The Iriduan’s Mate by Susan Trombley

Six

After helping her select an outfit for the meeting, Jenice left Molly to get dressed, returning to her security room to watch the monitors. They had an AI that tracked and analyzed all the feeds for noteworthy activities and would alert them if it spotted anything that fit a set of parameters they’d entered, but Jenice found comfort in personally watching everything that happened on those cameras.

Molly knew they all coped with their lives in different ways. Jenice had her voyeurism, hiding in a small security room to watch others living their lives to the fullest. Mogorl and Grundon had video games to help them forget that they’d been taken from their home world, Ultim, before they could harvest their own eel-stones that would mark them as adults when worn in their long fur—those same “energy” stones that other species coveted for their shielding power.

Molly’s way of coping with the things she was forced to see and do was to study. When she was a slave, any kind of unsanctioned learning had been forbidden. She knew enough about human children to understand that many went to schools where they learned many subjects before becoming adults. As soon as she’d gained access to the spotty Galactanet available on Igoth she’d begun taking official courses under a false name. At first, she could only take the free courses offered to all Cosmic Syndicate species that barely touched the surface of so many subjects the Syndicate citizens might need to know.

Now, she actually paid for some advanced courses in whatever subjects interested her, though she didn’t bother working towards any specific academic goal. It was enough just to focus on something other than the under-tier, the docks, Sha Zaska, and the horrors of her current career. The types of scholastic assignments varied, some ridiculously easy and some impossibly difficult without assistance, but they all took her away from Igoth for a while, at least mentally.

Physically, she remained present in this world. The taste of bile clung sour to her tongue, the stench of blood and sweat and alien pheromones and rotting flesh forever clogged her sinuses, and the sounds of suffering, and scheming, and screaming rang in her ears even when she slept.

Despite her determination to help as many slaves as she could, sometimes, she dared to dream of a future beyond Za’Kluth. In her Galactanet searches, she’d found some content that purportedly came from Earth, content that was intrinsically human and spoke to her in a way no other media did. Her favorite was the collected fairytales that had been compiled by an Iriduan scholar intrigued at how humans had mythologized the presence of Iriduan colonial descendants.

In some of those fairytales, the heroine would find love and live happily ever after. Molly daydreamed of such a magical future, even when dark shadows, grasping hands, heaving bodies, and hanging corpses filled her sleeping dreams.

As Molly finished applying makeup that made the dyed marks on her face more vibrant and touched up her lips to make them a darker purple than her violet skin, she pondered her own face in the mirror. Malnourishment as a child meant that she probably wasn’t as tall as she might have grown on Earth, and perhaps even now her body was too slim, though she made sure to eat regularly to maintain what curves she had, knowing that they gave her leverage with those aliens attracted to the human form. Her face, as Uthagol had reminded her on many occasions, was plain, though the markings added an exotic flair to the round shape with narrow cheekbones, a small chin and jawline, a lower lip that was fuller than her thin upper lip, and a slightly crooked nose that had been broken by an irate supervisor when she was a child and never fixed.

Her eyes were a striking feature, she’d been told, staring out of a rather ordinary human face with an indeterminate and arresting color that shifted with her mood and the surrounding lighting. Long lashes framed them, and she wouldn’t confess to anyone but Jenice that those had been artificially enhanced to play up her best feature.

She wasn’t a great beauty, but those who visited Uthagol’s brothel hadn’t seemed to care. They’d gone there looking for a human—most to serve some fetish—and they weren’t particular about the details of her appearance. Now, she used those same fetishes for humans against many of the aliens who came to this tier to deal with Sha Zaska.

To her surprise—and at one time, her horror—it was the aliens that looked the least human that were most likely to have the human fetish. She’d outgrown her fear of such creatures and learned well how to manipulate and direct them to keep herself as safe as possible.

