Round and soft, with a golden-tooth enshrined in his upper jaw and a thick gold chain around the neck to proclaim his prosperity as a cloth-trader – Rahul Chanchalini was an unlikely space-farer, unprepared for the iniquity of space.

It was a Russian roulette, his name put in by a jealous competitor. This perilous expedition would either make him extraordinarily rich or a juicy peace offering. Sitting in the dank, moist and metal-tasting interior of the alien craft whose masters had quite easily subjugated Earth a few days back, he felt that his chances of being a tasty morsel were quite high.

He had never seen a whale, but he felt that this is what its insides would look like. And he was alone in it, sitting in a nook, nibbling on a khakra that he carried with him – praying for an improbable fate as the mastodonic craft carried him from one wormhole to another towards his highly-probable death.

***

It was a bloodless-bath, a carnage with dead bodies suckled dry. Nausea overcame him and he upturned the contents of his stomach as soon as he stepped on the planet. The air was rancid, and dead bodies piled on every inch of the ground.  He had never seen an alien being in his life before, and here they were – strewn across the land – of every shape, size and color – from how many planets, he couldn’t even think.

The drone buzzed insistently for Rahul to follow. Steeling himself, Rahul walked on the uncertain ground – watching the sky for the first time. It was a stuff straight out of nightmare – giant red-giant crafts with razor-sharp tentacles hovered over the dead bodies against the hazy blue sky. At first, he didn’t realize their purpose – then he saw one of the pincered tentacle impaling a large dead-body on the surface – trying to suck remnant life-juice. He was horrified!

This is what Earth would become if he failed! He imagined a mountain of human skulls and retched again. But having already emptied the content of his stomach, he was reduced to dry heaves.

Amidst the heap of prey, was a small cheery outpost with two bulbous domes. A smallish gate marked the entrance, and Rahul wondered if that this meeting place was created for him so that he doesn’t feel alienated by the alien surroundings. A thoughtful gesture, he supposed, if it wasn’t a massive underkill!

He entered the outpost. There was a table and a chair – suitable for his human proportions, and on the other side was a giant-pool in which a violet octopus was swimming inside a green sludge. He just gawped at its suckers and gulped deeply from his suit’s oxygen. The bloke was swimming!

Greetings, Earthlings!

A voice came, suddenly, from everywhere inside his head. It was a mighty croak – like from the giant frog.

“Hello,” he muttered meekly. He wasn’t sure, whether he was supposed to speak out loud. If the guy could speak inside his head, he could also hear his thoughts.

I guess, you must be wondering, when I am talking with you through telepathy, whether your thoughts are safe from me? Rest assured, we Vrynns pride ourselves on privacy. This is a business negotiation, your mind-space won’t be invaded.

“Good to know,” he managed a sarcastic smile. “Oh, where are my manners? Before we proceed – I wanted to share with you a small token of appreciation for taking your precious time out with a lowly being like me. A drawing made by my daughter, a portrait, representing your mighty species.”

He fished out the drawing from his suit pocket and placed it on the table.

A portrait? I knew your species are into drawings and stuff! I am curious.

Rahul didn’t doubt his genuine curiosity, as at the very next moment, the monster shot out of the sludge and landed right opposite him, spraying his pristine white suit with the goo.

It tentatively picked up the edge of the zip-lock, and examined the drawing. Hmm, it is quite extraordinary, this hobby of yours – art. Though it gets all our features wrong, is this what you call – imagination?

Rahul, who himself was trying to corroborate the features of the alien, hummed, “Yes”. It was true, the Vrynn looked nothing like the picture. While his daughter had sketched two eyes and a mouth – a humanoid feature, the alien looked nothing like it. If octopus fucked a giant insect, a Vrynn would be born! It used its tentacles so rapidly, that it seemed to be floating mid-air – just a bobbing head with million eyes.

Back to business. The Vrynn placed the picture on the table with a sloppy thud. You had a barter proposal for us?

Rahul scratched his head for a moment. No exchanging pleasantries? No formal introductions?

As a trader who had been in the business last 25 years, nothing came as more of a rude shock, then this alien getting down to business so uncourteously. He sharply realized the difference between them in that moment.

“Um, yes. It is a proposal of sorts, an extraordinary deal if you may. We would directly supply you the blood in the liquid form.”

In the liquid form, ehhhh.

“Yes,” Rahul nodded briskly, warming up for a sales pitch. “Blood in an easy-to-drink form, without the mess and the hassle on your part.”

Avoiding mess and hassle – meaning you want to avoid death of yourself and your compatriots?

“Eh, yah. Any self-respecting race would want to propagate – isn’t that our sole purpose? But we are a sensible lot – we don’t have hard feelings towards your race…..”

