Page 47 of Whoops-A-Mate From Outer Space
I smiled. “Would your team here be excited to meet a human?”
He burst into laughter. “That would be an understatement. Travel to Earth is restricted for us as well.”
“Our governments being asses?”
He chuckled. “No. It is once again to minimize risks, so it is our doing, not yours.” He paused. “The whole purpose of all of this is for us to find mates among you. So the first requirement is that any man traveling to Earth must either be unmated, or have lost their mate. This keeps the number suppressed, which also makes it safer in that there is less chance of humans potentially noticing anything strange and asking questions.”
“I get it,” I sighed.
“One day,” he stated firmly. “One day, there will be free travel between our worlds. Of that, I am sure.”
I smiled. “I hope I’m alive to see it.”
“As do I.”
The comfortable silence returned for several minutes before I heard a grumbling sound and an embarrassed chuckle.
I glanced over to see him rub his stomach, then he faced me, and his cheeks darkened with a blush.
“Are you hungry?” Eashai asked. “My favorite restaurant is not far.”
“Is anything far when you can travel as fast as you do?”
He laughed. “We can walk there from here.”
I shifted and sat up. “Dinner sounds perfect.”
I glanced over to see him smiling up at me. “Then let us go eat.”
Chapter 9
The rest of my time on Lyll passed in a blur. Eashai’s team of scientists were ecstatic to meet me, and had so many questions that I barely had time to look at their research.
One thing I realized was just how long they’d been planning. It was one thing to be told, but even a tiny glimpse of their conclusions showed me that they’d been working on it for decades at minimum, and examining things in far greater depth than modern human testing could accomplish.
Research on our end was merely a polite formality.
Before we left, Eashai took a few minutes to talk about Ashley’s thesis, and showed me their data and why he’d suggested she look into what he did.
It was so subtle as to be overlooked, but I couldn’t deny what was in front of me. If she followed his advice, she’d make history—at least among geneticists.
Part of me hoped that none of the Lalyllte in other countries had pointed out the connection to scientists or students there. Ashley was a good kid, worked hard, and I selfishly wanted her to have that kind of discovery on her resume.
We spent our last afternoon doing touristy things. Eashai took me to an art gallery that still had technology that I couldn’t dream of, we ate at restaurants serving delicious foods with ingredients that I had no idea what they were, much less could pronounce, and ended the evening in what seemed to be the equivalent of a bar with a live band playing.
The entire trip was almost like a dream that ended too soon. Then we were on a ship back to Earth.
Maybe it was the lack of escort, maybe I was giving off some vibe, but more Lalyllte were comfortable approaching me on the return trip. I was able to have several nice conversations while Eashai slept through his nausea.
Most of them were excited to ask what had been my favorite part of the trip, but a few were interested in my part of the research and my thoughts on the project as a whole.
But their questions paled in comparison to those from my fellow humans. I was summoned to the admin building almost immediately after our arrival, where I was informed that the expected debriefing would occur the following day. Then I stopped into the lab to find out what I’d missed during the time I was gone.
Men I’d come to know as stoic scientist soldiers were like giddy toddlers, shouting out questions as soon as they popped into their heads. Then each answer generated a new round of follow-up questions.
Eashai, still slightly green around the gills from the trip, stood off to one side. An amused expression on his face told me he’d answered similar questions already, but found the desire for confirmation from another human fascinating.
Luckily, whatever jealousy the men harbored—if any—wasn’t on display. Nobody expressed disappointment that they hadn’t been asked to go to Lyll. They just wanted to learn as much as they could from my experience.
