Lifemates (Tales of Wild Space Book 1)

by Brandon Hill

  Blue Point was the pride and joy of the city of the neighboring city of Cereulean: one part mall, one part zoo, and another part theme park resort. There were sales, dances, restaurants, performances, and games of all kinds during any given time of the day and night. Not a day went by where there wasn’t something to do, or some sort of event going on. It was also gruesomely expensive to live in, and because of this, most of its workers commuted daily from smaller nearby towns. It also happened to be, I discovered as we boarded the train, a place where Felyans, off of their work shifts, visited in droves. This wasn’t surprising; culture in Cereulean was about as close to bohemian as it could get on Zynj, and so naturally, attitudes towards fraternizing with aliens here were just a bit more liberal than anywhere else on the planet.

  “Oh, it’s just like I remember it,” Sar’vana said as we, as well as several assorted human and Felyan groups exited the train. We ascended the escalator out of the train station and emerged to Cereulean’s main cavern. It was beyond massive, five miles long, two miles in width, with five waterfalls encircling its distant walls. Its ceiling was about two hundred feet in height, dwarfing that of cavern that housed New Valis’s arboretum. Five enormous sun lamps were clustered at its ceiling’s center, providing ample light and heat for all, brightening and dimming with the rhythms of day and night. Holographic emitters that lined the ceiling’s surface cast the image of a blue sky with wispy clouds during the day, and star-strewn heavens night. Right now, it was just past noon, and a perfect artificial day. People went to and fro about the pavilions, buying food and wares both mundane and exotic in the open air markets. Some pavilions, we noticed, were run by Felyans who peddled exotic baubles. People jostled about while children ran happily amongst them, stringing balloons behind them, or with fists full of candy, or with toys both mechanical and virtual tagging along behind them as they played, some happily including Felyans in their company. I saw myself as I was years ago, running among them, with Sar’vana close beside me. In New Valis, even as a child, I had to be somewhat more reserved, especially when my parents were around, but here in Cereulean, we could be ourselves with no reproach. It was a refreshing sight to see Felyans interacting so freely among humans, and to know that it had never changed in all these years.

  “I remember when my people installed that,” Sar’vana said, pointing towards the false sky. “Father told me how excited you were to have a sky again. Why was that?”

  “Zynj had a sky like that once,” I said, passing through the crowds with her, “long ago, before the Imperium Wars. This planet was once beautiful. And we could live on the surface. It was said that it was the most Earth-like out of all the Colonies, but that was probably just propaganda. There was a lot of that before the Wars.”

  “Probably more so on Zynj, since it was the capitol of the Old Imperium,” Sar’vana said.

  “Yeah. And we’re still paying the price for that arrogance,” I said, folding my arms as I my eyes remained fixed upon the sky hologram. “I guess this thing helps us regain a bit of what we lost when the planet was nuked to hell, if at least in representation only.”

  “Happy thoughts, Jules,” Sar’vana reminded me, grinning sweetly.

  “It was generations ago anyway.” I shrugged, letting go of that melancholy. I found myself much more carefree as I took her advice, and we went forth to find whatever adventure awaited us.

  6

  Sar’vana and I spent most of the time that remained of our month at Blue Point, happy and carefree. After work, I would sneak off to meet her at the train station and we would spend the rest of the day doing whatever caught our fancy, whether it was all-night games at the arcade, dinner at one of the innumerable restaurants, spending time at the zoo to watch all the exotic animals from lost Earth and the Colonies, or just sitting back in the picnic area with food we bought at the bazaar and watching the fireworks that were sometimes programmed into the simulated sky. Every day was an adventure, which I cherished sharing with my closest friend, every day bringing us closer as we made up for those ten lost years. With no one to scorn or ridicule us, I grew to not only tolerate our closeness, but began to desire being closer to her –or more accurately, we began to desire more closeness to each other. In restaurants, while humans and Felyans held lively conversations across the table, Sar’vana and I sat beside each other, playing trivia games on the tanks suspended above the eating areas, or holding conversations of our own in remote corners of the more reserved eating establishments. On the hillsides of the picnic areas, she would lie beside me on our blanket, purring intermittently, and then giggling with girlish abashment as she told me more about her travels with her father. Sometimes, she worked to refresh my knowledge of Felyan vocabulary, and I realized that I remembered much more than I thought. Soon, many of our conversations were spoken in Felyan only.

