by Dinah McLeod
At his prompting, she realized that she’d gone uncharacteristically silent. “I think I’ll be fine.” She pulled at the garment and smiled wryly. “It’s grown on me. But thank you for being concerned.”
“You may keep it, if you wish, but I am still going to have others made for you. And perhaps they will be more flattering, in the correct size.”
Sarai arched her eyebrows. “Oh, you don’t find me appealing in this?” She did a dramatic modeling pose and had to snort at her own antics, because Binnix certainly wouldn’t get it.
“I would find you insatiable in whatever you wore—whether it is that colorless garb, or nothing but your own skin.”
He answered with such frankness, his eyes intent upon her, that Sarai found herself blushing. She didn’t duck her head though, as she was prone to do. She knew that he liked seeing the stain on her cheeks.
“Let us go before it gets any colder. I’ll keep you warm.”
She knew from experience that he would keep that promise. As they ventured for the door, she wasn’t nearly as excited about the outing and what it meant for her research as she was just to be with him.
“It is a bit cold,” she murmured, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. She gave an exaggerated shiver. It was the oldest trick on the planet—her planet, that was.
Binnix seemed not to be familiar with it, because he quickly swooped in and put a muscular arm around her.
As much as she loved it, she was having trouble matching her strides to his with his arm around her. “Hold my hand instead?” she suggested.
He did as she asked then gave her a curious look. “Your hand is not cold.”
Sarai, hard as she tried, couldn’t keep the laughter from bubbling to her lips.
“What? Did I say something that amused you?”
She was about to answer when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something streak across the sky. She halted in her tracks, her gaze locked on the heavens. A gasp worked its way from her lips, followed by an exclamation. What she was seeing was surely miraculous!
“What? What is it?”
But she couldn’t answer him. In that moment, she couldn’t speak, nor did she know if she’d ever care to again. Why hadn’t he written about this in the journal? Had he, she certainly would have put a lot more effort into making him bring her outside! Hell, she would have snuck out during the day and hidden herself just for the sheer joy of what she was seeing now if she’d known. It wouldn’t have mattered how he punished her, because it would have been worth it.
The sky was literally bursting with stars. Stars that were brighter than any she’d ever seen, that seemed so close that they glittered. And every few seconds one would shoot across the sky. A shooting star, quite rare on her planet, seemed commonplace here, because it was almost as though the stars were chasing each other.
She was shaken, quite literally, out of her reverie as Binnix was trying to get her attention. “Sarai? What is it? Are you all right?”
“Wonderful,” she murmured.
“Look at me, please.”
It was all that she could do to tear her eyes away from the startling beauty, but she obeyed.
He was gazing at her intently, his eyes moving rapidly as he scanned her face. “You are quite certain you’re all right?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Then why did you go quiet?”
“Your stars. They are so beautiful. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He glanced up at the sky, then back at her. “Your stars do not dance?”
Oh. She felt the word resonate within her and knew that that was exactly what they were doing. They were dancing. “No. No, they do not.”
“I used to think it was a wondrous sight,” he told her, his tone thoughtful. “When I was younger, I used to come outside every night and watch them. I used to study the sky, and think…”
“About what life might be like if there were other planets, with other people on them?” The words just slipped out. She certainly hadn’t meant to say them, and yet, once they were out she didn’t want to take them back. It was time they talked about it.
“No. I wondered about my future, about what job I might be qualified to do. I always wanted to protect the people of Pra’kir, you see.”
Before he’d even finished speaking, she was shaking her head. “No. No, that’s not right. You don’t have to lie to me.”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t lie. Why would you say that?”
“Because I’ve read it!” Now, that had slipped out long before she was ready to say it.
“I don’t understand what you are saying.”
“I’ve read it,” she said again, slower this time. “I’ve read your journal.” Binnix looked more confused than before. “A journal is, you know, a place where you write down your innermost thoughts and feelings.” Suddenly, she wasn’t feeling so certain. Surely he shouldn’t look this puzzled.
“I don’t like to write. In fact, writing out the reports is the worst part of my day.”
“But…when you were younger…”
“No,” he answered firmly. “I’ve never cared for it.”
“But…I don’t understand. I found a journal on your bookcase, and…I just thought…I mean, I assumed…”
“You found a journal on the bookcase?”
“Yes.”
“And it said what?”
“Um…” she squirmed, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. If she hadn’t been invading his privacy while she read his thoughts, whose had they been?
“Answer me, Sarai.” His voice deepened with the command and he gave her hand a squeeze.
“It was mostly drawings. Of stars, and planets…and mathematical formulas…”
He was staring at her with that intense, unblinking stare of his as she spoke.
“And you—I mean, the writer, he mused about life on other planets. I’m sorry I read it. I just, once I found it, I couldn’t put it down. And I’m sorry I thought it was yours, just…” Suddenly, she remembered. “There was a picture of you in it.”
“A picture of me?”
