Chapter 8
Romival
Romi.
Her nickname for him. She had somehow managed to turn the harsh syllables of his name into something as rounded and soft as herself. He didn't feel like a Romi. It was wrong for him. But when it came from those pretty lips, it was perfect.
“Holly,” he returned her greeting, surprised by the growl in his voice. When was the last time he had growled? It was such a primitive sound. Even when he was getting into fights – which was rare as he didn't feel the need to release aggression as often as others – he didn't growl.
If he hadn't left his med scanner in his office, he would have scanned himself now. Maybe his sexual hormones were trending upward.
But he didn't have it, and he could barely think to miss it because Holly was taking up all three of his fields of vision.
Lovely. Incredible. The complex pattern in her layered skirt dizzying in its complexity.
Such a pattern, with repeating but variable shades of blues in the oblong, unnatural shapes, would exhaust his skin to try to camouflage against for long periods of time.
But that was a benefit of the humans. They could wear whatever they wanted without consequence.
And Holly looked so beautiful. Stunning on his eyes.
His fingers itched to pull away those clothes so he could investigate her body in full.
Satisfy his curiosity wholly and completely.
See just how much of her body changed colors.
To find out if she was soft all over. To smell and taste every part of her, especially that sweet cunt she had presented to him accidentally.
He also found himself fascinated by the mounds of her breasts. They would fit fully into his hands and his fingers itched to find out their exact texture. To flick along the tip of her nipples that he could see poking against the white fabric of her tight top.
“Come on in,” she said, gesturing him forward. “Er, Hattie brought food for us to eat while we're talking. You didn't say how long we would be here so...”
“I've cleared the rest of my evening. You are my only interest now.” The words rang with a power he didn't intentionally mean to add, but he absolutely believed in.
Her face turned pink – his favorite color of hers – as she led the way through the common area to her personal quarters.
The pale and dark purple reminded him of the color that had stained her skin before and he wanted to investigate her fingers.
Her mouth was clear of the color. He wanted to check to see if the stain remained on her digits. Just how absorbent was her skin?
She gestured for him to sit on a lounge cushion before a low table that held a tray laden with foods that he only recognized distantly. All of it was prepared in strange ways and a few of the scents were completely unfamiliar but tempting.
Not tempting enough to distract him from Holly, however. He barely paid the food a passing glance as he pulled out his combot. It was twice the size of hers and did far more, even considering all the adjustments he had made to her new one.
“May I record this?” He asked, motioning to the flying bot.
Holly nodded her head. The yes gesture again. “That's fine. Hattie wanted to know how the paté tastes, by the way. That's the meat stuff right there. She's trying to make a meat dish we can all eat.”
Romival heard her words, but he was more focused on her actions.
She was reaching across the strange, softened meat – the paté, he assumed by the way she gestured at it – towards a bowl of cubed fruit that was a common staple of all meals.
The juririi fruit she selected was bright yellow and had a very tart taste as well as a crispy crunch.
She popped it into her mouth and chewed with all apparent enjoyment.
It didn't stain her fingers yellow. And her fingers weren't purple anymore either.
“I'm not really an expert in astronomy,” she was saying as he focused on the way her tongue licked the juice from her lips. “I mean, I learned a bit in primary school. But I doubt I know more than the average person.”
“That's all right. Anything you know is more than we do.” He gestured towards his combot, instructing it to record her. “It will help.”
She nodded, lifting her pretty eyes to him. Their unusual color was fascinating. Not quite gray, not quite green, and still a little bit of both. “I really miss home, you know. I miss familiar food and an ordinary house. But more than anything, I miss my family.”
“Were you close?”
“Oh, yeah,” she laughed, her eyes sad, staring off at a past he couldn't see. “My parents always wanted a big family. I have five brothers. And we were together all the time. My dad was a military man, so we moved around a lot. My brothers and I were best friends because of it.”
Romival’s eyes widened. His heart stuttered in his chest at her words.
Five brothers? Her mother birthed six pups?!
“So many,” he whispered, impressed. The record number of births for a domini female was seven; the average number was three. Most could never have more than that despite their best efforts.
