“No, we didn’t have a lot of time to discuss anything other than money,” Meko said with a shrug. “Why do you ask?”
“What you were just talking about—the rotation of the stock, and resupply while at a planet, and selecting the meals,” she said. “I’m trained to do all of those things, and more. I even know how to repair the growing units of seventeen different types of vessel—although unfortunately, an Andarian Command Ship is not one of them.”
“The Command Ship uses a similar set up to all Andarian vessels,” he supplied. “Just on a much larger scale. I’ll show you sometime, if you’d like. We’ll be traveling for the next three weeks before we reach our system.”
“Even at light speed?” Diana asked, surprised.
“Yes, even then,” he nodded. “That’ll give us plenty of time to work the kinks out of this arrangement.”
“What does that mean—arrangement?” she scoffed. “I didn’t think I’d just entered into one of those. Isn’t this the one where you’re in charge, and I have to do whatever you say?”
“What a distasteful thought,” he snorted. “That’s not a relationship I would care to engage in. No, kitar, what fun is there in having a plaything who is not eager to play? I want you to be comfortable with me, to find a purpose to your life, and even fulfillment in it. I know that right now you do not believe me, but in time I want us to be happy.”
“That’s a mighty tall order from a kidnapper,” Diana replied.
Just then, the double doors slid open and a mechanical food service type machine came rolling in carrying their trays. Meko turned to it with a slight smirk on his lips and started to transfer items from it onto a small, ornate metal table across the room. Feeling awkward and hating to be idle, Diana helped.
When everything was off the service, it rolled back out again and the doors clicked shut. Meko pulled out one of the chairs for Diana to sit in, and then he moved to sit in the one opposite to her won. Silence filled the air as they each filled their cups with some of the clear, amber liquid in the pitcher, and then Diana imitated Meko when he pushed a button on the top of the tray, revealing the meal underneath as the lids disappeared.
“Never saw a tray quite like this before,” she commented as she examined it more closely. “How do you make it close again?”
Meko grinned. “I can see that you’re mechanically inclined, little one,” he told her. “Indulge me? I’d like to see how long it takes you to work it out.”
Remembering the mechanism on the seatbelt, Diana moved her fingers under the bottom of the thing and pulled across the invisible line, reactivating the electric current that must have been keeping the lid in place. It covered her food in the blink of an eye. Smirking, she pressed the button again and grabbed a roll to eat.
“Will you ever cease to fascinate me?” Meko asked softly. Diana watched as he lifted the small device to one side and used it like a fork or spoon, and she figured out how to do the same.
“Maybe you’re the one who fascinates me,” she pointed out, then discovered her drink was some kind of juice. “It’s not like I’ve ever dined with a guy from another planet before. Especially not sitting in his quarters out in deep space just like it was some kind of cosmic dinner date.”
He chuckled. “I suppose there is that,” he conceded.
Diana bit at her bottom lip as she realized what dinner dates frequently led to. Particularly dates in the private quarters of a man who clearly intended to claim her. Fly boy really needed to know exactly what he’d just bought for himself by taking her.
“There was another issue I thought we should address,” she said uncomfortably as her cheeks stained a bright red. “One that I have no idea how to broach.”
“Try me,” said Meko with an easy smile.
“Um, I just thought you might want to know that you have abducted somebody who has never been with a man before,” she spit out finally.
Meko sputtered. “What? You mean you’re into females?”
“No!” she gasped. “I like boys. Guys. Men. I like men—I just never had time to date them. I’ve always been more into my studies than that whole sex thing, you know?”
“That whole sex thing?” he repeated, going from consternation to amusement. “So what you’re saying is, you’re a virgin?”
Diana winced. “Well, yeah, if you have to put it like that.”
She watched his face, the emotions crossing over it like an open book, and she knew the exact moment when the alien realized that he liked that idea very much. If anything, the sensual look he’d worn since his return got even more sensual, if that was even possible.
“What are you thinking, Meko?” she wanted to know.
“This information is good to know, only it does bring up a question or two,” he admitted as he reached across the table to take her hand. “Most people would make time for ‘the sex thing’, no matter how busy they were. Was there a more particular reason why you did not?”
“I suppose I—well, I am a bit shy,” she admitted. “Flirting doesn’t come naturally to me, and also, I’ve never fallen in love.”
Meko scoffed at this. “And what has that got to do with it? Sex and love are seldom a part of the same thing. ”
“Wh-what?” she gasped. “I can’t believe you. Of course they are. Where’s the point of having sex if you don’t love your partner?”
Meko’s hand fell away as he stared at her, confounded. “I have never heard of such a silly notion before. Love is an emotion, pure and gentle, and sex is a physical act in which one partner invades the anatomy of another for the purposes of pleasure or procreation. Combining those two concepts together is like combining dirt and water. All you get is mud.”
“With enough heat, though, you get bricks,” she countered. “You can use those bricks to build the foundation of your life together. To build the whole home, if you like. What could be better than that?”
