A LITTLE SUGAR FOR CHRISTOPHER – PART II

Wikus was already outside when the limo pulled into the long driveway at the side of the house, standing beside his front steps. He hadn't come out just to greet his guest, however. As Christopher walked up, he quickly stooped to tuck a shallow pan in beneath a bush, then straightened again, turning and putting his arms out, already smiling. A familiar scent, long forgotten, drifted up and tickled the prawn's antennae. Cat food!

"Christopher! So here you are. Everything okay? No trouble finding the place, I guess."

The man's arms, human again, wound about him. Christopher hugged back, but carefully, mindful of Wikus's newly restored soft exterior.

"I am pleased to see you, Wikus. You look well."

"I feel well! Now that the damn trial's over, I'm even getting some hair back—like it?"

Grinning, he tousled the new growth on his head with one hand. There was enough there that Christopher could see that he was already combing it over to one side. And he had a sculpted bit of hair back in place again over his upper lip…actually, now that Christopher could step back and examine him more critically, he looked an awful lot like the way he had when Christopher had first seen him, short-sleeved shirt and sweater vest and all. Minus the injured arm and protective gear and nasty attitude, of course.

Wikus led him up the steps and inside, chattering all the way, much more cheerful than when Christopher had last seen him leaving the convention centre in the news footage. As soon as they got away from the door and into a hallway, he started yelling for his wife.

"Tania! Where are you, baby? Chris is here! Come out and meet him."

When the woman finally did appear, Christopher politely arched his antennae forward and put out a hand. To his pleasure, she not only marched right up to him and looked him in the eye, but took hold of his hand with both of her own and gave his a little squeeze.

"I'm so glad to finally meet you, Mister Johnson," she said. "And thank you so much for helping Wikus. I prayed you would be able to do something for him and you did."

Christopher glanced at Wikus. "Please tell her that she's welcome," he began, then stopped when Tania gave his hand another squeeze and a slight tug, demanding his attention.

"It's all right. I understand your language."

"Really," Christopher said, clicking his surprise. In his experience, not many people apart from those who'd worked District 9 learned prawn, but then her husband had been an MNU operative. Maybe she'd expressed an interest and Wikus had taught her. Whatever the reason, it certainly made things easier, and he followed up his clicks with a slight bow of respect. "Then to you I say, you are very welcome. And it was my pleasure to help your mate."

They shook hands. Tania smiled broadly as she did so, then giggled a little. It was probably because he'd used the word 'mate', Christopher thought. He'd noticed before that humans seemed to find it funny…just something in the translation.

"You guys are some fooking formal," Wikus interjected. "I hope you aren't going to sit around mooning over each other all night, talking like bloody la-de-das."

"Oh stop," Tania admonished. "He's so bad," she added, looking up at Christopher and—winking? That meant she was joking, right? Because it was a female doing it. If a male winked, it meant something flirtatious. Or did he have it reversed?

Christopher bypassed his confusion by making an inane comment about the house. Humans always seemed to like it when you complimented their living quarters.

"This is a very nice home," he said earnestly, disengaging his hand and sweeping it around in no particular direction. "It is very…homey."

"Fook!" Wikus exploded. "You don't even—baby, he doesn't know about the settlement yet."

"Oh! Well, you have to tell him. Go show him while I get the tea ready." She gazed back up at Christopher, all sunshiny sweetness again. "I think you'll like this," she said, reaching out to brush his hand one final time. "Maybe you'll even know the prawn involved."

"Ha ha! Ja! His old boyfriend. Girlfriend. Fook—whatever."

Christopher, now well and truly perplexed, let himself be hustled away while Tania went off in the opposite direction. Wikus took the prawn to a large room set up like an office. He paused then, looking down, turning serious. In fact, he stood there saying nothing for so long that Christopher was moved to prompt him.

"Er, the settlement?"

Wikus appeared to not even hear him.

"This was my office in the old house too," he said at last. "The set-up, I mean. My in-boxes…system…she kept it all the same. MNU took it, but Tania made them bring it all back…ja, my Tania… She never gave up on me…"

Christopher shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He'd heard the human term 'waxing poetic' a while back and had been amused to learn its meaning, but this sounded like it was about to become a case of waxing on a novel-length scale. He tried to remain patient, though. It WAS Wikus, after all.

"Ja…all my stuff, all the same. For three years she kept it." He reached down to a coloured glass holding several pencils and other items and picked out an odd silvery thing that looked a bit like a crumpled tinfoil version of the umbrellas they stuck in girly drinks in pretentious bars. "Can I confess something to you, Christopher?"

"Of course. Anything."

"Okay. The reason I stayed behind, in District 9…it wasn't just because I was scared of the other prawns and MNU."

"Oh?"

"Ja, it was more about this." He twirled the tinfoil thingy between his fingers. "I started making little presents, leaving them where Tania could find them. It was the only way I knew to let her know I was still out there, thinking of her, without her fooking father and his cronies finding out."

"I see… And she interpreted your tokens correctly, I presume."

"Oh ja…she knew. She guessed before, but then she knew. This was the first one…"

Christopher watched him touch the silvery trinket to his lips, then he seemed to shake off his melancholy as suddenly as shaking off a coating of rainwater. "But hey, enough of me. Okay, our crazy settlement! We were going to sue MNU and they're so fooked already with the trial and all, they offered to buy us off with this house and enough money that we can kick back and sloth it for the rest of our lives. So it's ours now, this house, imagine that, ay? A guy like me, living here?"

"This is compensation for torturing you in the lab?" Christopher asked, trying to clarify the issue for himself.

"Oh fook, no! Like we'd get anything for torture. They'll just throw the bastards in jail for that. No, this is for something a lot worse. Slander and libel, man! Here, wait'll you see…"

Excited now, he stuck the token back in the glass and fired up the computer on his desk. A few second's work brought up a saved video. "Here. Here! Look at this!" Wikus enthused, tilting the screen so Christopher could better see.

Some sort of TV news bulletin started playing, a man talking about someone being 'highly contagious'. Then a bad photo of Wikus's face appeared along with a cutline about contracting an 'alien sexual disease'. Christopher was still trying to wrap his head around the very idea when the bulletin went ahead and did it: they displayed a photo image showing exactly how Wikus had contracted his supposed disease.

"What!" Christopher exclaimed.

Wikus grinned up at him. "Nice, ay?"

"That's horrible! Why would they show such a thing?"