  Every day together had become our own private heaven. But as my days with Sar’vana were bliss for me, whenever we parted ways, I descended into the hell that was the burn, which evaded all my efforts to find an explanation for. Every night that I returned to New Valis, I sought out Keisha like a wolf on the hunt, and exhausted the floodgate of my inexplicable need until she and I collapsed into a tangled mess of sweating limbs. She loved it, of course, but I was becoming increasingly frustrated and confused with each passing night, as well as fearful that she would begin to drop subtle hints about stopping our contraceptive regimens. To be honest, I was surprised that she didn’t ask it of me by the end of the second week. But I was, nevertheless, grateful that she hadn’t. I was in no way ready to settle down with, let alone have a child with Keisha, though I had become almost certain that she would agree to it if I asked. Despite the intensity of the sex, which, I admit, was nothing short of mind-blowing, my primary drive was to find out where this strange attraction had come from in the first place. I looked through medical journals on the Net, but found nothing, save mental instabilities, which I wasn’t about to consider. I toyed with the notion of going to a doctor, but the possible consequences of such a visit kept me from going down that road. My previous disinterest in women sexually, combined with admitting my closeness to a Felyan would most certainly raise questions I wouldn’t like, and perhaps end in a mandate that I wouldn’t want.

  And then there was considering my parents in all this. I learned, much to my further chagrin, that Chester’s inability to keep his mouth shut had brought the information about myself and Keisha, as well as Sar’vana, to their ears. I honestly had expected this; Chester was a gossip to rival even the best of the old aunties in my sector. As expected, my parents were ecstatic about Keisha, and quickly spread the news to the rest of my family. They had not stopped assaulting my phone and computer with questions about when Keisha and I were going to choose to have a baby, as well as suggestions for the best places to go about attempting to make one. My older brother, Jasper, in fact, completely jumped the gun and asked me flatly when the baby was due. They were understandably upset when I crushed those dreams, but remained optimistic. As for Sar’vana, it was basically a rehash of Chester’s tirade in my home, to which I had to smile and nod at least a million times. Fortunately, my family was never attracted to, or latched onto drama, and the interest in my situation died down to a slow simmer. Still, the problem lay in the back of my mind, ever present and certain as the burn that would accost me every night and send me into Keisha’s arms.

  All that changed the week before Sar’vana was to leave.

  I’d pulled a week’s worth of sick days in order to spend that final bit of time with Sar’vana. The certainty of the day of her leaving weighed heavily on me as I stared at the framed eight-by-ten 3-D image on my desk. It was a picture of us together, sitting by the massive marble water fountain at the center of Blue Point, her furry hand tightly in mine, and smiling as broadly as I was. It was a happy day for us, as every day together at Blue Point had been, and I tried to smile at the memory of it, but even now, unable to push away the inevitability of that day, t
hat one pleasure was robbed from me.

  “Only seven days,” I whispered in the silence of my home.

  The doorbell rang, and shook me from my melancholy. Though I was thankful for it, I was also suspicious. I hadn’t been expecting anyone, but it had admittedly been awhile since I’d last spoken to Chester. He was never without companionship, usually of the female kind, but one of his saving graces was that he did take special delight in our time together, and always made time for me. He was none too happy when I told him my reasons for taking those sick days, to say nothing of the fact that I had been shirking him for the past couple of weeks in favor of Sar’vana’s company. Because of this, I had to practically bribe and threaten him into silence for this coming week.

