Chapter Six

Zoe

 

So here’s the deal with simulated food—if you ever get a chance to try it, don’t. Just don’t, okay?

It started out all right. Sarden seemed to have simmered down a little which was good. Being around him when he was pissed off was kind of like walking into the middle of a thunderstorm, wondering when the lightning was going to strike. But Sarden calm was not so bad—even if he did still look huge and scary.

First he showed me into the kitchen—excuse me, the food prep area—and proceeded to explain how the food-simulator worked. The food-sim, as he called it, was the big gold stock pot looking thing I’d seen earlier when Al took me on my short tour. The one with all the wires coming out of it.

As it turned out, the wires all had sticky pads attached to them and they were supposed to be placed at just the right spot on your temples so the food-sim could read your thoughts and know what to make you.

“Why can’t I just tell it what to make?” I asked as Sarden pressed one of the sticky pads to his left temple.

“You are telling it—with your mind. You can provide a much more complete idea of whatever it is you’re telling the sim to make, including taste, texture, and smell, by sending direct thought messages to its processing unit,” he explained.

“So once you think what you want it appears in the pot?” Without waiting for an answer, I took the lid off the big gold pot and recoiled. “Ewww!” It was about two thirds full of green slime that looked an awful lot like snot.

I’m sorry—I know that’s gross, but I have to be honest. That’s what it looked like.

“You’re not supposed to remove the lid until the food-sim is finished,” Sarden snapped, snatching the lid back from me. “Are you paying attention? You’d better be because I don’t have time to make food for you and even if I did, I doubt you’d like the cuisine from my home world.”

“I doubt I’d like any cuisine that’s snot-based,” I said, fighting not to gag. “What’s in that pot, anyway?”

“Nutrient slime—the raw material from which all foods are simulated, of course,” he said impatiently, as though it should be obvious.

“So…the food-sim uses this stuff…” I pointed at the green slime. “To make things to eat? And then you actually eat them?”

“I’m beginning to wonder if the transport process from your planet affected your mind after all,” he growled. “Of course you eat them. What else would you do with food?”

“Throw it away if it was made of green slime,” I remarked. Not that I’m a super picky eater—one look at my hips and you’d know that. But a girl has to have some limits.

“The finished food product doesn’t retain any of the texture or flavor of the nutrient slime,” he said, frowning. “Watch.”

Putting the lid back on the pot, he closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to the pad at his temple. He looked like he was thinking really hard about a difficult math problem. I was beginning to wonder how long this whole process took when the food-sim made a small, discrete chime that sounded like someone ringing a fancy door bell.

“There.” Opening his eyes, Sarden took the lid off again and a puff of fragrant smelling steam escaped the pot.

I looked in. It was still filled two-thirds full with green slime but a small platform, which was completely slime free, had risen up from the center of the pot. On it sat a clear plate that might have been plastic or glass—I couldn’t tell. On the plate was something that looked like a blue spaghetti sandwich. By which I mean that the bread-like stuff it was wrapped in was blue. The spaghetti itself was red and yellow with black specs I took to be some kind of pepper.

“Perfect.” Sarden nodded with satisfaction and lifted the plate out of the pot. Picking up the sandwich, he took a large bite. “Delicious,” he declared after swallowing.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” I conceded. “I mean the coloring is a little weird and having a bread and pasta combo like that is a lot of carbs, but it smells good.”

“What is pasta?” he asked before taking another bite.

“That stuff—the long skinny noodles you’re eating. On Earth we make it from wheat. What do your people make it from?”

“We don’t make it at all—this is churn. We catch them in the Great Depths.”

“The what now?” I frowned, not sure I understood him.

“I said we catch them,” he repeated. “Churn. They’re a kind of water snake that comes from my home planet of Eloim. Would you like a bite?”

He pushed the sandwich near my face and I suddenly saw what I hadn’t before—the “noodles” all had little black eyes—that was what I had mistaken for pepper. Some even had tiny forked tongues hanging out of their itty-bitty mouths.

I think I made a sound like, “Urrgh,” because Sarden withdrew his snake sandwich quickly.

“See? I told you that you wouldn’t like the cuisine of my home world—either one of my home worlds. If you think the churn are disgusting, I can imagine what you’d think of Vornish yigba stew.”

