and back, and their heads were topped with a tube oriented the same direction as the arms, with one wet eyeball on each end.  Their skin was a range of purples and their mouths disturbingly wide.  The light inside the kiosk was brighter than the rest of the lobby so the Vinudian in there was backlit, hard to make visual sense of.  Their speech sounded somewhat human-like, and Snar spoke the language with very practiced precision.

“I am Doctor Snar,” they said in Vinudian, “and these are some unfortunate aliens I need to keep off the streets for a bit.  They may require water and a place to excrete, but should not need to spend the whole night.  What can we arrange?”

The Vinudian looked blankly with its big front eye, drummed its twiggy fingers on the desk, and said, “Welcome to the Wings of Vinudi, doctor.  Perhaps you should slow down a bit.  You’re to be here for at least ten years, yes?”

“I am, but I’m eager to get settled in – and leave the company of these aliens as well.  I need to know they are cared for until my escort Captain Tmai returns, but I don’t need to be present for that.  Do I?”

“I suppose not.  There is a seldom used meeting room on this level I can put them in.  It’s a short distance to the restroom and has its own water dispenser.  Are they allergic to salt?”

“No.  That will do.  Will there be any expense?”

“None.”

“Come with me.”  The clerk disappeared from view then stepped out a side door in the kiosk, joining the crowd.  She appraised them.  “They’re kind of cute.  Like Ainavians but less moist.”

“Mm.”  Snar didn’t say what they thought.  In some respects the humans were like a cross between an Ainavian and a Vinudian – more pelage on the body, a dental organ, internal bones, smaller brains.  It was all fairly hideous.

“Do you speak their language?”

“Not really.”

“Tell them to follow us if you can.”

“Gum widh Binudino.”  They gestured for everyone to get up.

“Jdurtozh,” the clerk said, gesturing to herself.

“Jdurtozh,” Eliza managed with a little nod.  “Shamar, can you, I don’t know, carry Scuzz?”

Everyone waited awkwardly for the lady to get up.  Shammy crouched beside her.  “Ma’am, we’ve got to go.”

“Fine,” she sniveled in a tiny voice, “just go.  all of you.”

“No no, you got to come too, ma’am.  C’mon.”

“No.”

“Just for a little while.  Tmai will sort out Pep and we’ll all figure this stuff out together, alright?”

“Pep,” she softly cried.

“Is this one ill?,” Jdurtozh asked.  “Anything contagious?”

“It lost its mate.  Zigilous Komber.”

“Disturbing.”

Shammy didn’t try to engage Scuzz verbally anymore, gently hefting her upright, then to her feet.  His back was in no shape to haul her around like a movie monster with an armload of damsel, but he did support her with an arm and led her after the others.

Jdurtozh brought them to a crappy little conference room with no windows.  At least the air regulation was decent, though the lack of egress could make it feel less so.  Jdurtozh showed Eliza the water dispenser.  It was a floor to ceiling cylinder, like an exposed pipe running through the corner, but had a dispensing rig bolted onto it.  The clerk showed her how to dispense a cup and handed her one.

Eliza took a sip and swallowed with a wince.  “Lukewarm salt water.”  She handed it back and the clerk poured the excess into a drain beneath the dispenser, then showed her where to return the used metal cups to the machine.

The clerk spoke with Snar in that strange language again, then Snar tried to translate.  “You shday yeer.”  They gestured at each of the humans, then to the conference table.

“Wait,” Eliza signed in Ainavian.  “A toilet?  Where?”

“Sorry,” they signed, then said something to the clerk.

The clerk waved for them to follow again.  This time Scuzz stayed behind, standing in the back corner like the Blair Witch Project and whimpering while the others were shown the restroom.

She was alone again.  She yelled nothing to no one, the thick little double door at the room entrance muffling it from the others, so at least that didn’t strike them alarming enough to come running back.  But would they have anyway?  Who cared about Scuzz?

She threw herself away from the wall, arms flopping, then backed into the table and fell over it, sprawling.  She twisted in place and crawled out into the middle of the table, then collapsed there face down.  “It’s not for me.  It’s never for me.  Not this world or any other.”  She was forgetting about the many times in life she had felt loved and contented, of course, but it is hard under stress to see past one’s present circumstance.

