There was a squat, strange wardrobe, identifiable only because one of the drawers was open and filled with folded clothes. Atop it, a mirror, and several decorative boxes containing what he supposed were human ornamentation. The bed was broad and well-layered in pillows and coverings. There was a table beside it, just large enough to support a light and an object Tagen determined really was the book it appeared to be. He picked this last up and opened it, scanning the meaningless scrawl of alien letters (written side to side, of all things) and wondered what it said. Of all the slaves he’d encountered in his career, he’d never suspected that any one of them could write.

Flipping pages, Tagen sat on the edge of the bed, and instantly leapt up again as something moved beneath him. He whirled, dropping the book and grabbing his plasma gun, all his senses tingling with the expectation of ambush.

From the folds of the bedding, a small orange head emerged. Gold eyes stared into gold eyes, and then the rest of the creature slithered out. It mi’acked at him.

Tagen lowered his weapon, feeling a little foolish. He had no idea what he was looking at, but he doubted it was a threat. On closer inspection, it somewhat resembled a rurr’ga, only with short ears and a long tail instead of the right way around. And, although it might be unfair to say so, considering that this was an unfamiliar species and he had no real idea of what constituted a normal body size, it was hugely fat. Cautiously, Tagen reached out and offered his hand to the thing.

The creature sniffed once, and then rubbed its jaws on Tagen’s fingers and began to make a contented growling sound. Its fur was very soft and it was amenable to being petted. When Tagen turned to leave the bedroom, the animal jumped down from the bed and followed him.

There were images of humans on the wall all the way downstairs, carefully and artfully arranged behind glass, and Tagen paused on each step to study them. The same face appeared several times, in varying stages of maturity, and he thought it might be the same human who lived here. It was hard to imagine why it would keep pictures of its own face. Presumably, it knew what it looked like.

Tagen came down into a sitting room, right in the front of the house where anyone walking in could see it. There were comfortable furnishings, tasteful decorations, ample light, and a device that simply had to be a viewing monitor as the focus of it all. The monitor was dark and silent now, but it was an encouraging sign, indicative of media resources. The largest piece of furniture, a padded sofa, faced the monitor exactly and had the look of much use. It went without saying that everything was painfully clean.

There were shelves to one side of the monitor, enough to completely cover that wall. They were filled with flat, colorful squares of some synthetic, hard material. There was human writing on each of these, and many had images of videographic quality on their face as well, but Tagen couldn’t understand their function. He discovered he could hook a claw in the seam of one and open it like a book, but all that lay within was an iridescent disc. Curious, Tagen opened several more containers and found the same disc, or one very much like it, in each one. He suspected they interacted in some way with the monitor, but couldn’t make out how.

The animal yowled at him from a doorway leading deeper into the house. When it saw it had attracted Tagen’s attention, it turned and moved off at a rapid waddle, making urgent little sounds as it went. Tagen put the disc-container he was holding down on the low table in the middle of the room and went to follow the creature.

He paused to open every door he passed and found two small storage spaces and another privy, but eventually he ended in a large room lined with wooden cupboards, all of them rubbed to a high gloss. The smell of cleanser was here as well, not as strong as it was in the bathing room, but Tagen suspected it would be if only this room had doors to shut the odor in. As it was, Tagen could stand in the center of this room and see out into the hall or over into what he imagined was a dining room. There was one door at the far end of the room, but he left it for now to better examine his present surroundings.

There was a small table against the near wall, with a chair pushed out before it at an angle that suggested the human who sat it had just risen and walked away. Atop the table, a computer idled. Its processing unit and monitor might have come from any museum on Jota, and its keyboard, although too wide and with keys too small for Jotan hands, was easily recognizable as well. Tagen ran his eyes over the unfamiliar characters and symbols that faced the keys, then reached out and tapped one with a claw. The monitor blinked on at once, showing him the image of a rolling hill under an azure sky, as well as a number of unknowable icons.

The animal was rubbing frantically at his leg, making its urgent yowling plea and slapping at him with its soft paws. Tagen allowed himself to be distracted, and as soon as it had his attention, it turned and ran across the room, its round belly swaying at its knees.

The floor was tiled, and not quite empty. The animal had gone straight to a mat in the corner, where two bowls stood. One was half-filled with water. The other was empty, and it was there that the creature stood, making plaintive noises and lashing its long tail.

Tagen began to open cupboards. He found dishes, food packaging, and devices which, although unfamiliar in design, appeared to relate to the storing or preparation of food. He was in the kitchen. Once he was comfortable with that, he could almost see how the bulky appliances scattered among the cupboards might be used for cooking. His inspection was greatly curtailed, however, by the persistent attentions of the creature.

Tagen moved from shelf to shelf until he found a neat stack of tins that had images similar to the creature’s head printed on them. The pitch of the animal’s cries became more intense as soon as Tagen picked one of the tins up, and it ran over to rub on his ankles.

There was an obvious tab on the top of the tin. Tagen got a claw into it and pulled the tin open easily. The contents were mushy and unappealing, but the smell of meat was strong enough to make Tagen’s stomach clench hungrily. He was tempted to taste it, but the animal’s distress was growing to extreme levels, and so Tagen settled for shaking the stuff out into the empty dish on the floor. The animal dove in head-first, and Tagen stepped back to give it room. That was a rurr’ga all right, or the Earth version of it, at least.

Tagen left it eating. There was one door remaining unopened in this house and he wanted no surprises. His own hunger would have to wait.

The last door opened on a utility room of sorts, containing the large appliances and shelves for alien tools that a residence of this size required to be maintained. Like all the other rooms, excusing the one Tagen had chosen to enter through, it had been rigorously cleaned and tidied. Soiled clothing was contained in a sealed bin; building and repair materials were crated and neatly placed on shelves; there was even a long industrial table filled with potted plants, and not so much as a speck of dirt out of place. On the furthest wall was another door leading outside, and that was all there was to the house.

So. Many rooms, many chairs, two privies, but only one bed. Tagen deduced that the human he had seen leave this house was the sole inhabitant. An inhabitant with a great deal of empty time on its hands. ‘And,’ thought Tagen, looking around at all the blunt, heavy, and sharp objects the utility room contained, ‘a human with plenty of improvised weapons at hand.’

He’d better take care of that. Tagen returned to the front room, unshouldered his pack and set it on the low table. He removed the dermisprayer and slipped it into his belt where it was close at hand. Then, starting in the kitchen where the most obvious weapons were, he began to get ready for the human’s return.