Memory Transcription Subject: Chairman Debbin, Seaglass Mineral Concern

  Date [standardized human time]: January 25, 2137

  My wrist hurt because an Arxur was grabbing it.

  Intellectually, I suspected that this was an innocent mistake on her part. I had a Mazic and a Yulpa on staff, after all, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with a species not quite realizing their own strength. And Arxur were particularly unpracticed at working peacefully with other species. All the more reason to let bygones be bygones in the name of compassionate understanding, then!

  It was a shame, then, that I wasn’t in a particularly intellectual state of mind.

  My heart started racing so hard that it was making my chest hurt. Then the hypochondria kicked in. I was panicking about the Arxur grabbing me, and I was panicking about whether or not the pain creeping up my arm was from her twisting it, or from an oncoming heart attack. There was a bitter taste in the back of my mouth, and the room was starting to spin.

  “Please… let… go…” I managed to choke out.

  “Hm?” Sifal said, barely noticing me. “Oh, sorry.” She let my arm drop, but her yellow slitted eyes were still focused on my holopad… and on me. I closed my eyes and tried to force myself to breathe normally again. I wanted to run back to my office for another can of wine, but that was going to become a bad habit in short order if I needed to chemically settle my nerves every time my new colleagues spooked me.

  Get it together, Debbin, I thought to myself. Just breathe, and think of the money.

  “It's just, I know that human,” Sifal continued, unaware of the effect she was having on me. “Very open-minded guy. First alien who was willing to talk to me. I got a lot of new perspectives, chatting with him.” She licked her lips idly. “I enjoyed his company.”

  Ancestors spare me, I thought, did she eat with him or fuck him?

  I nodded, and flipped through the social media links idly to keep my paws busy. The picture of Jodi’s son and daughter-in-law was tagged with the restaurant, the Cropsey Carnival, which looked to be heavily advertising its new herbivore-friendly menu. That was fascinating enough on its own to slowly start pulling my mind back into business mode. An herbivore-friendly eatery on the predator homeworld? I wasn’t sure what biases or instincts humans had, but surely serving meals with no meat went against a few of them. And yet those biases weren’t a barrier. The man saw a market opportunity and pounced on it. I felt vindicated, suspecting predators would make good businessmen.

  I flipped through from the restaurant to the owner, this David fellow. Seemed unassuming enough as humans went. It was an odd quirk of Terran social media that his relationship status was listed near the top. Unmarried, but--

  My eyes widened. I looked up towards Sifal. She was staring hungrily at me--no, scratch that, eagerly--and her tail was flitting back and forth in excitement, waiting to hear more.

  I slowly took a few steps back for safety. “Your human friend is dating a Gojid,” I said.

  The Arxur pounced for my holopad. Not for me, thankfully, but my heart skipped a beat nonetheless. “What? You can’t be serious! Let me see this. Come on, a Gojid?!” Sifal tried to navigate around the pictures with a decidedly gentle level of compassion for the screen, at least. She shook her head, incredulously, but she had a huge grin she could barely hide. Her whole demeanor suddenly had the playfully shocked cadence of a gossipy student who’d just heard the popular guy in her class was dating the weird quiet girl. “I mean, I figured he’d want to stick to other mammals, but…” She tilted her head, trying to see things from a different angle. “I guess they’re omnivores? Got some heft to them, got some fight in them… I guess it’s not the weirdest choice for a human.”

  Laza, quietly snooping over Sifal’s shoulder, pointed at the screen suddenly. “Wait, go back one.” Sifal obliged, and Laza’s eyes widened. “Is she eating a fucking sausage roll?!”

  Sifal glanced at her second, surprised. “I think it’s a hot dog, but yeah. That’s… what in the world is she doing eating a Terran meat dish?” Sifal handed the holopad back to me. “Debbin, what does the caption say?”

  This whole interaction was surreal. I complied, because doing otherwise would have taken far too much introspection. “Uh, it says ‘Chiri trying her first chili-cheese dog.’ And then there’s a recipe attached.” I skimmed down the list. The chili section of the recipe actually looked fascinating. Some kind of vegetable stew with beans and spices? Sounded downright warming. Buuut… “The hot dog is some kind of vegetable-based mock meat.” Everyone in the room briefly gagged at this. “But the cheese is real.” Another round of disgusted faces, followed by confused ones. I stared at the two Arxur. “Seriously? Milk? I didn’t think there’d be animal products you’d be too grossed out to eat. Not big on liquids?”

  Laza scoffed. “Sure, like blood or something, but fucking… mammal tit juice? That’s bizarre. What about you? You’re the mammal. Haven’t you had milk already?”

