Page 18 of Vikingr
"About that..." Torsten cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. "I may have miscalculated the difficulty of building such an algorithm. I've realised I don't have enough data about Peritans. With the information that I have, it'll take a while to finish the AI."
"A while?" I asked.
"Weeks. Or longer. And there's no guarantee it will be perfectly accurate." Torsten lowered his head. "I'm sorry, captain. I overestimated my abilities."
That apology was a bad sign. Torsten was a proud Vikingr, like all of us. For him to admit that he'd failed in his promises... It likely wouldn't be just weeks until he found a solution. We might end up waiting for months - but we couldn't stay that long in Peritus' orbit. The IGU satellites would detect us eventually.
"We need the Albyans," I said firmly, making it very clear that this was my final decision. "Scan for their ship and set course for Peritus at the same time. If we don't discover their vessel on the way there, we'll intercept them at the female's home."
My crew jumped into action, glad to have something to do. It would take a while to forget about the failed raid. What a humiliation. Later, I would find out how we'd been tricked and who was to blame. But now, my focus was on Steff. Her curly hair, the colour of the space between the stars, her skin the colour of the sand on Valendis, her eyes so full of energy and defiance... I pushed the image out of my mind. I'd be unable to concentrate if I kept thinking of her. So instead, I focused on the Albyan scientists, who would be able to lead us to our mates. My own female. Who wasn't Steff.
The thought felt wrong. Why would I want a female who wasn't her?
But no, my mind was addled by everything that had happened. Steff couldn't be my mate. What were the chances? It was impossible. She was a random female, nothing more. What I liked about her was the promise of what my real mate would be like. I was projecting my hopes and dreams onto Steff. Yes, that had to be it. My body was preparing for meeting my mate, the beginning of the fýst, which was messing with my rational thought process.
But still... I couldn't deny the urge to see her again. Touch her, smell her, fuck her.
No. This was wrong.
I got up and left the bridge, instructing my crew to call me if they picked up any sign of the Albyan ship.
I needed a cold shower and time to think.
11
Steff
Being on the Albyan ship was the complete opposite of my stay on the Valkyr. I was able to walk around on my own, everyone was friendly and helpful, and I was an honoured guest rather than a prisoner. I'd only met a few of the Albyans before, but they all knew me. Some treated me with almost reverence, knowing that I was part of the efforts to find mates for them all. A few tried to jump the queue by asking how they could improve their chances of getting matched to a human woman, but I was used to that by now. All in all, it was a pleasant journey.
Donail had explained how they'd tricked the Vikingar. He'd laughed as he told me the story and I couldn't help but grin at imagining how confused and angry the aliens would have been at finding an empty ship. The Islay was still drifting in space somewhere, but it had been programmed to reunite with the Berneray, the ship we were currently on, as soon as I'd been dropped off. The Berneray was a state-of-the-art stealth cruiser that had stayed undetected by the Vikingar. The crew of the Islay had abandoned ship as soon as the Vikingar had got close, setting a trap for the raiders. If they hadn't been worried that the Vikingar might detect the Berneray if it stayed nearby for too long, they would have engaged the Vikingar in battle to avenge my abduction, but Donail had decided that taking me home was more important. I agreed with him. I didn't want there to be bloodshed on my behalf. Until now, there had never been any aggression between the two species and I didn't want to be the reason for conflict or even war.
I sat in the viewing lounge, admiring the tiny blue dot that was quickly growing larger, when an Albyan joined me. He wore the indigo tartan of Clan Monadh, but that was the only familiar thing about him.
"My name is Clefft," he introduced himself in a soft voice. "I think we've exchanged some communications."
"Clefft! Yes, of course. Nice to finally meet you."
He was one of the Albyan scientists who'd been working behind the scenes to make our matching process more efficient. The Albyans had found a DNA marker that could be found in both them and in humans, and if it was exactly the same sequence, it meant that two individuals were mates. It was curious how both our species had this marker, and Clefft had mentioned in our emails that he was curious whether the same applied to other aliens.
"Likewise. I am curious about what the Vikingar wanted from you."
He took a seat next to me and extended all four arms. Ah, he'd clearly not met a lot of humans in person yet. I shook one of his hands, amused at his enthusiastic grin.
"He wanted to know about human women - Peritan females, that is."
"Just what I thought. With their planet gone, the Vikingar must be desperate for mates."
"Wait, what?"
Clefft's smile disappeared. "They didn't mention it? Their planet was destroyed two IG rotations ago. I'm not sure what the cause was, but I remember how shocked everyone felt when it happened. An entire planet, a billion people, gone in a flash. Nobody on the planet survived. Now, the only Vikingar in existence are those who were living on other planets or travelling in space at the time of the catastrophe."
My heart sank. Suddenly, all my anger at Njal and the other Vikingar was replaced by sadness. I couldn't even grasp the idea of an entire planet just ceasing to exist. A billion people... it was beyond my understanding and imagination. But it explained things. Why Njal had been so curious about human women. Why he had no interest in invading Earth. There likely weren't enough of the left to properly invade.
"I had no idea," I muttered. "He said something about their females being 'gone', but I didn't realise it meant they were all dead."
"Back when it happened, I wondered if the remaining Vikingar would one day approach us or the IGU about our matching technology," Clefft said, sadness swinging in his soft voice. "But if they did, I never heard about it - and I'm not sure if we would have been in a position to help them. We were still dealing with perfecting our own match-finding techniques while also reintegrating all the Albyan females who'd just awakened from the Sleep."
Some days, I forgot that every single Albyan woman had been in a Sleeping Beauty sleep, comatose for years. They were all awake now, which meant the Albyans weren't as desperate for human mates anymore. They still had more men than women on their planet, so Hot Tatties wouldn't be out of business any time soon, but at least things on Albya were getting back to normal.
