The women watched the champagne frothing into the glasses while Teo poured. As he did so, Laura handed them out.
“Bottoms up!” said Amisha, raising her glass to her lips. “Or is it down? I get so confused when I’m in space.”
The four Alien men and the four Earth women stood looking out at the panoramic view of Mars.
“No matter how many planets you see - and we’ve seen many - ” said Cymon, “Each one is breathtaking in its own way.”
“You can see every detail,” said Kate, taking in the huge mountain ranges and deep craters.
“That’s because Mars has very little atmosphere,” said Irvn, “so no water vapour - in other words, no clouds - to obscure the view.”
Even as he said this they saw a whirling, boiling mass of red racing across the surface somewhere near the planet’s equator.
“But it does have huge dust storms,” he added. “And you can clearly see the frozen icecaps at both poles.”
“Not drinking, Kate?” asked Amisha, looking over at Kate’s glass which she’d hardly touched.
“Mustn’t. I have a date with the gym.”
“With the gym, is it?” said Amisha “and do you have a date with the gym, too, Matias?” she added sweetly, “to keep an eye on Kate’s fitness regime?”
“I think so,” said Matias, looking to Kate for agreement.
She smiled and nodded.
“So nice to have a personal trainer,” said Amisha.
“I don’t think there’s much I can teach Kate,” said Matias.
“From what we’ve heard,” said Laura, looking pointedly at Irvn, “that may not be entirely true.”
As Kate and Matias went off to exercise leaving the others sipping their champagne, Laura turned to Teo.
“Did someone say we might actually land on Mars?”
“We did,” said Teo, looking at his crew mates for agreement, “if conditions allow.”
“I don’t see any reason why we can’t,” said Cymon, “weather patterns on the surface look stable. And we’ve not detected any meteor activity.”
“But we can only go two at a time: one of us and one of you,” said Irvn. “We must leave three crew on the ship, just to be safe. And you’ll need suits, of course.”
“Suits?” said Gemma.
“Spacesuits.”
“You mean, we’ll be able to step out…walk around?” said Amisha.
“Of course. One of you is going to be the first Earth woman on Mars.”
© Adriana Nicolas 2014
YOU ARE READING
'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')
Science FictionFour women - a lawyer, a teacher, an athlete and a soldier - are abducted by four alien men. The aliens, far from being bug-eyed monsters, have 90% human DNA. Despite the circumstances, the women are fascinated by their captors. Particularly when...
