When the youngest sister sat on the edge with her tail hanging over next to me, I asked if I could touch the tail, mostly speaking my question with hand gestures. They all agreed. After all, everyone had touched my legs at some point already and the closest I ever came to inspecting their tails was as I held onto their ‘hips’ while swimming and dancing with them.
I ran my hands down the length of her tail, feeling the smoothness of the scales. She lifted the giant fan portion at the end of her tail and I felt the tines that separated the thin translucent sections. I then attempted to run my hand along the scales backwards, feeling at their resistance as well as thickness. The scales lay perfectly flat and felt as thick as probably a full millimeter. It was during this that I noticed a small opening at the front of the tail just above where one would expect the knees to be on a human. Everything about these creatures seemed real and biologically reasonable to me.
After our little lesson in the giant pool, I was brought to see various portions of their world. And all the while, they taught me words for what I was looking at. I was shown what appeared to be a lab of some sort, populated be several mermen. I would have introduced myself, but it was becoming apparent to me that greetings weren’t common here. I was then brought to a clothing store where Ha’Kna thought it would be funny to dress me as one of them. They did the same to me at a jewelry store. They brought me to a place where they built things that appeared to be some sort of electronics. It was when they brought me to their observatory that I was suddenly in complete awe.
When I entered the room, my first thought was that I was in a planetarium with a domed roof much larger than any planetarium I’d ever been in before. Then I noticed that someone was currently magnifying various portions of the sky. I could see a woman seated in the center of the room working at a terminal not far removed from our own computer terminals. Sh’tha’we called out to the person and the person turned around. The mystery woman then hollered her name with a smile that instantly turned into a frown the moment her eyes settled on me. It was more a scowl than a frown actually.
Just then, the woman rose from the terminal and slithered over to us. She was pointing at me just as she started speaking rapidly to Sh’tha’we. Kol’nor’eah tugged my hand, leading me away from them. She tried to tell me something, using some curious hand gestures, but I didn’t understand what she was getting at. Later I would learn that she was attempting to explain that this angry woman was their mother. She did, I noticed, look a lot like Sh’tha’we only with a few deeper creases in her brow.
While the arguing continued on behind us, this youngest sister showed me the terminal and then hit a function that changed the dome above us to the very sky that we should have been able to see over KMA. I examined the sky above for a moment and then quickly rushed over to the far side of the observatory and pointed to one of the brighter stars. You’ll recall that we learned how to locate the sun before we ever left home and I’d just now put that knowledge to good use. Kol’nor’eah somehow caused a circle to materialize on the ceiling above me. She then moved it to a star close to the sun above me.
‘No, over here,’ I said, pointing to the left of it.
‘No,’ she repeated.
Now the woman I would later know as her mother slowly led the way over to where I was standing. The circle that Kol’nor’eah was controlling now encompassed the sun.
‘Sun!’ I turned to her and smiled.
‘Sun!’ the three sisters repeated.
I then pointed to myself and then pointed to that star on the ceiling. Kol’nor’eah gasped, then hit a command that enlarged the star to maximum size, brightly taking up the whole ceiling. Her mother rushed over to the terminal and edged the bright sun slowly off the ceiling above us. She was still doing something rapidly on the keyboard, but I couldn’t see anything changing. Suddenly I caught the image of Saturn on the dome. And this wasn’t Kepler 963a either – it was actually Saturn from our solar system. They somehow managed to be able to see planets from twelve light years away.
I pointed up at the image and shook my head no, saying that word as well. Kol’nor’eah repeated the word no and said something to her mom as she pointed up at the planet. She tapped some more commands and suddenly the image of Jupiter was there above me. Although we did have an outpost on one of the moons, I didn’t feel that now would be the time to discuss that. I wanted them to see my home world.
I pointed to the ceiling and said no again. I then spoke their word for water. I’d learned their word for ‘more’ as well, so I said the phrase ‘more water’ in their tongue.
Her mother looked at me, startled by the fact that I’d just spoke something in her language. She muttered something while she entered some more commands. Suddenly the Earth appeared before us, taking up almost the whole ceiling. I cheered and pointed to the ceiling. They all stared in awe, realizing just then that I came from a planet that was mostly covered in water. I, a creature with legs, lived on a planet that had more water than land. It probably confused them a bit.
The image zoomed in further and further, bringing the ocean waves into focus. It would figure that the water would be the object of their focus. I waved my hands, getting their attention. I then pointed to me and to my feet. She then tapped in some more commands and brought up an image of a very populated city. She brought the image closer and closer until you could see hundreds of people moving about on the sidewalks, with vehicles moving about along the roads as well as in the skies.
‘Sun,’ Sh’tha’we said as she stood at my side with her arm around my waist.
‘No… Earth,’ I replied, ‘Earth.’
‘Sh’tha’we Earth?’ she asked, pointing at the bustling city.
‘No, Sh’tha’we and Shawn here,’ I said, pointing to the ground.