The minutes stretched and her mind emptied of all but an angry red bubbling.  Then she remembered something that helped her get through hard times in the past.  I’m a singer, she thought, and she remembered her saddest song.

“Mmmmm ooo-uh, at the bottom of the grotto.  Mmmm ooo-uh, I’ve been livin’ at the bottom of the grotto.”

 

Tmai had wasted no time procuring the fastest ride possible back to the spaceport.  It was a flying skycab and not cheap, but time would be of the essence.  Along the way they checked the local datanet for any information about zigilous kombers in the area.  There were addresses for incident reports of violence over the last several years, one personal ad for a komber seeking interspecies love, but nothing more to tell Tmai where the creatures might be living or working.

They acquired a little cart at the spaceport and jetted to the restaurant, eyeing the crowd as they went for familiar faces, other zigilous kombers, or the aftermath of any carnage.  They saw no such thing, and when they got to the restaurant, no sign of Pep or the object of his strange ardor.

Their computer had a message from Snar.  Tmai had a little time to work with, but what could they do?  They hailed a waiter and used their best restaurant Corsimine for the interrogation.

 

Snar left the humans to their own devices, messaged Tmai about how to find them, and pocketed their computer, hoping to never have to speak with or see anybody else involved with Earth ever again.  Jdurtozh led them up the elevator to the top floor.

A lofty place for a lowly doctor?  They asked, “Is my clinic going to be all the way up here?  For accessibility a lower floor is usually recommended.  Or is this just where my apartment is to be?”

“I’m sorry, you didn’t get the message?”

“What are you getting at?”

“There is a clinic on a lower floor for another doctor,” Jdurtozh said.  “You’re going to be serving the family of the bgrudjh himself, High Jdibitong.”

They shook their head.  “That is not what was agreed upon.”

“It should be easier, should it not?”

“Yes, but I became a doctor to help people.  Unequal application of care detracts from the well-being of all – even the privileged.  This is basic science, Jdurtozh.”

“You won’t catch disagreement from me, but it’s not really our decision, is it?”

“Maybe I’ll make my case later.  For now I just need to rest.”

She led them into a courtyard opening in the level.  The skylight was irregular milky greenish-yellow from some kind of pollution outside, which didn’t help daylight reach very far.  Looking over the railing Snar could see it disintegrate into murk at some floor below.  Jdurtozh brought them around the opening to another hall, down that past fancier doors, to a very grand set at the end.

The difference in light and decor between the lowest level and the highest immediately put Snar in mind of the clown tower where they’d been brutalized on Earth.  They felt like their fluids were evaporating as they walked down the hall, their body sagging.

“The doctor is here,” she said to the speaker pad.  The door opened itself and the Vinudian took their hand with the back arm and led them inside.

 

Pep had survived the crucible of mild physical abuse from the jedi knight, and even managed to follow him without being abused much further.  He wished he could read the creature’s expressions.

The jedi at some point seemed to assent to being followed.  One part of Pep couldn’t help but wonder why, but for the most part, he was confident his display of humility had worked its intended effect.  Self doubt was a foreign experience for him.

The jedi knight led him on a long walk through the spaceport, down a long, darker concourse to a tar-spattered and littered cavern full of waiting cabs.  They got into a cab with no driver and the jedi used its cellphone to tell it where to go.

Were they going to a temple?  Should he lose the pistol at his side, as a sign of respect?  Luke had a pistol in the early movies.  Clearly for Pep this was an early movie, so best to err on the side of caution.

When you have the Force, everyone will see this was the best way to go.  I thought I was going to bring trade goods back to Earth, but what better way to improve the lot of our species than with the one true religion?

