Alien Caller (32 page)

In time he
began to look around him, wondering where he was, what had happened
and, when he thought of it, where breakfast might be. It was a
medium sized room, with another one attached through an open metal
arch. He knew he was somewhere on the ship, but only because of the
metal walls. Everything else about it was wrong.

The walls were
painted a bright yellow orange, and ornaments and pictures hung
everywhere. One of the walls was in the process of being painted
with a panorama of what he assumed was Cyrea’s home complete with
strange sheep and a stranger looking house. It was a bright cheery
place, within the cold steel ship, and he slowly realised it was a
cabin. Cyrea’s cabin. Somewhere between the previous night, and the
morning, she’d taken him from the sick bay to her own quarters, no
doubt knowing exactly how she was going to wake him.

“These are your
quarters?” She smiled and nodded.

“I couldn’t
leave you in that cold sick bay. I wanted you here, safe and warm.
I wanted you with me.”

There was
something deeply touching about that, and it was hard not to feel a
twinge of emotion. In her shoes he wondered if he would have taken
the same risk. Bringing home your lover who you’ve just found out
is more dangerous than a den full of rattle snakes, and probably
psychotic from what had been done to him. The smart thing to do
would have been to let him wake naturally in the sick bay,
restrained, and then talk him through the bad parts in safety.

Yet it went
beyond that he knew. Not only was she willing to trust him when she
had every reason not to. Not only was she willing to put her own
safety on the line. She had also brought him to her home, letting
him see her place and know who she was. She’d placed her heart on
the line too. Immediately he understood that he melted inside.

He told her it
was a lovely cabin and asked to be shown her family, whose pictures
graced the walls. It was more than just politeness, he wanted to
see. He wanted to know everything about her.

As he made to
get up she held him to her, and desperately tried to get the sheets
back to cover them. It took him about half a second to understand,
and then he grabbed them for her. They were being spied on again.
Naturally. It would have been the only way they would ever have
permitted her to bring him back to her quarters. That way, if he
attacked her and maybe gone on a rampage, they would have been
ready. That was why she had reacted when he flung the sheets off
them, allowing the Leinians to spy on them making love again. But
in the end she had given in to their needs. No matter how
embarrassing it was she needed to be loved by him, more than she
needed her privacy. And she’d never given it another thought.

“Hold me.”
Which was a silly thing to say when she was still wrapped right
around him like a fur coat, but she obediently clutched him even
more securely. He rose to his knees still carrying her, discovering
fresh pain in so many parts of his body, and wrapped the sheet
right around them both until they looked like a two headed mummy.
Then he stood up and made her show him the device. At least it
wasn’t hidden he later decided, though he would still never have
recognized it. But the globe sitting on the desk beside the bed was
apparently it, and he took great pleasure in turning it into a
pretzel, after making sure they knew he wasn’t going to do anything
crazy. He covered its remains with the sheet.

When no-one
came charging through the door, he guessed he’d passed the
test.

Next he spent a
good long while examining her apartment, while they were still
intimately entwined. Once he was standing, Cyrea was a small weight
on his hips and arms, and a pure pleasure. It was also he realized
one of the best ways he’d ever imagined to learn about her world.
It was sexy and thrilling yet also close and loving, and very warm.
And all the time they were both really waiting for only one
thing.

It was a suite
as he found out, a single bedroom and small lounge, with a bathroom
to one side. Not very big, but then this was a space ship he
reminded himself. Home to more than a thousand people. It was a
miracle it was any larger than a closet. The walls were the cold
steel of the rest of the ship, but there they had been painted with
a mellow yellow in most of the hallways. They'd been repainted in
Cyrea’s cabin before being covered with decorations and a mural.
Throw rugs littered the floor adding colour and warmth, while an
ornate carved wooden door frame had been installed between the
lounge and the bedroom.

Like her
bedroom the main wall of the lounge had a three quarters completed
mural painted on it. An intricate forest scene, complete with a
waterfall that seemed to plummet for miles. Even incomplete, the
painting had a quality to it of reality. Not only did it seem real,
almost like a window into a fantastic reality, but it also tended
to draw the viewer in, making him want to stay and browse. To try
and identify the millions of little features, maybe even to look
for the animals that must surely live in such a wonderland. Beside
the wall was an easel exactly like any earthly one, complete with
brushes and paints, and he realized Cyrea was painting it herself.
She was the artist. He should have expected that.

Cyrea had told
him of her people’s passion for the arts. After all with most of
the drudgery of their society gone, and not needing people to sweep
roads or pack boxes or spend time in banks, the people had plenty
of time on their hands, and artistic pursuits were almost a way of
life. What he hadn’t expected was that she was so good. Perhaps, if
it wasn’t a breach of security, she could start doing some more
work in his home. After all, there was only so much white and
polished timber a man could take.

Some of the
other wall coverings were also weavings, rugs and the like which,
while of strange patterns and colours, seemed human enough in
design. But some were far more alien. Some appeared wooden and were
made into statues and carvings of creatures that were nothing like
he’d ever imagined. On one wall there was a painting of a city on
some alien world with endless rainbows instead of a blue sky. There
were also a number of metal sculptures that twisted his eyes and
his mind when he tried to stare at them.

Taken as a
whole he realized she was rather quickly turning her utilitarian
quarters into a home. A place that looked as though she had lived
there for years. Not bad for having been here for less than two
months, and most of that spent with him. She must have been very
busy that first week while she’d been recovering from her
injury.