The alien she was preparing to meet belonged to a whole different category altogether. Many aliens, regardless of appearance, had an Iriduan fetish, not to mention a burning and lasting hatred of the species. Iriduans were known to be both beautiful and cruel. Their empire was a dominant one in the Cosmic Syndicate, though she’d heard tales that its power had waned drastically in the past dozen or so Standard years.

She’d seen full images of the faces of both Iriduan emperors on the Galactanet and had done some recent research on the species after her meeting with the Ma’Nah representative. She’d be lying to herself if she denied that they were exactly as described—gorgeous—although almost unnaturally so, their features too symmetrical, too perfectly formed to be markedly distinct from each other. As if a talented artist had used only a single model to draw all their images and only slightly tweaked each picture to differentiate them.

They differed most significantly in their coloring, and those differences could have a dramatic effect on their appearance. Just as Molly’s unnatural coloring and markings dramatically altered her own appearance. Interestingly, the colors of their iridescent skin weren’t what denoted their class or social position. It was more like the combination of colors that told whether they were considered valuable enough to engineer the most aesthetic color schemes for them if they weren’t naturally gifted with it.

Details about their mating habits and reproduction remained confusing and conflicting at best. Molly only knew that their females were extremely well protected, and some accounts claimed they were actually locked away for a variety of speculated reasons. Not one of the sources she’d been able to find on the Galactanet had been able to describe an Iriduan child. The Iriduans protected their offspring so completely that they were never seen by other species, not even those trusted enough to visit Iridu.

She idly wondered if any Iriduan children had been abducted and sold into slavery like she had been. If so, she suspected they would have ended up in brothels like Uthagol’s, given their physical beauty.

Molly waited in the inner sanctum for the representative. Jenice had passed on the information that his name was Shulgi. Apparently, he had an additional name—the Iriduan version of a family name—but he hadn’t offered it. Since Molly couldn’t even remember her own family name, she wasn’t about to demand more information about his. People on Za’Kluth often dropped any identifying details like family names anyway. Not many came to this world without having a past that chased them off far more hospitable ones.

When Shulgi arrived, twenty minutes early, the dockmaster—now obsequious to him because he might become a client—ushered him into the public office.

Molly studied the video feed of the public office from within the inner sanctum, watching the Iriduan male pace the confines rather than take a seat in one of the luxurious chairs. She got the impression of a caged predator, constantly checking the boundaries of its confines, seeking a way out.

The fact that he’d worn a more formal robe this time instead of armor told her he was aware that Sha Zaska wouldn’t allow anyone on the docks to harm his newest potential client.

She’d seen Iriduan males before, though intelligent people avoided the dreg unless they were forced to do business around there. Sometimes, the Iriduans strayed from their own part of the tier to wander among the other species they clearly felt were beneath them. Their arrogance was always evident in their demeanors, even if their expressions were mostly hidden behind masks.

She’d read conflicting reports about the masks too, though most sites had agreed that their use tied into Iriduan mating habits. She suspected that the Iriduans themselves flooded the Galactanet with a hundred different versions of the truth and perhaps even more than a hundred different lies to keep the stories about them and their culture confused.

This Iriduan had green coloring. Not just his iridescent skin, which was a light spring green shade, while the smooth, sleek strands of hair that fell to the middle of his back between bottle glass green wings was the shade of a dark grass. His eyes glittered like flawless emeralds, larger than human eyes, though they were currently narrowed above his breather mask as he surveyed the empty office.

Molly’s favorite color had always been green, for as long as she could remember. That was why she’d chosen it to be Sha Zaska’s color. Still, it wasn’t her admiration for the many shades of his appearance that stole her breath. He was as large in his cream-colored silk embroidered robe as he’d been in full body armor, and he still carried himself with the coiled tension of someone prepared to fight at any moment.

This was no willowy Iriduan male accustomed to a life of leisure. She knew their species had warriors—some of the best in the galaxy—but it was rare to see those guards and soldiers not wearing armor, so she’d just assumed that the armor itself lent them the added bulk that set them so apart from their berobed counterparts.

