The tiny shelter we had thrown together in a hurry was filled with nothing but silence.
Because I had thoroughly botched first contact with the mouse-eared... or, as she called herself, Ratkin who seemed most likely to speak my language, the conversation was not flowing smoothly.
"...."
The green-haired primitive beside me scratched her head.
I did not know about Ratkin, but I had heard of Neanderthals. They were supposedly a restored close relative of modern humans that had once gone extinct.
Their skeletal structure itself differed from humans', giving them great strength and sturdy bodies.
"Are you all right?"
"Ah, yes."
Having been hit by one, I could definitely understand that now.
Even a baseline like me—meaning, a plain old human without a modified genome—had supposedly undergone far more genetic modification than humans from hundreds of thousands of years ago, when Neanderthals had been active, but...
Even if I had offered no real resistance, she had cracked my skull open in a single blow.
"...Should we start by introducing ourselves?"
"Hmph!"
"Umm."
Unable to bear the awkward situation, I opened the floodgates for some small talk.
The fact that they had not immediately captured and killed me had to mean there was room for conversation...
My personal creed was that problems which could be solved through conversation were better solved through conversation.
"My name is Polaris Leto. I'm an engineer from Planet M1308..."
"Green."
After me, the other two added a word each.
"Pardon?"
"Name. Green Shark."
The green-haired primitive pointed at herself as she spoke.
Hmm. Straightforward.
"And you are..."
"Marmotte."
Was she Marmotte because she was a white rat? Hers was no less one-dimensional a name.
Still, she had seemed quite offended when I called her a rat earlier, so I should refrain from pointless remarks about how fitting or pretty her name was.
"Um, this may be presumptuous, but..."
"?"
"May I ask why you hit me...?"
Even so, I was curious.
What if it was some greeting custom on this planet that I did not know about?
From Green Shark's perspective, perhaps she had casually used the Four Emperors River-Slaying Technique, and I simply failed to take it...
"I'm sorry I hit you first."
Hmm, so it was not a greeting.
But if saying sorry settled everything, why would there be police or laws?
Still, there were currently no police or laws, while the club remained at the primitive's waist, so I kept my mouth shut.
"That thing outside. Did you arrive in it?"
"If you mean the pod... yes, I did."
Marmotte pointed at the pod that had crashed outside.
Its exterior was badly crumpled, and I had stripped out every surviving module among the few that remained, including the communications equipment. It was now no more than a lump of scrap.
"It's the thing space pirates ride in, right?"
"That's right."
"It seems Green Shark misunderstood. Apparently, they often attacked her tribe."
Green Shark herself suspiciously shook her head, but when Marmotte gave her a meaningful look, she nodded for the moment.
A lie, then.
"So she hit you first without bothering to find out anything."
"Is that so?"
"But after hitting you, she saw you were unarmed and did not have many belongings. She realized it had been a misunderstanding, so we treated you first."
She had hit me awfully hard for a misunderstanding. Still, it did add up.
Space pirates were the pinnacle of efficiency: they launched pods from orbit, caused a scene, collected the loot if they won, and simply fled in their ship if they lost.
"So, anyway..."
"You."
Green Shark suddenly cut Marmotte off as she tried to continue.
"Are you male?"
"...I suppose that's the case?"
"....."
A strange light entered Green Shark's eyes.
"You're mine."
What?
.
.
.
Marmotte frowned deeply at Green Shark's sudden advance.
A low-intelligence allergy began prickling all over her.
If the man before her, Polaris, was not a space pirate, then he was a space castaway.
Which also meant she could sell off a man who knew nothing about the place without any consequences.
Marmotte considered several factions that might buy a slave.
'The Ratkin Kingdom is somewhat troublesome, but I could sell him quickly...'
They were still better than the Neanderthals, who were profoundly stupid, but Ratkin were not exactly a species one could call intelligent either.
Though they were her own kind, were they not on an entirely different level from herself, an experimental subject whose brain functions had been artificially enhanced in a laboratory?
The few males would be communal property, so they would stockpile and breed him as much as possible.
'The Inari Family has been short on vital essence lately, so they'll pay well too.'
The Miho Province lived long lives, but not only for reproduction: they needed vital essence alongside solarization to regulate the concentration of mechanites in their bodies, making males valuable.
Moreover, considering their overwhelmingly advanced technology even on this planet, they would probably offer the best price.
'Yuran... no, forget it.'
Those lot did not even distinguish between men and women, so they would not be in any particular hurry.
On a planet where men were this extremely scarce, the male before her held a 'value' more precious than anything else.
There would probably be enough silver piled up for her to fill a bathtub and swim in it,
and then she could set up the private laboratory she had always dreamed of,
and perhaps...
Marmotte quietly finished her calculations in her head.
But that sweet future was only possible if Green Shark before her cooperated.
.
Green Shark had been born a warrior of a Neanderthal tribe.
To the misfortune of most people in this star system, including herself—
Green Shark possessed an exceptionally brilliant mind. For a Neanderthal.
'Boring.'
The other warriors of the tribe did nothing but rely on their strength, swinging their fists and bringing down their weapons.
But Green Shark, an unprecedented genius, knew better. [Incapable of Research]
'A club is stronger when you hold it with both hands!'
But did they not say that a protruding stone gets hammered?
Her efficient fighting had earned her treatment as a tribal champion, but she could not rise any higher.
After a social quarrel born from a minor difference of opinion with the Great Mother, who monopolized the few males and wielded them as power, she had spent several years wandering.
"So slender..."
The first outsider male she had ever seen was this delicate.
His long, slim limbs looked as though they had been made by stretching out tree branches.
He looked as though he might snap with a tap, thinner even than a Neanderthal child.
Yet thin muscles clung to him as if asserting his sex.
"He smells good, too."
He smelled soft and pleasant, like hugging a muffalo with both arms.
The man was screaming things like, "Let me go," and, "Someone save me," but even that was pleasant noise.
.
.
.
A broad, log-like arm was mercilessly squeezing my waist as though I were a teddy bear someone hugged before sleeping in bed.
Green Shark had suddenly declared me her spoils of war and tucked me under her arm.
"Someone save me!"
I desperately begged Marmotte, the one person who could at least mediate this, for help, but she was resting her chin on a hand, lost in deep thought.
"Hmm. Don't struggle."
[Received Affection: +4]
Damn it.
Her hand gently stroked me as though petting a cat.
But unlike a cat, I did not have the fluidity of a semi-liquid body, so my long legs sticking awkwardly out was uncomfortable as hell.
"All right."
By then, Marmotte had finished thinking and looked me straight in the eye.
"We own you."
"And that means?"
"It means whatever we do with you is up to us."
...So that was why they had saved me.
"Is there no salvation...?"
-----
The frontier system average for today.
It is more convenient to imprison and recruit space castaways than to rescue them.
As long as it is not me...
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