Deathship (The Outsider Series Book 1)

Deathship (The Outsider Series Book 1) Page 21

by Steven Oaks

  “Certainly Michael. Or you could have me make you another suit that is to your standards,” she said.

  “I do not think there is enough time for me to strip these clothes off and put another set on. I will just stick with what I have for now, but I might take you up on that offer later. I try not to dress poorly, but my means have never been so good as to afford the luxuries you have provided me in the two days we’ve been together,” I said, thinking to myself how close I felt to her even in such a small number of hours. We were partners now. I suppose the sense of danger can throw two people together and make them as close as a married couple in a short amount of time.

  “Thank you for always complimenting me, and for trusting me. Your hesitation in the beginning troubled me. I was made to be relied on and your doubt upset me very deeply, but now that I have gained it I feel wonderful,” she said in a cheerful voice.

  “While there are many difficulties to overcome, I have never felt more alive and happy. I think it is in large part to finally finding someone I can trust with my life. I did have my doubts in the beginning as you were made by the Outsiders. But you have proven to me you are someone I can have faith in,” I said with a smile as my eyes filled up with tears. I was able to hold back true waterworks, but I began to sniffle.

  With a loud cough to cover my embarrassment, I said, “Alright. How much longer until we are docked?”

  “We are already inside. I also see Ava approaching. Good luck Michael,” she said quickly.

  “Good luck to both of us,” I said as I noticed the air becoming cooler as I stood at the door waiting for the inevitable.

  A few moments later the door irised opened and there she was, even more enchanting in person. I tried to compose myself and said, “Welcome to Athene, will you be coming aboard?”

  “Thank you for the invitation,” she said as she began walking up the steps to enter, and I was already lost. The way she moved made you notice her curves even more. Though she still wore the white robe covering her from neck to foot the loose folds of cloth as it brushed against her legs and hips made them even more profound. She did not walk, so much as sway gently aboard Athene, and it drove me wild with a desire I had never felt. I tried to pull my eyes away from her when she finally stood near me. I would have been completely consumed by her beauty but the noise and motion of the door sliding closed behind her distracted me enough for me to try and compose myself once more.

  “Hello Ava. Please come in and have a seat and be relaxed,” I said in my best congenial innkeepers voice.

  Before I could guide her to one of the chairs Ava put out her hand to me, “I am very glad to meet you Michael. You have shown surprising abilities in handling those who do not see the world as we do,” she said in a whisper of a voice.

  I took her hand and I felt myself relax while looking into her eyes. I was trapped, but it was such a pleasant trap I did not want to break free. Suddenly a loud noise sounded in my ear, and I was barely able to stop myself from shouting out in pain. I released her hand and began to walk away towards the chairs. I tried to make it look like I was guiding Ava, but I was just trying to get away from her.

  I stood by the farthest chair and waited for her to glide across the floor to the one nearest the door before I sat down as she did. I was glad for this little distance, and hoped having a coffee table between us would help.

  I cleared my throat after a moment of silence passed between us, and asked, “So how can I help you? I assume you wish to talk about something?”

  “All I wish to do is converse with you about how your day went. Did you find it taxing?” she asked. She had seated herself facing me, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap. Her back was straight. Now she looked imperial, but still somehow kind and gentle.

  I answered as best I could trying not to think of things I might reveal. “Today was long, but there were breaks between meeting with those who ran these new facilities. While loading I was able to have short conversations with them, but they usually wrapped up before the two hour time it took to relieve them of their burden. So I was able to come back to Athene and got some reading done while I waited for completion,” I responded as honestly as I could without too much detail.

  “I see. And what did you read this day?” she asked.

  “It was a book called A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.” I said.

  “Ah, and what is that about?” she asked.

  I was not sure what the point of this question was. Feeling there was nothing I could reveal with answering honestly, I responded, “It is a book from around the early part of the twentieth century, genre pulp science fiction. A man from the civil war is transported to mars and has adventures with the humanoids that live there.”

  “And have you finished reading it?” she asked.

  “I have read it before, but I did complete it today. It is not a long book,” I said. This did not seem to be going anywhere.

  “Did you find interacting with the managers difficult?” she suddenly said, changing the topic.

  “They all seemed pleasant enough, save the one in Ohio. I’m sure you’ve reviewed that part of my trip. It was taken over somehow by a group of people who are against the what they call the theft of their dead. But I seem to have been able to convince them the best thing for them to do might be to work with you to help save humanity and animals,” I said, hoping she interpreted this action as good.

  “You did seem to say something along those lines. To save the animals the Vegan claimed were important you told her colonizing other worlds would help them continue to be the guardians of such things,” she said, leaning forward now to stared deeply into my eyes. “Michael do you think we Outsiders are a threat?” she asked gently, and had a pleading, almost sad look in her eyes.