No hard feelings? We came to your planet, wiped out your defense systems and the top-tier leadership and took charge of your planet. You say you don’t have hard feelings towards us?

Rahul gulped. Sweat broke out from all the pores in the body. But he plodded on.

“We understand that your invasion was nothing personal. It is for food – and food is something that we understand. We kill & eat everything edible without any feeling of regret. And that’s what we are proposing to you – an edible food source without the hassle. You don’t have to go about killing all the creatures on the planet, pump out blood from them till the last drop and then consume. Think of the cost it would entail? And the mess that it would leave behind? We offer you blood from all the creatures on our planet, along with the nutrition value of each source.”

Hmmmmm…. Interesting. This would include human blood as well, eh?  

Rahul gulped once again. “Yes, of course. You had made it very clear that you enjoyed drinking the blood of our species when you dispatched all of our presidents and prime-ministers.”

And what do you want in return?

“Transfer of technology. You are a quite advanced species – you have developed the warp drive; you have the advanced weapons system and have extensive terraforming capabilities. These technologies would help us advance and thrive to multi-planet systems.””

And what would the point be, when you are going to be dead meat soon?

That was the nub of the argument. Rahul had to steer quite gently here. “How much importance do you attest to fresh blood?”

Fresh blood – that’s a rare delicacy. Only our monarchs get to have the fruits of the first kill. Rest all….

“Exactly. From what I have heard, you defeat a planet’s living ecosystem and enforce yours. You wipe out all the species on that planet completely, and then feed on the carrion for years. Why would you do so?”

To avoid any bloody uprising if anyone is left alive. We don’t want to go through the hassle of fighting the same battles again and again! How can I let you live if I know you would fight back, ehh?

“We won’t fight back as this is going to be a mutually agreeable business deal. You get the blood, we get the tech. Plus think about it – if we thrive as a population, if we expand to a multi-population race, you get to have more supply of fresh blood!”

More supply of fresh blood, eh?

Rahul then shot a crucial arrow, “Is carrion blood safe to drink? Beyond a point, wouldn’t it become harmful to your health?”

All this while, the Vrynn was moving to and fro. Now it suddenly stopped – even the tentacles rested on the ground without being a blur of motion.

Suppose we go ahead with the deal; how would we ensure that you won’t renege on it?

“We need that technology. It is a mutually win-win scenario.”

Hmmm, we of course can’t give you technology that end up proving lethal for our race. But definitely, there is merit in your proposal.

“So, can we shake on it? We would draw up the contracts for your perusal.”

Rahul had to explain what he meant by “shaking on it”. It was a clumsy handshake, he felt that he was holding a slimy snake. He stifled down an urge to puke as a gob of green goo stuck to his hand. He discreetly wiped his hands on the back of his pants.

The Vrynn jumped back to the pool with a splash. The meeting was over. He, fortunately, wasn’t dead meat. He had survived.

***

The Vrynns extracted a heavy toll. Not only they had to kill a lot of animals, humans began to ration their own blood supply. Blood donation drives became a biweekly affair. Some were exploited to donate blood daily. They had become quite weak and sickly. As a bargain, they did get the tech. But what use would that be if they were not to live long.

But this was not to be, as Rahul Chanchalini and the fellow humans had a plan. After the Vrynns have been fed good, fresh blood – the Vrynns had been driven giddy by the prospect of fresh meal and that it wasn’t just for their royals, and then had been lulled into contentment as they believed they would be receiving a steady supply with the prospect of the anemic humanity, expanding beyond Earth with the help of their technology.

But soon, humans started adulterating the blood. Initially, they mixed a small batch of water and stale blood. When the Vrynns didn’t notice, they started pumping the blood with all kinds of deadly pathogens and microorganisms – Ebola, HIV, Marburg, and some which had long been bio-engineered in the labs of US & China.

They had to admire the alien gut. Years of drinking stale blood from many, many planets had made their body nearly impervious to microorganisms. But nobody had tried to defeat them in such a concerted manner as humans. They kept on manufacturing deadlier microorganisms, and kept on spiking the blood punch in a hope that one day they would defeat them.

Their victory came so swiftly, that it took them some time to stop the blood drive mechanism before they realized that it was no longer required.

Rahul Chanchalini wasn’t sure which virus did the Vrynns in, but one day he stopped receiving the demand forecast. By then they had developed their own indigenous warp-drive and warp-communication technology. On checking up on the Vrynn’s home planet as well as their satellite ecosystems, they were all dead…

Humanity had a potent new weapon to sow their seeds across worlds. Rahul Chanchalini became extremely rich.