José Gómez - Super Extra Grande

What did I say. Same song, second verse: no bracelet.

“Gimme algo de data, assistant,” I tell Narbuk, then wait for his reply. “Según the map, diez more minutes, y I should be coming out the back end… Pero if I don’t have Mrs. Tarkon’s precious platinum bracelet, tengo miedo que I might be better off quedándome in here.”

More than my reputation is at stake. The governor’s bodyguards didn’t look all that friendly. And forget about the Amphorians. Those helmets of theirs make them look like two-legged bulldogs. Methane-breathing gear on a human world? That gives you something to think about.

Offended, Narbuk replies, “Boss Sangan, me sorry but no can do that. You por favor knock self out si necesita, but animal me da very mucho allergy.” As always, he’s oversensitive to any allusion I make to his peculiar problem. “Me Laggoru banned y no como meat because no hunt. Tú sabes.”

The reptilian Laggorus are also famous throughout the Galactic Community for eating nothing but meat they’ve hunted themselves. And they hunt without energy weapons or projectile guns or gizmos of any sort, using nothing but their terrifying fighting claws. Old-school, straight-up predators.

But of course, just my luck, the assistant I hired is the only vegetarian wacko of the whole lot.

And he doesn’t get why I think he’s funny.

Sure, could be worse. Narbuk doesn’t eat meat, but he’s as good as the best of them at handling the retractable steel claws Laggorus use for hunting and fighting. With him by my side, I’m never afraid of a bar brawl.

Not that I’ve been to many bars lately. But when I do go, there aren’t many guys who dare to tangle with me.

I admit, I don’t know the first thing about karate-do or judo. Or wushu, baguazhang, pencak silat, krav maga, or any other secret martial art. I hardly even have to resort to my fists.

As Sun Tzu wrote thousands of years ago, the best strategy is not the one that grants victory in battle, it’s the one that lets you win without even fighting.

Intimidation, in a word.

And it turns out I’m a born expert in that art.

The good old-fashioned art of fear.

Faced with that, almost any opponent will opt for the equally ancient and effective martial art of turning tail and running.

Hey, don’t think I go around threatening people or putting on childish strong-man demonstrations, like smashing stuff or lifting heavy objects with one hand. The truth is, I don’t have to do a thing .

Let’s just say, I’m a little taller and bigger all around than your average human.

In fact, quite a bit taller and heavier than the average Homo sapiens .

The honest truth is, very few humans are bigger than me.

So what usually happens with most of the hotheads out itching for a fight is, they take one glance at me, and—after practically falling over backwards trying to look me in the eyes—they whisper something to their buddies and go back to staring down the other big guys at the bar.

They never bother Narbuk, either. Not only because his species has a reputation for being quick and lethal with their claws (they don’t keep them for show).

Turns out, while the Laggoru weighs barely half as much as me (these reptilian guys are really slim), he’s also four inches taller. A real giant among his kind, as I am among mine.

That was another thing for us to bond over from the beginning.

It’s definitely nice to hang with someone who doesn’t constantly make you think you’re freakishly large by human standards, and who genuinely understands when you complain about the crap that seems to have been made with dwarves in mind.

The hell with statistical ergonomics. We big people have rights, too.

If you disagree, go find yourself a tag-team partner. The Laggoru and I challenge you, here and now. Or wherever, whenever.

Before long, Narbuk and I were inseparable buddies. My mother always told me to hang out with the biggest guy around. Not bad advice, I admit. Just a little hard to do when you yourself are always the biggest guy around.

As if the problem of size weren’t enough, there’s also the matter of sex…

That’s a long, complicated story.

Before the Laggoru came along, I had two other secretary-assistants. Both females.

So the jealous sorts can run their mouths off about my supposed misogyny…

Enti Kmusa, the first assistant I hired, was a human from Olduvaila. A direct descendant of the Maasai people, she was tall and skinny, like most Homo sapiens individuals who grow up on low-gravity worlds. Almost as tall as me, in fact. The Maasai were a famously tall ethnic group to begin with.

Slender, elegant, almost feline, especially in the way she walked… That was Enti. I could easily imagine her trekking across her great-great-great-great-great-grandparents’ ancestral savannah. I called her “my black panther.” And I have to say, exotic as she seemed at first, with her pure black skin, her large, dark eyes, her shaved head, and her filed teeth, she was also incredibly beautiful.

She was also organized and efficient, and she exuded natural likability from every pore. The largest creatures in the galaxy didn’t scare her or make her foolishly squeamish. As a result, clients began to swarm my office.

They came from all over, from every race.

But that was where the problems started, too. The lanky, stunning descendant of the Maasai had, let’s say, some minor prejudices against the other intelligent species of the Milky Way.

No matter how much energy the Human Section of the Galactic Community Coordinating Committee spends trying to fight racism (now that it’s finally been convinced to give up denying there is such a thing), it seems this complex problem will continue to haunt us humans for centuries.

It must be our civilization’s fault, with its peculiar and violent history, I guess. Few intelligent species have attained space travel with as many visible racial differences among themselves as we have.

When “my black panther” started losing clients for me through her flagrant xenophobia, I thought about firing her, but after considering her other valuable qualities I decided instead to hire another girl to help with the non-humans…

Nobody can accuse me of being intolerant and intransigent, or of denying people a second chance.

I think I picked a good one, and in fact it all seemed like smooth sailing at first. An-Mhaly was a Cetian, and like almost all Cetians she was nearly as tall as me, but also as pleasant as a professional flight attendant and as delicate as a porcelain doll, with a fascinating smile. As if that weren’t enough, her beautiful contralto voice went perfectly with her height.

Like all Cetians, of course, she also had yellow eyes with no visible pupils, skin that went purple or mauve when she got excited, a retractile spiny crest on the top of her head, a three-forked tongue in a toothless mouth that harbored one of the most complex and efficient mastication systems in the galaxy, and six plump mammary glands.

The first time you see a Cetian female, it’s impossible not to think of the old joke (dating back to before the González drive, you know) about one guy who asks another guy, “Te gustan your women con lots of tits?” The other guy says, “Not really. Más than three son sort of a turn-off, pa’ decirte la truth.”

I later learned that, because of a whole bunch of details that a simple human boor like me can’t even appreciate, other Cetians consider An to be an extraordinary beauty. But as for me, I wouldn’t have cared if she’d won Miss Galactic Community. Long story short, I didn’t find her bosomy abundance all that stimulating, erotically speaking. Quite the contrary.