"To scare people and make them not want to help me. I mean, no offense, Chris, but creature sex, that's like the worst…worse than banging a sheep or even maybe kiddy stuff 'cause at least those are still from Earth, y' know?"

Christopher's sensibilities reeled. As sleaze went, it didn't even make any sense to him. Even the most desperate prawn had no interest in men—gossip had it that, compared to prawns, human males weren't exactly…well, fulfilling. Wikus dug out an old newspaper from one of his desk drawers. It showed the same image in reverse, splashed gaudily over half a page, tagged with the headline 'MNU Man Caught!'. This time, Christopher looked at the photo more closely.

"That's not even real. It's been manipulated," he said.

"Tell me about it," said Wikus. He pointed at the prawn the photo-shopped version of himself was supposed to be nailing from behind. "So, you know this guy maybe?"

"Certainly not! Well…it's hard to tell. His face is blurred."

"Ja! Protect the fooking prawn's identity, but not me!" Wikus laughed. "You should read the article. All the pornographic stuff I did. Was supposed to do."

"No thank you," said Christopher, rather primly.

"I mean, it's disgusting and freaked me out back then, but now it just seems kind of funny. And not so disgusting anymore, after being one of you for a while. It'd be all right now, I think. Maybe I'd even like it if it was you, hey?"

Ooo-kay, Christopher thought, trying not to give in to the urge to sidle away a step or two. Wikus was still looking at the newspaper picture of himself and the nameless prawn, pondering over it with a weird intensity. Then he seemed to snap out of it and became jocular again.

"Anyway, all this stupid shit got us this house. Dumb bastards. Like they could claim they didn't do it or it was misinterpreted!"

"What did Tania think about all this when it was first publicized?" Christopher asked, curious.

Wikus hopped up from his seat and shut off his computer and began putting the paper away while he answered.

"She fell for it a little, at first, no thanks to her fooking father, who tried to convince her it was true. But after thinking about it, she realized it couldn't be. She came around…ja, she did. Gave me hope…"

Something they'd both needed, at the time, as Christopher recalled. He followed Wikus out of the office, still a touch dazed by all the craziness humans could come up with, even about each other.

"So that's how we won our settlement," Wikus concluded as they walked back through a long hallway. "Out of court and everything. We're still not a hundred percent whether we'll stay here, though. We could always sell it, get even more money, move somewhere where people don't know us and I won't get chased to be on some fooking TV freak show, 'My Shocking Story', some shit like that. Sure, the privacy's nice, but it's still an awful big house just for Tania and me, just two people."

"And a cat," Christopher remarked.

"What cat?"

"Don't you have a cat?"

"No. Why would you think that? I hate the fookers."

"But you put out food—"

"Oh. Oh! Oh shit, no. That's for the prawns."

"What prawns?" said Christopher, now totally confused. They couldn't have left anyone behind…could they? Wikus, laughing, set him straight.

"Parktown prawns, man! The gardens are full of 'em. Those big ugly cricket things. I used to squash the bloody bastards whenever I saw one, but now…ah, it doesn't seem right anymore. So I feed 'em instead. Keeps them outside. They love that damn dry cat chow. Ha, guess they really are like your little cousins or something, ay? Ha. Ha ha!"

What are you saying? thought Christopher, now feeling dazed, confused, and more than a little insulted—the perfect trifecta end result of spending way too much time in the company of humans. Luckily, they reached the living room at that point and Christopher got sidetracked by the sight of Tania presiding over a nicely appointed tableful of refreshments before he had time to start feeling really offended. Parktown prawns? Damn! The prawn in Wikus—the REAL prawn, not some insect thing—must be wearing off fast if he was back to finding slurs like that hilarious!

Tania's kind, approving glances, as she poured them all a round of tea, helped make up for Wikus's lapses. Or maybe not. Christopher could only make a show of lifting the delicate little teacup he was given up to his mouth. How he was supposed to actually use the thing to drink from—sheesh! Didn't the two of them think things through at all?

"I showed him that photo," said Wikus.

"And?" asked Tania.

"No luck! Guess my fooked-up, sexually-diseased, contagious alter ego was banging Mister Anonymous."

Tania laughed. "Too bad. If Christopher—may I call you Christopher?—if Christopher had known who that prawn was, he could have informed him and then MNU could have had another lawsuit on its hands."

"Fook, ja! From a prawn! Imagine their faces!"

Then they were both laughing, picturing MNU officials they knew being sued by a prawn. Christopher, left out, moodily dipped a tentacle into his teacup, contemplating whether he should try licking out the fluid bit by bit with his grooming tongue.

Before he knew it, one of the humans was hopping up again, this time the woman. "Time for something special for my two favourite boys," she announced, with a knowing little twinkle in her eye.

"Oh ja! Bring it on, baby!" Wikus urged. He grinned over at Christopher, would no doubt have dug him in the side of his chest with his elbow if he'd been closer, and made a lewd sound to chase after his wife as she left the room. Christopher, more than a tad alarmed by the sudden goings-on, sat up very straight and proper.

"What's happening?"

"It's a surprise. You'll love it. My Tania, she worked all afternoon on it. She made it for us, ja?" A loud scrape, then the clash of colliding silverware issued from the kitchen. "Ah fook! Wait, baby!" Wikus hollered, and jumped up so fast that he shoved the table into Christopher's legs and made the alien start and slop some of his tea out, luckily onto the delicate saucer he was carefully holding beneath its accompanying cup. Oblivious, the human rushed on, into the kitchen. Christopher breathed hard, gill slits fluttering, trying to regroup his nerves. He'd always assumed that the man he'd known before had only behaved in such a nervous and erratic fashion because of his transformation woes, but it seemed as though it was his natural state of being.

Christopher used the momentary lull to pour most of his remaining tea out into the saucer, then drank the saucer dry, with far more ease than he could have done so using the tiny cup. The liquid tasted awful, like boiled weeds. But at least he'd sampled enough of the noxious fluid not to offend his hosts. He set the utensils down and settled back to await the next subtle torture the humans had planned for him.

When it came, it was a doozy. The van de Merwes came back into the living room together, clumsily supporting a large platter between them. There was some sort of round white gleaming thing on it, and when they set it down on the table, Christopher could see a scrawl of dark brown writing covering a hump on the thing's center and more dark lines encircling the hump and a series of smaller greasy-looking lumps all along the thing's edge. And there were a bunch of silvery candles, all lit, stuck in at random. The arthropoid stared at the dancing flames as if mesmerized, completely nonplussed, while his hosts sat back down on the couch together, smiling, enjoying his surprise.

