SWNOVELS Mandy and the Tentacle Monster: Chapter 7
‘I am not pleased.’
Salhuteck utters these words with a disgusted sneer on his finely scaled face. My tentacle arms still in disappointment. I had been full of optimism when he hailed us to board this rising. We had established orbit around his home planet and he seemed eager to trade. This boded well, I thought. But apparently, my shipmates were correct in their pessimism. And I am forever doomed to disappointment.
‘I have secured exactly the product you requested. Why not be pleased with it?’ I demand, ‘Alien appliances! Hundreds of them, exactly as you asked!’
‘I requested beautiful alien appliances,” he stomps one scaled, clawed foot, “These are all dull. Ugly. They would blend into any room they are installed. My clients are the most discerning. They want unique pieces that inspire envy. These would not be noticed by anybody. Look at all these dull, flat panels. Ack!’ He throws his arms up as he turns to leave, his tail whipping back and forth in irritation. His attendant scurries to follow him as he storms out.
My disappointment is bitter, causing the cups on my limp tentacle arms to shrivel. It seemed to me that he would find appliances beautiful because they are alien. I am sure that is how he said it.
As soon as I return from hanger one, Scaredest confronts me. ‘He did not trade, did he? We warned you. It is known that his kind is never satisfied with any product. It does not matter that they are new, functional, and at a great price. They turn their lizard noses up and say that they are not pleasing. The truth is, nothing pleases them aside from wasting a trader’s time.’
I can feel my color deepening into a dark blue-gray. Both he and First warned me that a successful trade on this world was unlikely. I wonder what he meant by beautiful appliances. All appliances perform their function and remain unobtrusive otherwise, that is their design. Salhuteck did waste my time on this foolish errand and now we will have to warehouse all these trade items. It will take us turns and turns to sell off all of it.
‘Do not be that way Smallest!’ Second is speaking to me as he would a petulant youngling, adding to my frustration, ‘We can unload all of it onto Sereechees. Nothing to worry about.’
I hang my head, ‘I am reluctant to deal with Seereechees after our last encounter. Anything we sell them could be used for some unethical purpose. I would rather count it as a loss.’
‘We could try to decorate these items. Paint them some bright colors or attach blinking lights to them?’ He grins as he says it and I huff a laugh. Decorating is not a skill either of us possesses.
‘Look at what your pet has done now,’ Second nods toward the door further along the corridor. It is the door that opens to Tiny’s pin. How did she manage to keep the automatic door closed while painting it? ‘It looks like the waters of Homeworld does it not? What a clever little creature. Look at this, it looks very much like the reefs and the sea creatures of old! It is uncanny!’
He is correct. Other than one creature that looks to be a red-maned Urf Oomon top half and fish bottom, this could be an illustration from a book on Oldworld ecosystems. Fish, crustaceans, and water mammals that all were lost in the Great War when the waters of the whole planet were poisoned. Gazing at this mural inspires a sadness in me. It hurts me a little bit to look at it, but I do not want to look away. With a sideways glance at Second, I see that he is coloring a warm orange. He is feeling the same strange sadness. It is not only sadness, because if it was I would look away to spare myself that negative feeling. No, there is longing too. I would like to swim in waters like these. Waters teeming with life and activity. Is this Tiny’s planet of origin? It seems unlikely. I know from her scans that she cannot breathe water or hold her breath for more than a few moments. She must have encountered this environment though, to be able to draw it. I suppose our people are aquatic in origin, while the world we inhabit has no deep waters at all. So it is in the realm of possibility that Tiny comes from such a place.
As I gaze at Tiny’s door, I am beginning to understand the value and appeal of art for its own sake. If this work was not already part of my home ship, I would want to buy it. In fact, I would be willing to part with quite a few credits to own it for myself and display it somewhere that I could look at it every day. How lucky for me that it is Tiny who painted it. And that she did so on a permanent fixture of my ship.
As I lean closer to the door, it opens, and Second and I are both startled by what we see. The walls are a riot of color. Some of it making sense as renderings of erf oomons or other animals, some of it seeming to make no sense at all.
‘Smallest,’ Second murmurs, ‘Do we have a scanner and a laser etching apparatus?’
‘Yes. We have more than a few in the storage hanger,’ I reply quietly, still gazing in wonder at the walls of Tiny’s pen.
‘I have an idea for how we can save your deal.’