Page 67 of Fathom

Several of the other hyenas let out a chuckle.

"You won't eat her regardless," Eun snarled.

"It has other humans it can sell you, but wants to see your ship first," I said to the hyenas. "It wants to go on board and look at what you have to trade."

"Why would you say that?" the MECH asked me.

"They might have navigational data or records or something to explain where they got the other humans from," I said in English. "Plus, we can't kill them here, where people can find them. We should do it on their ship."

"You want to kill them?" the MECH asked.

"They eat people," I said.

The MECH regarded me for a moment.

"What is it saying?" the hyena demanded.

"It says the humans it has are fresh and very valuable; it wants to make sure you can pay for them," I said.

"I'd rather turn them over to the authorities," the MECH said. "Killing them will just kill the trail to their superiors."

"They won't serve time," I told it in English. "You won't have to do anything. Eun can do it. There won't be anything or anyone to stop them if we don't get rid of them."

"You will come too," the hyena said. "To translate."

"As long as your kind won't ever bother me again," I said.

"Agreed," the hyenas all chuckled again, and they headed back down the alley.

Eun hovered next to me as we followed them, the MECH clunking beside us.

"I don't like this," Eun said, his voice low.

"We got this, remember?" I told him as I laced my fingers with him. I gave his hand a squeeze to emphasize my words. "Let's go see inside their ship."

I couldn't tell him that my grand plan was to get on board and have him and the MECH turn everyone into paste so that we could commandeer their ship, because the hyena aliens could understand everything I said to him, but by the slight widening of his eyes and the tensing of his jaw, he took some meaning from my words. My heart was pounding, fear and excitement making everything a little bit sharper. I needed to calm down.

I focused on the MECH, craning my neck to look up at it, but I was used to looking up at people by this point.

"Do you have a ship?" I asked, dialing my backup plan in case murder and piracy didn't work out well. "Are you leaving the system? Can we catch a ride with you back to Earth? We need to get off this planet, right now. We can pay upfront in full, or work for passage, whatever you need. Please, you're the first person I've met who even knows the name of my planet."

"Sure," the MECH said. "But I need to discuss it with my partner."

"What is it saying?" one of the hyena aliens asked.

"I asked it if it could give us a ride," I said. "We're looking for passage off this planet."

"We'll provide you passage," said the hyena with a toothy grin and a chuckle. "To pay you for translating."

I didn't bother responding to that.

We clunked up the ramp onto the hyena alien's ship. It stank like rotten meat and piss. We had walked up the ramp straight into a large cargo hold, with stacks and stacks of boxes lined up. There were more on the landing at the bottom of the ship. The hyena alien walked over to one of the boxes and lifted off its lid. A cold plume of visible air hissed out. Inside were piles of individually wrapped chunks of meat.

"We have selections from every species you can think of," the hyena leader said to the MECH as it walked deeper into the hold, opening several more boxes.

Eun's shoulders were tight, his hair lashing out all around him, but neither he nor the Mech had attacked.

"This isn't a trade, this is a trap," I said. "My friend here isn't interested in buying what it can just take."