Chapter Two
Star Miller sat on the exam table and blew the bangs of her long red, wavy hair from in front of her eyes. Back on Earth, she hated waiting in doctors’ offices. The sterile environment made her uncomfortable and they always seemed to be colder than any other place she went. Maybe that was because she was almost always dressed in the flimsy paper gown instead of her usual clothes.
The room she was currently in made her just as uncomfortable as the ones on Earth, but it was not cold, far from it. The air was stifling and there wasn’t even a ceiling fan to circulate the warm air. Sweat broke out on her forehead again and she reached up, again, to wipe it off with the gown she’d been asked to put on before they did the exam. The exam was done, now she was waiting for them to come back and presumably discuss the results.
The room was unlike the grey and boring exam rooms back on Earth. She was used to seeing a computer and several digital charts on the counter surface. There were also usually several digital instruments to test various functions. There was none of that in her current room. The counter was pristine and completely empty. There were no anatomical diagrams on the walls or advertisements for some pharmaceutical the doctor chose to administer at every opportunity. There was absolutely nothing of interest in the room which made her wait even more perturbing.
But she shouldn’t complain. Being here meant she had a chance to make something of herself. If she were back on Earth, she’d be working on the family potato farm in southeastern Idaho from sunup to sundown and would never have a chance to explore her craft. Her passion was art. She could make a sculpture from just about anything and make it look good. Back home, she would wander around and find a bottle cap or a discarded paper cup and turn it into something beautiful. She was the MacGyver of the art world. But no one on Earth seemed interested in beautifying things anymore. All anyone seemed to care about was bettering their own circumstances.
There were few new books or compositions of music simply for the purpose of enjoyment anymore. Rarely was there anyone who admitted to being an artist of any form. Mostly everyone spent their time trying to invent better products that would give them an edge up in the space race.
When Earth gained the technology to explore the galaxy, they found it was already inhabited by species of beings much smarter, more advanced, and wealthier than they were. So, the leaders of Earth entered into agreements with anyone and everyone to secure the planet’s safety, all the while trying to come up with a way to be self-sufficient and not beholden to these other species. Knowing humans like she did, she was sure they had it as their main goal to become the most powerful species in the galaxy.
That position was held, currently, by the Arkainians. The species inhabiting the very planet she was now sitting on. One of the arrangements the leaders of Earth made was with Arkainia. In exchange for Arkainian protection, Earth would provide humans as laborers. Human females were to work as house servants to the various Arkainian males who desired and were willing to pay for them. Human males were hired to work in their mines. Human males had the advantage of smaller size, making them better at working in tighter spaces than Arkainian males, who had large racks of antlers sprouting from their heads like deer.
Arkainian society was odd in that it was the females who ran everything. Back on Earth, women were still fighting to be treated with equal rights as men, most women still getting paid a lesser wage for doing the same job. She didn’t have to worry about that anymore. She wasn’t on Earth, and though she would miss her family, she planned to stay away for as long as she could. So long as her body could adjust to the climate here.
The air on Arkainia was hotter than she was used to and just a little harder to breathe in. It wasn’t unlike a hot, humid summer day, except every day on Arkainia was like this. There was no change of seasons, but the doctors assured her that her body would adjust. After all, humans had been on Arkainia for ten years now and she’d never heard of anyone keeling over out of the blue.
The tutors in the training program had assured her that she and the other humans who volunteered to come to Arkainia would be well cared for. There was a program set up that was sort of like the extinct labor unions back on Earth. She just went to the Interstellar Employment Agency, or the IEA, and signed up for a term of five years. They took care of her training and placement with an Arkainian guy who needed her help keeping his house clean and making his meals. It should be a piece of cake.
Oh, cake. One thing she did miss was the food on Earth. Arkainia was drier than her home planet, kind of like a huge desert. The only area that could really sustain the growth of any decent food was right around the capitol city. She remembered her tutors telling her class that the capitol city, Mesta, was built over top a huge underground lake, and that provided fertile land to support life.
Many of the males in the three cities surrounding Mesta were farmers, growing food for everyone, including the females in Mesta. But none of the food was what she was used to eating. They generally didn’t eat meat, in fact, she didn’t think there were animals of any kind in the cities. The lectures on the areas outside the cities, called the outlands, were vague and questions about the area were discouraged. Maybe in the outlands there were animals, who knows?
Another thing the Arkainians didn’t have was sugar. That must have been terrible for the first humans who came here. Luckily for her, humans have been on Arkainia for ten years and humans can’t seem to live without sugar. Years ago, the humans on Arkainia managed to import some staples from Earth, sugar being one of them. Another staple imported was flour.
The tutors had told her class that a few human stores have opened in the three outlying cities that make human foods and sell human products. She was looking forward to shopping there.
A knock on the door brought her thought out of the bored daze she’d been in. She gave the affirmation for whoever was knocking to enter.
“Sorry to keep you waiting Star Miller.”
Star turned her head to see the door to her waiting room open and two Arkainian females enter. One held a flat device in her hand and the other looked like she was either just going to watch or supervise, both seemed like the same thing to Star. Neither of them was the one who performed the medical exam, so they must be the Arkainian equivalent of doctors.
