14 Saleuk
“Of course. I just meant…” You’re sjeking beautiful. “Nothing. You should be comfortable.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable—"
“It doesn’t.”
Sam shrugged off my comment and then sat down across from me, filling my space with her scent. Without the sweat and grime, she smelled fresh as the river and sweet as moon melon. It instantly affected my concentration. I started to fiddle with the water filter only to lose track of what I was doing. From that point, I was just pretending to twist wires and rearrange filter plating.
“So,” Sam said, clearly bored. “Your English has gotten better since I saw you last.”
“My English was perfect last time you saw me.”
“It was. But your accent is better. What other languages do you speak?”
“Not as many as Vahko. Obviously, I speak Takesh. I also know English and conversational Spanish and Mandarin. I speak Lohnria to a degree and I know a few phrases in Jiraki, though that is only so I can interrogate gek in the event of imprisonment. Otherwise, I would never dirty my tongue with their words.”
“They really did a number on your race. I would hate to speak their language, too. Although, I think your idea of not knowing many languages is a bit skewed. At least compared to humans. You know more than I could imagine learning in my lifetime. You all really watched humanity long enough to know our languages before we even got to space, huh?”
My lip quirked as I nodded. “We know a lot more than your languages.”
“Like what?”
“We studied your governments. Most of your religions. Your tech.”
“What else? What’s something you like about us?”
I hesitated a beat and suddenly Sam’s brows knitted like she was concerned there was nothing favorable about her people.
Putting down the water filter, I leaned forward on my elbows, pinning Sam with my eyes.
“I like your hope. Your creativity. Your artists are particularly intriguing. I like that, throughout your history, you’ve never failed to fight for your beliefs, no matter how small your numbers were. I’ve read about countless rebellions in your people’s past and I think that’s admirable.”
“There haven’t been rebellions in your history?”
“Oh, there’ve been plenty,” I scoffed. “But it’s different seeing someone else do it. And humans are still confined to one world. Valerians are across multiple. There are times that we won’t find out about a war on Valer until many cycles after it’s done. Territories change hands in our absence. New leaders are elected.”
“That’s so strange. What about citizenship? Is that a thing when you inhabit multiple planets?”
“You are a citizen of the place you are born. But people like me have been grandfathered in. We are citizens of many places.”
“People like you?”
“People who were there during the Thinning. People who went into stasis.”
She leaned on the table, tipping her head sorrowfully.
“I studied the Thinning. I’m really sorry that happened to your people.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“But not for you, right? If you went into stasis, I mean.”
“No, not for me,” I sighed. “Which is a curse and a blessing. I didn’t live through endless failed attempts to turn our reproductive problems around. I didn’t see our people fall apart. I didn’t see the thousands of stillbirths that drove our women insane with grief. I went into stasis a young soldier and I was brought out of it to be just that.”
“How long has it been?”
I let my eyes wander as I did a bit of quick math in my head. “For me, it’s been nine Earth years since the gek’tal released their sickness on us. I was too young to have a mate but not too young to enlist as a military pilot. I did it to fight the gek, but we couldn’t fight what they did. You can train your whole life, but you can’t fight something microscopic.”
“Biological warfare. It’s ugly.” There was a solemn cloud hovering over both of us, but Sam was quick to break it apart. She sat up straight with a sweet, kind smile. “But humans finally left Earth and we reproduce so much, the government pays people to remove their ability to have kids.” She laughed at the idea of it. “Hell, sex is virtual most of the time. The media tells us we’re all germ-filled sacks of infections waiting to spread so touching is taboo. That’s how much we have babies. That’s how desperate we became to stop it. So if your people are looking for a way to fix this reproduction problem, I’d say studying humans is the right direction. It might take time, but I believe it will happen.”
“Those were some very kind words, Sam. I didn’t expect that from you.”
“I’m very kind. Stupid, accident prone, and high maintenance, but I’m very kind. You just got to know me when I was at my worst. Well, almost at my worst.”
I laughed at her self-deprecation, but only because she said it with such enthusiasm. None of it was true.
“You’re not stupid. Accident prone and high maintenance, yes, but never stupid.”
