The diagram had looked so simple. In fact, it had looked deceptively simple. Why, then, had he followed all the directions to the letter and it just looked… wrong.
"My tallest," Morris, the only technician to currently share in the "smeet-cret" sighed as she shook her head. "One leg through each of the small holes, not two legs through the big hole."
"Sure, if you want to do it the conventional way," the tallest sneered, sticking his non-existent nose in the air. Morris sighed and gently corrected the smeets' diaper as she cooed and kicked. Peering curiously up at Morris, she smiled and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
Tickling the smeet's tummy, Morris peered slyly over her right shoulder at the irritated tallest. "So, have you picked a name yet?"
"I don't want to get attached to that little… little parasite."
"I see," she said, bouncing the giggling smeet up and down. "Then I suppose you haven't told your co-tallest yet." No answer, so Morris grew a bit more daring. "You know, the tabloids are really eating this up. They claim you're pregnant and that Red is the fa-"
"Don't say it, Morrisey, if you value your life." Morris cringed slightly. The tallest knew that she did not prefer the nickname under any circumstances, and used it like one would tug the leash on an arrogant dog.
"I just can't believe he hasn't noticed yet."
"Oh, he's noticed," Purple answered, pointing to a treadmill decorated with a giant pink bow in the far corner of his private chambers. "He just thinks I'm getting fat."
Morris settled the smeet down in the crook of her arm, her eyes reflecting bemused confusion. "How does someone who hovers around use a treadmill?"
"I've been wondering that myself."
Morris looked down at her watch. "Oh, my, is it really that late? I've got to be going before my crew wonders where I am. Don't want to get the rumor mills a' turning any more than they already are, ne, ne?"
"Just go!" Purple sighed, collapsing on the bed. With a shrug, Morris returned the wiggling smeet to her blanket and exited quietly, letting the laser-proof door click shut behind her. Some irkens will just never change, she thought with a disgusted shake of her curly antennae.
Purple waited, arms thrown over his pale eyes, until Morris' footsteps faded down the hallway, then quietly sat up and hovered over to where the smeet was busy attempting to curl up enough to chew on her own feet.
He picked up the smeet in both hands, raising her to his face and blowing bubbles onto her tummy. "We'll tell her what I've decided to name you in time, right Amber?"
The smeet nodded as if she really understood what he was saying, blowing little spit bubbles out of her mouth. Purple sighed and wiped them away with his long fingers, being careful not to scratch her delicate face with the sharp tips of his claw-like hands.
Purple flopped back on his bed, sprawling out among the softest spreads and silks the Irken Empire possessed. Sinking into the layers of softness, he placed Amber on his belly and tickled her. She giggled, kicking enthusiastically.
Purple tickled her under her chin. "So, do you want to hear a story tonight? Something about a beautiful girl tallest, or perhaps a brave Irken warrior? Or just a lullaby? It is getting awfully late for smeet to be up."
Amber giggled and clapped her hands, crawling inside her "mama's" pouch like it was a warm sleeping bag. She cooed happily, resting her head against Purple's gently moving chest, her tiny thumb stuck in her little round mouth.
It was a good thing that the tallest Purple had always been inclined to sleep on his back, as a rapidly growing smeet lying on his belly each night might have interfered with someone who slept on their face or sides.
When Purple finally waltzed into the morning meeting over half an hour late, he was met with several fear-faced advisors and a livid-eyed tallest Red. "Where… were… you?" Red asked slowly, wanted to spit and hiss like an alley cat but barely restraining himself.
"Using your treadmill, of course," Purple purred in response, settling down into his chair with a flop and placing a bowl of popcorn on his expansive middle. "So, what's today's business?" The truth was, Amber had awakened in a highly agitated state and had cried inconsolably for a good forty-five minutes before crying herself to sleep. As soon as he could break for Red he'd have to seek Morris' advice. Nursing her hadn't helped, changing her hadn't helped, burping her hadn't helped, and not even her usual calming smeet massage had helped. Perhaps she had an antennae infection…
"Purple, were you even listening to a word I said?" Red snapped, drawing Purple back to reality.
"Of course. You accused me of not listening," Purple quipped.
