How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth

Author:D.A. Holdsworth [Holdsworth, D.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Squirrel & Acorn Press
Published: 2020-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

“Va klk klk mssggi vrrm vrrm vlala?”

“Errm, I’m terribly sorry,” Toby stuttered. “Me no speak Za-Nakarian. Me from far away.”

The alien creature tilted her head to one side and looked at Toby with an inquiring expression. She had large, imploring eyes, with long curling lashes that would look attractive in any species.

“Ah!” she said after a short pause. “You’re English? Oh that’s lovely. My name is Za-Farka. How are you?”

“Err… Wow?” Toby said, too amazed to be amazed, and more just confused. “You speak English? I mean, hang on… How?”

“Oh, that’s simple. I’ve had a speech transponder implanted so that I can better service my clients.” She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled prettily at Toby in a way that he still found attractive, even despite her green skin and the way her three nostrils flared slightly.

“Speech transponder? Implanted? Excuse me?”

“Yes, a speech transponder. It can automatically translate my voice into any one of millions of different languages.”

“OK… But how do you – how does it – already know English? There have only been a few visitors from Earth and they’re all holed up in a weird, dingy room back there?” He thumbed vaguely in the direction he thought he had come from.

“Oh, my colleague and I have been getting visitors from Earth for years.” She gestured towards another hostess a few yards away, who was standing next to Paranoid Dave. “You look so uncomfortable, do please take a seat?”

Toby was so confused, he obeyed her instruction unthinkingly, allowing his arms to flop randomly onto the four arm rests available. He was still wearing the floral pyjama suit he’d been given by the Chinese President.

“Va klk klk mssggi vrrm vrrm vlala?”

“Eh?”

“Oh sorry!” Za-Farka giggled. “I was asking if perhaps sir would like his upper shoulders massaged?”

“Err, OK, that’s very kind,” Toby replied, wondering where his lower shoulders might be. “I don’t actually have any money. Is this expensive?”

“Oh no,” the hostess replied. “This is a service that the hyperspaceport is pleased to offer all travellers.”

“Ah, ok,” said Toby, thinking he was starting to get somewhere. “So we’re in a hyperspaceport? What does that mean exactly?”

The hostess giggled a spontaneous, disarming giggle, as she started to massage Toby’s shoulders.

“You’re very sweet,” she said. “You’ve arrived here but don’t know where here is.”

“Haha,” Toby laughed back, in a slightly forced way. “Basically, no.”

“Your brain is confused by the journey, that happens. Well, this is the Bodytron terminal of Port Dharma-Ka. That’s Za-Nak’s premier hyperspaceport.”

“Great, great,” Toby replied. “But surely you mean Personalitron terminal?”

This time the hostess broke off from the massage to laugh so loudly, you would have to call it a guffaw. Toby found her amusement just the wrong side of polite.

“Personalitron?” she giggled, prettily putting the back of her forepaw to her mouth to suppress her amusement. “No-one has used those in generations! Oh they keep a few rusty ones out the back in case of a powerdown in the Bodytron terminal. But that never happens,” she added cheerily.

“Haha, silly me,” Toby said.

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