Olga Godim writing

This story about Dinara and her pet shop, Rendezvous Pets, on the Rendezvous Space Station, is the last Rendezvous Pets story of 2019 and my entry for the December WEP Challenge. Dinara’s shop offers pet daycare, grooming, and advice for the citizens of Rendezvous and its many visitors, humans and aliens alike.
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“I don’t know who else to ask,” the man said. He just burst into Dinara’s pet shop, Rendezvous Pets, his eyes frantic. His fists clenched and unclenched spasmodically. “You’re my only hope. The station map shows your shop as the only one dealing with animals.”

“True.” Dinara acknowledged. “The only one on the Rendezvous Space Station. What’s your problem?” It was early morning, but for some reason, problems often arrived on her doorstep in the morning.

“I was transporting a shicksa for the Vergacians, and it… disappeared.”

Dinara frowned. “What’s a shicksa? Is it a pet?”

“I’m not sure. They might cook it as food.” The man shrugged. “It’s sort-of an invisible octopus, like a cross of an octopus with a jelly fish. The size of a large dog. Only they live on land, not in the water.”

“Invisible?”

“It’s transparent. They gave me a special container, with some toys and rocks and stuff. I could see the creature through its walls.”

“How did it disappear? Did it climb out of the container?”

“Not really. The container has a lid, but it’s not sealed or anything. We lifted the lid every day when we fed it, and the shicksa never tried to escape before. No, we were unloading and put the container on the dock. A drone smashed into it – must’ve malfunctioned – and knocked the container on its side. The lid fell off. Everything inside scattered on the floor. Nothing got broken, but the shicksa legged it. And I don’t know how to find it again. The Vergacians…” He sighed. “In the best-case scenario, they would sue me to the end of the galaxy. They’ve already paid for delivery. The worst case – I don’t know. Start another war.” He grimaced.

“Surely not,” Dinara murmured without conviction. Who knew with the Vergacians? The last devastating war with them had lasted for five years. It had only ended a year ago. Dinara wouldn’t be the one to ignite another armed conflict if she could help it.

“What do the shicksas eat? Maybe we could trap it,” she prodded the customer.

“I brought a sample of its feed.” The man gave her a small bag.

Dinara poured the content, a bunch of small gray pellets, into her portable analyzer. The device buzzed quietly, and the composition popped up on her com-link screen, with comparisons to many common substances. She stared at it in confusion.

“It says,” she said slowly, “that chemically, it’s practically the same as synta-silk. Without a coloring agent.”

“Clothes?” He sounded baffled.

“Yep. Have you fed it today? Is it hungry now?”

“It might be. We haven’t fed it today.”

“Then it might look for food.” She typed the words syntax-silk clothes on her com-link to see the locations of appropriate stores or warehouses, but the first result of her search was a station security report. Multiple robberies in the docks. A sinta-silk blouse. A turban. Pants. An invisible thief.

“Oh-oh,” she said.

“Oh, no!” the man wailed. He was also watching her screen. “The damn shicksa ate someone’s pants! Now the security will be after me too.”

Dinara grabbed her inflatable floating pallet – it should be just the right size for the thieving octopus – and jumped to her feet. “Let’s go trace it. The report gives all the locations. Docks five and six. Which one was yours?”

“Five,” he said gloomily.

In the last moment, she picked up a silk wrap – a gift from a former client. It was a garish orange color, and she didn’t like it. It sat unused in her drawer. Might as well serve as bait for the felonious shicksa.

The security officers were still canvassing the docks, when Dinara and her client got there. The security were searching for electronics though, and Dinara decided not to disabuse them of their preconceived notion. Her client would be safer, if the security didn’t find the shicksa.

She started at the dock number five and tugged her floating pallet with her wrap inside towards the increasing numbers. She scanned the floor and the walls for any anomalies. A shimmering of air might give the transparent creature away.

Instead of shimmering air, odd colorful marks littered the floor. Like footprints of a medium-size dog, only too many to belong to a dog, they pattered towards the dock number six. They started blue, almost invisible on the gray slate of the corridor. At the sixth dock, the color of the footprints changed to red.

As she followed the marks, with the man trudging silently after her, Dinara keyed up the security report for more details. The stolen blouse was blue. Check. The stolen turban was red. Check. The stolen pants, the last item reported, were dark green. When the red marks morphed into green, she knew she was close.

