Scorpio

Party

My suit is really fucking itchy. And tighter than it was at my interview a few years ago. Guess I’m a stress-eater. Sometimes a stress-drinker. Both at parties.

Our hovercar hasn’t even gotten to the Capitol yet and my flask is already half-empty of some Vegan drink I can’t really stomach but should make social interaction with people pretending to like me go down easier. Shake a few hands, smile for some cameras, go home before I can disgrace my planet. Wouldn’t be the first time. First time disgracing Altair as the guest of honor, though.

“Thorn,” Sue says from the seat next to mine, which is trying to swallow him in the softest synthetic leather my ass has ever touched. “You’re driving me crazy.” How long have I been fidgeting? I don’t remember getting in the car, either. Just being curled up fully-clothed in bed until two minutes before the driver came and filling my flask from a bottle I forgot about for two months because it didn’t look that great. Now I’m here.

“Sorry.” I tuck my right leg under my left and instead of fidgeting I’m drinking again. “I don’t want to be here.”

“I can tell,” Sue says. “Weird you don’t want to go to your own thanks-for-saving-our-planet party.”

I take a last mouthful and slip the flask, which is getting a lot lighter than I want it to be, back into my pocket. “Weirder to have a party for that.” A thank-you card would have been fine. Or my regular paycheck. Either one. “You know what bugs me most about this whole thing? More than killing two people?”

“More than killing two people, huh?”

“Yeah. You would have let me die not knowing who brought me the rumig. You’re a shitty friend, Sue,” I say. Gaelin. Two souls. Vega Prime’s sun is setting over their unbounded ocean and glaring right into my eyes but everything is too dark and my seatbelt is a snare. I pull it away from my chest and run my fingers over the platinum inlay until I’m back in the car. Even the restraints are looking at me like I’m not good enough to be here. And maybe I’m not.

“I guess you can know. In exchange for saving my life,” Sue says after a pause. “Totally a fair trade.”

I let out something like laughter and drag my fingers through my hair. “Seems fair to me. Since all I did was push a button.”

“It was Cindy. She asks about you every day.”

“Cindy?” I can’t help wrinkling my nose. “That was nice of her. I wish she were my type.”

“She’s conventionally attractive by humanoid standards,” Sue says. “I mean, I wouldn’t know. But she is, isn’t she?”

I shrug. “I guess. I need a nap every time I talk to her, though.”

“Oh, thank g—I thought I was the only one. At least you don’t have a shift with her.”
“Best promotion I’ve ever gotten.” I reach for my flask. Cindy’s not even here and I still want to drink. But she probably doesn’t have anything to do with it.

Vega’s Capitol is right on the water, a little ways from a rocky shore on the biggest island, which is about the size of my home county. But five thousand people live there, usually with irdes between houses. Two million live here. Two million neighbors and nowhere to go unless you’re a strong swimmer. Paradise is hell sometimes.

Two big Vegan guys, one white with orange spots and the other all orange, meet us at the car. I always forget how cold their hands are until they touch my face and they’re probably thinking how warm I am. Three years on Vega and I still don’t know whether they expect me to touch back. They always look surprised when I do. I think it’s too late to ask. Cameras flash in my face and I have to stop halfway up the steps because I can’t see anymore. A voice on my right asks if I’m okay. I’m fine. Blind for a few minutes. Better than I was when I could see all the expectations looking back at me.

Someone puts me in a chair until my fragile Altairan eyes readjust and a low, gritty voice like pravei song asks what’s wrong with me. Sue ends up explaining, thank Gaelin. Tonight hasn’t been great for our image: one of Vega’s mighty protectors brought to his knees by a few camera flashes. We have pretty impressive night vision, which is kind of the problem. Not to mention Vega itself is about four times brighter than our sun. I’ve accumulated way more sunglasses than one person needs over three years—lose one pair, buy another to replace it, find the one you lost in a drawer at work, find one you need, repeat the process a few times and now you have a hoard.

“Mr. Katnir,” says the same voice while I try to make some sense of the details coalescing in the whiteness. “Mr. Katnir, can you see me?”

“Uh, it might be a minute.” I grit my teeth in her general direction. Not quite the smile I wanted, but it’s the best I can do. “Why don’t you just tell me who you are?”

A pause, then, like I’ve accidentally set the room on fire: “President Iliphar Venali.”
“Oh, shit,” I say. Shit, I think I had too much to drink on the way over. “Shit, I’m sor—oh my gaelin. You’d better do the talking.”

“Are you—you’re not drunk, are you?”

“I mean, drunk is relative. But yeah. I had a couple on the way over, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She’s tall. Taller than I am—pretty common on Vega—with dark scales. Height is sort of a status symbol here. More I don’t understand. “What can I do for you, Presidilt?”

