Syra had walked in showers of rain in her Holocom Chamber many times, but it worked as a sensor and you only got the feeling and not actually the real rain. She knew this was going to be a shocking experience and almost backed out of it.
James undressed, reached for several towels and robes. Got the soap and shampoo and stepped inside and closed the glass doors behind him.
In a few turns of the knobs, he had a beautiful soft rain shower from six shower heads. There was enough room in there to fit six and Syra was amazed at not only the feel of real water but all around her just like the Holocom Chamber.
Her hair had become soaking wet and James got out the shampoo and showed her how to use the shampoo and rinse. He did the same to his own hair and lathered up his body standing there for the longest time allowing the water to just flow over his skin.
Syra followed suit and did the same all the while laughing at the sensitivity it gave her skin. Watching all the mud disappear down the drain, then all the soap and bubbles were amazing to her.
“Oh my, how fortunate you Earthlings are James, “Syra exclaimed!
“Syra, I have always taken the shower for granted, but never from this day going forward!” James replied.
It was getting very late, so they dried off and wrapped themselves in the robes James had laid out for them.
Syra wanted to assist in cooking dinner and this, James found was amazing. She had always just commanded dinner and it was served from her replicator. Now she would participate in every step of the process.
James gave Syra a few jobs to do.
“Please wash the vegetables under the running water and I’ll chop them,” James requested.
When this was done, James asked Syra to help him removed the scales from the fish before he cut it up and she nearly fainted.
Well, now that didn’t go over so well so he had her just set the table, fill glasses of water and put some ice in them while he roasted the fresh vegetables they had grown in their garden.
James baked the fish which looked nothing like it did when she nearly fainted. He had removed the tail, head, fins, and scales and she was much more comfortable now with looking at it.
If there ever was any doubt in James mind, there was none now. Syra loved the taste of the roasted vegetables and the texture of the fish reminded her of many of the things she had her replicator make. The big difference was that this food had wonderful smells she had never experienced before. She knew if she did not stop, she would quickly overeat.
After dinner, James lite the fireplace and they snuggled up on the sofa. There would be no world news tonight, no tabloids to read, no confusing history movies that caused only more questions. It was James and Syra’s time to enjoy each other’s company.
All the citizen had gone to bed and all was quiet on the ranch. Every day had been hectic, to say the least. There were times Syra thought her head was going to burst with all the learning experiences she had gained just on James ranch. But tonight, well it was their time.
James could not hold back and knew he had to tell Syra how he felt about her and that he had felt that way since the first time he saw her on the news.
When James was done telling her how he felt about her, Syra just looked at him, closed her eyes and waited for a kiss!
“Why are you sitting there with your eyes closed?” James asked.
With her eyes still closed she said, “I’m waiting for a kiss. I saw it in a movie we watched the other day, so I want a kiss!” Syra demanded.
This was the most awkward moment James had ever felt. But her wish was his command and so he kissed her. Each time he thought he should stop and pull away, he felt her clinging to him in a tight embrace.
Obviously, Syra had been paying attention to every move in any movie with a man and a woman interacting sexually. Syra suddenly dragged James off to bed. At some point, James was not sure if this was all her mimicking something she had seen in a movie or if it was her desires for him. Either way, he knew it would be virtually impossible to break from her embrace.
That is when James realized he was starting to analyze everything just like Syra used to do. He needed to let whatever was happening between them happen, and so he did.
Those two crawled into bed under the plush covers and explored each other until daylight crept across the room and neither had slept a wink all night.
“Oh my,” James said, it’s daylight already!
“Do we really have to get up now, can’t we just lay here until someone calls for us?” Syra replied.
“Well it is our day off from work, so I suppose,” James said.
Syra locked lips with James and was not letting him go. James did not have a problem with that and quickly accommodated Syra.
They spent the day indoors embracing the fact that both had always felt the same way about each other but was waiting on the other to express it first.
Syra wondered if it was all that dirt she was covered in, and she knew that on Earth, many different things can bring a man and a woman together when they are attracted to each other. This would be one she would make a mental note on, as she learned the ways of being human.
She had enjoyed learning James in such a different way. She could no longer look at him as her ambassador or think of him the way she did before.
It was hard for Syra to put her emotions into context, but this was a day she did not care to even try.
Sometime later it was noticed that all the citizens were now dressing in human attire. Their husbands began to grow facial hair which was never seen on Zhian. It was not their custom to do and so they didn’t.
Their children were growing and learning extremely fast. As young as they were, they could already speak several languages. But one thing for certain, they were born on Earth and knew nothing else but Earth and its customs.
Their births had been filed and the children received a surname. None on Zhian had used one since they became unnecessary.
This was one of the things Zee10 could do. He would enter any Earthly computer system and merge their data. Then have a paper copy mailed to a post office box in town.