“I don’t know. I trusted Mr. Hamburger enough to let him ruin my life. And all the alarm bells went off, too. I just ignored them. I’ve known people like him my whole life and I was na?ve enough to think I was going somewhere where I didn’t have to worry about things like that. I’d call that stupid.”
“I’d call that hopeful. You hoped he was better than he was and he wasn’t. That’s not your fault.”
“It doesn’t matter. Now I’m here and I’m sure he’s spreading lies about me as we speak.”
“I told my men to put him in custody for endangering humans under my care. He’s not getting off easy. The Nexus gets very serious if there’s even a hint that we might close the gates to our planets again.”
“That’s why they keep me around. Since I’ve been to Sylos, they think I’m some kind of bridge between valerians and humans. Like I’m special,” she laughed.
“You are special. You’re one of two humans that have ever stepped foot on Sylos.”
She was trying to hold back a smile, but when she lost control of it, it was the most adorable grin I’d ever seen. It was innocent and genuine and completely distracting.
“Yeah, I’m kind of special,” she admitted. “I got to eat your food, which is worlds better than Earth food, by the way.”
“I don’t know. That cold dessert thing you guys have is something I’ve been craving for a long time.”
“Ice cream? You like ice cream? Ugh, dairy and I don’t have a good relationship. Not that it stops me from drinking big lattes. Strawberries and chocolate syrup, though. That’s a different story. Oh!”
Her loud squeak made me jump and I watched as she leapt up from her chair and pranced up to the rooms. She returned moments later with her pack, from which she pulled something in a silver wrapping. She dropped her pack on the table as her little fingers worked at the wrapping, her lips drawn together in concentration.
“I forgot I had this. It feels melted, but I don’t care.”
“A silver wrapper?”
“No, it’s chocolate. If you’ve had it before, you’d be as excited as I am.”
“Let me see.”
I reached out and snatched the squishy wrapping from her. Immediately, she went feral. I started working at the thin covering until I ripped off a corner and a rich, sweet scent wafted out of it.
“Ok, you got it. Give it back.”
“You seem to like it. I want to try it.”
She jumped, reaching for it, but with one stretch of my arm, it was far out of her reach.
“No,” she said seriously. “You’re not going to do this to me. This isn’t a joke. Chocolate is very important to me. I’ll die if you don’t give it back.”
“Really?”
She paused, shrugging her shoulders. “I’d die on the inside.”
“That doesn’t count.”
I started to walk away, trying to work my way through the rest of the odd wrapping while Sam’s feet slapped against the metal flooring in quick succession.
“Saleuk. I’m warning you. I will cry and I know you hate when I cry.”
“I just want to taste it.”
“I have to control the tasting or you’ll eat the whole thing. That’s how chocolate works.”
“I can’t even get it open all the way. Who designed this?”
“Someone who didn’t want people eating their chocolate!”
Her protests were doing nothing to deter me and they were really adorable. When she stopped, I almost stopped toying with her, wondering if she really was going to cry.
“Hang on,” she said, her face going taut with determination.
She turned around and marched out of the building, catching me off guard. I watched the door for a moment, wondering if she really had a plan. I heard her fumbling with something outside, but when she didn’t appear back in the doorway again, I shook my head and concentrated on the wrapper. One precise maneuver later, I had finally conquered the chocolate’s protective coating and peeled the silver down enough to see a squished, brown, half-melted substance inside. It smelled wonderful, but it looked anything but appetizing.
“Sam, this looks—”
Before I could finish, I heard her snarling and lifted my head to see her sprinting from the doorway wearing a pair of leggings and that black, sleeveless top from earlier. She’d left to get into clothing she could move in and now she was attacking. A tactical plan.
I spun around just as she leaped up and clung to my back.
“Release the chocolate!” she shouted, climbing all over me to get to her disgusting, brown substance.
At that point, I didn’t even want any. All I could think about was her legs wrapped around my body and the feel of her heat on my skin. Her breath on my ear. The press of her breasts against my shoulder.
Sam looked and felt entirely different to me since my paetal began beating. I was beside myself.
Surging was meant to be two-sided, but I wondered if I would find myself alone in my attraction. It was going to break me and it had only been a day.