by Calista Skye
He’s right. In cavemanese, only one little sound separates those two words.
“On my world, being a rebel is often seen as a good thing. It stands for strength and independence and integrity. I think that you are that kind of rebel, not the outcast kind. You cast the whole tribe out, in a way.”
He ponders this. “In a way. Interesting way of looking at it. Are you a rebel, yourself, perhaps?”
I snort. “Yeah, no. I’m the least rebellious girl who ever lived. Always obedient and eager to please. And look where it got me.”
Juri’ex looks around and shrugs. “It got you to the same place as me.”
“No, I mean… sure, yeah. It got me here, I guess. But before. Back on Earth. It set me on the wrong path in life and got me to the college that the Plood sought out for their abduction project.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“Umm. Not really. I won’t bore you with that.”
“I gave you superb entertainment with my sword story, told at great length and with every detail painstakingly recalled. From the mining to the final forging. I told you about every stroke of the hammer. It’s only fair that you now entertain me with your experiences.” That glint is there again.
“Oh, you’ll regret this. Fine. Stop me when you’re about to fall asleep. Yes?”
“Yes.”
I walk several steps in silence. Where do I start? How much of my life will an alien even understand? Just such a thing as a family must seem weird to him. How much of my past can he grasp at all?
“Most stories are best told out loud,” Juri’ex prompts, impatient. “While I’m sure aliens can read minds, we warriors are simpler stock.”
“So,” I begin, “my father died when I was ten. He was run over by a motorcycle. It was an accident, not on purpose. That kind of accident is pretty common.”
“A moudrsaikl is a Big?”
For now, I would prefer not to have to get into the whole topic of traffic and motor vehicles. “Um… yes. For a kid to lose her father at ten is pretty tough. He loved me very dearly, and of course I worshipped him, like most kids that age do. But he was gone. From then on, there was only my mother and me. Do you know what a ‘mother’ is?”
“Another Big?”
I think he’s joking, but I can’t be sure. “A mother is a female parent. Like a father, except a woman. She’s the one who gives birth. Like Caroline gave birth to her son? That makes Caroline that boy’s mother.”
“Ah. We don’t have those.”
“That’s right. My mother and I were close, of course. There were only the two of us in our family. However, as I grew older, I realized that she was quite overbearing — I’m sorry, this is going to bore you to death.”
“I promise to give you a signal when I have passed away from boredom so that you can build a pyre for me. Go on.”
I continue, skipping most of the details about my life and focusing on the main events. I have had many opportunities to think about these things here on Xren, and Delyah’s wake-up call yesterday still resonates in me.
“Most kids will have their own ideas and want to follow their own path. I did, too. But whenever my mom wanted me to do something particular, she would always use my dead father against me. ‘Your father would have wanted you to do this,’ she would say. And it worked, too. How do you argue with someone who’s dead? Someone you miss every day? Someone who was always kind and cool?”
“Impossible,” Juri’ex says simply.
“Yeah. Whenever she used that argument, she got her way. I wanted to be like my dad. I wanted him to be proud of me, even though he wasn’t there. I guess I felt that if I could be like him, do what he would have wanted, then… I don’t know. Maybe it would feel like he wasn’t all that distant.”
Juri’ex’s silence says more than any sympathetic comment.
“But,” I continue, “even when I did what my mom said my dad would have wanted, it was never good enough. She would sigh at my report cards and mutter something like ‘I’m glad your dad isn’t here to see this.’ Even if my grades were actually pretty good. After a few years, my dead father became like a dark presence in the house. Like a demanding ghost, never satisfied. Totally different from the playful, generous man I remember him as.”
The gravel crunches as we walk among the alien plants. My own words are making me angry. Sometimes it feels like my mom took away my memory of my own father. Probably, she didn’t do it on purpose. I think she meant well. And bringing up what my dad would have wanted never failed.
“The time came for me to go to college. I was nineteen. Now, the choice you make about that is pretty important. It sets you on a particular course for your work life. I always liked the social sciences. Like, psychology. But my mother made it clear that my father would have wanted me to become an engineer, like he was. Or that I should at least pick a natural science. It worked. Again. I caved. At least I kind of liked physics, mostly because I had a good teacher who made me feel that I actually had a decent grip on it without it getting too mathematical. Then I start college and it turns out that it’s all math. Are you dead yet?”
“No, no,” Juri’ex assures me. “I’m in perfect health. I think I can follow most of what you say. At some later time I will probably ask you what sykolji and fseeks are. For now I’ll pretend to know it perfectly well. Go on.”
“There’s not much more. I never did well in physics. I had to pretty much take one whole year over again. My mom let me know just how disappointed my father would have been. Juri’ex, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s just been on my mind lately.”
He places his large, warm hand lightly on my shoulder. “I certainly have thought a lot about my old tribe and the things that were less than good. As you have thought about your family. I’m starting to think it’s common to dwell on these experiences. And maybe talking about them can make them seem less important. I certainly feel that after yesterday.”
So of course, he’s all understanding and cool about my sore memories. I stop and put my hand on top of his. “You’re pretty human for an alien, you know that?”
