“Alana!” A middle-aged—at least Ted thought she was—Kolean woman with the same red feathers as her daughter stood at the end of the boarding ramp, flanked by two more Koleans, one male and one female. Alana had brought the ship down on a wide, hard square surface of something that wasn’t quite cement, and it didn’t look like there were any other Koleans around. In all likelihood, this landing pad was on the outskirts of the port because it was so big.
The woman who Ted rightly assumed was Alana’s mother came towards them enthusiastically with her arms outstretched. Mother and daughter nuzzled the sides of their heads together in greeting, which Ted guessed had to be some kind of Kolean hug. They finally pulled apart. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. So is Trell,” Alana assured her.
Trell came forward, initiating a slightly more hesitant nuzzle. “Hello, Millika.”
Then Millika saw Ted, and she tried to hide the shock, though it still managed to show on her face. Undoubtedly she knew what a human would look like, but seeing one in the flesh was an entirely different matter. “So this is a human.” She sniffed the air. “His scent is... interesting,” she whispered in her daughter’s ear.
Ted had no idea what she was saying, so the comment went unnoticed.
Alana just shrugged. “I’m sure we smell odd to him too, mother.”
“So who is this man? Is he a politician? A resistance leader?”
“As far as I know, he’s an ordinary citizen,” Alana said.
Millika looked confused. “There really was no one else?”
“Well, perhaps there was,” Alana conceded. “We could have gotten someone else. But it sounds like their governments have been devastated by the invasion, unlike what happened here. And we sort of ran into him by accident—he was in the right place at the right time. Who knows, perhaps it was not a chance meeting.”
Millika shrugged, looking like it didn’t matter to her what kind of background this human had, so long as he was capable of speaking on behalf of his people and savvy enough not to make any stupid mistakes. Or perhaps it was because she simply trusted her daughter’s judgment.
Alana switched to English to address Ted. “Ted Anderson, meet Millika Firal. My mother, and the Vice President of the Kolean Intelligence Society.” She repeated the same introduction in Kolean.
Millika nodded, and to Ted’s surprise, extended a hand to him. Ted returned the handshake graciously, though it was incredibly awkward. “I am the one Parliament and the KIS assigned to our first contact, because I can speak English quite well, I hope. As a matter of fact, I taught Alana and Trell,” she explained to him in English.
He was a little surprised that she could speak English, but then again he’d been floored when Alana and Trell could earlier. “Thank you for your warm welcome, Mrs. Firal,” Ted said, hoping she knew what the honorific “Mrs.” meant.
She clearly did, because she waved off its usage with a delicate hand. “There’s no need for formality like that, Ted. Please call me Millika.”
Ted gave a small smile. “All right, Millika.”
Millika’s expression turned very serious. “Ted, you’re here to testify before the Parliament in order to convince them to look seriously into lending support to Earth. You understand this, correct?”
“Yes, I do,” Ted said in a loud, clear voice, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what it would entail. Was this a good idea? It had to be. A free Earth... It had to be worth all of this. So Ted held his head high, ready to move forward.
Millika continued. “I’m sure Alana and Trell have already told you Kolea also suffered an invasion from the Drevi.”
“Yes, they did.”
“We’ll need to talk later about the details, so you can get the right words together for the hearing. You’re our first alien guest, so I cannot imagine Parliament will make us wait long, if at all. I’m sure many Koleans will want to meet you, and undoubtedly you will be stared at on the streets. But stay with Alana, Trell, or me and you should be fine. And I hope you find yourself comfortable here—after all, you are our guest.”
“Speaking of the Drevi, Ted wasn’t the only one we picked up. There’s a Drevi prisoner aboard,” Alana said, her voice deepening as she said it.
If Millika had looked surprised to see Ted, that was nothing compared to her current expression. It was as though her daughter had just said the unthinkable. “What happened?”
“Lazy thing was taking a nap on the ship when we stole it,” Alana scoffed. “So we brought him with us.”
Millika mulled it over for a minute. “I’ll have my agents take him.” She motioned for the two Koleans accompanying her to board the ship.
