doing at all.”
Greetings, female. My name is Zevris Akkaran, a faloran military operative from a neighboring galaxy. I am in search of a mate. Are you receptive to the planting of my seed that we may form a mating bond?
This entire situation would be comical were it not for the simple fact that the survival of his species depended upon locating females who were receptive to mating bonds—and therefore reproduction. The faloran species had survived two generations after a devastating virus had claimed most of their females.
They would not survive two more.
A metallic crash from outside jarred Zevris from his thoughts. His first instinct was to reach for a weapon, but he quickly cast that instinct aside. Stepping out of his dwelling with a faloran plasma pistol in hand would undoubtedly raise questions he was not prepared to answer.
Someone shouted something outside; the voice was masculine, but the words were too muffled to understand.
Zevris shoved himself up from the table and strode toward the front door. He deactivated the security field, unlocked the deadbolt, and took the knob in hand.
He froze. The dark claw on the end of his thumb, though mostly retracted, was fully visible—and it was clearly nothing like a human fingernail. He’d forgotten to reactivate his holoshroud.
“You damned fool,” he snarled to himself as he activated the hologram. That barely perceptible shimmer warped the air briefly, affording him a glimpse of the assembling light-hexes that vanished as they formed the illusion to mask his true appearance.
It did not matter that this was a noncombat mission, it did not matter that its nature was different from any he’d undertaken. He could not afford complacency. He could not allow himself to be…comfortable here.
Zevris opened the door and stepped outside.
A huge truck was on the street just beyond his driveway, its tail end hanging over his lawn and its rear wheel inches from his grass. The misshapen remains of his mailbox lay on the ground beneath the truck, though the metal post upon which it had been perched remained in the ground. Of course, it was also bent, leaning at a harsh angle.
He curled his hands into fists and clenched his jaw. How could anyone live on this planet without going mad? Earth itself seemed eager to assail each of its inhabitants with an endless chain of hardships, whittling away at patience and willpower, crushing them beneath a gradually increasing weight that—
It is a mailbox. What difference will it make if I receive paper mail or not? This is not worth my anger.
The truck pulled forward, drawing Zevris’s attention back to it. There were large words printed on the side. Grayson Brothers Movers—If our prices don’t move you, our professionalism will!
Zevris walked along his driveway, watching as the moving truck readjusted and, after several tight turns, backed into the driveway of the neighboring dwelling—the house that had recently been sold. The realtor’s sign was gone now; had it been removed early this morning, or had he simply missed the detail sometime over the last few days?
Two burly human males climbed down from the cab of the moving truck. The driver walked to the truck’s rear and opened the roll-up door while the passenger, tugging up the waist of his jeans, moved toward Zevris. The name printed on the chest of his shirt was Frank.
“Didn’t even see it there. Narrow street and all, you know?” Frank shrugged, palms skyward, and turned as though to join his companion.
“I expect compensation for the damages,” Zevris said.
Frank glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I’ll be sure to pass it on to the office.”
Zevris squeezed his fists a little tighter. He could almost feel the tendons creaking in his hand. “Is it not customary to exchange information in such cases?”
“We’ll just note it on our work order,” Frank replied, raising his voice over the clanging sound of the truck’s ramp being pulled out and dropped down.
A low growl rumbled in Zevris’s chest, but he silenced it before it became audible. He was more than a little annoyed about the damage to his mailbox, and Frank’s dismissive tone certainly wasn’t helping that, but what recourse did he have? Attacking these men in a fit of rage wouldn’t solve his problems—it would only create new ones.
He huffed through his nostrils, turned away from the men and their truck, and strode to his fallen mailbox. The deep frown that curled his lips was not half as severe as the angle to which the mailbox’s metal post