Mixed in with
that was other stuff that he understood perfectly. Framed
documents, probably her people's equivalent of degrees. A piece of
alien writing over the front door that he would have bet dollars to
doughnuts was a blessing. She was very serious about her faith.
Then there were the family snapshots. Photos almost exactly like
anyone else’s except that they truly seemed three dimensional.
Photos that even drew him away from the alien vista surrounding
them and back to her.

Cyrea showed
him first her family, her parents and her brother and sister, and
told him how much she missed them. She didn’t really have to tell
him though; it was in her voice when she spoke of them. It was in
their photos as they smiled back serenely across the light
years.

Her father was
a farmer, her mother a school teacher, while her brother and sister
both had gone into medicine as their parents had wanted. Cyrea was
the black sheep to a certain extent, but not terribly so. Besides,
she had done well in her studies and in her career too, and it gave
them something different to talk about when they got together for
family occasions.

“I’m glad you
weren’t the same. If you’d gone into medicine I’d never have met
you.” He kissed her with every word, regretting again having been
raised an orphan, and knowing from her how much he had missed out
on, and suddenly understanding how much she gave to him.

“You think
they’d accept me?” Until he asked the question he didn’t even know
how serious he was, but suddenly it meant a lot to him as he
remembered that he was as alien to her and her family as she was to
him. They would have to be an incredibly understanding family.
Especially when he considered what they’d seen of him so far on
their equivalent of TV. Him making love to their daughter after
they had nearly beaten each other senseless. Him as a blood crazed
lunatic rampaging through a ship. If he was her father he'd shoot
him.

“Ohh yes.
They’ll love you. You’re so big and gentle, they’ll eat you up.”
She was telling the truth as she knew it, but he also guessed that
that didn’t mean she was right. After all she was somewhat biased.
But he liked the thought.

“That’s only
fair since I intend to eat their daughter up!”

Next she showed
him her home and her world, and he studied the images with undying
curiosity. He’d never seen another world and until recently had
never even thought he could, but suddenly it was there before him,
and he had to know.

First she
showed him a panorama of her home. The family lived on a farm,
raising what looked suspiciously like the sheep from her mural, and
they had a magnificent vista surrounding them. Green was his first
impression. Miles upon miles of verdant green hills, covered in
what could only be grass. Deep lush green grass. In the foreground
were trees, orange trees, perhaps a little like maples, but the
foliage was thicker and the leaves were wrong. They were more like
orange cedar trees. But they were beautiful.

Cyrea called
them York trees and said they dotted the entire world, spreading
their shade where it would do the most good. In the spring she told
him, for two whole days they would drop their fruit, and the people
would come out to eat the fruit all around them, and celebrate. For
those two days young couples would mate in droves, and older
couples would try to conceive babies, because it was considered a
blessed time. A time when the bounty of the world shone on the
people. A sign from Mother Lei as they called her. The equivalent
of Mother Earth he supposed.

Then there were
the pictures of her family, snapshots identical to anyone else’s.
The only difference was that her family had a little more body
hair. But as she showed him them, and as he listened to her talking
about them in such fond terms, he discovered other things. There
was a familial similarity. Maybe he’d been with Cyrea too long, but
he could tell her apart from her shipmates without even trying. Her
build, her colouring, her face, all were utterly distinctive to
him. And her family shared them too. Somewhere deep inside he
realised he also wanted to meet them. To thank them for raising
such a wonderful woman. And to make sure they knew he wasn’t a
crazed lunatic.

Next she showed
him her home, something that looked like no house he’d ever seen.
It looked more like an oversized cartoon railway carriage, complete
with round windows, and it had not a single straight edge on it.
But then it also had an inherent logic to it that made sense in a
strange way. As if its wrongness was just because he didn’t really
understand it. It had an internal consistency that perhaps only an
artist would truly understand, but he at least had enough smarts to
recognise that there was something there that made sense.

The next image
was of all things, her horse. It didn’t really look much like a
horse, more like a camel without its hump, but he understood the
concept immediately when he saw the picture of her as a child
riding it. A different world in so many ways, but it still had its
farm girls and their ponies. She'd called the creature Mun, which
in her language meant beauty, and told him at length how it was the
most wonderful pony in existence, while he tried hard not to judge
the stupid looking beast and failed. But perhaps she thought
earthly horses were ugly.

Then there was
a picture of her first car. He knew it was a car, even if it had no
wheels, hovered two feet above the ground, and was made of tinted
glass. For all its wonder, he also saw it had a weathered look
about it, and he guessed it was probably a second hand jalopy,
which her parents had in all probability hated. Chances were she’d
broken numerous speeding laws in it, probably made out with all the
wrong boys in it, and used it to escape from school once or twice.
He could have guaranteed she would have had a string of guys
waiting to ride with her. Like a fool he had to ask.

“Oh no. I’d
never have had boys in the car. They were messy and smelly. Besides
they only wanted one thing!” Which was apparently the same the
universe over. David suddenly felt closer to the Leinians than ever
before even as he laughed.

“Can’t blame
them for that. I’d have wanted a ride too. So when was your first
time? University?” He was curious, suddenly wanting to know
everything about her childhood.

“No, no, not
till I was much older.” She seemed surprised by his question, not
angry or disappointed, just surprised. But was it more than that?
He knew she was hiding something from him. Not something bad, just
awkward. The strange thing was he knew she also wanted to tell him.
She was slowly working up the courage. He waited patiently.

“He was older
than me and he was kind. When I was alone and miserable being so
far from home, he brought me into his home and cared for me. A nice
home, by a lake, where he looked after my wounds.” David nearly
choked as the truth dawned on him.