“I’ll take you to him,” Trell offered. The two agents followed Trell back onto the ship, leaving Alana and Ted alone with Millika.
“What should we do with Ted?” Alana asked her mother, switching back to Kolean in case it would be unwise for Ted to understand what they were saying.
“I suppose we’ll take him home, instead of letting Parliament put him up somewhere. We can speak his language, so I don’t think they’d say no.”
Alana nodded and turned to Ted. “Mother is going to inform Parliament that you will be a guest of my family. I’m sure they’ll want to post a guard, but that way you can be around Koleans who speak your language and can translate for you, and hopefully get you accustomed to life on Kolea a bit faster.”
Ted bowed his head in understanding. “I thank you both deeply.”
Trell, Vandoraa, and the two agents emerged from the ship, each agent holding firmly onto one of the Drevi’s arms, which had been bound together crudely by materials Alana had found on the ship. “Where would you like us to take him, ma’am?” the female agent said.
“To Dreak City. There should be a transport leaving in a few minutes,” Millika said. “Let the officials there do what they must, but I don’t want him harmed.”
Both agents bowed their heads, and led the prisoner away. Ted watched Vandoraa’s face—the Drevi was understandably scared, but there was a defeated look about him that Ted knew all too well. He’d given up.
The image pulled at Ted’s heart, and before he knew what he was doing, he said, “Be gentle with him. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Exactly my opposite.
Millika and Alana looked strangely at him but said nothing. As Millika began to walk away, Alana motioned for Ted to follow them, but Ted’s concern had focused back on the ship. “What about the December?”
“It will be kept safely in a hanger here,” Millika said. “I already spoke to the individual in charge of this ship port—a nice man named Estar. This ship is valuable technology. I promise you nothing will happen to it.”
Ted felt a little better. He didn’t know why, but he’d already developed such a bond with the ship itself that it was scaring him a little. That ship, that beautiful ship he’d stared at in awe throughout his entire time in captivity, had pulled him out of a life of subjugation and brought him all the way here. To abandon the ship now felt wrong. But to get help from the Parliament, he would have to leave the December, so he forced himself to avert his eyes from what stood behind him to focus on what was ahead.
“Now let’s get home,” Millika said. She led the way to what looked like a high-speed railway that serviced passengers of the ship port.
A recorded voice rang out from overhead speakers, “Stand behind the light blue lines as the train approaches.” Ted didn’t understand what it meant, but figured it out when Trell held out an arm and pushed gently against Ted’s chest to get him to back up. He did so, just before a sleek red and blue train shot past the boarding platform, so fast that Ted was certain they wouldn’t be boarding it because of how fast it was going. But to his astonishment, it stopped. The doors slid open from bottom to top and tens of Koleans streamed out, of all different shapes and sizes, though none of them even came up to Ted’s shoulder in height. The flow of foot traffic almost screeched to a grinding halt as they bega
n to notice Ted. Every single one of them stared, and looked ready to mob him in curiosity if given the chance. Ted found himself averting his eyes in embarrassment.
“He’s with us. Go about your business,” Millika snapped, not unkindly, but firmly. That got them all moving again.
Once the Koleans had all exited the train, Ted and his group got on. The car was now deserted, because it seemed there were no ship transports that had landed recently and therefore no people to shuttle back to wherever they came from, or wherever they were going. Ted figured this was a good thing, as it meant he could be alone in the train car, and not get heckled, harassed, or worse, just stared at like he was an alien. Well, Ted supposed he was an alien, but it was still weird and more than a little unnerving to be the center of attention.
The train did not have seats, and Ted was beginning to wonder if Koleans ever sat down at all, or were even capable of doing so. Instead, there were sturdy-looking harnesses that lined the walls. Alana slid her way into one next to Trell on one side of the train and Millika selected one across from them, so Ted chose to stand next to Millika, thus allowing him to talk to them all easily. He tried pathetically to work his way into the harness, but discovered he was too large, since Koleans all seemed to be shorter and slimmer than humans. He opened his mouth to say something, but Millika cut him off.
“They’re just a safety precaution, Ted. If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. Just stand next to us and hold onto the straps.”
