I took a deep breath. The station’s air smelt like ozone and rosemary. And a hint of peaches. ‘On my world… Okay, we talked the other day about me being trans, right?’

  ‘Does this have something to do with how weird you were about the eggplant trees?’ Bexley paused to sniff the air as we walked past a restaurant. ‘And you moving from one caste to another?’

  Honestly, that was probably as close an understanding as we’d ever get. Except maybe… ‘Unicornism makes itself known after birth, right? But when an areion’s still a kid?’

  Bexley plastered her forelock down over her face with both her hooves. ‘Um, yeah. Usually around puberty.’

  ‘Being transgender can be like that.’ I bobbed my head. ‘Sort of. Not really. But it’s as good an analogy as any. Only, instead of developing a physical horn, the difference is in the person’s mind. Like, say, they know they’re a unicorn … or, well, something. I don’t think I’m making any sense here. Sorry.’

  I took a deep breath and tried again. ‘Right, so I’m going to try to explain it in my words. Hopefully, it will translate into something useful. I don’t really have a gender. But when I was born, they said I was male. I’m definitely not a man. At all. But I’m not a woman either. I feel more comfortable with she and her pronouns. And I present in ways that humans code as femme. Well, mostly. Sort of. But… Ugh. I’m really making a hash of this.’

  We stepped onto the movator leading down to the docking bay level. Bexley positioned herself on the moving surface and turned to face me. ‘Yeah, no, for sure. I think I get that. We have a similar concept. Sort of. There are people who are born as one sex but who know they’re a different one – or who aren’t any sex at all. So anyways, they just have to sign a declaration and there’s a simple medical process and it all gets sorted out.’ She waved her hoof to indicate the switcheroo.

  We stepped off the movator and headed towards where the Teapot was docked. Bexley’s culture had no concept of gender or even sexual orientation. Observable sex characteristics were only relevant to reproduction, not to gender or sexuality or position in society. So changing sex must be similar to, but different from, being transgender. For a moment, I wondered how that would work but in the end, I decided it was none of my business. So instead I just said, ‘Okay.’

  Bexley stopped walking and looked up at me. ‘It’s interesting – don’t you think? Like, my people accept that kind of difference with not even the bat of an eye. But they’re so opposed to skeledivergence that they go to these extreme lengths to eliminate the slightest deviation from the norm.’

  Taking a deep breath, I nodded.

  We’d arrived at the door where the Teapot was docked. I could see the shiny pink spout and handle through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Bexley linked her arm through mine. ‘Come on. Let’s go get started on the application.’

  The application itself was the easy part. Waiting was harder.

  As we walked up the station’s movator the next morning, Jean stood backwards so she could look at Bexley.

  ‘Hey,’ said Jean with a glint in her eye.

  Bexley leant against me. ‘Are you about to tell me another joke? Because honestly, I don’t know if I can take one right now. I’m too stressy.’

  Jean nudged her step-child affectionately. ‘Oh, come on. Just one to lighten the mood. We could all use a laugh.’

  Bexley pushed her forelock down over her long nose. ‘Yeah, fine. Go on then.’

  ‘What’s better than a plumber?’

  Storm groaned. ‘Not this one again.’

  Jean elbowed her as she stepped off the movator onto the concourse level. ‘Come on. Let Bexley guess.’

  Bexley’s nostrils flared as she considered. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘A plumber and a baker,’ squealed Jean gleefully, doubling up with raucous laughter.

  Bexley glared at her – for about two seconds before succumbing to the giggles. ‘Okay, fine. That’s really funny. I’ll give you that.’

  Peggy pushed her glasses up her nose. She looked at me and then back at Jean. ‘A plumber and a baker? I don’t get it.’

  Jean pushed her purple mane back over her shoulder. ‘A plumber.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And a baker.’

  ‘Yeah, I get it,’ said Peggy as we arrived at the pub. ‘I just don’t get it.’

  The jokes soared over my head without even pausing to wave as they passed me by, but I found Peggy’s cluelessness endearing.

