Page 27 of His Human Librarian

Taylor

Iblink awake and find my cheek pressed against Sten’s chest. His good arm is still wrapped around me.

Not a bad way to sleep. The rocky floor beneath us is at least covered with a thin blanket which soothes the worst of the bumps. We are so lucky that this isn’t an icy planet in the middle of winter.

I leave Sten’s warm embrace and twist around to find the backpack. The circle of light is still glowing strong.

“Taylor?” he mumbles, reaching for me.

“I’m here.” I check the tracker, which gives a readout of local time and weather. “It’s now early evening outside. Our first light source has four hours left,” I announce.

Sten grunts in acknowledgement.

I glance over at him and note that he seems to be slumping more and not as alert. “Are you comfortable?”

“Talk to me. I want to hear your voice.”

I frantically check his vitals again, worried he’s taking a turn for the worse. Then I look up, puzzled, because he’s doing okay.

“I feel sleepy. And I’m not that comfortable. Thank you for helping me.”

“Of course I’m helping you. You saved my life.”

“And you’re saving mine.”

“No, I’m fixing your injury. You really saved my life. You pushed me aside and then literally fell on top of me to protect me from the rock fall. If you hadn’t done that, I would’ve been crushed.”

“Talk to me, Taylor. I enjoy the sound of your voice. Tell me all about yourself.”

“Um, okay, but I’m not that interesting.”

He holds my hand and threads his large, silver-tipped fingers through mine. “I’m certain you are very interesting.”

A warmth rushes moves through my body and I’m soon snuggled against his side with his good arm is around my shoulders again. I talk about losing both my parents in a freak vehicle crash and my lonely childhood and how I went to Intergalactic High School. I regale a few reasonably funny stories about my time at university and how I was overly intent on getting good grades so I wouldn’t lose my scholarship. I check on him often to make sure he’s still awake because I’m certain my life is just that boring.

“Explain to me how humans escaped enslavement by the Hurlians.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this story? It’s sort of depressing.”

“Yes, I want to know.”

“The Gravians and the Xylan are the heroes in this situation. The Gravians learned that the Hurlians were capturing a species called humans from their original planet named Earth and were keeping us caged on a different planet renamed New Earth and using us for scientific and medical experimentation as well as sexual respite. They eventually stopped taking us from Earth and were breeding us on New Earth as a way to create more humans. The Gravians were secretly helping us through religious missions because they are a peaceful and neutralspecies. This was their main way of help and is why we were able to survive for so long. About twenty years ago the Xylan, who as I’m sure you know, are a famed warrior species, found out we were being enslaved by the Hurlians, which was against Intergalactic Law. The Xylan brought in an army and came to our rescue and fought off the Hurlians and we were free. Afterwards the Gravians helped us with nation building. New Earth has made so much progress in such a short period of time.”

“Tell me more about why you love being a Librarian.”

“I love working with print books and things that are old and getting them restored so they can be read and digitized and put on the nets for research. It brings me a lot of joy, because I know that I am helping other beings. I work with artifacts that are from a variety of planets. We are really in a race against time right now, trying to restore old text with our newly invented technology.”

“What about your life as an adult? Have you had pleasure mates?”

I blink. “I've gone on dates in the past with other scientists, librarians and other academics. No one serious. One guy I’d say was an actual boyfriend, but I ended up breaking up with him too.”

“All of them were human?”

“None of these men were human.”

“Do you plan on eventually returning to your home planet to find a mate?”

“Oh no,” I laugh. “Whenever I go back to New Earth I'm treated as a second-class citizen. Women don’t have the same rights as men on my home planet. We aren’t equals. Men have more rights and hold all the positions of power. I can't even make my own choices about my own body. So to be absolutely truthful, I don't visit my home planet often. I left New Earthas a teenager to go to Intergalactic High School because I won that scholarship and stayed on Gravian for university after winning the second scholarship. My bosses and coworkers in the Antiquities Council are my family. They're wonderful beings. I really like my job, and I was excited to start this new project.”

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