Colonization
Page 35
“I like legs Henley better than legs Shawn,” she said, “Why different?”
“Shawn is male and I’m female. Besides Shawn has hairy legs and I make sure to have none on mine,” I chuckled.
“Female better then,” she looked up at me and smiled, “Want see tail?”
She lay back suddenly and dropped her long tail into my lap. I had to laugh at her actions. She smiled back at me as well. I did want to see their tails, but that was something I thought could have waited until later. Just as I was checking out the end of her tail, John and Sh’tha’we appeared in the water next to us. As John was catching his breath, Sh’tha’we started reprimanding Kol’nor’eah.
“This is a princess! You didn’t start touching her legs, did you?” she started.
“Honestly, I’m not some form of royalty,” I argued in her favor, “Really I’m just a farmer if I had to have a title.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, rising from the water, “My sister is rude and doesn’t understand the way humans don’t just suddenly touch each other like we do.”
John climbed out of the water and broke up the argument without any trouble at all. Before I knew it, they were leading me around the corridors and showing me all that their world offered. Like John had warned, I noticed many people staring at me, most of them amazed and fascinated by my red hair. Several even went so far as to start petting it like I was an animal of some sort.
Eventually John had to leave us to go talk to one of their leaders regarding the cave at Trail Mountain and the fossils it contained. While he did that, Sh’tha’we introduced me to their two sons and then offered for us to go swimming. It was there that she showed me what it was like to shoot out of the water to the ceiling and then to fall backward with a giant splash.
I’d ended up spending three hours with them and their extended families in that pool before it was time to leave. The only truly uncomfortable experience I encountered was that over the course of our swimming, my legs happened to get wrapped in the tails of three mermen, one of them being the nine-year old son of John. Thanks to John’s story, I knew what this meant and I politely declined all offers. After all, my legs only belonged to Thatcher.
Thatcher Stark
Chapter Twenty-Two
The cave beneath Trail Mountain proved to be extremely valuable to the Keplerians. We shuttled ten of their scientists which included three anthropologists and two paleontologists to the site where we assisted them in any way we could. They carefully extracted twenty-three full skeletons as well as several partial skeletons, along with six slabs of stone containing embedded skeletons and other fossils. We used our shuttle and the hoppers to transport these for them back to the sea where they took over from there.
This gave us a valuable opportunity to introduce ourselves and to get to know a little more about them. John and Sh’tha’we acted as interpreters through it all. We learned that prior to the discovery of those fossils that they believed their species had only existed on KMA for about 300,000 years. That was because they never discovered any fossil evidence older than that. We now supplied them with fossils that they already dated to be between 1 and 1.25 million years old. The equipment they brought to the cave was far beyond the technologies of anything we had, so they were able to gather a lot of information even before bringing it back to their home.
The Keplerians welcomed us whole-heartedly, but we were only allowed to visit them if escorted. Basically we couldn’t just drop in unannounced, assuming we could even swim that deep without their assistance. Escorts wouldn’t be a problem however because as it was, they seemed to have already taken a liking to our people. Chris and Keyandra had to send Jenice home because one of the scientists had already started pleading to take her home with him. Jenice loved the attention and I think she even thought the man was attractive. I caught her peeking out from her door longingly when the scientists were being shown around our village. Jenice wasn’t the only one, either. I saw that a female scientist had taken an uncomfortable liking to Rigel, which stirred up Renata like I’d never seen before. We all thought it was funny. Rigel however made it quite obvious that he was taken. The best part was when Renata started rubbing her cheek against Rigel’s.
In the end, we’d satisfied everyone’s requests. We got a qualified anthropologist to evaluate our discovery; John got to join the Keplerians beneath the sea in a more permanent fashion, getting to spend a more appropriate amount of time with his wife and kids; we were able to form amicable relations between Valhalla and the native race to KMA; and finally, I was able to see what it was like to fly out of the ocean when it was my turn to go visit John and Sh’tha’we. Henley was right – it was an experience like no other.
Please let me know if you want
the series to continue
scottmcelhaney@sbcglobal.net
Check out these other affordable books available
for your Kindle by Scott McElhaney:
Indentured (Mystic 1)
Legacy (Mystic 2)
Violation (Mystic 3)
Judgment (Mystic 4)
Convergence (Mystic 5)
The Mystic Saga Omnibus (all 5 books)
Dominion
Vestige
Erinyes
Ghosts of Ophidian
Alastair (Ghosts of Ophidian)
Wildwood Shadows
Daylight in Blossom
Beyond the Event Horizon
Mommy’s Choice
Elusive December
One Crazy Summer
Talking to the Moon
Saving Brooksie
Originally published in installments
like a traditional 1950’s serial novel.
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By Scott McElhaney