“It bleeds color after it eats the colored fabric,” she commented. “See the marks? Do they look like the shicksa’s footprints?”

“About the right size,” he grumbled.

They already outdistanced the security and turned into a narrow hallway between the docks eight and nine, when her pallet bobbed suddenly, as if a weight dropped into it. Dinara wheeled around and hastily keyed the door into the locked position.

“I think I’ve got it,” she said. She peered through the transparent side of the holding compartment but couldn’t see anything inside except her orange wrap … slowly disappearing. The pallet bumped, as the shicksa with the appetite for silk discovered it was locked in.

“Ha!” Dinara grinned at her client. “Gotcha!” She transferred the pallet’s handle into his hand. “Don’t lose it again.”

“Never!” he vowed with a grin of his own. “Thank you. You saved my life. My money, for certain. How much do I owe you? Should I buy you another wrap instead of the one my shicksa just gobbled up?”

“It would be nice.” Dinara said. “But not orange. I hate orange.”

This story about Dinara and her pet shop, Rendezvous Pets, on the Rendezvous Space Station is my entry for the Oct 2019 WEP Challenge. Dinara’s shop is a trusted location for every pet owner on the station, human and alien alike. She guarantees the best care and absolute safety for your pets.
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Dinara looked up, as her cousin Manie entered Rendezvous Pets. “Look, Manie, I’ve got a harvest.” Dinara nodded proudly at her new potted plant in the corner. Only yesterday, it had been covered with small, off-white flowers. Now, the tiny shriveled petals littered the floor around the pot. In their places, the oval iridescent berries swayed on thin branches. The tiny fruits sparkled merrily. Her new boarder, a small gray cat, named incongruously Ginger, sat beside the pot, swatting at the berries with deep concentration.

Manie chuckled. “Are they edible?”

“No, purely ornamental. They smell nice.” Dinara sniffed appreciatively. “Ginger likes them too.”

“Someone had a wicked sense of humor naming that cat Ginger.”

“Yep. A Vergacian embassy clerk brought her in yesterday.”

“I didn’t know Vergacians kept pets. I mean, a human cat?”

“They don’t. I’m not sure Ginger is happy with her current master. She hissed at it.” Dinara picked up the cat and deposited her into the playpen at the back of the shop. “You stay here, kitty,” she said fondly and locked the pen’s fence. “Drink your milk and play, while I have lunch with Manie.”

Ginger stalked to the saucer of milk and began lapping. With the shop door locked as well, the cat wasn’t going anywhere. The animal was so well-behaved, Dinara let it roam the shop at will.

“Explain to me why a Vergacian would own an Earth cat?” Manie demanded.

“The owner said it wanted to understand humans better, so it got a human pet.”

“A cat?” Manie muttered something uncomplimentary, while Dinara contemplated the Vergacians. After several years of bloody war, the human Federation and the Vergacians had finally signed a peace treaty a year ago. Soon after, the Vergacians opened their embassy on the Rendezvous Space Station.

According to the scientists, Vergacians couldn’t see colors—their eyes were not equipped—so everything about them was gray: their skin, their clothing, their buildings. They were unisexual, propagated by budding, and preferred the pronoun ‘it.’ If a Vergacian decided to have a cat, gray would be the most appropriate color, but the name Ginger was definitely a joke.

An hour later, when they returned to the shop, she couldn’t see Ginger. Nor could she see her plant with its shining berries.

“Hey, where is my beautiful plant? Where is Ginger?” She rounded the desk, glanced down, and felt cold all over.

The pot lay on its side behind the desk, soil spilling out of it. The stem of the plant was broken, and the berries were all gone. Ginger’s inert body slumped beside the ruined plant, a leaf protruding from her mouth.

“No!” Dinara crouched to the cat, but Ginger wasn’t breathing.

“She got out of the playpen, ate the poisoned berries, and died,” Manie said softly.

“What am I going to tell the Vergacian?” Dinara wailed. “Horrible berries! Rendezvous Pets guarantees the safety of every pet, and I let Ginger die. I should’ve kept her locked up while I was gone.”

“I’m sorry, Dinara.”

