“But… she…” He pointed at me, insisting almost as a formality, but his impatient feet gave away his desire to run off with his fortune and forget about me. The dirty bastard…
I looked at him, sulking. Judas! I would have insulted him, but I wasn’t sure I could say three words in a row without starting to cry. All that talk about group solidarity, all that “One for all and all for one,” all that “us against the world,” but he was selling me for a few credits, the rat! I was going to crack his skull with a rock, and the gang would be mine… if I got out of this.
For a second everything seemed to stand still.
“The buglickers!” Babo screamed, and fifteen kids ran off at top speed before the armored Planetary Security aerobus could land in the middle of the asphalt. For the first time in my life I was glad to see them. If that’s how the gang was going to betray me, at least the Law wouldn’t let me be kidnapped in my own neighborhood. Now this xenoid would know what’s what… I only had to ask them for help, and…
I thought better of it and kept quiet.
My captor greeted my supposed saviors with a slight wave of his free hand and walked off holding me tight against his chest, like it was nothing. Sure. A xenoid, even if he’s wearing a recently severed human head as a hat, will always be just fine, everything in order, for his lackeys the buglickers. When it comes down to it, they’re the masters, the ones who pay their salaries. And we people in the Numbered Barrios are basically just human trash.
The Colossaur went striding off. Farther and farther from my street and from Barrio 13. He seemed to know where he was going… and I didn’t like that one bit, if you know what I mean. It isn’t what you’d expect from a xenoid. They’re supposed to get lost every couple of seconds in our urban labyrinths, and give us poor natives a chance to make a living…
Later on I would find out that he knew much more about the good and the bad of my planet than I did.
His carapace was so rough, it was scraping my knees… I couldn’t hold back any longer, and the tears started to flow.
I was furious with myself, but I decided that if I was going to cry, I’d really sob my eyes out, so three seconds later I was bawling like a baby goat that just got weaned. If it didn’t stop him from taking me off my turf, at least it should bother him a little… and that would give me a better chance to escape.
It worked. He suddenly set me down on my feet, though he kept his heavy hand draped, kind of casually, across my shoulder.
He told me, “Look, Leilah, I don’t go around stealing little girls, and I’m not one of those gourmets that like the taste of human flesh. But since it looks like you won’t come with me without making a fuss, I’ll tell it to you straight. I came to Earth on… on vacation, and I need a clever, intelligent girl to help me. I know you won’t be losing anything, because you’ve got nothing to lose. Even your alcoholic grandmother will come out of this with more vodka than she could drink in ten years. I’ll pay you well, and you’ll also get to travel all over your planet for free. And I promise, I’ll never touch you. I know that sounds strange and that you don’t believe me… That’s good. I imagine that a naïve girl wouldn’t have made it to your age. But you’ll have to believe me. Because even if you don’t, I’m very obstinate when I’ve made up my mind… and I’m not going to let you leave. Even if you cry louder,” he commented when I took my bawling up a notch (what else could I do?). “But look, so you’ll see that things won’t be all that bad with me.” He dug in his coat pocket and took out something that gleamed with a metallic sheen. “Give me your hand, Leilah. Please…”
I hesitated an instant. From the corner of my eye, I was only staring at the huge paw holding me by the shoulder.
If he’d been a Planetary Security agent, I would have bit off a couple of fingers (I have good teeth) and while he screamed and bled I would have lost sight of him forever.
But you’d only try biting a Colossaur on the hand if you wanted to save money on the dentist. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. You could lose all your teeth and he’d never notice.
Besides, this guy seemed so totally determined to find me wherever I was hiding…
Reluctantly, I finally stuck out my hand.
In Barrio 13, you learn fast to accept things the way they are… otherwise you never get a chance to learn anything else.
He took my fingers, pressed them against the shiny object, and then gave it to me.
I was stupefied.
It was a platinum credit card.
The kind banks give to people who have a million credits or more in their accounts. I had hardly even heard about them. I didn’t know any human who had one.
It had to be a trick, or a mistake…
“It was a blank card, Leilah, but now that I’ve recorded your fingerprints on it, you’re the only one who’ll have access to that account,” he explained, then snorted. “Now you can run away if you want to, and make me go through all the trouble of finding you again. Or you can come with me, nice and friendly, and enjoy my gift.”
I stared and stared at the card. It looked genuine. Of course, since I’d never seen one before, I didn’t have any basis for comparison.
I looked at the xenoid. The truth was, he’d been very friendly, given his position, my own, and the circumstances…
“I guess you must be thinking this might be a ploy,” he grunted. “But you must see that if I wanted to rape you, eat you, or send you to a slave brothel, I wouldn’t go to so much trouble with you. I wouldn’t risk losing so much money…”
“I want to make sure this card is genuine,” I said, trying to make my voice sound steady.
“Certainly, princess.” He showed me his four rows of teeth. “Will you come with me? You know better than I do that there aren’t any credit machines here in Barrio 13… There wouldn’t be many customers for them, I guess.” He let go of my shoulder and held out his hand as if he expected me to take it.
I pretended not to notice, of course. I wasn’t born yesterday, to let somebody walk me by the hand through the streets, and anyway I didn’t want to seem too friendly. A girl has her dignity.
I rubbed my shoulder. They really are strong, those Colossaurs.
“Do you hand out credit cards to every kid you meet? Why were you looking for me? What’s your name?” I fired off the three questions one after the other, like a minimachine gun.
He presented me with his caricature of a smile.
“Sometimes. The one your little friend—Dingo, wasn’t it?—took doesn’t have much on it. A couple thousand… Anyway, it’ll be a fortune to him and the rest of your friends, don’t you think?” He emphasized the word “friends” ironically, and my reaction was what you might expect.
“Those rats…” I muttered, remembering how they’d abandoned me.
“Your second question, I’d rather keep quiet about—for now,” the xenoid went on. “But you’ll find out later on, I promise. Someday… Let’s say it was for reasons of… nostalgia. Not for you, of course; I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“For my mother?” I speculated, intrigued.
I only had one holovideo of her, and holonet recordings about her trials and sentences. And my Abuela didn’t talk about her much to me, not even on the rare occasions she was sober. But knowing the kind of life she led, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if this xenoid had known her. Even intimately… If anybody could find my mother’s huge muscles attractive, it would probably be a Colossaur male. And Friga didn’t have an ugly face, to tell the truth. Abuela always said I was her living portrait.
“Could be,” he said, mysteriously. “As for my name… I’m afraid you humans find it unpronounceable. But I had a… a great friend who called me Ettubrute…”