Page 36 of My Tiny Giant
“Professor Voltuds has been under surveillance ever since his role in Lieutenant Drankai’s...um, predicament was identified. We’ve obtained information that Voltuds will be meeting with a high-profile supporter of his research during an event in his home tomorrow. Lieutenant Drankai and you have been selected to infiltrate the event and identify the supporter. Due to the lieutenant’s size, he is the ideal candidate to sneak into the private meeting and obtain information backed by evidence. Your personal mission would be to bring him inside the professor’s mansion during the event, then safely deliver him back to us.”
“What’s the event?” I asked. All of this sounded like some spy movie scenario—far from what I did for a living.
“A ball, to celebrate the new pregnancy of Madam Governor Drustan. She and the Governor, our Head of State, are finally starting their own family.”
Voranian birth rate heavily favored male babies. To ensure a healthy population growth, married women often carried babies of unmarried men. I’d heard that Madam Governor had several prior pregnancies—all as a result of artificial inseminations. She had given birth to several children for various state officials. This pregnancy must be especially important, since these would be the children of her own husband, the Governor.
“Professor Voltuds organized the event on his property,” the general said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Possibly to obtain a few favors from the Governor.” Rick shrugged.
I rubbed the back of my neck, fighting the unsettling feeling rising inside me. As a soldier, I was used to obeying orders. This situation, however, raised all sorts of red flags for me. Some high-profile individuals were involved here, and the entire thing was far outside of my area of expertise. I was a soldier after all, not a spy. I fought against the enemy on a battlefield, not by doing covert operation stuff.
“I’m acting with the direct approval of Colonel Kyradus, the Leader of our Army,” the general added, as if guessing my unease. I’d never met Colonel Kyradus in person, but I knew he was a highly respected war hero, celebrated on his world and beyond. “Captain Miller is here to confirm that. The entire mission has been discussed with and approved by your superiors as well. Lieutenant Drankai suggested you as the best man...um, I mean the best individual for the job. Would you disagree?”
I inhaled a long breath, searching for the best way to explain my reservations.
Agan didn’t let me say a thing, rising out of his chair.
“May I speak with Lieutenant Nowak in private, please?” he said.
General exchanged a glance with Rick, who nodded briefly.
“We’ll take a thirty-minute break,” General Craxus conceded.
* * *
“Y OU LOOK GOOD IN A skirt,” Agan said when we entered the luscious green courtyard on the covered rooftop terrace of the Army Headquarters building. I had my left arm bent, and he was sitting in the crook of my elbow, looking out.
“More ‘womanly’ than in a steel armor suit?” I teased, setting him down on the grass under a tree with its trunk wrapped in vines.
Taking a seat next to him, I smoothed the skirt of my uniform over my knees.
“You always look ‘womanly,’ even while wearing your armor suit,” he said with a brief laugh. “I was an idiot, ever mistaking you for a man. I should’ve realized you were a girl from the very first moment I saw you gut a fescod .”
“What do you mean? How do I gut a fescod ?”
“You slice him open ever so neatly, then gingerly cut out his heart cluster, and delicately place it under a bush somewhere, out of the way,” he chuckled, imitating my movements with his hands, both pinky fingers raised for effect. “It’s like you’re dressing poultry for dinner, not eliminating an enemy. The most girlish way of killing things I’ve ever seen.”
His tone was teasing, not insulting. He obviously meant it good-naturedly, and I took no offence.
“Hey!” I laughed. “Either way they die. Why create a mess by scattering the body parts around?”
Two Voranian males walked by. One of them spotted Agan and craned his neck in our direction, elbowing his companion.
“Here we go again,” Agan growled, getting up. The carefree smile slipped off his face.
As one of the still-so-very-few human women in this city, I’d been ogled relentlessly wherever I went. The Zoo management had even assigned me a real person for a tour guide on my visit there, instead of the AI drone like everyone else got.
“For your comfort and protection,” they’d said, and I hadn’t bothered fighting them on that, even glad to have a real person I could talk to during my tour.
Ravils were a pretty rare sight in Voran, too. But, of course, Agan’s size made him truly one of a kind in the whole of the Universe. No wonder he attracted everyone’s attention. Though, it obviously made him uncomfortable.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” I asked him. “We can find an empty meeting room—”
“No. Don’t bother. We’d end up wasting the thirty minutes we got, searching for one.” He climbed on my thigh then up my arm to my shoulder. “Here.” He yanked out the hairpins that held my hair in a bun, letting it fall freely down to my shoulder blades.