Stars Apart - Stowaway: (Sci-Fi Alien Romance Part One) Read online

  “Cool magic trick” said Helen.

  “It’s not magic” Lanek replied gruffly as he stepped inside.

  “I know. I was just… never mind”.

  Helen followed Lanek into the kitchen, her attempt to lighten the mood had failed miserably. Note to self, she thought, this one has no sense of humour.

  The kitchen was white with an assortment of black furniture. The only thing she recognised was a black, elliptical table on one side of the room, encompassed by black chairs. This was probably where they ate their meals.

  Meals. Food.

  Helen’s stomach grumbled, though she hoped Lanek hadn’t heard. She realised she had been catapulted into space on an empty stomach, which, upon reflection, was a very smart decision, or her vomit might have been all over the floor with that creature’s blood.

  What kind of food did aliens eat anyway? And would it be palatable to her, or even edible?

  Lanek left the kitchen almost as soon as they’d gone inside so Helen didn’t get to see what kind of food was around.

  “What do you usually eat on here?” she asked.

  “We follow the Meflu Space Technique Diet”.

  What? Helen couldn’t even begin to understand what the Meflu Space Technique entailed.

  “Um…sounds appetising” she said.

  “It isn’t”.

  They reached the room next door to the kitchen. This door disappeared just like the first. Even though Helen was expecting it this time, it didn’t make it any less impressive.

  “And this is the gym” Lanek said.

  The ship had a gym. Of course it did, thought Helen, looking at Lanek’s perfectly toned abs. Being an alien, maybe he was born with it, or maybe it was maintained with a fitness regime.

  They went inside. Helen felt unprepared by the term ‘gym’. To her, the gym was a dull place where well-intentioned people ran on treadmills, like hamsters in wheels, until they too got bored and let their gym membership lapse, never to set foot there again until after their over-indulgent Christmas holidays.

  The gym on the ship, however appeared to be sparse and empty, like they were supposed to meditate themselves into shape.

  “Welcome back, Lanek” the computer said.

  “It scans you when you walk in and loads your profile automatically”.

  “Oh. I see” said Helen.

  “Create new profile” he said to the computer.

  “Initiating”.

  “Stand here” said Lanek.

  Helen wasn’t entirely sure where ‘here’ was. There were no markings or pointers of any kind.

  Lanek took hold of her arms and dragged her into position.

  “Here” he said.

  Wow, he was strong. Helen knew she’d have difficulty getting away from a grip like that if he turned out to have hostile intentions. It made her realise how much she had to trust him. She looked up at him, trying to see if she could detect any ill-will but there was none. As he looked back at her, she found his eyes strangely mesmerising, like staring into a sea of lapis lazuli.

  “Creating new profile” said the computer.

  Lanek let go of her and stepped aside, breaking their momentary connection. She wasn’t sure what kind of connection it was but she felt it was some kind of unspoken truce, a declaration that he wouldn’t harm her.

  A ring of white light began to ascend around her. It looked almost like a photocopier scanning her to create a new image.

  “Name of profile” said the computer

  “Helen” said Helen.

  “Profile created”.

  Her outline appeared on the screen in front of her accompanied by writing she couldn’t read. Oh dear. It was probably displaying her height, weight and measurements for Lanek to see. Whatever it was, Lanek didn’t seem too perturbed, though that didn’t give her too much confidence.

  “So um, what exactly do you do in here?” she asked, hoping to distract him from the screen.

  “Switch profile to ‘Lanek’” said Lanek.

  The computer gave a series of short bleeps indicating the profile change. Lanek went over to the screen and picked up some sort of slender, black object from the rack beneath.

  “Load Sura 156”.

  “Loading”.

  Lanek pressed a button and a black blade, lit with a thin strip of violet light along its length slid from the centre of the slender object he was holding.

  She could see now it was as sword. Suddenly, he was suspended in a matrix of orb and discs, all different colours and sizes. Some of them started to fly towards him. He sliced a red disc in two to his left and then spun round to dispatch the white orb behind. His movements were swift and elegant, yet powerful with amazing precision. Helen found herself riveted to the spectacle, and watched, fascinated until the last object had been obliterated.

  “That’s what you do here” said Lanek, “There are different settings and activities, or you can create your own”.

  “Oh” said Helen. She was impressed. She might come back and try it out some time.

  Lanek replaced the sword hilt and left the gym. Helen followed suit.

  Helen guessed that the room opposite the gym was Lanek’s as he walked straight past without further explanation, but stopped when they reached the one opposite the kitchen.

  “This is where you’ll be staying” he said. This time, the door didn’t disappear.

  “Reassign this room to gym profile ‘Helen’” he said.

  “Room reassigned” said the computer.

  “These rooms only open for the person they are assigned to”.

  “How do I open it?”

  “Just walk towards it like you did with the other doors”.

  Technically, Lanek had opened the other doors and she had just followed him in but she decided to try it. It felt strange, walking towards a solid object. Everything she knew about how solid objects worked was telling her she couldn’t make it through. As she got closer, however, the gold melted away.

  “Cool” said Helen.