“And this—foundation thing. This is why you remain untouched?”
“To tell the truth, I simply never had the time,” she admitted, blushing again.
“You never had the time? For sex, or for love?” he wanted to know.
“For either one, really,” she admitted, biting at her bottom lip as he moved out of his seat and came around to tug her up as well. “What are you doing?”
Meko brought her with him into the other room, which she had previously discovered to be the bedroom, and sat her on the bed. He said, “I think a virginal plaything may need time to become more familiar with me before she meets her fate. So right now, you and I are going to sleep.”
Diana let Meko pull her with him beneath the blanket and wrap her into his arms. She didn’t know if she was embarrassed, relieved, or disappointed by his response.
SEVEN
Sleep did not coming easily for Diana as she laid in the big bed next to the alien commander. Then again, how could it when there were so many things about being there that were new? She’d never been in bed with a man before, let alone one from another planet who happened to have kidnapped her and taken her away from her home planet in his warship.
Plus, she’d been sleeping for the past four months since her return to college from home in the narrow little dorm bed that she’d become more familiar with over the past four years than her bed at home. And, with all the changes that had happened in the last day, her mind was racing a mile a minute, remembering her past, future tripping, worrying about everything from when the alien would take her to what his world would be like to what her father must be doing right then.
She was lucky to fall asleep at all, yet clearly she must have because sometime later she awakened alone. She padded into the bathroom and removed her clothes so she could use the solar shower.
Unlike the showers on Earth, which cleansed the body using water, this one removed all impurities with a pleasant beam of greenish light. She still lingered more than the required minute and moved around a bit, lifting her arms and standing so her legs were fu
rther apart so the thing wouldn’t miss a spot, just in case. Even though she knew it wasn’t necessary.
It felt weird, too, not to have to brush her teeth since part of using the light involved grinning at it briefly to take care of that task too. Before this, she’d probably used the method about five times in her entire life, so it was still kind of strange. Though, considering where she was using it, she supposed it was one of the many new things she’d have to get used to.
At least using the toilet was a similar action, even though it didn’t use water either. It was electrical too. You didn’t flush, you just closed the lid, and the thing blasted the wastes into tiny particles which were absorbed for reprocessing. And if it detected that you’d gone number two, it even wafted a pleasant scent out into the room automatically. Quite the efficient bathroom, really.
Feeling as refreshed as it was possible to be, Diana tugged her clothes back into place and wandered into the living room. The com-link and jacket were missing, and so was Meko. Diana sighed, wondering what she was supposed to do all day. But then she found a little silver box on the table and stepped over to see what it was. Goofing with the buttons, she soon figured out it was some sort of video game and book reader.
She flipped through the novels, which appeared to come from numerous worlds, including plenty of books from Earth. She suspected Meko must have had this programmed just for her use and delivered while they were asleep, and she felt just a little of the tension ease from her belly. Not one person on Earth that she could think of would have done such a considerate thing.
The double doors opened and an alien female stepped inside. Diana looked up at her in surprise. “Who are you?”
Smiling pleasantly, the largish, platinum blonde came to sit across from her at the table. “I’m Alara,” she supplied. “I hoped that you would be awake by now. The commander sent me here to speak with you. Have you eaten yet?”
“Not since before we slept,” Diana said with a shrug. “Honestly, I wasn’t even sure how I was going to do that.”
With a chuckle, Alara said, “Come with me, human. All shall be revealed.”
Curious now, Diana followed the woman out into the hall, walking briskly beside her to keep up with her longer strides. The two of them stepped onto the lift and it began to descend.
“Where are we going, Alara?” asked Diana curiously. “Meko told me most of the decks were not receiving power and air right now.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she grinned. “We are headed to the agridomes, at the very bottom two floors. The power and light obviously wouldn’t be cut down there.”
“No, that would be foolish,” Diana agreed. “But why are we going there anyway?”
“Meko told me that you have been training to work in the agricultural field,” she explained. “I thought I’d put you through your paces, and see just what you can do.”
“You want me to work with you?” Diana asked, surprised.
“Listen up, now,” she said. “On a space ship, we can’t afford to have any redundancy. Not making use of you while you’re here would really be crazy, don’t you think?”
“Well, I was brought here to be a plaything,” I pointed out, slightly irritated as the thought came to mind.
“That may well be, but it was Meko who came to me,” she pointed out. “I get the feeling he may have been teasing you when he said that.”
“No way, he’s not teasing,” Diana complained. “He squeeze-tested parts of my anatomy and everything.”
“By the Stars of Atralon, really?” she chuckled. “I can’t believe he’d do such a thing. Did he even give you a value?”
“I—don’t know,” she said, frowning. “He did say something to my father about how he should owe him something instead of the other way around, though. My father owed him fifty thousand credits, and he took me instead of the money. Kidnapped me, more to the fact.”
“A girl could do worse than being kidnapped by a man like Meko Roshad,” she pointed out. “He’s rich, powerful, and handsome all rolled into one. What do you think of him?”