“I didn’t say it was disgusting,” I protested weakly. “I’m just not used to, uh, eating snake sandwiches. That’s all. But…” I cleared my throat. “You said you have two home worlds?”

He looked suddenly guarded. “I should not have mentioned that. But yes, I am half Vorn and half Eloim.”

“I, uh, noticed that your sister doesn’t have horns like you do,” I said, busying myself with securing a sticky thought patch to my left temple and hoping I wasn’t overstepping my boundaries. “Is that because she’s a girl and only the men, er, males of your people have them, or…?”

I left the question hanging, wondering if he would get mad again.

“The horns are from my Vorn heritage,” he growled. “Sellah doesn’t have them because she’s pureblooded Eloim. Not that it’s any of your Gods’ damned business.”

“Sorry!” I protested. “I didn’t know it was such a touchy subject.”

“Well it is. You might not know much about the universe—how could you, living on that uninformed ball of rock you call a planet—but the Vorn are hated and feared throughout our galaxy. They are considered violent, dangerous, and most of all, unpredictable.” He glared at me, as though daring me to say something.

Okay, I wasn’t touching that one with a ten foot pole.

“And what are the Eloim known for?” I asked instead, glossing over the whole violent and dangerous thing.

Sarden took another bite of his sandwich and swallowed before answering.

“Eloim are highly civilized with an elaborate set of social customs for every occasion. They value art, beauty, and learning above all else.”

“Wow.” I frowned. “So the Vorn and Eloim are kind of polar opposites, huh?”

“Something like that,” he agreed guardedly.

“So how did your parents meet and fall in love, if they’re from such different cultures?” I asked, genuinely interested.

“They didn’t,” he said briefly.

“But then how—”

“Why are you so interested in my heritage, anyway?” he interrupted, frowning at me.

“I’m just trying to get to know you,” I said. “I’ve never met an alien before. Hell, I didn’t even know there were aliens outside of scifi books and movies until you had Bambi and his minions drag me through that bathroom mirror.”

“Who is Bambi?” he wanted to know.

“Oh—that’s what I was calling the head wormy guy—the main Commercian, I mean. He had a voice like a character from a children’s story back on Earth so I sort of started calling him by that character’s name.”

“That was actually Char’noth and despite his voice and appearance, he’s not a male you want to make angry with you,” Sarden said dryly. “You really seem to enjoy re-naming things and people.”

“Oh, you mean Al?” I asked. The artificial life-form had gone back to the control area, presumably to run the diagnostic test Sarden had talked about so he wasn’t there to hear us talking about him. “I just thought he needed a name. He seems to like it, don’t you think?”

“Yes, he does.” Sarden didn’t sound completely happy about it. “I don’t understand you—I’ve owned The Celesta for ten solar cycles and A.L.—Al—has been nothing but a control system for the ship. Then you’re on board for less than a solar hour and suddenly he wants a name.”

“Maybe it’s because I treated him like a person—not just a thing,” I said pointedly.

Sarden looked grumpy again. “Are you going to sim yourself some food or not?” he asked, pointedly changing the subject.

“Yes, I am.” I still didn’t like the idea of eating something made out of green slime but it seemed like the best offer I was going to get. And besides, it was better to keep the big alien talking—asking for help with the whole food-sim process might take another step towards making him think of me as a person, not just a commodity to be traded. Reverse Stockholm, I reminded myself. I had to keep it up.

I closed my eyes just as I had seen Sarden do and pictured a single piece of sushi. Nothing too fancy or complicated—just a California roll with crab and avocado and cucumber like they make at Origami, my favorite sushi restaurant in Tampa. Leah and Charlotte and I always go there for girl’s night out and then we head up to Ivarones, a little Italian place, and split a piece of their decadent chocolate cherry cheesecake for dessert.

Just thinking of my two best friends made me want to cry. I wonder if they had gone to the police yet. Probably not—I still hadn’t been gone from Earth for a whole day, even though it felt like years. They wouldn’t be allowed to file a missing persons report until at least twenty-four hours had elapsed. And even then it wouldn’t do them any good. I was gone, on my way to a galaxy far, far away…

Suddenly I realized I was dangerously close to tears.

Get a grip on yourself, Zoe! I took a deep breath and redirected my thoughts back to the piece of sushi. I thought about it as hard as I could until I heard the soft chime from the food-sim.

