Love Galaxy (The Intergalactic Dating Show #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Sorin

“ A re you even listening?” Killan demands, pausing in the middle of his often-repeated lecture.

“When do I ever?” Roan presses a few buttons on his datapad. “Look at this.” He enlarges a saved image, then pushes the datapad across the table toward our older brother.

I lean forward to see what has Roan so distracted. Admittedly, our report meetings are not the most interesting of family gatherings, but they are important for the day-to-day running of our shared farm, and Killan never likes to be distracted mid-lecture.

“What the fek is this?” he demands, staring at the datapad as if he has never seen an advertisement before.

“LOVE GALAXY,” I read the title aloud. There is a large logo at the center of the screen, a heart with planet rings around the center, and underneath are the words:

LOVE GALAXY is searching for single farmers who are eager to find their happily ever after.

Are you single and ready to meet with your Forever Mate ? Apply today!

I glance between my brothers. A muscle jumps in Killan’s cheek, and he has all three of his hands clenched into fists on the tabletop. Roan is looking anywhere but at Killan.

“What has this got to do with crop productivity?” Killan asks, his voice deadly quiet.

“Nothing. It—” Roan begins.

“Then why the fek are you showing it to us?”

“This is that reality broadcast you were telling me about the other day, yes?” I am more than used to Killan’s glare for it to bother me, but if he keeps yelling at Roan, they are going to end up at each other's throats again. “LOVE GALAXY,” I repeat the name, keeping my voice calm. Roan had been talking about something he had recently watched, but I had only been half listening, more focused on our work than on whatever new distraction Roan was obsessing over.

“Yes.” Excitement turns his scales a pale green. “We should apply.”

“For a reality broadcast?” I ask, dubiously.

“Yes. And look at this part.” Roan scrolls down the image, displaying the bottom of the advertisement on his screen where there is a lot of writing in tiny print. From this distance, I cannot read it. “They do full compatibility tests,” Roan explains, “and they find Females who they think will suit us. Then the Females come to live with us for twenty planet days during which time we get to know each other. By the end of the show we each declare who we want to be our Mate, and the crew throws us a party to celebrate.” He finishes his speech triumphant, and silence fills the farmhouse.

“Do they film everything?” I ask, right as Killan slams his fists on the table.

“No!” He stands, knocking over his chair.

“What do you mean no?” Roan jumps to his feet too. The shortest of us, he is still broad across the shoulders, and with his hands tightened into fists, he looks ready to fight Killan. They rarely exchange blows, but when they do, Killan always wins, and Roan never seems to learn any sense.

“If I apply by myself,” Roan is yelling, “they will never accept my application, not when we are living on the far edge of civilized space. It would not be worth them coming all the way out here. But if the three of us were to apply together, we would actually have a chance of being chosen.”

“I said no.” Killan crosses to his kitchen counter and makes a selection on the control panel set into the wall. A hatch opens, ejecting a glass of homemade hooch, which he downs in one gulp.

“Sorin?” Roan turns to me. “Surely you do not want to live here, in the middle of scudding nowhere, by yourself forever?”

“I—”

“Come on!” Roan desperately interrupts. “They are searching for three unmated Males. We are three unmated Males.” He points between us, as if silently counting one, two, three.

I close my mouth, unsure exactly how I would have answered had I been given the chance. I have spent so many years pushing away thoughts of a Mate, determined not to lose sleep over something which will probably never happen. Faced with Roan’s proposition, I feel paralyzed, as though all the time I spent not thinking about a Mate has rooted me firmly in place.

“The farm—” Killan begins, but again Roan interrupts.

“Fek the scudding farm! We are alone, Killan. I am alone, and I do not want this to be the rest of my entire life.” He looks around at the kitchen, most of which is taken up by the large table, still holding his datapad and the remains of our evening meal.

Our father made that table, with enough space around it for himself, his Mate and his sons. Now of course it is just his sons, the three of us left to do the job of five, to keep the farm running. The rest of Ril II is as unpopulated as when we first arrived, Killan and me younglings, and Roan not yet born.