  “You picked a hell of a time, Chester,” I mumbled as I went to the door. “I told you about this week. It’s the last…”

  The sight of Sar’vana standing on the other side of the door brought me to silence. She smiled at me wordlessly, and I hurriedly brought her inside.

  “Vani, what’s the matter?” I asked as she touched her nose softly to my cheek. “I thought you were going to meet me at Blue Point. You might blow my cover if I’m seen with you.”

  “You’re worried about getting fired?” Sar’vana asked teasingly. She giggled, and for some reason, the sound of it ignited a ghost of the burn in the back of my mind, unexpected and nevertheless powerful. Inwardly, it startled me.

  “No, not that,” I said, shaking off the feeling. “But I’d get into serious trouble if they learned that I took sick days to go off and play at Blue Point.”

  “But it would be quite worth it, wouldn’t it?” Sar’vana said, sauntering towards my shelf of trinkets once more. She shot me a glance over her shoulder, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  “Yeah,” I said after a moment’s thought. I followed her until I was standing close beside her. Her tail, swishing from side to side with interest at my collection, swept against my leg, and she laid her head on my shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Sar’vana whispered.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “For taking off this last week.”

  “How could I not do it?” I said. “You’d do the same for me.”

  Sar’vana only smiled.

  We agreed to take separate routes to the train station, as well as separate trains to Blue point, as not to arouse suspicion. I arrived first, and waited for her outside the station. All the while, I began whistling a familiar tune, which, I learned no sooner than Sar’vana had arrived, had come from a familiar sound.

  She gasped with delight when she stepped out of the train station and came to my side. Music from the band at the pavilion near the picnic grounds filled the air. It was a lively jig: a medley of flute, piano, accordion, fiddle, and drums, mixed with rhythmic clapping from the crowds. and sounds of laughter. Sar’vana led me to the amphitheater, skipping in rhythm to the wild music. We traversed the hill in front of the stage, and the sight and sound of the scene below brought back a memory so strong that it struck me as almost reality.

  She and I had first met this way, at a tri-city swap meet where a band like this had been playing the same type of music. The style had become a tradition on Zynj after the days after the Imperium Wars. It was a simple, natural melody that brought to mind scenes of rolling hills, brooks, forests, and all the green that was taken from us, but possessed a power that could move us to tears at the loss of it that our ancestors suffered, or drive us wild with merriment at the memory of its beauty. The Felyans had just arrived then, and a special celebration -held at Blue Point for obvious reasons- had heralded their arrival and elongated stay. Accustomed as I was to the music, I knew all the folk dances, and caught on quickly to dance with the other children. A few Felyans had joined in, mostly An’Kya Felyans and a few Re’Kya, providing their own odd embellishments to the dance, much to my amusement.

  I noticed one younger, gray-furred Felyan standing alone. She was bobbing in rhythm with the music, but glanced about furtively, and uncertain, as if she were too self-conscious to dance, and too afraid to ask someone to teach her.

  There were no other children around, Felyan or human, who were not dancing, and so I approached the Felyan girl, and brought her into the merriment. She was understandably nervous at first, but the infectious music quickly held her in its sway, and she proved a quick learner. Soon, she was dancing just as carefree as all of us. I admit that even at that tender age, I was quite impressed. Felyans had a keener sense of balance than humans, and moved with much more speed and physical grace, and so the Felyan girl soon out-danced us all.

  After the session ended, I went to the refreshment stand and returned with two cups of fruit juice.

  “Thank you,” she said in a tiny voice as she accepted the drink I offered. She had spoken English with a pronounced accent at the time, and haltingly, as she was still learning it.

  “You dance really well,” I said. “I’m Jules Galway. What’s your name?”

  “Sar’vana Van,” she said. “But father calls me ‘Vani.’ My friends call me ‘Vani.’ So you can call me ‘Vani’ too.”