The voice that came through the translator in her ear was a generic Arkainian male or female who spoke all the words into a computer. Since Arkainians spoke their own language, not English, which was the only language she knew, the words came through computerized like the voice from a GPS she had on her phone back on Earth. From what she understood, the Arkainian language didn’t use contractions and so when they programmed in English words, they used only whole words, no contractions, so the translation sounded even more artificial than usual.
The translator was only in one ear, so she still heard their natural voice as they spoke in the Arkainian language. She was told this was for learning purposes. She could hear what they were actually saying and the translation that followed. It helped the humans here to pick up the language quicker. It took a little while to get used to hearing two different things and having her brain focus on the translation, but humans were adaptable.
“That’s okay,” she said and wondered what her voice sounded like to them. Was there some generic human woman’s voice they were hearing or was it hers? Maybe they understood English and didn’t need a translation at all. If she liked it here, Star decided she was going to study the language so she could speak like a native.
Even if she spoke like them, there was no way she was ever going to be mistaken for an Arkainian female. For one thing, their skin was the deep shade of pewter grey and hers was the pale white of her mother’s Scottish heritage. She also got her brilliant red hair from her mother as well, which was a pretty big difference because Arkainians didn’t have any hair anywhere on their body. She supposed that made staying clean easier, as well as keeping cool, she thought as she moved her thick hair off her neck to try to cool down.
The two female Arkainians studied her but didn’t say anything, and she fidgeted with a loose string on her exam gown while they decided if they were going to talk to her or not. They just looked at her with their strange eyes. Their eyes were another thing that took a bit of getting used to. They were basically all white except for a small dot of black surrounded by a thin ring of purple. She learned in her training class that all their vision came from the black dot so most Arkainians could only see the area immediately in front of them. They didn’t have any peripheral vision.
Other than the initial greeting, the two Arkainian females didn’t really engage her in conversation as the nurses would have in the human doctor offices. They would chat away to try to keep the patient relaxed. Which would be helpful because she was kind of creeped out by the way they kept looking at her and back to the flat thing the one held in her hand. Maybe there was something wrong with her and they were trying to come up with the best way to tell her.
They spoke low to each other, so Star assumed she wasn’t supposed to hear what they were saying. She’d always had extremely keen hearing and when she held her breath, the translator could just pick up a few words here and there.
“Who … with?” the one without the flat thing asked the one with the flat thing.
The other looked down at the flat thing. “General Abakkus.”
“I did not … looking … house servant.” The conversation was sketchy, but she was able to fill in the blanks.
Star was told by the weird female Arkainian who briefed her about her placement that the Arkainian guy she was being placed with was a retired general. The female who interviewed her introduced herself as Glypha Aroona and said she knew the male she was going to be placed with personally. She also guaranteed Star that she would be well cared for. The female did warn her that the general tended to be less agreeable than most. Star wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was thinking if he was retired, the general must be on the older side so her stint should be pretty easy.
She could handle disagreeable.
“It appears that you are in excellent physical and mental health.”
Star looked up and noticed the two females were standing before her, looking at her like she was a bug under a microscope.
“Thanks,” she said, not sure what else she was supposed to say.
The two females smiled patiently. “Do you have any inquiries for us?” the one with the flat thing asked
She shrugged. “Not really.”
The two females looked at each other and then back to her as if she was supposed to ask at least one question and they weren’t sure what to do when she didn’t.
Mostly everything she had questions about was answered in her training. In fact, she’d been the only one who asked questions. The three-week extensive training was done by both a human woman and an Arkainian female. This training was much more extensive than the hour-long training she had to undergo when she started a job at the Qwik-E-Mart back in her hometown of Oakley, Idaho.
The topics covered were first what the Arkainians looked like and how they were different from humans. Arkainian females looked sort of like human women except for the obvious differences of their skin, eyes, and lack of hair. They also didn’t have breasts. The training didn’t go into how Arkainian children were fed after birth, but the job of humans was to clean and cook, not serve as midwives.
The Arkainian males, however, looked vastly different from human men. For one thing they were much taller and had these antler-like things sprouting out the sides of their heads. The racks came in various sizes and some males had holes drilled through them and adorned them with jewelry, similar, she supposed, to piercings back on Earth.
She wondered what the antlers felt like but when she asked the question, the Arkainian female suddenly deemed it time for a break and her question was never answered.
Anatomically, Arkainian males looked similar enough to human men, in that they had two arms, two legs, one head, and one torso. They weren’t shown any images of male or female Arkainians without any clothes on, but they were told by the human woman that their role was not expected to be anything more intimate than cleaning and cooking. That was stressed at least a dozen times.
They didn’t say relations were forbidden, just that they were not part of the agreement and if anything were to happen that made the human women uncomfortable, they were to come immediately to the IEA office in the settlement ship orbiting the planet.
“Wait. I do have a question,” Star said, and the two females perked up, looking relieved. “When can I leave?”
The two females looked at each other again. “Your exam is complete. We will send in the acclimator and then you are free to leave at your convenience.” With that, the two gave her one last curious look and turned to leave.
Once the door was closed and she was again alone in the completely empty grey, sterile room, Star lifted her hair from her neck and began fanning herself. What the heck was the acclimator? That hadn’t been mentioned in the training.
She was trained on the customs of what she was and wasn’t supposed to do so she didn’t do something like hug an Arkainian. Touching of any kind wasn’t done in their culture, apparently, and most got really weirded out when humans hugged each other. She wondered how they showed affection or how males and females showed a sexual interest in one another, but that wasn’t part of the training either.