The citizens had disappeared from the public eye and all the news outlets had gone on to other more important stories that sold newspapers and increased subscriptions.
James had taught them how to basically go off the grid. Many of them would have citizenship by birth, learn a trade and how to fit in should they come across anyone they did not know.
In the coming months, Zee10 would have all his Zhian citizens legal in the United States of America.
It would be next to impossible to detect anything unusual. They were genetically the same as humans but far advanced and some would have considered them almost superhuman.
James had often wondered if back in Earth’s past, if Zhians had visited Earth and settled here and that they in fact just may be the very first humans to exist on Earth. It was an interesting thought either way. James loved entertaining the idea.
He wondered if that were the case, did they leave some of their people behind, but this was something that not even Syra knew and was not able to confirm nor deny it.
One way or the other, Syra knew her people remained the same while on Zhian up until the day they abandoned the planet. This was when James learned about where all the other Zhians had gone when Syra and her Sphere headed for Earth.
Syra explained that the council knew of other smaller planets Zhianites could go to or return to and that council had sent them to those planets. The one thing Syra knew for certain as she and James discussed the deep subject was that Earth was favored in the minds of the council.
The Zhian Council knew not to introduce themselves right up front, but to merge unnoticed. They had secretly planned to eventually enter the computer systems network on Earth when the time was right. They would then be all over Earth and not be confined to the Core.
Syra had left the room to get her usual physical from the medical bot Troxien and was gon
e for some time.
James sat there and was stunned that the Zhian Council turned out the way they did. He liked them. James was deep in thought when Syra had returned from seeing the medical bot and she announced she was with child. She would give birth to the first Zhian-Earthling child.
This filled James heart with so much joy he was beside himself. A son or possibly a daughter! He had so hoped the baby would look like Syra with her beautiful black hair and dark eyes.
He had noticed that Syra’s skin was now a beautiful tan color as were all those that came with her. They had adjusted to the Earths sun quite well, thought James.
James and Syra went immediately to visit the families in the cabins and to share the great news.
From that moment on, no one wanted to use the word Zhian and erased it from their vocabulary. Their children had never heard the word and if they had, would not have known what it was or what it meant. There simply was no reason to teach them about Zhian yet.
Each resident slowly removed their Zhian technologies from their cabins and learned to do manual labor from cleaning to cooking and so on.
Even their ways of thinking were changing before James’ eyes. Every evening the citizens would sit around a campfire and roast marshmallows. They would sing songs humans had sung for over 200 years. Some learned musical instruments and by all intents and purposes, they were now human.
As a highly evolved race, they were taught from birth many skills they had not ever used. Their bots performed all duties as instructed. But in this new world, none needed nor desired their bots, and they were sent packing back to the Sphere.
All of them knew that they could do much of what their bots did, and they themselves had replaced the need for them. Jayeden, who was Celethes husband, explained to James that ever since they had arrived on Earth, they felt something happening inside them and they were changing almost every waking moment.
Jayeden explained that they were the first couple to conceive a child on Earth and from Zhian in over 25 of Earths years. Carelson and Daniyela had the second child followed by Desimon and Alaysia.
Jayeden showed James and Syra his humble home and both were so proud of him and his life partner. When Zhianites paired, it was for life and James had to agree he himself was feeling different and knew he would never desire another. Syra was his life partner.
Each day, James and Syra noticed the change as each resident rid themselves of anything that reminded them of their once beloved Zhian. Earth was now their home.
Each had learned the ways of Earth and hidden somewhere deep in their being were-human like traits that were suddenly awakened in them.
If one had not known for a fact that they had traveled trillions of miles to live on Earth from another planet after you met them, one would have thought someone’s imagination was stretched way too far.
The Zhians were no more. Each had erased the memory of their world and refused to even think about it. Everyone was in agreement that one day soon when they felt they were ready, they would go out into the world and blend in.
They wanted to raise their children and live out their lives as they were meant to be. They would eventually split up and live in different parts of the world. Since they could speak any language that was spoken on Earth, this would not be a problem.
James could not help but wonder how much he and Syra’s child would change the world. Theirs would be the very first born on Earth. But, how would it affect humans over time? When his own child grew up and had a child by a human, would he or she pass on that super-human genetics and how would it eventually change the humans, James wondered.
For the first time, Zee10 was starting to have concerns for the Zhian Sphere. Its location troubled him. If they had any glitches in their systems, they very well could cause this new world of theirs to notice a vessel, not of this Earth.
Syra would discuss this with James and with council right away.
The council immediately began searching the Earth for a place the Zhian Sphere could go incognito. A place it could rest. This it could do for eternity if necessary. To go silent other than the bare minimum for operations. The sphere would always be present somewhere on Earth and remain at the beck and call of its people that once lived within its walls.