  “If you need any help with reconfiguring the room, see Eyanis” said Lanek. He began to walk away.

  “Thanks for the tour” Helen said.

  Lanek turned and looked at her for a moment.

  “You’re welcome” he said and disappeared through the other gold door, which Helen was now certain must be his room.

  So, she was on her own aboard an alien ship. She went into Eyanis’s room. She wanted to explore but not too much as that would lead her into his personal belongings and she didn’t wish to pry.

  Instead, first things first. There was another, smaller room to her right, which she hoped was the bathroom to find the shower. She had to wash off the blood and stench of dead alien.

  The shower wasn’t like the ones on earth. As soon as she walked in, she heard some sort of bird or insect chorus. She looked around, afraid to see alien insects, which were probably large and man-eating. However, there was nothing. Just sound.

  The room was green with the appearance of moss growing over boulders on a cliff face. She found a pad of buttons on the wall and pressed one. The shower started, if she indeed she could get away with calling it that. It felt more like the designer had mistaken the word ‘shower’ for ‘waterfall’. The water was a thick, continuous torrent. And it was warm. After this, how could she go back to the miserly sprinkling showers of earth?

  She borrowed one of Eyanis’s tunics. On her, it was so long, it reached to her ankles in a shimmery orange, shapeless mass, and one, or both of the shoulders kept wanting to slip down. However, it would have to do.

  She sat down on the bed and rummaged in her bag for her packed lunch. The language school had provided them for all staff and students but they were usually so uninspiring that when it was time for school trips, a lot of people didn’t bother collecting them at all, preferring to rely on the cafés and restaurants at their destination.

  Helen opened the cheese, pickle and tomato sandwich. She’d brought a pack
ed lunch in case she didn’t have time for a restaurant one, which she envisaged might happen if she spent her lunchbreak helping a student who had got into some kind of predicament.

  Instead, the one who had ended up in a predicament was her, but nonetheless, she was glad of her foresight.

  She sighed. How long would it be before she saw Earth again? Would she ever see Earth again?

  Chapter 7

  After eating her lunch, Helen went back out to the cockpit, drawn out by the thought of seeing outer space.

  “Is it all right if I have a look outside?”

  “Yeah, of course” said Eyanis.

  She went forwards, standing before the screen and watched the vast expanse of blackness, embroidered with pin pricks of stars rushing past. There didn’t seem to be anything nearby for miles. Somehow, space seemed a lot more lonely than she had imagined.

  “All settled in?” asked Eyanis.

  “Kind of”, she replied, “Thanks for letting me stay in your room and borrow your clothes”.

  “You’re welcome” said Eyanis.

  “Do you often travel through space like this?” Helen asked, still riveted to the screen.

  “Yeah, I suppose”, said Eyanis, “I take it you haven’t”.

  “It was that obvious, was it? But no. On my world, we don’t have space ships, so this is all new”.

  The door behind them slid open, making Helen turn round. Lanek joined them. He was dressed now. Helen couldn’t help but notice how the shimmering blue strip running along the length of his jacket and the elaborate embroidered emblem on his sleeve matched the colour of his eyes. The cut of the jacket also gave him an air of sophistication. Helen couldn’t stop looking at him – discretely, of course. He walked past and threw himself into the empty chair next to Eyanis.

  “Helen was just saying she’s never been in space before”, said Eyanis, “You might even have discovered a new species”.

  Lanek turned round and looked at her. It was only a quick glance but it felt to Helen as though he was scrutinising every inch of her to see if Eyanis’s suggestion could hold water.

  He turned back to the screen and brought up a virtual control panel. Helen couldn’t read the ciphers that had suddenly appeared in the space in front of Lanek – the nyaki only worked for sound, it seemed. However, she was able to watch the expertise with which he sifted through the information.

  “You’re human?” he asked after a few moments.

  “Yes”, said Helen, “How did you know?”

  “A planet located at the same coordinates as the one we visited is listed in the database. You’ve been discovered before”.

  Helen wondered what kind of alien had discovered humans. Did that mean all those abduction stories were true? She imagined how somewhere in a museum, on some planet, there were taxidermies or pickled versions of humans, hundreds – perhaps thousands – of years old. It made her shudder.

  “We’ve got an incoming call” said Eyanis, cutting into her thoughts and rescuing her from her imagination, “It’s from Asiroth”.

  Lanek answered it. The image of a woman appeared on a holographic screen. She had gold hair twisted and coiled in elaborate tendrils that cascaded past her shoulders onto the folds of her white dress. But the thing that stood out to Helen was that her skin had a pale bluish tinge, much more pronounced than Lanek’s.

  “Greetings from Asiroth”.

  “Hail, Mighty Queen of the Asithians and Benevolent Priestess of the Vandicor” said Eyanis. He held his hands up towards the screen, his thumbs and index fingers forming a triangle and inclined his head.

  “Hello” said Lanek.

  The Queen smiled at them.

  “It’s such a relief to see my son is unharmed. I was so afraid to call in case you were dead. How did it go?”

  “We’ve got the d’gorran” said Lanek.

  “Well done” said the Queen, “And it seems like you’ve been celebrating. A star goddess of all things…you sly boys”.