  We’d agreed to meet up with Elim for breakfast. She was a lawyer and a member of her people’s government. And she’d been the one who put together the application for the two thousand or so kobolds currently living on Deep Space Five. So, if anyone here could be said to be an expert, it would be her. But mainly we were getting together for moral support.

  We all said our hellos, placed our orders, and took our seats.

  Elim took a sip of her beverage – a kobold favourite. I’d tasted it once; it reminded me of something I’d had back on Earth – Deptford Death Sauce. Imagine drinking a pint of that. While it was on fire. Whatever it was, it had proven popular with the areions as well. Bexley’s whole family had ordered glasses of it.

  The plan for the morning was to relax and distract ourselves. But, inevitably, the conversation had turned to the application.

  ‘Asylum requests to the GU generally fall into one of three categories,’ Elim signed. ‘There’s the disaster relief classification. This one covers medium to large groups of people seeking to be removed from imminent harm. This is the type of application both we and the plenties made when the asteroid destroyed our planet. Our application further requested protection from the plenties on the basis of their oppression of our people.’ She glanced at the next table, where her child, Dinah, was deep in conversation with BB and Aurora.

  My insides did a bit of a dance as I recalled my first meeting with Dinah. While Elim had been part of the community of free kobolds, Dinah was held by the plenties. They’d taken her when she was just a child and used her as slave labour. She was the first kobold I’d met – the one who drew my attention to her people’s plight.

  The whole group remained silent for a moment. Then Elim added, ‘Lem and Spock are best placed to tell us about the second type.’

  I inhaled slowly as I thought about my own two immigration applications. ‘The application Spock and I made to the GU was for individuals and families coming from – what was the phrase?’ I pressed my fingers to my temples for a second. ‘Unaligned citizen immigrants to the GU in exceptional circumstances.’

  As I spoke, lights flowed across Elim’s HUD as her AI translated my words into visual signals for her.

  The only other immigration application I’d done was when Spock and I had moved from the UK to Canada. It involved a multi-page document in which I had to provide a detailed history of my life, education, and career. I’d had to list out all the places I’d travelled to and answered dozens of questions. Bizarrely, it had been way more complex than the application I made to the GU.

  Elim spread her arms wide. ‘Yes, that’s right. This type of application is suitable for use by members of non-spacefaring races or far-distant planets where there is unlikely to be any political repercussions caused by their migration.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, we, er, found ourselves in the GU after we were kidnapped from our home world. My species has some spacefaring capacity, but we’ve never left our solar system.’

  Jean took a sip of her fiery Death Sauce. ‘Interesting. And Spock’s people? Do they have space capabilities?’

  I had to bite my lip at the thought of a space programme designed by and for dogs. ‘Er, no. That is … well, no. They don’t.’

  Elim smiled. ‘The third type of application is almost a combination of the other two types. It’s a request for asylum or protection. In most instances, applications of this type are made by citizens of non-GU worlds.’

  ‘That was the one we made,’ said Storm. ‘I’m hoping it’s going to be successful. Because otherwise, I don’t know what we’re going to do. We can’t go to another GU world – they’ll just ship us straight back to Hwin. We’ll have to pick a planet that’s compatible with life but not a member of the GU. I guess maybe we could live on your world, Lem? Do you think that would be—’

  Jean wrapped one arm around Storm and used the other hoof to smooth Storm’s mane. ‘It will be all right. We’ll figure it out, I promise.’

  Even I could see Storm was struggling to focus. She was getting lost in her own spiralling worries.

  Storm inhaled sharply. ‘Sure. Fine. Whatever.’ She opened her mouth to continue but both Jean and Peggy put hooves on her arms. Storm closed her mouth and leant back in her seat. She picked up her pint glass and drank deeply.

  ‘There have been other cases made by GU citizens for protection,’ Elim continued. ‘But these have always been from people who have been – or at least who claimed to have been – falsely accused or convicted of a crime. The difference is you’re not being falsely accused – you admit you’re guilty of leaving the planet to evade the legally mandated surgery.’

