Was that it? Grawl had sold her to the alien?
She thought the thing was wearing body armour, but realised that was its skin. The creature was big and bulky, covered in a hard shell; its four eyes were on stalks; its six limbs were clawed. It was a monstrous, scaly insect.
Kiru stood naked and trembling and terrified.
Grawl’s heart-shaped amulet was passed from fleshy hand to chitinous claw.
“Trust me,” said the alien. “I’m a doctor.”
“What are you going to do?” whispered Kiru.
Then it told her.
She had been wrong. Wrong from the very start.
Because Grawl did want her for her body.
All of it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Show us your genitals,” said the topless blue alien, via the simultaneous linguistic and tonal equaliser.
“Er…” said Wayne Norton. “Is that really necessary? I only want a suit.”
The alien stepped toward him.
“Or just a jacket,” said Norton, as he backed away. “Forget about the pants. In fact, forget about all of it. I’ll go. Sorry to have troubled you.”
He retreated toward the doorway, but it didn’t seem to be where it was when he’d come in.
“You can’t leave empty-handed,” said the alien.
“Yeah,” said Norton. “Yeah, of course, I understand, yeah.” He glanced around the room. This was meant to be a clothes shop, but there were no clothes on display. “A necktie. I’ll buy a necktie, okay? Any tie. Just give me a tie, then I’ll go.”
“A necktie is some type of restraining garment?”
“It goes around the neck.” Norton mimed putting on a tie, making the knot, pulling it tight.
“For strangling your enemies, we understand. But we are a couturier. We make clothes to personal order, not weapons. You’ve come to the wrong boutique.”
“I’ll go. Let me out. Please.”
He kept looking for the exit, but couldn’t see it. He couldn’t even make out the size or shape of the room because it was almost completely hung with diaphanous fabrics, all of which seemed to float in the air from invisible washing lines. The multi-hued material was also scattered all over the floor, making it very soft and spongy. The atmosphere was thick with perfume, a mixture of heady fragrances so strong Norton could taste them as well as smell them.
“You’re from Earth, we believe,” said the alien.
“How do you know?”
“Because you look like an Earth person. We like Earth persons.”
“Oh, good.”
“Some Earth persons.”
“Oh.”
“Our name is Xenbashka Bashka Ka. We are from Algol, and our traditional greeting is ‘Show us your genitals,’ but we believe this is yours.” The alien held out its right hand. “How do you do?”
This is an alien, thought Norton.
I’m with an alien.
“Howdy,” he said.
Talking to an alien.
The only other alien he’d met was the Sham, which had tried to kill him.
The Algolan was tall and blue, with cropped white hair, pointed ears, and huge, sloping eyes. And bare breasts. Blue but bare. With hard nipples. Hard but blue.
He tried not to stare.
Breasts. Nipples. He’d never seen any before. Not for real. Not in any colour. Not human breasts. Not female human.
Was the alien female? It didn’t matter, except to another alien of the same species.
Female, male, or whatever other alien sexual variety there was, it was of no interest to Wayne Norton, Earthman. None at all. Absolutely none.
He started to offer his own hand, his right hand, then hesitated, remembering his missing finger.
“Is something wrong?” said Xenbashka Bashka Ka. “You refuse to greet us because we are an alien?”
Norton wondered why the alien kept saying “us” and “we.” The words were a direct translation, so that must have been how Algolans referred to themselves.
“No,” he answered, shaking his head. “It’s this.” He held up his hand, showing his fingers.
The alien did the same, for comparison. Its hand was like Norton’s, with three fingers and one thumb, although each was tipped with sharp claws.
Norton held up his left hand, with its full set of fingers.
Then the alien held up its left hand. Three fingers, one thumb.
“Ah, you’re deformed!” said Xenbashka Bashka Ka.
“I’m not deformed,” said Norton.
“You’re an alien, of course you are.”
Xenbashka Bashka Ka suddenly growled, showing its teeth. They were long and sharp, like fangs, and Norton quickly stepped back.
“We know what it’s like to be hideously ugly,” said the alien. “But it doesn’t matter, not here. If you’re from another planet, even the most beautiful alien can look like an ugly monster. Or vice versa.”
Xenbashka Bashka Ka growled again, and Norton realised it wasn’t a threatening noise. To him it sounded like a growl, but to the Algolan its meaning was different. A laugh…?
“Do you want a pair of gloves to hide your deformity?” asked the alien.
“This really is a clothes shop?” said Norton, as he peered around. The silky drapes which engulfed them both must have been fabric samples.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“There’s nothing you can see which you can buy.”
“Oh. Yeah. Then I’ll go.” He kept looking around. “If I can.”
“But we can make whatever garment you want. What would you like?”
“Er…”
“Something like you’re wearing?”
“No.” Norton was still in his steward’s uniform. He could have changed before leaving the ship, but it was the only outfit which was half suitable.
“Something like we’re wearing?” asked the alien.
“No!”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. On you, it’s fine.”
Norton didn’t know the word for what the alien was wearing, although presumably there was one in the Algolan language. The garment was a pair of pants that began halfway up the chest and ended below the knees, and it appeared to be made from hundreds of small green bricks cemented together with mortar, each layer of which was a different colour. The alien’s elbows were similarly covered. It also wore a pair of transparent clogs, and Norton could see that each foot had four clawed toes.
“Show me what you want,” said Xenbashka Bashka Ka, and blue fingers touched what looked like a watch strapped to a blue wrist.
The air between them shimmered for a moment, then a figure materialised in the room.
Norton moved away as the shape suddenly appeared. It was a naked biped, still and lifeless. A tailor’s dummy. A full-sized duplicate of himself, in fact. Even its right index finger was missing. As were the genitals. Norton looked down. So did Xenbashka Bashka Ka. The alien’s head rocked from side to side. An Algolan shrug…?
“Pants,” said Norton. “Long, loose pants.”
Alien fingers danced across what wasn’t a wristwatch, and a pair of trousers appeared on the mannequin.
“Down to the ankles,” said Norton, and the pants grew longer. “Waist lower. Around the waist.”
He’d thought he was coming to choose some clothes, not design a complete costume for himself. His favourite outfit, the one he felt most comfortable in, had been his Las Vegas Police Department uniform. Because he was an undercover cop, it probably wasn’t a good idea to wear something like that, even though no one would recognise it, not here, not now.
Norton had another idea. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. Why not the kind of snazzy suit James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart wore when they were gang bosses?
Yeah, why not?
The Algolan was an expert at interpreting Norton’s hesitant approximations, and very quickly the image became clothed.