[Pup]

  She had somehow forgotten how terrifying it was to work around non-slaves.

  Kitty was her own kind of scary and though she was wary of her, it was hard to consider the woman as a non-slave when she ran around naked and could barely talk right. Kitty reminded her more of a debt or criminal slave, unused to and trying to throw off, her collar. Except she didn’t have a collar. And could probably break one just as easily as Moose had. Kitty might act like a wild child, but her strength was real.

  Working around other people was different. It reminded her of what she was and that her life belonged to whoever owned her. Which was someone, she was sure. The thought of being ownerless was almost as scary as Kitty. Until someone showed up and claimed that they owned her though, that someone would just have to remain faceless.

  ‘Do I belong to Moose until then? He seems to be in charge.’

  She guessed it didn’t matter. Moose couldn’t give her orders she could understand, and no one could force him to do something. That was made very clear when the security officer fainted just by looking at Kitty. It was reassuring that she wasn’t alone in her first contact. She couldn’t tell if the officer had made a mess, her suit having a contained environment, but she could imagine she wasn’t the only one in that predicament as well.

  It helped.

  Getting the samples had been easy enough. Kitty might have nearly made her ruin the jumpsuit she had been wearing when she took the sample in the bedroom, but the rest were simple and straight forward. The same with leaving the box near the air lock. She would have waited, but she was also with the only other person that could talk on the radio. Heading back was a necessity for the next steps.

  She scratched at the jumpsuit, the cloth somehow very uncomfortable after all that time without it. Almost to the point that she wished Kitty had scared her enough for a mess. It would give her an excuse to remove it and disappear into the rain and chores for a bit. Maybe even long enough she wouldn’t need to talk anymore.

  Once they had returned to Moose, she needed to relay that everything was okay. It took a troubling amount of time for Kitty to finally rumble at Moose, though if he got the right message was unclear. He seemed to do very little beyond looking at the consoles for a long time. Long enough the station got in contact with them. Something she was dreading.

  Once she actually got talking that dread faded though. She didn’t know why, but seeing Kitty scare someone that badly made her feel better. Not around Kitty of course, but if Kitty was that scary to other people and Moose kept her in hand so easily… well, what did that mean for Moose.

  ‘I wonder how easy it would be for Moose to get people to do things, even though he can’t speak Trade.’

  The little fantasy helped her get through all the boring back and forth with the station.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Hmm, I guess that’s everything then. Finding ship Atlanta, you are clear to dock in the industrial section, automated cargo haulers will be subordinate to your vessel for unloading. Fees and taxes will be assessed when you are ready to leave. As was stated by Security, we will not be allowing atmosphere or water siphoning. You will need to buy individual portions if that is what you are trading for. I will also be forwarding the Security data and quarantine inspection to the nearest human embassy, as that was the last documented long term port affiliation. Is there anything else you wish to declare?”

  “Um, no?”

  “Very well, fees for the industrial section are calculated by the hour. If you wish for shore time it is advised to use a shuttle and stay at a standoff distance. Taking up a cargo port for recreation is expensive and frowned upon. Station out.”

  She sighed.

  ‘How am I going to tell all that to Moose? Kitty doesn’t care about any of it.’

  It had been hard enough to get Kitty to focus on telling her what Moose had said, getting that much information back the other way was going to be terrible.

  As she walked down the docking tunnel with the paper in hand, she giggled a little.

  ‘Getting the information to Moose was worse than I thought, but it was fun to watch Kitty get wrapped up in that bed sheet. It’s nice to see Moose fully step in like that.’

  After Moose had suitably covered Kitty, he had handed her a paper with words on it. After a lot of rumbling from the two giants, Kitty had said it was a list. A list of what she didn’t know, and she couldn’t read to begin with, so she secured it in her suit and would find a use for it later. As the conversation between Kitty and Moose had been long, Kitty must know what they were doing here. Trying to get the whole plan from her had been impossible though. She had to go step by step.

  The first step being to find someone to make a contract with.

  She didn’t think ‘find. Trade. Talking person’ turned into ‘make a contract’ exactly, but it was a good interpretation. One she was proud of. Once they found someone, maybe then Kitty would give her the next step.

  A quick question to someone that looked like they were working there pointed them towards her first step. She walked up to the blue and white Crova knowing Kitty was watching. She had seen the girl padding around at the edges of the people walking about the station. She lost sight a few times and that worried her, but Kitty always seemed to appear somewhere else.

  It hurt her pride that no one else seemed to even react.

  Was she that much of a coward?

  “The dock people said you are good at talking. I want to make a contract.”

  Best to get this over with.

  “Yes, I suppose you could say I’m ‘good at talking’. I don’t have any resources to trade, so are you looking for a negotiator?”

  She thought for a moment. If she passed everything off to this woman, maybe she could go back to Moose and this woman could try to untangle Kitty’s plan.

  “That’s… Yes, I think so. We have things to buy. Are you the negotiator?”

  She glanced at the Canirean standing close by. He didn’t seem like much of a talker.

  “Yes, I am the negotiator. My name is Christy. What kind of trade deal are you trying to make and what do you want the cuts to be?”

  She had no idea what that meant.

  “I don’t know. I am just looking for a negotiator. We can work that out if you want the work. I think it’s just to resupply.”

  She heard something she would have called a growl before she met Moose coming from the man. Something about a human.

  “Um, what humans?”

  “Don’t mind him dear, you were saying you wanted to resupply a ship?”

  “Uh, I think that’s it. Trade some stuff to get a resupply?”

  Maybe that was what the paper had?

  “Well, why don’t you show me the ship so I can tell what I would be working with? We can go from there.”

  That sounded like a great idea to her. Once they got back to the dock, she finally got to see another person react to Kitty as well.

  ‘Huh, I didn’t realize he followed us.’