"Isn't it great?" Wikus finally exclaimed.

"Uh. Yes?"

It came out as an anaemic squeak, punctuated with a click. Wikus bent eagerly towards the cake wreck he'd just help deliver.

"Look! It's your mothership, the one you left in without me, ay, you sneaky prawn? There's the bridge and there's those engine things. And all the antennae, those are the candles, ha! Can you read the writing?"

Christopher peered at the message, which looked as though it were sliding off the hump to one side with embarrassment. Although he could read English, the lettering was in cursive and hard for him to decipher; he wound up having to enunciate the words syllable by syllable to be sure of getting it right.

"Con-grad…grad-u-lations?"

"Yay!" Wikus interjected, too excited to notice the error.

"Vic-tor-y for…for prawn-kind… Prawn-kind?"

"Ja! Because we got them! You and I, ah? All those MNU bastards…oh, sorry, Tania."

"That's all right," she said. Despite her words, she stared down at her hands for a long moment, wringing them together in her lap, then she took a deep breath and looked up again, into the solemn face of their alien guest. "I know now what my father and some of the others did to you, Christopher. I'm so very sorry. I wish there were some way of going back and starting over and I hope you can forgive us."

The genuine concern and kindness, the sudden sincere apology, it disarmed him completely. Christopher had always been good-hearted and forgiving by nature—too forgiving, some of his friends used to say to him, even before the changes which had blessed him with greater intelligence and understanding—and he tried hard to get along with others. He'd always been susceptible to earnest pleas and so found himself muttering his thanks and acceptance of this one even though his darker, more pragmatic side knew that there was nothing the humans could do which would ever truly make up for what they'd done to him and his people, nothing at all. But what else could he do, given his immediate situation? He was what he was. A guest in someone else's home. And a big, soft, alien sap.

His words had the immediate effect of dispelling every last scrap of gloom and misgivings the human female might have harboured and she brightened and regarded Christopher with gratitude and surprising warmth and something else he couldn't quite decipher. Wikus did it too, and Christopher, uncomfortable, averted his gaze. It seemed almost as though they wished for his approval on top of his forgiveness, but approval of what? Their part in trying to make good the sins of their entire race, or just the crass confection lying on the table in front of him?

Tania saw where Christopher was staring and was quick to misinterpret his interest, just as he'd hoped. "I considered making the frosting all grey, to better match your ship," she said, returning to the subject of her culinary masterpiece, "but thought the colour would look too depressing." She pointed out a sprinkling of silver sugar beads dotting the frosting between the hump and the outside edge of the cake. "I used dragees instead."

"Oh," Christopher commented politely, after leaning forward to have a closer look. He'd thought that the dots were fly speaks. "That is…very creative."

"Creative, no…that is for my Wikus. He's the creative one," Tania replied, and affectionately squeezed her husband's knee. Wikus tittered. He put an arm around her waist and hugged her tight and they pressed the sides of their heads together. Christopher, watching, felt a jog of empathic happiness deep within. Despite all their foolishness and casual offences, it was clear to him that the two humans were truly devoted to one another and he was glad he'd helped restore their relationship, even if it was of a sort he couldn't fully comprehend.

It went not too badly after that. Wikus broke out a bottle of wine for himself and Tania, and for Christopher, whose people reacted poorly to alcohol, he brought out some sparkling white grape juice. They blew out the candles together, all three of them, and then they tucked in. The cake, for all its hideousness, turned out to be very tasty. Wikus had two helpings and Christopher had three, and both praised Tania for her mad baking skills. She beamed at that and blushed prettily as she shook her head with pretended negation, which only made Wikus gaze at her with newfound adoration. Christopher felt even better. It looked as though the evening were going to end on a pleasant note after all and he was all for that. He'd had enough conflict with humans to last him ten lifetimes and most assuredly did not want any more.

At the very height of all their happy interspecies bonding, Wikus asked Christopher whether he'd like to join Tania and himself in bed.

Christopher was so shocked that he sucked in a tentacle and bit down on it by mistake. Hard.

"What!"

"Fook, man, you've around humans long enough to know," Wikus said cheerfully. 'In bed' means banging, shagging, mating, fo-"

"I know what it means!" Christopher cried, desperate to put a stop to the awful litany. He couldn't believe that the man had just propositioned him! What could he have possibly done to prompt such a thing! Christopher gawped from one van de Merwe to the other and was so rattled by the eager hope he saw in both their expressions that he lost it fully and added, "What makes you think I have the slightest interest in coupling with a human!"

A mistake. Tania's face fell at once. Christopher saw her lips tighten and quiver. He heard a discrete sniffle…another.

"I told you he wouldn't want me," she whimpered.

Wikus swooped in to comfort her, enfolding her with his arms, pressing his head close.

"Oh no, no no, baby, he's just surprised. He doesn't know what he's saying. You're surprised, ja, Christopher? Say that you are! Fooking wine…should have gone slower… Why didn't I go slower… You needed it slower, right, Christopher?" Now Tania was crying in earnest. Christopher could see the water spilling out of her eyes. Wikus began trying to wipe it from her cheeks, starting to blubber a little himself. "Please, baby, don't cry! You know it makes me crazy. He didn't mean it. I know he didn't. Those fooking prawns, they're always fooking people. You thought I fooked one yourself, remember? He just needs a minute to think about it, don't you, Christopher? Just a minute? Please?"

The hell of it was that the alien was thinking…thinking that he felt terrible about what his careless outburst had just wrought. It warred with his righteous indignation—honestly now, what HAD possessed the pair!—and left him weak and confused.

"Why?" he croaked (or clicked, to be more precise).

Wikus licked a tear off his moustache, his hope rekindling.

"We owe you," he said simply. "Tania and I…if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be together, not like this. So…well, we owe you."

