Chasing Cthulhu (Urf Oomons #2)

‘She doesn’t want to come back.’

Tiny’s words rip through me. I can tell that she is not lying, but it cannot be true. I will not believe it.

‘I saw a video of her saying that she never wants to come back here. That we tortured her and—’

‘That is not true! She was happy here—’

Tiny is shaking her head in negation. ‘I thought so, too, but maybe—I guess she felt trapped? And like she didn’t have any options?’

This is not right. ‘Did you speak with her? Did she tell you these things herself?’

‘No.’ Now Tiny is in real distress. Her eyes are leaking. ‘No, Sal said she didn’t want to ever see any of us again.’

‘Sal is a lying, degenerate slaver! We can’t trust anything he says!’

‘But I saw the video. She said she hated it here!’

‘Videos can be manipulated and he knows you do not have an implant to interface and check veracity. This is a trick! It must be—’

Tiny takes a deep breath and says, ‘I know that you two were close, but maybe she was just making the best of a bad situation? Choosing the lesser of two evils? And now that she has options, she just—well, she doesn’t choose us.’

‘No!’

‘But—’

‘No! I will not believe this! Not unless I hear it directly from her.’ I realize that I am yelling at Tiny, and I quiet myself.

She is obviously upset, nearly as upset as I am.

How can she believe this though? That Gloria thinks badly of us. That Gloria does not wish to return to us? How can she take the word of Salhuteck?

‘I need to go check on the babies,’ she says and quickly leaves the shuttle bay.

I had been so happy, so optimistic just a few hours ago. After a week-long investigation, Shafeenah was able to track down the operation that kidnapped Gloria. It is a human rescue operation. Those stores are meant to draw in owners of ‘human pets’ and then track down those humans and rescue them. And here, Gloria had just blundered in. What they thought would take them months, tracking down a human and organizing their rescue/escape they were able to accomplish in moments when Gloria, a ‘stray’ just wandered into their trap.

It was Salhuteck behind the whole thing. Trying to expand his human collection by rehoming abused and enslaved humans.

Like his planet is any better. Like he himself is not a slaver.

And I am supposed to believe that Gloria picks him over me?

I do not accept this.

She gave herself to me. We are meant to be together. This is obvious.

I am pacing back and forth across the shuttle bay as I try to think, to come up with a plan. I need to speak with Gloria and if she tells me that she does not want to be with me, then I will believe. If she wishes to live the life of a pampered slave on that desert world, it is her choice. But I need to hear it from her.

And what will I do if I do not like her answer? Can I really just let her go? I can at least make my case. Tell her everything, put all of my feelings and intentions into words so that she knows, without any doubt, that I am hers.

I hear a noise at the door and look up to see that Tiny has returned and has Seven with her.

‘Okay, Lu, I’ve talked about it with Seven and he agrees with you.’ She pats Seven’s tentacle where he is holding her around her waist. ‘We can’t trust Sal. So, we are going to sanction him until we get to speak to Gloria face to face.’

‘Sanction him?’

She nods. ‘Yes. We won’t trade with him, and we won’t do business with anybody who trades with him until he arranges a meeting between us and Gloria. You’re right, we need to hear directly from her.’

I nod. ‘Thank you. It is a good plan.’

Salhuteck has made a fortune on Tiny’s Earth-Human Art. He would not like to find himself cut out of any future deals.

‘Do you have a new product or campaign? We can comm him to discuss it and then—’

‘And then be like, but not until we speak with Gloria!’ Tiny interrupts excitedly. ‘You’re right! That’s the quickest way to let him know what’s going on.’

‘But who will we tell him we are doing business with instead?’ Seven asks.

‘We do not have to give him a name,’ I answer. ‘He has undoubtably heard of our recent application to the Trader’s Guild. He knows we have options.’

‘Okay, alright, so we just need to go to the storage bay and find some human stuff that Sal would be excited to buy.’ Tiny is already headed down the corridor and I hurry to catch up.

When we get to the storage bay, we find Ken reorganizing it again. We then get into a rather tedious discussion over who owns the right to sell these Earth things. Ken has discovered a copyright symbol that is etched on most of them. Tiny maintains that she has the right to sell them ‘second hand’ and Ken points out that she will need to disclose the fact that we cannot grant any kind of permissions where these products are concerned.

‘Of course, Ken,’ Tiny agrees, clearly exasperated. ‘But only after we get Gloria back. I’m not going to disclose anything until our demands are met.’

Ken nods, satisfied. Then he asks, ‘Did you all discuss the updates?’

Tiny looks from him to me, then Seven. ‘What updates?’

I access the ship logs through my implant as Ken explains, ‘We have leads on four humans. One may be crashed and stranded on an R-class planet. One was bought by a Royal House, and two more are being hosted under refugee status on a space station.’

‘Why do you insist on using that word?’ Seven asks.

‘Because that was the word they used in the report. Try to focus on something other than your deviancies.’

Seven snarls. Ken growls. This is a silly argument. ‘Host’ is a word like any other, with multiple meanings. It does have an offensive connotation in regard to us Homeworlders, but that does not mean that every utterance of it is offensive.

‘We need to focus,’ Tiny interjects. ‘First priority,’ she holds up one digit, ‘is to speak with Gloria and bring her home if that’s what she wants.’ She holds up another digit. ‘Secondly, we need to be firm with Salhuteck. He cannot continue his human rescue operation if he’s going to keep rehoming humans. He can’t just collect us like stray kittens.’ She holds up another digit. ‘And thirdly, we’ll follow up on all of those leads while,’ she raises a fourth digit, ‘setting up a human camp on one of the uninhabited planets or moons in the Solar System. We can’t just keep extra humans we don’t know anything about on our ship. And we can’t send them back to Earth in good conscience if we know they are going to be detained and mistreated.’

Seven and Ken both click in agreement. I click as well after considering for a second.

I don’t really care about anything else on that list besides retrieving Gloria.