“All right.” Sarden opened the lid for me and peered inside. “Is that what it’s supposed to look like?”

I peeped in myself and was surprised to see a perfectly delicious-looking piece of sushi sitting on another one of those clear plates.

“Oh, look! Just like I imagined!” I clapped my hands in surprised pleasure.

“So glad we could meet your expectations,” Sarden said dryly, but I thought I saw the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He lifted the plate out and handed it to me, waiting to see me eat the results.

Picking the piece of sushi up, I sniffed it carefully. Well, it certainly smelled like sushi and there was no green slime anywhere on it or near it. Deciding to give it a chance, I popped it into my mouth and began to chew.

After a moment I was looking for a napkin to spit it into. There wasn’t anything available though, so I had to swallow.

Sarden must have seen the look on my face.

“What happened? Did the food-sim get it wrong?”

“You could say that.” I grimaced. “It looked like sushi but it tasted like something else.”

“Like what?”

I frowned. It was hard to place the wrong taste because the sushi the food-sim had made for me had the right shape and color and texture and smell. But the taste…the taste had been completely off. Finally I had it.

“Chocolate cherry cheesecake!” I exclaimed. “That’s what it tasted like!” Maybe the food-sim had made it taste like that because I was thinking about how I used to share it with Leah and Charlotte after we had sushi.

“What’s that?” Sarden wanted to know.

“It’s this kind of cake only not a cake—it’s made from soft cheese flavored with chocolate—”

“Cheese?” he interrupted me. “Chocolate?”

At that moment I felt truly sorry for him. He might be a big, tough alien with a super fast spaceship but he was living on snake sandwiches and he’d never had cheese or chocolate which are like, two of the holy trinity of foods as far as I’m concerned. (Wine is the third, in case you’re interested.)

“Cheese is an Earth food made from milk, which is this white liquid we get from domesticated animals called cows,” I explained.

“Ah.” He nodded. “We make a similar concoction on Vorn 6 from the bile of the sprag.”

“Remind me never to go out to eat with you on Vorn 6 then,” I said. “Anyway, there are lots of varieties of cheeses—we use a soft, sweet one to make cheese cake.”

“And you said it was flavored by shauckolat?”

“Chocolate,” I corrected him. “It’s made by taking the beans out of these big pods that grow in the jungle and roasting them and grinding them—then mixing them with sugar and more milk—”

“You certainly eat a lot of this ‘milk’ you’re talking about,” Sarden remarked. “If we ate that much sprag bile we’d be sick.”

In my personal opinion, any amount of bile would be too much, but I didn’t say so. See? I can be tactful.

“There’s no such thing as too much cheese or too much chocolate,” I told Sarden fervently. “Look, I don’t think I’m explaining about the chocolate cherry cheesecake the right way. Let me try to make a piece for you—or let the food-sim try, anyway.”

“Very well.” He nodded and crossed his muscular arms over his still bare chest which made his pecs dance around in a yummy and distracting way. “I’d like to see this Earth delicacy.”

“All right.” Closing my eyes to shut out the sight of his muscles, I took a deep breath and concentrated hard on making cheesecake. I thought about the dense, creamy texture…the rich, chocolately taste…the sweet, slightly tart cherries…

The food-sim dinged again. I opened the lid eagerly to see a perfect piece of cherry chocolate cheesecake sitting there on the clear plate. It looked just like it did when we ordered it from Ivarones.

“Perfect!” I exclaimed, picking it up. I was certain that this time I had gotten it right. It looked amazing and smelled so sweet and creamy and delicious. I couldn’t wait to taste it—but I wanted Sarden to try some too. He, however, was looking at it with an uncertain expression on his face.

“It looks like a triangular wedge of soil with blood clots on top,” he pointed out.

“What? Eww! Don’t say that about my cheesecake!” I protested. “Look, just try it and you’ll see how delicious it is. Just try.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t see why I should try your cuisine when you refused a bite of my perfectly good churn wrap, but all right. I’ll try.”

“You need something to eat it with—do you have any forks or spoons—any kind of utensils?” I asked when he raised his eyebrows at me in confusion.

“Oh. Of course.” He tapped the long bar the food-sim was located on twice with his fingertips. A portion of it flipped over, revealing a tray which held the most bewildering array of cutlery I’d ever seen, all made of some shiny black metal.

