Chapter 3
I Had Plants
Nicole’s mouth dropped open. The alien studied her reaction, and she could have sworn they smiled.
They tapped again. “Welcome to—”
A horrible screech, like the feedback on a bad microphone in a middle school gym, tore through the room.
She put her hands over her ears, and the alien gritted their teeth and stabbed a finger at the tablet.
The thing finally stopped emitting the awful noise, and the alien scraped a hand over their face.
Nicole reached for the device. “I can talk some more, if you want.”
Another twitch of their lips, and they handed over the tablet.
“My name is Nicole Waterman. I grew up on a planet we call Earth, in a small town in the Midwest, moved to Northern California, following the first of many boyfriends after college. I’m an EMT—a medic. I help people like you helped me.”
She gestured at the IV stand next to her bed.
“I’m thirty-three years old, and my life was good until three weeks ago. I had an apartment, I had friends, I had plants.”
Fuck, her plants were probably dead. She’d loved those plants and proudly called herself a plant mom. Her life had been too busy for pets, but her plant babies had brought her so much joy.
The alien trilled at her. They held up a finger, then two, three, four, and five. Oh cool, same number of fingers. They pointed at her.
“Numbers? You want my words for numbers? Okay. One…”
Nicole counted to a hundred, and the alien reclaimed the tablet.
She waited for a bit, but they seemed too focused to pay her any attention.
She stood on tender feet and wiggled her toes.
The skin pulled and stretched, but the sting was less than it had been.
Whatever healing tech these people had was miraculous.
She glanced at the alien again, but they were still focused on the tablet.
With a huff, she wandered around the room, pulling open drawers and cabinets.
Some of the contents were vaguely familiar. Shrink-wrapped packages of what looked like beef jerky, others of various vegetable matter. Food.
Some of the items she found were completely alien. She snorted. No, she was the alien here. This was her rescuer’s space.
Various gadgets, contraptions, and thingies. A few tools were recognizable as hammers and pliers and chisels, though the metal they were made from was much more reflective than the steel used on Earth.
Nicole opened her umpteenth drawer, but the clawed hand of her alien friend slammed it shut. They snorted at her, their scales flushing a deep green. This blue-green reptilian alien looked human, too human.
“What? I’m bored.” She jerked away, still unsure how far she could trust them. After all, her other experience with an alien species had been less than pleasant.
As though only now realizing how close they were to her, they withdrew slowly with their hands up again. When they were as far from her as possible, they pointed at the bed.
“Fine, I get it. No touching.”
The alien watched as Nicole settled, then tapped on the tablet again. Sheesh, trust issues much? She was the one kidnapped and transported far from her home. She was the one—
“Welcome to Vrul 4.” The computer voice interrupted her thoughts.
An expression close to a grin graced the alien’s face, like a doctor who’d figured out what was wrong with a patient. And no ear-piercing screech this time.
Great, she had a name for this godforsaken desert. But what about her new friend?
“What about you? What’s your name?”
More tapping. Were her words translating to the screen, or was something else going on?
“Krir of the Qbilit clan.”
She pointed. “Krir.”
They pointed at her and said in their own melodic but deep voice, “Nee-cole.”
Nicole nodded and smiled. Close enough. Holy shit, she was communicating with an intelligent alien species. Much better than getting punched by one.
Their attention once again went to the device.
“Who did this to you?” came the monotone computer voice again.
She almost laughed. Every time she read those words or heard them in audiobooks, they weren’t in the emotionless, lifeless tone of AI.
The alien looked at her intently. Their eyes flashed in the low light, and their lips pulled up into a snarl. Somehow, she knew they weren’t threatening her. They were angry because she’d been hurt.
Nicole shrugged. “I don’t know. They didn’t introduce themselves. Just took me from my home and shoved and hit me until I did what they wanted. They were red.”
She looked around the room but couldn’t see anything red. Except…she pointed at the wound where the IV had been. A few drops of blood were drying there.
“They were this color. Red. About my height but rounder.”
She gestured from her toes to her head, all five foot six of her, then made a big circle around her body. The alien gave a grunt of frustration, turned their back, and searched through a drawer. They handed a stylus to her, before tapping on the tablet and handing it over, too.
A blank light blue screen greeted her. The alien made motions like…drawing. Shit, they wanted her to draw. Nicole was no artist, not by a long shot. The best she could do was draw stick figures.
She tried, but a five-year-old could have done a better job. She returned the tablet.
The alien examined her “art,” glanced at her, and burst out into a noise similar to a hummingbird’s chitter. Their lips were wide, and they threw their head back. They were laughing at her.