Christopher reconsidered. Humans held very bizarre attitudes when it came to matters of coupling, or 'sex, as they called it. They revered it and obsessed about it, yet at the same time often expressed great guilt and shame over their very interest in it. One of Christopher's scientist friends, who'd been studying human mating practices from afar via their various forms of public media, believed that much of their ambivalence could be traced to a subconscious awareness that they'd been short-changed by their own evolution. They sensed that they were only half-beings at best, and that was why some humans tended towards confusion over their own mono-sexed identity and why so very many of them—not all, but many, world-wide—were forever seeking for a special other, a 'true love' or 'soul mate', with whom they expected to form an exclusive relationship in order to feel some semblance of wholeness. And once they did find someone who made them feel complete, they often became insanely jealous and possessive of such partners, jealous enough to murder anyone who interfered. For the two humans before him now to offer what they were offering then…

The big alien turned his face away for a moment, unable to decide. Wikus's attitudes had probably been forever altered by his temporary transformation. He better understood now what it meant to share, to be a friend. The woman, however…

Christopher studied her closely. Her eyes had stopped leaking and she still looked dejected, but he could discern no trace of distaste or fear in her expression, nothing to suggest that the thought of his making advances towards her—the sort of thing which would normally send a human female off in screaming conniptions and make the headlines of every tabloid trash rag and news show in the city—was in any way repugnant to her. Whether because she shared her husband's view or because she felt it would make a statement of ultimate acceptance or for some other strange reason known only to herself, Tania was willing to open her arms to him…her arms and her legs and, er, whatever else went on when humans were involved…how would he know? All he was sure of was that saying no would be interpreted by her as further rejection.

Christopher's large antennae twirled as his palps folded up tight, expressing his mild distress. He really didn't want to make her feel bad again.

"All right," he sighed, without much enthusiasm.

The two humans were so thrilled that they jumped up together at once. Wikus clapped his hands together.

"Yay! Fantastic!" he exclaimed. "You won't regret this, Christopher, I swear! A special taste of human hospitality for you, very special. Tania! You need a bathroom break, baby? No? Fook, I do. Okay, you get him started. I'll be right back."

And another flash of white teeth as the man shot past him. Tania, far more composed even in an excited state, just stood and smiled.

"I'm glad you said yes, Christopher. Would you like to use our facilities beforehand too, after Wikus?"

"No thank you."

He'd seen human bathrooms before and they weren't pretty. They were also way too cramped. How humans managed, he didn't know.

Tania pulled at the end of her long hair with one hand. Her smile developed a funny little irregularity, a quirking up of one corner, as she regarded him. "The bedroom's over here," she said, and led the way.

Christopher tried desperately to recall everything he'd ever heard about human mating practices as he followed one of his wannabe partners into their special sleeping area, the place which for most humans doubled as their private coupling room, if his information was correct. At least it was a male and a female who were about to make demands of him. Dealing with two females would have been harder; he wasn't as lively anymore as he'd been in his younger days. But servicing the woman, Tania, and then letting Wikus have his way with him…well, he could manage that. He'd just grind his jaws together and think of Homeworld, and half an hour from now it would all be over and he'd be cleaned up and out the door and everyone would be happy, right? Right?

Wrong.

He sensed it would be bad the instant he stepped through the door and found himself awash in pastels and knickknacks. Heaps of foamy-looking bedding material lay everywhere. Baskets overflowing with recycling cans put through a shredder (or perhaps they were more of Wikus's presents) shared space with photos of mean-looking people on top of a pink and white dresser. A carpet remnant with its fibres partially ripped out hung on the wall. Christopher had seen some tacky crap which passed as decorative by human standards in his day, but this looked like someone had mugged a rubbish collector or two and proudly carried home the spoils.

Tania ignored the mess. She stood in front of the mirror attached to the pink and white dresser and began to take her clothes off. Christopher watched, fascinated. There were a lot more layers to peel off than he would have thought possible. The little bit that he wore, a vest and a unique garment whose name best translated into the term 'pelvic-wear', seemed paltry by comparison. Wikus rushed in and joined Tania and began taking off his own clothes—no, he tore them off, more like—and now Christopher had two strip shows to watch. Everything the two of them removed went straight to the floor. Throughout it all, they grinned at each other and made odd chortling sounds and bounced from foot to foot as they contorted themselves; stripping was fun! Christopher almost wished that he'd worn more himself, then again, maybe not. Some of the things Tania wore looked a little tricky to manipulate and even Wikus fumbled a bit as he helped her take off the last piece, an abbreviated sort of inner vest slung about her upper chest…or perhaps it was just his high-strung enthusiasm making him clumsy.

The instant both were naked, they hopped onto the bed and turned towards him expectantly, eyes bright with excitement. Christopher noticed for the first time that some of the bed's coverings were already pulled down. They'd been planning this, all along. His bad feeling started to reassert itself.

It was Tania who stopped him from backing out.

"Oh, so shy," she murmured, and sidled over to the edge of the bed and sat up. By stretching, she could just reach him, and her hands went straight to the garment slung over his pelvis. With a start, Christopher realized that the van de Merwes' strip-a-thon had just expanded to include him; she was undressing him, and pretty skilfully too. "Are you shy, Christopher?" she asked playfully, fiddling away.

"No," he replied, barely able to choke the single word out. Really now, what else could he say? I've changed my mind? I want outta here? That might have been more honest, but it wouldn't look very good for the ambassador for all 'prawn-kind' to cut and run at such a crucial moment. Besides, the way she was brazenly handling him, the slender little fingers brushing over an area normally considered personal, was making him feel very weird indeed, way too weird to be making any sort of difficult decision just then. With another heartfelt sigh, he yielded to the inevitable and pulled off his vest while Tania finished removing his pelvic-wear. The floor seemed to be the place of choice for cast-off clothing. He let his vest drop.

"Much better," said Wikus, leering. He patted the sheets he was lying on. "Join us."

Christopher got on the bed as ordered and tried to lie down on his side between them, but the van de Merwes were having none of that. Tania flung her arms about his neck and pulled his face against her soft and oddly squishy chest. He felt more fingers, bigger and rougher-feeling than the woman's, rub over his waist and the flare of his hip—Wikus, no doubt. The humans' instant familiarity shocked him into immobility. Christopher was used to foreplay and rituals. There were certain signals to be sent, a set sequence of touches and responses to go through, and that was just to confirm that both parties were interested. But this, this was just so random. This was throwing away the checklist and just pressing any old button to see if it would 'ping'.

Tania began to stroke his antennae, his very, very sensitive antennae. There was no getting away from it, no ducking of his head or turning away. She held him fast and wrapped her fingers around a feeler at its base and then slid her hand up its entire length, over and over. Occasionally, the back of her fingers or hand would bump his even more exquisitely sensitive antennules, which shot a jolt of pure pleasure through his entire body. Feeler-play was something Christopher understood and liked a lot. The sensations he felt, so familiar and yet uniquely created, both mesmerized and encouraged him. Gradually, his rigid posture slackened and he began to relax under the humans' ministrations. Even the warm hand fondling his nether regions no longer felt quite so intrusive or unwelcome. Christopher hesitantly put his feathery-fringed palps forward to brush Tania's skin, brushed it again, then tried tasting the mounded flesh pushed up against his mouth. Much to his surprise, it was quite pleasant. Not enough so to inspire any 'pinging' yet, but not at all off-putting either.

