“Not many males are. Our females only breed once every three or four years. I had a friend back home who was always unsuccessful. He must have waited almost twenty years, in the end, but he never gave up. He was insistent.
“If this male we are talking about seems to always be around, though never coming close, that is natural Volin behaviour. He is waiting for his female to begin to search for a mate, then he will offer himself. If he moves too soon, the female will evict him from her territory as an unwanted trespasser.”
Lois let that sink in, rubbing her hand over her face. What Ban was telling her was that Zir had been deliberately keeping his distance for all this time, because he liked her? That was the exact opposite of how humans would do it. How was she supposed to know that was what he was doing? And had he really expected her to- what? Stand on a box with a megaphone and announce a gladiator tournament for her hand in the DETI lobby? He must have noticed that wasn’t how humans did it.
“And, er, if the female rejects him? What does he do then?” Lois asked.
“He may leave. He may go back to the edges of her territory and wait for a better opportunity. In my experience, if he is serious, he will stay,” Ban replied. She felt his hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright, Lois?” he asked softly.
She let out a calming breath. “Yes,” she said with determination. “I’m fine. Thank you, Ban.” She grabbed her books and stood. “You’ve given me a lot to think about. I’m very grateful.”
Ban followed her up, watching her flustering. “You’re welcome, Lois. I am happy to help.”
“I, er, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll let you get home. Thanks again,” she said, rushing out of the room.
Just when she got to the door, Ban called out. “Lois? I’m glad Zir has stopped waiting.”
Lois lurched to a stop and spun to look at him. “How did you know?!”
Ban chuckled again. “It’s obvious,” he said, his voice tender. “When you know the signs.”
He winked, and Lois made a choked noise, then made her escape.
No gym for her tonight. Tonight she needed to go home and do some serious thinking.
Chapter 15
The next day, Lois pulled the door of the IT department open with a soft woosh of glass against the carpet and her skin raised in goosepimples. It was always cold in ITS.
Aaron’s face lit up when he saw her, “Lois! Hi!”
She had to smile at the perky blonde’s unfailing enthusiasm as she peered over his shoulder at the bank of cubicles behind him, trying to see who was in.
“Hey, Aaron,” she greeted him. “Is Zir in?”
“Aww,” Aaron commiserated. “Is your interface playing up again? I can send Zir up when he’s free, I’m sure he’ll be up in no time when I tell him it’s you,” Aaron said, giving her a grin.
Lois ignored that. “No, actually my interface is fine. I’m not here for help with my computer. I wanted to talk to Zir about something else,” she said.
“Oh, well, I’ll see if I can find him for you.” Aaron stood and walked past the cubicles, craning his neck to check over the dividers, then pushing through a door marked STAFF ONLY.
Lois waited, tapping the counter with her fingers in an uneven rhythm. She saw the woman from the other night watching her, and gave her a polite smile. Then the door at the back opened again and Aaron came back out with Zir following him.
“Here he is,” Aaron sang, sliding back into his seat at the reception desk.
“Hi,” Lois said, greeting Zir with a smile. He gave her a nod in return. Okay, so he was still his incommunicative self. Apparently it was symptom of his feelings for her. She’d have to get used to that.
“I was wondering if you’d like to get that coffee today?” she said.
“Is this our date?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then yes. We will go together,” he said with a nod, as stoic as ever, not appearing cheered by her asking him out.
“Great. When’s your lunch?” Lois asked with a smile. Zir’s rigidity could be amusing, when seen in the right light.
Zir looked at Aaron, who quickly took his hand away from his mouth and, presumably, pulled up the rota on his screen. “One-thirty? Is that okay?” They both looked back at her.
“That’s fine,” she said with a light laugh. “I’ll see you at the café downstairs at one-thirty.”
“Agreed,” Zir said. “Now I must return to work. My wiring will melt.”
“Oh dear, better get to it then,” Lois told him, and he turned and walked back into the other room.
She glanced at Aaron to say goodbye and he put his hands together and squealed excitedly, almost giving her a silent round of applause. Lois rolled her eyes and left. Did everyone in the building know about her and Zir?
She arrived at the café a little early, and waited outside for Zir. He arrived looking stiff with his hands tucked into the sides of his shirt. His eyes weren’t even attempting to focus on her as he nodded and said “I am here.”
“Thanks for coming,” she said, almost amused by how nervous he seemed to be. She made a mental note that maybe next time somewhere more private would be better.
Lois led them inside. It was lunchtime so the café was busy, but most people still went to the canteen if they ate in the building, and the different departments staggered their staff’s lunch hours, so it wasn’t unpleasant.
She got herself a coffee and a filled croissant, and after reassuring Zir that he didn’t have to drink coffee to impress her, he got a choba and something that she was going to class as a salad. They found a table for two, and a little frisson went through Lois as they sat down, like the starting pistol on their first date had just been fired. She took a sip of her coffee to steady her nerves.
“So, how’s your day going?” she asked, taking a bite of her sandwich.
Zir shrugged.
