Alien Survivor: Stranded on Galatea

DR. ARACELI CROSS

I drifted up from the darkness, following the scent of fresh mown grass or wet earth or crushed lavender. I felt cool hands on the hot skin of my forehead, and I heard the sounds of soothing whispers coaxing me up out of unconsciousness and into the glow of low lamplight. The only things I could move at first were my eyelids, heavy from the paralytic, but I was breathing, and the air was sweet, and I had a circle of smiling faces peering down over me.

"Ara," I heard Danovan say, and fixed my eyes on his face. He looked like an angel hovering there, skin smooth as polished silver, and concern shining in eyes the color of chrome and flecked with twinkling stars of blue and purple. Those eyes, those extraordinary eyes, were the center of my universe as I willed myself not to panic when I couldn't lift my hand to brush my fingers over the chiseled line of his jaw.

My own eyes must have registered my panic because the woman standing next to Danovan leaned in closer and ran the backs of her knuckles ever so gently over the curve of my cheek. She murmured something unintelligible in Galatean and I glanced between her and Danovan in an attempt to indicate that I hadn't the faintest notion as to what was transpiring.

"She says not to worry," Danovan translated, "that you will make a full recovery, and not to let your fear overtake you."

I looked back at the woman, and then to the older Galatean man at her side and watched them as they lifted their faces to chat amongst each other in their native tongue. The words were lost to me, but the cadence was soothing, rhythmic and lyrical. The Romance Language of the Stars, they called it I'd always thought it was silly, but listening to them talk then, low and placid, I began to understand how it had earned such a reputation. The language used soft consonant sounds and elongated vowels and would prove very easy to sing, I should think.

After a time, the woman peered back down into my face and spoke. She was beautiful, with alabaster skin as unblemished as porcelain. There was a softness to the ridge of her brow that made her eyes look wide and round.

"She says that she is going to give you something to speed up the process of getting the paralytic out of your system. She says it will not be pleasant, but that the momentary

unpleasantness is probably preferable to remaining paralyzed-er, blink once for yes and twice for no?"

I blinked. Anything was better than feeling trapped like this inside my own body. But I was beginning to feel some sensation return to my lips, like a tingling, the type of pins-and-needles feeling that you get when a limb falls asleep. It was strange-numbness has a feeling, and it's heavy.

Danovan gave a nod to the pale woman, and she shooed him, and the older man, away. But Danovan lingered there a moment, furrowing his brow in question as he made his protestation in impassioned, if hushed, Galatean. But the woman shook her head, having none of his arguments, and he finally obeyed her.

She cooed gently to me as she moved in and out of my line of vision, speaking her lovely, lilting language as she readied her supplies. Eventually, she took my chin in her hands, which I registered only as pressure, and opened my mouth. Then, she held a small glass vial in my line of vision so that I could see the ginger-colored viscous liquid therein. That done, she upended the vial's contents into my mouth: it had the consistency of thick maple syrup but didn't taste nearly as good. It had a bitter flavor, like cough syrup and coffee, and it burned on my tongue. I coughed involuntarily as I felt the pressure of her hands on my throat, massaging it to help the liquid down my throat. She closed my mouth for me and gently pet my forehead as I choked the medicine down.

Like the first gulp of whiskey, I could feel it travel down my esophagus and settle warmly in the pit of my stomach. And sensation began to return from the point at which it settled, slowly at first, and then all at once, until my nerve endings were lit up and I could feel every inch of myself all at once. It was pleasant at first, warm, awake, like a double shot of espresso. But then it burned, it seared, and I was aflame with sensation. I sat up suddenly, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath, but I was subsumed by the pain. I looked down at my body: I felt like it must have been on fire, but it wasn't. I shot a desperate look to my caretaker, before parting my lips and wailing like a banshee. The sound was foreign even to my own ears: never before had I let out so primal a scream.

The Galatean was holding her hands up and making a downward gesture, obviously trying to get me to calm down, but I couldn't. I was on fire. My nerve endings were lit up and I could feel everything, the air on my skin from when she exhaled, the fibers of my cotton shirt. And it was all too much. I stood up and tore the clothes from my body layer by layer. And when I was done, I held my arms out to the side so that I wasn't touching anything but air. But there was no relief: even the bottoms of my feet were burning where they touched the floorboards.

"What is happening to me?" I demanded, but the Galatean woman was just rambling on in a language I didn't understand. I wanted to tear my skin off. I wanted to dig my nails into my epidermis and shred. Anything, anything to make it stop.

"Araceli," she said firmly, my name being the only word she knew that I could recognize. She made her calming gesture again and I tried to make myself calm down. She showed me with her hands that she wanted me to take deep breaths, so I took deep breaths. She showed me with her hands that she wanted me to close my eyes, so I closed my eyes. I closed my eyes, and I took deep breaths, and eventually, mercifully, the burning began to fade, pulse by pulse with the beat of my heart, until it was only warmth, until it was completely gone.

