Page 35 of No Strings Attached

“Earth? Hmm. It’s a lovely planet, third from our star, and mostly oceans. There are seven continents, with humans living on six of them. The seventh is at the pole and currently covered in ice, but that’s rapidly changing as the planet warms up. Humans are the dominant species, but there are lots of different kinds of humans. Different skin colors, different features, different languages and cultures. We have a lot of animal diversity, too, but that’s changing as humans spread across the globe and use up all the natural resources.”

“Do you live in cities?”

“Yes, a lot of us. There are many exceptionally large cities across the continents. But some live in rural areas, farmland, or in the mountains. Some live in jungles or on the beach.”

“Do you welcome other species? Which planets do you have commerce with?”

“Um, you mean aliens? No, we don’t have contact with other planets or species. Well, except the Ulu, I guess, who are apparently the ones stealing us. At least half of the people on my planet do not believe there is life anywhere in the entire universe except for on our little planet. And some people think that our societies would erupt into chaos and war if those people were shown to be wrong.”

So much for going with her, Bahbi thought; he said, “Yes, our galactic alliance groups are very careful about handling first contact with new planets for that very type of reason.”

“Officially, we don’t have contact with anyone outside of the Earth. But I guess the Ulus must have been stealing us for a while, since my language is already loaded in your standard translators. Unlike Mister Beastly’s. Also, the Ulus look just like people have described them on my planet, the people who say that humans are being abducted by aliens.” She thought for aminute. “We don’t travel in space, yet. We’ve only sent people to our planet’s moon. We have only sent unmanned probes to other planets in our system, to take pictures and scientific readings, and we’ve only landed those probes on one other planet in our system, I think. The fourth one from the star.”

“How far away is it?”

“Hmm, I have no idea. I don’t know where we are. I guess I’ve been assuming that we’re still in the same galaxy, the Milky Way? Are we?”

“I don’t know this name,Milky Way, but all known habited planets are contained in this galaxy. I do not believe that any species has made contact with other galaxies, yet.”

“OK, we’ll just assume that my planet is in this galaxy, then. I know our solar system is on an outer spiral arm of the galaxy and my system has eight or nine planets.”

“You’re not sure?”

“It’s a matter of scientific debate, whether or not the ninth qualifies as a planet or not.”

“That’s all you know?”

“Well…no. Let’s see. I know that the first four planets are pretty small, compared to the next ones. They are made of rock and metal. I’m not sure how the first two appear from space, but Earth is blue and Mars—the fourth—is reddish. Planets five and six from the sun are gas giants and number six has rings. I think they both have a lot of moons. The last two, if we’re going by the current agreement that there are only eight planets, are ice giants. Bigger than the first four, but smaller than the gas giants.”

“I…um…think there might be some difficulty in locating your home planet, Vi, if that’s all you know. Unless we could locate a species who already has that information, like the Ulu.”

She raised her head off his shoulder to look at him, her face going through a painful series of transformations: confusion,disbelief, understanding, sadness. She lowered her head back down in silence.

He hesitated, then asked softly, “You have much in your life you wish to return to? Family and…home?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, then said, contemplatively, “No, actually. My family has been dead for a while. We were very close, and it has been really lonely without them.”

“Tell me about them.”

She thought about it, “Well, um, my parents. My parents—”

“What are parents?”

“My mother and father. They were life partners, like we talked about earlier. You don’t have parents, right? Just a mother.”

“Right. We may look up biographical details on the warrior who contributed to the litter, but we do not meet them.”

Vi rolled over onto her back, head still pillowed on Bahbi’s arm, but he missed the rest of the contact. “My mother and father were life partners for most of their lives. They met and fell in love when they were in college, around the age of 19. They married…um, that’s when two people who love each other make a formal promise to stay together as life partners until they die…”

Bahbi nodded in understanding.

“Anyway, they married after their first four years of college, then had my older brother, Dave. They raised him while they continued on in school getting graduate degrees. My father studied philosophy and my mother studied sociology. They got teaching jobs in the university and then had me, six years after Dave. So, I grew up around university professors—those are master teachers who are very knowledgeable in one subject, like science, math, the arts—and a big brother who adored me. Our home was a wonderful place to be, always full of interesting conversations on every subject and music from my parents’record collection. I had a happy childhood.” She smiled as she said this last.

“What happened to them?”

“My brother…he rebelled against the lifestyle of my parents as he grew up. Eventually, he joined the Marines—that’s a type of military, he was a soldier, although he would have given me a tongue lashing if he heard me call him that word—,” she chuckled. “He was sent to a warzone on another continent and was killed in the war, 10 years ago. He was only 21. I thought my parents would die of heartbreak.” She added quietly, “I thought I would, too.”

She sat up and hugged her knees, leaving no part of her still in contact. Bahbi wanted to reach for her, but he let her continue.

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