  I recoiled in disgust. “Yeah, as an infant. It’s deviant fetish material, drinking it as an adult.” Why did I just admit that I knew that?!

  “Alright, but why plant-based meat?” asked Laza. “Like, what’s even the point?”

  Sifal shrugged. “Famine food, maybe? Humans can eat plants. I’m sure fake meat’s not ideal, but if the option’s available, surely it beats starving.”

  Laza shook her head. “I mean, I guess, but isn’t he gifting it to his lover? Is he such a poor hunter that he couldn’t find her real meat?”

  Sifal snickered. “I can vouch that he has meat to spare.”

  I nearly choked on my own spit. Okay, but like seriously, they fucked, right?

  Sifal continued unaware of my internal speculations. “I think… right, the big news drop was that the Federation omnivores all got dosed with that meat allergy plague. She probably just can’t eat real meat.”

  Laza tilted her head. “Do you think she wants to?”

  Sifal nodded to the holopad. “I mean, she’s living among humans and looks pretty happy about it. I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  I really wasn’t emotionally equipped right now to deal with the thought of the Gojidi Union going feral on us. I cleared my throat loudly, and two sets of slitted eyes flicked over to focus on me, nearly giving me another bout of vertigo. “This is a truly fascinating conversation,” I said, letting the adjective carry an industrial freighter’s worth of baggage, “but didn’t we come here to deal with a, ah, personnel matter?” I nodded towards the three PD patients.

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  Tika laughed. The Zurulian was still perched on the desk, observing the whole exchange. “Please, don’t mind me. Watching two Arxur gossiping about another woman’s diet? This is probably the most professionally fulfilling day of my life. I wish I had my notebook with me.”

  Sifal looked over at Tika. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. Would you mind telling me a bit more about yourself? How did you even get access to human medical texts?”

  The little Zurulian bobbed her head. “Certainly! So, per previous, I'm a Predator Disease specialist from the University of Colia. I'm qualified to perform treatment, of course, but my main focus is research. I've spent a good portion of my career searching for an underlying contagion vector that could be the root cause of Predator Disease. Or… at the very least, I've been looking into novel treatment regimens that might better rehabilitate patients than our current methods.”

  Sifal nodded along, one expert to another. “Alright. And where did your oddly-positive sentiments towards the Arxur come from?”

  Tika sat back and licked at her forepaws. “Well, I was on Venlil Prime for a rather tedious professional conference when the first human scout ship arrived in the system. Governor Tarva called for a full lockdown shortly thereafter in an attempt to hide humanity from the rest of the Federation, so I spent most of August cooped up in my hotel room with not much to do but read. And humanity had just shared their scientific and cultural literature with us, so there were plenty of options.” Tika shrugged. “At first, it was just boredom and curiosity--if you accept the premise of sentient predators with a functioning social system, then wondering what they know about predator disease is a logical follow-up question--and it turns out that they knew more about it than we did.” Tika let her paws drop back down to all fours and looked Sifal in the eyes. Bolder woman than me. “But if we accept the premise of one sapient predator, we have to acknowledge the possibility of more.” She nodded towards the two Arxur in the room. “How does a nonsapient build and maintain a militarized starship fleet, after all?”

  I coughed. “‘Factory full of Gojid slaves’ was a popular theory,” I muttered.

  Sifal laughed. It was a gravelly expression, full of mirth and teeth in equal measure. “Just flush my engineering degree down the toilet, why don't you?” she fired right back.

  Tika, no longer a ragged mess from working in the mines, giggled politely from behind a forepaw. “Nevertheless, once I started considering the premise, the pieces seemed to slip into place. Different mental conditions, well-documented by humanity within their own population as non-conducive to socialization, seemed to explain a number of observed Arxur behaviors. Sociopathy, black-and-white thinking, sadism…” The little red-furred doctor shook her head. “My ‘Arxur are just crazy people’ hypothesis should have been worth at least investigating… but no. The moment I voiced it, I found myself shuffled off to the other side of the doctor-patient divide. They thought me mad for even asking, despite my calm demeanor and professionalism, and after getting shuffled around from facility to facility, I ended up here, where no PD Facility Coordinator would have to hear my uncomfortable lines of questioning.”

  I made a rather bemused face. “You know, the worst part is, if you'd kept your mouth shut for like… a month or two longer, the humans probably would have protected you from retaliation.”

  Tika shrugged. “Would that I could have seen the future.” She paused for a moment, considering. “I must confess, I'm a bit out of the loop on current events. Last I heard, the Gojidi Union was preparing to send an extermination fleet to Earth. Did humanity survive?”