"Oh ja," breathed Wikus, watching the dark tentacles dab over his wife's perfect white bosom. He sat up straighter and began busying his other hand, although not with Christopher.

Tania liked it too. She uttered her charming little giggle, drew back a little, and started caressing the soft structures about the alien's throat and gill slits, virtually the only part of his body where his flesh lay exposed and unprotected. Christopher lay still, working his mouth and contemplating the new sensations. It certainly felt a lot different, more focused and almost ticklish, than when it was another prawn's hand stroking his throat, and it also felt delightful. He decided then and there that letting the humans have their way with him maybe wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"Fook, Christopher, you're doing good," Wikus broke in, almost as if he'd just read Christopher's mind. He sounded oddly wheezy and breathless, even though he hadn't been doing a thing so far except grope around Christopher's private area (or so the prawn thought). Like Tania, he now drew back and changed his angle of attack, started running his hand over the alien's hard upper thigh. "Good and big…damn, you're a big one. Big fooking prawn, ay? Bigger than me, I bet."

Christopher had no idea what the man was getting at. True, Wikus as a prawn had been considerably smaller than himself—the transformation only changed one's biomass, it couldn't generate more out of nothing, after all—but what did that have to do with anything? Was it just that he was taking up too much room in the bed? Christopher drew up his legs self-consciously, just in case. Wikus smirked and reached for the arthropoid's nearest paw-like foot and started to rub it.

"Big feet, too. Feels good… So nice and hard…"

Whatever, thought Christopher, fighting the impulse to jerk his foot away. He liked Tania better. She didn't babble and was gentle with him.

Unfortunately for Christopher, both humans seemed to come to a consensus then that playtime was over. Tania quit caressing his face and throat, which he'd been enjoying immensely, and started pulling at his arm. Wikus, perched behind him, pushed on what passed as his hinder. For an instant, the prawn didn't know if he was coming or going. He sat up, confused and surprised by their sudden urgency.

"What now?" he exclaimed. "Is something wrong?"

"What is that, a joke? A little prawn humour?"

Wikus again, who'd already gone far beyond invading Christopher's personal space to assuming squatter's rights; he was practically hanging off the prawn's back.

"You're one of those hard-to-get guys, ay? Don't you think he's one of those, Tania? Hard-to-get? He likes the teasing."

"I think he's hot," said Tania, and grabbed Christopher by the neck again. But not to pull his face forward. This time she plastered her whole body against him and Christopher was forced to sit up straight and put his arms around her to keep from being pushed over. His swimmeret arms reached out too, their little hands clutching reflexively at Tania's butt and pinching it, which made her squeal and Wikus laugh. Christopher, mortified at having lost control—the darn things did seem to have a mind of their own sometimes—tried to reel them back in.

"No, don't. Leave them," Tania gasped. "I like it." She ground against him, mashing his face with her ample chest. Christopher had to squeeze his eyes shut. "Oh, you're so hard!"

Of course I'm hard, I have a damn exoskeleton! Christopher knew he was being cranky because they'd rushed through the one part he'd liked so far, but honestly! What was it with humans and their obsession with things being hard? And what was up with this business of him being 'hot'? Everyone knew that prawns had a considerably lower body temperature than did humans. MNU had publicized the fact often in their propaganda, using it as evidence that the aliens had more in common with cold-blooded creatures such as Earthly slugs and insects than with mammals, ie. humans. It was a sleazy tactic which had pissed Christopher off to no end when he'd first understood it and it still pissed him off.

Well, maybe Tania meant it as a compliment then. She certainly seemed to be getting her enjoyment out of his body whatever its perceived temperature, judging by her writhing gyrations within his double-armed embrace. It made him feel like a piece of gymnastics equipment.

"Boy, you're getting like a lap-dance, ay, Christopher?" Wikus panted in his ear. "Go, baby, oh ja! Ahh. Ag!"

And now Wikus was getting into it. Christopher could feel the man's male part jab against his leg. He wondered how Wikus could possibly get any pleasure out of what he was doing. The amount of pressure he was exerting seemed positively pain-inducing. That was the price one paid when one's reproductive system was exposed to the world and covered with skin, Christopher supposed. It had to cut one's sensitivity to a phenomenal degree.

Human women had it better, he thought. The part they used for receiving a partner was quite analogous to his own, although theirs for sure didn't additionally house an intromittent organ tucked neatly away towards the front in its own little compartment. Something extra to add to Wikus's experience later on, assuming he could even feel anything at all after all his bumping and grinding.

The pressure on his face lifted and he opened his eyes again. Tania was squeezing the excess sculpted flesh on her chest with her own hands, then she reached them down between her thighs. "I can't wait," she exclaimed between breaths. "Christopher, please say you're ready! I can't tell if you're ready."

"I'm always ready," he said, puzzled.

"Ha! Fooking prawns!" Wikus crowed. "Fooking space sex maniacs." He leaned out past Christopher to grope his wife's breasts, then leaned further still to plant a sloppy kiss on her face. "She'll fix you, my Tania will. She's a lioness. An angel! A bloody gorgeous angel in heat. Fooking her's like fooking heaven on Earth, I tell you."

"Oh, Wikus, you're so sweet." She left off doing what she'd been doing down below to clasp one of his hands and share another moist kiss and slipped her other arm back around the prawn's neck. "Isn't he sweet, Christopher?" she asked him, after kissing his face too.

Christopher was just about back to grinding his jaws together over the humans' incomprehensible inanity.

"I don't know," he replied. "I haven't tasted him yet."

He blinked, but was not terribly surprised when they responded with peals of giddy laughter. Trying to predict their behaviour and adjust his own accordingly was hopeless. Better to remain docile and let them do as they pleased…which was exactly how it had been between his people and all humans for a very long time, Christopher reflected sadly.

Then Wikus said the magic phrase, something about it being time for the 'main event'. This euphemism Christopher understood. He perked up, feelers springing to full attention, and when Tanis peeled herself away from him and appeared about to assume the position, he surged up onto his knees in relief and anticipation. Finally, something he could do which didn't require analysis or any real thought at all! And Tania—

Tania had flung herself down on her back right in front of him.

