The Great Game 🎲 Kollarum
The Lady with the White Fangs
The host looked at her fangs as she smiled her deadly smile. Qayam knew that Derelectans were very rare outside the soodern hemisphere of the Kraslika. What he didn’t know was the reason why: Derelectans were exceptionally proud. They considered it beneath them to prey on any species that didn’t know how to defend itself. In this category they included almost every species in the Middlebelt and Nordern Hemisphere. For a Derelectan, going nord of the Frozen Skiff was like a hunter going to a zoo. What challenge, and what glory, could there possibly be in that?
To take advantage of a Norderner was like taking candy from a baby, which was something they said they would never do. Yet Derelectans specialized in doing things their code didn’t allow them to admit to doing, so it was hard to say whether or not they’d actually taken such candy. Tougher than any male Fallarian, the Derelecta had turned their maternal instincts to their advantage and took whatever they wanted.
“My name’s Dactalla, and I’m more than pleased to meet you,” she said to the host. Her voice was guttural and broken, and yet smooth, as if glass had crashed onto rocks and was immediately swept into a grinder filled with thick oily lubricant. The translator in his ear stumbled over the concatenation of incompatible consonants.
Qayam responded, “You’re not from around here, are you? Are you interested in joining the Matchamor?” The host was hopeful, and would try anything once. Some players disagreed with this type of open invitation, and urged him to vet players to see if they harboured any dangerous tendencies. Qayam would sigh and tell them that if they wanted that kind of game, they could powder their antennae and frequent the big hotels. Nothing dangerous could happen there, he assured them. Everything was registered and recorded, the rooms were fitted with paroxogaz jets, and the hotel security squads were literally seconds away in the next room, ready to fly to the aid of anyone in distress. The hotels employed Dalitian dragon squads, which neutralized any threat in fractions of a second. In those game rooms nothing was likely to go wrong. But then again, nothing was likely to keep you on the edge of your seat either. In his assessment of the golden ratio of risk to reward the host was more a gambler than a banker. Or, as seasoned travellers of the Kraslika would say, he was more Fallarian than Vicinese.
“I’m not from anywhere, really. But I’m a fan of your game. I’ve heard that in the matter of harrowing love matches, you’re the only host in town. They say that it’s almost impossible to predict who’ll mate with who.” Dactalla fixed her eyes, with their green and purple irises circling in opposite directions, on the solid cobalt irises of the host, and added, “But I’m pretty sure who I’ll end up with.”
As Dactalla said this, she breathed in deeply, which opened her chest like a gill. Qayam saw golden filings floating inside, and these appeared to be latticed with spiralling electric charges and pulses, which emitted sounds that slid over his emotions like snakes and bumblebees over a twig. The spectacle was mesmerizing, and she knew it. Qayam wondered what the pulses meant, surging inward and drawing his dark blue eyes into the glittering beauty of the shards. An odd tune floated around his ear, and seemed to stop in mid-air when she started to breathe out and her chest closed up again, seamless, a creamy violet with faint paisley patterns. The opening and closing of her chest left a faint, exquisite perfume in the air.
Qayam thought excitedly that she must be a Derelectan, one of those famed creatures who had evolved in the toughest regions of Fallar Prime. These regions are now deserts, but thousands of years ago they were referred to as Derelect Zones. Back then they were a combination of swamps and grasslands swarming with reptiles and gigantic insects. If Derelectans were discovered in a Derelect Zone that was slated for development, teamster consortiums would re-route highways around them and mafia planners would toss their schematics out the window. About 100,000 years ago, the Derelactans had decimated all the living things of the wild and moved to the inhabited regions of Fallar Prime. In their bitterness at having to uproot themselves, they burnt the grasses and drained the swamps.
Their will to survive was so sharp that they would starve rather than turn on one another. So they moved en masse into the dark, glittering towns — of which there were over 3 billion on the enormous planet of Fallar Prime.
At first the Derelectans worked in the slums and canals of the outlying towns, only reluctantly living by the rules, which prohibited torture or slaughter for sport. For a 20 thousand year period, the Prima police were supplied with electrified truncheons that could also fire small missiles. How else were they to deal with packs of wild Derelectans? Finally, 40 thousand years ago the Derelectans signed a non-aggression pact with the other Fallarians, promising not to hunt and eat them as long as the Fallarians gave them equal treatment under the law. To ensure their continued support, the Fallarians set up mastodon slaughterhouses in each town, so that the Derelectans would be assured fresh meat every six hours.
Having refined their urban skills, the Derelectans were finally allowed in the capital city, Fallar Discordia, where they learned to work with rather than against the Prima police. The Prima soon couldn’t do without them, since the Derelectans were the only ones willing to go into parts of the town where even the military was afraid to set claw. But the Derelectans didn’t mind. With grim smiles on their faces, they hacked their way through the dirtiest canals, rooting out the dust-sleepers, the vagraddicts, the extortion-rats, and the narcovendors. They even dared to slice the legs from the cots of cartel bosses, and yell at them to get the fuck out of bed.
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The host took another enamoured look at the three-inch fangs, bright white and capped with gold. Female Derelectans were rumoured to be as tough as ferridian nails. Qayam was sick of the prissy socialites and the tipsy poetesses that frequented the five-star bars. He had always hoped that one day a Fallarian woman would enter his bar. It was in fact the fantasy he had played out over and over in his head for 150 years, ever since he decided to become an Aatari security agent. On long winter nights he would tell himself, Good things come to those who wait.
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Next: 🧚 On Becoming Alien
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