by Elin Wyn
I paced the length of my lab in a restless flurry.
“You almost knocked over my datapads,” Anita said as I stormed by for the nine-hundredth time that hour.
“Sorry.” I forced myself to stop moving and pressed my fingers against my eyelids. “I can’t sit still.”
“No kidding,” Anita snorted. “What’s the matter? Are you trying to get up to Nyhiem today?”
“Yeah. Jalok only woke up yesterday. I haven’t heard from Dr. Parr. I’m worried something’s already gone wrong.”
“What happened to ‘no news is good news’?”
“That only applied when I didn’t know if he was dead or not. Now, when I don’t hear anything, I assume the worst has happened and no one wants to tell me because I’ll be upset.”
“You really like him, don’t you?” Anita smiled. I decided to give her an honest answer.
“I don’t know how I feel. I feel conflicted over everything.”
“That’s understandable.” Anita reached out to rub my arm. “You’ve experienced a slew of super intense emotions this last week. It’s only natural that you feel off balance.”
“I don’t like being off balance. And I don’t like being here while Jalok could be relapsing,” I groaned.
“If something was wrong, someone would reach out to you,” Anita said firmly. “I’m sure of it.”
“Be sure of it enough for both of us because I’m not sure about anything.”
“Are you Dottie Bellin?” A deep voice came from the entrance to the lab.
“Oh my,” Anita gasped.
Standing in the entryway was the largest being, human or alien, I’d ever seen.
He dwarfed Jalok which should’ve been impossible.
“I’m Dottie. Yes.” I stuttered, still trying to comprehend why a giant red alien was asking after me. My confusion turned to horror. “What’s wrong? Is Jalok all right?”
“He’s fine. Still on bedrest.”
“Right.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “What can I do for you?”
“Come with me, please.” The Skotan giant turned his back and strode away.
“What’s that all about?” Anita asked.
“I have no idea. Watch my stuff?”
“Sure thing.” Anita wasn’t looking at me. She was following the Skotan giant with a hungry look in her eyes.
I chuckled as I jogged after the Skotan. “Not to be rude,” I spoke when I caught up to him. “But who are you?”
“My name is Rokul.” He said nothing more.
“Great. Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to the Silver Whale.”
“Why?”
The Silver Whale was the oldest restaurant in Kaster. It used to be nothing more than a wooden shack where fishermen would go to warm up after a day at sea. Now, it was rather grand.
“You’ll see.”
“Are you trying to be unsettling on purpose? Because you’re doing a marvelous job.”
“Thank you.” I caught his smirk.
We walked through the doors of the Silver Whale. It’d been years since I’d set foot inside. The polish hardwood floors gleamed. Parts of old ships still decorated the walls.
“I still don’t understand why-”
Then I saw him.
Sitting at the smallest table in the back corner of the restaurant, looking out the window.
“Adam.” I breathed.
I looked at Rokul.
“You knew he was here?”
“Go greet your brother. I’ll be nearby.”
Excitement welled up inside me. I thought I was going to burst from it.
“Adam” I shouted.
My brother looked away from the window. A blinding smile spread across his face as he leaped up from his seat. I ran through the dining floor not caring if I knocked into tables or patron’s shoulders.
Adam opened his arms. I jumped up just like I used to when I was a kid. He hugged me so tightly that my ribs ached but I didn’t care.
“I can’t believe it,” I gasped. There was something wet on my face. I pulled away to tap my cheeks. I was crying. “I thought you were dead.”
“Let’s have a seat and I’ll tell you everything.” Adam pressed a kiss into the top of my head and lead me to his table in the corner. I was so excited I could barely make myself sit down.
“Want something to eat?” Adam offered.
“I couldn’t possibly eat at a time like this.” I bounced in my seat. “I could go for a cup of coffee, though.”
“You’re literally vibrating with excitement. Coffee is definitely not happening.”
“Good point. Where have you been? Why haven’t I heard from you sooner?”
“When the Xathi attacked Fraga, I gathered as many people as I could and snuck them out of the city. We spent weeks in the jungle dodging Xathi patrols and rabid creatures. I would’ve contacted you if I could, but I had reason to suspect the Xathi could monitor radio frequencies. Besides, for a long time, I didn’t know if you were dead or alive either.”
“When the Xathi came to Kaster, I hid,” I said quietly. “I regret hiding. I should’ve done more to help people. I should’ve been more like you.”
“Because you hid, you survived. Because you survived, you’re here to do important research that might help our planet bounce back.”
“You know about my work?” I smiled.
“The big guy filled me in a little bit on the way here.”
“What did you do after the Xathi invasion ended?”
“Well, we were in the jungle pretty far from any city or settlement. It took us a while to understand that the Xathi weren’t a threat anymore. After a few weeks of quietness, we ventured to the city closest to us. Duvest. We were filled in on everything that had happened. The first thing I did was check the lists of the dead and missing for your name. When I saw that you were alive and accounted for, I’d never felt more relief in my life.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
The initial excitement of seeing my brother ebbed to make room for a sense of hurt. Adam’s been alive for months and it took him this long to reach out.