The cab took them to another island, then down to the waterfront.  The air was thick with cold sea mist like a terrible soup accident had taken place, and grown beyond all human comprehension.  This island was even more shabby than the spaceport’s lower cab bay had been, the peak covered in cheaply constructed warehouses and processing plants, the coasts covered in low buildings made of some kind of wood-like substance supplemented with rusty metal and foamy-looking green bricks.  Pumice?  More likely a construction material manufactured from processed plant-like life.  The broken cobblestone streets were encrusted with feces from flying organisms and scraps of litter, every vertical surface covered with advertisements in varying stages of deterioration.

Pep had to step lively to get out of the cab before it took off.  The aliens considered each other.  Pep was embarrassed to be dressed like Han Solo.  He had never guessed it would be possible to be Luke instead.  “Master Komber, I am Pep.”  He gestured to himself.

The komber made some kind of zigilous noise – a rapid glottal click – but nothing Pep could recognize as a name.  Its four little black eyes were as inexpressive as those of a spider, its lips not emoting in a way he recognized – just flicking open and shut to reveal or conceal translucent needle-like teeth.  Was its skin wrinkled from age or just a natural condition, like that of a hairless cat?

In some instinctive way Pep still thought of the creature as a man, and tried to respect and defer to him in any way he imagined he could understand.  “As you say.”  He looked up at the nearest building.  The top layer of advertisements on it seemed especially crass, in an eldritch way.  “A vow of poverty?  I can accept anything that brings self-improvement.  I know I can.”

The jedi knight levitated his case again and shoved it into Pep’s chest.  He grabbed it before it slipped to the floor and carried it for his master.  The two went up a wrought metal staircase in an alley to a dangerously rickety balcony, then through small double doors into the master’s apartment.  Pep had to duck at the doorway, and his head touched the ceiling inside.

Master Komber’s place made Yoda’s look like a cottagecore paradise.  There were scorch marks all about the room that must have come from lightsaber practice.  Scraps of posters on the walls had an aesthetic that very abstractly looked like they were advertising 80s hair metal bands with insect erotica.  Miniscule detritivorous creatures buzzed around abandoned food containers or scurried along the walls.

Only racks of work-worn tools and a few other functional things seemed at all well maintained.  Komber jerked the case out of Pep’s hands and shoved it telekinetically into one of the racks, then went to the messy little bed and crawled into it.  Despite having a humanoid body, his movements reminded Pep of a lobster’s.

“Master, what should I–?”  He felt his jaw clack shut.  The pain of having those muscles wrenched was absolutely shocking and he collapsed – not unconscious, but unable to do anything except hold his head and weep.  You’ll get through this, Pep.  You will.

The jedi knight easily fell asleep.  Surprisingly, Pep did as well, weary from the abuse.

 

Tmai’s interrogation of the restaurant staff availed little.  Privacy technology and interstellar language barriers meant the komber had left little information to go on.  They slouched into a bench on the concourse outside the restaurant, on the very faint hope the creature might return to the scene of the crime.

They looked at all the publicly available information about inbound and outbound flights, trying to narrow things down in any way.  The existence of private flights with unlisted destinations fouled any odds of that working and they gave up, played a mindless strategy game to work out nerves, and let their mind run down various avenues.

If the komber had been inbound and went somewhere on Erbin 2, the crime information Tmai had turned up might reveal its neighborhood.  It was better than nothing, but not much better.  They couldn’t leave the humans at the Vinudian complex all night.  Vinudians were not a very progressive species and having unregistered aliens to hand might tempt them to various misdeeds.  Doubtful it would be anything so bad as Snar experienced on Earth, but still, something to avoid.

Tmai took another autocab to the closest of the crime scenes.  Along the way it occurred to them that Erbinians might have legally questionable gossip about aliens on their local net.  They started trying various search terms through layers of translation AI.  It wasn’t easy and they reached the scene before they were finished.

It seemed to be an industrial neighborhood full of cheaply built warehouses and factories.  It was less encrusted with advertisement than other places Tmai had been, but still had its share on utility poles.  There were more Erbinians here than around the spaceport, occupying most of the heavy labor jobs on their own world.  Bad history there.

There wasn’t much chance of success in it, but they tried to hail an Erbinian for a chat.  They all made dismissive gestures, if any acknowledgment at all, until Tmai asked a customer service type cornered by their line of work.  The Erbinian understandably made the alien do all the heavy lifting in the conversation, and Tmai’s eyes flicked back and forth from their computer translation to the native.