There were several knives of varying lengths, some things that looked like really sharp chopsticks only they had curly ends like corkscrews, a ladle-like spoon that would have held almost an entire bowl of soup—if his people ate soup—and some things that looked like weird 3-D forks with tines sticking out in all directions.

“What in the world?” I said, staring down at the bizarre instruments.

“Sorry.” Sarden looked slightly embarrassed. “It’s inherited from my mother. Eloim have elaborate customs for everything, including dining.”

“And they use all this for every meal?” Carefully, I chose a spork-looking thing with a very long handle—it looked like the best bet for eating the cheesecake the food-sim had made.

“Mmm-hmm.” Sarden nodded. “I don’t usually use it myself. Or at least, only when Sellah comes on board. She—” He stopped abruptly and for a moment I thought I saw his features twist into an expression of deep pain and regret. Then his face went blank and he shrugged. “Anyway, do you want to try this cakecheese first or should I?”

“Cheesecake,” I corrected him. “And you try it.”

“Very well.” He took the long handled spork from me. “And this is the correct utensil to use?”

“Uh, sure. It’s fine.”

“All right.” He dug gamely into the chocolate cherry cheesecake despite his earlier opinion that it looked like dirt and blood. He popped the bite in his mouth and I watched anxiously, wondering if this taste of Earth cuisine would make him think differently about me.

“Well?” I asked anxious after he had chewed and swallowed.

Sarden frowned. “It tastes good enough. Only…did you say it was supposed to be sweet?”

“Yes—so sweet it makes your teeth ache. Why—isn’t it?” I asked anxiously. “Here, let me try it.” I reached for the spork-thing but he held it out of arm’s length.

“Don’t you want me to wash it first?”

“Why?” I asked impatiently. “Do you have a cold? I mean, are you sick?” I asked, seeing the look of incomprehension on his face.

“Well, no. But…I am Vorn. Half Vorn anyway,” he said, as though that was supposed to make a difference.

“So? I’m human. Now let me try the cheesecake.” I held out my hand for the spork and he reluctantly surrendered it. (For those of you who are squeamish about eating after someone else, I’m sorry—it just doesn’t bother me.) Besides, I really wanted to try that cheesecake. I hadn’t even been gone from Earth a whole day yet and already I was having chocolate withdrawal.

I took a big bite of the chocolate cherry cheesecake, making sure to get one of the plump, gooey cherries too. I popped it in my mouth and chewed…then nearly spit it out.

“Wrong again? Is it not supposed to taste like that?” Sarden guessed, apparently reading the expression on my face.

“No,” I said swallowing with some difficulty. “Not at all.”

In fact, it tasted exactly like sushi. Not the mild California roll I’d tried to make earlier, either. The cheesecake tasted like the time I’d tried a piece of really strong salmon skin roll that Charlotte had ordered once. She’d gotten me to take a bite by telling me I wasn’t adventurous enough—I wondered what she would think if she could see me now.

Now, I know what you’re thinking—so what if they look wrong, you have something that tastes like cheesecake and something that tastes like sushi. Why not just close your eyes and eat them and enjoy?

Well, because it wasn’t just the taste I was dealing with. It was the texture and the smell. The smooth, creamy mouth-feel of the cheesecake and its rich, dark chocolate smell did not go well with the flavor of raw fish.

In fact, it was disgusting. So I was surprised when Sarden plucked the spork from my hand and ate another bite himself.

“Not bad,” he remarked thoughtfully. “At any rate, I’ve had worse. But I take it you want to try again?”

I sighed. “I’ll try something different this time—I think the food-sim thingy has sushi and cheesecake completely mixed up.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Go ahead. I have an entire drum of Nutrient Slime in the cargo hold—you can make as much shauckolat cakecheese as you want.”

This time I didn’t even try to correct him. Instead, I closed my eyes and pictured a cheeseburger. The biggest, juiciest cheeseburger ever, with pickles and onions, a deep red slice of tomato and a crispy piece of lettuce, all served on a big, fluffy sesame seed bun.

The food-sim dinged and out it came—exactly as I had pictured it. It smelled amazing.

Sarden eyed my creation with interest. “You Earthlings certainly have strange looking food.”

“Says the man who just ate a snake sandwich right in front of me,” I said, lifting the plate out of the food-sim’s big gold pot.

“Do you need a utensil to eat that?” he wanted to know. “What is it called, anyway?”

