Chapter 2
T’raat
I watched the human girl—Leigh—sleep off the effects of the hurrm exhaust. Guilt weighed my hearts as I worried over her still form, not letting me rest. How could I, knowing I was the cause of her physical distress?
When she woke at the first rays of starlight beaming through the window, I rejoiced. She survived the night!
“How are you feeling?” I asked her as she opened her mouth wide and took in a large gulp of air. A yawn, my nanites informed me. Her back arched as she stretched her arms over her head, an alluring sight that strained the fabric over her two human breasts. Though limited in number, her teats did not suffer for this. They were both round and full and firm, all excellent qualities in a teat.
“T’raat! You’re still here,” she said, and her plump, red lips spread in a smile. It pleased me that she found joy in my presence.
“I would never leave you unguarded when you were not well,” I said. “That would be most … impolite.”
Her smile faltered. “Is that the only reason you stayed? Manners?”
I paused, trying to decide how to answer. Harrison waited outside the door; I could hear his human heart beating on the other side. “You are … not unpleasant to look at. It made my watch easy.”
She smiled to one side of her mouth, an oddly appealing sight despite the asymmetry. A smirk. “I’m glad you find me pleasant to look at,” she said. Her high voice had dropped in pitch, and her lids hooded her blue eyes.
A sudden pounding on the door startled us both, and I leapt to stand between Leigh and her door’s attacker. Had an enemy gotten past her father?
“Leigh, you had better not be encouraging him in there!” Her father’s voice, though muffled by the door, was quite loud. I winced at the volume of it. “I will come in there if need be.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already,” she said to the closed door, her tone once again quite different.
The range of human emotion expressed in their voices amused me. It would take some time to decipher it, but I noted that Leigh’s voice towards me held lighter tones, while her speech towards her father was often clipped and tight. Harrison’s tone seemed to ever be gruff and threatening, and I wondered if that was a difference in the males of their species or if it was a product of something else.
The metal ball on the side of the door rattled. “The fucker locked it!” I heard through the wooden slab.
Leigh turned to me. “You locked out my dad?” she asked, and her tone had returned to its lighter pitch. She let out sharp bursts of breath and sound in a staccato pattern, which my nanites told me was called laughter. “You actually locked out my dad.”
Laughter was … good? It signaled amusement, at least, which I would prefer over something negative. “He threatened us with the blade last night. I thought it prudent to slow him should he decide to make good on that threat.” I pointed at the locking mechanism I had found in the door’s metal parts. “Once I realized I could stop his entry by turning that little latch, it only made sense.”
Leigh sat up and threw her arms around me, squeezing me. I froze, uncertain what the proper protocol was for this.
“You’re sweet to worry, but Dad wouldn’t actually hurt me, and I’m sure he wouldn’t hurt you, either, as long as you didn’t do anything wrong. He’s mostly harmless if you don’t count butchering cattle from time to time.”
I paused to allow the nanites to process her words. “He kills those beasts by himself ? ” My eyes widened, and I gaped at the closed door. “Your father is mighty.”
More laughter followed, and Leigh’s lips pressed to my cheek before she let me go. “You’re silly,” she said as she sat back.
I did not understand what was humorous about my reaction. She just informed me that her father has slain the large beasts and cut them into pieces, and she reacted as though my shock at such brutality was … funny. “Does he not fear their retaliation?” I asked. “A beast that size could easily murder him for such an affront.”
She lifted her shoulders and lowered them quickly. “It’s not a big deal. They’re pretty docile animals, and it’s not like they have opposable thumbs. Once they’re in the barn, they’re pretty easy pickings for him. Besides, we only slaughter the older ones who don’t give milk anymore.”
“He kills their elders?”
“Well, I mean, they’re not useful once the milk dries up. We make a bit of cash selling the meat to the local delis, but for the most part, our income lies in the milk production.”
“Fascinating.”
Leigh took my hand in hers and got up from the bed, tugging me towards the door. “Come on. Let’s go out there before we give Dad a coronary wondering what we’re up to in here.”
I did not quite understand how human curiosity could affect her father’s heart function, but I did as she instructed and left the room with her. Harrison glowered at us as we walked past, though I noted that his hands were empty of knives. We would not face the same fate as the cattle if he was not armed. That fact reassured me.
I followed Leigh down a set of perpendicular landings, each barely big enough for my foot. I had been so concerned about her wellbeing the previous evening that I hadn’t paid much attention to the odd structure. Would not a ramp be better on the knees?
