When they left the building where the consulate was located, sunset was still over an hour away, but most of the heat had already drained out of the day. Beachgoers were largely replaced by leisurely strollers around the promenade, though the cluster of people gathered outside their front entrance seemed starkly less relaxed.

“Any idea what’s going on there?” Angzal asked Rzena, who seemed determined not to look in their direction.

“Oh, just Humans being Humans.”

“What do you mean?”

He crossed the street to put some distance between them and the small crowd.

“Every couple of months Humans find something to get really excited over. So some of them show up with their posters and slogans, and sometimes the local police have to keep them at bay, but after a couple of days they’re gone and everyone’s moved on. Bottom line is, ignore them. Eye contact is like gasoline to these people.”

When they were at what she considered a safe distance, Angzal threw a glance back at the protestors, trying to see if Reyes was among them. Or was this something she would be involved in behind the scenes, rather than on the frontlines?

Instead of familiar streets, Rzena led them to the historic district of downtown Malbur, where some of the ancient glass monolith towers that survived the Great Fire still stood. The rest of the denser city core was marked by large multi-terraced buildings with inner courtyards, green roofs and hanging gardens. Though Humans still built the occasional glossy spire to rise above these sprawling complexes, there was an austere sternness to the old giants which withstood millennia since Humanity’s first Space Age, as if they were vertical pools holding up a mirror to a darker time. Rzena explained that on other continents, historic city centres were often a thousand or even multiple thousands of years older than what could be found in Malbur, an age which would put them in much closer competition to the cities of Mrabr.

To Angzal’s surprise, the plazas nestled among the roots of the giants were full of quaint boutiques and eateries. Rzena found them a restaurant, all wooden tables and wooden partitions dividing the space for a more intimate meal, with a large aquarium in the foyer and part of the dining room, and a menu that naturally leaned towards offerings from the sea.

Initially, she was going to go for the more familiar Earth staple of a carnivore diet – a lightly roasted pâté made from crushed arthropods with small meat cubes for dipping. Rzena convinced her to make a more exotic selection, even if the dish involved some kind of grain, which was essentially grass, which was not really food, but food’s food.

When their dishes arrived, Angzal had to admit they looked appetizing, and Rzena explained to her that it was somewhat fortuitous that they even had the opportunity to order them, as many of Earth’s aquatic species were on the brink of extinction before the Great Fire, and when Humans rebuilt their civilization from the ashes of the old one, they approached the task in a far more respectful way to the planet than their ancestors had. Rzena was brimming with historical information about the local species and the hapless planet that had the misfortune to be their home, a curious accumulation of knowledge that Angzal remarked on.

Rzena made a noncommittal sound as he chewed his food. “Someone like me has a lot of time on their hands to travel and visit museums and read every single plaque I can get my eyes on. If I’m going to spend the rest of my life here, whatever that’s worth, I might as well get to know the place. I know some expats who’ve hardly spoken to anyone outside their own species. A huge waste, if you ask me.”

“Have you ever been back home?”

“You mean since I moved here? No. Considered a trip after the first couple of years but that idea died out so slowly I barely noticed. Between the cost, the length of travel and how much time it’s been and how much must’ve changed, feels like setting myself up for disappointment. None of my litter is back there anyway – my daughters are on other colonies and my son’s on the Vaparozh homeworld. Go figure.”

“Do any of your litter come to visit?”

“They used to, here and there. Earth isn’t exactly the kind of place you crave to visit more than once. My little one was here last, but that must have been … about six years ago now.” The look on Angzal’s face made him wave off her concern and continue. “They’re all grown now, two of them have litters of their own and one of them decided to keep going and find another mate. They’re busy, I get it. Doesn’t mean I like it. So ‘home’ for me is basically just this job – a series of tasks to be completed without much connection to any sort of real place.”

“And what happens when the job’s gone?”

“Ha! That’ll be the day they find some other idiot to fill my shoes. But I suppose I could retire to Guawana. They have a proper Mraboran community there. You can even score an agmari steak if you’re lucky.”

“No kidding?”

“True story. Even raimzau, too. If you’re ever over on that island, I’ll let you know where the good places are. Here, they’ve got two Hatvan nightclubs and a Thorian food court and they think they got themselves an interstellar city. There was an Iastret cabaret for a while, but that closed down. At least in those other cities, if you squint hard enough, you can pretend you’re almost near civilization.”

“Well it’s good to know not everywhere on Earth is as bleak as this.”

“Ah don’t let me get your hopes up, it’s a far cry from what you’re used to. Still, I’ve spent almost twenty years in this city, but I’d sooner retire to be closer to our kind than be neck deep in Humans all day.”

A low growl escaped the back of Angzal’s throat and prompted Rzena to laugh. “They are a trying bunch, aren’t they?” he asked.