Horizon Seeds (Complete)

Chapter Two

Headline: BANCROFT SUE ALIENS FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY VIOLATION
Headline: PUBLIC POLLED: STILL DON'T TRUST THE OTHSHALI'I
Headline: AUSTRALIA OPENS BORDER TO ALIEN DELEGATION
Headline: CHINESE CONTAMINATED FOOD CRISIS CONCERNS UN
Headline: REALITY TV STARLET FOUND WITH ILLEGAL MEDIA

Valerie had been working security outside the her alien client's research lab for 6 hours straight and was due for a coffee break a long time ago. She checked in the lab to find two alien body guards at their posts behind their boss. Once she knew he was covered, she made her way to the security lunch room where found her policing partner already taking a break. After cleaning an available ceramic mug, she poured herself a coffee. The flood of cold, insipid liquid on her tongue was a shock to the system. She leaned over her mug and spat the coffee back in it.

'Cold,' she said to her colleague as he moved past with a can of drink in his hand.

'Try the other one,' he muttered and left the security lunch room, now back on duty.

She splashed the remains of her mug down the drain and rinsed the cup for the second time in two minutes. Muttering under her breath, she removed the decanter from coffee pot number two and poured herself another drink, only to find the liquid cold and sour. She took a moment to check that she was alone in the room before she spat the offending liquid into the sink and tipped her mug out also.

'I'm going to wring his ruddy neck,' she muttered as she poured both of the coffee decanters down the drain. Opening the filter casing of the second machine she found a thick layer of green and grey mould growing on top of the coffee grinds. Groaning at the offending receptacle she left it on the bench while she collected a soft drink from the fridge.

'I am not an indentured kitchen maid,' She complained.

'No you aren't,' said a voice behind her. She jumped around to find her client, Mr Laupshi'i Flivve, leaning against the door to the small room. 'For one, your uniform would be quite different, and two, it would be a perfect waste of human resources if you were.'

He really wasn't trying to be funny, he meant it how it sounded. Her client was a member of the Othshali'i, a truly alien race. He looked almost exactly like a tall human with two arms and two legs, torso and head, but that's where the similarities ended. His skin was a dark bluish grey and the hair on his head was short and fine. But the thing that made the Othshali'i stand out was their avian features, the covering of grey feathers that trailed from the top of his neck down his shoulders, ending just below the elbows on his muscular arms.

'And what means, 'Wing his ruddy neck?' he asked with a hand, palm down in the air before him in question. It had taken over six months for her to pick up his alien mannerism and the way his emotions affected the feather mantel on his shoulders.

'Sir, I apologise, I did not see you there.' She was mortified at being caught unaware but she didn't let it show. She'd been working for the Bureau of Alien Affairs for four years in law enforcement and security and the last year on babysitting duty while Laupshi'i Flivve, Alien Scientific Attaché to the South Pacific worked in Rutuata Science Research Station, here in Hamilton City.

Using a very human gesture, he waved her apology aside and asked again, 'What means, "Wing his ruddy neck?" Relax, Valkyrie, I do not mean to... intrude on your break, but as you know I learn many Earth speakings, ah,' he pauses to correct himself, 'Learn many Earth phrases. Your English language is very put together.' That is his phasing for the word 'mongrel', meaning the language borrowed many different words from every other language in the world. Any reference to sexual reproduction, unless applied in a scientific manner, was avoided by the Othshali'i Alien Race.