  “Oh, no, your majesty”, said Eyanis quickly, “She isn’t a star goddess. She’s someone we accidentally beamed on board. We’re taking her to the nearest space station so they can take her back home”.

  “I see” said the Queen, “Well, Iyana is arriving in a few days so don’t spend too long there. I want you to meet her soon so you two can get to know each other before the wedding. We’ve set the date for the seventh rising, so you can spend as much of the wedding together as possible. And Eyanis, I’ve picked out a few girls for you so come to the pavilion and see if there are any you like when you get back”.

  “You didn’t have to, your majesty”.

  “Nonsense”, said the Queen, “You’re like a son to me and it’s a mother’s greatest pride to see her sons happily married. I’ll send you their pictures but don’t decide just yet. Try them out during mating season and if there’s one you’ll like, we’ll look at wedding plans. You’ll both be fathers before the year’s out”.

  “Oh” said Helen quietly. Lanek looked at her bemused expression and cleared his throat.

  “Yes, well we don’t have to discuss all this now” he said.

  “Okay. Well, I’ll see you boys soon”.

  And then she was gone.

  “Well, that was a very enlightening call” said Helen.

  “Pretend you didn’t hear it” said Lanek.

  “I’m not too good at pretending”, said Helen “Though somehow, I seemed to convince your queen that I was a star goddess”.

  “I’m sorry”, said Eyanis, “The queen didn’t mean that”.

  The fact that Eyanis was apologising, and the way he’d been quick to reassure their queen that she wasn’t one, seemed to point to the fact that a star goddess was a negative sort of thing. From the context, she could hazard a guess at what it was.

  “It’s okay”, she said, “I’ve been called worse”.

  Besides, other aspects of the call had caught her attention more.

  “So wait”, she began, “The Queen called you her sons. Does that mean you’re both princes of another planet?”

  “He is; I’m not” said Eyanis.

  Lanek scowled.

  “What? If she’s a spy come to murder the Asithian prince, I’d rather she knew she could leave me alive”, said Eyanis, but seeing Lanek’s expression, he smiled, “Come on, I think we can trust her”.

  “Don’t worry, I’m really not a spy” said Helen, in an attempt to reassure him.

  “I know”, he said, “But Lanek prefers not to let people know he’s a prince in case they are”.

  Helen looked at Lanek. In spite of his moody personality, she felt a momentary wave of pity for him.

  “It must be awful not to be able to trust people” she said.

  Lanek looked at her but didn’t say anything. Helen thought it best to change the subject.

  “Your mother seems nice” she said.

  “Yeah” said Lanek.

  Helen could sense the conversation was facing imminent extinction and she didn’t want that to happen yet, not when there was still so much she wanted to know.

  “And um… congratulations on your wedding” she said.

  “There’s no need for congratulations”, replied Lanek, “It is merely a political alliance”.

  “Well, I hope you both become fathers before the year’s out” she said.

  “Thanks” said Eyanis.

  Lanek gave a non-committal kind of grunt. Helen wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. When she looked at him, however, his face was impassive, as though in reality, he was indifferent to the notion.

  It was clear the conversation could not be salvaged. She let it drift into silence while she watched them travelling through space.

  Of course, she wanted to know more but Lanek seemed to have said all he was going to say on the subject. Eyanis seemed more open to talking. Perhaps she could get more information from him alone later on.

  The possibility crossed her mind that she was being too
nosy but, she rationalised, once she got back to Earth, when was she going to have another chance to find out about alien culture?

  Chapter 8

  “Helen, is it okay if I come and get my stuff?”

  Eyanis’s voice rang through his former room. Helen looked up. It sounded like some sort of intercom.

  “Yes, of course” she said. She was sitting on the sofa wiling away the time reading a book she’d brought with her to read on the journey down to London. She didn’t know how long her Kindle would last. It made her wonder what aliens did for entertainment, besides slicing holographic objects in half with strange swords. Did they have books? The Internet? Music?

  A chime sounded by the door. As Helen looked towards it, she saw the frosted outline of Eyanis standing on the other side.

  She got up to let him in.

  “Thanks” he said as he entered.

  “Is that a device from Earth?” he asked, gesturing to the Kindle in her hand.

  “Yes” she said.

  “Can I have a look?”

  “Of course”.

  She gave it to him.

  “Wow, this is amazing” he said turning it over and observing it from every angle, “What does it do?”

  “You read books on it” she said.

  “Really?” he asked.

  He looked at the writing, though it was obvious he couldn’t read it.

  “But I’m not sure how long it’s going to last; it’ll need charging at some point”.

  “Oh? If you need to charge it, you can use this”.

  He took her over to the back of the room where a large silver disc sat on a white surface which extended along the whole wall.

  He placed the Kindle on top of the disc and immediately, it started charging.

  “Wow, you’re a life saver” Helen exclaimed. She’d been holding back on using her phone to preserve the battery but now…

  Eyanis smiled.

  “But it’s something so simple”.

  He started going about the room, opening drawers and cupboard doors and collecting things he needed.

  “We’re having dinner soon”, he said, “Come and join us if you like”.