“With a woman.”
“How did she look?”
“Blonde hair, black eyes…sort of like you, actually.”
Binnix dropped her hand and turned his back on her, walking a few feet away before he stopped.
Sarai wrapped her arms around herself, warding off the sudden cold that had enveloped her in his absence. She didn’t know what to think. All this time, she’d been so certain she was getting a glimpse into the real Binnix, the private one that he hid away from the world. It had never occurred to her that the words she’d read, the hopes, might belong to someone else. She felt just as confused as he’d looked, and what was more, she felt foolish. Of course they hadn’t been his. She would have known if she’d been living with someone who had the heart of explorer, and Binnix simply didn’t. Why had she let herself believe that he did?
Perhaps she’d merely wanted it to be true. Perhaps it had just been the excuse she’d given herself to allow her feelings for him to develop and deepen, because if she pretended they were like-minded it didn’t seem so strange that she had come to care for him.
When he turned to face her, his expression was no longer confused. Instead, his eyes were as full of emotion as she’d ever seen them. In fact, if she didn’t know better she’d swear that she was seeing a sheen of tears. It shocked her to the very core. She’d never thought about it before, but she’d always assumed that his species didn’t cry—perhaps couldn’t. Now it seemed foolish to have made such an assumption. All she wanted to do was to go to him, to find some way to comfort him, but the look in his eyes kept her feet rooted to the spot.
“I have always dreamt of protecting my people,” he told her again. “My father did so before me, and his father before me. While my father never pushed me toward a particular path, it was the only one I wanted for myself. I was very fortunate
to be given the opportunity to do so. Do you remember me mentioning my cousin? The one who liked to read?”
“Yes, I think so,” she answered softly, drawn in by the pensive, heart-wrenching look on his face and wondering what he'd say next.
“She was my cousin, by birth, but her parents died when she was very young and she came to stay with my family. She was really more like a sister to me.”
Sarai blinked at him, at a complete loss for words.
“It was not the same for her—she did not so readily gravitate toward the path chosen for her. You see, it was her journal that you read. I live in the family house, it's been passed down through our line for many generations. And up until a few weeks ago, it was her home, too.”
“A…a few weeks ago?” Why did she suddenly have a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach?
“Yes.”
How very like him to answer her question and leaving a hundred more in its wake. “Did she move? Did she get…mated?”
“No, she did not.”
Even as she’d asked the questions, she’d somehow already known the answer. “How did she…” Sarai swallowed hard. “How did she die?”
Binnix locked his eyes with hers. “When your shuttle landed on our planet, people were killed. Many more injured.”
“Oh, no.” The pit in her gut suddenly felt like a ball of lead. “Binnix…no.”
“Her body could not be recovered.”
“Binnix…” She felt like she was spinning, like the ground beneath her feet was no longer solid. And then it hit her—if his news made her feel like this, how did he feel? He hadn’t said if they were close, but they must have been. They were living together, as adults, his eyes had misted over when he thought of her.
That realization was followed immediately by another, this one rocking her world even further off its axis. It had been her shuttle. That’s what he’d said. The means by which she’d come to this planet—albeit, unintentionally—had been the same by which his cousin had exited. Oh. She was going to be sick.
But just as quickly as had that thought, his arms were around her, wrapping her once more in his protective warmth. She buried her face in his chest, even as she felt guilty for doing so. She shouldn’t be allowed to get comfort from him. She was the person who deserved it least, after what her coming here had cost him.
“I’m so sorry,” she cried into his chest. “I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she simply said it again and again until he shushed her.
“It is not your fault. Even if you had meant to come here, you were not the one in control of that vessel. It didn’t take me long to realize that you never would have caused such a thing intentionally.”
“But…but…your cousin…why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t like to think about her,” he admitted. “It is too hard. When I think about her, I begin to wonder things, hard questions I don’t have answers to. Was she scared? She must have been. Did she think about me, in those last moments? She never found a mate, she never got to see her dream realized. And then you were here, one of the very people she would have given anything to meet.”
Sarai reached up to wipe the tears from her cheek. “How have you been able to stand it? Having me here?”
“It was quite a challenge, at first. In fact, the General magistrate wasn’t sure I was up for it, given the circumstances. But as I got to know you, I came to realize that you’re a lot like Kimberton.”
“Kimberton,” she echoed. “That was her name?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a lovely name.”
“She lived a far shorter life than most of our people are accustomed to. I miss her. But I like to tell myself that, as the gods of Na promise, that she is up there, dancing across the sky.”
Sarai looked up and saw the same dazzling stars stream and shine across the heavens. “That’s a wonderful thought.”
“She would have liked you. Not just because you both are obsessed with silly things—”
“Hey!” she protested, smacking her hand on his chest.
Binnix chuckled. “But also, because you make me happy.”
“I do?” she asked, surprised.
“Yes, you do. Very much.”
Standing on tiptoe, she puckered her lips.
