Some more exposition, this time about Mars. We already knew Alix is a huge contrarian, but when told to have her clothes on, she takes them off? That’s contrarian.

The comment about “all this in three days and you seem fine with it” hearkens all the way back to Niven’s A World out of Time, where the protagonist takes most everything in stride, including being 300 years in the future and in someone else’s body. Yes, I recall fifty year-old things like that but still don’t know the names of my DayJob coworkers.

The last line should have everyone muttering, “Two chicks at once.” Have a good a weekend as you can; see everyone Monday.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Short briefing over, Pai hustled them onto her ship.  “No other crew?” Alix asked.

“Machines are more than humans, child,” she said in the face of her Intended’s look.  “Now, as you’ve some familiarity with ships, take the hand of someone you’ll never be with and go forward to Observation.  I’m already doing my pre-flight, and we should be on our way in minutes.”

“Question, Captain,” Alix asked in a formal manner.

“Sure,” Pai allowed with a smile.  She’s so pretty!

“Ship’s name?” the human asked.

“IRN Savorin.”

“Thank you.” Graf noted Alix was not letting this chance slip and grabbed his hand and pulled him down a corridor.  She actually smells very nice.  I’m going to assume Pai was just being a jerk when she said that.  Odd that someone like her is remotely threatened by what she calls a mere human.

When a door didn’t open, Alix simply shouted “fix this!” into the air, and it did.  A small chamber, not all that different from the saucer he’d been on before.  “I guess the walls can be made see-through?”

“Phased array translucent?” she corrected.  “Yes.  Buckle up, I’ve no idea how bad a pilot she is.”

Doing as he was told, she went on, one of the first times they were alone.  “You weren’t kidding.  You’re some farmer kid, right?”

“Yes.  Sorry, Spacer.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” she said with a kiss to his cheek.  I hope Pai isn’t watching.  “You would make an ideal colonist on Mars.  Look at what has happened to you in three days, and you seem fine with all of it.  That’s the kind of people my empress needs, and the kind her cousin wants.”

“Lifting,” Pai’s voice came from a speaker.  “If not strapped down, I suggest you do.  Six G acceleration in sixty seconds.”

There was a sense of motion in the seat, but Graf had another question.

“Her cousin?” he asked.

“Alicia,” Alix replied, waving her hand in the air.  “Their family is hella complicated.  Alicia is Queen of Mars.  I can see you don’t really get that.  She rules that world, a dictator of that planet.  It was the only way to stop an interplanetary war.”

I was just wondering how to fix my fishing rod, and now I’m told about interplanetary war.  “Ufff!” he couldn’t breath as he was pushed back into his chair.

“B…bitch…showing…off,” Alix managed between her teeth, the skin on her face like a skull.  After what seemed like an age, the pressure let up.

“At cruising speed,” from the speaker again.  “I’m coming forward.  Have your clothes on.”

“Screw that,” Alix muttered, sliding out of her uniform jacket then pulling her tee shirt off.  With just a pause to look at Graf, she unhooked her bra.  Not that she, like Pai, really needs one.

“So,” she said, putting her clothes to her left, “avoiding interplanetary war.  There’s a lot we don’t know.  Are you aware of the civilization found there?”

“Huh?”

“Calling that a ‘no,’” she sighed.  “Mars Crabs.  An old and alien civilization, under the Tharsis Rise.  Alicia’s Wonderland.  Even a nobody like me knows that there have been discoveries made which have our scientists and engineers gibbering like monkeys.  The queen takes very harsh steps to make sure there is peace on her planet and between hers and ours.”

“Which is why…Oh?  We’re being casual?  Okay.” Pai stepped in and immediately unzipped her coveralls to her waist and pushed them down, coming around to sit in Graf’s lap.  “Keep talking, but I want him to touch my breasts as you do, just to make you angry.”

This is so embarrassing!

“MY POINT,” Alix nearly shouted, her hands shaking, “was that he, Graf, would be a perfect candidate for a colonist.”

“I agree.  It is something to consider over our next two stops,” Pai said, leaning her head onto his.  “It will be something we must discuss at our first.”

“Which is?” Alix asked, being pulled forward just a bit from sudden deceleration.

“His house.  We are not yet legally married, therefore he is subject to his father’s will.  Also, as you will meet in about a minute, he has a younger sister to care for.  Yeeting Graf off to Mars without their blessing would be rather rude.”

“We’re…I’m home?  Already?” he asked.

“Yes,” Pai said, unbuckling him.  “You want to stay here and dust or do something domestic, human?”

Alix said nothing as she put her clothes back on.  But if looks could kill…

Out a proper airlock door on the side, they stepped the two feet to the sod of the land next to his family home.  I cannot believe all this has happened.  In the distance, he heard the old orange tractor headed their way.  I bet Dad saw this ship.  From around the side of the house, holding an empty bucket of chicken feed, Mindy came running.

“Brother?  Big Brother!” she shouted, then froze.  “Two?  Two girls now!”