I look down at my work-worn hands. I might not have dedicated any time to contemplating a Mate, but I have spent countless hours thinking about the farm and my place on it, and I long ago accepted that this is my home. I could not move away; I could not abandon all the hard work our parents put into its construction, building it from the ground up with their own bare hands and limited access to ag-tech.

But Roan… For the last year I have been expecting to arrive at one of our report meetings to find Killan alone and Roan gone, escaped to the civilization he has never experienced.

“How else are you expecting to find yourself a Mate?” Roan demands of our older brother. “Or are you happy being alone?”

“I—” Killan snaps his mouth shut on whatever he had been about to say.

“We are not guaranteed a Mate,” I tell Roan. “Even if our applications are selected.”

“Applications we are not making,” Killan adds fiercely.

We both ignore him.

“No,” Roan agrees with me. “The Females can choose to leave at the end of the twenty days, or we can ask them to leave. But that almost never happens. The show has a 95 percent success rate. See.” He reaches for his datapad, but Killan sweeps it off the table.

“I said no.”

I make a grab for Roan, catching him around the waist, intercepting his lunge for Killan.

“Not everything is about you and this scudding farm,” Roan yells, struggling against my hold.

“Sorin,” Killan demands. “Do you want this too? Do you want cameras in your home, spying on you while you make a fool of yourself over a Female?”

“Sorin?” Roan turns in my arms to look at me, his eyes wide and desperate. “Please.”

I let him go so fast that Roan stumbles before catching himself on the table’s edge.

“Come on,” Roan begs.

“The cameras… ” I begin.

“You will barely even notice them.” Roan waves away my half attempt at an objection.

“Think about it, Sorin. A Mate. A proper family.”

“They will not be Ril’os,” Killan says.

“No.” Roan takes a deep breath, as if trying to keep control of his suppressed temper. “But what Ril’os Female would want to live out here with us? None. That is the entire problem.” He steps toward me. “I already told you that they will find compatible Females. Willing Females. They need not be of our own species.”

“Willing?” Killan scoffs, requesting another shot of hooch, his hands shaking. “To live here? They will take one look at the empty horizon and want to leave.”

“They might not. They might enjoy farming.”

“They might enjoy long days of manual labor? They might enjoy the constant wind that never stops blowing, not even when you think it will drive you insane to listen to it for another moment? They might enjoy?—"

“Yes! Yes! Maybe. How will we know for sure if we do not at least try? Sorin, please. Come on.”

“I do not think it is the worst idea you have ever had,” I concede.

Roan punches the air with all four fists. “That is two against one.”

“Not quite.” Killan spins around to turn his glare on me. “Think carefully about what you are agreeing to, Sorin. You more than anyone crave privacy.”

“I do not— That is, I think— Akh… ” I clear my throat, struggling to find the words needed to express the battle of emotions raging war inside me. Instead, I choose logic. “They will film the farm. The broadcast will be long advertisement for our Nufaral,” I say, naming our primary crop. “You do not have to find a mate, Killan. So long as you pretend to be interested enough that the cameras have time to follow you around the lakes. All advertisements are good advertisements. The three brothers, searching for love. Buy their Nufaral today . Full price. ”

“You are still thinking about the farm?” Roan slumps into his chair, his head in two hands. “It is always the scudding farm with you two.”

“The farm has protected our family—” Killan begins the most well-practiced of all his lectures, the one Roan and I can recite back to him we have heard it so many times.

“A chance for a Mate would not be unwelcome, for Roan,” I hasten to add, cutting through Killan’s tirade. Once he gets started, he is apt to keep talking half the night. “I am sure Roan would be more settled with a Female to care for. Yes?” I direct that last question to Roan himself.

“Yes? Yes, I would!” Straightening, Roan turns wide eyes onto Killan. Killan, who has always put the farm and his family before himself. Killan who looks ready to punch something—or someone—but who will not be able to resist agreeing to a proposition that will benefit his youngest brother.

“Fine,” he snaps. “But if it all goes to shit, it will be your fault, Roan.” And he takes the stairs two at a time, slamming his bedroom door behind him.