"And before that?"
After a long pause, Purple simply hung his head in embarrassed silence. "What has been with you lately? You've been in your own little world for the last week, not to mention the fact that you keep patting your belly like it were a lap dog."
Purple, caught by surprise, stared at Red. "I do?"
"Yes, you do! And you don't even notice it!"
Purple was doing his best on the outside to defend himself against Red's uncomfortable accusations. On the outside, he was also trying to avoid wincing in pain. For on the inside, Amber had awakened and was eagerly gnawing hungrily on one teat, not exactly the most comfortable feeling in the tender male Irken's book.
"Stop making funny faces at me! This is a serious conversation!"
"My organs hurt; I think I have gas," Purple whined defensively. Inside his body, Amber detached herself from him.
He was about to give a sigh of relief when Amber sighed loudly. "YUM!" she announced happily.
Red and the advisors stared. "Did your belly just say yum?"
"Of course not! You must have been hearing things!"
"My tallest, I heard it-" Purple glared at the advisor, causing him to instantly shush himself and sink down in the chair like his bones had suddenly turned to liquid.
"I know what's going on!" Red accused, pointing a skeletal finger at Purple.
Purple's antennae drooped. Red would never let him keep the smeet. "You do…"
"Of course! My great brain meats have figured it out! You're keeping a rare live Sarenson fly in your pocket to eat, and you don't even intend on OFFERING to share it with me!"
Purple found himself unable to believe what Red had just said. Then again, that was a good thing. Let Red think what he wanted, so long as he didn't think anything near the truth. "Hey, I had to order this thing two years ago! What makes you think I'm giving a duty-shaking slacker like you a piece of my delicacy?" Purple snapped, his hands defensively covering his midsection. "Once I've fattened it up, it's all mine to eat! None for you! I mean, would you share one with me if you had one?"
Red pause for a moment to pretend he was thinking. "No, but that's not the point!"
"How is that not the point?"
"You share everything with me, but I'm not supposed to share with you."
Needless to say, the tallests being the tallests, this argument is supposed to go on for another twenty-seven point two-five pages, but I highly doubt that would be as interesting as what transpired that night. For you see, a rare Sarenson fly is indeed a delicacy for an Irken. And just thinking about one so near, whether or not it had been properly raised and fattened up, got Red salivating.
The night began calmly enough for Purple. He was running a hot, but not too hot for smeet, cleansing gel bath. Slowly he slipped out of his robes, depositing them simply on the floor of his cleaning chamber. Pulling a large, black object off the wall he brushed it over his skin, dislodging old scales and making a small pile of thin green dead skin on the floor.
Finally the bath had filled and he slid into it up to the point where the edge of the lapping gel just touched his pouch. Grinning, he cautiously let a little bit drip into the pouch. Within moments, Amber's head shot out, her big eyes flaming with anger. "Squeak squeak!" she protested, noting that her home was filling up with gel.
Purple laughed and pulled her out of the pouch, cautiously removing her diaper and making a perfect basket into the trash can with it. Fortunately, she hadn't soiled herself too badly, or the idea of putting her in the bath with him would have been disgusting.
While she giggled from his touch he washed her gently, massaging her tiny body. She loved being massaged between the shoulder blades, on the antennae, on her belly and on her limbs. She loved being scratched under her chin best of all, and would lift her head to show when she wanted a good scratch. She'd picked up some smeet parasites, which required Purple's constant grooming of her to keep her from itching herself raw. Fortunately, he'd discovered that the parasites were quite a treat to an adult Irken.
Chewing happily on a rubber ducky, despite the fact that neither Irken had any idea what a duck was, Amber cooed and babbled to herself. Purple, meanwhile, leaned back. His eyes were half shut, shut from bliss but open and paying attention to Amber with a watchfulness that comes only to parents.
After a long, romantic lullaby that Purple remembered from his own smeethood, he tucked Amber away in his pouch and settled under his sheets. Of course, his memories were far different from what Amber's would be.
When he'd heard the lullaby, it had been a recording piped over large speakers in the ceiling, a voice he'd heard a hundred times before, never changing. He'd been fifth Irken in the twentieth row out of hundreds, just another number. He'd been a statistic all his life until he became a tallest. Amber, he'd vowed, would never know the pain of being only an unimportant number in an uncaring system.