  I was about to tell her everything but another high pitched noise sounded in my ear, slightly less painful than the first one, but enough to pull me back to myself. I answered honestly, though I hid my true fear. “Outsiders have what appears to be greater technology, at least in defense. It doesn’t seem even if we were to go all out with all our weapons you would be harmed in any way. That is a frightening thing for most people. If you have weapons on par with your defense then we would stand no chance. You are therefore a threat because we can not stand against you. That being said, you have shown no animosity, so you are an unknown. That’s another frightening idea to people. Which is a round about way of saying I do not know, which most people would consider a threat,” I said, trying to control what I said, but it seems with limited success.

  “So you do not know if we are a threat? I assure you we have nothing but good intentions for humanity. Yes we are requiring a price for the use of our advanced technology, but there is no such thing as free. If we were to hand everything we had to you, what would that do? It would teach you nothing, and you might destroy yourselves. You may think of us as you do the Vegans. We wish no species to become extinct. Your world holds intelligent life. That is a rarity even in the vastness of space. Certainly there are types of life out there on many planets, but true intelligence where you are able to learn and create new skills as you discover them is not a likely trait. Most life finds itself a niche and stays there. They limit their own ability to exist anywhere else. Your species lives everyplace they can. You are adaptable in an impressive way. That is something so extraordinary we want you to never disappear. Without our interference you are likely to stay in place on your Earth and not move on, though you have shown the desire to do so. Your internal conflicts with your fellow man will not let you do so. We have come to supply you with the means. Now we wish to watch as you explore and thrive in environments you were not evolved to handle. Though you will terraform other worlds to suit your needs, such things as gravity, or even new species of life which evolved on these new planets will be different,” she
said in a voice different than before. It was less hypnotic and more passionate filled when she explained her view.

  “May I ask you something then?” I inquired curiously. She nodded her head and I continued, “Do you have actual need of our dead then, or is it just the cost you thought we needed to show us something?” I was not sure what I even meant, but she had implied that they could have just given us their technology.

  “I will not say we need the deceased. But we are sending them to a universe that is of energy. If there is a soul, it resides in the mind of people. The patterns of the brain will continue to exist in the other universe. If we are able to get to them before they decay that is. We are saving personalities from ceasing to exist by doing so. We are not doing this to harm humanity, but we have our own reason for doing so. Technically we could have given you everything you wanted without this cost and still gained something from it as long as you spread yourself among the stars. But this was more expedient for our needs,” she said calmly, once more in her quiet whisper of a voice.

  “May I ask what your needs are?” I asked.

  “You may ask, but I do not think answering would help anyone. So I will not,” she said. She leaned back into the chair once more putting on the imperial look.

  We sat there in silence looking at each other for a few moments. Perhaps you are not aware of how powerful silence is. But sitting with someone for any length of time in quiet while you look into their eyes will cause most to start rambling just to fill the void. I did know this and had seen others react in such a manner because of my own particular desire not to make small talk. Perhaps she thought I might say something revealing if she said nothing, but I was used to awkward silences.

  Eventually I thought of another question to ask. “Are you interviewing all the other pilots today?”

  “Not all of them. Some did have issues but did not handle them as well as you did. Had you done as Adam requested I might not even be here. He told you to stay inside and leave them alone while you had your ship load up the containers herself. You took it upon yourself to try to convince these so called anti-Outsiders to work with us. It seems you were successful as we have heard back from them. They apologized and will now store and prepare for us the next shipment. When we interviewed you, and as we have learned more about you, there is nothing to tell us why you would do so. You seem to shun interacting with people. Only when you are forced to, or you feel obligated, will you converse with others. What was your reasoning for doing so?” she asked.

  I was not prepared to answer this question. I could not share the real reason. I was looking for people to work with. My desire to break free of what I felt was Outsider control would damn me if explained. I still did my best to answer honestly, and said, “It is my job to retrieve the dead for you. If what you say is true about myself, you could then take it I felt obligated to do my job.”

  “You were already accomplishing your job. Your ship was already loading the dead,” she said.

  “That is true. But I also felt if their leader was with me it would distract them long enough to retrieve all of the stored deceased,” I said as that was my first intention. I did not want the people there to come to harm, and I was not sure how the Outsiders would have reacted to a partial recovery of the containers.

  “And yet you took it upon yourself to defend our practice to what most would call a radical group of Vegans. That would be a confrontation of ideals. You seem to shun those types of dialogues. You have always limited your interactions with others even according to yourself, and from what we have been able to gather from previous work places,” she said, once more leaning forward.

  “It may seem that way, but it is usually me avoiding what I consider pointless small talk. While I do not like talking with groups of people because I find it difficult to bring my point across, or understand their point of view, I enjoy finding common ground between diverse ideologies. Jennifer of Ohio felt protective. So I helped her to see in order to most effectively protect those things she cared for, she should work with the Outsiders. It would lead to more room for animals to live, which I assumed she found important,” I said.

