The markets are always the busiest on Tuesdays. I've never been able to figure out why. You come on a Tuesday evening, and you'll see every race and ever religion represented by the Five Galaxy Alliance. Being human in this sea of beings was daunting, as we're smaller than the vast majority of races, both in size and population. In the beginning we were even considered an endangered species. Can you imagine that? At one point, they say, there were over 7 billion humans on a tiny planet. Now there are maybe 15 million of us spread across the galaxy. A lot of people died in the war, more died in the transition to space, and here we are, 13 generations out, a tiny fraction of the Alliance. Almost doted on like naughty children.
This week there was a new seller. A little, old man. Probably human, but there are some similar races. He was older than you tend to see in these parts, but not so old as to be unheard of, and he was selling a pen full of bouncing floofs. I'd never seen them before. They were roughly the size of a newborn human, but round, and in many colors. Light blues, greens, pinks, and even a little lavender one. This was the one that caught my eye with its big, black, sad eyes. I knew this was it.
I was getting a pet.
I named it Floof and took it home. I had no idea what it was, as the old man didn’t speak my language. We had bargained using hand gestures and calculators, a common practice at the markets. There were just too many languages, so beings did what they had to do. But it was cute, and proved to be cuddly and bouncy and happy pretty quickly. The seller had managed to indicate that Floof would need food three times a day, and about a handful. He couldn’t say of what, so I just shared what was left on my dinner plate and prayed, and it seemed to be fine.
That night we slept cuddled up on the couch, having fallen asleep watching a movie. And I dreamed. I dreamed of a vast wasteland, with nothing on it, and my Floof and I were walking. Then a forest materialized in the wasteland, flickered, and disappeared again. I heard the bombs before they started raining around us, and the sound of beings chasing us, sweeping us up in a net.
I woke up in a cold sweat, my Floof staring at me with sad eyes.
Being a human in an intergalactic world, I was used to things that seemed “weird” to me. Humans have no special extras. No mind powers, no super strength. But a lot of species do. They like to show off when we’re around. I suppose in the early days the humans had acted like children at the circus, but now it was considered quite rude and condescending. No, we couldn’t move a boat with our brain, but unlike many other species, we could build something that acted similar, and that was a skill they liked very much here. Humans, it turns out, are the best engineers, inventors, and mechanics in the galaxy, once given a proper education.
So, I knew there was a pretty good chance Floof had been showing me something.
“Let’s try again.” I said out loud, looking at Floof, and promptly fell back to sleep. You live on an airship long enough, you can sleep through anything, at any time.
Again, I was in the flickering wasteland forest, but this time I saw a group of Floofs. They looked like they were planning an escape. Then the sounds of ships and weapons came again, and then I was awake, and it was morning, and Floof was staring at me, knowingly.
“Shit.”
Section 8 of bylaw 35 line 4 states that one may not own sentient beings. And Floof was definitely sentient. So we packed up and I went to the Authority with Floof. I met with a caseworker that said for now, since it couldn’t speak, we would consider it more like foster care than ownership. They took some blood and fur sample, and promised to get back to us within 48 hours. They’d figure out what species Floof was, and then we could start the return process, and hunting down the old man, who was basically a slave trader. All we could do was go home.
We were halfway there when the sounds of combat began. I ran for cover with Floof, who was seemingly excited, and kept trying to bounce off.
“Hush, it’s not safe!” I told it.
Then I saw them. Floofs, about five times the size of me, with tentacles, legs, and weapons.
“Are these your people?” I said. It nodded in its strange way. It struggled to get free again, so I let it, and I followed. And amazingly, when the Floof nearest to us saw it, it stopped, gave an order for others to stop, and ran to it. It hugged my Floof and whistled and burbled with it. I had no idea what it was saying, but then it looked from me to Floof, and back again, and started toward me. I was terrified. I hoped Floof had said something nice. I really didn't want to die today, and being crushed by tentacles was perhaps my least favorite way to go. Right up there with drowning in slime.
They gave me a big hug.
To this day, I don’t know exactly what Floof was, but whatever they were, they were important enough to be willing to risk intergalactic warfare. I thought, maybe, Floof was a child, and those beings with the tentacles were likely relatives. Maybe the adult form. Floof left with their family, I think, and I never saw them again. I like to think Floof was a prince or princess or whatever the equivalence for them was, and I had unknowingly assisted them in a daring escape from slavery. I hope someday Floof will reign their country or planet, and remember the humans kindly.
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