Well, not completely. I looked down at the inside of my leg, where the Ribomax venom had splashed and hit me, and I saw the bandages and knew that the burns there were serious. The pain remained, in thick splotches, and it stung down to the muscle. But at least that was relegated to one limb, and not spread out over my entire body.

I let out one final exhale, and smiled up at my caretaker, embarrassed by how I'd purported myself. It wasn't every day that I stripped naked in front of total strangers, but I felt compelled. And she seemed unphased: she simply handed me a soft silk robe in deep purple, and I gratefully donned it before taking a seat and graciously accepting a proffered mug of something warm. She patted me gently on the head as I cradled the mug in my hands and breathed deeply of its scent: flowery and sweet, like green tea with ginger, but strong. It was delicious.

My caretaker had gone to the door and called Danovan and the other man back in, and Danovan came in like a shot, his jaw hanging agape until he saw me sitting up, drinking a cup of what I

assume was tea.

"Thank the Gods," he breathed, sitting beside me, "you're alive." He enfolded me in a sudden embrace, crushing me to him and squeezing all of the air out of me as he did so. I would have wrapped my arms around him, but he'd pinned them down, so all I could do was let him sway me gently from side to side.

I took in a deep gulp of air when he let me go, trying not to spill my tea over the both of us. "I'm...ah..." he stammered, scratching absently at the back of his neck, "I'm just so relieved." "You and me both," I smiled, though the memory of the searing pain was fresh in my mind, I tried to shake it off. It refused to be shook. "Thank you."

"Thank my mother," he said, and my eyes popped open wide as we both turned our eyes on my caretaker. She was his mother. Of course. This village that wasn't on our map-he knew it because he'd grown up in it. I stood slowly and extended my hand to the woman who had saved me, and she took it, folding it in both of her warm, deft hands.

"Allow me to introduce Jaelle cal'Darian, the greatest healer in all of Hiropass."

"Tell her," I said to Danovan as I squeezed Jaelle's hand, "that I am very pleased to meet her, and profoundly grateful for her assistance."

Danovan translated my words for his mother, and she smiled a broad, toothy smile at me before letting go of my hand and pressing her palms against my cheeks. She peered up into my eyes, looking very closely, and I could see that Danovan had inherited the blue and purple flecks from her. She whispered something to me, something that sounded like, "Sheeay riagosa du mil." I hadn't the slightest notion as to what it meant but smiled all the same. She chuckled something low and knowing and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Then she let me go and tugged the other Galatean man forward.

"And this," Danovan said, "is my father. Olander jin'Darian."

I looked up at Olander and smiled and he took my hand and raised it to his lips so that he might press a kiss to the back of it. "Thank you for having me in your home," I said, and just as I was about to ask Danovan to translate, Olander made his own reply.

"You are welcome here." The words were slow and deliberate, and I guessed that he likely only had the most basic conversational English, but I smiled brightly and glanced between him and Danovan. Danovan was the perfect combination of his parents: He had inherited his father's impressive build and stature, and his mother's exquisite bone structure; from his father, he got his brushed nickel skin tone, and from his mother, the subtlety of his brow ridge and the fine line of his jaw. There was no doubt in my mind, based on parentage alone, that Danovan's sister was a great beauty in her own right as well.

"Please," Olander went on, and I could see him struggling to find each and every word he spoke. "Be comfort here."

"Thank you," came my easy reply.

"But hour is late, we must go to sleep." Olander slid an arm around Jaelle's waist, and she looked up at him. He muttered something in Galatean, and she bobbed her head in a nod before waggling her fingers at me and moving toward Danovan, whom she drew into a tight embrace before covering his face in adoring, motherly kisses.

"More conversation at tomorrow, at ceremony," Olander said, brow arched high over his eyes as he followed Jaelle out. "I practice you, yes?"

I couldn't help but chuckle a little as I nodded my enthusiastic reply. "I would like that," I said. When the elder tel❜Darians had made their exit, I sipped at my lukewarm tea before dropping heavily down onto the divan and finally taking the opportunity to look around the room: It was all dark wood and natural fibers, silk pillows and sweet-scented candles. There was a sofa that looked as though it was carved out of the trunk of a great tree and polished to a gleaming shine before it was filled to bursting with velveteen pillows. The divan, where I had been laid, was plush satin with intricate stitching, and there were three small wooden tables between the two. The room had the feeling of being, itself, inside of a tree. It was lovely. It managed to combine a rustic sort of naturalism with the sleek minimalism one might come to expect from an advanced alien race. I smiled faintly to myself, remembering that it was I who was the alien. "How are you feeling?" Danovan asked at length, as though he had been giving me some time to settle and adjust to my surroundings.