The training was intended to teach humans what life in Arkainian civilization was going to be like, not to delve into the inner workings of Arkainian cultural history, even though Star found history an interesting topic. Aside from art, it was her favorite subject in school. But no history was taught in the training. Human females were there as house servants only.
She was given extensive training on Arkainian cuisine, since that was one of their major roles in being there. Arkainians, at least Arkainian males liked hearty soups and stews made with these weird tuber things called rumiaks, which sort of resembled a potato but were bigger and tasted more like a mushroom. Rumiaks were a dark brown and came in several sizes. They tasted a little bland to her and left the stew this really dark brown that almost looked like melted chocolate but wasn’t sweet at all.
Arkainians, in general, didn’t like sweet things. Even their fruit was mild. That was one thing that struck Star when she was learning to cook, all the best liked dishes seemed to lack any flavor at all. She supposed she would get used to the cuisine, but really hoped there were some human restaurants in the cities where she could get some familiar foods once in a while. Though she didn’t consider herself a violent person, she might actually kill for a cup of coffee and some pizza.
There was a soft knock at the door, and she again gave the affirmative that the person could enter. The Arkainian female who came in had a large cart that she pulled in behind her.
“Hello, Star Miller,” she said politely when the large cart was fully in the room and the door closed.
“Hello,” Star said back to her. Apparently, the acclimator was a person. She seemed friendly enough. More friendly than the two weird doctor females who just left.
The female stood in front of her and looked at her up and down. “Stand, please.”
Star hopped off the table and waited.
“The first thing we have to take care of is that hair,” she said looking at Star’s thick mess of long curly red hair.
“Take care of?”
She reached onto the cart and pulled out what looked like an electric razor.
“Whoa. What are you planning to do with that?”
The female looked at her and smiled. “You are going to overheat with all of that hair on your body. We need to shear it all off.”
Star looked at the smooth head of the female in front of her. It made sense that having no hair would be cooler, but she liked her hair. In the summer, she always wore it pinned up and she was cool enough.
“If you just have a rubber band, I can put it up. I don’t want to cut it.”
The female tilted her head to the side as if Star had just said something her translator didn’t translate. The female looked at her for quite a long while before turning and putting the razor thing back on the cart. She opened a small compartment and handed Star what looked like one of those rubber tourniquets the doctors used back on Earth to wrap around the arm right before taking a blood sample. She could make that work.
“Thanks,” she said, and she bunched up her hair and twisted it on top of her head. She wrapped the rubber tube around it and tucked the end underneath. She moved her head to make sure it was going to stay and nodded.
The female smiled at her. “That is clever.”
“Thanks,” Star said again. “Do you happen to have a few of them I can have? You know, in case something happens to this one?”
“Of course. I will make sure some are in your case.”
“My case?”
“I am here to get you set and on your way. I will provide body coverings and essential grooming items. The IEA will provide you a small allowance with which you can purchase any items you wish that are not provided.”
Star nodded her understanding. She knew about the allowance, as the Arkainian female worded it. Star thought of it as a paycheck. Every week, she was to be credited five hundred denons, which was the monetary unit used in the Arkainian cities. She wasn’t sure how expensive things were but was told it would be enough for her to buy the essentials. She wouldn’t be living the life of luxury, but having grown up on a potato farm, she was used to being middle class. She’d worn the same pair of jeans for five years before they got too many holes and she had to finally cut them off to make shorts. And then she wore those for three more years before they practically fell apart.
“Do you have a preference on body coverings?”
Star glanced at what the Arkainian female was wearing. It wasn’t much. Back home on Earth, the other kids would pick on her because Star wasn’t rail thin. She’d had curvy hips ever since she’d hit puberty. She didn’t have the largest breasts in the town, but she didn’t have the smallest, either. But looking at the flat chest of the female in front of her, Star was going to need at least a little covering her up. She was not unhappy with her appearance, taking pride in staying in shape. Her legs were strong and had the muscle tone of a jogger, which she had done until leaving Earth.
“I’m not really comfortable exposing a lot of skin,” she said to answer the female’s question.
She looked at Star and grimaced. “That is good. You will want to keep your skin covered so it does not burn in our sun, but you will need something to let the air flow in to keep cool. Let me see what I can create.”
She pulled a flat screen from the top of the cart and began tapping on it. “Lift your arms, please,” she said, and Star did. The female ran some roller ball thing across just about every inch of her body, even her feet. She tapped continually on the screen of her flat thing that must be like a tablet back on Earth.
“You will be started with five body coverings. I understand humans prefer to sleep covered, so I will provide you two sets of human clothing for that purpose. You will be provided the garments humans wear under their clothing, though you might find them too warm and decide not to use them.”
Star doubted that but didn’t say anything. She was never one to go commando and always felt too self-conscious when she went without a bra.
The female handed her a binder. “You may make your selections for personal items. You may choose twenty from the list.”
“Okay,” Star said as she took the notebook. Flipping it open, she saw grooming items including, tooth and hairbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, thankfully there were feminine products and deodorant. The notebook page seemed like an ordinary piece of cardboard but when she touched the picture of an item, it added the item in a bag, similar to shopping online and adding things to a shopping cart. There wasn’t anything like Advil or Tylenol cold and sinus, so she hoped if she did get sick, they had something that would help. She was kind of a grouchy sick person.