“A cheeseburger. And no utensils—this is finger food.”

“Finger food?” He frowned. “Is it made from the ground up digits of some animal?”

“Ugh, no!” I exclaimed. “Finger food just means it’s meant to be eaten with your fingers—with your hands. Don’t your people have any food like that? Aside from snake sandwiches, I mean.”

“The Eloim do not,” he said. “Even the churn wrap I ate was supposed to be carved into pieces with a vunnel knife and then consumed with the trillers.” He nodded at the cork-screw chopstick looking things. “The Vorn, however, are very fond of chabeth knuckles. We cover them in a type of sweet blood sauce and gnaw the meat from the bones. It’s a very messy affair.”

“It sounds like it,” I muttered. Actually, neither one of his cultures sounded like much fun. The Eloim sounded like overly fancy prigs and the Vorn appeared to be the galaxy’s equivalent of thuggish ex-cons with the table manners of a hillbilly. I wondered again how in the world his parents had gotten together. Maybe his mom had a thing for bad boys.

“Well? Are you going to try it?” Sarden asked, nodding at my plate.

“Absolutely.” I eyed my creation reverently. This time I was completely certain the food-sim had gotten it right. It looked so perfect—like a cheeseburger out of a commercial. I mean, it really was a thing of beauty. Closing my eyes, I took a big bite and tasted…

Chocolate éclair.

“Oh, no,” I moaned, putting the cheeseburger down.

“Wrong again?” Sarden picked it up, sniffed it, and took a bite. He frowned, putting it down. “That is much too sweet.”

“It’s not supposed to be sweet at all,” I said sadly. “It’s supposed to be salty and crunchy and chewy and delicious.” Not that chocolate éclairs aren’t delicious—but that taste just doesn’t go with the smell and texture of a cheeseburger.

“Possibly A.L.—Al—did something wrong when adding the new Earth cuisine to the food-sim’s program,” Sarden remarked. “Maybe you should wait and let him tinker with it some before you try again.”

“No.” I frowned. “I’m not giving up.”

He gave me a surprised look. “For such a small female, you certainly have a lot of determination.”

“I’m not a quitter,” I said grimly. “And I’m not that small—it’s just that you’re so freaking huge. Does that come from the Eloim side or the Vorn side?”

“Vorn,” he said. “The Eloim are only a little larger than you Earthlings.” He sighed. “I was much feared growing up for my size. Only Sellah—” He frowned and stopped himself abruptly. “Keep trying if you want to. I have to see if A.L. has finished the diagnostic on the Hydrogen scoop’s panels yet.”

He started to leave but just then Al came gliding into the room.

“Master Sarden, diagnostics complete,” he said in that proper voice of his. “But I’m afraid you will not like the results.”

“What?” Sarden growled. “All I want to hear is that we can get to Giedi Prime.”

“Not immediately, I’m afraid,” Al said apologetically. “One of the panels is fatally flawed and must be replaced. The repairs you made will only hold for a little while—long enough to get us to the nearest spaceport—Gallana—which orbits Proxima Centauri.”

Sarden groaned. “Not Gallana! It’s run by the Gods’ damned Majorans.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have better news, Master.” Al sounded genuinely sorry, too. “I know that speed is of the essence. But once the panel is replaced we should be able to use the Hyperdrive to make up time and still get to Giedi Prime at the appointed hour.”

“We’ll be cutting it awfully Gods’ damned close though,” Sarden growled. “But I guess if that’s our only option, you’d better set a course to Gallana.”

“At once, Master.” Al glided away again.

“What’s wrong with going to, uh, Gallana?” I asked, thinking it sounded like a super-expensive and ritzy shopping mall.

“Besides the delay? The fucking Majorans. They have…strange ideas about their females.”

“What kinds of ideas?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Never mind. The point is, whenever you visit a Majoran base, you have to follow their rules. Of the twelve overlord races—the Twelve Peoples, we call them—that the Ancient Ones left behind, the Majorans are in ascendancy right now. So their empress rules our galaxy.”

“Huh?” I stared at him, my chocolate-éclair cheeseburger completely forgotten now. “Our galaxy has an empress?”

“Of course. Who do you think rules us all? Her throne is located on Femme One, on the edge of the super-massive black hole in the center of the galaxy.”

“Okay, wow. That’s a lot to take in,” I murmured.