But Holly was just chuckling. “Yeah. Mom would have had more, but dad put his foot down at six. Said that they didn't make minivans with more than eight seats, and he wasn't taking two cars when we went on family trips.”
Her mother would have had more?!
“Are you capable of having so many?”
“Sure,” she nodded simply, not even really paying attention. “I always wanted a big family myself. It was great growing up with so many siblings, so I'd love my own children to... Wait, weren't we supposed to be talking about Earth?”
She was pink again. It truly was her best color, and he was fascinated. And really interested in finding out more about her ability to give him so many young.
But she was right. This meeting had a specific purpose. He already had her agreement to continue seeing her to ask more questions, so he put the topic aside for now.
“Yes. Of course.” He opened the holo interface on his combot. It floated in the air just beside her so that it didn't interfere with his, or the camera’s view. “We're going to start broad and get as specific as we can. If you don't know something, just tell me.”
She nodded, smiling, putting her hands together on her lap, sitting up like a student ready to be quizzed by her professor. “Ready.”
“All right. Broadest first. Is your galaxy part of a cluster?”
“Er...” Her face immediately fell. “What's a cluster?”
“A cluster is a group of galaxies that are all relatively close in position to each other.”
She grimaced. “Sorry. I don't know.”
He marked off the question and continued without comment. “Your galaxy's shape?”
She bit her lip, her expression uneasy.
“Your system's position in your galaxy?”
“Oh, god,” she grimaced, dropping her face into her hands. “I'm a moron.”
“You're fine.” He assured her, marking off that question as well. “As you said, you are not an expert on these matters. And if your species is still contained to your solar system, there is no reason for anything greater than that to be common knowledge. How many stars does your system have?”
“One!” She perked up immediately, happy to finally have a response. “We have one star.”
“The size?”
“Er...Big?”
“The color?”
“Well, it looks yellow on Earth, but I heard that it's actually white. I mean, it's definitely yellow when you look from Earth but... Wait, are you writing all that down?”
Romival grunted in agreement, recording her answer faithfully.
“That wasn't even helpful!”
“It was. It tells me your sun isn't blue. Or red. I've an entire universe to search through, anything that might narrow the search helps. Now, tell me how many planets are in your system.”
“Nine. Wait, no. Sorry. It's eight now.”
He cocked a brow. “Did you destroy one?”
“No!” She said, offended. “Pluto isn't a planet anymore. It got demoted.”
“How does a planet get demoted?”
“They changed the size definition of a planet. Pluto is a dwarf planet now.”
“Ah. I see. How many dwarf planets does your system have?”
“Er... More than three? I think?” She grimaced. “Oh, man, this is so pathetic. I'm sorry.”
“You're fine,” he assured her, adding her answer. “What can you tell me about your solar system? Any distinctive features? Patterns of orbit? Anything you can think of.”
Holly's face scrunched up in thought. “Erm, I think Uranus, er, that's our eighth planet, it spins sideways? Like, everyone else goes this way. Uranus spins on its side.” She gestured with her hands to demonstrate the spin of the unusual planet.
“And Venus, the second one, its days are longer than its year.
Our solar system is split into two groups.
The inner planets and the outer planets.
The inner four are all made of stone. Then, there's a big asteroid belt.
And beyond that, there's the gas giants. There's four more of those. Pluto is beyond all of them. It’s stone too. Not a gas giant.”
“I'm assuming your Earth isn't a gas giant either,” he said. She didn't know anything about beyond her system, but she was fairly knowledgeable about what lay within. And that meant such things were common knowledge. Her people were yet more advanced than he would have expected.
“No. Earth is part of the inner planets. Third rock from the sun, as they say,” she grinned, laughing awkwardly.
“It's a TV show from the... You know what, never mind. Sorry. Anyway, er, yeah. Earth is third in line from the sun. Mercury, Venus, Earth, then Mars. Mars is called the red planet. If that helps?”
“It does.”
“Really?” She looked surprised. “Oh. In that case, Jupiter – that's the first gas giant beyond the asteroid belt – is our biggest planet.
It's got this giant red spot on it. I think it's a storm?
It's like The Distinguishing Characteristic of Jupiter. And Saturn, beyond that, has a big ring around it. I think Uranus has a ring too? But I know for sure Saturn does.”