“Okay. What have you been working on? Do anything interesting?”
“My schedule can only be shared with other ITS staff,” he replied.
“Wow, okay, why don’t you ask me how my day is going?”
Zir swallowed. “How is your day going?”
“My day is going well, thank you. I asked someone out because I thought he liked me, but he’s not talking to me, so I don’t know anymore. I might not ask him out again if it carries on like this. I can’t do all the work you know?” she said conversationally, then smiled before biting off a mouthful of croissant.
Zir paused, then hissed out a long sigh of frustration, looking away from her as he scratched the table top with a claw for a moment. Lois let him take his time. He’d either talk or he wouldn’t. He knew what was at stake, and what he had to do to get it.
“I visited Taz,” he said at last.
Lois suddenly felt a lot less playful. “Oh yeah? How did that go?”
“He is well. He has been fed, and provided with everything he needs.”
“That’s good. You volunteer there on the weekends, right? So you’ll see him a lot. Tell him I said hello,” Lois said.
“I will,” he cleared his throat. “He does not want to stay there. He wants me to take him.”
“Oh, Zir… I’m so sorry I put you in that situation. I can try talking to him if you want. He’s very young, he’s just scared to be in a new place. He’ll settle in soon,” Lois said.
She wondered if she should take Zir’s hand. It was still there on the table, so she took the chance and just rested her hand on top of his for a second, feeling again the warm dry scales, the hard bone claws, and the soft velvet in between. He stopped scratching the table, but otherwise didn’t react.
“I told him if he stayed there, someone else might come and give him a home,” Zir said, looking at her. “What would you have said?”
“Me? I don’t think I would have known what to say. Probably nothing as good as that,” she replied, taking her hand away to wrap it around her cup. “He didn’t like me, though.”
&nbs
p; Zir frowned at her. “He just did not know what to say.” A smile quirked across his face briefly. “He asked me how my mate had lost her scales.”
“He did?” Lois replied, leaving the mate comment alone for now.
“Yes. I told him you were born without scales. He said you must be very soft.”
“That’s quite cute actually,” Lois said, feeling a rush of affection for the little Volin boy.
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I protect you so that you do not need scales.” Zir looked like he wanted to start scratching the table again and moved his hand into his lap.
“Oh. That was nice of you. I mean, that you would do that if we were-” Lois shook herself. “Let’s change the subject.”
Zir frowned, his eyes focusing on her suddenly. “I have told you I will protect-”
A knife clattered to the floor a few tables over and Zir flinched to look at it, giving Lois a moment to recompose herself.
By the time Zir deemed it safe to face her again, though his eyes were unfocused again, Lois was back in control. She nodded at his cup and said “Do you mind if I try your choba? I’m curious what all the fuss is about.”
Zir shrugged and pushed his cup across the table, and Lois accepted it with a smile of thanks. She looked down into it, an opaque green swirl. This wasn’t like when she had drunk Tol’s lemon juice. This was a living algae from another planet.
She raised the cup to her lips and took a tentative sip and winced. “That tastes like cut grass,” she said, putting it back in the saucer and pushing it back to Zir. She licked around her mouth. She could definitely feel the grit.
Zir reached across and stole her coffee mug. She watched him with a raised eyebrow. He took a sip and grimaced almost identically to how she had before returning the cup. When he found his voice he said “That tastes like dirt.”
“They make a good pair then,” Lois pointed out, drinking the coffee to wash away the taste of the choba while Zir did the reverse.
The rest of the date went well, Lois thought. They managed to keep the small talk flowing, and she kept them off the subject of mating. She didn’t find out anything new about Zir, but he eventually seemed to relax, or at least play along. The hour didn’t drag, and by the time they had to go back to work, Lois decided she’d had a dicey but good time.
She accompanied Zir back to ITS as it was on the ground floor and she could go on to her department from there. They paused outside the glass doors to say goodbye.
“I had fun. Next time we should have a picnic on the beach, what do you think? Unless there’s anything else you’d rather do?” she suggested.
Zir shook his head. “I would like to go to the beach with you.”
“Good,” she said with a genuine smile. “Friday?”
He nodded. “Friday.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later then,” she said. She reached out and gave his hand a quick squeeze before walking on down the corridor.
She heard the heavy glass door of ITS swish open behind her, and Aaron’s cry of “Tell – me - everything!” followed by a low growl before the door fell closed.
Chapter 16
Lois dusted her hands off and leant back on the blanket she had brought for their picnic. Zir sat beside her, his legs crossed as he stared out at the water. He had seemed to like what she had made him for lunch, though he had protested what he saw as her providing for him, insisting it should be the other way around.
Lois loved the beach. She loved the sun, the soft sand, the quiet of the water and the wide open sky. Other people were around, but their voices seemed distant. They still had some time before they had to get back, and Lois didn’t want to go. She cast her eye over Zir, the curve of his back under his shirt, his matte green scales, the flat brassy crest of feathers that glinted like knives when he moved.
“We don’t have this on Teiss,” he offered.
“The beach?”