“Yeah.” Dinara winced. “I need to get a new cat. The Vergacian comes back in a week. If I don’t get a replacement by then, I might lose my license. Or worse, they might start another war.”

“Won’t it notice, if you return a different cat?” Manie asked.

“I hope not. If they don’t see colors… Gosh, Manie. A living creature died on my watch, because of my carelessness.” She put her hands over her face. She wanted to cry. “Ginger was such a nice kitty,” she mumbled into her palms.

She scoured the station net for days, placed an ad in the Rendezvous news sheet, but nothing bit, until one day before the Vergacian was due back.

“You need a cat, lady?” The scruffy old man on the com-link screen wore stained brown coveralls. “I have one for sale.” He cackled and named the price that had Dinara’s head spinning. But she didn’t have a choice. She agreed to meet him at the bottom of the station, where transient workers lived.

He waited for her alone in his dorm, his breath reeking of alcohol and drugs. The cat, a large carroty tom, was weaving his way around the mattresses of the dorm, ignoring the humans.

“I’m leaving for a new work contract in a few days, so you can have the cat,” the man said, “but you pay up first.” He sounded menacing.

“Of course. What is your cat’s name?” Dinara fingered a tranq gun in her pocket. If this man threatened her in any way, she would shoot a tranquillizer dart at him.

He shrugged and leered. “Cat.”

Dinara sighed, put her cat carrier on the floor, and opened it. She had come prepared. A strong aroma of fish and herbs wafted out from the fish cubes in the carrier feeder.

“Ginger, come here,” she called.

The tom turned, regarded her disdainfully, but came anyway. He stalked into the carrier as if he was doing her a favor. Dinara locked the carrier door and gave the man his credit chip. “The exact price,” she said coldly, picked up the carrier, and left. She hoped she exhibited as much dignity as the new Ginger, but probably not. The new cat was awfully heavy. The man’s guffaw followed her to the lifts. The cat mewed contentedly inside the carrier as he gobbled his fish.

Two days later, after the Vergacian had come and gone with its new cat, Dinara met Manie for lunch again and told her the entire story.

“But this Ginger is male and big,” Manie exclaimed. And ginger. And not nearly as nice as the other Ginger was. Didn’t the owner see the difference?”

“Obviously not.” Dinara smiled. “I was quaking inside, but it just commented on the size. It didn’t notice the color, of course, nor the gender discrepancy. I guess, all alien cats look the same to a Vergacian. I explained that the cat liked the food in my shop so much, it grew bigger. It was satisfied. It even asked me what brand of cat food I used.”

“Did this Ginger like his new owner?”

“No,” Dinara said. “He hissed, but so did the old one.”

This story about Dinara and her pet shop, Rendezvous Pets, on the Rendezvous Space Station is my entry for the Aug 2019 WEP Challenge. Dinara’s shop provides pet daycare and grooming for the citizens of Rendezvous and its many visitors, humans and aliens.
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A plump woman in a business suit entered Dinara’s pet daycare shop, Rendezvous Pets.

“What can I do for you?” Dinara asked.

“My pet, an Aelurian dragon.” The woman’s lips crimped in distress, but she composed herself. “Peke. His name is Peke. I can’t find him. He has never run away before. If anyone catches him, they might kill him. By mistake. I need to find him.”

“Yes,” Dinara said. “Unescorted pets could be hazardous on a space station. Especially Aelurian dragons. They eat metal. People usually call pest control if they find a dragon in their tech ducts. How did he escape? How old is your dragon?”

“Fifty.” The woman’s voice hitched.

“A big one.” Dinara winced. A fifty-year-old Aelurian dragon would be at least a meter long, probably longer. He wouldn’t escape the place through the ducts, wouldn’t fit into their narrow apertures.

“I had a party,” the woman continued. “I got a box of Red Wheelbarrow chocolates for my guests. We had some for dessert and then left the dining room for a few minutes. When we returned, the box was on the floor, empty, all the chocolates gone, and so was Peke. I think he ate the chocolates. Will they damage him? I know they are not supposed to ingest organics.”

“Oh, dear,” Dinara said. “Could he open the door of your apartment?”

“Yes. He is very intelligent. What would happen to him if he ate the chocolates?”

