I paced around nervously for some hours. I assumed they were deciding how to kill me for daring to attack them. The purple creature returned with his Therezian guards and a group of his many-armed comrades.
“Are you a representative of your people?” it queried. “And are you authorized to negotiate on behalf of your species?”
I looked up at the Therezians. I didn’t figure it would do me much good to tell them my real objective or that I was merely a thug on a space station.
“Yes,” I said unsteadily. “I’m His Excellency, Hank the Boss of the Colmarian Confederation. Are you the representative for the Boranjame?”
“You see the Po,” the purple creature said. “Slave species of the Boranjame.”
“Ah, yes,” I said, as if I had known that but merely forgotten.
“Please follow,” it said, doing what I guessed was its approximation of a bow.
The Po wriggled forward on its many hands, and between it and the Therezians and the constantly moving swarm of Po flanking me, I was by far the slowest. The purple Po routinely paused to wait for me.
No description as to the size of the ship was really adequate. It was a planet. The place I assumed was a hangar branched off at regular intervals with similar-sized passageways. I then realized I was merely in a hallway. The enormous room I had waited in was probably a closet or maybe a desk drawer.
There were no decorations of any kind that I could see. It was purely functional, covered in pipes and conduits and electrical cables and bolts and all manner of industrial machines. The only thing intriguing about these features, besides their absolutely enormous size, was their composition. The ship seemed to have strata or layers. At one point everything would be a brownish-red color, and after some time walking, the same walkways and railings and tubing would be gray and have a slightly different texture.
If it was true the Boranjame gobbled up planets to construct this ship, you could literally see where one ended and another began.
The temperature was cool, but it was humid. I looked for mold or mildew, which should have definitely been present given the level of water in the air, but I saw none, even in the remotest crevices.
The purple Po was obviously making a conscious effort not to be as twitchy as his comrades. Actually I couldn’t say that for sure, since I had no idea about their physiology. Maybe it was just old.
We kept going and going and going. My recently busted knee was slowing me down more than usual. Finally I had to speak up.
“Um, excuse me, can we take a break?”
“Break?” it asked.
“I’m tired. You’re too fast. How far away is”—and I realized I didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing—“do we have to go?”
“You are fatigued?” it asked.
“Yes.”
“You shall rest.”
I sat on the floor and caught my breath.
Looking at the Po I could see how they’d evolved. You could literally not tell which direction they were going until they were there. A pouncing animal would just as likely hit a tree as catch one of these things.
After a bit we headed off again. We passed quite a few more hallways and I couldn’t be sure, but I think more Po joined us. The Therezians were as impassive as ever. Yeah, imagine an army of them. I wondered if they knew Wallow.
It took a while, but we finally stopped outside another opening.
“Hank the Boss. You may enter. You will speak later.”
I was expecting to see the Boranjame inside, not that I would recognize one if I saw it, but instead it was simply an unbelievably ornate room filled with creatures.
The aliens in the room were a long ways off and clustered into individual groups as if they were shy. Or racists. There were some Po, but the rest of the creatures, dozens of them, looked to represent every major species in the galaxy.
The lighting in the room was dim, with the figures obscured in shadows. The carpeting was thick, red, and luxurious. There was statuary and artwork placed all over. It reminded me of the Belvaille Athletic Club where the gang bosses congregated.
I wasn’t particularly sure where I was or what I was supposed to do, but I knew I was hungry, and tired, and a bit gross from my time in space.
I figured I had better freshen up and get something to eat before presenting myself, or the rest of the galaxy would think Colmarians are a disheveled race with growling stomachs that smell of space urine. Much to my delight, one of the first items I saw inside the room was a refrigerator. I walked over to it, grasped the handle and tried to pull it open, but only succeeded in bending the metal frame.
“Stop it,” the refrigerator said.
“Oh,” I said, backing up. “Sorry, I was just looking for something to eat.”