Mark Guilderan sat at his desk with his head in his hands, feeling as old as he actually was.

The biggest diplomatic “victory” in his whole life, an actual nonaggression pact with the motherfucking Kalent, and thus the entire Federation, AND a possible, vitally needed real technology exchange with them…

...gone…

For the millionth time since it happened, he desperately wished that Tak (and his people) were back.

For a handful of credits that he didn’t even really need and power that he only needed to make more credits that he didn’t need, he sold out a lifetime friend, mentor, and ally. Oh sure, the “reason” was that Tak lacked the… (ugh)… resolve needed to do what was necessary during the war with the Bug, but that wasn’t the real motivation, at least for him.

He sighed.

If Tak was still in charge, none of this would have ever happened.

He reached into his desk, pulled a small nasal spray bottle, placed the tip into a nostril, and sent a very subtle and expensive designer drug into his sinuses.

A moment later, he sighed with relief as all stress, anxiety, and fatigue magically disappeared, replaced with enhanced focus and calm.

Best to make the first move, he thought as he clicked on his phone directory and selected a new contact simply labeled “Kalent”.

As the hyperspatial link was established, he took a deep breath as the drugs fully took hold. As far as any observer or any AI was concerned, he was the perfect picture of composure and calm.

“Hello?” a concerningly “normal” Kalent voice (and image) answered, “Where did you get this address?”

“Greetings,” Mark replied, “This is Mark Guilderan, the Republic Secretary of State.”

“Creators!” the voice replied. “Um… Hello! I’m honored by the call, but I’m not sure if I’m who you wish to speak to.”

Fuck, Mark thought behind a facade of calm professionalism. This wasn’t good.

“Perhaps you could get me in contact with the proper individual then,” Mark said smoothly, “I was given this contact address by an… individual… with whom I had been conversing… and negotiating… and I wish very much to speak with him.”

“I… I don’t know exactly what you are talking about,” the Kalent nervously replied, “but I’m happy to try. Who… who exactly are you trying to reach?”

Mark smiled pleasantly as he screamed inside.

“I never got an exact name,” he smiled, “but he was… not of your exact species. He was… larger.”

“A non-Kalent gave you this number?”

“No, he was Kalent,” Mark replied, “but he was not your specific species. I believe the other Kalent, the ones like you, referred to him as a ‘Lord’.”

“A Lord?” the Kalent replied, the perfect picture of piscine confusion. “We are an egalitarian society. We have no ‘lords’ of any species.”

“Shall we dispense with the games?” Mark asked with a thin smile, “I am aware of the fact that there are multiple sapient species on your planet, and I was in negotiations with a much larger species from your deep ocean concerning many things, including the Plath. I need to speak with that individual urgently.”

“The… Plath?… Who or what are they?”

“Some creatures who are about to get very angry very soon, and I think we need to have a little conversation about that before the shit hits the fan.”

The Kalent giggled, sending little bubbles cascading upwards.

“I love it!” it burbled, “Is that one of your delightful Human idioms?”

“It is,” Mark replied, “it refers to a situation resembling the aftermath of excreting solid waste directly into a rapidly spinning device in the room we all occupy. I strongly suggest that you get me in touch with the individual with whom I was speaking immediately.”

“I just love Human idioms,” the Kalent smiled, “Do you know which one is my favorite?”

“Please enlighten me.”

“New phone. Who dis?”

The line went dead.

“Fuck.” Mark sighed as he opened his contact list once more…

***

Across the galaxy, an ancient abyssal horror chuckled and switched off the virtual avatar it just used to answer his personal line.

“New phone, Who dis?” it chuckled into the inky blackness surrounding it as distant voices crooned with amusement. “They were an amusing race. I shall miss them.”

This triggered quite the debate across the distant and alien ocean depths for a few hours.

Eventually, consensus was reached. The Humans were indeed amusing. They were even interesting to the point of being quite intriguing…

… However, they would definitely not be missed.

After that debate was settled, the consensus shifted its attention to one Abyssal Lord in particular.

She growled as she reminded the consensus that there was a reason why they sought full consensus before starting ‘certain endeavors’ and then spent another full hour singing a rather complex, beautiful, and expletive-laden composition calling out multiple individuals by name to the applause of the consensus as a whole…

… including most of the individuals she had just roasted as only a four-thousand-year-old eldritch horror can.

