Naskia and Kiri chatted for a few more hours and the Kiri went to get unpacked. Naskia went through to her room and sat down at her desk. She examined the tank to see Niall was still sleeping. He’d been asleep for 9 hours now so she decided to make a bit of noise to gently wake him up. She brought up her pad and looked through the new music files. The file names could not be translated and had been corrupted during the recovery. She picked a random file and hit play. It started with some hand drums and a man’s voice yelling the occasional “Oh”. Naskia was tapping her hand on the desk in time with the drums.

The lyrics kicked in “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste”. The voice sounded young and arrogant, Naskia thought it might be Niall.

More instruments had joined, the song sounded very catchy, like nothing Titan’s had in their culture. “Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name” the lyrics continued.

Naskia was enjoying it a lot. She turned the volume up a bit. Niall started to stir. He could hear music, familiar music. “Is that….is that the Stones?” he said rubbing his eyes and sitting up.

“But what’s puzzling you, is the nature of my game”. He looked around and he could see Naskia dancing around her room. Her arms were over her head and she was shaking her hips and hair in time with the music, her skirt which went half way to her knees was swaying from side to side giving Niall a good a view of her upper legs.

“Damn I wish I had my guitar….” He thought. Naskia wasn’t paying any attention to him so he decided to sit back and enjoy the show. “I wonder how a Titan gets her hands on The Rolling Stones?” he continued. Naskia’s dancing style was quite dorky, Niall guessed she didn’t dance a lot either that or Titans lacked a sense of rhythm as species.

Naskia spotted Niall was awake. She waved a hand at him and continued to dance. She was feeling a bit silly but didn’t really care. She danced over to the table and lifted him out of his tank and set him down without saying a word. She continued to dance and was making “woo woo” noises along with the backing vocals. She was dancing right beside the table and Niall was getting a nice breeze from her skirt. “Dance with me! This is really good!” she said.

“No thanks…” Niall grinned nervously. As much as he had judged Naskia for her poor dancing he knew he was far worse.

“Pretty please….” Naskia said bending over to aim her big doe eyes at Niall from his level.

“Sorry Naskia. I don’t dance. The advantage of playing an instrument is you can hide behind it.”

Naskia laughed and kept on dancing. “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.” the vocals continued. Niall smiled up as Naskia as swished her hips from side to side and grinned at him. Suddenly her hands darted down at him and she wrapped both hands around his chest and lifted him to face height and held him out at arm’s length. Naskia swayed him from side to side. He wasn’t fighting her or yelling but he looked less than pleased. She smiled at him hoping he’d come round but his face kept its scowl. Niall had learned that Naskia was far more affected by her own guilt than him yelling at her.

“Ok! Fine!” she said setting him down and then sitting down in her seat. She reached over to her pad and turned the music down.

“How did you find the Rolling Stones?!” Niall asked now he finally had her full attention.

“The music? I found your little pad thingy from your coat. A friend of mine managed to get the data off it and transferred it to my pad. I’ll transfer it to yours if you like.” She said.

“Oh, thanks. That’s very kind of you. I appreciate it. I never actually thought about my photos or music or journal or that.”

Naskia reached into the terrarium and grabbed Niall’s pad and started the data transfer. “I really like your music. It’s not like anything we have here. Do you mind if I keep it on my pad?” she asked.

“No I’d like that.” Niall smiled happy to have something else to connect him to Naskia. “I’d be interested to hear some Titan music. Given how much longer your culture has been around your music must be a lot better.”

“You’d think that but it’s really not the case. It’s all about complexity and showing off. A lot of people like that sorta thing. Listen to this for example….” Naskia scrolled through her pad and put on some music. It made Niall wince. It was very fast, electronic sounding and had a lot instruments playing notes on top of each other that barely made any sense.

“See what I mean?” Naskia asked. “Our music is either really dull or has too much going on. Your music just catches you and you can’t help but like it.”

“Yeah, that’s awful….I’m glad you said it and not me! Can you please turn it off? It’s actually hurting my ears.” Niall replied starting to cover his ears. Naskia laughed and turned the music off.

“Apparently being more advanced means our music is terrible…..” Naskia said jokingly.

“Oh no, humans have some awful music too. Some sounds worse than that. We just happen to have similar tastes. The Rolling Stones are one of our best bands. They’ve been together for over 50 years…..which is impressive for us but probably not by Titan standards.”

Naskia laughed. “I’d love to sit here with you and go through your music collection but my roommate is back and she’s keen to meet you. Her name is Kiri. She’s quite serious so I think you two will get on pretty well. I don’t think she believes me that you’re clever so you may have to win her round. Are you ok with that?” she asked.