Christopher froze. The only way he knew how to couple was from behind. Prawns were built to couple like that. It was the only way possible for things to align and fit. Oh, there were variations to be sure—standing, squatting, going at it while on one's knees or lying on one's side—but the main thrust of the matter (pardon the pun) was that it had to come from behind. Did she want him to lie down on top of her, like a human? But that would squash her flat, wouldn't it?

He stared down at Tania, stymied. Tania stared back, frustrated. And while she didn't exactly cross her arms and start tapping her fingers, Christopher got the distinct impression that she was getting very, very impatient with him and that he'd better do something quick.

He touched one of her spread-apart knees. "Uh, you'd better turn over."

"Oh for goodness' sake, Christopher!" she snapped. "Haven't you ever had sex before?"

Her sharp retort was totally unexpected and Christopher, stung, felt even more bewildered. Wikus just laughed. He clapped his prawn buddy on the shoulder to bolster him up.

"Well, he hasn't, baby. Not with a woman. Give him a break!" he said to Tania. He slid his arm over Christopher's back to give him a manly reassuring hug, then looked at him with sudden suspicion. "You haven't, right? Never snuck off to fook any pros, diddled a few girls—"

"No!" Christopher cried. He didn't even know what 'diddle' meant, but it sounded disgusting. Wikus patted him a second time, all smiles again, trying to calm him down.

"Well, good, man. Might have caught something. We don't need that, ay?"

"Wikus, I don't know if I can do this! I am not like you. I'm not like a human man!"

"I know that. I was a prawn too, remember? And it was some fooking weird to feel my, I mean, not feel my bits dangling in the breeze. But you, you prawns, you like to keep things hidden, huh? You're sneaky guys, hiding your bits and your guns and your spaceships."

"Here," said Tania, sounding much less cross than before. She'd had time to start feeling contrite about her sharp remark to Christopher, who really did seem ignorant, poor thing. "Try it like this, sweetie" she suggested. "It'll work like this."

She lifted her legs and began to clamp them about his slender waist. Christopher didn't dare struggle for fear of overexerting his enormous strength. He'd seen too often how badly humans fared when it came to contests of sheer muscle power. Then Tania gripped his upper thighs and managed to lever herself right up on top of them. Her soft human flesh seemed to mould itself to his hard exterior; she got right up against him. Wikus started coaching from the sidelines, issuing cheerfully lewd instructions.

"Spread your legs apart more, Chris. Let her skooch right in there. You've gotta grab her ass too—no, not like that! From beneath…ja, that's it. Hold her good and tight. You don't want to mess up your alien invasion. Ha ha! Get it? Alien invasion…right into Tania's hangar 18!"

Christopher paused while the two of them yukked it up again, looking down. Well, this sucked. How was he supposed to embrace the woman when he had to use his hands to help keep her in place? One of the best things about taking the active role was the delicious feel of a partner's body pulled tightly against one's own, just the closeness of it and the proffered vulnerability. His swimmerets had unfolded on their own and rapped against his arms as they flailed about, seeking a waist to wrap around and a lovely long segmented belly to fondle; finding neither, they slunk back into their recesses, almost forlornly. Yeah, I hear you, thought Christopher, trying to hide his own disappointment.

Holding his breath, fearing the worst, he let himself slide out. But it only felt…comfortable. Comfortable and warm. Comfortable and warm and really quite nice! Relieved, he committed himself and bent to his task with renewed interest. Tania smiled. She looked happy. Wikus, watching, started to drool. Alrighty then, so far so good…

As usual, it took a minute for Christopher to plump up and adjust to his partner's dimensions, and the tighter things got, the wider grew Tania's smile. The first stimulating contraction pulsed through him. Tania felt it too. She sucked in a sharp breath and squirmed against him, moving on him, and all of a sudden it felt wonderful, frictionless yet resisted, just as it should be. Christopher stretched his head forward, palps flagging erratically, tentacles meshing together in a slow twist, and closed his eyes to better savour the experience. Who'd've thought that coupling with a mono-sexed alien born of a different galaxy than himself was even possible, let alone enjoyable? And Wikus was right—they DID owe him, owed him big time. Happily for all concerned, the naughty little defaulters in bed with him were just as eager to pay up as Christopher now was to collect.

Tania started writhing around again, straining against him, forcing Christopher to hang on hard. Humans were so violent when they copulated! Prawn partners barely moved at all, until the end. Most of their action was internal. He worried for a few seconds that he might be hurting the woman, but a glance at her face argued otherwise, and besides, she was clearly working hard to pull herself even closer to him. The soft yet muscular flesh clutched in his own hands and pressed about his waist and against his area clenched and rippled enticingly as she did so. Muscle play was something prawns never felt in each other unless they were joined together. To feel it externally as well as inside seemed strangely erotic to him, almost illicit. Christopher had to admit to himself that he was getting pretty damn excited despite all the strangeness and the differences between them. Even having Wikus hover by his shoulder, playing the perverted instructor as he moaned muddled words of encouragement and stroked the long hard knobbled length of Christopher's back, felt kinda good. Weird, but good.

Christopher leaned forward as much as he dared and bent his antennae downward. He still couldn't reach Tania. A pity. It would have been even better if only he could've nuzzled her and felt her up with his palps and feelers. A second hand touched his back, sliding upward. Wikus was edging in behind him. Now he could feel the man's whole soft body pressing against his own, the hands reaching higher. Christopher arched his neck, wordlessly begging. If only Wikus would think back to his prawn days and take the hint…

He did! Wikus started brushing Christopher's head and antennae with his cupped palms. His mouth raked teeth over the tough scutes protecting the back of the stout neck, the stiff hairs above his lip tickling. Christopher, delighted by the man's initiative and his surprising expertise, uttered a long, low, rattling sound, his version of a growl of pleasure. Wikus's sensual charms made up for the drawbacks of the unnatural position they'd coaxed him into, made up for it in full. "Yes," he murmured happily, satisfied at last. "More please." It was a request which, in retrospect, would come to haunt him.

Wikus grinned and moved his hands to Christopher's face and twined his fingers in amongst the fringe of tentacles.