Even if I could, I wouldn’t have taken her to Earth. As it was, I was already wondering about how I would eventually be able to live among them in a more permanent fashion. I was really enjoying all the time I had been spending with her and I adored her smile and her free spirit. The unknown older woman rushed over to me after I’d spoken my last sentence and then knelt down on the ground before me.
‘Sh’tha’we… Shawn… here!’ she repeated my words firmly as she patted the floor.
She looked a bit angry as she stared up at the two of us. I knelt down in front of the woman and said the same thing she had said. Then I patted the floor.
‘No Earth. No Sun,’ she reiterated, staring angrily at me.
I could now see that she was learning my language even as I had been speaking to the others. She was a very astute observer when I hadn’t even paid her much thought.
‘No Earth and no sun,’ I agreed.
She then took my hand and seemed to inspect my fingers. She turned my hand over and I worried that this woman was about to lick my palm or place my thumb in her mouth. Instead, she lifted my hand and placed it in Sh’tha’we’s. I didn’t realize this at the time, but in her eyes and in all her daughters’ eyes, Sh’tha’we and I were married just then. Her mother had reluctantly given her daughter to me based on two small things. The first being that she knew that her daughter had already made a choice that she wasn’t going to back down on, and second being just the simple fact that I promised not to take her daughter away with me to my home world.
The three sisters were excited all of a sudden and started cheering and hugging each other. I had no idea to the extent in which this woman had accepted me and I still had no idea that this was her mother. I just knew that she was looking at me sadly for a moment while the others cheered and danced around us. I finally stood up and was wrapped in the embraces off all three sisters. Each had rubbed cheeks with me which felt nice suddenly as I realized that I wasn’t just a disgusting beast in their eyes. After all, if my friend were marrying an octopus, I didn’t think I could have ever kissed the octopus.
Henley Knight
Chapter Sixteen
“How long would you have secretl
y lived this other life had Thatcher not discovered those ancient bones?” I had to ask, “You were married, accepted by her sisters, and apparently accepted by her mother. You had a home where you were loved and yet you came back to our village every evening and lived in solitude.”
“Not in solitude. I lived with a family I’d grown to love over the couple years we’d spent together. I’d eaten my dinners with you people and even shared heartache and strife with you people. I’d even almost starved with you people during that first year on this world,” John said, “No, I wasn’t living in solitude. And by the time I’d fallen in love with Sh’tha’we and her family, I couldn’t abandon you. Remember, if I would have left to be with my wife forever, I’d have had to leave forever with you believing that I’d died at sea.”
“But you could have done what you’re doing now,” I argued, “You could have just told us everything.”
“No I couldn’t and even now, I’m risking a lot by telling you all this. I’m only coming out now so that I could urge you to never tell the people of Murphy-Stark and New Sumter. As it is, they are both building a significant naval force which includes submarines. If either of these nations learned that there was a superior race of beings that numbered in the millions living beneath the oceans, they would change their focus to start building ‘preventative’ weapons targeting the depths,” John stated, “Ask your father, Henley. Ask Zane or Sarai. You never got to know the world of your ancestors.”
“It’s true, especially if you know that a potential enemy might already possess superior weapons,” my father agreed, “Speaking of weapons, I know you said they’re further advanced than us. How are they in the aspects of war and fighting?”
“That’s the best part. In spite of all the angry looks I’d received each time I walked into a room or met another Keplerian, I realized that I had been misjudging them. As I’d already stated, their angular brow structure gives them downward slanted eyes that naturally looks angry. When you give them a frown of curiosity, it looks like they are sufficiently angry when in truth, they are merely curious. I was never met with anger by any of these Keplerians. Imagine a world where their biggest disagreements are those of the romantic nature,
“And I have to admit that those disagreements are common though. Until marriage occurs, they are anything but monogamous in their relationships. It was why Ha’Kna was so forward with me in the beginning and claimed that she was going to take me. Even sisters would destroy their relationship over a potential mate. After our ‘marriage’ however, the sisters have been nothing but the best of friends to both me and my wife.”
“But did you think that we, of all people, would have harmed these creatures or caused them any trouble?” Zane asked.
“Honestly, I couldn’t even risk the possibility. Now I turn to you requesting that you help me hide their existence. Don’t show the world those caves beneath Trail Mountain. Don’t make them wonder if such creatures still exist. Don’t spark their curiosity. I’ve seen their weapons. I’ve got to swim beneath these new submarines. I don’t want the Keplerians to ever know war. They don’t deserve those sort of imports from the planet Earth.”
“John, can we please meet these people that you’ve grown to call your own? Can we meet the people who have taken your heart and given you what you’ve deserved all along?” Sarai asked, “Please?”
He seemed to think about it for a minute, then breathed out a long sigh. He turned to her and held up a finger.
“If I haven’t scared you away just yet, then I’ve got one more story to tell you if you are to ever meet these people. But I need to warn you first,” he stated, “Please keep an open mind.”
Chapter Seventeen
I spent the next few months doing the same sort of things. I pretended to go fishing each morning, hitched a ride to the bottom of the sea, and spent a lot of quality time with my wife, her sisters, and now both her mother and father. All had welcomed me quite fine, especially when they realized the depth of my love for their daughter.