“Yeah sure. Although I wouldn’t mind something to eat too. I’m pretty hungry.” Niall replied.

Naskia set her hand down and Niall climbed on and sat down. Naskia then got up and carried him through to the kitchen counter. “All you seem to do is eat and sleep. I’m surprised you get any work done at all.” Naskia set Niall down on the counter and searched for something for Niall to eat.

“Ha! Humans are obviously far more efficient than Titans, the same intelligence but in a much smaller package. If only natural selection knew this were grounds to be considered lesser…” Niall said not noticing Kiri had approached the kitchen counter.

“You’re right Nas, he is a bit of cheeky one isn’t he” Kiri said leaning against the counter opposite Niall. She was staring at him, she looked unsure of what to make of him.

“Hi Kiri” Naskia replied searching through a cupboard lifting out the occasional jar of something.

“Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Niall” Niall said extending his hand and stepping towards the counter edge. Kiri didn’t reply. She just kept looking at him. She was clearly a bit shorter and smaller than Naskia. Her shoulders, hips and waist were thinner. She had an Indian complexion with large deep brown eyes, high cheeks and a wide mouth. Her hair was thick, long and brown. She was wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans. Niall could tell from the cold stare she was giving him that while she may look cute and dainty that she was not going to be messed with.

“On Earth we shake hands as a formal greeting.” Niall said trying to prompt her to interact with him. This was successful but not in the way that Niall hoped. She grabbed his hand with her thumb and forefinger and lifted him up to her face.

“Let’s get a look at you” she said examining him carefully turning him round to see him from all sides. Niall protested but Kiri ignored him. His arm was aching from the strain. She used the index finger from her free hand to lift up his robe to get a look underneath. Niall called for Naskia but she was too busy looking through cupboards and talking to herself.

“Oh Nas, you animal!” Kiri said “He’s a fit little fella.”

Naskia removed herself from the cupboard to respond and spotted Kiri dangling Niall by the arm. She rushed up and set her hand underneath him to take the strain off his arm. “Kiri! Play nice.” she said firmly. Kiri released Niall’s arm and he sank back into Naskia’s palm rubbing his sore arm.

“Nice to meet you too” Niall said scowling up at Kiri.

Naskia knew Kiri wasn’t going to just accept Niall, she would test him and haze him to see if he was “worthy”. This wasn’t something she reserved for Niall but pretty much every man that either of them had regular contact with. Naskia also knew that if she protected Niall too much then Kiri would never respect him. Naskia unconsciously used the back of a finger to stroke Niall gently on the back set him on the counter and went back to preparing dinner leaving him to hash it out with Kiri. The friendly contact helped Niall feel a bit better though he was still less than happy.

“Calm down little man, I just wanted a look at you.” Kiri said crossing her arms and leaning back against the counter again. She looked very comfortable, not like Naskia was when they first met.

“Well next time I’d rather you not try to rip my arm out of its socket. Naskia had led me to believe you were a good, rational person….” Niall said before Kiri cut him off.

“Well we don’t always agree. She doesn’t want to train you. I see no reason not to and I think I can.” Kiri was deliberately trying to provoke a reaction from him. Niall felt the urge to start yelling at Kiri but he knew he had to keep his head.

“We’ve been over this. I’ve no intention on being anyone’s pet.” Niall said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah Nas mentioned you throwing yourself off her desk, not really the act of a rational being is it? You’d rather be dead than let a beautiful woman look after your every need?” Kiri said wanting to test Niall’s responses. Most humans she’d encountered were docile and would agree with anything she said.

“Naskia also tells me you’re studying to be a psychologist? A pretty girl like you could pick any man she wanted and live off of him but instead you’re choosing independence. Why?” Niall replied trying to keep the onus off him. Kiri was mildly impressed. He’d made a logical twist on her argument and used flattery, not bad.

“It’s not the same though is it? I’m a fully grown, intelligent woman. You are a tiny, little person.” Kiri was trying to goad Niall further. Naskia was listening in concerned that Niall might blow up at her. “My brain is many times larger than your whole body. I’m quite capable of out earning any man. You, on the other hand aren’t. You’re not big enough to do manual labour and not smart enough to do anything else. You’re a pet.”

Niall felt his cool starting to disappear. “That’s rubbish and you know it. If Naskia has told you about how we’ve been getting along she’s obviously told you that I’ve been teaching her how to do complex equations.”

“You’re a pet that can do tricks, so what?” Kiri said dismissing what Niall felt was his strongest card.