But even the Zhian Sphere and its council knew with their very existence they could cause the demise of its beloved people.
Every day, Syra was growing around the waistline, and her pregnancy looked good on her according to James, and not a soul could disagree.
When it came to cravings, James could barely keep up. She would ask for foods and then change her mind in an instant and want something different. She had to be constantly reminded that on Earth, we cannot manufacture food out of thin air, and she would have to wait until he could get it.
Then, suddenly James thought about something. They had not discussed baby names and would need to decide a name for a girl and a name for a boy.
That is when Syra explained how it has always been done. The Zhian Council always knows in advance the sex of the child and a name is assigned to it if the parents cannot decide. Most of the time the council would have the final say. She explained that was not how it was done in the beginning but with fewer births, their customs changed.
“Well, that is not how we are going to do it. We will do it according to Earth customs!” James said sternly. “We pick the names and upon birth we the parents assign a name depending upon the sex of the child.”
James looked at Syra and implied she already knew the sex of their baby and was holding off on that bit of news. All Syra could do was give James that cute little girlish smile of hers and walk away.
He knew at that moment he would have to come up with the names and strongly suggest them when his child was born. He had become the most nervous soon-to-be father anyone could imagine.
Day after day James watched Syra gain around her waist, and thought the baby was growing fast inside her. Could there be more than one in there, he wondered. Then he realized that was wishful thinking and laughed at himself.
Syra’s due date was getting closer and you could see the excitement of everyone around them. But Zee10 just was not programmed to deal with babies and woman having babies and had absolutely no opinion to offer one way or the other.
It was a program he once had but was turned silent many passes ago on Zhian. No need to waste programming space and so those memories had been condensed and archived.
While Syra was resting and James trying to keep her off her feet as they were swelling, he spent some time searching the Internet to see if there were any new stories or developments in the case some were building up against an invasion.
So far, none was found and that is when James realized unless anything else was done new, Syra and her people were now forgotten.
Looking back, James could remember many different theories folks had. Some were totally hilarious. Now that he was looking back on everything, he did realize that maybe in a way, it was an invasion when the Zhianites arrived. Unintentional or deliberate, it was in many ways.
He knew if he was going to protect his life partner, his child and her people he would do everything in his power to make sure they were never detected and over time his ranch had become a protective fortress. Certainly, to the human eye, it did look normal but that was about it.
James was a wealthy man by birth but always worked hard for everything and he preferred it that way. But when his parents were killed a couple of years ago in a car crash, he felt worthless without them.
His emotional state would have been devastating had he not taken that trip to Florida and had gone on his walkabout.
Florida was the one place he had always enjoyed going to when he got tired of being out on the ranch and never really seeing anyone. There he knew he could meet folks from all walks of life.
Life on James’ ranch was always a world of its own and James knew he was never going to meet a girl and get married if he continued hanging
out at the ranch. He knew it was time to get out and see more people and Florida had that effect on him that was good.
But he knew he would never have met Syra had he not taken that trip. Just one change of plans, one thing that could have taken him down a different road that day and Syra would not be lying there on his sofa and having his baby.
book one
chapter seven
Syra’s medical bot Troxien was on standby, but James wanted a human doctor to make the delivery and had invited old Dr. Adam Ferguson, who had delivered him 28 years ago, to do the actual delivery when the time had come.
Dr. Ferguson lived about 43 miles from James but could be there by helicopter in a very short time once he got the call.
When it came to the responsibility of naming a child, Syra flat out refused to come up with a name and insisted James pick out a boy and a girl’s name of his choosing and so he did. But he was very uneasy about the responsibility.
Over and over in James mind, he considered naming a son after his father or Syra’s fathers and just could not agree on either one. Then it was the girl's name in case he needed it and it was his mother’s name or Syra’s mother's name and so on.
James had gotten a headache because he just couldn’t make up his mind on any particular name. Syra insisted that at the time of birth he would, and to not let it worry him so much.
Almost every day James would rub Syra’s feet, wait on her and jump up at every move or sound she made. Syra finally had to insist he go outside and make himself busy at something, anything.
James finally found some repair work on his ranch home he had neglected and quickly started the job. He had put off so many things in recent weeks he began to feel lazy but when it came to his Syra, he would do anything for her well-being.
No sooner than James got started on the repair of the shutters he had put off for such a long time he heard her call his name and he knew instantly, it was time!
James called Dr. Ferguson and his pilot immediately jumped in his helicopter and they were on their way. He had kept his pilot on standby for all births he performed for as long as he could remember. His love for a helicopter went back to his days in the Vietnam war. It was the beginning of his medical career.
The Chronicles of Syra Omnibus Page 9