As the applause and aquatic calls for ‘burn ointment’ (and several mating proposals) died away, she sighed with satisfaction and then started making the day-long swim it would take for her to reach her lair containing her own personal communication device.

She smiled as she swam. Despite the rather… unfortunate… circumstances, she always enjoyed the company of the Plath she would have to call.

He was delightful company.

***

Back on Terra, a very brightly colored Baleel undulated happily across the parking lot of The Drop of Oil.

Today was another great day!

“CRAXI!!!” The Great Sheloran bellowed, its giant face frowning with disapproval, “PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!!! I SWEAR TO POOP!!!”

She giggled. She loved it when The Great Sheloran yelled at them. She hoped that the real Sheloran would let them keep it when she came back.

She was coming back! Craxi just made the announcement, and the news was spreading much faster than Gaballelel could run, but she just HAD to tell someone.

She wasn’t the fastest being and far from the smartest, but she could “feel” the news rippling through the Drop, the happy little sparkles and whispered conversations that were spreading just like how a drop of lubricant makes pretty shimmers in a puddle.

Hey! That’s just like the name of this place! How cool is that? she thought to herself!

Anyway, she could feel the ripples spreading across the tents through her foot, but they weren’t heading out towards the vendor stalls or the coffee shop yet!

Giggling happily, she “ran” to the coffee shop.

She was going to be able to “spray the slime,” after all!

***

“I just don’t get it!” a xeno resembling a long fuzzy millipede moaned. “Fractions are hard!”

She flopped her head down against the counter of the coffee shop in dismay.

“If I can’t even get this, how am I ever going to be able to pass that reekball test?” she wailed. “I’m just so stu—“

She slapped two forelegs over her mouth as she looked up at Charlotte with a strangled yelp.

Charlotte “smiled” and put the slender length of flexible wood that she had just snatched from behind the counter back down.

“Ignorant!” the millipede yelped! “Ignorant! Not stupid!”

“You were able to learn that, at least,” Charlotte chuckled. “Don’t despair, little sister,” she said as she poured a cup of coffee. “These first steps can be the hardest you ever take. Right now, you are digging the foundation with your bare claws. You are chewing your first tools with tender lips unused to the taste of stone and the tang of metal. In order to craft your first knife, your mouth must bleed. These fractions are part of that first knife. Just chew and bleed, sister. Just chew and bleed.”

The man-sized furry millipede just sighed.

“I don’t think I have much mouth left, Charlotte.”

“Have you made your shapes, little one?”

“I’m… I’m still cutting them out...”

“Then why are you crying to me when you haven’t even bothered to carve out your basic shapes and partition them into the base ratios?” Charlotte chided. “Go and carve circles and then divide them into halves again and again and feel the sacred ratios. Rub them over your body. Put them in your mouth and taste their perfection. Hold fractions in your hand and admire their beauty. Then, recite your multiplication and division tables. Fractions are just another way of expressing the holy basic operations. Those basic operations are the foundation of mathematics. You must master them.”

The millipede looked downcast.

Charlotte smiled and gently touched her with one of her claws.

“Neeph,” she said warmly, “you are much smarter than you believe. You excel at puzzles and problem solving and your questions and arguments, even the petulant ones, are sound. You have more than enough to lock jaws with these annoying humans… no offense,” she said to a regular.

“None taken,” the human chuckled, “we’re assholes.”

“You have more than enough to lock jaws with these assholes,” Charlotte smiled, “and wrest that flaccid test from their soft little graspers and much more besides.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Charlotte hissed, “However, as smart as you are, you have a weakness, and that weakness is rote memorization. You are just going to have to drill these basic facts into yourself, carve them into your flesh, into your soul, until they are as much a part of you as your love of spaghetti. It will be tedious and unpleasant, and you may linger with little visible progress for longer, perhaps much longer, than some of your sisters, but you will grow, and as you feed yourself, you will develop and transform into your next form. As long as you fight, as long as you strive, as long as you refuse to die, your next transformation is assured.”

She gently guided Neeph’s head upwards.

“It’s not a pleasant answer or an easy one,” Charlotte smiled, “but it is a guaranteed one. Keep at it. As long as you follow my trail, I shall never abandon you.”