“So what?! It means I’m smarter than you!” Niall shouted at her.

Kiri laughed. She wanted to get an intelligence test done on him since Naskia told her about him earlier. This was her chance. “Are you willing to prove it?”

“Of course” he replied calming down a bit.

“All you have to do is a standard intelligence test and it will give you a rating. It’s not just mathematical but it covers spatial awareness, problem solving, reasoning and extrapolation. It’s scored from 0 to 100. I believe the highest a human has ever scored is 34.” Kiri said.

Niall was feeling confident. He’d done a lot of IQ tests in his life and knew he was averaging north of 200. “Deal, but if I beat you I want you to recognise me as an equal.”

Naskia had stopped preparing food and was now observing the pair with a concerned look on her face.

“And if you lose?” Kiri replied.

Niall paused. He’d worked himself into a corner here and he knew that he only had one option. “I will accept that I’m Naskia’s pet….” He more spat the last part than said it. He was also careful not to recognise Kiri in his response.

“Ok, you’re on. Oh! This is exciting isn’t it?” Kiri said smiling. “I’ll go prep the test and you can do it after dinner ok?” Kiri walked off to her room and patted Niall on the head with a finger as she passed him.

Naskia went back to cooking as Kiri left. Niall walked around the counter so he could see her face. She looked a bit concerned. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“Nothing….I dunno. This bet just doesn’t sit well with me.” She said while stirring a pot of something that smelled pretty tasty.

“Why not, this seems like a win/win for you?” Niall responded.

“Well I can’t help but think that Kiri is toying with you. And if you can’t beat her and you are forced into a role you don’t like it would make me really unhappy. ” She said “I was really quite horrible to you yesterday and after getting to know you I feel terrible about it. It should be my choice how I treat you, Kiri is just trying to take over as always.”

“I actually hadn’t considered not beating her.” Niall said trying to comfort Naskia.

Naskia knelt down and placed her arms either side of Niall. She didn’t want to appear to be talking down to him.

“Kiri is really clever and those tests cover loads of different skills and abilities. I don’t think you’ll struggle with anything but I’m not so sure you’ll beat her. I can tell you I scored 81, which is considered to be pretty high, I don’t know what she scored.”

“Well after getting to know you I know you’ll always treat me well no matter what. And please don’t feel bad, I forgive you ok? I didn’t exactly handle that well either.” Niall said. Naskia referred to it as yesterday but it felt like 2 days ago to him, he was still adjusting to the new time scales.

Naskia smiled and kissed her finger and then softly planted it on the side of Niall’s face. She actually felt a sense of relief when Niall said he had forgiven her. She got back up and went back to her cooking.

“Should I call you Nas, like Kiri does?” Niall asked.

“Yeah if you like, most people my age call me Nas” she said forgetting she was many times older than him. The pair chatted while Naskia finished off dinner and poured it out on to 2 plates. She left Niall on the counter and went through to the bedroom for a minute and then went to get Kiri.

Naskia sat down beside the counter and Kiri took her seat opposite her. Niall moved over to beside Naskia’s plate. It was filled with what smelled like a beef curry, no rice though.

“I got you something.” Naskia said setting her palm down beside Niall. Niall looked in and spotted a knife, fork and spoon that were a size he could use. He kneeled onto her palm and picked them up.

“Thanks very much! I didn’t fancy getting my hands covered in my dinner.” Niall replied using his fork to cut off a strip of meat from Naskia’s plate.

Kiri started to talk with Naskia about her trip home. Naskia tried to get Kiri and Niall to talk during the meal but Kiri didn’t seem keen on recognising he was there and Niall didn’t want to bother with someone who wasn’t interested in him. She used topics such as not getting on with family members or how much she missed her Dad but they wouldn’t be drawn in to conversation with each other. “Both as stubborn as each other” Naskia thought. It made for a rather awkward dinner.

When they finished Naskia carried the plates over to the sink and left Kiri and Niall to discuss details.

“I’ll bring the pad through and you can look at the questions and direct me how to answer. Some are time based so you will need to be quick.” She said.

“Or alternatively I can just do the test myself on my pad. If it’s time based I don’t want any delay to lower my score.” Niall replied. He didn’t want to show it but he was nervous about the test. How his life would go from here hung with this test score.

“You have your own pad?” Kiri asked surprised.

“I gave him my minipad. It should be suitable for him to do the test on himself.” Naskia said backing him up.

“Oh Nas, you really are a pushover.” Kiri laughed. “Can you get it and then we’ll get started?”