  Laza blanched. Even I choked on my spit a little. Ancestors spare me, the U.N.’s clash with the Gojidi Union had felt like ages ago.

  Sifal answered with the level-headed eagerness of a student happy to show off her knowledge. “Humanity defeated the Gojids, yes, but then we, the Arxur, saw that the Union’s defenses were down, so we took advantage of the opening and invaded as well. We made our own first contact with humanity during the crossfire,” the Arxur woman said, summarizing rapidly. “Negotiations between the U.N. and the Federation fell through, the Feds sent a second extermination fleet to Earth--a coalition this time instead of just the Gojids--and we Arxur bailed out our fellow hunters. Then the news broke that a tenth of the ‘all-herbivore’ Federation were secret omnivores that had been genetically and culturally tampered with by its Kolshian founders to erase the meat-eating tendencies of those species, then it came out that the Arxur Dominion was starving its own people on purpose to keep us hunting you guys for food whether we wanted to or not, then it came out that the Kolshians were conspiring with the Arxur Dominion to drag the war out so they could both maintain power…”

  Sifal petered out for a moment, and Tika glanced at me for confirmation. I, in turn, glanced at Sifal in shock. “I mean, I know I’ve joked about it before, but the Kolshian-Arxur protection racket was a rumor that’s been making the rounds,” I said, my blood pressure slowly rising again from panic. “Is that confirmed now?!”

  Sifal nodded. “Suspected for a while,” she said, breathing hard. “Confirmed recently.”

  She was still catching her breath, so Laza stepped up to add in more details. “U.N. SigInt breached and intercepted their communications,” Laza said. “We have a recorded call straight from the Kolshian head of state to ours.”

  “Fucker called a hit on us,” Sifal said, still breathy. “Ended up skirmishing with the Kolshians near Fahl. About a week ago. S’why we ran low on supplies…”

  …and why Sifal’s little gang of plucky misfit Arxur decided to try their luck raiding MY ass, I mentally finished.

  Laza nodded. She had her eyes on Sifal, trying to read the way the conversation was going. “I can provide the footage if that helps.”

  Tika was practically frozen in place with her eyes bugging out. “Yes. Of course. If you have proof that the Arxur and the Kolshians have been coordinating this war, that would be… noteworthy.” She shook her head, trying to shake the shock loose, and turned back to me. “The rest of her account of events holds up, though?”

  I held my paws up helplessly. “Yeah. I mean, it sounds kinda crazy when you say it out loud all at once,” I said, shaking my head exhaustedly, “but aside from that last little detail, that's the first couple months you missed in prison, yes.”

  “That’s not even the whole story?!” Jodi exclaimed. “Are you shitting me?!”

  “There were a few battles and proclamations, but uhh…” Sifal took a deep breath before continuing. “The current state of affairs is that we, the Arxur on this planet, are now in open rebellion against our own government, the Federation is at war with the U.N. and several allied species who chose to side with humanity, including…” She took a quick headcount. “Every herbivore in this room except this genius here,” she said, nodding to me.

  I threw my paws up in the air. “I thought breaking ranks with my species to stick with the Federation was a safe bet. Sue me.”

  “I might, for back wages,” muttered Jodi, from off to the side.

  “And since the Arxur Rebellion has positive diplomatic relations with the U.N., i.e. it would piss them off massively if we raided their allies,” Sifal said, “I had the brilliant idea to raid a Federation outpost for minerals and war materiel, one thing led to another, and now I'm kind of running this planet,” she finished. She reached a clawed hand out to Laza, who handed her a canteen of water, which she practically chugged. Exposition could be rough on the untrained voicebox. She'd get used to it after giving a few dozen revenue trajectory reports. Board meetings were corporate exposition dumps, after all.

  Refreshed, she wiped her maw. “You are now mostly up to speed. Any questions?”

  Tika blinked. “Hundreds, yes, but I think I get the gist for now.”

  “Splendid!” said Sifal. “What would you like to do with your life here on Seaglass?”

  “Document the first peaceable Arxur-Prey relations, document your people's psychology at large, and offer my best attempts at Terran-style mental health counseling to whoever requires it,” Tika said politely, licking her forepaw again.

  “Great, you're hired,” said Sifal, not bothering to double-check if that was alright with me. Her eyes whipped around to focus on the younger Nevok cowering in the corner, and he visibly flinched in response. “And you, Benwen, what would you like to do here on Seaglass?”

  Benwen threw up, and I didn't blame him in the slightest.