“I thought I should meet our guest of honor.” Another pause. I can feel her eyes moving over me.

“Thanks for saving my planet.”

I grit my teeth again—my default when someone is trying to make things weird. “I’m not what you expected, am I?”

“Not exactly.”

“Yeah. That’s usually how it goes.” I bite my lip. Lean my cheek against my palm. Should have taken a second flask with me, I guess. I’d either be a lot more fun or wouldn’t care. I don’t know how to kiss asses. Shake a few hands, smile for some cameras. Go home. For real this time.
“I apologize, Mr. Katnir,” Venali says, slumping down in what I assume is a chair opposite mine. “It’s been quite a week.”

“I spent most of it in bed with a bottle of—” I squint at Venali, who’s a little more than a black and red blob now. “What is that drink called? It’s super sweet so when it burns on the way down you’re like, okay, where were you hiding? Like a violent piña colada.”

Venali almost laughs. “I don’t know what a piña colada is.”

“Oh, good. Not exactly a tough-guy drink.” I shake my head. “I really can’t remember what it’s called.”
“Sounds like thuil,” she says.

“Yes! Thank you. You’ll probably have to tell me again in ten minutes.” A real smile this time. Gaelin knows whether I get one back.

Officially I haven’t met President Venali yet, because officially I have to meet her in a photo the Vegan administration wants. I’m blue and she isn’t and somehow that matters to somebody. Before she touches my face, she tells the photographers to turn the flash off. Now I don’t mind the idea of being touched so much anymore. I’m even smiling in the photos until she says through her teeth, “You’re supposed to touch back.”

“What—then why does everyone always look so confused when I do?”

“Because you people usually don’t try that hard.” Dammit. We got along so well for like, fifteen minutes. I press my palm to her cheek but I’m pretty sure I’m rolling my eyes in a couple of the photos. Probably not the message they wanted. Also not my problem.

I have to sit on Venali’s right at the end of the table, on the other side of a corner, wanting lightyears between us instead. Gaelin knows I’m trying with every glass of thuil. She’s been quiet since the photo op and even if she wanted to talk the Vegan dignitary next to me—pushing like surface tension out of a suit that doesn’t fit him either—hasn’t shut up for fifteen minutes. Stuff about how he wanted to be a pilot and a space traffic controller like me when he was a kid and did you know the average Vegan goes twelve hours between breaths? Lucky me.

One ear is listening to my neighbor talk, the other to Sue, who’s sitting opposite me and already friendly with the people on his left and right. They can’t understand yet but they’re lucky to know him. And on the ugly side of warm and fuzzy, more than the heat always hanging over my shoulder here, I’m downing the rest of my fourth—fifth? drink. Iliphar is watching me from the corner of her eye and Altair’s Planetary Guard is watching her from the corners of the ballroom, eyes glowing like the Blue Moon, not talking. She knows. They aren’t hiding. Only keeping their distance. When my neighbor runs out of things to say and leaves the table, it’s just me and a shitload of alcohol against Venali again.

“Can you tell your friends to stop watching me like I’m some sort of criminal?” she asks, still not looking at me.

“I don’t think I have that authority.” I refill my glass from a bottle somebody was stupid enough to leave in front of me. “Plus I’m not really convinced you aren’t plotting to kill me.”

Iliphar shakes her head. “That’s just like you people to—”
“Hey.” I snap my fingers next to her ear. “Hey, Presidilt. It was a joke.”

Her bright eyes finally meet mine. “You aren’t funny.”

“Uh, yeah. I know. Do you think that’s gonna stop me?” I take another mouthful. “I need every coping mechanism I can get my hands on right now.”

Venali’s red lips twitch, but she bites her cheek before any friendliness can get through. Gaelin forbid. “I’m supposed to give you a speech and a toast in ten minutes.”

I throw my head back, which launches the room into orbit. “Can we skip it?”

“No.” She looks back to the Guard. “They’re expecting something.”

“You know, I really feel like I’m kind of caught in the middle of this . . .” I can’t find the words but my hands are trying to pull them from the air. “This political thing that’s about four billion people bigger than I am.” Venali blinks at me. Someone else I can’t read. “I mean, any one of the Earthlings would have done the same thing. And I don’t think they would have gotten such a well-publicized—” I glance over my shoulder at the cameras. “—um. Party.”

She nods slowly. Crosses her arms over her chest. “The Earthlings.”

I roll my eyes. At the president. For the second time today. Way too much to drink. “Is that what we’re focusing on? Seriously?” My tongue settles on the right side of my mouth, between rows of teeth. Nothing. Another staring contest. “Okay,” I say, getting up. “Have it your way.”

