Memory Transcription Subject: Chairman Debbin, Seaglass Mineral Concern

  Date [standardized human time]: January 27, 2137

  Frozen fucking foolishness, I’d literally told Benwen yesterday that I wasn’t married. Certainly not to a Letian bordello mistress! Man of my pedigree, there were expectations of better breeding one day. Even if I married outside of my species at all--and I was direly tempted to--I’d probably be expected to maintain a Nevok mistress, or at least a surrogate. But that was all Future Debbin’s problem. There was still the dire possibility, lingering over my head like a woodsman’s axe, that I wouldn’t survive long enough to become him.

  Silently, eyes wide in cold fury, Sifal stared Benwen down.

  “Um,” Benwen stammered. The fire in his belly wavered, like he’d only just realized that he’d challenged an Arxur. He backpedaled timidly.

  Sifal abruptly rose up to her full height--for the briefest moment, I thought I was going to need to make funeral arrangements for what little of Benwen’s body she planned to leave intact--but she just stalked away, helping herself to the teapot over in the corner. Surely Benwen’s childish challenge hadn’t offended her… but who could truly say with an Arxur?

  “Oh my stars!” said Doctor Tika, showing her usual curiosity, wonder, and total lack of self-preservation in the face of the Arxur. “Is that the first instance in galactic history of an Arxur coupling with prey?”

  “No,” said Sifal, immediately. She didn’t bother turning around. Just kept her eyes locked on the teapot as she drank methodically from a steaming mug. “It’s been centuries of war. We keep slaves, Tika. Statistically, at least one Betterment Elite is a secret pervert.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Tika, still beaming excitedly. “How did it go? Did you enjoy yourself? Did Vivy?” Sifal stared silently at the teapot. Tika tilted her head in confusion and concern. “Did you want to talk about it?”

  “No!” Sifal snapped. “I want a tox screen, maybe an STI test, and…”

  Doctor Wylla, the generalist, scoffed. “Madame Executive, there are zero known examples of diseases jumping biospheres. Even jumping species within a biosphere is unthinkably rare. Honestly, have you ever, even once, heard of an Arxur catching the plague from one of your cattle farms?”

  The mere thought of it sickened me, and Wylla must have been in quite a state to even bring such a topic up. Though a mass outbreak among the Arxur certainly would have sorted our warfare problems. Had the Federation never considered a bioweapon? Another point of evidence, perhaps, that our leaders weren’t trying to win.

  “No…” said Sifal, hesitantly. “Not the alien ones, at least.”

  “Right, then,” said Wylla. “I can run some bloodwork, see if anything’s out of sorts--though I’ll probably need to rope in that Kitzz creature to review the findings--but I doubt I’ll find anything. As for ‘poison’, if you have a hangover, you just need to rehydrate and take some mild painkillers. I can recommend a few that are metabolized in the kidneys so you don't overstress your liver.”

  “And for…” Sifal coughed. She still refused to look at us while we were talking. It certainly made the conversation less stressful, not having her stare us down with her predatory glare, but it was an oddity for her to avoid eye contact for this long. “For the other thing? You're sure?”

  Wylla slouched forward, exhausted. She and I went way back, and I’d seen that expression on her before. She had a point. It was far too early for this sort of nonsense. “I assure you, both as a medical professional and from personal experience, that there is nothing medically relevant about a drunken hookup with an alien,” she said.

  Tika raised a paw. “There… might be some aftereffects that are psychologically relevant?” she offered. “I could try a few preliminary treatments from the human manual, if you like.”

  Sifal stiffened up for a moment, then seemed to relax more thoroughly than she had since I’d brought the topic of her liaison up. “Perhaps that’ll help,” she said, signing. “Humans know what’s what. Alright. How does the treatment go?”

  Tika reared up on her hind legs excitedly. “Wonderful! It generally begins with some structured conversation and questioning, to--”

  “No!” Sifal snapped, back on her guard again. “I said I don’t want to talk about it! I want as few people to know about this as possible. Why the fuck would I start spreading my own gossip around? Just give as many people the ammunition to humiliate me or blackmail me as possible?”

  “Anything you say to me in confidence, so long as it doesn’t involve credible threats of harm to yourself or others, I’m required to keep secret,” said Tika. “On Earth, there would be some professional board that would revoke my license to practice medicine if I broke your confidence, but even here on Seaglass, there are practical concerns: if I start revealing my patients’ secrets, no one will ever trust me with them.”

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  “I can certainly see about enshrining that principle into law on Seaglass, if you think it’d help!” I said, trying to bring the mood back up.

  This, at last, got Sifal to stop staring at the teapot. She rounded on me, enraged. “You have helped enough!” she roared, as her merciless eyes locked in on me.

  Now, my dear friends, I have made no secret about my peculiar predilections in the course of my account of these events, particularly on the topic of the convergence of fear and lust. Thus, I regret to inform you that words have failed me. Typically, in this instance, one might say that I ‘wilted’ under Sifal’s gaze, or perhaps even ‘withered’ under it. Neither of those terms quite applied here. They were both intended, after all, to poetically evoke the enfeeblement and decay of plant life. You know. Like a bit of wood becoming less hard.

