Extract from "The Survivors" (approx. 1,600 words)
It was the fifth bar he had tried in the last week, and the last: in the morning his ship left, and he would have to turn his search elsewhere. His ticket was paid for and not refundable, and anyway, what was the point in staying here if she wasn't to be found here? He had a good feeling though. Payment loosens tongues but they don't always speak truly, but there had been something in the eyes of his informant (well, one set of them anyway) which had convinced him that he would find her here.
The barman greeted him with a wide smile, but then, Broloxians greeted everyone with a wide smile: their mouths didn't move at all, so it was the eyes you had to watch, staring at you from those stalks on top of the head that always reminded him of a watermelon, not that such things existed anymore.
“Falcon, yeah?”
“Hawk,” he corrected the Broloxian, who wiggled his stalks.
“Yeah, I knew it was some extinct animal,” he commented, small green and purple bubbles rising from his wide mouth as he spoke. “You're really a human?”
“Right.”
A sound that may have been a whistle, a scream or a burp escaped from the barman. He continued polishing the glass in his hand.
“Thought you guys was all dead,” he commented.
Hawk shrugged. “Not all of us.”
Looking slightly uncomfortable, the Broloxian nodded to a table in the far corner.
“She's waiting for you over there.” He finished polishing the glass, gave it a critical examination and, satisfied, replaced it on the shelf. When he turned back, the human was gone.
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