She made her selection of twenty things and handed the notebook back to the female. The female looked them over and nodded. “I will get these set and will be back in a few moments.”
Star nodded and was, once again, left in the boring room alone. She thought about the other humans on the planet and wondered if she’d get the opportunity to meet any of them. Since humans had been on the planet for ten years, she supposed there might be places they could meet up and get to know one another.
She’d had one good friend growing up. Her name was Sharon but always went by the name Sherry since her last name was Stone and she said it felt too weird having the same name as the popular actress.
Star smiled at the memory of her and Sherry lying on the grass at night and looking up into the stars. Sherry had always been fascinated by space and had jumped on the bandwagon to join the program that would train humans to travel in space. For all Star knew, Sherry was out here in the vast expanse of the galaxy. Probably not as a house servant though. Sherry would be on a spaceship exploring new worlds and creating allies with new species. Sherry had the outgoing personality to do stuff like that.
There was another knock at the door and the same female as before stuck her head in. She had a large case, that resembled a suitcase from back home on Earth, in one hand and a bag in the other. She closed the door behind her and set the case and bag on the floor. She glanced up at something over Star’s shoulder but looked away quickly and smiled at Star.
“Your case is complete,” she said, her voice just as pleasant as before. “All of your items are inside. I have put in the bag something you can wear out today.” She looked over Star’s shoulder again and stepped closer. “Do you have any questions?”
“Not really, other than how do I get to the place where I’m supposed to be?”
“We will have a transport ship deliver you.” She stepped closer until she was standing right in front of Star. “These can be tricky, let me help you out of this,” she said as she leaned into Star’s personal space.
Star was about to protest when she heard the female whispering something in the ear that didn’t have the translator in it.
“I know you have been placed with General Abakkus,” the female said in perfect English. “Do not respond. They are watching.”
“Thanks for the help,” Star said in her normal voice.
“In your case, I’ve put a card for a place you can go if you need to leave.”
“Leave?” Star said quietly.
“Leave without him knowing.”
“Why—” Star began, but the female silenced her by standing and smiling down at her.
“All set,” she began, back speaking Arkainian. “You can get into your new body coverings and head to the front of the structure when you are ready for the transport.”
Star creased her brow and now had a few questions she wanted to ask the female about her comment, but Star wasn’t given the opportunity.
“Remember, you can talk to anyone in the IEA if you have any questions or concerns.”
“Okay,” Star said uneasily.
“Have a pleasant day,” she said and turned, opened the door, and left.
Good thing that wasn’t ominous or anything. What the heck had the female meant by leaving her a card of someplace she could go if she needed to get away from the guy she was placed with without him knowing? What did this female know that Star didn’t? Was this General Abakkus a real jerk? Or was he dangerous?
“Great,” Star muttered and stood. She glanced up at where the female had kept looking and saw a small half dome in the wall. It was the same grey color as everything else, so Star hadn’t noticed it when she came into the room. They are watching, the female had said, and, for the first time, Star wondered if she had made a wise choice in coming here.
When she’d gone to the IEA, there were several planets she could choose from. There were a few that offered places for humans to go to fill manual labor jobs their own people just didn’t want to do, but those were the gross and undesirable. She might be able to make more money doing those, but that just didn’t appeal to her. There were also the ones that would send her into the situation of providing pleasure and entertainment. Star flipped right past those. She stopped at the Arkainian offer. All they wanted was a live-in house servant who would clean and cook for the males, who apparently weren’t very good at it. The job offered free living space, weekly pay, and no obligation to get down and blow the guy to keep him happy. She signed up for that one.
There was nothing in the training that gave her the indication that this job was dangerous. They were all told there was no obligation to do anything they weren’t comfortable with. They were to cook and clean and that was it. So, why then, did this female feel the need to provide her a safe place to go?
Well, fretting wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She tossed aside the flimsy gown and unzipped the bag to see what the female had brought for her to wear. She pulled out what looked like a bathing suit with a wrap thing attached to it. It was a pretty shade of green, which was one of the colors that didn’t clash with her red hair. It seemed to have built-in undies and bra. Giving it a thorough inspection, it looked supportive enough, so she stepped into it and slipped the straps over her shoulders.
She looked down to see how she was supposed to wrap the rest of it around her. The thing had what looked like sleeves and when she slipped her arms through them, it kind of fell into place. It looked kind of like a bathrobe that tied at the waist but considering every Arkainian female she’d seen wore unflattering clothing, maybe this was the height of fashion on Arkainia. She tightened the belt and wished there was a mirror she could use to see her reflection.
Looking in the bag, she found a pair of sandals in her size. Everyone on Arkainia wore sandals. She sat to buckle them onto her feet. Standing, she glanced again at the grey dome on the wall and wondered who was watching her. Was it those two creepy doctor females who came in and did the exam, or was it someone else? Were they Arkainian or human? Or both, considering her training had been a joint effort.
She’d dealt with her boss at the Qwik-E-Mart for three years and he was someone in serious need of some mental stability medications. He was hot and cold, up and down, angry and happy all the time. She learned to deal with it and assess his mood to know how she should react. She could do the same with this general guy. How bad could it possibly be?