She couldn’t help laughing, too. It felt good after the last few stressful weeks, and the burden she’d been carrying lifted a little.
There had been no joy on the ship, only work, pain, and fear.
Too many injuries for her to treat after hours.
Too many people who had lost the spark of life. Too many ways to die.
As the laughter faded, her growling stomach filled the new silence. The alien glanced at her stomach, and a flush painted their chest. But instead of red or pink, the scales darkened from aqua to green.
“I’m hungry. Do you have food?”
She made the American Sign Language sign for food.
Their eyes widened and they jumped up, heading to a small alcove behind her she hadn’t noticed before.
They opened a cabinet—no, a refrigerator, since the air coming from it was cool.
They grabbed something round and bright pink and a jug of clear liquid. Probably water. Hopefully water.
She opened the bottle—no smell. Took a sip. Yep, definitely water. Nicole sniffed the round object, similar to a smooth pink Snoball snack cake, but it smelled like almond butter. She nibbled on it. Tasted like almond butter, too.
While she ate her snack, her caretaker typed on the tablet. When she was done, they tapped again and the computer voice started.
“From your description and the escape vessel, the people who took you are Giuk. There have been rumors of a raiding ship or ships taking species who do not yet have faster-than-light travel and using them as laborers, but no one seemed to find hard evidence. Until now.”
Enslavers. Great.
“I wish to give you a patch that will help with speaking,” the computer voice continued.
The alien held up a translucent disk about the size of a dime with thin metal lines embedded in the plasticky material.
They lifted the feathers away from a small, humanlike ear and revealed a circular patch a couple shades lighter than the surrounding scales that looked similar to the disk. Nicole nodded, but they didn’t move.
“Yes.” Maybe nodding didn’t mean the same thing to their species.
They smiled again and approached. Using a clawed finger—not long or particularly sharp claws, closer to thick fingernails—they tucked her hair behind her right ear. The alien seemed to linger a bit, allowing her hair to flow through their fingers.
Nicole leaned into the gentle touch. The Giuk were harsh, cruel. The other humans had been desperate, clutching at her in despair, agony, and fear. It had been too long since she’d been touched with anything approaching gentleness.
The alien pressed the disc behind her ear. The sensation was unpleasant but not painful, like a small bug crawling on her as the little electrodes shot out and embedded in her skin.
“Can you understand me?” Krir said.
Nicole could still hear the trill, but the translation was nearly instantaneous and seamless. The masculine voice from the translation disc sounded similar to the voice when they’d tried out her name.
“Yes. How about you?”
“Perfectly. Oh, this is excellent. I’ve always wanted to use this tech, but there isn’t much call for it when you’re a geologist.”
“Ah, you like rocks.”
“Indeed, I do.”
“So how long do I have to stay here? Is there some sort of quarantine? Or danger? When do I get to see your planet?”
The alien rubbed near where the translation device stuck to their scales.
“Slowly, please. You are free to leave, but Vrul 4 is not my planet. I’m here for a research season. Vrul 4 is a desert world, unlike my home of Qilffir, and the geologic activity is different.”
“Oh. Is that why you locked the door? It’s dangerous?”
“I didn’t want to chase a frightened mammal across a desert wasteland after saving her life and healing her wounds. This research station is set by a natural spring, so there is water and some shade. Oh, am I correct? You are a female?”
Nicole made a face. “I’m a woman.”
Krir’s brow furrowed. “They are not the same?”
“Not always, but maybe now isn’t the time to get into it.”
“Very well. I am a male.”
“Are you okay with me using he/him pronouns?”
“That sounds acceptable.”
“Thank you, Krir, for helping me.”
“I am happy I was here to help you. Had you crashed fifteen days later, I would be back home.”
Home. Would she ever see her home again?
Her stomach sank. She’d never see her mom or dad, never tease her brother again, never go out for drinks with her friends.
“What are you thinking, Nicole?” He lifted her chin and examined her once more, his reflective copper eyes sparkling brightly.
“I won’t be going home again. My species, humans, haven’t gone farther than the moon orbiting our planet. I have no idea where I am. Is it even the same galaxy? And I’m a medic, not an astronomer. I couldn’t tell you anything remotely helpful.”
He stroked her hair, and some of the tension left her. He seemed a gentle being, and she was beginning to trust him.
“It can wait until later. For now, you must heal. I will send a message to the Qilffir Geological Agency and see what your options are. Get some rest.”
Yes, rest sounded good. But first…
“Where’s the toilet?”