The First Encounter with Prince Porodor
The organic thing clinging to Cissy’s skin looked like a space suit, but felt like a herd of plooberbeasts was sucking on her body with their oily tongues. She pulled at the armpits and crotch to try to adjust out the discomfort.
“I am told that if you pinch the Danjer suit too often, it turns your skin a darker blue,” Suki said.
Cissy looked down at herself and consciously tried to quell the urge to pinch it furiously.
They moved upward into the massive headspace of the space whale, following quietly as the head warrior led them to meet the prince.
Prince Porodor was standing in front of the inside wall of a space-whale eye. The eyes functioned like windows on a spaceship. You could look through it and see out into space. But the whale could see through it because of a wide web of optic nerves that colored the skull walls around it with a spiderweb of nerve ganglia. There was a transparent panel in the middle of the eye that picked up images from outside and inside the whale simultaneously. It also framed the imperious-looking Nebulon leader like a halo. He stared down at Cissy and her two companions like an angry king.
“We must decide if the Earther Humaniti lives or dies here. The Lupin Stardog as well, though their fates may not match,” the prince said.
“Captain Cissy Moonskipper saved a large number of our clan members from slavery to a planet of Stardog pirates. We owe her our lives and freedom.” Suki’s expression was defiant, though her voice was calm and reasonable.
“We are at war with the Earthers and the Galtorr Fusions of the Imperium. They owe us our freedom for violating our rights as star-farers.” The prince gave a thumb-down gesture with his right hand.
“It is true they treat us unfairly, but they are not all the same, just as Nebulons are not all the same. This one is different. She is good and caring. If we kill her after what she has done for us, we are being no better than the evil Earthers we war against.”
“True, Sister Suki. But Nebulon Law will decide. And who is Nebulon Law?”
“You are my prince.”
“We shall test her, then. If she passes, she will live. But the Lupin must be rendered into whale food. We will tolerate no such vermin on this space whale.”
“This Lupin child is different, my prince. She is the loyal pet of Cissy Moonskipper. Without her to lead the way, we would not have been able to make our way out of Stardog slave pens.”
“Very well then. The pet’s fate will be a sharing of the master’s fate. They both die… or both will live.”
“Know this, then, my prince. If Cissy is fated to die, you must kill me too. I owe her a life debt that cannot be repaid if I allow her to die.”
The prince’s face looked disgusted and angry to Cissy. But he nodded his agreement with Suki’s conditions.
“Suki, why is he saying everything in Galactic English? He must know that both Friday and I understand what he’s saying.”
Cissy indicated Friday, quaking and shaking like she was standing on a machine for mixing sand and ferrous particles to make ferrocrete.
“He wants you to understand. He wants you to be afraid.”
“I don’t fear him. I’m almost as tall as he is. And I’m better looking too.”
“He can hear you. But, in this case, that probably helps you.”
The prince snapped his fingers repeatedly. “The racial testing! Here and now. Bring me the twins!”
The people watching this unfold, blue-skinned all, moved about to get out of the way. A group of what were obviously Vorran women dressed in the orange gear of the Vorranac Clan led two naked male children into the headspace of the whale. One was obviously a Nebulon with blue skin and yellow hair with the two red cheek spots on his face. The other one was very peachy-pink colored, and looked for all the world like he was the same race as Cissy. Though his hair was also blond.
“Hear this, Cissy Moonskipper, would-be savior of Nebulon slaves, these two children are alike in almost every way. Tell, me… for the sake of your life and life of your pet… How are these two children different?”
Cissy looked at the two naked boys. Same height. Same basic facial features. Same haircuts. Same taciturn expressions. She hadn’t failed to notice that the prince had called for twins.
“They are not different. They are the same.”
The prince chuckled in a way that reminded Cissy of villains in holodramas. “You are quite wrong, Cissy Moonskipper. Look at these two brothers. They are both the children of two Nebulons born in captivity and sired by a slave owner who was a white male Earther. One, whose skin is blue and has the red radiation-absorbing organs on his face, bears the dominant genetic codes of the Nebulon race. The other, his Earther-like brother, has only the recessive genes of his slave-owning Imperial father.”
“So, what does this mean?” Suki challenged.
“The test has been failed.”
“Why is this so?” Cissy demanded. “Surely if they are twin brothers, they are equal in the sight of Nebulon lawmakers.”
“No,” growled the prince. “Neither one is a citizen of this space whale because of their tainted blood. But the one with the dominant Nebulon genes can live among us and serve us for his long Nebulonin lifetime. The other one, even with the protections of a Danjer suit, will eventually sicken and die from the exotic radiations generated by the interior environments of a space whale. We may as well subject him to the same sacrificial ritual that will be used to dispose of all of you.”
Cissy was stunned.
The head warrior stood before them. “I will now take you to the place of feasting and leisure. You will have stentoriac sekktons of time to eat, drink, and be happy. Then we will assemble in the bowels to dissect and render you into food for the whale.”
“Stentoriac sekktons?” Cissy asked.
“You might want to think of it as three Earth days. Seventy-two hours,” Suki said.
Friday buried her puppy face in Cissy’s side and let the tears flow.
Catch a Falling Star 