She zipped up the bag and tossed the gown on the exam table. After a quick glance around the room, she lifted the bag and case and opened the door to head to the lobby to wait for the transport.
The room she was currently in made her just as uncomfortable as the ones on Earth, but it was not cold, far from it. The air was stifling and there wasn’t even a ceiling fan to circulate the warm air. Sweat broke out on her forehead again and she reached up, again, to wipe it off with the gown she’d been asked to put on before they did the exam. The exam was done, now she was waiting for them to come back and presumably discuss the results.
The room was unlike the grey and boring exam rooms back on Earth. She was used to seeing a computer and several digital charts on the counter surface. There were also usually several digital instruments to test various functions. There was none of that in her current room. The counter was pristine and completely empty. There were no anatomical diagrams on the walls or advertisements for some pharmaceutical the doctor chose to administer at every opportunity. There was absolutely nothing of interest in the room which made her wait even more perturbing.
But she shouldn’t complain. Being here meant she had a chance to make something of herself. If she were back on Earth, she’d be working on the family potato farm in southeastern Idaho from sunup to sundown and would never have a chance to explore her craft. Her passion was art. She could make a sculpture from just about anything and make it look good. Back home, she would wander around and find a bottle cap or a discarded paper cup and turn it into something beautiful. She was the MacGyver of the art world. But no one on Earth seemed interested in beautifying things anymore. All anyone seemed to care about was bettering their own circumstances.
There were few new books or compositions of music simply for the purpose of enjoyment anymore. Rarely was there anyone who admitted to being an artist of any form. Mostly everyone spent their time trying to invent better products that would give them an edge up in the space race.
When Earth gained the technology to explore the galaxy, they found it was already inhabited by species of beings much smarter, more advanced, and wealthier than they were. So, the leaders of Earth entered into agreements with anyone and everyone to secure the planet’s safety, all the while trying to come up with a way to be self-sufficient and not beholden to these other species. Knowing humans like she did, she was sure they had it as their main goal to become the most powerful species in the galaxy.
That position was held, currently, by the Arkainians. The species inhabiting the very planet she was now sitting on. One of the arrangements the leaders of Earth made was with Arkainia. In exchange for Arkainian protection, Earth would provide humans as laborers. Human females were to work as house servants to the various Arkainian males who desired and were willing to pay for them. Human males were hired to work in their mines. Human males had the advantage of smaller size, making them better at working in tighter spaces than Arkainian males, who had large racks of antlers sprouting from their heads like deer.
Arkainian society was odd in that it was the females who ran everything. Back on Earth, women were still fighting to be treated with equal rights as men, most women still getting paid a lesser wage for doing the same job. She didn’t have to worry about that anymore. She wasn’t on Earth, and though she would miss her family, she planned to stay away for as long as she could. So long as her body could adjust to the climate here.
The air on Arkainia was hotter than she was used to and just a little harder to breathe in. It wasn’t unlike a hot, humid summer day, except every day on Arkainia was like this. There was no change of seasons, but the doctors assured her that her body would adjust. After all, humans had been on Arkainia for ten years now and she’d never heard of anyone keeling over out of the blue.
The tutors in the training program had assured her that she and the other humans who volunteered to come to Arkainia would be well cared for. There was a program set up that was sort of like the extinct labor unions back on Earth. She just went to the Interstellar Employment Agency, or the IEA, and signed up for a term of five years. They took care of her training and placement with an Arkainian guy who needed her help keeping his house clean and making his meals. It should be a piece of cake.
Oh, cake. One thing she did miss was the food on Earth. Arkainia was drier than her home planet, kind of like a huge desert. The only area that could really sustain the growth of any decent food was right around the capitol city. She remembered her tutors telling her class that the capitol city, Mesta, was built over top a huge underground lake, and that provided fertile land to support life.
Many of the males in the three cities surrounding Mesta were farmers, growing food for everyone, including the females in Mesta. But none of the food was what she was used to eating. They generally didn’t eat meat, in fact, she didn’t think there were animals of any kind in the cities. The lectures on the areas outside the cities, called the outlands, were vague and questions about the area were discouraged. Maybe in the outlands there were animals, who knows?
Another thing the Arkainians didn’t have was sugar. That must have been terrible for the first humans who came here. Luckily for her, humans have been on Arkainia for ten years and humans can’t seem to live without sugar. Years ago, the humans on Arkainia managed to import some staples from Earth, sugar being one of them. Another staple imported was flour.
The tutors had told her class that a few human stores have opened in the three outlying cities that make human foods and sell human products. She was looking forward to shopping there.
A knock on the door brought her thought out of the bored daze she’d been in. She gave the affirmation for whoever was knocking to enter.
“Sorry to keep you waiting Star Miller.”
Star turned her head to see the door to her waiting room open and two Arkainian females enter. One held a flat device in her hand and the other looked like she was either just going to watch or supervise, both seemed like the same thing to Star. Neither of them was the one who performed the medical exam, so they must be the Arkainian equivalent of doctors.
The voice that came through the translator in her ear was a generic Arkainian male or female who spoke all the words into a computer. Since Arkainians spoke their own language, not English, which was the only language she knew, the words came through computerized like the voice from a GPS she had on her phone back on Earth. From what she understood, the Arkainian language didn’t use contractions and so when they programmed in English words, they used only whole words, no contractions, so the translation sounded even more artificial than usual.