“You’d know all this if you hadn’t been locked away by the Ancient Ones,” he remarked.

“But we’ve been searching for extraterrestrial life for years,” I protested. “We’ve been sending out signals and scanning the stars… How is it we never came across anything at all?”

He snorted. “With the primitive instruments you have? You couldn’t find a black kalk in the white sands of Quendor with Earthling tech.”

“Hey, that tech got us to our moon and back—more than once,” I said stiffly.

He snorted again. “Oh yes—the journey of a single light-second. A mighty achievement.”

“It was for us,” I pointed out. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”

“That’s the point—you’re just starting out. Which means you’re far, far behind even the more primitive peoples of the universe. Besides,” he added more kindly. “Your planet is located in an out-of-the-way arm of the galaxy. It’s not like you’re close to any of the major space hubs. You’re just a forgotten little world the Ancient Ones put off limits.” His face grew dark. “And if you’re lucky, you’ll stay that way. Although I doubt it now that the Commercians have sunk their blue claws into you.”

I thought of other girls just like me being sucked through their mirrors or toasters or spoons or any shiny, reflective surface in their house and winding up on Bambi’s ship, just as I had. Not just one or two—hundreds, thousands, millions maybe, depending on how popular Earth brides turned out to be with alien men. If the Alien Mate Index really took off, we could be looking at the end of the human race.

The thought made me sick and a cold finger of dread skittered down my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.

Sarden frowned. “Are you chilly? Char’noth said you came from a very warm region of your planet. I’m…sorry I didn’t give you more protective clothing. Although you do look tempting in just my shirt.”

His golden eyes roamed over me, making me shiver for a different reason. For some reason while we’d been using the food-prep machine, I’d managed to forget how very huge and imposing and shirtless he was. Now, as he took a step closer, I was faced with the broad planes of his muscular chest and I could smell his scent again—that warm, spicy, campfire aroma that made my knees turn to jelly for some reason.

“I’m fine,” I lied, keeping my chin up and trying not to let him affect me. “Just…just trying to decide what to ask the food-sim to make next.”

“So you’re determined to try again?” Sarden sounded surprised.

“I told you—I’m not a quitter.” There was nothing I could do about the situation with Earth—not now. If I could ever get back there, maybe I could warn my home planet. Although I was pretty sure everyone would think I was just plain crazy if I tried. Still, I would have to get home first to test that theory and right now, plan A was all I had to get there. Reverse Stockholm, I reminded myself.

Looking at Sarden, I gave him what I hoped was a flirtatious smile.

“How would you like to try another rare Earth delicacy? We call this one bacon and eggs.”

Sarden

 

The little Pure One never ceased to amaze me. She was determined to force the food-sim to get the food of her home world correct and she refused to stop trying.

She made me the Earth food called bacunandeggz—which consisted of long, crispy strips and fluffy, pale yellow chunks. But they tasted sweet, as the cheezburger had. Zoe said they had the flavor of pankakes which are apparently flat, spongy disks soaked in the sweet sap of a tree indigenous to Earth.

Rather than being discouraged by yet another failure, she was happy.

“I’m getting close,” she remarked, eating a bite of the crispy bacun. “At least these are all breakfast foods. And this pancake-tasting-bacon isn’t half bad.”

She tried several other things too but none of them came out the way she wanted. There was a thick piece of grilled meat which was supposed to be salty and tender but which Zoe said tasted like a sweet confection made of red berries and cake. Then she tried two slices of plain white Earth bread, much like the blue crust of my churn wrap, with a small amount of yellow Earth cheese melted between them. Again, it was supposed to be salty but Zoe said it tasted like something she called shauckolat pudding.

Though none of her Earth recipes came out to her satisfaction, she kept trying anyway. I don’t know why, but I stayed with her, tasting the strange Earth concoctions she coaxed from the food-sim and laughing with her as each came out worse than the last. We shared utensils and at one point, she asked me for a drink to wash the various tastes out of her mouth.

I got her a squeeze bulb of purified water but before giving it to her, I took a sip myself. Zoe didn’t hesitate to put her lips where mine had been—she took the water and drank it thankfully, apparently not bothered that her mouth had touched that which had also touched the mouth of a Vorn.