When we reached the bottom, she directed me to a room that had a large, white box in one corner, cabinets both along the floor and hanging from the ceiling, and another, smaller box with four circular spots on the top panel. A large, round table sat in the center of the room, and the floor was tiled with white squares.
I paused, uncertain what we were doing there. What was the purpose of this room?
Leigh released my hand and walked to the large box. She opened it, revealing a food storage unit. My mouth watered at the thought of food. I hadn’t eaten since before the crash.
“Do you like eggs?” she asked with her head inside the box.
I gave my nanites a moment to translate. Eggs: protein balls produced by an animal. Viable eggs held young, but often they were opened and cooked for consumption before the young could gestate. We had such things on Xalan. I grinned and nodded. “Yes. I like eggs very much.”
“Great! I’ll cook some omelets for us all.” She exited the storage box with several small containers in her hand. “We’ve got some fresh veggies from the farm down the road and of course plenty of cheese.”
Cheese: dairy product. Can be firm or soft. Some contain molds, but this is … intentional? Interesting.
Leigh’s father entered behind us and sat at the table. I followed his lead and sat across from him, crossing my arms in front of me as he did. He observed my mirrored posture and grumbled, turning his back to me. Leigh continued food preparation, ignoring the both of us.
“Do you want sausage, T’raat?”
The question confused me. I thought our protein was to be the eggs. “Two proteins?” I asked.
Leigh turned away from the smaller box with the circles on top, which I noted had become her cooking area. One of the circles glowed bright red as she set a rimmed metal plate with a handle on top of the circle. “Sure. Why not? It’s good with sausage in it.”
“You must be quite wealthy to afford such luxury,” I stated.
The peals of laughter that erupted from Leigh startled me, and her gruff father grunted, hunching down in his seat. I did not understand Leigh’s amusement, nor her father’s increase in aggravation.
“I have said something … humorous?”
“I’ll say you did!” Leigh shook her head as she cracked the eggs into a small bowl, stirring them with a wire device before dropping the innards onto the metal plate. “We’re far from wealthy, T’raat. We get by, but only just. Still, you’re a guest—from outer space, no less—so this is a special occasion. It calls for a little excess, I think.”
“Guest my ass,” her father said. “Now that you’re better, Leigh, I think we should call my sister and have her come take him where he belongs.”
Leigh whirled around and put her hands on her hips. “Dad! Don’t be rude. We should at least feed him before shipping him off to the intake center. You know Aunt Ann has to follow AARO protocol; she’ll have to detain him and quarantine him and all that stuff. At least let the poor guy experience a bit of hospitality before getting the government involved.”
“If he needs quarantine, he shouldn’t even be here!”
The last was said with a shout as he rose from his seat and pounded his fists on the table. Tension filled the air, and I got the impression that perhaps not all humans were as welcoming of Xalanites as our emissaries would have us believe.
“My presence upsets you, Harrison,” I said with a frown. “I shall leave.”
“No!” Leigh stopped chopping produce and brandished the knife at her father, a curious turn of events given his use of a knife the previous night. “Dad, please, let him stay. Even if it’s just for a few days, it would give him a chance to adjust to life here on Earth without bureaucracy messing things up. Besides, we lost a farm hand when Billy’s family moved to New York; I bet he could help you with chores around here.”
Harrison’s jaw worked as he considered her words. “He doesn’t have any experience …”
“Oh, come on! Look at him: He’s strong and physically able, and that’s all you really need. We can teach him the rest. I mean, he’s not dumb; he flew a spaceship across the galaxy and landed without harming a single solitary soul, man or cow or otherwise.”
“Crash landed,” Harrison corrected. “He’s here by mistake, and he’s just going to be a drain on our limited resources.”
The exchange made me uncomfortable. I did not like being a subject of contention between father and daughter. I rose to get their attention, and they both grew quiet.
“It is clear that Harrison does not wish me to remain. I do not wish to be the cause of fighting. I will go see what repairs my ship needs. With good fortune, I shall be able to leave in a matter of solar cycles. If it is also too much trouble to feed me, I shall subsist on the rations in my ship.”
I turned to exit, but a soft hand on my arm stopped me. Leigh’s imploring eyes appeared in my periphery, glistening wet with tears.
“Don’t go,” she said softly. “Please, T’raat. Don’t go.”
