Skrew got my attention by tapping me on the arm. When I looked, he made a weird face, stuck out his tongue, and tilted his head to one side. I wondered if he was having a stroke. He did it again, this time with more emphasis. I knew he was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I almost considering slapping him upside the head, but then I remembered that he’d offered to steal food for me. I figured he was now offering to steal the hand-blaster. The last thing I needed was attention from those who considered themselves to be in authority, so I grabbed him by his little ear and towed him away.
When I did, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A figure in a hooded cloak was standing still among the hubbub of activity, its gaze pinned to me. When I looked, the person was gone. They’d vanished into the thick mass of aliens and their wares. I made a mental note to be on my guard. I’d only been on this planet a few days, and there was already a laundry-list of people that likely wanted some payback.
My attention was drawn to a vendor closing a transaction with a humanoid with snakes instead of hair. The Medusa-like alien took an ax from the stall and tested its weight with a powerful swing. The weapon’s design made it clear that its creator intended it to be used for killing rather than tree-chopping. Spikes protruded from the ax’s sides and the hook of its blade. It was a fierce-looking weapon, but the transaction was what interested me the most. I spotted what the people were using for money: small, metal rings.
They were so small, they might not have been able to fit around an infant’s pinky. The man pulled the rings off a leather string and handed them to the vendor. When he’d counted the proper amount, he tied the ends of the string together and looped it over his head. Looking around, I noticed several other shoppers with similar-looking strings sticking out from their plain shirts.
So, that was the currency of Madomar.
I noticed the hooded person again.. Though I couldn’t make out the face, it was humanoid, a little shorter than me, and had pale skin.
I was being watched by someone with a keen interest in where I was and what I was doing.
From my experience, I knew things like that rarely turned out well. Whoever it was would have to be confronted and dealt with before they had a chance to escape and report their findings to whoever their boss was.
I needed to set a trap and catch the spy. After that, I’d figure out what to do with it.
The deeper we walked into the town, the more alien hands I had to push away. Hawkers filled the air with their noise, and items of various utilities waved in their air from both sides of the street. My guess was that the locals only walked as far as they needed to. Once they found a vendor who was selling what they were looking for, they turned around and went home. That meant the vendors further from the outskirts had a tough time selling their wares. Being pushy probably worked for them.
An old, female human was walking past a particularly pushy creature with crab-like claws when it reached out and grabbed her by her sackcloth dress and dragged her close.
“Your home could use one of these, yes?” the vendor demanded. The woman struggled to get away, but the crab held fast. “I could make you a good deal, yes? Maybe you will buy two, yes? Three?”
“Let me go!” the woman cried. Nobody nearby offered any help, but just as I got ready to intervene, she pulled a long knife from a hidden place on her dress and pressed it to one of the crab’s extended eyestalks.
“Let go, or I’ll make you grow a new eye,” she warned. The crab released her dress, and the woman hurried away.
I laughed and checked to make sure Skrew was still close by. We’d made it halfway through the crowded streets, and I didn’t want to lose him.
“Buy for your home, yes?” the crab asked when I got close. I rested my hand on my sword and watched him to see if he’d try the same thing with me. There would be no warning if he did. I’d take both his eyes.
The crab looked me up and down before its eyes came to rest on my sword. It made a chattering sound before looking away like it hadn’t noticed me at all.
That’s what I thought. It’s different when you have to defend your actions with your life. I chuckled. I couldn’t help it.
When a human vendor selling fur clothing did reach out for me, Skrew came to the rescue. He slapped the vendor’s hand without breaking stride, made a rude gesture with two of his hands, and shook his other two fists at the human.
The vendor returned the gesture, added a hip-gyrating insult of his own, and repeated the first gesture again. The silent tirade went back and forth for a full minute before the two lost sight of each other in the teeming crowd of aliens, humans, and unidentified things that might have been alive or not. Some were so weird, I couldn’t tell.
It struck me how strange my situation really was. I’d grown up on Mars, where humanity was the primary and dominant species. The MSM command had found few signs of sentient life in our system, except the Xeno. But here I was, understanding every voice. I was almost sure the Lakunae had something to do with that. I figured it was the
