Assistant for the Alien Prince by Tammy Walsh

Jessica

Although the Ev’vatwas far larger and stronger than the entire gang that’d accosted me at the spaceport put together, I wasn’t afraid.

I was only interested in what would happen next—if Zai would take pity on him or beat him to a pulp.

Within minutes, I got my answer.

The creature hit the deck and was out for the count.

I’d never seen a fight in the flesh before and I found it both exciting and terrifying in the same breath, especially since I knew Zai was unlikely to get seriously hurt.

It was funny watching the skinny little accountant beat up a guy at least three times his size.

No doubt the other barflies were just as shocked as I would have been if I didn’t know what Zai really looked like beneath his disguise.

The journey to the Temple of Onsheggas was less than thirty minutes from the bar.

It gave me plenty of time to revisit what we’d talked about at the bar—the fact Zai had disappeared for four years and no one knew where he’d gone or what he’d done.

The fact he seemed on the verge of revealing it to me of all people was fascinating.

With the experience he’d had with his previous event organizer, I’d assumed he would have been more tight-lipped about his personal details.

I could still, after all, be a spy just as she had been.

The idea alone made me giggle but it was a genuine concern he fostered.

The journey also gave me plenty of time to prepare my notes.

The Ev’vat Pairing Ceremony was entirely new to me.

I made a list of the items I always checked for and would go through the same process I always did when organizing an event.

There would be decorations to consider, what kind of space we would occupy, how many rooms, how the music traveled from one room to another, what kind of music we would use, what requirements were flexible and which immovable, how many guests would attend, if parking space was ample, on and on and on it went, seemingly without end—in fact, I had never planned an event that didn’t feel like I needed at least another month to prepare!

You did what you could with the time you had available.

The shuttlecraft shuddered with turbulence.

I happened to glance out of the window and my attention immediately snagged on the sharp inclines of the mountain fast approaching.

No, not a mountain, I realized.

Some form of structure.

It was the strangest looking thing I had ever seen.

Sunlight glinted off its perfectly smooth surface, like glass, winking at me in Morse Code.

It was ten times the size of the largest cathedral on Earth, with trunk-like sprouting limbs from a tree poking out at odd angles.

It shimmered between clear glass and black onyx depending on how the light hit it.

It looked nothing like the temples and churches back on Earth, that was for sure.

I shut my notebook without removing my eyes from it.

Something about it drew the attention, forcing you to gaze upon it.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Zai said.

I didn’t pull my eyes toward him.

“Hm? Oh. Yes. Quite magnificent.”

“The Temple of Onsheggas goes back further than our recorded history. No one knows quite where it came from or how it came to be. Never mind how it continues to grow.”

That caught my attention.

“Grow? But it’s a building… Isn’t it?”

I leaned forward in my seat and peered closer.

Beams of sunlight shone through it and cast tiny bubbles across my hands.

It wasn’t a building, I realized, it was simply used as one.

“It grows,” Zai said. “From somewhere within the planet, deep beneath the surface.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said, my voice barely rising above a whisper.

“Nobody has. It grows nowhere else in the entire galaxy. It’s unique to our world. Many scientists come to investigate and discover its secrets but we never allow anyone near it. Sometimes it’s better to have a little mystery in our lives, don’t you think?”

He smiled over at me and I smiled back.

“Yes, I think it is. On my planet, our scientists investigate everything. They don’t always succeed but they always try. To deliberately not try to solve a mystery… I don’t know. It doesn’t sound very… human.”

Zai’s grin grew wider.

“Then it’s a good thing we aren’t humans, isn’t it?”

“If we can’t use tools, it’s going to make putting up decorations difficult,” I said, puzzling over yet another problem to solve.

“Trust me, you don’t need to put up decorations.”

I frowned over at him, not understanding what meaning he was trying to convey.

He turned the controls sharply, banked, and brought us down at a sharp angle to land on a featureless patch of dusty landscape.

We climbed down the hatch and exited the shuttlecraft.

“At least there’s plenty of space for parking!” I said.

The landscape was perfectly flat, with the odd sprinkling of thatch of what appeared to be devil grass.

The entrance was a tall empty archway that bled into a huge cavernous room.

“Wow,” I said involuntarily.

Now I understood Zai’s throwaway comment about decorations.

Sunlight gleamed across the building’s glassy surface but never stopped, constantly dancing and moving, like shafts of light penetrating an ocean’s surface.

