The dropoff location was closer than she expected. Somewhere in her mind, Yeva had begun to create a picture of who this mysterious person was and why they wanted this silly object. Some trillionaire recluse collecting ancient artefacts to fill the void in his life. The location was as nameless as the artefact’s seeker. It was a planet long abandoned by its people after a climate catastrophe. It only marginally supported life, and its resources were all dried up.
Tobias set the location into the console, and they piloted the ship out of the Vet system. Yeva watched him work, and she felt the heat between her legs ache for satisfaction.
“We have a few hours until we are there.” Yeva said, leadingly and waggled her eyebrows at him.
“What do you have in mind?” He asked wiggling his eyebrows back at her.
“Do you like mysteries, Tobias Hawk?” She slid out of her chair and held her hand out to him.
“Depends on the mystery, Yeva Hawthorne.” He took her hand, and she pulled him up.
She took his hands and pulled them around her and stepped back until they were standing between the kitchenette and the table and chairs. He leaned down and kissed her, and she blindly reached over and pressed a hand to the audiovisual system.
“Computer, play Gervorian’s Travesty, track three,” Yeva said. The computer beeped in acknowledgement, and a song began to play over the speakers.
Tobias’s eyes lit up mid-kiss, and he broke away to grin. “I love this song!”
Yeva laughed in delight, and Tobias picked her up and spun her around in time to the song.
They let the music lead them into a dance, and they giggled and laughed at each other’s bad dancing. Until Yeva finally felt what she waiting for. Confirmation from herself, that yes, she liked him a lot, and, for now, that was enough. She wanted to love him, with everything that she was, and she wasn’t just going to let him fight for that love on his own. He was a kindred spirit, and she knew that without a doubt that he had everything that she wanted in a partner. Two weeks of knowing him probably wasn’t enough, but she knew she wanted to be his friend and that she loved the idea of being in love with him. She could be happy in this moment. Yeva quickly converted the booth into a bed, and for the second time, they lost themselves in each other. Rediscovering what the other liked and without a moment of hesitation as he entered her, she whispered into his ear, “I love you, too.”
Songs of Gervorian’s Travesty still playing over the speakers they danced again.
***
Yeva pressed the gangplank release, and the doorway opened up on the dark dirt of the dropoff location. There was little life left in the dirt, if there ever had been. Soft mist swirled around the gangplank as Yeva and Tobias descended. At the other end of the landing field there was another ship, it was unlike anything she had ever seen in her life, and Yeva was captivated. At the base of the ship there was a statue of some kind. Yeva and Tobias exchanged a look. He shrugged, and they started towards the other ship, malva box in hand. The closer they got to the ship, Yeva began to realize that the statue at the base of the ship wasn’t a statue at all but some kind of unidentifiable alien. Tobias and Yeva reached the ship and the alien.
The alien watched them passively, not moving a single centimetre closer or further away as they approached. The tall creature had deep set black pools for eyes. Unlike humans, there were no whites in its eyes. The creature held out their hands, long fingers the color of gunmetal grey, and gently plucked the box from Yeva’s hands. She stared up at the alien, mesmerized. Yeva had never seen their kind before. The alien was at least a metre taller than either Yeva or Tobias, towering over them but at no time seemed to use their height as some kind of power advantage over the two smaller humans..
“My name is Vu-Wen.” The alien said in clear, lightly accented Uuet. “I thank you for finally bringing to me this treasure, it is very dear to me.” The alien opened the box and pulled the necklace from within. The necklace had seemed bawdy and unnecessary when Yeva or Tobias had held it, but in the hands of this tall, elegant alien it seemed fitting. The gems were shaped like the alien’s eyes, and the curvature, if placed on the alien’s collarbone, was ten times more flattering than it would placed on the collar of a human.
“It our pleasure,” Tobias said. “Can we enquire about it?”
The alien held the artefact up one more time, what little light seeped through the thick clouds glinted off the crystals, making it appear as if it were alive in this dead place. They lovingly placed it back in the malva box.
“I am the last of my kind, but in our prime we spanned this galaxy and placed our footsteps on many worlds. We were called Quathor. We built the temples, like where you acquired this adornment, to our pantheon of deities. That temple was devoted to the deity of love and truth, and only those who loved each other and could be truthful to each other could pass its tests.”
“Deities? Was it… technology that caused the Veritas then?”
The alien smiled. “There is a point where technology advances so much that the line between magic and technology blurs.”
“So, technology then.”
“Before any of us walked the lands of our predecessors, there was a rhythm to the universe, a flow, an energy.”
“The necklace. What is it?”
“It belonged to my beloved. Once, we traversed the temple just as you did, and my beloved left it behind. I lost them, and my people, and now this meager bauble is all I have to remember them by.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“As am I.” The alien smiled, and Yeva could almost sense the sadness behind it. “I thank you for what you have done. I feel that the amount I promised you is much too small for how much this means to me, but it is all I have.”
“It’s fine,” Tobias said and looked at Yeva with a smile. “I think we gained something more valuable than money or jewels from the experience.” Yeva blushed but didn’t break eye contact with him.
The alien bowed deeply, held the box to their chest with tender care, and with long sweeping robes around them, returned to their ship.
Yeva and Tobias stood shoulder to shoulder and watched the alien go, Tobias reached down and slipped Yeva’s hand in his. The sleek alien ship rose into the sky as smoothly as a fish through water, and with a crack into hyperspace the ship disappeared.
“So, what’s next?” Tobias looked down at Yeva. His face was a mixture of curiosity and just an edge of worry.
Yeva squeezed his hand and held it to her chest where her heart was. “I think we should do what bounty hunters do and go hunt some bounties.”
“Together?”
“Together.”
10
“Beks Shipyard, you chop ‘em, we shop ‘em.”
“Hey, Beks.”
“Yeva! Ohh.. Yeva and guest?”
“Beks, check your bank account. There’s something waiting for you.
THE END
Keep an eye out for the next Love Between the Stars story in A Dark Matter of the Heart
A Bounty of Love (Love Between the Stars Book 1) Page 7