  Bile rose in my throat. How was it a crime to protect your child?

  Storm slammed her mug down on the table. ‘It’s not right.’ She held up her hooves in front of herself. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m getting ahead of you again. Please, go on.’

  Bexley, too anxious to sit any longer, stood and paced in circles around the table.

  ‘It’s entirely understandable,’ Elim signed. ‘No apologies needed. Now, applications for asylum based on persecution of someone for their identity have been made, of course. But I did a search and they’ve almost always come from outside the GU. There have been a few claims of persecution where the applicant said the government was failing in its duty to protect them. But you’re the first to request asylum on the basis of persecution by a GU member government.’

  Spock, lying next to me on the pub’s sofa-bench-thing, rolled over on her back and kicked Jean.

  I glanced over with an embarrassed grimace. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered. ‘She’s just trying to get comfy. Er, comfier.’

  Jean smiled as she stretched out a hoof to rub Spock’s belly.

  ‘I’ve read through the documents you sent me,’ Elim continued. ‘Now, I’m not sure I follow the technical details of the research reports you’ve included. They’re very academic and scientific. Not to mention the fact they presume an understanding of areion physiology that I don’t have. As a result, they’re not particularly accessible to specialists in other fields. I’m glad you included some key quotes – they were authoritative and got to the heart of the matter in accessible language.’

  For our application to the GU, I’d had to make a short statement about how Spock and I found ourselves in space – being kidnapped by bunnyboos. We’d had to promise to abide by GU and local laws and to pay our taxes. Yeah, my dog pays taxes – what of it?

  ‘Your request is somewhat similar to ours – but also different.’ Elim lifted her mug of Death Sauce and took a drink. ‘It’s similar because we, too, were seeking asylum with protection and non-extradition – and because our planet of origin is a member of the GU.’

  Bexley stopped her pacing. ‘Wait. Did you just say planet Dave is a member of the GU? Even after it ceased to be habitable?’

  Elim’s eyes sparkled as she blinked sideways. ‘Ah, you don’t know this bit. I wondered if it might be new information. You’ll recall the colony on Dave was established by plenties and kobolds working in harmony. We both originated from the same home world – and that planet is a member of the GU.’

  Bexley tapped her hooves in the air and resumed her path, circling our table. ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘At present, there are 184 worlds in the GU,’ said Peggy. ‘And several hundred more in the Galactic Economic Area. New worlds are added from time to time. And sometimes one leaves – though that’s pretty rare.’

  Storm held one hoof out towards her child and another towards Peggy. ‘Can you both just let her tell us what she knows about the application process, please?’ Unlike humans, when areions were stressed, their voices got deeper.

  ‘Right, right,’ said Bexley. ‘Sorry.’

  Elim tapped a few buttons on her tablet. ‘Your application is similar to ours in that we’re both seeking to nullify extradition orders from a particular species. But then, the key difference is that ours was general on both sides. We sought and obtained a non-extradition order and a protection order – both of which apply to all kobolds and all plenties. Or, rather, to all of the kobolds and plenties from planet Dave. In effect, no Davian plenties can be within a hundred kilometres of a Davian kobold nor can they try to force any kobolds to attend to them.’

  A chill washed over me as I thought of the conditions we’d seen on Dave. Although it was the plenties who kept kobolds as slaves, they saw themselves as the victims.

  All eyes focused on her as she continued. ‘Where your application differs from ours is that you’re looking for an order that’s got a planetary government on one side and specific individuals on the other. In a way, you’re asking the GU to protect you from your own species. The GU – as I’m learning – is very political. You need to make it clear that the government and its agents are a threat to your family. You did a good job of demonstrating the nature of that threat. The application was clear, unambiguous, and concise. You did well, I think.’

  Storm swallowed. ‘So you think they’ll accept our application?’

  ‘All we can do now is wait.’ Jean tapped her hooves on the table.

  My heart was wedged in my throat.

