Starborn Odyssey (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 1)

by Haines Sigurdsson

  Meeza and I talked about all of the things that were so different about our lives so far and how much things were going to change in both our worlds. It seemed so simple and easy to talk to her; and there was no embarrassment in acknowledging the strong feelings we clearly shared.

  “I wonder if our attraction is just a part of a bigger issue?” I asked rhetorically. “I mean that perhaps it’s a reflex to the rapid changes in our lives, causing an overload.”

  “That surely has something to do with it,” she agreed. “I do believe I would have been attracted to you even if you had lived here all of your life all the same. Ian always made fun of me for not ever wanting to be involved with any of the men here, and you’ve wiped that out in only a matter of minutes. It’s hard to fathom exactly what has come over me, but I know I was always waiting for you to come here and that’s just a fact.” She was leaning closer and closer to me as she spoke, her voice getting softer, until I could feel her breath as she concluded: “I’ve never felt this way and never imagined that I would.” Our lips met on that final word, and we were doomed forever by that act, to follow through to where ever the path would lead us.

  In my own defense; I can only say that fate was playing me along in a most bizarre way and I was no more in control of the situation than if I were in freefall from a mile up in the atmosphere. Afterward, I felt as if I had betrayed everything I believed was right; and I guess I had. I loved Nettie with all my heart, and yet, this was so completely different. Nettie was a safe and comfortable thing in my life, but Meeza was exciting and sort of dangerous ground, and more than that; fateful. It was something so far beyond my experience that I felt that Nettie would almost understand, if she could really know it. For the first time in my life I was taking a path completely alien to me; and oddly, with an alien girl, about whom I knew so little and felt so much. So much for reason and logic! I thought to myself with grim humor.

  Looking back now, I believe that my feelings for Nettie were too familiar, more like a family member than a real lover. I was helpless!

  Though we were intimate that night by the river, Meeza and I did not make love; though the desire to do so was strong. I still had the desire to explore my feelings farther to be sure I was not just momentarily infatuated. Meeza understood my feelings and was content to be close for the time being, though she admitted that her desire was to spend the rest of her life with me, but that she would do nothing until we had time to explore our options. Such declarations didn’t even alarm me. We both knew that we were only postponing the inevitable. I could not help but feel there was something about this situation that was right, and that things would somehow work out alright. I felt strangely comforted by Meeza’s presence there with me, even though I knew deep inside that I should feel otherwise. Oh why had I become engaged just before coming here?

  Later that night I said goodnight to Meeza; not all that easy to do under the circumstances; and started back toward the Homer with my senses reeling. I noticed, much to my surprise, that there were at least twenty other couples of Reeshian women with Earth men paired off together in the night. I began to get an uncomfortable feeling that not everything was good in a place called Denmark, as Shakespeare would have it.

  As I entered the ship, I ran into Doc Lee. “We have a problem,” she said in greeting.

  “And that is?” I asked.

  “I’ve just had several of the women from the crew of the Andromeda here, complaining about their husbands going off with the alien women. It’s like they’re being drawn in some unnatural way toward them. If we don’t do something quickly, we’ll have a war on our hands. Where have you been, anyway? I had people looking for you as soon as the pattern started to show up.”

  “I was off sightseeing with Ian and Mogi.” I lied.

  “And that alien girl; Ian’s sister?” She asked suspiciously. The expression on my face answered for me.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” She asked in exasperation. Then slowly her expression changed to a look of dawning awareness.

  I tried to stammer out some sort of explanation or lie, and failed. She waved me to silence. “I’m developing a theory, but it’s only that, so far,” she cut in. “But I think it has something to do with the survival of species.”

  I’m not the smartest person in the universe; but even I can see bold print on the wall. I simply nodded my assent. These attractions may not upset the Reeshian men as much as it does the Earth women, but I could conceive of there being a problem even with them as far as some not wanting to share a partner with another species; namely us.

  “I have to do some tests on the Reeshian women,” said Lee. “I have a feeling that nature may be playing a very cruel joke on us. I’m noticing that the attractions go both ways, and that gives rise to a theory. I won’t comment until I run a few tests; I want you and that alien girl here in the morning. Do you think you can convince her to let me make these tests?”

  “What do you expect to find?” I asked.

  “I’d rather not say until I’ve done more analysis, but I’m almost sure I’m correct just by the evidence all around me. If I am, I should be able to find a way to deal with it,” she said with a hint of humor.

  “But what about what’s going on out there?” I said, now fretting that we were potentially in deep trouble.

  Lee shook her head. “I’m not about to go try to break all of that up,” she said. “I recommend that you lock yourself in a room somewhere and don’t venture out until I let you out!”

  She was only half kidding, so I nodded and went to my bunk in back of the ship.

  I didn’t sleep well that night; dreams—or perhaps I should call them nightmares—of Meeza and Nettie almost drove me to distraction. It may have been the longest single night of my life, but morning did finally come, and Doc Lee sent me out on my mission.

