Lesser by Viola Grace

Chapter One
     
     
    Four hours had passed since she had found the seat in the corner. If she got the nerve up, she was going to hand in the application, but for now, the people of the Volunteer Centre were busy with all the traffic coming in and out of the building.
    She kept waiting and kept still in her corner of the waiting room. Shock rippled through her when one of the male receptionists came up to her.
    “Miss, would you please come with me?”
    She clutched the clipboard. “I haven’t handed my application in.”
    He smiled. “I will take care of it. Please, come with me. The recruiter would like to speak with you.”
    “Did I do something wrong?”
    His expression became gentle. “No, miss. You are just what he has been looking for.”
    She got to her feet and followed him through the milling crowds and behind the desk.
    He carefully herded her through the back halls until they entered a meeting room with a silver man sitting at the table. He was petite, his head was large and his eyes were solid black.
    The receptionist handed him the clipboard, and the man read it quickly.
    “Miss Graves, thank you for coming in. We noticed you on the security cameras, and your ability to blend in is remarkable.”
    She cleared her throat. “You noticed me?”
    The recruiter shook his head. “No, we noticed where no one was for several hours. When that many people are waiting to sit and no one chooses that spot, there is either something on the chair they can see or some one on the chair that they can’t.”
    “I would be the second kind. No one notices me in an average day; they just pass me by.” She shifted in her chair.
    “Why didn’t you hand your application in?”
    She hunched her shoulders inward, “I was still deciding.”
    “Your name is Iridia?”
    She nodded.
    “That is an unusual name for your kind.”
    “My father is a geologist. He named me after a mineral.” She sat quietly.
    “Why do you want to leave Earth?”
    It was the question she had been dreading. She decided to be honest. “No one sees me; no one notices me here. If I could bring that out into space, I might see things that I could never see here and no one would be the wiser.”
    He nodded. “Could you wait here a moment? I will be right back.”
    She inclined her head, and he got to his feet, showing his diminutive height at just over four feet. Alone in the room, she sat still and looked around her, watching the applicants being ferried past the open door.
    Some were women, some were men, several flirted with their escorts and others were jumping with nervousness. She counted them in her mind and observed their behaviour. It was an hour later when Recruiter Norz reappeared with a smile.
    “What did you learn, Iridia Graves?”
    “I learned that many people want to come home without serving their time, the women in this area just want to see an alien up close and the men were looking for alien woman with multiple breasts.”
    Norz snorted. “There are quite a few of those, but the faces are not in keeping with the Terran preferences. Too many eyes and large teeth.”
    Iridia grinned. “Ah, I wish they could meet one of them.”
    “Based on your traditions, the monster would be hunted.” He shook his head. “We have no illusions as to the psychology of the majority of your people. That is why we screen the volunteers. You have to be able to see what is out there and not judge, merely observe and adapt. You have a skill for observation, do you not?”
    She twisted her lips. “I suppose that it goes along with the ability to remain still.”
    “If I may ask, why did you develop it?”
    Iridia looked at his features, and she guessed that she was reading genuine interest on his face.
    “My father’s work required a lot of attention, so he asked me to be quiet and still, so that is what I became. Anything else that I do my mother blames on my father’s penchant for carrying radioactive samples of rock in his car and his