Page 17 of Alien's Eternal Mate

Of course, this may not be the same galaxy, either.

I had to stop thinking about it, or I would have gone mad. I followed her out into the open. The wind picked up, stirring my hair and purple fronds of knobby, silver barked trees planted outside the hospital.

I considered the settlement before me. To my eyes it looked very Roman in both the way it had been structured and the rough technology level.

Only then I noticed a cart laden with exotic—to my eye at least—fruits or vegetables or the alien equivalent floating past with no seeming means of locomotion.

Antigrav tech. Perhaps these people are not so unadvanced as I initially thought.

The cart was not the only thing defying gravity. Soldiers dressed much the same as I patrolled the skies, wearing elaborate harnesses with glowing, eldritch wings apparently keeping them aloft.

Something passed between us and the moonlight. I looked up, expecting to see a cloud, and instead beheld a floating stone the size of a small castle drifting overhead. No one else had any reaction, so I assumed this to be a normal phenomenon.

Where in the Hell am I? Do the laws of physics even apply here? Maybe I’m still in a coma, and haven’t woken up yet. This could all be a dream, or a simulation or something…

If it were a simulation, it was extraordinarily detailed. We took a rampway down to a lower level of the city, leaning on a railing with some oxidation near the fastenings. The air held a strange tinge of scents that seemed alien, yet hauntingly familiar.

The more I walked through the settlement, following my alien ‘wife,’ the more I realized that the village had been built into the remnants of an alien vessel.

A starship, maybe? Or a satellite or space station that crashed? Do these people even understand the potential treasures upon which they tread?

My scientific curiosity took over. It was all I could do not to pepper Arael with questions. She seemed so fragile, so scared. Then again, she’d been forced to marry the man who killed her father.

All of the denizens of the village seemed to avoid looking at me, and only made eye contact when they had no other choice. They shrank away from me, and even crossed the street to avoid being near me.

They’re all afraid of this Gro person. Is it because he’s, or should I say, I, am so much larger than everyone else?

Or is there more to it? Warriors are obviously revered in this society, but none of the other soldiers are causing such a reaction.

We crossed an arched bridge which hung over a merrily bubbling stream of luminescent blue water. Piscean shapes darted about in the depths, catching the moonlight in brilliant splashes of color. I slowed down and stared, unable to fully comprehend such beauty.

Arael stopped, then came to stand about three feet from my side. She stared down into the water, and then at me.

“What are you looking at, milord?”

“The stream, I…it is beautiful.”

The words came out of my mouth as easily as breathing. Her mouth gaped open, and she nodded.

“Yes. It is beautiful.”

Tears ran down her cheeks, glistening like jewels in the bright light of the triad of moons. I felt as if someone had stabbed me in the heart.

She is an alien, an alien, Carter. She doesn’t even have real emotions, not like a human being.

“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing how banal words truly were when faced with the unfathomable emptiness of loss.

“Why, milord?”

She wiped her tears and sniffled.

“Does my weeping distress you? I’m sorry, I will stop.”

“No, don’t stop.”

Her eyes widened.

“You wish me to continue to weep?”

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