Shulgi looked more than capable of winning a fight even without armor.

His size unnerved her, but Mogorl and Grundon would be with her, and they had already risen from their seats on the lounger to stand at her side, waiting for her to give the signal to step out into the outer office, where she would have to face down one of the most intimidating clients she’d ever dealt with. She feared he would somehow see through her ruse when none of the others had. Not even the okihan pirates who leered at her with lolling tongues could see the truth, despite how canny and clever they were.

She nodded her head to Mogorl, who opened the outer door as Molly turned her gaze away from the screen and took a deep breath. When she let it out, she tried to release all her tension and nerves with it. She bowed her head slightly, taking on the posture of a meek dyed flower, ready and willing to serve in whatever capacity her master desired.

Her heart thudded so hard in her chest that she feared the Iriduan would somehow hear it pounding away as she followed Mogorl into the outer office.

A quick glance up showed her that he remained standing on the other side of the desk, though he’d stopped pacing. His wings continued to flick and shift behind him, as if he didn’t like to remain still. At least not in uncertain surroundings.

“Welcome, honored Iriduan,” Molly said in her breathy voice, grateful that the affected tone allowed her to conceal the quivering in her words. She gestured demurely towards the seat at the other side of the desk. “Please, be comfortable in my master’s abode. He will speak with me through the console, and I will relay his words to you.”

Shulgi’s eyes narrowed further, furrows forming between the straight slashes of his grassy green brows. “Why doesn’t he speak for himself?” He gestured to the console on the top of the desk as Grundon shifted at Molly’s side, agitated by the disrespectful tone the Iriduan took.

Molly breathed shallowly through her nose, inhaling a delicious odor that was unlike anything else she’d ever smelled in the under-tier. She knew that scent came from the Iriduan, but she couldn’t describe it based on anything she’d ever smelled before. It was fresh and exotic, with an undertone of something rich, like an irresistible desert. She wished she could bottle it up and wear it around her neck to keep away the stench of the under-tier all the time. Stench that even infiltrated this office and the inner sanctum beyond.

She struggled to focus on his words, rather than his imposing presence. “My master does not speak a language that most would understand, honored Iriduan.” She kept her voice as soft as possible, being certain to strip any hint of emotion out of it. “I have been trained to interpret it for others, and I serve as his mouthpiece.”

Shulgi’s wings folded at his back, then spread outwards briefly, before folding again. “Thida naf communicate via sonic pulses. There are mechanized ways to interpret those signals.” He gestured to the console. “I suspect that is what interprets those pulses, not you.”

For a moment, Molly forgot to breathe. She blinked rapidly, her gaze still lowered so she didn’t have to meet the Iriduan’s beautiful eyes. Her mind went blank, and she started to panic. She hadn’t expected him to do research on the thida naf, and she’d deliberately chosen that particular alien species because there was so little known about them. Most of the other clients of Sha Zaska’s had simply accepted her explanation at face value. If they had their doubts, they hadn’t bothered to voice them aloud in her presence. The rare few that did voice similar complaints as Shulgi’s had been easy enough to convince to work through her.

Suddenly, words flashed on the console screen that faced her, out of the view of the Iriduan.

“Pull it together, Mol,” they said, and she knew it was Jenice speaking them from the security room in a way that was translated into their coded language. “This is an easy one. It isn’t the first time someone has questioned you. Give your standard response.”

Of course. Molly breathed out, then bowed her head lower. “Honored Iriduan, I do not question my master’s will. I exist only to serve him.”

Shulgi’s sudden growl raised the hair on the back of her neck as she looked up quickly. Both Mogorl and Grundon tensed, following the sound with their own warning growls. Shulgi’s posture subtly shifted, and Molly could tell tension was escalating in a way that could be counterproductive, if not outright dangerous.

