Worlds Away

by J. L. Hendricks

  Before we arrived to my old jail cell, I noticed a few of the crew members and how different they looked. “Venay, are all of the men on this ship from your planet? Or do you use crew members from other species?”

  “They are all my species. As I said earlier, we have introduced human DNA into our society. Some believe that we should not have done that. They didn’t like to mix species. The results are what I look like. More and more of my species are turning out to look closer to humans than they do to the original V’Zenians. But this was expected. The small portion of those who claim to be pure bloods, are still trying to stick together, but are having trouble procreating. Somewhere along the line, I think some of them actually did mate with a human or two, their reproduction rates are slowly increasing.”

  “Wait, so there are some who still look like your kind did 200 years ago?” This was getting curious. I wondered if those were what I was seeing on this ship.

  “Yes, I have a few purebloods on my ship. I doubt any of them will find a mate with your kind here, but they will have first pick of slaves when we get home. That is one of the perks of going on this long mission. You can choose your mate or slaves. They have to buy the slaves, but since they get the first pick, they get the better stock.”

  “Why do you do that? Call them stock? They’re people, not cows.” My blood pressure was rising. I could feel it. I could feel my face burning, and my fists were clenching. If I wasn’t careful, I might chip a tooth from all of the grinding my teeth were doing lately.

  “In our society, humans who aren’t mates are no better than livestock. I have spent time on your planet learning about your societies. When slavery was legal on your planet, most slaves were no better than livestock to your ancestors,” He countered.

  “But we have evolved since then and know that slavery is wrong! All humans are to be treated as equals, no matter their race or background.” Why couldn’t he understand this? His mother was a human. What did she teach him?

  He stopped walking, and I followed suit. “You would like to think you are better than us, wouldn’t you? But you still have slavery, it might be illegal, but it still happens, and some governments turn a blind eye to it.” He wasn’t wrong.

  “Yes, but there are a lot more governments working to stop it than not. We aren’t perfect, far from it. But I do think we could help each other if we were to work together.” I knew I wasn’t supposed to mention that again, but I just couldn’t help myself.

  Venay had a scowl on his face, and started walking again, but said nothing. When we reached the door to my old prison, he stopped, “I have something I need to do so I will leave you here. You are free to roam the room, but you may not leave it unless a guard goes with you. I will return shortly.”

  He moved to put his hand on the biometric scanner, and I put my hand on his arm, “Thank you. I appreciate this chance to see the girls and to check on Betsy.”

  He grunted, nodded, and then the door opened.

  As I walked into the room, everyone quieted and looked my way, “Hi everyone! I hope you’re all ok?” Some greeted me with smiles and others with frowns. To be expected, they have been in this tight space for a while now with only that gross moldy thing they call food.

  I walked over to my old cell and said hi to a few people along the way. Looking over toward the guys, I decided I would check on them too before I left for the night.

  As I passed one cell, someone yelled out, “Traitor!” I didn’t see who it was but I figured some would feel this way. I know I would if I were still in here without a way out.

  I just sighed and kept moving until one woman asked, “How was it? Was he nice?”

  “Um, he’s ok so far. I’m sleeping on the couch until I’m ready to marry him. He isn’t pushing the issue so far. And he said that eventually I’ll be able to move around the ship by myself. So I guess that’s nice?” I shrugged my shoulders and quickly walked over to Betsy.

  “Hey there, how are you doing tonight? Any better than earlier?” I had worried about her all day.

  “I’m okay, I remembered your Commander, he was there when I was abducted.” Betsy looked down at her feet.

  “Really? He told me he didn’t like the idea of someone so young being brought on board.” This was new information.

  “I’m starting to remember a bit more, I’m not sure what they drugged me with, but I don’t remember being abducted. I just remember seeing a couple of really good-looking men and then waking up here. But today, after he came to get you, memories started coming back. I think that’s why I was afraid of him when he showed up.”

  I reached out to put a hand on her arm, “Hey, it’s ok, he won’t hurt you. I won’t let him, or anyone else. He did agree that you shouldn’t be coerced into mating with anyone since you are too young. So he is going to ask his mom, who is human, to buy you.”

  Her hopeful face turned to sadness.

  “I’m sorry, I did try to get him to take you home, but he won’t. His mom supposedly treats her helpers well. I think maybe we should think of this as an opportunity for you to become a helper. Maybe she will treat you that way too.” I looked at her and then at the others in the cage.

  “Betsy, do you have any experience cooking or cleaning?” I asked.

  “I worked in a diner after school and on the weekends. I was a server. So I have that experience. Will that help me?” Betsy’s face began to look hopeful again. I hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed.

  “Yes, I think it might. I don’t know anything about them, but maybe we can get you an actual job as a waitress instead? I’m trying to talk to him about the possibility of abolishing slavery, but he isn’t the one to make that call. Hopefully he can work to help make changes as time goes on. But, for now, let’s just try to make things as good as possible for you.” I smiled at her, and she gave me a shy, timid smile in return.