Her alien obliged by bending down and meeting her lips with his own.
When they broke apart, Sarai began undoing the buttons on her shift.
“What are you doing?”
She let it drop to the ground and stepped out of it. She met his eyes boldly and grinned. “I’m cold.”
With a primal growl, Binnix shucked his pants, caught her up in his arms and in moments, their bodies intertwined.
Epilogue
Six months later
Sarai held the paper in her hands, and as she looked down at her drawing she felt a sense of triumph fill her. She’d done it. It had been harder than anything she’d ever done in her life, but she had done it. She had spent countless hours reading, drawing formulas, crossing them out and refiguring them all over again.
And she’d done it with Binnix. Oh, how she’d come to care for her “alien.” Funny—she hardly ever thought of him like that anymore. She’d finally come clean and told him what she had planned, and to her surprise, he’d joined in, offering any help he could or any support she needed. He spent any time he wasn’t at work at her side, asking what she needed next. And she was very thankful for that, even more so when what she needed was a break. He knew all the best ways to help her relax.
Of course, there had been times she’d become snappish, or tense, and he seemed to know just what to do then, too, though she hadn’t always been able to sit afterwards.
And now in her hands she held it at long last: the finished product. It was hard to believe all their hard work had culminated to this very moment, with nothing more than a single sheet of paper in her hand. And, of course, the finished product would take at least another month at least to make, but Binnix seemed confident that they could do it.
“Are you happy?” he asked, looking over her shoulder.
She smiled as she leaned into him. “Yes. Happier than I can remember being in a long, long time.”
“You seemed quite content last night as I was coming inside you.”
“Was I?” She feigned a cavalier tone.
“You do not recall? You shouted my name. You said—”
“Relax, I’m just pushing your buttons again, Master Bennix.”
“I told you already, I do not have these buttons you speak of. I don’t know any creature that does. You claim the ‘humans’ of your planet also do not, but the fact that you keep mentioning them leads me to believe—”
Sarai cut him off with a wild burst of delighted laughter. She couldn’t believe that he was still so much fun to mess with. She knew that the time would come when he knew enough of her jargon and sayings that that would stop being the case, but until that day came, she was going to enjoy every single moment of it.
“What? You still do not believe that I do not have the buttons? I thought I’d proven that when I let you explore my naked form, but if it would help you to do it again—”
“When you let me?” she echoed, her mouth curving at the memory of last night. “Is that what that was?”
“You did not seem to be complaining.”
Oh, no. She definitely had not been doing that.
“You will tell me what it means one day? This pushing buttons?”
She loved that he was eager to learn so that he might understand her better. “It means to make someone angry.”
He spun her around to face him and hooked a finger under her chin, tilting her face forward so that her eyes met his. “You do not wish to do this.”
“Well, not really, no.” She knew all too well what the consequences of that would be, and just thinking about it had her bottom cheeks tingling in memory. “B
ut in this way, I’m flirting with you.”
“Flirting?” he echoed. “This is like pushing buttons to me.”
She grinned. “It’s my way of saying that I like you.”
The confused expression cleared from his face. “Oh. Well, I know this already.”
“Yes. Yes, you do. I suppose if there was ever any doubt, I cleared that up last night.”
“On that matter, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do all females from your planet scream so loudly during mating?”
Sarai’s cheeks colored. “No. I’m sorry, did I hurt your ears?” She was only being a little sarcastic.
“No. I don’t mind that sort of screaming.”
She rolled her eyes. Though they were few and far between, there were some things that were universal between their two planets.
“So, have you thought of what you will say?”
He was speaking of the communicator she held the plans for. The plan for another vessel to return her to her home planet had been abandoned long ago. Though she still had moments where she missed her family terribly, she knew that Earth wasn’t her home any longer. Her home was the planet of Pra’kir. Her home would always be wherever Binnix was.
“Yes.”
“Do you wish to tell me?”
“I’m afraid I might cry,” she admitted, biting down on her lower lip.
“Well, if you cry, I will kiss away your tears.”
She couldn’t help but smile. She knew that when Binnix said those things, they weren’t lines. He didn’t even know what lines were. He meant every word he said. Sarai cleared her throat and began. “Mom, Dad, Rob, and Kristin: I want you all to know that the SS Reconnaissance crashed. Most of our crew was killed, and we did not make our destination to Zeta-12. Instead, we are on Pra’kir. Don’t worry—I am safe. I am being well taken care of. I have found a man, and I am very happy here. I won’t ever be able to come home, and this device, if it works, will only be able to be used once. I want each of you to know that I love you. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you and miss you—you, least of all, Rob.” She laughed as she said this, even as her eyes misted with tears. “Say hello to my little niece or nephew and let her know that her Aunt Sarai loves her. I wanted to thank each of you for encouraging me to follow my dreams. We may not have landed where we planned on, but I do think it was where I’m meant to be. I love you all. Goodbye.”