Page 39 of No Strings Attached

Although it felt much longer, they had only known each other for days. And she knew extreme, dangerous situations fostered extreme, dangerous emotions. But there was something so straightforward and pure about Bobby, she truly believed that she would have felt drawn toward him in any situation. At a bare minimum, as a trusted friend; and wasn’t that where the best relationships started? Her parents’ relationship had started that way, and they had been blissfully happy until the day they died. She felt easy and natural with him—witness her sexual propositioning of him if there were any doubts about that—andshe knew that he didn’t display any artifice when he was with her.

She enjoyed being with him, on every level, but let’s be honest,especiallyon the sexual level. That had been…what? Entirely outside of her experience. And if she were truly being honest with herself, she had been more than a little disappointed to have been rescued from their little love grotto so soon. She had been looking forward to another round, both the toe-curling orgasms and the comfortable interludes of conversation while wrapped up in each other and floating aimlessly around the warm water, still joined. She enjoyed his company, enjoyed the way his mind worked, and enjoyed the feel of his body against hers, even when he wasn’t making her scream out in ecstasy. So, how exactly did she feel about him? She wasn’t ready to give it a label, yet, but she knew unequivocally that she wished he were there right now, curling up behind her for a nap. It was going to be a long three days.

Thinking that, she finally fell asleep.

Someone was gently sliding a hand down her arm. “Bobby,” she said, sleepily, and smiled. But no, she realized, the hand was much too big to be Bobby’s.

“Wake up, little she-beast.”

She opened her eyes to see Acken looming over her. She was on a sofa, on Qlu’s private ship. Consciousness flooded back into her as she sat up suddenly and said, “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Everything is fine, Madame Vi,” Caussus said from behind Acken. “Malachite is back with a gift and a message.”

Acken took his place on the sofa beside Caussus, opposite her, and she looked over to see Malachite standing and holding a metal box with his right arm. His left arm was gone. He set the box down on the sofa beside her and took out the tablet lying on top of the contents, handing it to Acken. Then he sat down on the other side of the box.

Inside the box, which was probably 18 inches square, were emeralds of all shapes and sizes. Vi looked from it to his missing arm and back, bewildered astonishment on her face. She was incapable of speaking.

Acken read, “Violet, Acken, and Caussus, I wish to support your mission. Since I can’t survive long off Dim, I can’t join your crew or your fight. But I have asked the crew of the ship coming to retrieve me to each provide gems of themselves that you may use as money, to show their gratitude for my safe return. These gems, of me, I would be honored if you would fashion into adornments as symbols of your royal house, the House of Oz. Then I will always be with you as part of your noble mission.”

Tears streamed down Vi’s face as she looked at Malachite and listened to his words from Acken. She still didn’t feel capable of speech, so she simply leaned over and placed her hands on the place where his left shoulder had once connected while she wept.

Eventually, she whispered in a hitching voice, “Will it grow back?”

Malachite pulsed brightly, once.

With a breath of relief and profound gratitude, she whispered, “Thank you, Malachite, we are the ones who are honored, deeply. We will wear you with absolute pride.”

Malachite pulsed and held it. Violet looked at Acken and Caussus and saw her emotions mirrored on theirs. Though neither was weeping, they were as profoundly moved as they each said, “Thank you, Malachite,” then stood and bowed low to him in unison.

Vi picked up one of the emeralds from the top of the box. It was about the size of a tangerine. She said softly, “The House of Oz,” and laughed. Getting questioning looks from Acken and Caussus, she went on, but addressed Malachite. “Oz is an imaginary land in a story for children on Earth. A book. Do you have imaginary stories that are written and read for fun?”

Acken and Caussus nodded.

“OK, so in the land of Oz, there is a great city. The capital. It is called,” she paused and looked at each one of them for dramatic effect, “the Emerald City.”

Acken brayed out laughter, Malachite pulsed, and Caussus smiled.

Malachite’s rendezvous ship from Dim held four crew members, each of whom had sacrificed an arm in thanks, providing Vi and her gang with boxes of similar size to Malachite’s emeralds: one each of ruby, sapphire, pink diamond, and blue diamond. She joined Acken and Caussus to bow deeply as each was presented, working hard to control her emotions. Each received this gesture, then retreated toward the airlock. They had traveled between ships without a connecting tunnel or suits, as she would have expected from sci-fi movies, so their bodies apparently could not be damaged by the cold or vacuum of space. Malachite moved to join his fellow Mineralites in the air lock, but Vi stepped forward, grabbed his only remaining hand, and kissed it, suppressing the urge to hug him and say, “I think I’ll miss you most of all.” He wasn’t a scarecrow and she wasn’t a Dorothy, damnit all, she was the Queen.

After the departure of the Mineralites, they sat and admired their five boxes of gems, selecting various ones to hold up into the light.

Vi had joked, “So, what’s our net worth now? Can we contend with the rich and powerful of the galaxy?”

Acken, for once, had been quite serious. He slowly shook his head and said reverently, “No, we can buy and sell them all but the top one percent.”

Vi was shocked, “What do you mean?”

“We couldowna good chunk of the galaxy with this, Madam Vi. If we can monetize enough of it. It’s no wonder that the Mineralites won’t allow anyone to learn the location of planet Dim. Because gems from Dim go for 20 times what their mined equivalents fetch, on account of the purity.”

Vi sat back and regarded them both in wonder, seeing the same expression on their faces.

She took a moment to wonder that the rich and powerful were all alike no matter where you went—eager to spend nauseating sums of money on useless things—then said, “Ok, monetization, let’s talk about that. I assume we’ll need to find a trusted broker connected to people with ready money, right? So, we can get paid right away.”

Acken held up a pink diamond the size of an apple, then nodded toward it, “We won’t find anyone who has the ready money for something this big. We may need to sell them in dramatically smaller sizes.”

“OK, I’m sure we can do that. So, then we’ll have plenty of funds, right, for the supplies, fuels, and materials we’ll need on a ship and on our little asteroid. What else do we need?”

Acken said instantly, “A large, imposing gun ship.”

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