“You can’t go,” Venali tells me. Now she wants to talk. “You have to be here for the toast.”

“I don’t think it matters whether I’m here.” The thuil looks so lonely next to my empty plate. Better take it with me. Actually, I’m taking the whole bottle—the more the merrier. “This isn’t my party.”

“And where are you going?” she calls after me, getting up too. I don’t think I can go anywhere. Doesn’t stop me from trying.

My friends and I end up on a bench in the gardens, our backs to the lights inside, the Ocean City’s glow captive in the glass. I’ve only seen it on the wrong side of the water. Can’t hold my breath long enough to see it the way everyone says it should be seen. They’re always like, “Hey, Thorn, have you been to the Ocean City yet?” and by “they” I mean the people who go half a day between breaths. I think the car we got from the government could get down there but if anything went wrong I’d have to watch the water rush in over my head and I try not to think about how drowning feels too often so I’m going to skip the tour. Skip the tour and drink and watch the city lights move with the waves until I can go home.

“Okay, good,” someone says over my shoulder. I turn around to Sue, who’s inching toward me across the courtyard. “Guess I wasn’t the only one getting weird vibes.”

I sigh. “What did I do, man?”

“Got caught in the middle of a political thing four billion people bigger than you are.” Sue stops beside me. “Pick me up?” I put him on the bench. “They finally brought out the food, if you wanna come back in for that.”

“Depends on what it is.”

“What do you think?”

I put my head in my hands. “Dude, I am so sick of seafood.”

“I’m sure I would be too. I mean, if I had a sense of taste.”

“Sometimes I wish I could just absorb nutrients.” I pour myself another glass from the half-empty bottle. Glance at Sue. “Can you get drunk?”

“We metabolize toxins too quickly. I’m basically all liver.”

“I thought you were all brain,” I say, tipping the ice into the side of the glass.

“We’re both.”

“And what’s the word for brain-liver?” I only know one word from Sue’s language: chair. It’s a cognate. Chairs didn’t exist on his planet before first contact.

When he says the word his translator conks out for a second and I’m laughing because even if I weren’t shitfaced I couldn’t separate a single syllable and I guess neither can the most advanced linguistic AI in the galaxy. I ask him to tell me a word every once in a while. Always cracks me up.

I don’t hear the sound of footsteps over the breaking waves and the chatter inside until Venali is almost in front of me, arms still crossed, face scrunched up like her shoes don’t fit. Two guys from the Guard are waiting for her at the edge of the courtyard, pulse rifles pointed downward at a perfect forty-five, the way they taught me in another lifetime. “Hi,” I say.

“What’s goin’ on?” the taller one drawls. He’s from Banthel. No question.

Trying another smile—I guess I don’t have the winning personality I thought I did—I look up at Venali. “Hey, Ice Queen. You want me to come back inside, huh?”

Venali sucks on her teeth. “Please. The sooner I make the speech, the sooner you get to go home and the sooner your people get off my back.”

“I don’t think they’re here for me.”

“What do you mean?” Ice Queen asks.

I shrug. “They didn’t follow us outside. We must not be the ones they’re worried about.”

She glances at the guards. The one from Banthel nods. “Ma’am.”

Black like the space between stars, Venali’s scales glint with all their colors when she turns back to me. She’s really pretty. Too bad we got off on the wrong foot. And she’s the president. “I don’t need them here. We can protect ourselves.”

“Uh, why are you telling me?”

Venali’s perfect teeth sink into her bottom lip and she sits down opposite Sue and me on the stone fence. “Because you’re right here and I’m in a bad mood.”

I laugh. Sue laughs. Ice Queen actually smiles and uncrosses her arms—a ray of light for someone like me, with my stupid need to be liked by everyone. I pour the last of the thuil into my glass and hand it to her, but she doesn’t take it. Just makes another face. “Oh my gaelin, Presidilt.” I rattle the ice around. “I promise I’m vaccinated.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asks, her eyes moving over me again.

“Because last time I was mean to someone I got this party.” And the need.

“Mean?” Sue scoffs. “You shot them down.”

“Okay, sheesh, maybe ‘mean’ isn’t a strong enough word.” I scoot a little closer with the thuil. “You either gotta take it or tell me no ‘cause my arm is getting tired.”

Venali’s webbed hand brushes against mine, just for a second. Tosses the rest of the drink down her throat. Gives back the glass. “Thanks.”

“You looked like you needed a drink.” Or different shoes. I glance at my watch. “You’re ten minutes late.”

“One more favor, Mr. Katnir?” She touches my arm. On purpose. And Gaelin, no matter how much I want to, I can’t say no to those sunlight eyes.

“Sure. Let’s see if I can top saving your planet.”