"I'll give you more all right, you fooking beast," he muttered through another mouthful of chitin and drool. Christopher, who only heard an unintelligible garble apart from the 'fooking', just kept on luxuriating in being pampered by someone who still remembered exactly how and where a prawn liked to be touched. Well, his upper half luxuriated…the rest of him was still working hard to finish up his carnal close encounter with Tania. His partner was currently lolling back just like the lioness Wikus had compared her to, arching her body, stretching her legs out and then drawing them slowly back in to run the soles and toes of her feet over the flares of Christopher's hips, remaining still enough to enjoy—finally!—the alien subtleties of what he was doing to her. Ah yes, Christopher thought, this is good… This'll do… Already he could feel the burn gathering inside, the culmination of this bizarre little capper to his evening approaching. Wikus, as worked up as he and unable to wait any longer, wound his arms about the prawn's chest and hugged him tight as he began grinding away again. Christopher could feel him against the smooth back of his pelvis, rubbing and rubbing, sliding it down and in between his thighs, poking at his—

No. Oh no. No no no no no. That entrance was already in use. No way was he getting in there. Nuh-uh. Not in a million years. He'd just have to wait until—

Wikus got in.

A jolt of astonishment and disbelief raced through Christopher. He hadn't realized how determined and crazy horny humans could be, how stiff and hard and forceful the males were compared to…wait…stiff…hard…oh gad, NOW he understood the obsession! Now, when it was already far too late!

For one long horrid moment, the (shell) shocked arthropoid just knelt there, frozen and helpless. He couldn't pull out and whirl around to dislodge Wikus. He'd surely hurt both humans and as for himself, he was far too tender down there to be whipping it out at the best of times, it was practically an internal organ, and prawns just didn't expose themselves. Even Christopher had only ever seen himself in an excited state once and that was only because he'd resorted to self-fertilization to make Little CJ, a procedure which had proven far more grim and awkward than it was pleasurable and which had left him with messy hands. Wikus, though…well, Wikus was different. He'd been exhibiting his excited state since hopping on the bed and hadn't minded one bit waving and banging it around or grabbing at himself when there wasn't anything to bang it against. If Christopher turned around with his own part showing, he'd probably just laugh and grab at Christopher's too. He might even yank on it and then try to do that human thing they did with their mouths and—no! Enough! Just the thought of having teeth anywhere near his precious organ made Christopher flinch and reflexively drive forward as far into Tania's warm safe comfy depths as he possibly could.

The hard unexpected thrust made Tania shriek. But it was not a shriek of fear or pain, more the sort one would hear while loitering about the vicinity of upper-grade carnival rides, flavoured with a dash of "OHGOD!DOITAGAIN!" Wikus yelled too, equally excited, and lunged forward as well. Christopher squawked like an outraged katydid. Prawns weren't meant to deal with so much stimulation! Receiving was supposed to be the quiet, comforting side of coupling, when one could relax and take a breather and enjoy being loved on by the active partner. How in the Homeworld was he supposed to relax and enjoy anything at all when he was still busy doing someone else and had an alien's male part crammed in tight behind his own at the same time?

Wikus lunged again. Christopher jerked forward too—he couldn't help it, the sensations assaulting his nervous system were just too intense—and found himself losing his balance and his grip on Tania. He slapped both hands down on either side of her to keep from toppling over. Oh, great! Now he'd slide out and be vulnerable to some dreadful new depravity!

Or would he? He might have lost his grip, but Tania hadn't. She'd dug in her claws—really she had!—and somehow hooked her heels in behind his hip protrusions with a tenacity which would have done a grappling iron proud. It freed her to sling herself ever more tightly against her freaked-out inhuman lover, yet allowed Wikus all the space he needed to keep on pounding merrily away.

Christopher, now well and truly trapped in between them, had a sudden terrible epiphany. The reason the two were able to accommodate his alien form so readily was because they'd done all this before. Wikus had been doing a lot more than just leaving presents on Tania's doorstep. He'd stayed behind in District 9 and shown up in good condition because of her. She'd learned the prawn language and much more besides because of him. At some point, Wikus must have revealed his prawn self to her or been caught while depositing a gift. And Tania, lovely, loving Tania, hadn't run screaming away but had gathered the pitiful shaking creature in her arms and had accepted him just as he was, had fed and sheltered him, had learned to understand him, had developed a taste for him—oh, what was he thinking! But it did make sense. It made so much horrible sense…

Wikus slammed into him, jolting him forward into Tania who once again shrieked with glee. The slight alteration to Christopher's position made it all the easier for the two humans to use his body simultaneously. The feel of it was so exquisite, so overwhelming, and so ultimately terrifying in its sheer intensity that he couldn't do a thing but huddle there on his hands and knees, letting them…well, letting them have their way with him, just as he'd intended. But he'd never expected it would be like this! No prawn ever in the entire universe could have imagined this!

Poor Christopher started to yowl, uttering thin, abbreviated yelps accented with ticks in time to Wikus's thrusts. He had to say something. Lascivious nightmare though it was, it was also the most exciting coupling—sex—whatever!—he'd ever experienced in his life and he couldn't stop himself from responding. Wikus, still plastered against his back and chewing on his neck, groaned and moaned in accompaniment. Tania began urging them both on, with faint breathy cries of "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Given different circumstances, the three of them could have made for quite the background rhythm section for an impoverished band lacking a drummer.

It couldn't last. The friction being generated alone should have already resulted in spontaneous combustion. Their synapses, both human and prawn alike, had fired so often in so short a time, that they were virtually fried. Christopher felt the embers within him burst into flames which licked at his vitals. His swimmeret arms shot out of their recesses with their little hands scrabbling for purchase, driven by their master's extreme emotional stress. They found Wikus's arms clutched about the hard chest above them, latched onto one of his forearms and hung on for dear life. Wikus, panting, tightened his own hold. Tania clung to Christopher. All three were now caught up in the same momentum, hurtling inexorably towards orgasm, and not a single ever-loving one of them had brakes.

"I'm coming, baby! Comingcomingcoming—fook ooohhh fook! Aaahhhurgurglehhhyyyaaahhh!" shouted Wikus.

"Wikus! Sweetie! Christopher! Sweetie!" screamed Tania, starting to thrash.

"RrrrawwwoooOOOoooOOOoohhh!" howled Christopher, a phrase which, translated into English, meant pretty much the same thing as it did in his native language. The fire rose up, burning, burning. The humans' hot flesh, it was all around him and within him, pulsating and heaving and throbbing and squelching. Christopher's nerve endings couldn't take it any longer. He went into overload mode and blacked out.