The translator was only in one ear, so she still heard their natural voice as they spoke in the Arkainian language. She was told this was for learning purposes. She could hear what they were actually saying and the translation that followed. It helped the humans here to pick up the language quicker. It took a little while to get used to hearing two different things and having her brain focus on the translation, but humans were adaptable.
“That’s okay,” she said and wondered what her voice sounded like to them. Was there some generic human woman’s voice they were hearing or was it hers? Maybe they understood English and didn’t need a translation at all. If she liked it here, Star decided she was going to study the language so she could speak like a native.
Even if she spoke like them, there was no way she was ever going to be mistaken for an Arkainian female. For one thing, their skin was the deep shade of pewter grey and hers was the pale white of her mother’s Scottish heritage. She also got her brilliant red hair from her mother as well, which was a pretty big difference because Arkainians didn’t have any hair anywhere on their body. She supposed that made staying clean easier, as well as keeping cool, she thought as she moved her thick hair off her neck to try to cool down.
The two female Arkainians studied her but didn’t say anything, and she fidgeted with a loose string on her exam gown while they decided if they were going to talk to her or not. They just looked at her with their strange eyes. Their eyes were another thing that took a bit of getting used to. They were basically all white except for a small dot of black surrounded by a thin ring of purple. She learned in her training class that all their vision came from the black dot so most Arkainians could only see the area immediately in front of them. They didn’t have any peripheral vision.
Other than the initial greeting, the two Arkainian females didn’t really engage her in conversation as the nurses would have in the human doctor offices. They would chat away to try to keep the patient relaxed. Which would be helpful because she was kind of creeped out by the way they kept looking at her and back to the flat thing the one held in her hand. Maybe there was something wrong with her and they were trying to come up with the best way to tell her.
They spoke low to each other, so Star assumed she wasn’t supposed to hear what they were saying. She’d always had extremely keen hearing and when she held her breath, the translator could just pick up a few words here and there.
“Who … with?” the one without the flat thing asked the one with the flat thing.
The other looked down at the flat thing. “General Abakkus.”
“I did not … looking … house servant.” The conversation was sketchy, but she was able to fill in the blanks.
Star was told by the weird female Arkainian who briefed her about her placement that the Arkainian guy she was being placed with was a retired general. The female who interviewed her introduced herself as Glypha Aroona and said she knew the male she was going to be placed with personally. She also guaranteed Star that she would be well cared for. The female did warn her that the general tended to be less agreeable than most. Star wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was thinking if he was retired, the general must be on the older side so her stint should be pretty easy.
She could handle disagreeable.
“It appears that you are in excellent physical and mental health.”
Star looked up and noticed the two females were standing before her, looking at her like she was a bug under a microscope.
“Thanks,” she said, not sure what else she was supposed to say.
The two females smiled patiently. “Do you have any inquiries for us?” the one with the flat thing asked
She shrugged. “Not really.”
The two females looked at each other and then back to her as if she was supposed to ask at least one question and they weren’t sure what to do when she didn’t.
Mostly everything she had questions about was answered in her training. In fact, she’d been the only one who asked questions. The three-week extensive training was done by both a human woman and an Arkainian female. This training was much more extensive than the hour-long training she had to undergo when she started a job at the Qwik-E-Mart back in her hometown of Oakley, Idaho.
The topics covered were first what the Arkainians looked like and how they were different from humans. Arkainian females looked sort of like human women except for the obvious differences of their skin, eyes, and lack of hair. They also didn’t have breasts. The training didn’t go into how Arkainian children were fed after birth, but the job of humans was to clean and cook, not serve as midwives.
The Arkainian males, however, looked vastly different from human men. For one thing they were much taller and had these antler-like things sprouting out the sides of their heads. The racks came in various sizes and some males had holes drilled through them and adorned them with jewelry, similar, she supposed, to piercings back on Earth.
She wondered what the antlers felt like but when she asked the question, the Arkainian female suddenly deemed it time for a break and her question was never answered.
Anatomically, Arkainian males looked similar enough to human men, in that they had two arms, two legs, one head, and one torso. They weren’t shown any images of male or female Arkainians without any clothes on, but they were told by the human woman that their role was not expected to be anything more intimate than cleaning and cooking. That was stressed at least a dozen times.
They didn’t say relations were forbidden, just that they were not part of the agreement and if anything were to happen that made the human women uncomfortable, they were to come immediately to the IEA office in the settlement ship orbiting the planet.
“Wait. I do have a question,” Star said, and the two females perked up, looking relieved. “When can I leave?”
The two females looked at each other again. “Your exam is complete. We will send in the acclimator and then you are free to leave at your convenience.” With that, the two gave her one last curious look and turned to leave.
Once the door was closed and she was again alone in the completely empty grey, sterile room, Star lifted her hair from her neck and began fanning herself. What the heck was the acclimator? That hadn’t been mentioned in the training.
She was trained on the customs of what she was and wasn’t supposed to do so she didn’t do something like hug an Arkainian. Touching of any kind wasn’t done in their culture, apparently, and most got really weirded out when humans hugged each other. She wondered how they showed affection or how males and females showed a sexual interest in one another, but that wasn’t part of the training either.