Curious. She expressed a strong emotional response to my departure. It was unexpected, though not wholly unwelcome. I stared at her for a long moment, drinking in the details of her appearance while I still had the chance.
Leigh was pleasing to look at, if one overlooked her lack of teats. From what I understood, human women were not as blessed as Xalanite women in that regard, something I could hardly hold against her. The smooth, unscaled skin of her human body intrigued me, as did the light-colored golden hair. Xalanites as a people were all the same purple hue, with the same dark black hair and yellow eyes. We differentiated ourselves by gender and facial structure, by physique, but in my limited experience with humans, there seemed to be quite a bit of variety in their coloring and shape, which seemed consistent with the stories that came from our emissaries.
Where Leigh was all slim, soft lines and taut, toned muscles, her father was taller, broader, with more bulk to his muscles, though his midsection bulged while hers was pleasantly flat. His coloring was darker, both hair and skin, though the tone differential was less for their skin than their hair. Hers was gold, but his was a deep brown threaded with white, a product of aging that was common to Xalanites as well. Their eye coloring differed greatly, too, with hers a brilliant blue while his were brown, matching his hair. I wondered how such variation could exist between relatives. My understanding of human genetics was rudimentary at best, but I had thought that human family members generally favored each other. Perhaps even with the tonal and structural differences they are still considered similar by human standards.
I patted Leigh’s hand to reassure her that I held her blameless in this. “I am … unwelcome. It would be wise for me to leave.”
I had barely made it to the door when Harrison spoke up.
“Wait.”
His command, though softly spoken, bade me to stop. I turned back to see him standing by the table, his head bowed, hands clenched in fists at his sides.
“You should at least stay for breakfast. Eat Leigh’s omelet. Then maybe we can find somewhere for you to stay while you’re here. Maybe the feed barn. We could put you up in the loft.” He gave a shuddering sigh. “It’s not much, but you’d have a place to sleep. Put some blankets on the hay bales, and it’s not really so bad. Better than quarantine, and you’d be free to come and go to fix your ship.”
I opened my mouth to relay my gratitude, but Harrison raised a hand to stop me. “This is temporary. Just until your ship’s repairs are done. After that, I don’t much care where you go, so long as Leigh stays here with me. And God help you if she winds up pregnant with some alien baby. I’m not ready to be a grandfather, and my sister would kill me if I let that happen.”
His jumbled words confused me. I tried to let the nanites do their job, but it seemed I was understanding the meaning of the words correctly. They were just in an odd order, with disconnected statements rambling together. For instance, what did his sister have to do with me? Why would she murder him if Leigh became pregnant? I did not know if it was his syntax that was the issue or if it was related to a glitch in my nanites.
“I am grateful for your offer of hospitality,” I said carefully. “I … appreciate a place to sleep in the hay. My thanks.”
Leigh snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “It would be more hospitable to offer you the guest room. Like a person.” She shook her head and returned to the cooking box.
Harrison’s face turned a pinkish hue at this. Odd.
Not wishing for them to resume arguing, I interjected. “The hay is good. I do not require more than that.”
Within minutes, the egg dishes were done. We all sat around the table, and I watched how Leigh and Harrison ate. They seemed fond of using the metal utensils placed on either side of the ceramic plates, so I followed suit.
The omelets were an interesting combination of textures. The yellow bits were soft, while the orange inside was chewier, and the colorful parts—the veggies—had a pleasant and flavorful crunch. Altogether, it made for a unique dining experience, quite different from the food on Xalan. It amazed me that my people had not considered combining foods of different flavor and texture profiles like this. Truly a masterwork of culinary engineering, and I commented such.
Leigh and Harrison exchanged strange glances, and Leigh dabbed at the corners of her lips with a cloth from the table. “You don’t have to use such flowery words for it. It’s just breakfast,” she said, her cheeks pinking similarly to when her father’s tone changed, though not as deep a hue.
Harrison chuckled. “She’s just being modest. Leigh’s a great cook. Someday she’ll make some lucky man a great wi—” He paused, and his expression changed to one of anger. He shook a finger at me in warning. “But you never mind about that.”
I blinked and sat back farther in my chair in an effort to distance myself from the mercurial man. His moods varied greatly, and I could not begin to guess why he had become so angry. I looked at Leigh in an attempt to understand, but she merely shrugged in response.
“Ignore him. He’s always like that.”