When Christopher came to, he was lying across the bed, feet dangling over one side, his head over the other, utterly spent. His body still burned with an indescribable medley of conflicting sensations. He felt so worn and used and abused that even his eversible little grooming tongue was hanging out of his mouth, a slender black-tipped ribbon of pink amidst the slack tentacles. The humans had fucked him again. Literally! And the only thing he could do about it now was decide how to best extricate himself from the situation without losing any more shreds of his pathetic shattered dignity.

The van de Merwes stopping him was the least of his concerns. Like him, they were sprawled across the bedding, recovering, two boneless sweaty heaps of pink skin and tousled hair. Unlike him, they thought they'd died and gone to heaven and both had big stupid grins on their flushed faces. They lay in a blissful oblivious stupor all the while he carefully slid off the bed and pawed through the debris on the floor, and were still lost in their hazy euphoria when he finally slipped out the door, decently clad once more.

His driver and liaison did act kind of funny when he first showed up outside, by glancing away and seeming unable to meet his gaze, but accepted his order to return him to his Earth quarters and got to it as per usual. It wasn't until Christopher had gotten seated that he happened to look the right way and realized why the two were behaving oddly; the window of the bedroom he'd just exited was wide open before its drawn shades and it faced the driveway where his chauffeur had parked. They'd heard everything. Christopher sank way down into the upholstery of his seat as the limo pulled out and started off on its drive home, his humiliation complete. His only consoling thought was that he'd probably be viewed as some sort of unearthly stud for his ability to handle two other people at the same time.

He slept poorly that night and spent much of the next day up in his colony ship briefing his leaders and running errands for them. His colleagues, he avoided. Christopher knew he still reeked of the humans' sexual odours, both inside and out, and further knew that not a one of his friends would be able to refrain from making some sort of crude comment about it; even the leaders had smirked, although they'd had too much class to say anything aloud. When he went back down to his quarters on Earth late in the afternoon, he found a bouquet of white roses sitting on his desk, delivered during his absence. The accompanying card confirmed that they were from the van de Merwes and it read, 'HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOON', with the 'SOON' underlined three times. Christopher fired the card straight into the trash, shuddering. He thought about ditching the roses too, but didn't. (They smelled too nice.)

Christopher did eventually send a note of thanks to the pair, expressing his appreciation for their 'hospitality', as was proper according to his knowledge of human social etiquette, but made sure he was always far too busy or otherwise unavailable to accept their invitations for a repeat visit over the following several days. He didn't even want to communicate with them over the phone and certainly not face to face. He just had a dreadful feeling that if they ever got him alone again, that something they'd awoken in him would come roaring back out of hiding and override all his intellect and sensibilities, leaving him helpless once more and unable to resist their sensual wiles. Christopher didn't want to experience that feeling of crazy helplessness ever again. His walk on the wild side was over. There'd be nothing but safe, predictable, loving prawn 'sex' for him from now on.

The next and last time Christopher actually saw the van de Merwes was at the sentencing hearing, which he attended only out of duty. Wikus and Tania were also both present, and although there were no seats left near Christopher himself, they managed to snag a couple which allowed them to partially face him, so that they could sneak glances at him throughout the long afternoon without arousing too much suspicion. Christopher exchanged a couple of nods, but otherwise tried to avoid eye contact with them as much as possible. Anytime he did slip up, he imagined that he could already see the gleam of lust in their covetous gazes, a tiny shining bead of spittle adorning Wikus's moustache. Towards the end, he made the mistake of looking their way at the very moment that Piet Smit was being handed his terms of punishment, thinking to offer a little moral support from afar. What he saw were Wikus and Tania grinning broadly, then, before he could look away, they puckered their lips and blew him a kiss, both of them. That was all it took to ignite a flare of heat within Christopher and make him feel, for the first time in his entire life, exposed and embarrassed about how little he really did wear when out in public. Dismayed, he tried to cross his legs to better cover himself. When that didn't work, he dropped his hands into his lap and kept them there.

All the accused who'd been convicted of the world's first-ever crimes against aliens of human-equivalency were given the maximum sentences possible—life in prison with no chance of parole. That evening, with news of the sentencing still reverberating around the globe, Christopher left the ersatz embassy he'd manned for the last time and abandoned it. All the prawn vessels within Earth's atmosphere also left and settled into geostationary orbit far, far above Johannesburg and there they paused. Humanity breathed its first small sigh of relief. It looked as though the aliens had been satisfied and the threat of warfare averted. Then the prawn leadership had Christopher issue their very last communiqué to the people of Earth, which amounted to a demand for restitution to close out their association. Starting with the Earth's moon. The prawns were taking it.

The preliminary sighs became howls of outrage—what did the aliens mean, they were taking the moon? And this business of 'harvesting' some of the other satellites and planets, what was that all about? The prawn armada, happy to oblige by showing, not telling, split off into numerous task groups and shot off on their assignments to demonstrate exactly what they meant.

What the prawns wanted to harvest was ore, millions upon millions of tonnes of ore, ore that would yield enough precious metals and gemstones and raw alloy materials to generously pay off the expenses incurred by their long trip and rescue mission and then some. The little excursions the ships had been making throughout the solar system hadn't been only for sightseeing and exploratory purposes, they'd been taking samples for just this express purpose and already knew just what they wanted and where to go for it. Mercury, Mars, the Earth's moon, Ganymede and Io, Oberon and others, all had caught their interest as likely sources for their needs. The prawns went to work, and back on Earth, observatories around the world were pressed into service to monitor this startling new development.

As developments went, it was a harsh one. The outrage was perhaps justified. No one could believe the destruction being wrought, the brutal, heedless methods the prawns used to extract their ore. There was also a certain sick-feeling relief in watching the aliens carve up and pulverize their faraway industrial targets. It could just as easily have been the Earth.

But the moon, that was the bad one. That was the one everyone could watch being whittled away, without even needing a telescope, and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it except wring their hands and curse the prawns for their inventive cruelty. Over the next six weeks, the colony ships assigned to mine the moon stripped and processed approximately half of its mass, leaving behind a pockmarked hunk of rubble whose ruined face would forever remind the human race of how they'd treated the only alien visitors they'd ever known. And would no doubt ever know, period. The prawn leadership fully intended to badmouth Earth to the entire intergalactic community and get the planet blacklisted.

Christopher, whose own vessel had taken part in the moon's excavation and who'd done his share, had picked up enough bad human traits by then to find some mean pleasure in that.

THE END