“Duvest was a disaster. An alien warship crashed into the city. I had no way to contact you. I didn’t know how to reach you,” Adam explained.
“You could’ve come home,” I frowned.
“I wanted to.” Adam’s eyes were pleading. “But there were people who still needed my help. I was finally able to do what I was born to do, what I joined the Search and Rescue crew for. They needed care, they needed homes. It was my duty to help give that to them. I knew you were safe. If for one moment I thought that you weren’t, I would’ve come immediately. You believe me don’t you?”
“A riot broke out here in Kaster,” I said. “I was in danger then.”
“The riot wasn’t reported right away. When I heard about it, I packed my bags and started heading to Kaster. That’s when the big guy found me.” Adam nodded in Rokul’s direction.
“He was looking for you?” I furrowed my brow. “Why?”
“I actually don’t know. But when an alien that big walks up to you and says follow me, you listen.”
“Apparently, he does that for dramatic effect,” I rolled my eyes. “He did the same thing to me.”
“Interesting. But don’t you see, Dottie. I was coming for you. I just can’t get around as easily as some. I don’t have my own means of transport. I’ve been relying on shuttles and lifts from kind strangers. You believe me, right?”
I looked at Adam’s face.
He looked so desperate for me to believe him.
“As far as excuses go,” I sighed, “not contacting me because you were helping people rebuild their lives after an alien invasion is a pretty good one.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
For a moment, I just rested in the warmth of his presence. My brother was home. Jalok was recovering.
All was right with the world.
Unless
…
“Speaking of aliens,” I lowered my voice. “I need to know how you feel about them.”
“Do we really need to go there?”
His answer made me uneasy.
“I’m under near-constant guard because of the anti-alien radicals. Yes, we have to go there.”
“Look, I won’t lie to you. I’m not the biggest fan of the aliens,” he admitted. “They brought the Xathi to us. I know it was an accident, but still, it happened. Now, they’re inadvertently sparking riots. I realize that’s not their fault either but let’s face it. Even if they have the best intentions, they bring destruction. I don’t support the people calling for their deaths but I think our planet would be better off if they left.”
“That’s fair, I suppose,” I nodded. “I’m friends with some of them. Is that a problem?”
“As long as they don’t get you hurt or killed, they’re fine in my book.”
“Good,” I grinned. “Why did Rokul go looking for you?”
“When I finally worked up the guts to ask him, he said you wanted to see me,” Adam shrugged. “Isn’t that true?”
I leaned back, shocked, mind circling frantically for an answer.
“Of course, I wanted to see you but I’ve never met Rokul in my life. I don’t know how he’d know about you.” The realization hit me before I finished the sentence. “Hey, Rokul?”
The burly Skotan stood up and walked over to our table.
“How did you know about Adam?” I asked.
Rokul smirked.
“Jalok gave me a name and pointed me in the right direction. He would’ve gone himself but he took a chemical shower.”
“Jalok found Adam?”
Rokul nodded and sauntered back to where he sat before.
“Jalok’s a friend of yours?” Adam asked.
When I looked back at Adam, tears were slipping down my cheeks again.
“Something like that.”
Jalok
For days I found it a struggle to simply drag myself from the hospital bed to the nearby lavatory.
A week ago I was flinging large humans about as if they were infants. But after the chemical attack, I had been reduced to a pathetic, near helpless state.
At one point, early in my recovery, I’d stubbornly refused to call for assistance, even though I could barely walk.
My legs gave out, and I wound up sprawled across the floor.
Again, I was too stubborn to ask for assistance and wound up laying there for hours until someone came to check on me.
Back when I was a youngling, it seemed like I could never get enough sleep.
Between training at the Skotan military academy and my familial obligations, there just hadn’t been enough time.
When I was recovering in the hospital after the chemical burns, all I did was sleep.
The novelty wore off rather quickly.
The most frustrating thing was lying there and watching the world go on without me.
Cazak and Navat came calling a couple of times, but listening to them speak about their duties only reinforced how miserable I was laid up on my back.
I was on the precipice of slumber, hanging on by a mere thread, when my door popped open.
Groggily, I rose up into a sitting position, expecting another nurse come to take my vitals.
To my surprise, Dottie came strolling in, accompanied by a human roughly her own age.
I took in his reddish hair, the cast of his eyes, and surmised that this young man must be her long lost brother, Adam.
“Hey, thug.” Dottie came over to my bedside and squeezed my hand.
“Dottie.” I smiled at her, though it was a struggle to remain conscious.
I looked past her at the man I took to be Adam. “And you have been reunited with your brother, I see.”
“Yes, thanks to you.” She squeezed my hand tighter for a moment, then released it. Dottie gestured toward Adam. “Jalok, meet Adam. Adam, meet Jalok.”
“A Skotan. I see.” Adam’s face had a smile etched on its surface, but the light didn’t reach his cold gaze. “My sister tells me that you were instrumental in bringing us back together. Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you so much, Jalok.” Dottie squeezed Adam around the torso and sighed. “I thought I’d lost him forever.”