Embarrassed, Ted took his place standing next to her as the train lurched forward.
“This is one of the only ship ports on Kolea that can accommodate space ships, but there are a lot of transports that operate on the planet for longer distances than trains can travel,” Alana explained. “Many Koleans go through here to ports on other continents.”
“I’m assuming you live on this continent then?” Ted ventured.
“My family has for generations,” Millika confirmed. “I’ll be sure to show you a map of Kolea when we get home.”
Ted was genuinely interested in that, since geography had always been a bit of a hobby for him, but he changed the subject to something else. He wanted to talk about them, to get to know who they were as people. “So, Alana tells me she and Trell are to be Bonded?”
Millika’s face broke out into a brilliant smile, wrinkles visible under her feathers by her eyes. “They are. Since early this year.”
Trell elaborated. “She asked me, and I said yes. We’ve known each other for a long time, so it just made sense.”
“How do, um, Kolean Bonding customs work?” Ted asked, curious.
Alana answered. “Well, either party may ask the other, and we’re Bonded in a private ceremony where only close family and friends are present. Both parties keep his or her surname, and any children take the surname of the opposite gendered parent.”
“So Bonding is a private matter?”
“There’s nothing religious or government-issued about it, if that’s what you mean. If you want to live together, and have children, you do it,” she said with a shrug.
Ted nodded. Earth was moving that way, but hadn’t gotten there quite yet.
“What about humans?” Millika asked. The elder Kolean was clearly interested in learning more about the aliens she’d been gathering intelligence on, and Ted couldn’t blame her.
So, smiling, he replied, “Different cultures on Earth have different ceremonies. Marriage, as we call it, has had religious connotations for years, though within the last couple of centuries it has become more of a contract through the governments for legal and financial reasons. Only a very small handful of people get married in churches anymore. Traditionally the man proposes to the woman, and weddings can be extravagant, with many guests, or small, with only friends and family. Women used to take the surname of their husband, though more women are choosing to keep their last names or hyphenating the two names together in this day and age.”
“Interesting,” was Alana’s comment.
Ted’s gaze wandered out the window as Alana turned to Millika and began chattering away in their language. Now that Ted could sit back and listen to spoken Kolean, it did sound a lot like birds twittering in the morning dawn. It appeared Trell had dozed off from sheer exhaustion, as his head hung loose and his eyes were closed. Ted didn’t want to interrupt Alana and Millika’s conversation or Trell’s nap, so he returned his gaze to the window, looking out over the alien planet.
The thick forest that surrounded the ship port turned into rolling green hills as the train zipped onward. The train pulled into a village a few minutes later, coming to a full stop, and Ted almost moved to leave, but when he saw that his Kolean friends had remained harnessed, he settled down. Several other small towns and one larger city passed them by before they pulled into a village that looked a lot like the other ones Ted had already seen.
“This is our stop,” Alana said as the train pulled to a halt. Caught off guard and not wanting to get left behind, Ted disentangled himself from the harness he’d been holding.
The station was very small—it just had a few seats under an overhang and a lone machine that seemed to be a ticket distributor. The main street of the village lay beyond.
Millika picked up her bag with little effort, even though it looked to Ted like it weighed at least thirty pounds. “And now we walk.”
The trek through the village to Millika’s home was long but pleasant. The land was relatively flat, with some rolling hills off on the horizon. Ted was a little surprised by how Earth-like this region of Kolea was. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought he was in some country village in Ireland or Britain in the European States, though the weather was much warmer and humid. The surrounding area was completely green, with a few small trees but mostly short grass covering the ground. The village was old, but most of the houses had been renovated into modern structures that looked like rounded domes, made from lightweight building materials that varied in color. Most of them had an area at the top of the dome that looked like a clear bubble and seemed as though it were open to the air.
There were few Koleans visible in the village, but the ones that were turned to stare at Ted. A couple of them came up to Millika and talked to her, throwing odd glances Ted’s way throughout the conversation. Ted couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he had a feeling Millika knew these people, given how she acted, and that they were talking about him.
