Alien in the Family

Gregory started to try something, but Chuckie had known it was coming, apparently. Gregory was on the floor in a heap.

“What did you do to him?” Alexander shouted.

“What I’ll do to you, all of you, if we don’t get some immediate cooperation.” Chuckie turned as he was talking so he could make eye contact with them all in turn. “Understand—until proven otherwise, you are all considered enemies of Earth in general and the United States in particular. I have orders to exterminate with extreme prejudice any alien threats I feel pose a short- or long-term problem. You pose both. Cooperate or I kill you. It’s that’s simple.”

Alexander looked over to Martini and Christopher. “How can you let him threaten us this way?”

Martini let a slow smile creep across his face. “I don’t have a choice. He’s the boss. I report to him.” I saw the realization that Martini wasn’t lying cross all the delegates’ faces. It was kind of nice to see that Chuckie had been right. Again. “Now, show three of the Poofs where to stand to be suns.”

One of the Major Doggies nodded and went to three points in the room. A Poof went to each location. Harlie stayed by me, and the one I’d called Poofikins stayed near Chuckie.

Chuckie came back beside me and took a long look. “Gower, the other planets, how many of them are inhabited?”

“Alphas Seven and Eight, Beta Sixteen. Ten inhabited planets in total.”

“Why aren’t the others represented?” Chuckie’s eyes were narrowed.

Alexander answered. “They are not advanced enough. Beta Sixteen and Alpha Seven seem to have grasped that there is life on other planets in the system, but we won’t interact with them until they have made some realistic attempts to contact us. Alpha Eight is at Earth Bronze Age level.”

Something Gower had told me months ago waved to me. “Who are the ones with long-range space flight? Besides Alpha Four, I mean.”

Animal types all nodded their heads, and Giant Lizard Number One spoke. “We and the Feliniads have had such abilities for decades. The Canus Majorians have joined us in that skill in the past decade.”

The Major Doggie who’d positioned the suns spoke up. “We originally had no desire to explore past our own solar system. Events have shown it to be necessary.”

Uma chimed in. “Alpha Six still has no interest in traveling beyond our system.”

“We have no desire to leave our planet,” the last woman, who hadn’t identified herself, offered.

“What’s your name?”

“Lenore. But,” she added, “some of us from Alpha Five do understand that we must, from time to time.”

“And Beta Twelve is hot and heavy to get back out there, right?” Queen Renata nodded to me. “So, what will your people do to the three planets that aren’t as advanced as the rest of you?”

Queen Renata shook her head. “My loyal subjects? They will not harm them. The dissidents? They will slaughter if they can.”

“So why are you all here, not there?”

Silence and a lot of shifty looks.

Chuckie sighed. “They like drawing it out, don’t they?”

“Yeah. I’m sure it relates to the real plan, and you know how much they don’t want to tell us that.”

Gregory was coming to. Alexander helped him up. He looked a lot worse for wear. “Why are you fighting us?” he asked blearily.

“Because we don’t trust you. At all.”

He managed to shoot a glare at me. “We’ve come in peace.”

“Right. And I’m actually Angelina Jolie, I’m just playing this role shorter, fairer, and with a lot less sex appeal.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” Martini said. “I think you’re a lot sexier than she is. You have better curves.”

“Yes, she does,” Chuckie and Christopher added in unison. Martini muttered a bit, but at least he wasn’t growling.

“Thanks, I’m feeling all tingly. So, Greg or Alex, since you represent the reigning superpower in your solar system, lay it on us. We’re big kids, we can take it. And, if not, we’ll just kill you. So, you know, we win either way.”

CHAPTER 31

THEY DIDN’T ANSWER. But I was thinking. I’d had to do a lot of thinking like this over the past year, and it was starting to come naturally to me. Being human and not an A-C, I liked to do my thinking aloud and share the fun and deepness that was me with everyone within earshot.

“Since we have two males somewhere in the royal line standing in front of us, it can’t be that they’ve run out of potential king options. We also have what I assume are hot Poofs, because if they’re that rare, then they’re valuable, and we have seven of them.”

“Works for me,” Chuckie said. He was still examining the living solar system in front of us.

“What do you mean about the Poofs being hot?” Alexander asked.

“Hot, stolen, removed from their owner’s possession without said owner’s consent, lifted, shifted, grabbed and bagged.”

“Oh. We didn’t steal them.” He was telling the truth, from what I could tell. “They were given to us. But . . .”

“But?”

“Amazing.” Chuckie looked over at Martini. “I heard about the first one. It bonded to you, didn’t it?”

Martini shrugged. “I guess.”

“No, Harlie did, Jeff. Harlie likes Jeff, right?” The Poof started to purr up a storm. All of them joined in.

Alexander nodded. “They didn’t bond to me or Gregory. That’s why we knew—” He stopped himself.

The light dawned. “That’s why you knew you had to come and find someone they would bond with? Because they’re a part of the succession process?”

“Yeah.” Alexander looked down.

“Shut up,” Gregory hissed.

“Oh, Greg, stop it.” I went back near them. “There’s a reason Moira and her mate are here, isn’t there? A reason you know about. All of you.” He wouldn’t look at me. I dropped my voice. “If anything happens to Jeff or Christopher, I’ll hurt you in ways you’ve never imagined. I’ll make it last for what will seem like forever. I’m a human, you know I can do it.”

He looked right at me. “I know you won’t. He might,” he nodded toward Chuckie. “But not you.” He swallowed. “We’ve been watching you, all of you.”

I kept my eyes on Gregory’s face. “Queen Renata, Moira and her mate, and however many of your other dissidents, you arrested them, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Because they were pla

“Yes.”

“But the sentient net let them out, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Is the king dead?”

“He lives, but just barely.”

“And Moira and her mate escaped, with the help of the sentient net, and made it here. I’ll bet they used the gate that sent my A-Cs here all those years ago. It’s locked to us, but not to the home planet.”

“Yes,” Renata confirmed. “As far as we can determine.”

“Greg? Why is the Queen of the Amazonian Nutcases the only one willing to tell me the truth?” He swallowed but didn’t reply. “No worries. I know why. Because, unlike you, she’s not a gutless coward.”

I spun around and walked over to the door. “Let’s get out of this room, Chuckie and Poofs.” It was that or I was going to try to kill them. The door was opened, and we all exited. The delegates stood there, still in solar system formation. “Take a look, folks. You’re never going to see a better collection of cowardice and guilt anywhere.” I was so angry I was shaking.

Martini came over and pulled my back against his chest. “Okay, I can already tell I’m going to hate it. What’s going on?” The Poofs went back to tiny. They all crawled up and onto my shoulders, though Harlie went onto Martini’s.

“Want me to do it?” Chuckie asked softly.

“Yeah.” I had to keep my teeth clenched. Martini gently moved some Poofs and started rubbing my neck.