  I headed out to find Meeza, and found her looking for me.

  “I didn’t sleep well last night,” were the first words out of her mouth. She was pouting a little, very prettily, I thought, then made myself concentrate on her words. “My father was waiting up for me when I got home. He wasn’t too happy about my having been seen holding hands with one of the “Alien Invaders,” as he called your people. I really didn’t expect that kind of reaction to my feelings for you! I do really want to be with you, and honestly have never felt this way about anybody in my life.” She threw her arms around me and pulled me close. My heart did a back flip.

  “I’ve never been so in love with anyone either,” I told her in complete honesty, speaking against the soft skin at her neck as I held her. “You’re all I could think of all night, too.” It was a bit of a lie but I couldn’t bring myself to tell the whole truth; and I think the critical point was her new place in my thoughts.

  We sat down beneath a tree in a secluded spot, and fell into each other with such a passion that I forgot all about going to see Lee for the tests, until an hour or more had gone by. That was the most passionate experience of my life, and according to Meeza, it was the same for her. I wondered aloud if we had consummated the first intimate encounter between our species; but she suggested that with all the activity the night before it would be hard to say. I remembered about Lee wanting to run tests only after having fulfilled our desires.

  I told Meeza then about what was going on, and that Lee wanted to run some tests to see if there was some biological reason for the sudden strong attractions between our peoples; more specifically, our men and their women.

  “I don’t mind letting her run her tests, but I doubt anything will change the way I feel about you,” she responded, clutching tightly to my arm. The look of fear in her expression almost broke my heart. “I don’t want to feel any different than I do right now,” she added almost dolefully. “What we have is what most people go a lifetime waiting for, and it just came to us. How much more could anyone ask for?”

  I felt the same way, and told her so. “Well, we’ll let Lee run her tests anyway because th
ere are a lot of people who have to be protected, and if there’s something we don’t know, we have to find it out, at the very least,” I said logically, and she agreed with me. I was amazed at how similar our emotional lives seemed to be, despite the once great distances between our worlds.

  We arrived at the Homer and as we entered Doc Lee looked up from something on her console and came straight over. “You weren’t here, but several others have been, including your friend Josh with a girl named Tima. This must be Meeza,; nice to meet you.” Lee said brusquely. “I have good news and bad news,” she said, and then looked distracted.

  “And the good news is . . . ” I prompted, after a short pause.

  “Right.” Lee refocused. “The fact is that both of our races have gone into survival mode. That is what can happen in nature when populations are threatened with extinction. Only problem with it in this case is that in our culture, the men are putting out pheromones to attract women for propagation; it’s a safety valve. Here’s the bad news: the women in the Reeshian species are the ones putting out the pheromones. The result is that the attractions are doubly strong because of the compound nature of both parties being super attracted at the same time.”

  “That’s not the good news,” I said, now feeling a bit desperate.

  Lee looked hard at me. “We’ve got a vaccine that reduces the responses to the pheromones, but it only seems to work on the couples if they haven’t been intimate yet. I suspect the rest is psychological and that I can’t fix with chemicals.”

  I think the look on our faces confessed as well as screaming it across the room. “I see.” Lee said. “Well; I can give you both the shot, and then you can see what happens if you like?” We looked at each other, and both nodded affirmation. She gave us the shots and wished us good luck, more or less. I think I was demoted a few notches in her book of who’s who that day. She did pull me aside to give me some private advice: “Listen, Eric, I don’t want to recommend breaking up an engagement, but I feel I have to tell you that if that shot doesn’t work, and you fight the chemistry, you’ll probably wind up resenting Nettie for causing you to have to give up your new relationship.” She looked tired, suddenly, and sighed. “The only good news I could offer is that Nettie is well enough educated in this area that she probably won’t hate you for being the happy victim of this inappropriate attraction. It’s rather sad that the timing was so bad but things are as they are.”

  I left as confused as ever, not sure what the right thing to do was, but knowing what I wanted. And that, in a word, was Meeza.

  During the next twenty four hours I kept waiting to feel differently, or for Meeza to feel different; Lee said we probably wouldn’t, so we weren’t disappointed or particularly surprised when our love remained unblemished the following day.

  I had had a near perfect relationship with Nettie for years, so I guess it was just poetic justice that I should be thrown into this turmoil. I say poetically because nobody is supposed to have an easy time in life—so let’s screw it up as best we can.

  On the bright side, however, I’d never experienced as strong emotions as Meeza brought out in me. Guess it’s a somewhat fair trade after a fashion. I just had no idea how I would broach the issue it with Nettie, though I hoped that the medical records of this would work in my favor a little. This unforeseen chemical thing really wasn’t my fault; yet it was still terribly unfair to her.

  I agonized over how I could make it better for her. I even imagined that she might be willing to share me but scrapped that idea; I didn’t think even Meeza would share at that stage. By the Stars, I groaned inwardly, things have changed so much, so fast, I’m finding myself in an upside down world!