  “I think I might like that better. I was trying to rally my nerves and become a mate, but you’re right, I’m not ready to be someone’s wife or even a mother! But a server would be good, at least until you can get us home.” Betsy’s voice sounded stronger and I could tell we were headed in the right direction for her.

  “Hey, now we talked about this today. I don’t see how that is going to happen any time soon. Please don’t count on that. It will only upset you even more.” Sheila came over and was listening in on our conversation but then decided to join us.

  “Sheila, do you really think we are stuck? That we can’t get home?” I looked at her with pleading in my eyes. I didn’t want to lose hope, and I certainly didn’t want Betsy to either!

  “Sadly, Paris, I do think we are stuck. It might happen down the road, but we are on a spaceship heading to a place we know nothing about. Even if we did find a way to take over the ship, how would we turn it around and go home? And don’t get me started on the experiments our own government would do to us! Being in space, abducted by aliens? Come on, you know we wouldn’t see outside for a very long time. If ever.” Sheila arched a brow and pursed her lips.

  She was right. I hadn’t thought about that. Even if we did somehow force this ship back to Earth, our government would find out about us, and they would kidnap us and probably treat us just as badly, if not worse, than these aliens. Something else needed to happen before we could safely go home. I needed to get the V’Zenian government to make first contact with my own government. But that was a problem for another day.

  Today, I needed to help my fellow abductees to find a better way to live. Sheila seemed like a leader, and she would help me, I knew it. But what could we do? Other than talk as many of the women as possible into marrying these aliens? And the men, well, I just hoped that they would be treated half-way decent. I thought that was the most I could hope for.

  I spent the next hour chatting with the women in that area and then decided it was time to check on the men. One day soon, I needed to go into the other room with the rest of the abductees and check on them as well.

 
Chapter 7

  I hadn’t met any of the men yet, so I was a bit hesitant to chat with them, but it needed to happen. Since the Commander had chosen me to be his wife, mate, whatever, I needed to use my position to do whatever I could to help them.

  The way they looked at me was a surprise. Almost all of them had hostile expressions. Some were leering at me, some were scowling, and others wouldn’t even look at me. The guards in the room noticed and two of them stepped closer to me. They gave the men dirty looks, I wasn’t sure if they were trying to protect me. However, this was what I needed to do.

  “Hi guys, I wanted to introduce myself and see if there was anything I could do for you?” My smile was a bit hesitant, but who could blame me with such animosity staring me down.

  “Yeah, you can leave us alone, traitor!” A few of the men started calling me traitor, but for the most part, most kept quiet.

  “Look, I know this sucks, but I’m trying to help you guys. I didn’t ask for this, and I wasn’t going to accept his offer when he first asked me, but after one day in here I knew what I had to do. If there is anything I can do to help, I will.” I sighed and started to walk away when one guy stood up.

  “Hey, you never did tell us your name.” The man was tall, he was just over six feet by my guess. He had dark brown, wavy hair and hazel eyes. He could have been related to me, if all of my relatives weren’t dead.

  “I’m Paris, and you are?”

  “A slave, from the looks of it.” He laughed and looked at his fellow men, who started to laugh and joke with him.

  “Well, if you want to be treated better, maybe you should think of yourselves as workers, instead of slaves. Slaves have no hope, and I intend on making sure you do have some hope. It may not be today, but down the road I am going to find a way to make things better for all of us.”

  “Don’t include yourself in ‘us,’ sweetheart! You’re not a slave or a worker. You gave in and agreed to be the Commander’s whore! That’s what any woman is who takes an alien mate!” He turned his back on me and slumped down to the ground with his friends.

  I could tell this was going to be tough, and I intended to find a way to get them to trust me and for me to make life easier for them. But first, I needed Venay to trust me.

  One of the guards came over, “Paris, don’t mind them; they are just jealous they don’t have the same options as the women. That is all it is. Trust me, they don’t really think of you that way. He said that just to upset you and try to make himself feel better. All of the men do this every time. Why don’t I take you back to your room? The Commander will join you shortly, I am sure.” This guard was quite nice and walked me back to my new prison cell. Albeit, a much bigger and nicer cell, but a cell just the same.

  “What’s your name?” I looked the new alien up and down. He looked different than most of the other aliens I had met so far.

  “Cazon.”

  “Cazon, you look a bit different than the Commander. Would you tell me about your parents? Are they both hybrids?” He had the multi-colored veins that were glowing, although not as bright as Venay’s, but still stood out. The main difference was the color of his skin, it was more like an opalescent blue, but unlike anything I have seen on Earth. Well, maybe a custom paint job on a muscle car? As we walked along the corridor I could see the light hitting his skin, and it changed to different shades of blue. At one point, I thought I caught a purplish hue, but that couldn’t be right. I wondered if it would it be rude to ask him.

  He chuckled, “Humans are all alike, and you can’t seem to stop categorizing each other by their skin tones. I find that strange. You have already abolished slavery, but you still segregate yourselves from each other, why is that?”

  My eyes shot up, and I stopped abruptly, “You’ve already picked up on that? Wow, I’m impressed. You must have been paying very close attention to us or to our social media?”

