Alien Lover (A Fated Mates Story)

A noise in the woods

"We're sorry, Shona," my mother said, her face scrunched into what I'm sure she intended to be a smile, "they're saying it will be at least another 12 hours before we can shuttle down, maybe more."

I sighed. I shouldn't be impatient - after all I'd been on this planet the Human Relocation Authority had dubbed "Avalon" for six months already, getting our homestead ready for the rest of the family. Yes, I, a 23-year-old woman, was the pioneer for our family group, not my dad. He had a lot to offer as a settler - specialized knowledge about gene editing, for one - but he was also over 90, and not in the kind of physical condition you needed to be to clear forest and build a house from the ground up. Not that robots and extruders didn't do most of the work, but there was just a certain amount of roughing it that he wasn't up for at his age, even with the rejuves that kept his hair dark and his skin supple. He could still expect to live another 20-30 years, but why tempt fate. My mother was only 50, but she never left my dad's side, so it fell to me to do the dirty work down here on this newly colonized planet.

Not that I minded, really, but it had been lonely. Until they arrived in orbit a week earlier I hadn't spoken to them in weeks. Before that long trip, I had only recorded messages back and forth since real time communication across lightyears of space was still very much a thing of science fiction. And with homestead spread far apart and settlers selected by lottery there wasn't much of a sense of community. I'd chatted on the holo like this with a handful of other pioneers, but we'd all been busy and there hadn't been time to really make friends. That was one of the things I was hoping to finally have time for once the rest of the family arrived. To go into the little town being set up on the other side of the valley and meet a few neighbors face to face.

"It's okay, Mom," I said. "What are they saying now?"

"Some magnetic distortion in the atmosphere or something," she said, plucking at her short blonde hair. "It messes with the equipment and they just don't want to chance it."

"Well," I said, "I'm a little disappointed, but one more night won't make too much of a difference."

She shifted to the side and my little sisters and brother came into view. Calla was 14, tall and slim. Marta and Eloquim were only 8 and 6 and stood close together, their sturdy little bodies fidgeting.

"Hi, Shona," Calla said, launching into a story about their activities on board the ship. I listened patiently, asking questions to keep her talking. We used to fight a lot when she was little, me taking out my resentment at being displaced as at the only child, but we had turned out to be very alike as she grew up. We both liked machines and puzzles.

Eventually I had spoken to all the members of the family and the conversation ran down. I was getting ready to say goodnight when I heard a noise outside.

"Do you hear that?" I asked my dad, who had been speaking about his plans for a greenhouse.

"Hear what?"

I strained my ears. There it was again. It was a cross between a whoop and the sighing noise a tree branch made in heavy wind. But glancing out the window, it was not windy. The leaves of the tall trees surrounding the house weren't moving.

"Majel," I asked the house computer, "is there a storm right now? Outside."

"No, Shona," it responded. "Would you like to hear the weather forecast?"

"That's okay," I said. The sound came again, at the same time louder and further away.

"Do you think that spot on the south side of the slope will work," my dad was saying? "It looks flat on the terrain map you sent me, but—"

I really can't say why I did it. Maybe, even then, the scent had gotten to me, though the environmental filters should have prevented anything like that from getting into the house. For some reason, instead of responding to my dad, I walked over to the door that led to the wraparound back porch and opened it.

The smell on the breeze was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was like all things desirable - smoky, sweet, warm. I can't say the scent was exactly like anything I had ever smelled before, and yet it was tantalizingly familiar, even homey. I blinked and suddenly I wasn't standing at the door anymore. I was in the forest, still wearing only a lightweight dress and no shoes. I hadn't even put my phone on. I was cold, and up through the tall trees I could see two of the moons. The grey green and reddish silver tree trunks seemed to glimmer in the night even more than was normal. There was a moment of vertigo, and then I was next to a stream, it's gentle gurgle loud in the quiet of the night. One of my feet was in the stream, and I guess the shock of the cold water was what had woken me from whatever fugue state I was in.

I looked around me to get my bearings. Why was I out here? How far had a I walked and more importantly, which way was home. The trees rose like pillars all along both banks of the stream. The smaller moons were out of sight, but Big Green was up, casting its odd light over everything. I turned away from the water, and then back and something snagged my focus, something white and glowing. I squinted and then gasped. Eyes. They were eyes, and the thing they belonged to stepped out of the trees and into clear view.

It was human-like. Two arms, two legs, a head. There was no hair and its eyes were mostly iris, leaving only a think circle of white to rim its sockets. Its skin (or clothing?) was dark, but I could not tell what color it was. The body was massive, at least 2 meters in height, with limbs of a slightly longer proportion than you would see on a human, though on the whole it was not overly muscled. The ears were peaked, like a dog or cat, and like those animals it seemed like it could swivel them. One was pointed towards me and the other away towards the forest. Some kind of bag was thrown over its shoulder, the strap crossing its chest.

I moved towards it immediately, a voice in my head screaming, "What are you doing?" the whole time. What was I doing? This THING or man or whatever was weird and alien. I should be afraid. I should be moving away, but instead my body propelled itself into the stream as fast as it could go, undeterred by the thigh deep water in the middle.

The creature raised its hands towards me, palms out, then spun and walked back into the trees behind it. I must have followed, though I can't remember really. I don't remember anything from when I left the water until I got to the cave.