'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 26: Stargazing

Oh God, she thought, no! Ibiza had been a riot but not necessarily her - or her friends’ - finest hour. Mind you, if he can watch me puking up vodka shots in the street at 4 a.m. and still like me…

“But how? I’m sure I would have noticed you if you were there,” she said, “You’d kind of stand out in a club, or in our neighbourhood.”

“Mostly from a distance,” he said, “Stuff like this - “ and he indicated the telescope, “plus cameras powerful enough even to tell what shade of lipstick you’re wearing. Then there’s Facebook…Linked In…Tinder…”

“You’re on Tinder?” she said.

“Not personally, no. I could hardly use my picture could I?

“Not everyone posts their own picture,” she said, “You could have used something anonymous and just stuck to a profile.”

“What - like ‘Alien, sensitive, good sense of humour, seeks hot lady who loves to travel…’ sort of thing?”

She laughed.

“You seem to know a lot about our culture,” she said.

“We’ve done our homework,” said Cymon, “and we’ve been here for some time. But we also visit in person. It’s not that difficult to disguise the way we look, if you think about it. Once or twice, I’ve been as close to you as we are now.”

She couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or horrified. She’d been stalked.

“But why me?” she said. “So many women to choose from and you pick a weirdo Indian girl who chooses the Army as a career.”

“Your face,” he said, simply.

“My face?”

“It’s beautiful, of course.  But your face stirs something in me…like a memory …or an echo. It’s as if I’ve always carried an…imprint…of you. Doesn’t everybody fall in love with a face first?”

“I thought most men started lower down and worked their way up,” she said, deliberately flippant as her brain struggled to cope with the information. He had used the ‘L’ word!

“I don’t know about that,” said Cymon, “with me it was definitely the reverse. But - for the record - you don’t  disappoint in any department.”

For once in her life, Amisha was lost for words and decided that the conversation needed a change of direction. For now.

“So what are you going to show me?” she said, indicating the telescope.

“I’ve programmed the telescope to show you several planets - Saturn, Jupiter, Mars…”

“What about Venus?”

“The Goddess of Love?” he said, “bit of a disappointment, I’m afraid, too cloudy.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“It’s currently focused on Mars,” said Cymon, “come and look.”

She moved over to the telescope as he stood aside and pressed her eye to the viewfinder - and gasped. She’d expected a smallish dot, maybe a bit bigger than stars from Earth, but nothing dramatic. Mars now literally filled her entire field of view: rust red, silent, majestic. She could clearly make out features on the surface, including long geometric lines that almost looked man made. It was an endless red desert, broken by mountain ranges and craters, some simply gigantic. As she watched, a much smaller globe appeared from behind the planet and began slowly to move across it.

“What’s that?” she asked, turning towards him. Cymon leaned in to look for himself.

“That’s Phobos,” he said, one of Mars’ two moons.

He stepped aside again to let her watch its slow revolution around the mother planet.

Leaning forward, she was so engrossed that - for the briefest moment - she almost failed to register his arm curling around her waist, squeezing gently. 

“Hey!” she said. Then a prickling sensation seemed to pass between them where his arm rested, like an electric current, fading away as quickly as it had come.

“What was that?” she gasped.

Cymon stepped back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “But I couldn’t help myself.”

“I rather think you did just help yourself,” she replied.

He seemed to struggle for words.

“Being so near to you now after so long…it’s hard not to …touch you.”

“But what was that…that shock. Like…static electricity?”

“It’s something that happens when we - my people - touch. A kind of …bonding…like making a mental connection as well as a physical one.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “you should warn a girl about things like that.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should used more control. Believe me, what you just felt is fraction of what it can be.”

“So I could end up like burnt toast?”

“No, nothing like that,” he said. “It’s actually quite wonderful: it opens up a… channel, so you connect with the other person at a deeper level.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” she retorted.

“No,” he said. “Never. In fact, I’ve never even so much as met another girl.”

“What - never?”

“On my planet, for most males ‘never’ is the norm.”

“Oh - ,” she said, “ - I was forgetting that.” She paused. “So you - and your friends - have really never, ever had sex?”

“When I touched you a moment ago,” he answered, serious, “that was the closest I’ve ever come.”

© Adriana Nicolas 2014