  She looked up from the drink, and blinked large violet eyes at me. I remember even then how pretty I thought they were, but of course, it was beneath the dignity of a boy to make comments like that, unless, of course, prompted by an adult. And my parents were too busy dancing to instruct me at the moment. At the time, I thought it was rather presumptuous of her to assume that she and I were friends. But of course, time brought us closer together, until the day she had to leave.

  And this last month brought us closer than I ever imagined possible.

  The present.

  Sar’vana was dancing.

  She was dancing with me, at the amphitheater, in the midst of a melody that was mad and lively. And she danced just as lively and graceful as before … perhaps even more so. And she was so very beautiful. She spun around, and long, embroidered falls of midnight hair swirled about her, along with her dress and tail. I was a fair dancer, and never shirked the opportunity if there was a gathering with a mind to do so, but my skill and balance paled in comparison to Sar’vana’s, who seemed to have only gotten better at dancing in the intervening years. Her body moved in perfect rhythm to the music, bending and twirling in ways that no human ever could. A smile, wide as a Cheshire cat, played upon her face, and her large, violet eyes, all the while, were set upon mine.

  She was beautiful ... achingly beautiful, as we danced into the artificial night, fast and then slow, and then fast again, with no fear of ridicule, and not caring about who saw us. We held hands, and she danced in my arms. And the unbridled joy of the moment set me free.

  We were like two shaken bottles of champagne on the way back to New Valis, ready to burst with happiness. Sar’vana understood that we needed to be discreet here –she had once confronted me with the question of why I had been so standoffish, and had proceeded to tickle the answer out of me– and so she kept her distance until we arrived at my home.

  Drunk with happiness, we danced again in the middle of my kitchen floor, earning our fair share of bruises for the lack of room. Somehow, we found ourselves on the couch in my living room, still laughing, and stinging from our respective bumps.

  “Oh! I see you moved it,” Sar’vana remarked abruptly, indicating the silver necklace that she had not accepted, which now rested upon the coffee table, with a bottle of jewelry cleaner next to it. She gave me another of her wry grins, and switched to Felyan. “So tell me, Jules. Have you learned what Na’li is?”

  “Funny you should ask,” I replied in the same language. Giving a grin of my own, I carefully moved the necklace aside, and picked up the large, worn book that it rested upon.

  “I meant to show you this,” I said, presenting the book to Sar’vana. “I’d forgotten I even had it until I started shifting through my old junk boxes.”

  Sar’vana opened the book and gasped.

  “Oh, Jules…” Her tone was low a
nd filled with endearment as she flipped over the first page, which contained a picture of myself and Sar’vana, drawn with crayons in a child’s crude manner, but very vibrant. We were holding hands in the arboretum, surrounded by grass, bushes, and trees. Surrounding the depiction of ourselves were lines of tiny multicolored script: Felyan calligraphy, badly scrawled, but repeated, practicing the symbols over and over, determined to learn them properly.

  “When you first taught me Felyan, I practiced a lot,” I said, noting how the symbols caught Sar’vana’s eye. “I almost forgot about that, you know, how patient you were with me”

  Sar’vana said nothing for the longest time, only flipped through the sketchbook while making ever more endeared noises. Her tail twitched rapidly as she gazed on, revealing page after page of drawings depicting her from various angles, each more sophisticated than the other, and surrounded by countless lines of Felyan calligraphy. After a time, the letters became parts of actual words, forming random sentences and phrases that I recalled Sar’vana teaching me.

  “There it is,” I said, stopping her, and pointing towards the page. It was another drawing of Sar’vana, much better and more detailed than the earlier sketches. She sat on a hill, smiling, with a large sun overhead. It must have been taken after a trip to Blue Point, I surmised. Surrounding her were more Felyan words , and their English equivalents. And there, beneath her, was the word, Na’li written in clear Felyan cursive. Below it were several English words:

  Mate

  Marriage

  Engagement

  “It seems that I repaired that necklace and unwittingly made it into a Felyan betrothal gift,” I said, laughing in spite of myself. “Isn’t that something?”