His eyes are still luminous, but now there’s a strange warmth to them. Whoever heard of a warm turquoise? Well, I’m seeing it right now.
“As are you,” he says calmly, and the bass makes my chest tremble. “To rephrase something I heard recently, I can’t give you your father back. But I can give you this.”
He bends down, moves his hand to the back of my neck, and kisses me on the mouth so sweetly and tenderly one of my knees does actually buckle.
“You can,” I pant when I get my breath back. “Actually, now I wonder if you can give me one more.”
He does, and this time my hand is on his neck, too. He has the most sensationally soft lips. I can’t feel his fangs with my own lips, but just knowing they’re there, sharp and dangerous and gleaming white, is adding to the surge that’s now definitely going on down below.
I open my eyes and let his neon eyes penetrate my soul. For some reason, I think he likes whatever it is he sees in there. And maybe I like it a little more, too.
I glance at his crotch. It is even larger than before, and I’m pretty sure something in there moves.
Why the hell not? He’s all muscle, he’s saved my life too many times to count, and now he knows how pathetic I am and still wants to kiss me. I could do worse than this. In fact, it’s hard to tell how I could ever do any better.
I throw a glance over at the robot. It’s looking this way, and while I’m sure Delyah would never spy on us, it makes me a little bit uncomfortable. And I need some time to think this through.
“Let’s find the next level down,” I say with a dry mouth and grab one huge, callused hand.
I hold on to it while we keep walking, but now we cut across the landscape and aim for the far end of the unbelievably huge garden.
The ground is as soft as vapor under my feet, but I think part of that is because of what just happ
ened. It took me by surprise that kissing him would have such an effect on me. It shouldn’t, of course. I am pretty much falling for this guy.
After just one day with him? It’s obviously crazy. But I have to admit he’d be an incredibly hard act to follow. His understanding ways, his strength, his way of looking at me. His gentle touch, his obvious intelligence, and his fiercely protective streak.
His soul, still so wounded by his tribe never accepting him.
All we unmarried girls in the village wonder why the others have been so quick to not just fall for these guys, but to marry them as soon as they can. When we sometimes give voice to our questions, usually fueled by booze, the married girls just look at each other and shrug, saying that they can’t really explain it in any rational way. It’s like you have to be a member of the club to understand. And then you just know. Well, I’m starting to grasp what they mean.
Juri’ex’s presence calms me. His slow footsteps as he lets me set the pace, the aura of safety around him, the confidence that fits him like an invisible suit of armor. It’s magnetic in a way that I recognize as primal. And that’s probably why the attraction is so strong, too. Like I’m an infatuated little electron, totally unable to break out of the orbit around Juri’ex’s oxygen nucleus. Or a red-antigreen gluon to his negative-one spin proton in a three-jet event topology with extremely narrow resonance…
I catch myself grinning. I never thought I’d ever swoon in my whole life. I was sure that was just in old movies. But I got pretty close with that first kiss of his.
I glance up at him. He has to like me a little, right? To do that?
“Is that it?” Juri’ex asks, still holding on to my hand.
I squint. In the distance there’s what looks most of all like an icicle, going all the way from the ceiling to the ground. It’s a bluish white and could well be a marble column, except it does radiate a steady light. “Looks like it.”
We walk straight for it, then come upon a wide stream that threatens to delay us. Juri’ex solves it by scooping me up in his arms, walking a few paces back, and then taking a running jump across the water, landing as softly as a snowflake on the other bank.
Before he lets me down he gives me a little squeeze that I find very sympathetic.
We walk over to the column. From Delyah’s description, it’s a beam that somehow functions as some kind of elevator. If you want to go up, you walk into it forwards, and walking into it backwards takes you down.
“How is this made? How does it work?” Juri’ex marvels. “It’s not water, just air that glows.”
I actually wouldn’t mind knowing that, myself. I don’t think it’s just light. The column looks too substantial for that. I can only hope it’s not too radioactive.
“Magic again,” I explain.
He frowns. “Really?”
“No, not really. It’s just, I have no idea how this is made, Juri’ex. It’s just easier to think of it as magic.”
“Easy, but inaccurate. It is alien tech, of course.”
Yeah, he’s a bright one. I should keep that in mind. “That’s exactly what it is.”
I look behind us. The robot has simply waded through the stream and is now standing in its usual place, fifty feet away.
I take a deep breath. This beam is probably the weirdest thing I’ve seen, the most advanced piece of alien technology. It does creep me out a little. But I would trust Delyah with my life.
I turn around and take two steps back, into the beam.
It’s pretty much instantaneous. I’m now standing on the next level down, and just a second later, Juri’ex joins me there. His hand is on the handle of his sword, ready to draw it. Yeah, he doesn’t trust this place.
“Another alien landscape?”
10
- Ashlynn -
“Probably even more alien,” I agree.
This level is probably only a hundred feet below the upper one, but some kind of optical illusion makes the sky look almost as real as up there. The light is just as bright, too.