Watching her do that roused a powerful sensation in my chest—more powerful than I liked to admit. The Vorn are hated and feared through most of the universe and especially here in our home galaxy. We are considered an unclean species, especially by the fastidious Eloim. I could still remember the pain in my childhood of the other children refusing to touch me—washing their hands after even the slightest and most incidental contact. Only Sellah stood by me, refusing to act like the others. She never saw me as a half-breed or a Vorn—only as her beloved big brother, and nothing anyone said could shake her love or her loyalty.

I tried to push the thoughts of my lost sister away and thought of the days ahead instead. Stopping by Gallana to get a panel replaced was going to put a serious crimp in my schedule. And that was if I could find someone to fix the panel right away—a mechanic willing to deal with a male alone who didn’t have a female companion with him.

Just thinking of it made me grind my teeth. The damned Majorans are sexist and it irritates the piss out of me to have to deal with them. Not that I mind them worshiping their females—a male can worship any damn thing he chooses, as far as I’m concerned. But the fact that they make everyone conform to their ways or refuse to do business with them is damned irritating.

The other worry, besides our time constraints, was how I could pay for the new panel and the work to replace it. With the exception of a few hundred credits I had kept back for fuel, buying Zoe from the Commercians had me all tapped out. It looked like I would have to search a little harder for someone who wanted to buy the Assimilation medical equipment in the storage area of The Celesta.

But could I do all that and still get back to Giedi Prime and Tazaxx before the auction? I didn’t know. I sent a swift prayer to the Goddess of Mercy—hoping she’d hear me, despite what a bastard I am. And I tried to concentrate on Zoe instead.

It wasn’t hard—she had a bubbly personality that reminded me of Sellah, though she was more outgoing than my shy, bookish little sister. She kept talking and laughing, drawing me into conversation while she continued to work with the food-sim.

I wondered at her apparent ease around me. I was her captor—her kidnapper—and I had already told her I was trading her to Tazaxx. But she didn’t cry with fear or sulk or try to get away. She just kept giving me new things to eat and laughing at her failures.

I couldn’t help watching the way she moved—this close to her, the hidden spectrum of colors erupted across my vision, showing me her true beauty despite the inhibitor she wore. Her pale skin with its many dots of light pigment seemed to glow in the dim illumination of the food-prep area. Her hair was a long, silky tangle of auburn curls and her curves—those sweet, generous curves I’d admired so much when she’d first been brought aboard the Commercians’ base—were barely covered by the thin black temp-shirt I’d given her to wear.

I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t help wishing I could taste the merchandise, just a little, before I sent her on her way. If I kissed her or touched her it would likely be the last such contact she’d ever receive.

That was because Tazaxx was a Gord—a species sexually incompatible with the descendants of the Ancient Ones. He kept his “special collection” in a zoo-like exhibit area—for display purposes only. Zoe would be put into a beautifully built case with all the luxuries her heart could desire and there she would spend her days, behind a force-field, being lovely and innocent for Tazaxx and his friends to admire.

It was where I hoped and prayed Sellah was now. Knowing that Tazaxx didn’t physically abuse or sexually violate those in his “special collection” was the only thing that kept me sane. I imagined my little sister in that gilt cage, behind the force-field, and then I pictured Zoe there, in her place.

I didn’t like either image.

So though my palms itched to caress Zoe’s curves and cup her full breasts…though I wondered more than once what her soft pink lips would taste like, I kept my hands to myself. I am, as I said before, no rapist. No matter how much she tempted me, I was determined to trade her to Tazaxx untouched.

But I couldn’t help watching her—she shone so brightly in the dimness of my ship. Like a star I had stolen from the heavens, though I had no right to do it.

 

 

Zoe

 

I don’t know how long we spent trying to get the food-sim to make anything decent to eat—it might have been a couple of hours. I do know the level of green Nutrient Slime in the gold pot had gone down considerably by the time I finally gave up.

By that time I had made bacon and eggs that tasted like pancakes and syrup, a t-bone steak that tasted like strawberry shortcake, a grilled cheese sandwich that tasted like chocolate pudding, and too many other things to count.

The closest I got to something edible was the pancake flavored bacon, but mostly because you eat those two things together a lot anyway. At last, I had to stop. I was determined to try again after Al worked on the program some more, but I was afraid I would make myself sick if I ate any more mixed up food.

Sarden didn’t seem bothered by the strange taste and texture combinations. He gamely tried everything I made, even the awful banana cream pie that tasted like sauerkraut.