Neeph’s eyes flickered in a “smile”.

“Now take your slate and copy the tables one hundred times and return,” Charlotte hissed gently. “I will answer your questions then.”

“Thanks, big sis,” Neeph smiled.

“Hey!” Gaballelel said brightly as she oozed up onto a stool and partway onto the counter. “You guys will never guess what!”

“What?” Neeph asked.

“Sheloran is coming back!!!” Gaballelel squealed, unable to contain herself any longer. “She just got off the phone with Craxi! She’s going to come back!!!”

“Ah, the infamous Sheloran,” Charlotte said with amusement. “So she did ‘beat the rap’ after all. I look forward to meeting her.”

“Oh, she’s really nice!” Gaballelel bubbled happily. “And she’s so funny, especially when she yells at Craxi!”

Neeph sighed.

“I just…” she said quietly, “I just hope, you know… nothing changes when she comes back.”

“What do you mean?” Gaballelel asked in surprise.

“I mean...” Neeph replied, “Things have been good with Miss Craxina in charge. Nobody would hire me… for anything before Miss Craxina.”

Neeph looked downward again.

“Will Sheloran even want something like me around?”

“She let me work here!” Gaballelel burbled, “And look at me!”

“Yeah, but you are really popular and have tons of clients,” Neeph replied, “I barely get anybody, even here. I… I...”

“Neeph?” Gaballelel asked as she laid a slightly gooey tendril on Neeph. “What’s wrong.”

“I eat more than I make this place,” Neeph said quietly, “and that’s not counting the fact that I live here too...”

“Hey,” Gaballelel said, giving her a gentle shake, “Sheloran let me come here before I had all of those regulars! I was just some desperate no-name slug that wandered in. You have nothing to worry about, Neeph. Sheloran’s…”

Gaballelel paused as she searched her walnut-sized brain.

”...special,” she said after a moment. “I can’t explain it, but she is. Don’t worry about a thing, Neeph.”

“o… okay...”

“And the reason why you aren’t getting any work,” Gaballelel giggled as she gave Neeph a little shake, “is because you just sit there like a sad little lump waiting for someone to walk up and whip it out! You got to go out there, walk up to the customers, and drag them into your tent, girl!”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that!” Neeph exclaimed. “It would be too forward.”

“Neeph!” Gaballelel exclaimed, “You’re a whore! ‘Forward’ is part of the job description! If they are on the lot and not shopping at vendor stalls, they are fair game! Just walk on up and ask them if they are down! Tell them what you do and what you charge!”

Neeph squeaked uncomfortably.

“You do want to be a whore, right?” Gaballelel asked, “I mean if you don’t then Craxi could probably find something...”

“No!” Neeph exclaimed, “I want to, I really do… It’s just that...”

“What?”

“We don’t… my people don’t, I mean… we don’t… do that sort of thing.”

“Suck dick?”

“Well, that too,” Neeph replied, “but that isn’t that big of a deal. Prostitution isn’t taboo or anything. It’s a job like any other where I’m from.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Gaballelel asked, as confused as she usually was.

“The… forwardness...” Neeph squeaked. “You just don’t… walk up to someone you don’t know and… and...”

“Ask them if they want their dick sucked?”

Neeph squeaked and nodded silently.

“Ok!” Gaballelel said. “I know what to do!”

“You do?”

“Yep!” she said as she nudged Neeph playfully. “Stick with me, and I’ll get you some jobs!”

“You will?!?”

“Sure!” Gaballelel exclaimed happily. “Why not?”

“Thank you, Miss Gaballelel!”

“Just call me Gaballelel or even just Gabby, like the humans do!”

“Okay, Gabby,” Neeph smiled.

They all paused as a newcomer approached the bar.

Something about him just didn’t “fit”.

“Good afternoon,” Charlotte said, smiling her “customer-friendly” friendly smile. “Can I help you?”

“Perhaps you can,” the well-dressed human male replied as he pulled out a large business card with a picture of a very pretty Garthra wearing a tattered and stained human t-shirt.

“Have you seen this…”

The man looked at the back of the card.

“...this Garthra? Her name is Maaatisha,” he said pleasantly. “She may be in a bit of trouble, and there is someone back home who is worried about her.”

