The Alien's Zookeeper

Chapter 2

2

BAVALLAIt had been a good harvest. I was almost done making a list for the Captain, detailing our new cargo. The researchers would pay him a good price, which would make him happy, which would make me happy. Captain Brew was an erratic, unpredictable man who could be lovely and kind when he was content, yet turned into a raging beast when he got angry. I'd learned very quickly in my stint on the KIW II that it was best to keep any bad news from him.

I checked on the last cargo pod. A massive animal lay sleeping, making a strange rasping noise. Was that normal? Maybe I should have the medic check on it. I was just about to turn off the screen when I noticed something moving behind the beast. A second animal. Offspring, maybe? I had to take a closer look. I'd once accidentally put an yver in a pod with a hulung and it had taken me days to clean up the mess. It was always better to keep species separate, but not if this was the beast's child. I zoomed in as much as possible and gasped when I realised this wasn't offspring. It was a Kyvenoid. Two arms, two legs, one head, just like me and my fellow Kyvens. Only the skin colour and the shape of her ears didn't match.

And yes, it was most definitely a her. Unless the males of her species had two large bumps on their chest.

I stared at the female. All my sense of achievement had vanished in an instant. I'd made a terrible mistake. If I was right about her being a Kyvenoid, then I'd broken the law. I'd abducted a sentient being. Captain Brew wouldn't just kill me. He'd torture, flay, dismember and disembowel me before. I couldn't even imagine how furious he'd be once he found out. No, not once. If. I had to deal with this as fast as possible before anyone else became aware. In a few hours, my colleagues would start feeding the abducted animals. By then, the female had to be gone. There was no way I could bring her back to her planet. The Captain would notice the change, of course, even if I had the authority to fly the ship. Which I didn't.

I was in deep, fuming caca s**t.

Distressed, I paced back and forth in the cabin. Abducting a sentient being from any planet was considered kidnapping, a Grade A Galactic offence. How did I make such a rookie mistake?

“Breathe, Bavalla, breathe,” I commanded myself, drawing in the filtered air. “You can fix this, you can fix this. You’ll figure out the Kyvenoid and you will get to keep your original bowels and skin.”

I stood still in front of one of the metallic storage closets and looked at my slightly blue-ish body. Yes, I liked the way my current skin looked on me. I didn’t want to go through all the trouble to regenerate and grow new parts again. I might have enjoyed that while I was a juvenile, but I was long over it.

So how did I keep the Captain from finding out my mistake? I supposed I could kill the Kyvenoid and dump her body on the nearest planet, but that didn’t sit well with me. Murder could be so messy, especially with creatures with life liquid. No way I would be able to cover up a spillage like that.

Worried, I shot another look at the monitor, wondering what the Kyvenoid was doing. She kept running her hands along the walls and shuffling back and forth in the pod. Her mouth kept opening, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Was she talking to the animal?

I cranked up the volume of that pod and listened to the strange sounds she was making. Despite practicing some of her language, I didn’t understand a single thing even if the noises were familiar. Slightly squeaky, with lower and higher pitches. She looked distressed, and I didn’t blame her. There was a reason sentients were protected under Galactic law.

Hmm… There was a thought. If she was sentient, maybe she could help me figure this out.

No, that was one of the stupidest ideas I had in a long time. Why would I enlist the help of a foreign, potentially hostile sentient? I had no idea how dangerous this Kyvenoid could be so approaching it by myself was idiotic.

I had to ask for help… But who on the KIW II liked me enough to keep this a secret from the Captain?

The answer was easy enough. There was only one person who could help me. Amison.