The training was intended to teach humans what life in Arkainian civilization was going to be like, not to delve into the inner workings of Arkainian cultural history, even though Star found history an interesting topic. Aside from art, it was her favorite subject in school. But no history was taught in the training. Human females were there as house servants only.
She was given extensive training on Arkainian cuisine, since that was one of their major roles in being there. Arkainians, at least Arkainian males liked hearty soups and stews made with these weird tuber things called rumiaks, which sort of resembled a potato but were bigger and tasted more like a mushroom. Rumiaks were a dark brown and came in several sizes. They tasted a little bland to her and left the stew this really dark brown that almost looked like melted chocolate but wasn’t sweet at all.
Arkainians, in general, didn’t like sweet things. Even their fruit was mild. That was one thing that struck Star when she was learning to cook, all the best liked dishes seemed to lack any flavor at all. She supposed she would get used to the cuisine, but really hoped there were some human restaurants in the cities where she could get some familiar foods once in a while. Though she didn’t consider herself a violent person, she might actually kill for a cup of coffee and some pizza.
There was a soft knock at the door, and she again gave the affirmative that the person could enter. The Arkainian female who came in had a large cart that she pulled in behind her.
“Hello, Star Miller,” she said politely when the large cart was fully in the room and the door closed.
“Hello,” Star said back to her. Apparently, the acclimator was a person. She seemed friendly enough. More friendly than the two weird doctor females who just left.
The female stood in front of her and looked at her up and down. “Stand, please.”
Star hopped off the table and waited.
“The first thing we have to take care of is that hair,” she said looking at Star’s thick mess of long curly red hair.
“Take care of?”
She reached onto the cart and pulled out what looked like an electric razor.
“Whoa. What are you planning to do with that?”
The female looked at her and smiled. “You are going to overheat with all of that hair on your body. We need to shear it all off.”
Star looked at the smooth head of the female in front of her. It made sense that having no hair would be cooler, but she liked her hair. In the summer, she always wore it pinned up and she was cool enough.
“If you just have a rubber band, I can put it up. I don’t want to cut it.”
The female tilted her head to the side as if Star had just said something her translator didn’t translate. The female looked at her for quite a long while before turning and putting the razor thing back on the cart. She opened a small compartment and handed Star what looked like one of those rubber tourniquets the doctors used back on Earth to wrap around the arm right before taking a blood sample. She could make that work.
“Thanks,” she said, and she bunched up her hair and twisted it on top of her head. She wrapped the rubber tube around it and tucked the end underneath. She moved her head to make sure it was going to stay and nodded.
The female smiled at her. “That is clever.”
“Thanks,” Star said again. “Do you happen to have a few of them I can have? You know, in case something happens to this one?”
“Of course. I will make sure some are in your case.”
“My case?”
“I am here to get you set and on your way. I will provide body coverings and essential grooming items. The IEA will provide you a small allowance with which you can purchase any items you wish that are not provided.”
Star nodded her understanding. She knew about the allowance, as the Arkainian female worded it. Star thought of it as a paycheck. Every week, she was to be credited five hundred denons, which was the monetary unit used in the Arkainian cities. She wasn’t sure how expensive things were but was told it would be enough for her to buy the essentials. She wouldn’t be living the life of luxury, but having grown up on a potato farm, she was used to being middle class. She’d worn the same pair of jeans for five years before they got too many holes and she had to finally cut them off to make shorts. And then she wore those for three more years before they practically fell apart.
“Do you have a preference on body coverings?”
Star glanced at what the Arkainian female was wearing. It wasn’t much. Back home on Earth, the other kids would pick on her because Star wasn’t rail thin. She’d had curvy hips ever since she’d hit puberty. She didn’t have the largest breasts in the town, but she didn’t have the smallest, either. But looking at the flat chest of the female in front of her, Star was going to need at least a little covering her up. She was not unhappy with her appearance, taking pride in staying in shape. Her legs were strong and had the muscle tone of a jogger, which she had done until leaving Earth.
“I’m not really comfortable exposing a lot of skin,” she said to answer the female’s question.
She looked at Star and grimaced. “That is good. You will want to keep your skin covered so it does not burn in our sun, but you will need something to let the air flow in to keep cool. Let me see what I can create.”
She pulled a flat screen from the top of the cart and began tapping on it. “Lift your arms, please,” she said, and Star did. The female ran some roller ball thing across just about every inch of her body, even her feet. She tapped continually on the screen of her flat thing that must be like a tablet back on Earth.
“You will be started with five body coverings. I understand humans prefer to sleep covered, so I will provide you two sets of human clothing for that purpose. You will be provided the garments humans wear under their clothing, though you might find them too warm and decide not to use them.”
Star doubted that but didn’t say anything. She was never one to go commando and always felt too self-conscious when she went without a bra.
The female handed her a binder. “You may make your selections for personal items. You may choose twenty from the list.”
“Okay,” Star said as she took the notebook. Flipping it open, she saw grooming items including, tooth and hairbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, thankfully there were feminine products and deodorant. The notebook page seemed like an ordinary piece of cardboard but when she touched the picture of an item, it added the item in a bag, similar to shopping online and adding things to a shopping cart. There wasn’t anything like Advil or Tylenol cold and sinus, so she hoped if she did get sick, they had something that would help. She was kind of a grouchy sick person.