  Storm joined Bexley in pacing – circuiting the table in the opposite direction to Bexley’s path. ‘We tried to make sure it was clear that they’re going to drag us back to Hwin … that they’re intent on performing unnecessary surgery on an infant. We want our child to grow up the way nature intended her to. This de-winging is barbaric. Did you know that an infant’s lungs aren’t well developed enough to support anaesthetic and—’

  Jean ran to Storm and enveloped her in her arms. ‘It’ll be okay. Let’s just wait and see what they say, yeah?’

  Storm’s eyes grew wide. ‘A message!’ She pulled out her tablet and began clicking. She dropped into the seat she had abandoned a few moments before. Staring at it, she said, ‘Dear Storm, Jean, Peggy, and unborn child. Thank you for your application. Blah blah blah. The GU… More blah-de-blah … intensely political … sovereignty of planetary governments … creating a precedent. Blah blah. I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the result…’

  The tablet slipped from her hoof and fell to the floor. My muscles clenched and I struggled to catch my breath. I couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for Bexley’s family.

  The clatter of the tablet landing on the floor woke Spock from her slumber. She sat up and looked around. She could always sense when someone was hurting. This time, she looked from person to person, before making her way to Storm. Spock sat down on her haunches and leant into Storm’s side. ‘Be okay.’

  Storm looked down at Spock and promptly burst into tears. Jean tried to wrap her arms around Storm but Storm got up and ran out of the pub.

  Jean dabbed at her eyes as she looked at the rest of us. ‘Sorry.’ Then she and Peggy took off after Storm.

  Bexley stood up and walked slowly but determinedly from the pub. I turned and waved to Elim as Spock and I followed her.

  10 Zippy the walking rainbow

  Spock and I trailed Bexley to the big garden in the centre of the station. She flopped down on the pale purple sand beneath a cluster of fiery orange grasses.

  Bexley pushed her forelock down. ‘What are we going to do? What’s my family supposed to do? I thought for sure the GU would help them. I don’t…’ She looked up at me, her eyes glistening. ‘I hate this feeling. Life is a constant adventure for me. I never know what’s around the corner and I like it that way. But this… I can’t help my parents. I brought them here and promised I could sort this and there’s nothing I can do. If I weren’t a unicorn, I’d be smarter and I’d be able to—’

  My hand shot up. ‘No! This has nothing to do with you not being smart. First of all, you are. And secondly, you are not less than anyone. Ever. Okay? And thirdly…’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But we’ll figure something out.’ I wracked my brain trying to think of what that might be.

  The three of us sat in the arboretum for … some amount of time. We did not go back to the pub and get drunk. Definitely not.

  ‘Hey, Bexley,’ I said eventually.

  She was lying on her back in the sand. ‘Wanna go back to the pub and get drunk?’

  ‘Yeah. Why not – it’s almost lunchtime.’ It was, in fact, not anywhere near lunchtime. But I couldn’t remember ever feeling this bleak. At least a beer – or something like it – would wash the sour taste from my mouth.

  Spock leapt to her feet and wagged her tail. ‘Feed Spock?’

  I was on my third potato martini – hey, don’t judge – when Holly announced a text message from an anonymous source. I was about to tell it to save the message for later when it added, ‘It’s marked urgent.’

  I looked back at Bexley. Both of her. I shrugged. She pointed at her ear – she had a message too.

  ‘Play meshage, puhs, Holly.’

  ‘By now, your friends will have received a formal rejection from the GU,’ said Holly. ‘Although the GU is unable to assist them through formal channels, there may be some assistance I can offer – off the record. Please come to meeting room 442 in half an hour.’

  My eyes widened as I listened and I felt my buzz crash down. I bit my lip to keep my hopes from running away with me. Bexley pointed at her ears. Since when did she have three ears? Okay, maybe the buzz wasn’t entirely gone.

  Bexley was bouncing in her seat. ‘You got that message too, yeah? It’s got to be from Chrisjen, right? I’m not imagining that part, am I?’

 

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