My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire by Colin Alexander Page B

her, if for no other reason than to get the accusation out into the open. But she said nothing. I wondered if she was just too afraid of me to talk, my predecessor having been Kolgorinn, but my elaborate attempts at politeness and kindness met with no response. I could have turned in a different direction and spoken my lines to one of the walls for all the impact they had.
    One day, I brought the late meal in and announced in the grandiose fashion I had adopted, “Dinner is served, Little Mistress.”
    She said nothing, as usual, but I thought I saw a twitch of the shoulders at the phrase. Possibly, she didn’t like it. Irritating someone was a hell of a way to start a conversation, but what alternative was there? Throughout that meal, I “Little Mistressed” her to death. Outwardly, there was no more response than I had obtained by standing quietly next to the door. Still, by the time I left, even though I had been the only one talking, I was certain from her posture that I had made an impression. I decided that when I came back the next time, I would keep at it until something happened.
    “Mealtime again, Little Mistress,” I said as I came through the door.
    “I wish you would not call me that,” she said.
    I almost dropped the tray when she spoke, I was so convinced that it would take forever until I heard her speak. Temporarily, I forgot the line I had worked out to follow up any opening. Fortunately, I’m good at thinking on my feet.
    “What should I call you then?” I asked.
    “Nothing would be fine,” she answered, “but if you have to call me something, use my name.”
    Her reply surprised me a bit. Not for its content, but for its tone, which was low pitched and completely controlled. It was a peculiar role reversal, given the situation. My voice was the shaky one.
    “I need to know your name before I can use it,” I said, reasonably.
    “Jaenna a Tyaromon is my name,” and there was defiance in her voice.
    “Well, then Jaenna, here is your meal.” I set it down on the table and backed off against the cabin wall. “I’m Danny Troy.”
    “Dannytroy,” she said, making one word of it. “Do you not claim an ancestor?”
    I wasn’t accustomed to Imperial naming. People used a given name and the name of an ancestor, usually but not always the father. The “a” stood for a long word that meant “descended from.” Introductions and formal speech called for the full name. I seemed to remember from the Teacher that females rarely “claimed an ancestor.” The forcefulness with which Jaenna gave her name made me wonder why.
    “I should have said Danny a Troy,” I apologized. “Where I come from, we drop the ‘a’. You can call me Danny.”
    “I do not see why I should call you anything other than the freebooter
skurlur
you are,” she shot back.
    Skurlur
would lose its colorful connotations in translation. It’s an odoriferous species of slime mold found on many Imperial worlds. I had not been complimented.
    I had the feeling that if I let the conversation lapse into silence, those were the last words we would have. So, I tried again.
    “Look, I’m not trying to pretend you’re enjoying yourself, but it has to be boring as hell to sit and stare at the walls. You can talk to me.”
    “And why should I talk to a freebooter?” There was an edge forming under the soft voice. “You attacked my ship, killed most of the crew, and I am simply going to sit here until Carvalho wants this cabin back and kills me too.”
    “Wait, just wait a minute,” I began, rather defensively. “I can’t say anything about what happened to your ship, I joined this one after that fight. I’m not trying to say it was right, it wasn’t. But that’s past and done. Your father will pay off Carvalho and you’ll be swapped back. Carvalho hardly went to all that trouble just to kill you.”
    “Dannytroy,” she asked, “are all you freebooters cretins as well as murderous thieves?”
    Jaenna did have a way