The Beetle’s Hucow Pet (Hucows of Zairion Prime #2)

CHAPTER 1

CELESTE

How I ended up on Zairion Prime as a beetle’s pet is… a long story.

Where to even start?

Probably with the cataclysm.

Twenty Earth years ago—as tracked on special atomic watches, even though Earth no longer exists—the little blue planet shattered into jagged chunks and burned a fiery death.

I was almost twenty.

Right when Earth was on the verge of collapse, the ICSS—Intergalactic Coalition of Sentient Species—swooped in to save us.

They gathered samples of every species and loaded as many living creatures as they could onto massive ark ships, including the ninety percent of humans that hadn’t already died in the cataclysm’s first fissures.

At first, they kept family units together.

That was the worst time for me. My relationship with my mother and brother was already strained; the stress of the cataclysm and being cooped up on the ark ship only made them meaner.

Then the assignments began. The ICSS scientists treated us like animals in a zoo, and I mean that in a positive way. They took our happiness and enrichment seriously and tried to get to know us—all nine billion of us—as individuals.

In large part, they tried to help us become self-sustaining.

They put us to work designing and building the city-ships that would become our permanent homes.

There was all kinds of work: mechanics, builders, community organizers, experience designers, advocates for marginalized identities and experiences.

Over time, humans have also been assigned to jobs supporting other species.

We have nimble hands and strong problem-solving abilities with relatively low nutrition requirements compared to other species.

We also have creative minds to bring fresh ideas to civil and artistic projects alike. Overall, integration is going well.

The ICSS was the guiding hand, stepping in whenever humans started to behave in the way that had gotten us into this mess in the first place.

Somehow, they pulled it off. The ‘aliens’ of the ICSS—though, it’s odd to call them that, since we’re the aliens in their skies—are more advanced than humans.

Like, on a quantum level. They can perceive and manipulate gravity wells and time strings and consciousness energy and a bunch of other stuff that’s literally beyond our comprehension.

I asked a Scintian—a gorgeous species of iridescent squid-like creatures that hover in the air because they can climb gravity threads—about it once.

Xe told me that most sapients have a sense for absolute truth, which humans lack.

To put it in more accessible terms, xe said it’s as if all humans are colorblind: vulnerable to being misled, convinced that red is green or green is red.

But to the species of the ICSS, the truth is always clear.

In my experience over the last twenty years, that’s mostly been true. Maybe being ‘truth-blind’—in no small part due to how my mother treated me—has made me wary. Observant.

I have a chance of spotting a pattern even a Scintian might miss.

Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of ICSS human assignments are successful.

It sounds pretty good until you realize that leaves nine million people without a sense of place or purpose.

I’m one of those people. The longest I’ve lasted in a role is two and a half years. I’m either out of my depth or overqualified. Failing to bond with my fellow assigned humans, or bonding too much.

I’ve tried and failed to convince the ICSS caseworkers that I’d rather be bored or picked on than constantly uprooted.

I ask to be given more time. A longer shot somewhere, anywhere.

“Humans are extremely adaptable,” they tell me. “We would know in two years if you’d be able to adjust. The next assignment has a tenfold higher statistical likelihood of compatibility.”

But I know the truth. I am not extremely adaptable. I feel on the verge of tears when the cafeteria is out of my usual breakfast. Even small changes to my schedule send me reeling for weeks. I’m like moss desperately trying to grow on a stone that won’t stop rolling.

I’m an anomaly. An outlier.

And so I see a little crack in the ICSS’s claims. They may be able to see some objective truths, but they can’t measure an individual human’s adaptability.

Stories similar to mine echo across the support boards for humans that still don’t have a permanent assignment; there’s some quirk of the human psyche that the ICSS can’t quite figure out.

Every time they reassign me, they reduce the odds I’ll ever fit in anywhere.

A couple years ago, I thought I’d found my answer. The support boards mentioned that the bounce rate from one specific assignment is zero percent. Nobody has ever been dissatisfied.

Of course, there are whispers that they’re being held there against their will, or so fundamentally changed that they may as well be dead. I’m just a little ‘truth-blind’ human, so all I can do is research and guess.

It is a strange assignment, to be sure. Humans are injected with a serum that massively increases lactation. Thus, they can become a humane and consensual source of milk, which the Arthropoid species—basically centaurs with the bodies of bugs instead of horses—have a high demand for.

Colloquially, they’re called hucows.

I’ve looked for patterns that might indicate it’s somehow a secret dumping ground for humans deemed low-utility.

But the IQ distribution is no different from the standard population’s, and no illness or genetic marker is over-represented.

All genders are assigned, but I won’t pretend to understand the mechanics of that.

The risk seemed worth it. So, I used a special provision to request the assignment. Each human is allowed to do so only once; the ICSS knows curiosity would get the better of us otherwise.

I was rejected.

I lack something that all these people, with no uniting pattern in their data, somehow have.

I’ve never felt more worthless.

So, I fell back on the one trait I’ve always been proud of: I’m no quitter.

I dug deeper. Read the message boards more carefully. Started to notice patterns. Code words. Secrets hiding in plain sight.

There’s an… alternative option.

An illegal option.

Some Arthropoids aren’t satisfied with bottled milk. They want fresh milk, straight from the source.

They want hucow pets.

By all accounts, these pets are pampered. The best milk comes from the happiest cows, after all.

At this point, I don’t really care if that happiness comes from a pill, as some people claim. I don’t even need to be happy. I just need a place where I can stay, and I never have to leave again.

So I made a blacknet account. Hunted until I found the right contacts. Sent in my information.

I was sure they’d take any willing body.

I was rejected again, citing issues of compatibility.

This time, I was furious. Ready to threaten blackmail, to turn state’s witness and destroy the whole operation if they didn’t let me in.

I only realized later how quickly that would’ve gotten me killed.

But fortunately, a couple days later, I got a second blacknet message.

I was deemed borderline on the acceptance criteria, so I had the chance to appeal.

I would need to find a way, legal or otherwise, to get to Zairion Prime. There, I would meet with a representative of the organization who would make the final determination on my comparability.

My years observing all the tiny cracks in ICSS process became very, very handy.

My plan was only good for a one-way ticket, and I’d be a fugitive once I landed on Zairion Prime whether I was accepted to be a hucow or not, but finding a quiet place to hide for the rest of my life sounded a hell of a lot better than letting the ICSS keep throwing me around.

So, I put in a recuperation request for leave time to an approved planet, making sure to pick a warp flight with a layover on Zairion Prime.

They always check your tickets when you board a starship.

They never check when you leave.

I strolled out of the starport in Zairion’s biggest city, Sherexis, breathing deep the oxygen-rich air and petrichor scent, quietly praying to never set foot on a starship again.