“Your master is a vile monster,” Shulgi bit out, his angry glare fixed on the door to the inner sanctum. “I despise such creatures.” His emerald eyes shifted back to her, his glare softening.

She didn’t like the look in his eyes when they met hers. Well, she did like it. More than she should. It worried her though because she recognized it. It was the same way she looked at every slave she passed, plotting how she could help free them.

The last thing she needed now was a savior, and she realized with a flash of insight born from familiarity with the sentiment that was exactly what Shulgi wanted to be when it came to her. As much as that thought warmed her, unexpectedly lightening her mood, she couldn’t afford to entertain it.

She had to take a different tack with him. The more downtrodden and beaten she appeared to be, the more likely he’d make a move to rescue her. Her posture shifted as subtly as his had, though she wasn’t moving into a fighting stance.

“Please, honored Iriduan,” she said in a firmer tone that caused both Ultimen to glance at her in surprise. “My master takes excellent care of all his servants. He treats us far better than the rest of the galaxy would.” She lifted her head to meet his intent gaze, her voice growing breathless again, only this time it was genuine. “I am happy here,” she whispered in a low voice.

His glare returned though he didn’t comment on her claim. She didn’t think she’d succeeded in convincing him, but when she gestured to the chair again, he took a seat this time. His wings spread to his sides, framing him to adjust to the furnishing, their wingspan impressive, even when not fully extended.

“We should get down to business,” she said in a more authoritative tone, realizing that she had to drop the submissive act completely for him, because it only created complications.

He leaned forward, his gaze shifting from her face down to the console, then lifting again to fix on her face. His strong hands rested on his knees, motionless. She noted the thin scars along the back of them with some surprise. Iriduan technology was more than capable of fully healing scarred flesh, and their purported vanity meant they rarely had any mark on their skin that they didn’t want there.

It was becoming crystal clear to her that this Iriduan wasn’t at all like the stereotype of their species. That could end up being a hindrance in their business dealings. She’d expected a representative to be as shady and willing to operate outside of any kind of law as any of her other clients. She feared that Shulgi would have limits that Sha Zaska’s operations might push.

“I’ve agreed with my… associates to make a deal with your boss.” Shulgi’s gaze swept the office before returning to her. “I am certain it is clear I have reservations about working with Zaska in any capacity.”

Molly slowly nodded. “I understand your concerns. However, Zaska’s Shipping and Docking will benefit Ma’Nah so that you can continue your mission in the most effective way possible.”

Shulgi stiffened, his fists clenching on his knees. “My mission?” His voice sounded strained coming from the distorting speaker of his mask.

An alarm bell went off in Molly’s head at the sudden tension and antagonism radiating from the Iriduan. “I speak of Ma’Nah’s mission of spreading affordable, quality nutrition to every corner of the settled galaxy. That is your company’s mission statement, is it not?”

She lowered her gaze to the console, ignoring the flashing text on there from Jenice that would only tell her she was screwing this up. She didn’t need that reminder.

“Forgive me if I have said something offensive, honored Iri—”

“Shulgi,” he said, cutting her off. “Call me Shulgi, if you are to be the mouthpiece of your… of Sha Zaska.”

To her relief, his tone sounded more relaxed and a quick glance at him showed that the tension had eased in his posture. Now, he leaned back in his chair, his hands open and palms resting on his thighs. Only his wings still shifted at his sides as if not all his aggression had disappeared.

Molly slowly let out her breath, lifting her fingers to swipe over the screen of the console to bring up the contract Jenice and the others who were more familiar with the business side of things wrote up in advance. She tapped a button that opened a console on Shulgi’s side of the desk. “Please forgive me if I misspeak in any way… Shulgi.”

She shot a quick glance at his face, then looked away when he met her eyes. Saying his name seemed too familiar. At the same time, she felt an urge to become even more familiar with him, even regretting that she didn’t need to seduce him or even flirt with him any longer.

For the first time ever, she wanted to flirt with a mark. She actually wanted to do a little more than flirt with him.