The landscape is different, though. This is not a garden so much as a forest. The trees have orange trunks and yellow leaves, giving it a very October-in-New-England vibe. But this might be what summer looked like on the Ex planet. Certainly, the temperature is nothing like what I remember it from the one weekend each year spent with my grandparents in Maine.
In the distance there’s a gray cliff with the unmistakable ghostly mist from a waterfall.
I suddenly feel dirty. “Want to see if we can take a bath?”
“Woods provide good hiding places for attackers,” Juri’ex grumbles. “I preferred the garden level.”
I give him the best Bambi-eyes I can muster. “But you will keep us safe, right? It’s not that far.”
He sighs. “Very well.”
The robot suddenly stands behind us, having used the beam.
I walk over to it and knock on its plasticky chest with a knuckle. “Hey, Delyah? You there?”
“Me here,” says the robot. “Oh, second level? Cool. Look around there if you want. It’s very pretty. Like fall in New England.”
“That’s just what I thought, too. So, this level is totally safe, right? Some of the expedition members are wondering.”
“I never came across any dangers on any of the upper five levels,” Delyah specifies. “I never went any further down. And I haven’t been down there that much.”
“Thank youuuu. Hear that, Juri’ex? Completely safe in every way.”
“That’s not what I said,” the robot protests, but I ignore it.
Juri’ex shrugs. “I already agreed.”
“And now you can bravely protect me from danger in the knowledge that there are no dangers to protect me from.” Yeah, I’m feeling a little bit giddy and silly. Either there’s something interesting in those fruits I ate or being this close to Juri’ex makes me like this.
Or both, probably.
I walk ahead to the waterfall, which must have some kind of sound-dampening installed. I would have expected these considerable masses of water to be more thunderous than this.
The water falls from a cliff pretty high up and into a roundish pool of white rock, from which I suppose it must drain somehow. But I see no sign of a drain, and the water is so clear that it would be hard to miss.
It is a very tempting pool, and I itch to jump in and maybe wash some of the jungle grime off me. But it’s not like I brought a swimsuit.
There’s another surge of heat to my crotch.
“Juri’ex?”
“Yes?”
“Do you mind if I… hmm. See, I don’t want to take a bath still wearing my dress. So… um...”
He’s bewildered. “So?”
“So, I just wanted to check. I don’t want to offend you.”
His confusion deepens. “Offend?”
“It’s probably an Earth thing. I’m asking you if it’s okay with you if I take my clothes off before I jump in.”
He looks me up and down, and the crotch of his pants swells so fast it’s like I can see the movement. “I would not be offended,” he says hurriedly.
“Okay, good. But it also means…”
He’s holding his breath. “Yes?”
“That you have to get naked, too. I mean, you want to take a dip, right?”
He casts a worried look down at his own pants, where there is now quite scandalous action, like an anaconda locked in deadly, squirming combat with itself. “I’m not sure I need one.”
“Are you a little shy? Tell you what. I’ll get naked and jump in, then turn my back. You can take off your pants and get in so I can’t see anything. Deal?”
I can’t say that his eyes are bulging. They’re too deeply set for that. But he makes a good approximation. “Agreed.”
“Good.” I quickly discard everything I’m carrying and pull my dress over my head. I take my sweet time folding it up and placing it on the ground so that Juri’ex can get a decent show. I’m the first woman he see
s like this, and I have an urge to reward him for the perfect accomplishment of his bodyguard mission. And to be honest, I like his gaze on me.
I turn my back and stand on the rim of the pool for five seconds to give him a look at my rear side, too. Then I jump into the water, not too elegantly.
It’s cool and fresh, and the waterfall twenty yards away adds a nice current and a little bit of splashing. I immediately feel much cleaner.
I can just about reach the bottom with my toes, so I stroke my hair back and glance up at Juri’ex. “I’ll turn my back. You just jump in.”
I let my feet float to the surface. Either it’s the lower gravity on Xren, or the water contains something that works a little like salt, because I float just as easily as in the ocean on Earth. Maybe even easier. There’s no struggle to stay at the surface, just an easy—
There’s a huge splash and a flood wave as Juri’ex finally jumps in, maybe a little closer to me than necessary.
I cough and sputter, stroking my hair out of my face once more. “Nice, right?”
Juri’ex’s dark blond head comes out of the water. “It is very wet, certainly.”
“Water is wet,” I educate him. “First law of hydrodynamics. Or something. See if you can stand on the bottom— oh my, how many swords do you have?”
He stands up to his full length, and the water only covers him up to his belly button. It’s not quite deep enough to keep the last inch or two of his maybe most interesting feature covered, as it stands proudly and rock hard up along his abdomen.
He looks down. “Now I can only hope that I’m not offending you.”
“Oh, you’re not. But as your kind sometimes says, and I mean this in the best possible way: Holy Ancestors. That thing is a monster.”
He gives me a little smirk. “It is just a part of me. But it does have a mind of its own. I can’t control much about it.”
It is a monster. And it’s not human. It has ridges and bulbs and protrusions all over, as well as thick veins that stand out and pulsate visibly. I’ve seen some wild sex toys in my day, but that thing could make its inventor a millionaire overnight. “I think I know why you made such a huge sword. You think everything has to be enormous.”