“Never seen her before,” Charlotte said evenly. “Can I get you something, maybe a cappuccino?”

“How about you guys?” the man said pleasantly.

“They haven’t seen her either,” Charlotte replied, moving directly in front of the man. “This is a business, and you’re taking up valuable counter space. Either buy something or leave… now.”

Charlotte smiled her real smile making the man to take a step back.

“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hassle the workers, either,” Charlotte said pleasantly. “They are trying to make themselves available to paying customers, and I don’t think they will appreciate missing out on a job because you are bothering them.”

“I’m not trying to bother anyone,” the man said smoothly, “and I really could use an espresso.”

He slid a prepaid card with the number “20” displayed on its e-ink surface across the bar.

“Keep the change,” he smiled.

Charlotte ran the card through the transactor and handed it back to him with an unpleasant hiss before turning to the espresso maker.

As she worked, the man surveyed the bar.

He looked at Neeph and smiled.

“Have you seen this Garthra?” he asked, showing her the card.

“Nope!” Neeph replied, “There aren’t too many of them around here. I guess you could maybe ask—“

Gaballelel wrapped a tendril firmly around some of Neeph’s fur and gave it a bit of a tug.

“We haven’t seen her,” Gaballelel said with a very uncharacteristic nasty tone. “Sorry.”

“Look,” the man said pleasantly, “Maaatisha’s in trouble, big trouble, and there is someone back home who wants to help her.”

“Mmm Hmm,” Gaballelel replied, “There is just some magical benefactor back home who has decided to hire someone to track down some little nobody waaaaay over here in the Republic, huh?”

“Exactly,” the man replied as he pulled out another business card, “Roy Singh, private detective. You can check my reviews. I’m not a Federation bounty hunter, and the sort of person who can hire me isn’t some lowlife.”

“Isn’t your average lowlife, you mean,” Gaballelel replied, “You aren’t the first ‘detective’ who has come through here looking for someone ‘in trouble,’ and they almost always are either government or worse. Beat it.”

“Maaatisha got in deep with the Harkeen, and they were going to force her to ‘work’ for them,” the man said with an earnest expression on his face, “and then ‘the new boss’ acquired her contract and was going to put her on the street. Considering who ‘the new boss’ is around here, I thought I would—“

“Oh, why didn’t you say so!” a rather scruffy-looking avian at a nearby table exclaimed.

“You know something?” the man asked.

“Well, not for free,” the avian replied smoothly.

The man handed him a cash card.

The avian looked at it.

“Seriously?”

He was handed another one.

The avian looked at it and clicked its beak.

“Just go over to that little portable shed thing and ask to talk to Craxina,” the avian said in a friendly voice. “and tell her that you are interested in buying one of the ‘special’ girls.”

Everyone at the bar smirked.

“Thank you,” the man said as he finished his espresso, smiled at the bar, and walked, completely oblivious to what would happen next, towards Craxina’s office…

“Vxxixx!” Gaballelel giggled, “You are so bad!!!”

The avian handed the card to Charlotte.

“For school supplies,” he snickered.

They all then turned and watched the detective knock on Craxina’s door as Vxxixx placed an urgent order for a zip cab pickup…

***

Quite some time later…

A very shaken Roy Singh sighed as he was being walked to the street by the single most terrifying man he had ever encountered.

“Please convey my regrets to Ms. Craxina once again,” Roy said as he stroked a large dynagel bandage covering half of his face. “I cannot apologize enough for my horribly wrong presumptions and unforgivable accusations.”

The monster just smiled, revealing those teeth.

“Think nothing of it,” Bryce chuckled. “It was a very nasty prank that a certain feather duster played upon you that led you into a very hazardous position. I think we would all be happiest if we just put this whole thing behind us.”

“Thank you for your understanding,” Roy said with a professional voice that only quivered slightly. Seriously, what the FUCK was that guy?

“And in exchange for yours,” Bryce said in a terrifyingly friendly way, “since we have verified your employer and your story, we will make inquiries on your behalf, and should we find her, we will get her in touch with you.”

“Thank you,” Roy said as a cab pulled up.

He calmly entered the cab and closed the door behind him.

Once safely away from that terrible place, Roy flopped back in the seat and let out a long ragged sigh.

His mom was right. He should have gone into IT.