  I readjusted my handbag onto my lap for modesty’s sake and scooched my chair back an inch or so out of fear. “Look, I apologize,” I stammered. “If this is about Benwen’s challenge of--”

  “Benwen?!” Sifal shouted, incredulously. Benwen flinched at the sound of his name, and she wasn’t even looking at him. “Benwen challenged me to protect your honor. That would have been commendable, if you’d had any to speak of!” She growled, and turned back towards the teapot. Her claws were clenching the edge of the countertop so firmly, her arm muscles were beginning to shake from the effort. “Defending you, of all people, from the shame of having an unfaithful mate,” she muttered, laughing bitterly.

  My face fell as the pieces came together in my mind. I wasn’t married. I didn’t even have a steady, exclusive lover. Sifal did, though. She’d told me, personally, in private, after the last time I’d done something to upset her boyfriend, that Commodore. Like forcing the two of them into a long-distance relationship… and now outing her shame to the whole room that she hadn’t lasted even two days on her own before straying.

  “You have my unconditional apologies,” I said, stricken with a moment of rare but genuine guilt. “That was a grievous miscalculation on my part. I spoke wildly out of turn.”

  Sifal said nothing. She snorted dismissively and drank her tea. But the tension in her muscles lessened, just a little.

  Tika nodded to herself decisively. “Alright, I think that settles it,” she said. “This is a definite matter of psychiatric medicine. Sifal, please come with me to one of the other rooms. Bring your tea. We need to unravel this little knot of yours. You’re not going to feel any better until you do.” Tika hopped down from her high perch and scampered off.

  Sifal nodded sullenly and followed. She passed within arm’s reach of Benwen as she did, and held out a paw slowly. Benwen flinched in fear, but stood steady. Sifal tousled the fur on his head with the hint of a bleak smile and left the room without a word. Good kid.

  Well. Bit of excitement, that, but now we were back to just us three Nevoks, which was a nice--wait, hang on. “Garruga, you’ve been awfully quiet,” I pointed out, having completely forgotten about the Yulpa in the room.

  “Nothing feels real anymore,” Garruga mumbled in a daze. “Some arthouse TV director with Predator Disease mashed up The Exterminators with a soap opera, and I’m not allowed to change the channel.”

  Benwen hopped back out of his chair, poured another cup of tea, and set it on the side table near Garruga to cool off. Again, good kid. Garruga certainly looked like she needed it.

  “That’s about right,” I said, rubbing some feeling back into my face. “Honestly, on any other planet, we’d all be in the madhouse together.”

  The teapot was running low at this point, so Benwen started preparing another. “Hey, so, umm…” he began while it steeped. “I feel like I don’t understand what’s going on. You’re not married to Vivy, sir, but neither is Sifal, so why is Vivy sleeping with either of you?”

  My face was already buried in my paws. “Benwen, I don’t know what the doctors told you back at the facility, but two people sleeping together doesn’t necessarily mean they’re married. Ancestors spare me, you spent the whole night with Zillis. Are you two married?”

  Benwen squeaked. “Oh no, are we?!”

  I groaned. “No, Benwen. Not even a little.”

  Wylla had a paw over her mouth to hide how much she was chuckling. “Oh my. How old are you again, Benwen?”

  “I’m twenty,” Benwen said firmly. Not particularly old, but old enough for him to see the question as a challenge against his status as a grown man. He had a kind and innocent air about him, so everyone acted like he was still an overgrown kid. He was too polite to make a fuss about it most of the time, but it probably grated on him. I made a mental note to try harder to treat him like an entry-level employee I’d hired, and less like a child I’d adopted.

  That said, if he’d been doing his job properly and served me tea first, I’d have done a spit-take just then. Wylla and I went way back, as I'd said before, and I recognized the predatory gleam in her eye. She seemed to have a very different idea than I did of how best to begin treating Benwen like an adult.

  “Well, I should say that twenty is certainly old enough for someone to make sure you know all the ins and outs of such matters,” Wylla said, smiling warmly. “Maybe tonight we can meet up at Vivy’s bar? I’m sure, if we ladies put our heads together, at least one of us can find the perfect way to teach you everything you need to know.”

  Ancestors spare me, I needed to make an appointment with Kara again. My ego wasn’t going to be able to handle much more of this. All my money, all my charm, and the Arxur and the PD Patient were getting more action than me. Bah. Benwen handed me the first cup of tea from the new pot, and I snatched it out of his paws grumpily.

  The second cup, Benwen handed to Doctor Wylla. He was blushing a little at her attentions. That was good. At least he seemed interested. I hadn’t gotten a read yet on what Benwen was into, if anything, but Wylla certainly had her charms. Pretty and confident lady, fellow Nevok, quite experienced, maybe ten years his senior? A bit overly-conventional, if anything. He could do far worse than Wylla as a ‘guide to adulthood’, so to speak.

  “Would it be alright if I bring a friend?” Benwen asked. “I think Zillis might have questions, too.”

  I spat out my tea, coughing. How many girls at once did he fucking need!?