Page 2 of Caldar
Wait…Sonia swiped the screen to pull up her messages. Since Wyn volunteered, she was given the name and contact info for her brand-new alien husband, which she sent to Sonia.
Lorran. That was his name.
Sonia started dialing.
HOW IT’S GOING
Him again.
Sonia frowned at the horned man with silver hair and an aubergine complexion sitting under an umbrella on the beach, enjoying a drink with its own umbrella.
He wasn’t striking or good looking. His silver hair didn’t gleam in the sunlight, and there weren’t other colors mixed into the strands that made her want to run her hands through his hair for a closer inspection. The sunglasses did not make him look hot. The loud floral shorts that dipped down on his hips were tacky, not whimsical. His thick legs stretched out on the sun lounger were not sexy as hell.
He was a stalker. Her alien stalker and his attractiveness did not make it okay.
Sonia turned her attention back to her sketchbook. She was working. She didn’t have time for alien nonsense.
Using a light pencil, she roughly blocked in the scenery. The cruise ship was docked in the planet’s orbit for a week. Every day the shuttle brought passengers down to a new location, each utterly picturesque and charming. At first, Sonia was delighted. The scenery was lush and so different from her job at the insurance call center with gray carpets and gray walls and gray cubicles.
Now? After a year and a half of picturesque and charming locations, it was boring.
Wow. The burden of my problems.
She felt spoiled to even dare complain. Her friend, Wyn, volunteered to be matched to a Mahdfel alien and gave the monetary compensation—the bribe—to Sonia and told her to do something amazing. It wasn’t never-work-again money, but it was enough to quit her boring job and paint full time for a year or two.
Sonia initially wanted to refuse the money on principle. Nearly two decades ago, Earth’s government signed a treaty with the Mahdfel, trading women for protection during an invasion from the Suhlik.
What were the alternatives? Die nobly? Earth was losing the Invasion.
Yeah, yeah. Sonia heard that weak sauce argument plenty of times. She was just a kid during the invasion, and she lost a lot of family. After the aliens left, it was just her and Grandma Newton. The Invasion was bad. Real bad, but that didn’t change the fact that the treaty waswrong. She found that the people who didn’t have a problem with it were typically born with a penis, and got to skip the mandatory testing every birthday from age eighteen on.
The government throwing a pile of cash at the women who were matched was the frosting on a crap cupcake. It was tainted, lousy money, but it spent just the same. Sonia was far too practical to refuse Wyn’s gift.
Wyn had always talked about taking a really long star cruise, the kind that lasts a year or more, and that sounded good to Sonia. Here she was with four months left of her two-year long cruise and she was ready for something new.
Was Sonia a hypocrite? Absolutely. She’d worry about her existential crisis from the comfort of her cabin during her star cruise. Add in the fact that Wyn volunteered and was disgustingly happy with her alien husband, that helped settle Sonia’s lingering moral dilemma.
She had other problems, like what was she going to do when the cruise ended? Returning to her call center job was safe but so unappealing. Maybe she’d just stay at the last port of call and take a job doing something. Waiting tables, maybe. The one thing Sonia learned from traveling was every place had cafés and bars. People were always willing to pay to have someone bring them food and drinks.
She picked up a few commissions for digital art, mostly small pieces, for walking-around money. Maybe she could expand that and skip waiting tables.
“I don’t think my eyes are that squinty,” a deep voice said.
“I’m not drawing you,” Sonia said, leaning an arm over the book to cover the sketch.
What was he doing talking to her? That wasn’t what they did. She went to touristy places, enjoyed the scenery, and he just randomly appeared, like it was a huge coincidence. Small galaxy, etc. She scowled. He smirked from a distance. Rinse. Repeat the next time her ship docked.
“I think you are,” he said.
“I’m leaving a clue. If I go missing, the authorities will know who is responsible.”
He laughed.
The fucker.
Fine, she had been drawing him. Sure, it was a busy scene between the sea, people walking the beach, and the greenery, but all that was noise that swirled aroundhim. He had an interesting face. She could admit that. He was an oasis of calm in the riot of sunlight and color. His figure was partially hidden in shadow, enigmatic and compelling and far too good-looking—
She didn’t even know his name, and the mystique did not make him more attractive.