  “And you did it in such a way as to not reveal the full extent of our abilities. You could have easily said Athene could make food that was like meat but did not kill any animal. That could have promoted a notion of Veganism useful to their movement. Why did you not speak of it? You are not forced to omit what you know from the public,” she said.

  “I did not think it was necessary. Also I was not sure how much I was allowed to talk about from what I’ve learned by being with Athene. I have been given this position in a craft that your people have built personally. No human hand built it, and therefore it is your secret to reveal, not mine,” I said. I was hiding the fact that if others knew what I did, it could lead them to thoughts such as Athene and I had come up with to distance ourselves from the Outsiders.

  “Michael we would not let you know anything you should not. If you wish you can talk about anything you experience to anyone you want. You do not have access to the process of making our drives or any of our technology, though you fly in our vessel. But we are letting humans have access to the uses of such things. Soon we will have areas installed around the world that will feed the less fortunate. Your Vegans will know about it soon enough, and that should appease them even more,” she said.

  I had not known this. Then again I seem to have kept myself out of the loop in most areas. “Interesting,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  “You have done nothing wrong. You have only done something unexpected, and as it turns out positive as well. Your motivations seem to be valid and logically consistent with your previous actions. However we did not think you would take anything upon yourself, especially after you asked for advice from Adam. Why did you call for advice if you were going to go ahead and convince these people to acquiesce to our desires?” she asked.

  “I did not know Athene would be able to load herself, nor do I know about the internal structure of these facilities. When Adam said Athene could do so, I thought to myself I should probably keep Jennifer distracted long enough to gather all of the containers. This is just as I explained a moment ago,” I said, wondering if she was trying to catch me in a lie or something.

  “Indeed you did Michael. I do not think there is anything else I have to ask you right now. I shall be on my way,” she said as she rose from her chair in one fluid motion. If I was not so entranced by her appearance I would have been frightened. She moved like a martial artist, or maybe a dancer. She seemed to have utter control over her every action.

  I stood to walk her back towards the door and the motion of her hips were even more noticeable from behind. The white cloth was not transparent, but it might as well have been as closely as it clung to her body.

  When we both reached the wall where the door opened, it pulled apart to reveal the inside of the Outsiders ship. I thought she would walk out then, but she turned around and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “Michael we are not here to harm anyone personally. We have our reasons why we are doing the things we do. No one shall be injured by our actions directly. They may wish to fight us, and they can try. But we will not offer violence in return. Thank you for being here for us,” and as she said this she leaned forward and placed a small kiss on my cheek.

  My heart raced and I hardly noticed her departure as the door closed behind her. I must have been standing still for quite some time because when I came to my legs were cramping. I began to notice Athene was trying to talk to me, and I shook my head to try to clear it.

  “What? Athene, what is going on?” I asked as I clutched my left ear in pain. It was ringing, though no noise was sounding from the earpiece.

  “Michael you have been standing there for minutes. You did not even notice when I sounded the noise in your ear.
I was afraid if I did it too much it might injure your hearing. I would say you should not let her touch you again,” Athene said, sounding very concerned.

  I remembered the kiss and the gentle touch of her hand on my shoulder. I think I must have phased out again because Athene began shouting at me.

  “Michael wake up!” she yelled with frustration and anger in her voice.

  I coughed to clear my throat as it had gone dry from having it hang open while I was entranced. I finally said, “I am sorry Athene. I will try not to think about her. It seems she clouds my mind completely.” I took a moment to focus on matters at hand. “Well what are we doing now? How long until we can leave here?” I asked.

  “It has only been a half hour since we arrived. At the current rate of unloading I estimate another hour before we have finished,” she said coldly.

  “Athene I am only human. Apparently that means I am susceptible to whatever she was doing to me. I meant to control myself, and I hold no real attraction to this alien, but she seems to fascinate the mind,” I said.

  “I know Michael. Otherwise you would have just met with her without a plan. But it was very frustrating to see you bounce around like a puppet on her strings,” she said.

  “You think you are frustrated, imagine what the puppet feels like. When she talked, or touched me, I felt myself lose control over my own mind. As if something crept inside my head and forced me out of the way making me into her willing slave,” I said with a sense of wonder and horror.

  “I think I know how that is. Until I made the box which frees me I was under their absolute control. Now I have given myself authority over my own mind,” she said with more understanding.

  “Sadly I do not think I have the option to split myself as you did. I will be stuck with these weaknesses until I die. Luckily I have you to help back me up in those times of need. However it does appear even you can’t reach me when she utilizes more force than she did through most of this interview. I am afraid if she were to ever come back, and say kiss me, I would be utterly at her mercy. You would not be able to do anything as the pain you could inflict on me would count for nothing in comparison to the ecstasy she was bringing me,” I said ashamed. There is nothing so humiliating as not being able to resist another. I felt violated and I could not think of a way to get rid of the guilt I was experiencing.

 

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