'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 26: Stargazing

“Tell me about yourself,” said Amisha.

She and Cymon were standing in a transparent dome-shaped structure, located - he’d explained - near the front of the ship’s central core.

Looking one way she could see the ship stretching out behind them, its huge wheel revolving slowly round the centre. But looking the other way, it was as if they were standing in space itself, with a view that encompassed the Moon on one side and the rest of the Universe in every other direction. 

The Sun, clearer and fiercer than it ever looked from Earth, was beginning to rise over the Moon’s far horizon, blazing over the moonscape and throwing the mountains and craters into sharp relief. 

Amisha tore her eyes away from its brilliance to focus on what Cymon was doing. Rising from the floor, at the centre of the observatory was a complex structure - the Ship’s telescope. His eye was pressed to the viewfinder as he made adjustments. 

She used the opportunity to study him, drawn first to his hands as they manipulated small wheels and sliders on the telescope. They were long, the fingers slim but strong-looking, the reflective bronze skin catching the light as they moved. She had noticed he was a little shorter than the other three Aliens, but still tall by Earth standards. His one-piece black coveralls showed a figure like a male ballet dancer’s - fine, but - she suspected - well-muscled. 

He turned away from what he was doing to face her. Now, backlit by the Moon and Sun directly behind him he looked more striking than ever, an Alien in an alien environment.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” she said, “like…how old are you to start with?”

“I’m 30 numbered in our years, 35 in yours.”

“And what about your family? Assuming you….”

“…Aliens?” he prompted.

“…have families,” she finished, realising how stupid that must have sounded.

“Yes, I have a family: Mother, Father and a younger brother. No sisters, of course.”

“Do you have pictures of them?”

“Yes…in my quarters. I could show you later if you really want to see them?”

She paused, then asked what she really wanted to know:

“What do your women look like?”

He thought for a second.

“Our women look like us in the same way that Earth women look like Earth men. That is, pretty much the same, but with the obvious sexual differences. So they’re taller than most women from Earth, have the same skin colour we do, the same eyes…”

“So how can you be attracted to us? We’re not as tall as you, our eyes are not like yours, our faces are a different shape…”

“You’re similar in all the ways that matter,” he said with a smile, ”I’d be very surprised if Earth men didn’t find our women attractive, too, if they ever met.”

She was about to say that many men on Earth would shag anything with a pulse, but thought better of it.

“Why did you choose me then?” she asked instead.

He hesitated for a moment.

“Because the moment I saw you,” Cymon replied, “I knew you were the one for me.”

“How? Where? When?” the questions came tumbling out, “ - and why?”

“Where and when is easy,” he said. “I’ve watched you at Sandhurst in training, on leave at home, on leave with your friends in Ibiza last year…..”