“Do you know of any zigilous kombers who work in the neighborhood?  Three years ago one killed an Erbinian in that factory.”

“That isn’t an order.”

“Alright.  I’ll get a tube of giragira.”

“Come on, pal.  My time is worth more than that.”

“Alright.  What are these things?”

“Blanched ufbug.”

“I’ll take one.”

“You have to choose two ingredients for stuffing.”

“What won’t poison an Ainavian?”

“I don’t know.  We have meats of erbworm, grudog, ufbug, and tuggy.  The sauces are by culture – Corsimine, Dzishite, Nokrian, Vilituia–”

“You can stuff ufbug into ufbug?”

“The stuffing meat is smoked and shredded, the husk is blanched.”

“Ufbug and Nokrian.  Do you know of any zigilous kombers who work in the neighborhood?”

It was a given that aliens would have almost no shared body language and true to that, the Erbinian had nothing like a face or a vibrating torso to give it away.  Fortunately their limb configuration was included in the translation AI and conveyed emotional info Tmai would otherwise have missed.  The ufbug vendor was wary of getting burned on the deal.  Tmai got their computer ready to pay and the vendor relaxed its tentacles.

“I was working in the warehouse when the murder happened.  Terrible stuff.  It was like something out of a story.  I’ll never see anything like that again if I’m lucky.”

Tmai took the translation on board as quick as they could, then made their payment, then got back into the AI.  “I don’t need to know about that, unless that komber is still around here.”

“It isn’t, but it’s the only zigilous komber I’ve ever seen.”

“How would one go about looking for a zigilous komber in the area?  On these islands.”

“You won’t like it.”

“If there is a way I want to know.”

“There are exophobic fora on the net.  Sneaky pics of aliens posted for mockery, tall talk about doing them harm.”

“That is disgusting, but I’m desperate.  This komber may do somebody harm – somebody I’m responsible for.  Thank you, truly.”

“Take this ufbug, please.”

Tmai pocketed their computer and accepted the street food.  It did not look edible, but the sauce could be squeezed out of the softened carapace.  They walked around the corner and squeezed out a sip of the smoked and saucy ufbug meat.  They trembled in disgust, and not finding a waste receptacle, tossed it into an alley.

“Beb,” they said, then signed, “you terrible fool.”  A passing Erbinian took a sneaky picture of them in that moment, and Tmai noticed.  Disturbing.

They hustled away from the block, away from those exophobic eyes.  The hill curved down steeply toward the waterfront.  All along the way, Tmai cast about for any sign of a place to rest.  The gluey pulp of advertisements grew thicker over every surface.  There were more people on the street all the time, and more variety to their planetary origins.

Something arrested Tmai’s attention – the four diamond eyes of the zigilous komber, clearly depicted in an otherwise decayed poster.  They took in every detail they could memorize and rushed around the streets, looking for a repeat of the same poster in better condition, until they were again exhausted.

There were no benches on the streets.  The bodies of Erbinians did not require them, and the selfish creatures did not want to accommodate aliens in any way.  Tmai gave up and went into the first open business they could find with seating, and were confronted again by the eyes – this poster in better condition behind plastic.

It took Tmai ages to sort out what was being depicted, due to the exotic anatomy.  It wasn’t zigilous; it was a slentous komber.  Kombers had several biological castes, of which only the zigilous were known to be a menace on the galaxy.  Slentous kombers were giant and fecund, and sessile while birthing a swarm.  This one was not in birthing mode, but it was in a bizarre costume that emphasized its protuberances and recesses.  It was erotic fashion, for a performance.

Tmai’s computer told them the show was in just a few hours.  Would the zigilous komber appear with Pep in tow?  They bought a ticket, and spent the rest of the time leading up to the show investigating on the computer – just in case the weird scene turned out to be another dead end.  The exophobic hate groups held a terrible, miserable fascination and they were lost to it.

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This is as far as I had written when I started posting.  Will things slow down considerably now, or will they keep rolling along?

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