Mandy and the Tentacle Monster (Urf Oomons #1)

Lu leans over the feed display, squinting at Tiny and Baht.

“I do not like it,” he complains, his brow furrowing as his color darkens.

“There is no reason to distrust Baht.” Ken argues.

“There is no reason to trust him. We have traded with him more than twenty times, and we do not know anything about him. Who are his people? What does he look like? Where does he come from? He has never divulged any information conversationally. It takes work and concentration to maintain that kind of secrecy.” Lu has a point. I find myself agreeing with him. That is why we are a scant 15 meters away. Hidden in an alcove while we keep surveillance as Baht interacts with our Tiny.

“Sal trusts him and recommended him.” Ken argues.

“Sal is a degenerate slaver.”

Ken huffs at this. “Why did we allow him on our ship and leave him alone with our little Human if he is not trustworthy? Tell me that!”

“I voiced my trepidation, you two would not heed my warnings and contradicted me. Tiny does not know any better than to listen to your ill-advised prattle. You both were too excited about helping her and making her happy to consider her safety.” His color is nearly black as he glowers at us.

Lu’s color-changing so quickly and settling darkly indicates high emotion. He is worried. I had not noticed that he cared about Tiny at all, but he must. True, he did not order her off the ship. He has never brought up the Homeworld Laws we are breaking and what the consequences of that will be. He has even allowed Tiny to keep a fortune in Crimbulonian credits. I have been too distracted by Tiny herself to notice how indulgent and protective Lu has been.

“I do not believe he means her harm.” I offer, “He has been dressing and talking the way he does for years. I doubt that it is for any nefarious purpose to do with our little human.”

He nods at me, relaxing his tentacles, color fading. “We still need to stay vigilant. We should also come up with more stringent security measures.”

Ken and I both click in agreement.

Since we seem to have hit a conversational lull, I bring up the audio on the video feed we are watching.

“So they are smaller than you?” Baht is asking in his adopted Urglassi.

“Oh, yeah.” Tiny holds up her little hand, “Smaller than my palm.” She is drawing a portrait of some kind of eight-legged creature. “There are tons of different kinds. This one is an orb weaver, it’s my favorite spider and that’s what I based this lady on.” She gestures toward the large mural behind her and then starts coloring in yellow stripes on the “spider” in front of her. This is far from my favorite mural. I appreciate all Tiny’s art. But this piece made me uneasy when I first beheld it and I have avoided looking at it since.

She starts talking about how spiders hunt and where on her planet they live. Then she is talking about how humans interact with spiders, that they are viewed with fear by humans even though they are tiny and mostly harmless.

There is something familiar about this spider creature that she is drawing. Though she insists that it is small and harmless, my tentacles start to tingle in the way they do when I look upon something especially dangerous. I cannot picture this spider being the small, harmless creature she is describing. I picture a great, vicious beast of a creature that is as large as myself. There is some information or memory I cannot recall. I try to grasp this recollection of a creature very similar but much more dangerous than this earth spider. It keeps slipping away. Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the FindNʘᴠᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Baht is standing very close to Tiny.  He interjecting questions and comments every now and then to keep her talking. Observing him, a feeling of unease suddenly sweeps over me. The way he is looming over her, leaning toward her when he speaks, but never backing away, strikes me as predatory. A feeling of dread is bubbling up from my subconscious, tightening my stomach. I know suddenly that he is dangerous and he does in fact mean her harm.

I have never been one to act instinctually or to make decisions based on feelings. At this moment I do not take time to think, only act. I am out of the alcove and down the corridor before I know it. I sweep baht up in my upper arms and immobilize him with two tentacles. I restrain him with such force that I hear a distinct *snap* as some part of his hard body breaks.

Tiny is yelling. I pay no attention. And I do not pause in my trajectory as I move faster than I ever have before, into the shuttle bay.  I toss Baht inside his shuttle, and slamming the door shut.

I immediately start an emergency ejection of his shuttle from our bay. Then engage our ship’s defense protocol into high alert.

Only now do I take a calming breath. Whatever danger Baht posed to Tiny has been averted.

I move to return to my shipmates, but they are all three standing behind me.

“Seven! What the fuck?!” Tiny exclaims in her English Earth Human speak. This language is still new to the universal translation matrix. So translations are still very literal. It sounds to me as if she is asking “Seven what breeding?” and I gape at her for a moment trying to figure out what she is saying.

“Seven!” Ken draws my attention, “Why did you eject Baht from the ship?”

They are all staring at me waiting for an answer. I can feel my color changing, but at that moment I could not tell to what color.

“I had a feeling.” I say.

“A feeling?” Lu repeats.

“Yes,” I nod in confirmation, “I had a bad feeling.”

Lu shakes his head and scrunches up his nose and his tentacles. Then he turns and leaves.

“You had a bad feeling?” Ken asks, not understanding my actions. I do not understand why I did what I did, but I know I was right.

“Yes, a bad feeling. I felt like a bad thing was going to happen, that Baht was about to do something.” Ken huffs at me, turns, then leaves.

Tiny steps over a few of my tentacles until she is in front of me. I cannot look at her. I had ejected her “client” and cost her more credits than I have made this year. Because of a feeling that I cannot  explain. She must be very upset with me. I do not blame her.

I feel Tiny move closer to me. I wish she would speak. Instead, I feel a quick caress against my face. She has touched my cheek with her mouth. What does it mean?

She embraces me, puts her mouth on my cheek then says, “Thanks for looking out for me, Seven.”