“This is incredible!” I said, feeling as giddy as a schoolgirl.

“This is the Temple of Onsheggas.”

I cast an eye over the space.

It was huge and could cater to at least a thousand people.

I broke out my notebook.

“How many guests will be in attendance?”

“That depends on how many invitations are accepted.”

“Sure,” I said, “but a ballpark figure is fine for now.”

“Oh, I’d say anywhere from fifty to sixty thousand.”

I almost dropped my pen.

My neck might have been made from iron for the grace I showed in looked up at him.

“Fifty to sixty…”

“Thousand. Yes.”

“But… the ball never looked that big on holo-TV!”

Zai shrugged.

“Then your holo-TV probably wasn’t big enough.”

I’d organized large events before but nothing approaching that size.

“How can there be so many guests?” I said.

“The Pairing Ceremony of the Crown Prince is a once-in-a-generation event. When the tribe chiefs come, they will bring an entourage with them. The more powerful the chief, the larger their entourage.”

I still couldn’t wrap my head around the sheer scale of the event.

“Is there a problem?” Zai said.

“No. No… It’s just… It’s a lot bigger than any event I’ve organized before.”

His smile was confident.

“Do what you usually do… only order more of everything! I’m sure it’ll work out fine.”

That was easy for him to say.

His reputation wasn’t on the line!

But then again, neither was mine any longer.

This would be the last event I planned.

After this, I would move into my aunt’s house and live out the rest of my days in peace.

I was happy at the thought… and for some reason I couldn’t fathom, not entirely thrilled either.

Just focus on the event, I told myself. Focus on knocking out one problem at a time and soon, I’d have everything I needed.

“How about the official who’ll oversee the ceremony?” I asked.

“About time you rocked up!” an unfamiliar voice said. “I was beginning to think you were never coming!”

A small, haggard figure leaning heavily on a gnarled length of wood limped over to us.

She reached up with boney arms as Zai bent down to hug her.

She smacked him hard on the back before pulling back and peering over at me.

“And who’s this?” she said.

She squinted hard with one eye, and her face was twisted as if she’d suffered a stroke at some point.

In fact, that was probably what’d given her the limp in the first place.

“Grand Septon Cath, let me introduce you to the Pairing Ceremony organizer. This is Jessica. Jessica, this is Grand Septon—”

The old lady waved a hand, cutting him off.

“Yes, yes,” she crowed. “No need for all the dramatic titles. Well, I’d better get a good look at you.”

She hobbled up to me as I lowered a hand to shake hers.

“Nice to meet you—”

I didn’t get another word out as she reached up, took my head in her hands, and yanked me down until I was on my knees.

“Um…” I said.

The old lady took no notice and turned my head left and right, running her fingers through my hair, pinching my nose, and peering intently down my ear canals.

“Um…” I repeated.

It had even less effect than the first time I said it.

Zai grinned down at us.

If I’d wanted help from him, I was bang out of luck.

The old lady leaned my head back and peered up my nostrils before making a noise of triumph:

“Aha! There you are!”

“There what is?”

The old lady leaned a little closer, her face in mine, the whiskers of a prominent boil on the tip of her nose almost poking me in the eye.

She smiled and it curled one corner of her lips, forming a tight fist of furrows in her wrinkled skin.

Finally, her eyes shifted from my nostrils and into mine.

“Yes,” she said, “you’ll do.”

She released me and I jolted back.

“Of course she’ll do!” Zai said, clapping the old lady on her hump. “She’s our Master of Ceremonies! Unless you want me to get kidnapped or assassinated before the event arrives. She’s the only one we’ve got!”

The old lady tossed her walking stick from one hand to the other.

“Yes, she will organize… among other things.”

She turned on her heel and marched through a smaller archway.

“Come! When you’re as old as I am, you need to hurry and make the most of each moment you have left! No time to slow down! No sir!”

“You’re not old,” Zai said. “You’re a spring grib!”

The old lady snorted.

“An old grib ready for the chopping block, more like! Always the charmer, but don’t let that stop you from choosing what’s truly in your heart, child. Come! We have much to see!”

As the old lady pulled away, Zai’s sidled up to me and whispered:

“Don’t worry about her. She’s just a little… eccentric, that’s all.”

A little? I thought. Unless I’d missed my guess, she’d completely lost her marbles.