Page 25 of Mazorium Buys a Human

Mazorium went silent for a moment then started purring again. I looked up to find his eyes staring at me with uncomfortable intensity. “You no longer need to fight. Both of you have a new job.”

“What’s that?” I asked. Was it weird that my voice went a little breathless?

“You need to thrive,” he said.

Why was my body interpreting his words as seductive? I wasn’t ready to process that, so I refocused on Nadia. As soon as she was changed, I laid her on her back in a clear section of the nest. He urged me to lay down and then tucked a blanket around me.

“I’ll be here,” he promised, taking a seat at the desk built into the wall. “You won’t wake alone.”

I let sleep take me, feeling comforted by his presence far more than I was ready to admit.

Chapter 9

Mika

This was my first time ever visiting a Talin station, and I was nervous as hell.

It wasn’t surprising that I hadn’t run into their species before; they were new to our sector. They’d only gained prominence after taking over so much area once controlled by the Orloks. I hadn’t been directly impacted by the Orlok-Talin war until now.

I was starting to truly appreciate the soft landing Mazorium was providing me. Not only was I able to rest, but he was taking care of Nadia as if she were his own child, maybe even better.

However, all his kind and generous treatment of me didn't make me any less wary of visiting a place full of members of the large, powerful species. Some societies didn’t see slaves as sentient. They were considered soulless automatons, not living, breathing things. Would other Talins be like that?

It didn’t help that I was human. Because our homeworld couldn’t support life any longer, we were seen as a bad luckspecies. There were places we were banned from for no other reason than that.

Mazorium didn’t present his species as particularly superstitious, but they could still have a lot of reservations about having me around. I especially didn’t like having Nadia with me, but I couldn’t leave her behind either.

“I could wait on the ship,” I suggested for the fifth time as we waited for the all clear signal from the dock indicating the umbilical passage to the station was airtight and ready to be used.

Mazorium started purring again. “I know you’re fearful of being someplace new, but I promise there are no dangers to you or Nadia here. First we’ll visit the healers, and then we’ll shop for supplies. This station is a decent size, so they should have most of the items we’ll need, at least for the first half a solar.”

He was calling this station a “decent” size? It was twice as big as any station I’d worked on previously. What did he consider large? A station the size of a planet?

The image made me grin.

“You’re smiling; that’s good,” Mazorium praised. “Remember, if you become fatigued or overwhelmed, I can always carry both you and Nadia.”

“Maybe you could carry Nadia,” I said. She’d put on a lot of weight in the last few days. She might still be tiny, but even a small weight could grow quite heavy if carried over an extended period. I felt like I was building some serious muscles in my arms, especially my right one. Having a baby was like having a weight lifting routine that worked very specific muscles, not that I minded. Holding Nadia was a joy, even when I was tired.

However, I wasn’t interested in being carried around like a baby. That seemed demeaning somehow. Although that was probably ridiculous considering I was wearing a collar.

The display next to the door lit up. I couldn’t read the Talin glyphs, but there was also the symbol used on most ships and stations to indicate a seal. A moment later the door slid open with a hiss, revealing a short, umbilical passage.

Mazorium was too big for us to walk side by side, so when he started walking, I fell in step behind him. His bulk kept me from seeing anything of the station until we fully emerged into the crowded and busy port area.

I stopped in my tracks when I realized it wasn’t normal traffic around the entrance to our umbilical. There was a large crowd gathered there. The moment I emerged, they all started sounding rattles and rumbles and talking at once.

“She’s so tiny! I knew humans were small, but not this small!”

“Look at the pup; it doesn’t have any mane, poor thing.”

“Do you think she’s malnourished? Her dermis seems pale.”

“Her mane is short, do you think she was forced to cut it because no one was grooming her properly? Humans require a lot of grooming.”

They were talking about me and Nadia. All these Talins were gathered here to see us, as if we were some kind of exotic species. I mean, humans were rare but I’d never been looked at with anything but contempt before. Having so many eyes on me that were admiring instead of disdainful was different. Still uncomfortable, but in a new way.

Mazorium stopped at the edge of the crowd and I huddled behind him. Several hands reached out to touch my hair and I flinched away, pressing closer to Mazorium’s back.