“I’ll be fine,” Valentin assured his mother casually.
“We’ll be watching. And look out for the young woman who is going to run Human Food Two in Alba. She might be there in person as she is now residing in House Rega. I think you would like her. She had a devilish personality.”
“Mother, I don’t need a matchmaker.”
“You say that now, but when you meet her you will see that I’m right.”
“I’ll let you know,” Valentin said knowing his mother was usually correct about the kind of women he liked.
“May the gods light your path,” Rica said, but already her mind was wondering how her son would do compared to his Imperial counterparts. Ever since he had grown into a man, they had never discussed his mixed heritage. She assumed he had found peace with it. However, his wanting to join the race, if not for a particular woman, signaled that he still had some rifts to be smoothed out about being half-Alliance and half-human.
“I miss you both and tell Father to RVM me when he has a chance,” he never replied with the religious phrase and thought his mother did only out of habit more than true belief because she had never taught him about her religion or made him say the phrases.
“I will. He’ll want to hear about what you thought of Earth.”
Valentin smiled and nodded and ended the RVM with a touch.
Valentin stripped off the rest of his clothing and put it in the black ceremonial basket with his name on it held by a slave in the competitors’ tent. The warm air against his body felt good. It had been a long time since he had felt so free and enthusiastic. This past year had been a strange one, he had worked a lot and had made more moral decisions this year than he had possibly made in his entire life. Now with nothing to concentrate on but this race, he felt free from all his concerns, at least for the next three days.
Valentin also thought he had a good shot of getting into the top five. Not only were there lucrative prizes for the first five places, and they all included substantial amounts of UCs, even more than what he could make in a year, which was equivalent to what most Alliance citizens made over ten years, but the prestige of placing in the top five was incredible, which was also something he could benefit from. His mother was not wrong, he needed to find a wife soon or he would be too set in his ways to find a genuine wife, he had seen it with so many other successful men from Reima Two, they became too powerful and then too picky to find their true other halves. Valentin looked up at the sky and then touched the insignia tattoo on his chest. He knew his crew onboard the Song in orbit were watching and he was being broadcasted now. It was on the screen to his left. The Empire broadcast the race out to the galaxy as only very select few were allowed to physically watch the race.
Valentin took his place with the other men for the race. They had all had to submit physicals when entering the race that included their endurance tests. After entry, they were placed accordingly to make for the best possible race both for participants and viewers. Valentin was placed, not surprisingly, with the other young Alliance men in the first group, which was the group most likely to win. The only difference between himself and these other men were his eye color and tattoos. Both of which the other men noticed immediately, and their eyes perused his body, and after a few seconds comprehension and esteem crossed their faces. His tattoos signified his dealings throughout the galaxy and the large tattoo in the center of his chest, his emblem of the Nage Horde, not unlike an Alliance House, made them look twice and then they nodded respectfully. His reputation preceded him. Valentin had carved out the Nage Horde himself from other Alliance Outcasts, children of people who had married between classes and forced out of the Empire and in a very short span of time they were already an influential force on this side of the galaxy.
While Valentin waited for the race to begin at the starting line, he looked around at the small group of spectators in a nearby elevated glass box. There were only about 30 people there and surprisingly he saw a human woman and then another. He checked the name on the box and of course it was House Rega. He stared at the human woman with blonde hair who was staring right back at him. He assumed she was the new chef for Human Food Two. She had light blonde hair that was braided in a decidedly Alliance fashion and she was wearing a very fashionable maximum class dress, if one could say that so much material could ever have any fashion to it. Despite the dress, he was entranced by her and wondered how difficult it would be to get someone like her to give up the Empire and move to Reima Two. Not very difficult, he reckoned. Then someone punched his arm lightly bringing him out of his blissful fantasies about the human woman.
“Get ready. The race is about to begin,” the Alliance man who had jabbed his arm said next to him.
Valentin looked down at the man, there was no doubt he was middling class by his short hair and tattoos signifying his lucrative trade deals. “Thanks, something caught my attention.”
“Yes, they are certainly colorful,” he agreed. “If you win you can meet them at the victor’s reception. I plan on being there and getting one to invoke the same law Jade of Human Food did. I don’t mind sharing a wife.”
Valentin looked at the woman again who was still looking in his direction. He had an advantage that he was taller than almost all the other men, so he stood out. Then he said to the man, not looking at him, but still at the woman, “I would need to convince her to leave the Empire altogether, so I better win I guess?”
The man said enthusiastically, “Let the gods decide.”
Valentin nodded to the man then gave the woman one last look, their gazes met for a few seconds again and then she gave him a small smile. He couldn’t help but smile back and thought it must be all this fresh air and the race making him act so uncharacteristically amicably. Valentin took a deep breath and focused then. The race would begin in seconds. He could still feel the human’s eyes on him. His heart was pumping, and he thought it was a good sign the human woman had smiled at him. Valentin would think about that smile through the next days and meet her, maybe kiss her lips, and if their personalities matched, who knew what the future could hold. He enjoyed all kinds of food and wouldn’t mind having a wife who was a chef.
Only a half a minute passed before an announcer came out and was heard over a loudspeaker, “May the gods shine their light on us and these competitors today and for the duration of this race to see who among these men is the most worthy in the galaxy of the honor of being the Yoli victor in the year 18907. Men in the first group, please take your marks,” then after a second a loud rocket spouting vivid blue flames went off into the grey sky and all the men began running for the distant yellow mountains.
Ellie had seen the tall handsome Alliance man looking at her from the starting line. She could have sworn he had blue eyes, but she chided herself silently that she must have had too much zota already. Alliance men didn’t have blue eyes, only green or grey eyes, she thought. But she decided she didn’t care what color eyes that man had, the rest of him was gorgeous, even among all the other grey men, he stood out to her as very attractive. He was tall, even for an Alliance man and had a pleasing body, not too muscular, but brawny enough to look like he could stand his own in a duel. His penis hanging between his legs was neither too large nor too small to Ellie’s unprofessional eyes which suited her. She had never had sex before. Although she had come close numerous times before leaving Earth. And since moving to the Empire there had not been an opportunity. She knew she could have slept with a slave artist, this was made clear to her, but after looking at her mother’s personal logs, she associated that too much with her mother and didn’t want to do it. She wanted to have her first complete sexual experience with someone she was attached to emotionally, not a someone she was paying. And she really didn’t see too much difference between what she had already done with men to the actual completion of sex, but one thing that did nag at her when she thought of sex with Alliance men was that their penises were much larger and textured than human men’s and unlike the Alliance women she had overheard talking in the numerous cafes in Alba, that was the last thing she thought she wanted. She always reminded herself, I’m not my mother. I want a gentle man.