There it was, Parnassus, the last hostel, the last resting place of the traveler, the last place of calm in a galaxy victim of entropy, since the fall of the human reign, our presence was no longer welcome anywhere, not even if the Inus were now sheltering us, in their already scarce operative nodes. Only the security and impartiality of Parnassus allows some peace to the few of us left in this dark and dying universe.
In a world illuminated only by the remaining heat of a white dwarf, one of the few that still shines, in the middle of a desolate and frozen steppe, its three gloomy buildings stand, as the only sign of life on the whole planet, illuminated by the almost exhausted energy coming from one of the last micro fusion reactors, still in operation, a forgotten technology, in a universe where almost all the hydrogen has been exhausted, after the end of the last stars.
In front of the building, seven ships, all of them different, were stopped. Apparently, today there were more guests than usual, especially for an almost uninhabited galaxy. I descended next to an old and dilapidated Cintar ship, far away from its old domains I thought, on the other side of the central lobe of the galaxy, where not even the white dwarfs shine anymore, where light and heat are things of the past.
I came down from the ship, sheathed in my dirty and worn-out airtight suit, although the thin atmosphere was breathable, the intense cold would have frozen me, like an ugly ice statue, just by stepping on the ground, without the proper insulation.
As I entered, I could see that only three of the twelve tables were occupied, apparently only by lonely travelers like me, no groups of migrants, escaping to warmer places. The Cintar, with his voluminous body of three meters of height and almost four hundred kilos, was seated on the biggest of the tables, in front of him, a huge banquet of vegetables and meat of protel, coming out of a generator, was noisily devoured, by his horrible mouth, similar to an anus of twenty centimeters, located in the middle of what could be his chest.
I walked beside him, not paying much attention, these ghouls used to get angry, when they were seen with much interest, and it was not at all pleasant to discuss with a creature the size of a mountain, the aspect of a sea cucumber and that was shouting incomprehensible words, for an ugly mouth that reeks of the same as it looks.
I went to the bar, also ignoring the Dolotian and the Predor, who occupied the other tables, their species were too new, to be of danger, even being a pariah to the galaxy, belonging to one of the oldest species still standing, had its advantages, one of them, that nothing seemed to be new to you, while being one of the few humans that exist also makes you the center of attention wherever you go, often in an undesired way.
I approached the bar and the Taraxian-shaped robot generator, which was attending to it, he asked me, with a horrible Persephone accent and in an already forgotten human dialect, which he wanted to take.
-Give me the closest thing you have to a barley beer, but please don't let it be that strange brew of the Perdomitas, and let it be cold, I hate hot beer -I told it.
After some squealing and buzzing, the robot handed me a glass mug, filled with a crystalline yellow liquid, covered with a thin layer of foam; at least it looks good, I thought as I looked at it.
I turned off the visor on my helmet and took a sip from the jug, it wasn't the best, but it wasn't as bad as I would have hoped, I reloaded from the bar and continued drinking.
-You serve me something to eat, the closest thing you have to human food, please -I said to the robot and went to sit at a table, with the beer mug in my hand.
As I sat down, in the generator of the table, a bowl of vegetable and crab broth and a plate of pureed peas materialized, accompanied by what appeared to be a glazed pork rib. I did not think that things like this could be obtained even from a generator, I thought that the only thing humans could aspire to was a strange and insipid potingue similar to a cream of vegetables, with a few suspicious meat sticks.
I ate the broth quickly, so that I could continue with the meat, trying to raise my eyes as little as possible, to avoid seeing the monstrosity that ate enormous quantities of vegetables in front of me. How could it stink so much if its diet was almost entirely made up of vegetables?
When I finished eating, I got up and went to the lobby, to request a room where I could take off my suit and take a hot bath. I was already tired of sleeping on a cot that was fifty centimeters wide and rubbing myself with a sponge in my ship. The employee, a pale, weak Taraxian, looked at me in amazement, I assumed he had never seen a human before.
-Give me a room with a bed and shower, boy," I said.
-Of course, we have suitable rooms for you, - he answered me in a loud dialect of the southern Taraxis -. You know, I am new here, the boss told me that humans rarely come, but this is the third one I see today, I never thought I would see so many of you in my life and even less together.
-Are there any more humans here?
-Yes, they have the room next to yours, they are two of your females I think, they arrived together this morning, after eating they went into their room and have not come out since.
After hearing some other stories from the Taraxian charlatan, I went up to my room, as expected the light was more intense than it should be, but at least the temperature was adequate and the water in the shower was hot, after bathing, I lay down on the bed and was starting to fall asleep, when they knocked on the door of the room.
I approached and asked who was playing, on the other side there was a melodious voice saying in a clear human dialect, "we are the guests of the neighboring room, we want to talk to you".
I opened the door and there were two human women, something I had not seen for almost four hundred years, I could not say if they were beautiful or not, my contact with the opposite gender, had been very little throughout my life, I was raised in a shelter, where I was the only one of my species and during my thirteen thousand years, I had only seen twenty other humans, of which only five were women.
One of them was lighter-skinned than mine and had short blond hair, the other was as dark as me and had long purple hair. They entered my room without asking my permission and sat on the bed.
-What's your name, man? -the brunette asked me.
-I don't have a name, they raised me without one, they have always called me human, -I answered them-. What do they want from me?
-When the gossip from the receptionist came to tell us that there was another human in the hostel, we immediately wanted to meet you - said the brunette -. My name is Sailana and my partner Irda, we met in delta quadrant, we have been traveling for nine thousand years and you are the first man we met.
-We've been keeping each other company for a long time, -said the blonde. And we thought that you could keep us company now.
-Where are you going,? -I asked them, even without understanding them.
-That's not important, we don't want you to travel with us, we want you to copulate with us, -said the brunette.
-We have never had male company and we believe it is our duty to try to procreate, there are no human gene samples anywhere, most of them hate us too much to save our seed. So we thought that since you are here, we could do it the old-fashioned way.
After saying this, both of them got up and started taking off the jumpsuits that were covering them, approached me and pushed me onto the noisy mattress, and then pounced on me.
Suddenly I felt a hand shake my shoulder, and a hoarse voice bark words by my ear.
-Wake up, Lucius, you are not paid to sleep --said the horrible voice.
Stunned and blinded by the brilliant projection of a fiscal format in front of my face, I blinked with my brain rumbling, and then I tilted my head to the right and looked up, towards the source of the noisy voice and found its frightening origin.
-Lucio woke up, had a coffee from the generator and continued with the analysis of the other thirty-two statements from the Ernes consortium. I don't care if it takes all night, but I want that in my terminal first thing tomorrow morning, -Mr. Petersen, director of the fiscal audit department; my boss, told me -. It's already late, I'm going to my room. I hope to see you with the job done in the morning.
I got up from my terminal and walked to the generating machine, maybe after two coffees, I would come to my senses enough, to continue with the statements.
siempre regalándonos lindas historias