The moment they left the village was a relief to Ted. There was no one to stare at him or mob him, just the land and the sky. A dirt road led them through the countryside to a lone house in the rolling hills. It was modernized, with the same practical domed design as many of the other houses Ted had already seen. It was stormy gray in color, and the windows were round and thick. Like the other houses, there seemed to be some kind of porch that was open to the air on the top of the dome, but Ted couldn’t get a good view of it from where he stood.
Millika slid a hexagonal card-like thing through a reader by the door, and it opened with a click. Once inside, Alana turned on the lights. There was nothing that even vaguely resembled something to sit on, even though there was a table in a small nook by what looked like a kitchen.
Kolean furniture was interesting. It was all lightweight, with swirly combinations of color. Most of the room was decorated in small tables, which held lamps and what he assumed to be decorative art of some sort. The art were all sorts of colors and shapes, though they all reached toward the ceiling with wispy appendages.
“Welcome to my home, Ted. What’s mine is yours,” Millika said in such a way that Ted thought it might be a translated traditional welcome.
“Do you want to give him the east bedroom?” Alana asked her mother.
Millika thought about it. “Yes, that would be fine.”
Alana turned to Ted, who stood in front of the door with nothing in his hands. His quick departure from Earth hadn’t allowed him to pack any of his things.
“I don
’t know if any of my clothes will fit you, but we can clean yours tonight and give them back to you tomorrow,” Trell said, as if reading Ted’s mind.
Millika looked the human over. “I know a good tailor in town. I’m sure he can make something for you to wear. I don’t know if Kolean clothes would fit you well unless they’re tailor made. You’re a bit wider in bone structure than we are.”
Ted didn’t take offense, because he already knew Millika was right.
“I’m tired, so I think I’m going to go ahead and turn in,” Millika announced. “That’s the problem with getting old.”
Alana and Trell looked equally exhausted. As they should be, Ted thought. They’ve been awake for who knows how long looking after me and flying the ship.
Alana summoned up the energy to speak. “I’ll take you to the east room. Trell and I will sleep in the middle room, and mother has her own room, of course.”
“How many bedrooms are in the house?” Ted asked.
“Just the three,” Alana said. “When I was a child, one was for me, one was for my parents, and the last one, the east room, was the guest room.”
Ted nodded. This made sense, though he found himself wondering in the back of his mind where Alana’s father was. He decided not to ask.
“The room should already be made up,” Millika told Alana. “You know where everything is if he needs anything. May the night be beautiful.” With that, she made her way to her own room, and shut the door.
Trell looked to Alana. “I’m going to go make sure our room’s in order. Ted, just leave your clothes outside your door and I’ll clean them.”
Ted nodded his thanks and Alana said to Trell, “All right, I’ll meet you there.” Trell left, leaving Alana to guide Ted through the house. She led him down a hallway and showed him a room on the right. “This one’s yours. Is there anything else you need?”
“Bathroom and water?” he asked. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have even bothered. He was so tired he feared falling asleep on his feet. But he really needed to go, and his throat was scratchy with thirst.
“Oh, right. It’s right across the hall. I don’t know how different our waste receptacles are from yours, but I hope you can figure it out.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. He stepped into the room she had indicated, and upon finding there was no lock on the door, waited until he could hear Alana’s light footsteps leading away from the bathroom before he examined the toilet.
Koleans seemed to be like some human cultures in that the bathroom and toilet room were two different rooms. The actual bathroom had to be more centrally located in the house. The toilet was interesting. Koleans didn’t seem to use water—instead the toilet was filled with some sort of strange chemical solution that was pink and smelled oddly fruity. He did his business quickly and washed his hands in the sink, which thankfully did use water. He didn’t bother with a glass because he had no clue where to look for one, so he cupped his hands and sipped the cool liquid from them. He swore it tasted better than any Earth water he’d ever had.
He went into his room, left his clothes outside the door where Trell had told him, and climbed into bed in his underwear and undershirt. The bed was just a mattress on the floor that was circular instead of rectangular, oddly resembling a dog bed, but it was soft, and he was used to sleeping curled up anyway. He fell asleep within minutes.