Diana blushed. “I don’t know, I mean, he is handsome. The word doesn’t even do justice to him, really. And he also seems smart and thoughtful, too. But what do I know about him, really? He’s just some random alien who suddenly threw me over his shoulder and laid claim to me. I’m just not quite sure what to do with all of that.”
“That is understandable,” she chuckled. “But believe me, you’ll figure it out.”
The lift touched down on the bottom floor with a little shudder, and the doors slid open. Alara and Diana stepped out into a long hallway that spanned the entire floor. The end of it was not visible from its beginning. One side of the hallway was made completely of a clear, glasslike material so they could see outside. Going faster than light speed, as they were now, the distant stars looked more like long blurs of light than tiny pinpricks, and Diana thought that if she stared at it long enough the sight might even make her dizzy.
“As you might expect, the different environments are housed within structures on the other side of this wall,” Alara explained, laying her hand on its stark, white surface. “Additionally, this wall is capable of becoming transparent, in the same way that other wall can be made solid, with the flip of a switch, either individually or collectively. This ensures that if we might happen to be able to make use of radiant light from a planet or star outside, that it could reach the growing fields directly.”
“Fascinating,” said Diana as she touched the wall as well. It also felt like glass to her touch, though unlike any glass she had ever known, with capabilities such as these. Alara stepped onto a nearby personnel transport, which was painted white to match the rest of the décor. Diana quickly followed, grasping one of the handholds as her companion began to work the controls.
“Today, we will be working on the far side of the ship,” Alara continued in a businesslike manner. “I need your help implementing a harvest, and then packaging and storing the new supply.”
She nodded her head at the woman. That sounded like just the recipe she needed for getting some sleep without all the racing thoughts and stressful worrying. “I think I’m looking forward to this,” she told Alara, smiling.
“That’s good,” Alara chuckled. “Then the commander will be pleased.”
EIGHT
Meko was on the bridge more to give Diana time to adjust to her new life than because he had any particular reason to be there. She’d had time to sleep on her anger now, so likely one of two things had happened. Either her growing resentment had reached an epic peak and she would have been completely intolerable to spend the day with, or she was still feeling so confused that they would make no meaningful progress with each other.
In either case, leaving her to herself for a while would be the best remedy. Still, he wanted her to be thinking about him in a more positive light by the time he came back, so he’d provided her with the entertainer, and sent Alara her way.
He took it as a good sign when the botanical expert sent a text confirming that Diana was now in her possession, and that her first glimpse of the grain fields. When she told him that her jaw dropped as she called the vast expanse amazing, Meko actually chuckled, then blushed as he looked around to see if his officers had noticed his uncharacteristic mirth.
“You seem in good spirits, sir,” said Breela from her place at his side. “Was your little one that good?”
Keepin his voice low, he replied, “My little one is—untouched. I chose to leave her that way for now.”
“You mean she—as in, she’s still a virgin?” Breela asked, one brow raising in surprise. “Was this something that you verified?”
“What do you mean?”
“It could just be a trick, Meko,” she scoffed. “She said it to keep you from claiming the prize.”
“Somehow, I don’t think it was a lie,” he shrugged. “In either case, this person is someone I’m going to have with me for a very long time. It wo
n’t hurt to start things off with a good foundation.” He hadn’t meant to use Diana’s words just then, but they were the ones that happened to come to mind. He mentally snorted with derision, still unconvinced of the concept of love and sex being part of the same thing. What nonsense.
“Meko, this girl is really changing you,” Breela told him then. “Let’s just hope that’s a good sign.”
*****
The Andarian equivalent to wheat was a plant called kalan. It was a very light purple shade all along the stalk, but the kernel grew bright green. When it was used as an ingredient, most of that color was somehow retained, so that the bread looked like it had been painted with a fluorescent dye. Harvesting a whole field of the stuff gave Diana a familiarity with it that she’d never expected to encounter.
To bring the kalan in, they operated robotic harvesters from the catwalk, expertly guiding them to cut the crop in neat and orderly rows. The harvesters also did the threshing automatically and created haystacks that another machine would come along and bind. These would be brought to the livestock section, which Alara was also in charge of.
“Do you ever work with animals, Diana?” Alara asked her curiously.
“Well, I grew up on a farm, so it kind of goes with the territory,” she shrugged.
“That’s good,” she replied. “The animals on this vessel are predominantly here to lay eggs and produce lactic products, with only the mature animals producing meat for an occasional meal. We even house a hardy species of pollinators to ensure proper crop production. The species is contained, of course. We wouldn’t want these little things getting into the machinery.”
“Earth ships use robotic pollination devices,” Diana told her. “Most of our bees died out during the global warming, and were also taken out during the nuclear war. Mankind was lucky enough to survive. Our little critters were not quite so lucky.”
“That’s so sad,” Alara said sympathetically. “But once we get to Andara, there will be many new species of plants and animals for you to explore. That ought to please the biologist that’s lurking within.”
A New Reason To Fight: An Intergalactic Romance Page 61