“You have my gratitude for bringing me back to my sister, Jalok.”
I felt a bit embarrassed by all of the gratitude.
“Oh, it was nothing.” I waved my hand dismissively, hoping they wouldn’t notice what even that simple movement cost me in terms of fatigue. “All I did was ask other people to do me a favor, that’s all. I’ve been laid up here the whole time.”
“Don’t discount what you’ve done for me.” Dottie put her hands on her hips, but the scowl on her face was purely for comical effect. “You just take your due credit like a man, mister.”
“He’s not a man, he’s a Skotan.”
We looked at Adam, an awkward silence stretching out into the room.
Abruptly Dottie cleared her throat and glared at her brother. “What’s that supposed to mean? Got a problem with that?”
“No, of course not.” Adam shook his head, and for a moment his gaze softened a bit when he stared at his sister. “I’m just pointing it out, that’s all.”
“Your human designation ‘man’ refers to a male of your species, correct?”
Adam and Dottie’s gazes snapped over to me.
He seemed a bit amused, but Dottie had a worried frown wrinkling her otherwise cute face.
“Yes.” Adam dragged out the last syllable of the word, as if suspicious of my intentions.
“Well, then, as I am a male of my species, I suppose you could call me a ‘Skotan Man.’ If you wished.”
Adam grinned at that, but again he had a sinister cast to his eyes that said he wasn’t mirthful or happy.
There was an edge to the man’s demeanor that I didn’t like, and not just because he seemed to have a problem with aliens.
The suspicious part of me wondered if he’d been involved with the riots, as ridiculous as that notion was. He’d been lost, far away from Kaster, hadn’t he?
“So, Adam, Dottie tells me that you’re a first responder.”
“Why, yes, I am.” Adam smiled at his sister, then at me. “I didn’t used to get much action, but of course these days I keep quite busy.”
“Yes, the Xathi attack was excellent job security for both of us.”
We laughed at my weak joke, but the whole time our gazes were locked in a stare of suspicion.
It’s as if both of us were waiting for the other shoe to drop, to turn a Terran phrase. I was reminded of a time after my family had relocated, and I’d introduced my new friends to my old friends. There had been tension there, too.
I wished at the time I could just chalk up my ill feelings to such a notion of unfamiliarity, but there was just something about Adam I couldn’t bring myself to trust.
Nothing overt, nothing I could call him out on without seeming like a big jerk to Dottie, but definitely something.
And I didn’t like him near her.
For a time the silence stretched on to an agonizing level, but then Adam’s comm saved the day. He glanced at the screen and then looked apologetically toward his sister.
“I’m afraid I have to take this. Sorry.”
“No, you’re fine. I’ll stay here and keep Jalok company.”
Something about what she said didn’t sit well with Adam. He shot me a suspicious glare and then headed out into the hallway to take his call.
Dottie turned back to me and smiled. She took my hand and pressed it between both of hers. Her grip felt warm, soft, and reassuring on my meaty paw.
“Are you in much pain?”
“Not so much anymore. Just some itching on my arm. Mostly, I’m just really tired.”
“Should I leave and let you sleep?”
“No.” I silently cursed at the near panic in my tone. “Stay a lit
tle longer, please. It’s so dull here.”
“I’ll certainly stay for a bit, then, and entertain you.”
Dottie began telling me about her research.
Truth to tell, most of it went over my head. I’m not a stupid man, no matter what Cazak might have told you, but I’m definitely a man of action.
Still, I liked hearing the sound of her voice no matter what she said.
Strange how a few days prior I’d found being around Dottie to be so confusing I’d have done almost anything to get away from her.
“So the Puppet Master thinks that the Ancient Enemies he knows of may not be the same as the ones in the Urai legends, because of the massive amount of time that has passed since then.”
Dottie paused, and looked at me intently until I realized she was waiting for a response. Since I hadn’t been paying much attention, lost in the corridors of my suspicion over Adam, I stammered through an answer.
“Ah, well, I suppose he is pretty old.”
“That’s true, but there are many mythologies from seemingly disparate cultures that have profound connections. Maybe by researching the Urai legends we can learn something about these ‘ancient enemies.’”
“Maybe. I’ll tell you what, Doctor Dottie, you figure out where and who the ancient enemies are, and I’ll be more than happy to knock them on their butts.”
She laughed, her eyes lighting up in a way that said she genuinely enjoyed my company. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“It’s a deal.” The smile faded from her face, and she cleared her throat. “My assistant, the man who attacked you with acid, he uh—he didn’t survive the fall.”
I snorted, feeling a burst of anger for the man who had nearly maimed me.
“Good.”
Dottie’s face grew dark with anger, but she suppressed it quickly.
“I suppose you have good reason to feel that way, but it leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions.”
“Like what kind of sound he’d have made if I’d torn his limbs off instead of thrown him out the window?”
“No.” Dottie hid her face in her palm and sighed. “No, I mean, why did he suddenly change so radically like that? One second he was talking about his K’ver buddy, and the next he’s an anti-alienist xenophobe so furious he has to attack a being twice his size? It doesn’t make any sense.”