She made her selection of twenty things and handed the notebook back to the female. The female looked them over and nodded. “I will get these set and will be back in a few moments.”
Star nodded and was, once again, left in the boring room alone. She thought about the other humans on the planet and wondered if she’d get the opportunity to meet any of them. Since humans had been on the planet for ten years, she supposed there might be places they could meet up and get to know one another.
She’d had one good friend growing up. Her name was Sharon but always went by the name Sherry since her last name was Stone and she said it felt too weird having the same name as the popular actress.
Star smiled at the memory of her and Sherry lying on the grass at night and looking up into the stars. Sherry had always been fascinated by space and had jumped on the bandwagon to join the program that would train humans to travel in space. For all Star knew, Sherry was out here in the vast expanse of the galaxy. Probably not as a house servant though. Sherry would be on a spaceship exploring new worlds and creating allies with new species. Sherry had the outgoing personality to do stuff like that.
There was another knock at the door and the same female as before stuck her head in. She had a large case, that resembled a suitcase from back home on Earth, in one hand and a bag in the other. She closed the door behind her and set the case and bag on the floor. She glanced up at something over Star’s shoulder but looked away quickly and smiled at Star.
“Your case is complete,” she said, her voice just as pleasant as before. “All of your items are inside. I have put in the bag something you can wear out today.” She looked over Star’s shoulder again and stepped closer. “Do you have any questions?”
“Not really, other than how do I get to the place where I’m supposed to be?”
“We will have a transport ship deliver you.” She stepped closer until she was standing right in front of Star. “These can be tricky, let me help you out of this,” she said as she leaned into Star’s personal space.
Star was about to protest when she heard the female whispering something in the ear that didn’t have the translator in it.
“I know you have been placed with General Abakkus,” the female said in perfect English. “Do not respond. They are watching.”
“Thanks for the help,” Star said in her normal voice.
“In your case, I’ve put a card for a place you can go if you need to leave.”
“Leave?” Star said quietly.
“Leave without him knowing.”
“Why—” Star began, but the female silenced her by standing and smiling down at her.
“All set,” she began, back speaking Arkainian. “You can get into your new body coverings and head to the front of the structure when you are ready for the transport.”
Star creased her brow and now had a few questions she wanted to ask the female about her comment, but Star wasn’t given the opportunity.
“Remember, you can talk to anyone in the IEA if you have any questions or concerns.”
“Okay,” Star said uneasily.
“Have a pleasant day,” she said and turned, opened the door, and left.
Good thing that wasn’t ominous or anything. What the heck had the female meant by leaving her a card of someplace she could go if she needed to get away from the guy she was placed with without him knowing? What did this female know that Star didn’t? Was this General Abakkus a real jerk? Or was he dangerous?
“Great,” Star muttered and stood. She glanced up at where the female had kept looking and saw a small half dome in the wall. It was the same grey color as everything else, so Star hadn’t noticed it when she came into the room. They are watching, the female had said, and, for the first time, Star wondered if she had made a wise choice in coming here.
When she’d gone to the IEA, there were several planets she could choose from. There were a few that offered places for humans to go to fill manual labor jobs their own people just didn’t want to do, but those were the gross and undesirable. She might be able to make more money doing those, but that just didn’t appeal to her. There were also the ones that would send her into the situation of providing pleasure and entertainment. Star flipped right past those. She stopped at the Arkainian offer. All they wanted was a live-in house servant who would clean and cook for the males, who apparently weren’t very good at it. The job offered free living space, weekly pay, and no obligation to get down and blow the guy to keep him happy. She signed up for that one.
There was nothing in the training that gave her the indication that this job was dangerous. They were all told there was no obligation to do anything they weren’t comfortable with. They were to cook and clean and that was it. So, why then, did this female feel the need to provide her a safe place to go?
Well, fretting wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She tossed aside the flimsy gown and unzipped the bag to see what the female had brought for her to wear. She pulled out what looked like a bathing suit with a wrap thing attached to it. It was a pretty shade of green, which was one of the colors that didn’t clash with her red hair. It seemed to have built-in undies and bra. Giving it a thorough inspection, it looked supportive enough, so she stepped into it and slipped the straps over her shoulders.
She looked down to see how she was supposed to wrap the rest of it around her. The thing had what looked like sleeves and when she slipped her arms through them, it kind of fell into place. It looked kind of like a bathrobe that tied at the waist but considering every Arkainian female she’d seen wore unflattering clothing, maybe this was the height of fashion on Arkainia. She tightened the belt and wished there was a mirror she could use to see her reflection.
Looking in the bag, she found a pair of sandals in her size. Everyone on Arkainia wore sandals. She sat to buckle them onto her feet. Standing, she glanced again at the grey dome on the wall and wondered who was watching her. Was it those two creepy doctor females who came in and did the exam, or was it someone else? Were they Arkainian or human? Or both, considering her training had been a joint effort.
She’d dealt with her boss at the Qwik-E-Mart for three years and he was someone in serious need of some mental stability medications. He was hot and cold, up and down, angry and happy all the time. She learned to deal with it and assess his mood to know how she should react. She could do the same with this general guy. How bad could it possibly be?
She zipped up the bag and tossed the gown on the exam table. After a quick glance around the room, she lifted the bag and case and opened the door to head to the lobby to wait for the transport.
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