  Lee says, “Scream therapy can help.” Thanks, Lee.

  When I finally got a chance to ask Lee why Mogi never had that effect on our people she answered, “It’s because Mogi and Ian have only been together for half a year, and are still locked to each other. It might still have been different if they had been separated for a period of time, the way you and Nettie were.” She just had to throw that in there.

  The Flood

  With all of the work helping to set up the new Earth colony, it was easy to set aside dealing with the problems created by the biological overdose arranged by nature. Our prefabrication of buildings with electricity and heat, etcetera, was the most incredible thing to the Reeshians. They all wanted to be in line to be among the first to build a new home; with the exception of the few who considered us invaders, and their numbers were daily dwindling. Those who still objected to a change in their life style were invited, very politely— ha-ha— to proceed to another area and their neighbors would help them establish a new colony for themselves. Most wanted the new technology, but not the human colonists that came with it, and that was that. Exasperated, I finally told them, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too!” Unfortunately, it was a while before some of them knew what exactly cake was.

  Geeb Alori was still unhappy with our presence and was posting notices (mostly on paper supplied by us) telling people to ignore the intruders and make them feel unwelcomed. While I could empathize, our directive not to colonize where native sentient species lived didn’t apply to non-native settlements like the Reeshians. They were here before us, but not by that much, thinking in geological time frames. Also, the native sentient species had welcomed both the Reeshians and the humans, so we didn’t feel the directive was violated in any way.

  Despite all this, Geeb Alori had arranged that there would be a meeting to discuss what type of rules “these aliens” should be subjected to in their new colony. The proposal being circulated was that all of those getting too involved with the aliens should be ostracized and even asked to leave the community.

  Ian suggested that for now we ignore Geeb, and that he and a large contingent of others would attend the meeting and try to get as many of the Reeshians as possible to recognize us as cousins, not aliens, who should be welcomed—along with our new technology— as neighbors. I suggested somewhat bitterly that Ian point out that all of the notices were written on paper obtained from us. Ian agreed it was a good idea; it would show Geeb’s hypocrisy.

  Mike Dermot was his usual busy self helping with the assembly and installation of equipment. Pretty much everyone answered to him when it came to the need for real expertise. He was young, but I’d take him over any of the older “more experienced” engineers any day. The guy had bailed us out more than once in a tight place and if my life depended on anyone, I preferred him.

  Mike, as it turned out, was one of the men whom had taken an alien lover. Her name was, Tava, after one of their flowers, pink and yellow sort of Iris like. She matched it for beauty. She, like Mogi and Meeza, had the pinkish fuzzy hair and as I was starting to notice was not all exactly the same color, but varied from almost blue to absolute violet. Her eyes were greyer rather than the violet eyes of Meeza and Mogi. One thing I noticed when she was helping Mike fix the wiring on the back of one of our machines was the way her middle finger could oppose her thumb or her other finger just as easily. It wasn’t hard to see how that compensated for having fewer fingers; it really maximized their dexterity.

  On the third day after our arrival on New Reesh Blurg approached me to tell me that his people had been to see him to tell him that the Sea people/Lapapeg, had a village on the coast only a three days hard march from here; that estimated to about seventy five miles away. Now I wished I had Hero with me for easier communication with them. It might not have helped if their language was much different, but we’d have had the advantage of them probably not being intimidated by him. Blurg was pretty sure that they had dealings with some of his race who also lived by the coast. He was almost certain, though he’d never ventured there himself, that their language was close to the same as his, so that would be enough to get us by.

  We prepared the Homer for the short flight to the village. Blurg, Ian, and two others of his settlement were to accompany us on the trip. I called our colo
ny on Olympus to inform the Captain of our intentions and get his approval. He was glad to hear of our plans and then he asked me to tell him a little more about the problem we’d run into. I froze for a moment before answering and Capt. Pierce caught it and asked me if I had been affected personally before the problem was resolved. I had no choice other than to tell him the truth.

  He didn’t accuse or judge, but wanted a detailed report on the way things affected me from the moment we landed. It wasn’t easy to tell this man who was like a father to me; but I held back nothing . When I was finished and answered several embarrassing questions I had attempted to bypass, he said it was indeed an unforeseen hazard that would have to be handled carefully. He understood what a dilemma this was putting a number of us in; those who’d crossed the line of, as he called it, no return. He asked me what I planned to do and I told him I had no idea at the moment. He informed me that most of the colonists had heard about the problem and many, including Nettie, had asked him if he knew who had been affected. So far he’d told all of them that he didn’t know as yet.

  After a brief silence during which I could think of nothing to say, the Captain said that we would be released on a list as affected as if it were a flu or epidemic, and people would have some time to adjust before any of us returned. I admit that I was somewhat relieved to think that Nettie would at least get a small amount of warning; I wouldn’t have to spring it a on Nettie all at one time. Spread over a little time had to be better than being smashed with the reality in one blow. Who could tell how things would work out?