Page 1 of Alien Viking's Passion

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- Aretha -

“Sodamn long and thick,” Chen panted. “I usually wouldn’t complain about that, but seriously....”

Aretha kneeled and reached a hand down to help her friend. “Itislong and thick. It’s a fair criticism.”

She got hold of Chen’s hand and helped pull her up on the side of the immense, round stone cylinder, which was clearly the petrified trunk of a giant tree that had fallen over eons ago. It had been blocking their way, forcing them to climb up on the great trunk turned to stone.

Finally they stood on top of it. It had been a long climb up the hillside, and they were both winded.

The coastal plain of Hjalmarheim lay below, looking fertile and idyllic. Thin columns of light gray smoke rose from dozens of small farms and homesteads. Birds were chirping in the bushes nearby, and the shadows were growing longer as the afternoon waned.

It was as peaceful a day as Aretha had ever seen. And she was becoming desperate to get away.

Chen smoothed down the front of her Viking woman outfit. “Aretha, how are we going to get home?”

“We’ll just go back down the hill,” Aretha said absentmindedly. Were they high enough, or should they walk further?

“I don’t mean how to get back down from here,” Chen said. “I mean, how will we get back toEarth?”

“We’ll find a way,” Aretha assured her. “The whole problem with the ships could go away as quickly as it came.” It was a topic that five of the six Earth girls talked about a lot. They all wanted to get home to Earth and leave planet Gardr behind. Except Josie, of course. She was married and blissfully happy with her alien Viking husband, who just happened to be the king-to-be of the whole island called Hjalmarheim.

“But what if it doesn’t?” Chen persisted, wiping sweat off her forehead. “We’ll be stuck here for the rest of our lives.”

Aretha fixed her gaze on a distant island, just barely visible as a pale dot. The image was clearer from here, above most of the haze. “We won’t. The Vikings are working day and night to fix the ships. They need them as much as we do. Probably more.”

She pushed a strand of dark hair out of her face, letting the breeze from the ocean cool her after the strenuous climb. The lowlands of the realm of Hjalmarheim stretched out below, all in different shades of green and brown, with farmland and forests and hilly areas, and darker specks that were farmsteads and small villages. Beyond lay a myriad of small islands, some green and lush, the most distant ones only gray rock constantly washed by the waves.

Behind them was the open ocean, brilliantly blue. Here and there small, white sails could be seen, the boats they propelled barely visible.

It was probably a really beautiful sight, Aretha reflected. But she didn’t feel it. To a prisoner, the prison is always ugly.

“What if they can’t fix them?” Chen persisted. She’d been quiet on the way up, but now they were out of earshot of everyone and they could speak freely. “They think the ships are magic! They have no idea how they really work.”

The breeze carried with it the clean scent of the ocean and the heady fragrance of flowers, newly turned soil, newly cut grass, the smoke from a thousand households, and a myriad other smells that sometimes reminded her of Earth, but mostly reminded her of how far from home she was.

“We’ll help them,” Aretha said, adjusting her loose red blouse. “I’m sure we can figure it out. All the girls are old space rats. Space travel is our thing.”

“Well, sure. But the spaceships we use on Earth are not freaking wooden Viking ships with no visible pressure hulls and faster-than-light capability!” Chen waved her hands in exasperation. “Where do we even start to understand how they work?”

“It’s just tech,” Aretha said with a calm she didn’t feel. “Alien tech, maybe. But we’re smart. We can work it out. Itwouldbe nice if that sun would calm the hell down, though.”

She glanced up at the sky, as close to the sun as she could dare. It was an alien star, a pulsar or something even stranger. It was an intense, white sun with two gigantic jets of radiation and plasma spewing out into space from both its poles. It was like a giant pinwheel, swirling with unimaginable energy as it slowlywobbled on its axis.

One of the two streams was now pointed directly towards planet Gardr, bathing it in light and exotic radiation and making everything go haywire. The Viking aliens that lived on Gardr called it the Shine. According to them, it happened about once a century, and it could last for days or years. This time the Shine was extra strong, and the shamans had declared it a Big Shine.

“Lots of little conflicts are breaking out,” Chen muttered. “All over the planet, they say. Everyone is going crazy from that damn Shine. Have you seen their swords? They’re all sparkly from the radiation. It can’t be good for them. Or for us.”

“Not much we can do,” Aretha said and looked further up the hillside. They were only halfway up to the first little ridge, and behind it the mountains towered over them, topped with white peaks that shone red in the setting sun. “But we’re not getting a sunburn, and there are no symptoms of radiation sickness, so I guess the atmosphere shields us from the really bad stuff.”

“I hope it does. I tell you, Aretha, this whole place gives me the creeps.”

“I hear you. It’s a scary planet. Or did you mean this particular place?”

“Hmm. Both, I guess. I mean, they did kidnap us from Earth, and abduction is creepy in itself. But I actually mean these mountains above us. You know what Josie told us about the creatures that live there. And we’re halfway up them.”

Aretha shuddered and glanced up the rocky hillside. “I wish you hadn’t said that. Those monsters are not supposed to be on this side, are they?”

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