A quarter after midnight, the door of Purple's room slid silently open by the one Irken with the ability to bypass Purple's security codes: Tallest Red. He licked his lips, the thoughts of the rare treasure he believed Purple to possess making his belly rumble.
Just a wing, he thought. Purple won't mind all that much if I just take a wing…
He crept silently towards Purple's bed, a gray shadow in the blackness of Purple's bedchamber. Delicious, delicious, delicious. Slowly, so as not to awaken Purple, he slid his hands down Purple's bedclothes and into his pouch.
Red lifted out the gently wiggling bundle. Funny, it didn't feel like a fly. Perhaps it was only a larva, he thought silently to himself.
What Red hadn't accounted for, however, were Purple's parental instincts having been awakened to their fullest. Within seconds of Amber being taken from his body Purple was awake, and Red found himself on the ground, his head in a strong choke hold, Purple's knee threateningly held at his groin.
"You bastard! You're lucky I didn't kill you!" Purple hissed.
"Purple, Purple! It's me!" Red coughed as the hold tightened.
"…Red…?"
"YES!"
The choke released. "I'm sorry! I thought you were a burglar!"
Red coughed as air finally returned to his bruised lungs. "Geez, Pur, what got you so panicked? Turn on the lights so I can see what's going on!"
Purple paused. "I'd rather not."
"You'd rather… oh come on, I've seen you naked before!"
"That's not my problem…"
"Oh, this is silly! Lights, on!" In response to Red's command, the lights flickered on. Blinking, Red stared at what laid in his lap, eyes wide and mouth preparing to let out the loudest wail of unhappiness he'd probably ever hear in his life. It certainly wasn't a fly.
Purple snatched the infant out of Red's arms. "Don't cry, don't cry, ssssh, ssssh, mama's got you, mama's not going to let anyone hurt you, ssssh."
Amber made unhappy whining noises, kicking her legs and pressing her head into Purple's chest.
Red slowly staggered back to his feet. "Ma… ma?"
Shamefully, Purple turned his back to Red, keeping it between his co-tallest and his smeet. "You're a… a mother?"
"I found an abandoned egg."
"Why didn't you take it to the smeetery?"
Explaining that he forgot too would be the truth, but Purple was still trying to salvage his pride at that point. "Because… I wanted to keep it."
"Keep it?"
Purple grinned to himself, knowing his back kept Red from seeing the evil intent crossing his face. "Of course. I'm so lonely. We never talk anymore, and everyone else is too scared to talk to me because I'm the tallest. If you hadn't left me all alone, maybe…"
Purple peered over his shoulder. He could tell from the look on Red's face that it wasn't working. Red was buying it, but it wasn't working.
"Oh don't be such a wimp, Purple!"
"I'm not a wimp. Just… all alone. So very alone," he sighed dramatically, sweeping one hand across his forehead as he daintily collapsed onto his bed, smeet still held in his arms.
"Well, you're just going to have to get rid of her," Red said authoritatively, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Says who?"
"Says me, that's who?"
"And who are you?
"The almighty tallest Red, that's who?"
"Really? I didn't know they let giant, talking BUTTS be tallest!"
"That's it!" Red cried, curling his fingers like claws and leaping at Purple. Purple managed to avoid Red by diving sideways. In his arms, Amber giggled. She thought they were playing a fun game.
"Either… either… either that smeet goes, or YOU go!" Red ordered.
Purple's lower lip trembled sadly. "You… you don't mean that, do you?"
"I'm serious! Dead serious!" Red screamed, turning heel. "When I see you tomorrow morning, that smeet had better be gone!" With that, he left. He knew Purple would give in to him.
The next morning, Red waited impatiently for Purple's arrival to the morning meeting. "Someone go wake my slow assistant tallest," Red said with a wave of his long fingers.
The advisors looked nervously at one another.
"But sir… tallest Purple LEFT!"
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Smeet Art:
www.side7.com/cgi-bin/S7SDB/DisplayImg.pl?INO=253163