He nodded to the surging tide. “The sea. Not where I was from. There was water but it didn’t cover the planet. Pictures of Earth are… unsettling.”
Lois sat up to be level with him. “I think everyone feels that way, no matter where you’re from. Seeing pictures of a planet just makes you feel small,” she said. She looked at him. “Tell me about Teiss.”
He shifted, digging his claws into the sand at the edge of the blanket. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“What was it like where you lived? The Volin live in trees, right?”
“Yes. There were trees everywhere, a hundred times the size of the ones here. You couldn’t see far. Sometimes you couldn’t see the ground. The forest was… my whole world. All I knew. Everything was green. It was warm there, we wore much less clothes.” He gave a little smile. “Things were very different. Wilder. We had no technology. No medicine. We were all rivals to each other. We fought for everything; food, territory, breeding.”
“Did you ever…?” Lois hesitated. Zir looked at her, waiting. “Did you ever have a mate?” She didn’t want to ask painful questions, but she wanted to know.
Zir shook his head, looking away. “A female accepted me, but we had no child, so it didn’t last long. She chose another before her season ended,” he said.
“Oh,” Lois said. She didn’t know what else to say. Should she tell him she was sorry he never had a child or a mate like he seemed to want, or should she say she was glad, so that he could be there with her instead? At least he hadn’t had anyone to lose when the Ypex invasion hit Teiss.
“What was the journey to Earth like? You’ve travelled through space. That’s incredible to me,” she said, changing the subject.
Zir straightened, his crest puffing a bit. “Is it?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve never done it.”
Zir hummed in consideration. “The journey was difficult. There were many Volin, and other races I had only heard of, all together in one place. Our instincts said to fight, but we knew we could not. The ship was nothing like what we had known. Our food came to us on plates. We were taught a different language, and told we were going to another world. The Rhacahr were strict. We had no idea what to expect, but after two years, we were used to it. Then we arrived here.” He finished and turned to her. “Earth is different, but not bad,” he said.
Lois couldn’t imagine it, going from the society he had been raised in, to interstellar travel, to a completely different planet. It must have been terrifying, though she doubted he would admit that. As far as she knew, he didn’t have anyone from home here, no friends or relatives.
“I’m sorry you had to leave your home,” she said, though it sounded like a weak offering to her.
“Why?” he replied, yellow eyes skimming over her face.
“Well… Don’t you miss it?”
He looked out to the sea. “Not really. To me, Teiss is dead. The Ypex have it now. I can never go back. It would feel strange to live that way again after all I have seen and done.”
Lois shifted closer to him, and when he didn’t react, she dared resting her cheek on his shoulder. “That’s a really brave way of thinking,” she said. She felt him move, his posture stiffening.
“I am brave,” he confirmed for her, and she chuckled to herself, shaking her head.
“I’m sure you are,” she allowed. She looked at her watch. “We should get back or we’re going to be late,” she said, waiting a moment before pulling away from him. She wasn’t eager to pack up their things.
As they walked back along the road to the DETI building, Zir insisted on carrying the picnic things, and Lois reached for his other hand. His claws closed over her hand and she felt the muscles move under his scales and his heat slowly transfer into her. The feel of him was still strange but getting more familiar. She pulled his hand closer to her and looked at it, following the thick bones with the fingers of her other hand.
“Do I look strange to you?” he asked.
Lois laughed, since it seemed obvious to he
r that he would. “I think I’m getting used to you,” she said. “Why? Do I look strange to you?”
Zir pulled the hand he was holding up before his face. “Yes. So many wiggling fingers! Why?” he asked, frowning and shaking his head. This was clearly something he had thought about before. “And covered in flesh, so easily hurt or broken,” he continued, prodding the pad of her finger with the sharp point of his claw. “What use are they?”
Lois laughed again. “They’re for fine manipulation, if I remember my high school biology right. They’re sensitive and help us negotiate our environment.”
Zir huffed and lowered her hand, though he didn’t let go of it. “So how do I feel?” he asked, his voice low.
Lois swallowed, stroking his hand again. “Your scales are rougher and firmer than human skin,” she told him. “But this is very soft,” she said, rubbing her thumb slowly over the velvet at the base of his claws. “And your claws are always warm. What do I feel like to you?”
Zir seemed to think about it. “You are so soft I can barely feel you,” he said.
“Really?” Lois replied, surprisingly disappointed by that information.
“Really. I know you are there from your weight and your heat, but my scales are too thick to allow for as much sensation as you have. We register the vibrations of our scales rubbing against what we touch, so the bark of a tree, or the scales of another Teissian.” He broke their hold briefly and ran his hand down her arm, taking her hand again when he was finished. “Your skin is too smooth to rub against mine. It is like touching water,” he said.
Lois felt oddly thrown by this information. He couldn’t feel her? That was kind of… sad, wasn’t it? If they were going to be in a relationship together.
“You have stopped talking. Did I say something wrong?” Zir asked.
The E.T. Guy (Office Aliens Book 1) Page 10