I noticed he kept watching me as we worked and he got quiet once or twice but I counted it as a victory anyway. We were getting to be friends—well, sort of. And it’s a hell of a lot harder to trade your friends to some oily alien salesman than it is to trade away some girl you don’t even know.

Reverse Stockholm—I was sure it was working. Pretty sure, anyway. And I tried not to notice how those glowing gold eyes watching me made me feel. How when his fingers brushed my skin, even by accident, it sent shivers down my spine and made my nipples turn into tight little points.

Friendly or not, he was still the enemy. I might pretend to like him but that was all it was, I told myself sternly—just pretend. All an act to get him to care about me too much to trade me. And hopefully enough to get him to take me back to Earth.

At least we had this layover in the spaceport to look forward to. It would give us more time to spend together—more time for Sarden to get to know me. Maybe I should go even further and try to make him fall in love with me?

Maybe I should try to seduce him.

The thought made me shiver all over. Sarden was huge and I hadn’t been with anybody since I broke up with my ex almost a year ago. He’d probably split me in half if I tried something like that.

I tried to push the extremely scary thoughts to the back of my mind but the longer I was with him and the more I smelled his warm, spicy scent, the harder it got to do. I was almost relieved when he finally told me I should get some sleep.

“Being transported as you were is a very tiring process. You probably need to rest,” he told me as he walked me to the door of my room.

“All right.” I stopped beside the door and looked up at him, wondering what was going on behind those golden alien eyes. “I’m looking forward to trying out the floating hoverbed. We don’t have anything like that on Earth.”

“You want to go to bed, little Pure One?” His voice was a soft, deep growl that seemed to send tingles all though me.

“I…you know what I mean,” I stammered, feeling my cheeks get hot.

“Yes, I know,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair out of my eyes. “I just thought maybe you were interested to try the bed’s pleasure settings.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that but I shivered as his warm fingertips brushed my skin and then tried to pretend I hadn’t.

“I’m tired,” I said and it wasn’t a lie. Suddenly I felt as though all my energy was leaking away. It really had been a very long day—from getting staplers thrown at my head, to being dragged through the bathroom mirror into an alien space ship, to spending hours with Sarden trying to make food out of green slime. It was the longest and strangest day I’d ever had in my life and I was suddenly completely exhausted.

Being abducted by aliens really takes it out of a girl—out of me, anyway.

“Go to sleep then.” Sarden’s deep voice was almost a caress and I thought for a moment he was going to cup my cheek or stroke my hair. He raised his hand for a moment…but then he brought it back down to his side and clenched it tight instead.

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you, uh, going to bed too?”

He shook his head. “Not for a while. I have a lot to do before we reach Gallana.”

“The spaceport, right.” I nodded. “Um, do I get to go with you? I’ve never seen an alien spaceport before.”

“I don’t think so.” His face darkened. “You’d be a target there if anyone found out you were a Pure One. Especially if it was known you’re a La-ti-zal.”

“I still don’t understand that,” I complained. “What does it even mean?”

“That you’re special,” he murmured and this time he did lift his hand to cup my cheek.

I felt my heart pounding and my face getting warm under his touch. God he smelled good! And he was so close I could feel the heat from his big body radiating against my own. I wondered what it would be like to be cuddled up in his arms…to kiss those cruel but sensual-looking lips…

“Very special,” Sarden murmured again and he bent lower. Was he actually going to kiss me? Was I actually going to let him?

“Too…too special to trade, maybe?” I blurted, my stupid mouth talking without consulting my brain first. (This tends to happen to me a lot.)

At once, Sarden’s eyes went cold and he pulled back from me. He’d been leaning over so that we were almost eye-to-eye but now he drew himself up to his full height and glared down at me.

“No,” he said coldly. “Not too special for that.”

“But…but I thought…” I shook my head, knowing I was making it worse but unable to stop my big fat mouth from saying things I knew it shouldn’t. “We had fun today,” I said. “I mean, we talked, we got to know each other, we made food out of slime…it was fun.”

“Very enjoyable,” he agreed but his face was still cold. “I’m sorry, Zoe, but no matter how much I enjoy your company or how beautiful you are, I’m still going to trade you. I have no choice.”

With that, he left me standing there, feeling like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.

The big red jerk.