It only took us about a month’s time before we could speak to each other fairly well. We both probably spoke a little like cavemen in the other’s language with phrases like ‘I hungry’ or ‘We swim now’ or ‘I want make out with you’ but we were getting there. As I’m sure you can imagine, we were intimate with each other quite often. And as I already alluded to, I’m not going to go into details. Some things are meant to be private. I’ll just say that just like with any lovers, we learned from each other and discovered what it took to bring a smile to the other’s face. But through it all, having children simply wasn’t a possibility.
As the months turned into years, our language barriers became less and less and soon we were both completely fluent in each other’s languages. You might be upset to discover that I had learned of the other nations on KMA about ten years prior to those fellas washing up on the beach. But I couldn’t share this information without disclosing the existence of my second life. And since New Sumter and Murphy-Stark both seemed so distant and willing to avoid our colony, I saw no harm in keeping that knowledge secret.
I have to admit that no one knew about the shipwreck and those men slowly dying on that raft. Knowing the Keplerians as I do, I can assure you that they would have somehow secretly guided the raft to land much sooner. And that’s assuming that they didn’t just reveal themselves like what had happened with me. And that only happened so conveniently because I was being watched by her at the time of my accident. I did ask Sh’tha’we and she in turn asked several others if anyone had known of the Diana shipwreck. No one had been aware of those men or their wrecked ship. Since then, we did locate the broken hull on the ocean floor and sadly the location was within fifty miles of their own shore. Had the current been reversed, they would have been brought home a couple days later instead of floating for more than a thousand miles to our shore.
Anyway, I got a little off track. After Sh’tha’we and I had been together for about four years, Ha’kna eventually got married. She gave birth to a son about a year after that. I could see something change in Sh’tha’we’s demeanor the first time she held her nephew. It was heartbreaking to see the longing in her eyes, made even worse by the thought that I couldn’t provide her with any offspring. And in truth, I’d been secretly longing for a family as well. I loved her so much and wanted to start a family with her. We were both being denied something we wanted.
She brought it up that evening in bed. And yes, it was a bed and not a swimming pool. Her family had graciously provided me with human habitation attached to her existing home which included a bed, closets, sofas, a shower, and other similar necessities.
‘Why is it that we can’t have a family like Ha’kna?’ she asked, her head resting on my chest as we lie beneath the blanket.
‘It’s just not biologically possible and even if it were, what sort of children would we have? Would we spawn a Keplerian that couldn’t breathe underwater? A human who could breathe underwater?’
‘Would it matter? As long as that baby was ours,’ she said, looking up at me.
I kissed her on the forehead and continued running my fingers through her hair. My heart was breaking as I imagined all that I couldn’t provide this lovely woman with. The fact that she fell in love with a human hindered her ability to play freely in the ocean with her lover. It hindered her ability to make love far beneath the sea like their kind was so accustomed to. And lastly, it hindered her ability to ever become a mother or a grandmother. I wished suddenly that she hadn’t fallen in love with me or I with her.
‘What if we went to the Research Lab to see what they could offer us?’ I asked.
‘Really? You said no the last two times we discussed this,’ she leaned up on her arms, looking infinitely sexier in that moment than usual.
The Research Lab was the name given to their top scientific university. I’d already been approached by them on multiple occasions to allow them to do some research on me. Basically they were anxious
to dissect me and see what made humans tick. Now I knew that I was exaggerating their requests and their intentions, but when you happen to be the alien, you start to wonder sometimes. I was the alien living in their world.
‘I just wonder… what if I allowed them to poke me, prod me, and have a look inside, but on one condition. What if I asked them to see why our species cannot procreate together and then to also see if our problem could be… I don’t know… assisted by science?’ I asked.
‘You’d do that? You’d allow them to violate you in the interest of having a child?’ she asked.
‘I’d be trusting them not to kill me, of course. But yes, I want you to be a mother even more than you probably do. And I want to be a father,’ I replied.
‘I don’t know what to say. I would love for us to have children, but it’s not right that you should suffer,’ she stated, though her sudden smile seemed to disagree with her words of reluctance.
‘Could you imagine a little Sh’tha’we?’ I asked.
She pressed her cheek to mine as she embraced me all of a sudden. She then kissed me intimately the way she learned that I liked.
Chapter Eighteen
This was the period of time that I claimed to want to search for a new fishing spot. I was to be gone for a few days. Kennedy packed me a nice cooler full of grape juice, cooked chicken, and enough raw green beans to last me to the next shadow period. This was back when I had a habit of munching on raw green beans and I remembered thinking how good it felt that my village knew me as well as they did – in spite of that secret life I’d been concealing from them. Irony didn’t forsake me even back then.
Instead of searching for a new fishing spot, I did the one thing I’d sworn never to do. While still alive, I had donated myself to science. As it turned out, it wasn’t going to be as invasive as I’d feared. But it wasn’t going to be fun either. I’d find myself on more than one occasion standing uncomfortably naked in front of many Keplerians. I’d also find myself inside various machines that I believe were meant for scanning.
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