“I’ve never tried any Red Wheelbarrow chocolates,” Dinara murmured. As far as she knew, they  were the most expensive candies this side of the Milky Way. Produced on Earth, they contained gold dust and were considered an exclusive treat. Her visitor must be very rich to be able to afford them. She also owned one super-lucky dragon.

“Those chocolates have gold among their ingredients,” she continued. “Organics won’t damage your dragon, but gold is a powerful aphrodisiac for them. When you got your dragon, did they warn you not to wear gold jewelry?”

“Yes,” the woman whispered.

“That’s why. Your Peke is probably out looking for a mate, horny as hell. Maybe rampaging.”

“He is very gentle.”

Dinara shook her head. “Not now. Not while blind with lust. You really need to find him.”

“How?”

“I have something that might help, but it is not legal outside Aeluria. A dragon mating call. If Aelurians catch me with it, I’ll be in a lot of trouble. And we have an Aelurian delegation on the station right now. Drat!”

“Why is it illegal?”

“Because it works as a mating call for any Aelurian male, no matter the species. It’ll call your dragon to us, but it’ll also call all the males of the delegation. And they won’t be happy campers.”

“I’ll pay anything,” the woman breathed, her eyes huge. “You have to help me find Peke.”

Dinara typed in a code, and a holographic form rose above her com-link plate. “Sign this form. It says you assume full responsibility, financial and legal, for anything I do to assist you in finding your pet.”

The woman read the text on the form, hesitated a moment, then authorized it with her palm print. The net instantly filled out her name: Martha Carter. Occupation: Simel representative.

An ambassador, no less. Of course, she could afford Red Wheelbarrow chocolates.

“Thank you, Mrs. Carter. Let’s go.” Dinara grabbed the call, a small electronic gadget striped in green and black, from the middle drawer of her desk. “I’ll also need to sedate your dragon, when we find him.” She loaded a sedative ampule into her tranq gun and got an extra-sized inflatable floating pallet to serve as the dragon’s temporary cage.

“Where are we going? Why don’t you use it here?”

“I don’t want the Aelurian delegation converging on my shop.”

“Oh,” Martha said.

Dinara led her client down to the level of warehouses and freight docks, as far from the ambassadorial sector as possible, before she activated the call. She kept it on for five minutes.

“I don’t hear anything,” Martha said.

“No, but the dragon does. He’ll be here soon. So will all the Aelurians. I hope your Peke comes first.”

He did. Zooming in on Dinara’s call, he galloped towards them along the long utilitarian corridor, as if no obstruction existed. Rare human workers scrambled out of his way. Curses echoed off the ceiling. Loading drones buzzed erratically to evade the sixty-kilo stampeding lizard, filled with mating hormones. Martha squealed and flattened herself to the wall.

Dinara switched off the call, pulled out the gun, turned on the automatic targeting, and squeezed the trigger. The ampule hit the dragon when he was only a few meters from her position.

Peke staggered, screamed defiantly, and toppled.

“I love this sedative. Works instantly,” Dinara said. “Mrs. Carter, I need your help to get the dragon on board the pallet.”

It took both of them to heave the inert body, its scales shining iridescent yellows and reds, into its temporary enclosed bed on the pallet.

“Beautiful,” Dinara said.

“Yes,” Martha agreed.

They encountered a horde of Aelurian males, all seven of the delegation contingent, at the lifts. Elongated and willowy, the males in their flowing red robes pushed and shoved at each other. Their heads rotated searchingly. Clearly agitated, they yelled in their native tongue. A unit of the station security was closing in on them. Neither the security nor the Aelurians paid any heed to a couple of human women towing an enclosed floating pallet into one of the lifts.

Only when the doors shut and the lift started its ascent, Dinara relaxed. “Good thing my pallet is opaque, and they couldn’t see your dragon inside, or they would’ve realized we were the ones calling them.”

Martha paled. “What would they have done to us?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Probably not. How long would this condition last with Peke?”

“Until tomorrow. When the sedative wears off in the morning, he should be alright. If he is not, call me.”

“Thank you,” Martha murmured.

Her payment arrived the next morning, together with a large box of Red Wheelbarrow chocolates.

Dinara bit into one small round confection, sprinkled with golden dust, and moaned in bliss. It was truly yummy.