Page 51 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
W e had nearly everything we needed to go home. I hadn’t figured out everything yet, so there were some pit stops I wanted to make. I talked to Enix and some of Baxter’s favorite things she’d be leaving behind could come with us and she could have it again, eventually. We all enjoyed them, too, so I was pretty sure the rest of my planet would, too. I was going to bring back the ability to make coffee and chocolate.
When our ancestors arrived on our planet, they found a device similar to the one she was clutching desperately that contained the holy texts. She only wanted to bring two things with her when she left this planet. A very primitive computer and that device with her books on it.
I wasn’t going to force her to delete the books she enjoyed and add the ones she wrote just because we needed it. No, I was going to purchase a similar device and put the holy texts on them so I could drop them off like I planned. I wasn’t going to take away a single thing that meant anything to her because we were taking away her home. I mean, she’d been pretty vocal about wanting to leave it, but I’d make sure she got to keep what she did like.
“I need to get one of those,” I said, pointing to the device in her hands with her books on it.
“We don’t have time to order one, but I think we can have a delivery service shop for one and bring it to us within an hour or two. Or, I could just drive and get it.”
“No,” Enix said. “I’m not sure of all the complications of changing your future, but I can jump forward and access a little of it. Your police went to Valtens’s house. There was no sign of a struggle, but they found the chair and the ropes he used to tie you down.
“Their theory right now is that he had a victim at his house and got spooked when someone burned rapist on his front lawn. They think he took his victim and fled. They are about to start questioning everyone who knew him. They are eventually going to circle their way to the bookshop and realize they can’t find you. Your coworker is probably going to mention you fought a lot. That’s going to be where they check your apartment and find the blood.”
“Um, what about Valtens’s DNA? It’s going to be all over his place. They are going to run it to see if he’s linked to any cold cases. He’s not going to be because if there was a criminal with two dicks out there, I’d be all over that shit as soon as it hit YouTube. But it’s going to throw their machine off because it’s not human.”
“Your boyfriend and I did a little science project while you were off banging Enix. We were trying to decide if we needed to go back and just burn the entire house down to get rid of all the DNA he left behind. But he would have left it at the bookshop he owned, too, and it got way too complicated with all the arson,” Omi said.
Baxter gasped.
“Don’t burn down the bookshop. Kevin was a shit, and he had terrible taste in books, but don’t take it out on the books.”
I chuckled. A bookstore was the last place I expected to find my brother. He didn’t enjoy reading. He didn’t even like being read to. It was a miracle that he managed to keep it running while waiting for Baxter and her coworker to show up and save it.
“I had a feeling you wouldn’t like that, so I grabbed some hair off your brush and compared everything with mine. Either humans are seriously genetically mutated versions of my kind or we are genetic mutations of you. They aren’t going to think your boss is from another planet, but they are probably going to wonder how he lived that long with so many genetic mutations they’ve never even heard of.”
“And some good could come of it eventually,” Omi said. “If they sit on that DNA as a crime specimen, it’s not going to do a damned thing. If they get it over to one of your scientists who knows what they are doing, figuring it out could cure a lot of diseases here. Kuka is similar enough to you that some of the origins on our planet could be human. We honestly don’t know enough about our evolution. We’ve got a time machine and the Devouring Mother. That could mean anything.”
It really could. It was pretty eye opening when I compared our DNA. I could figure all that out once I figured out everything else I needed to do. It was enough that I didn’t have to burn down her bookshop. I didn’t particularly like the idea of burning books, even if it meant erasing my brother’s DNA from this planet because it would be too complicated to get Ghol in there to do it now.
“It’s going to be hard, but until we have everything ready to leave, you’re going to need to stay inside Big Daddy. All I have left to do is get a device like yours and get your books on it, then we can leave. We aren’t going straight to the past. There are a few trips on this planet I still need to make.”
“For what?”
“Well, coffee and chocolate are amazing. I agree with you there. I think my planet would love them and I don’t think you should have to leave that behind. I’m also doing this because there are people like Valtens on my planet who think we need to find other galaxies and take what they have. If I can show them that I went to an entirely different galaxy that only has one planet that can sustain life, so we would be very different to them, and I purchased something amazing with no violence, it might settle them down.”
“But there would probably be violence if they thought you weren’t from Earth. Not everyone. There would be a group of people that just wanted to talk to you, some would want your help with our technology, and others want to go there and fuck you. Some would be violent, though.”
I just shrugged.
“That’s going to be the same on any planet with unfamiliar beings, even mine.”
“It’s true,” Omi said. “I’m firmly in the ‘fuck it’ camp.”
“You’d better not!” Torrek said.
“Excuse me, big brother, but the first thing you did when you got to a new planet and met a different race was fuck it.”
Torrek just sat there sputtering, but Omi was right. That’s what we all did. Except for Omi and she had the option.
“She’s actually got you there,” Baxter said.
“You’re my Zovea. You’re supposed to side with me,” Torrek sulked.
Baxter was wheezing with laughter.
“Seriously, Omi is the only person here except Ghol who didn’t fuck a human. You can’t give her shit for saying she’d go there.”
Ghol shuddered. Yeah, I could imagine having a front row seat to my brother’s depravity would put anyone off sex. Or he could just not be into it and that was fine, too.
“I would have, too, but the offerings were slim.”
“Omi!” Torrek barked.
“Can’t judge, brother. You went there, and I didn’t.”
“She’s my Zovea!”
This may or may not end in a brawl. Omi and Torrek’s bickering did sometimes. They broke shit, got a few bruises, and then they laughed it off. I didn’t want to get stuck here doing repairs on Big Daddy because they broke something vital punching each other.
“Let’s focus. We need to get off this planet because we don’t want anyone spotting Baxter. I need a device like Baxter has for us to leave the holy texts.”
“You’re going to have to create an account with the delivery service and have it delivered. It’s going to look suspicious if I ordered a kindle when I’m supposed to be dead. They are going to look at that.”
“Done,” Enix said.
I was glad he did it because some of the technology on this planet was primitive compared to ours and I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of my Velne if I struggled with it.
“I’ll meet the driver at the front of the building,” Enix said. “I met the last one and I can handle it.”
“You threatened to assault the last one,” Baxter pointed out.
“I was still learning this planet’s customs and there was some data to back up me being suspicious. I’ll only assault this one if he assaults me first.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Baxter said.
“I will go wait so we can go home.”
Enix only wanted to go home because of Baxter. If she’d said no, he would have wanted to stay here with her. We would have let him. The only reason his previous owner wasn’t making a stink to get him back was because of who stole him. He could always change his mind and try to take ownership of Enix again.
I hadn’t figured out a lot of what I needed to do, but I knew how to prevent that from happening and everyone back home was going to hate it.