  “You might say that humans interest me. My parents are purebloods, but since not many of the pureblooded females give birth, I have been considering taking a human mate. That is why I am on this trip. I am lucky, I have three older siblings who have all taken pureblooded mates, so I am free to choose whomever I want. That is really the only segregation my species experiences. You are either pureblood or hybrid. But we are all V’Zenian.” Cazon smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Interesting, you do still segregate, just between two classifications. We may not be all that different after all.” I furrowed my brow and considered how I could use this information to stop their abductions. Finding commonalities between our species might serve to make us look more even to them and in turn, could help to stop slavery of the human population.

  “Maybe.” He started walking again towards my cabin, and I followed him. “But when we segregate, we don’t hate like the humans do. Those of pureblood hope to keep our DNA intact, because if we don’t, then we will eventually be more human and less V’Zenian. We will become a different species.”

  “I think there are those on Earth who feel the same way. They don’t want to see races intermingling because then they become a different race, in their eyes. However, I have never seen it that way. In fact, my high school boyfriend was a different race than me, and no one ever looked down on us. I grew up in an area that had many races and many inter-racial couples. So, it wasn’t as big of a deal for us.” I tried keeping pace with the large alien, but his stride was much longer than mine. I ended up practically running to keep up with him.

  “If you study the conflicts you will see more concentrations in different areas than in others. Places like Los Angeles, California have conflicts, but Orange County doesn’t. Those two places are next door to each other. It is interesting, and something I always wanted to study. But, that is a very heated topic back home. I guess now the problem for us humans will be, human versus alien. I have a feeling that all of the different races you have on board here will eventually see all of us Earthlings as humans, and not see the different colors of our skin. What is it like with humans on your planet? Is there much racism there?” I was panting before long and needed to stop talking so I could catch my breath.

  “You are correct in your assumptions, once the people on this ship integrate with the rest of the human population on my world, they will stop seeing color. You will see some hate towards those who mated with my species, but over time it dissipates and just turns to hate for their masters.” Cazon must have noticed my heavy breathing because his steps slowed enough so I could walk at a brisk pace instead of almost a run.

  “Hm, I see. Well, maybe if you guys would stop treating humans like cattle it would be different. Something to think about.” Cazon had stopped in front of my door. His forehead was scrunched up tight and his lips were pursed.

  I hoped he was seriously considering what I just said.

  “Do you think that Sheila would consider mating with a pureblood? Or would she prefer a hybrid?” So that was what he was thinking about.

  I laughed out loud as I realized he really wasn’t paying much attention to our conversation and had drifted off into romance land.

  “Well, she might if you romanced her and promised to treat her good. Are you considering mating with her?” I figured Sheila would most likely agree, as long as she found Cazon handsome.

  He put his hand over the biometric scanner and my door opened, to an upset Commander standing there looking at me.

  “Cazon, you may go. Thank you for bringing my mate back to me. Next time, make sure those human males don’t treat her so poorly. Get her out of there before they can upset her or the other females in the room.” He motioned for Cazon to leave. Cazon bowed and walked back down the hall before the door even had a chance to close.

  “What were you doing talking to the male slaves? It’s not safe until they accept their fate.” He stalked over to me and suddenly stopped when he saw my face.

  I could feel my face warming, and my eyes were narrowed on him. “I spoke to them because they ar
e human! Maybe if you stopped treating everyone so badly they wouldn’t act so awful. I actually think their behavior is spot on for their situation… Put yourself in their shoes.” I put my hands on my hips and huffed out a deep breath.

  “Paris, in my culture, I am actually treating them better than most would. They are slaves, that is all there is to it. If being my mate is going to be so difficult for you, maybe I should send you back to the cells?” He narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Are you going to threaten me with slavery every time we have an argument? Cuz if you are, then we will not have a good marriage.” Then I crossed my arms over my chest and thrust out my right hip.

  “No, you are right. I shouldn’t throw that in your face. I am sorry. This is all new to me. I never planned on finding a human mate, maybe not even mating at all. But when I saw you, I knew you were the one. This is an adjustment for me too. But I guess it isn’t that big compared to what you are going through.” He reached out to hug me, and I let him. Part of my brain was screaming at me to get the ugly, alien hands off me. But another part relaxed and enjoyed the comfort of a simple hug.

  He wasn’t trying anything untoward. His hands didn’t roam anywhere, he just wrapped me in his warmth. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  “Yes, I guess it could be an adjustment for you as well. I’m not going to give up on better conditions for the, um, slaves,” I stepped out from his embrace and looked down at my feet. “It is really important you understand that I will fight for freedom. You should expect that from most people on my planet, especially the Americans. We have a very strong sense of freedom and believe it to be our right, not a gift. We fight very hard to keep the freedoms that our forefathers died for.”

  “Yes, I have seen similar views by other Americans.” Venay nodded. “Alright, how about I treat the, uh, humans, with as much respect as I can while they are on my ship? After that, I can’t control what happens.”