"Better," I said. "But..."

"What?" He canted his head gently to the side, his eyes searching my face. "Whatever it was that your mother gave me...I've never felt that kind of pain before." His eyes clouded with concern, and he reached out to take my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "My entire body was on fire, like my nerve endings were sending signals to my brain and overloading my sensation receptors. It was utterly overwhelming."

"I'm sorry," he muttered, his voice thick with regret. "I should've taken better care of you. I should've "

"Shh." I had lifted my free hand to press my fingertips against his lips, silencing him. "It isn't your fault. You saved my life, bringing me here. You've saved my life countless times now, over and over." I felt a sudden surge of embarrassment, as though I were some teenaged heartsick girl. “I guess what I'm trying to say is... Thank you."

"It was nothing," he said with a shrug, but I wouldn't let him shrug off the enormity of keeping me safe on a foreign planet.

"Well, it was everything to me." We were frozen together there, our eyes locked on one another for the unwavering length of a heartbeat. I thought, for a moment, that we might...

But time can only be suspended for so long, until the sharp pulsing ache in my leg brought me back to reality, and I sucked air in through my teeth and turned away.

"Are you all right?" He asked, shaking our moment off quicker than even I could. "Where the venom hit me..." I said by way of explanation and parted my legs only slightly to show him the bandages. "See?"

"Ah, yeah," Danovan said, rising to his feet. "I know. I kind of bandaged you up in the field. Sorry

if I did sort of a slapdash job. I'm sure my mother can fix it up in the morning..."

I jerked my head up, peering at him wide-eyed. He'd bandaged me. I felt my cheeks flush as I

began to swell with gratitude, even as I absently wondered just how much of me he'd seen.

He hooked up one corner of his mouth in a roughish grin. "We should probably get some sleep,"

He said, and I could only begrudgingly agree. "It's been a long day."

I nodded, feeling the weight of my experience sink me lower even than the pressure of the planet's gravity. "Let me just get you cleaned up," he said, and disappeared into the next room. Cleaned up? I glanced down at my body and saw nothing that wanted cleaning. But then I caught my reflection in the glass of a window at the front of the room. I moved toward it, squinting as I peered at myself: I had something that looked like clay streaked across my forehead. I gave a heavy sigh, wishing I'd know my face was covered in literal dirt throughout our entire conversation.

Danovan returned to the room with a cloth and a wooden bowl of water. "Here," he said, and I joined him on the divan. He dipped the cloth into the water and began to wipe the mud from my face, his hands gentle and firm. I watched him watching me, his eyes darting around my face to ensure that he hadn't missed a single spot. Satisfied, he set the dirtied cloth aside. "Can I get you anything?" He asked.

"I'm all right."

"Some tea? Water? Are you hungry, maybe?"

I couldn't help but smile and place my hand lightly atop his. "Really, I'm fine."

He nodded silently and rose to his feet, crossing the expanse of the small room in two long strides. He knelt in front of a wooden chest with iron hardware, and opened it, fetching a neatly folded stack of quilts from its interior. He laid them out over the sofa with a flare, and I saw that they were beautiful, but worn and well-loved.

"Thank you," I said again, perhaps only to fill the silence, "I'll be very comfortable here." Danovan grinned. "This is for me," he said, and approached me, offering me his hand. I took it with a smile. "Come on," he said, tucking my hand into the crook of his elbow as he led me back into the foyer.

The house was dim and sleepy, floorboards creaking the way they do when they've felt the heavy burden of countless feet through countless years. He led me to the staircase, and we ascended slowly so that I could favor my injured leg and run my hands over the polished wood bannister. "That's my parent's room, the master suite," he whispered, pointing to a set of double doors immediately to the right of the top of the staircase. We hooked a left and headed down the hall, where the walls were decorated with little round mirrors framed in amorphously shaped wood. It gave the hall the feeling of some place aquatic. "Wet room," he remarked, gesturing to a small tiled space to our right, but we passed too quickly for me to catch more than a glimpse of wetly gleaming stone tile.

"My sister's room," he went on.

"Oh, is she here?" I asked.

"I don't believe so, but I wouldn't dare venture in to check." He grinned, and tried to wink, but he just ended up blinking both eyes rather owlishly. I chuckled quietly under my breath, grateful for the momentary distraction from the sharp and constant pain in my leg. I won't worry about it tonight, I told myself as the pain pulsed with the beat of my heart. I'll look at it tomorrow. Along with the rest of my vitals, if I could get my hands on any instruments of modern western Medicine. For now, I was taking it on faith that I wasn't simply having one last hurrah before dying abruptly in my sleep from whatever Ribomax venom still remained in my system. Now that I was no longer distracted by pain or new faces or paralysis, I was beginning to think about what medicine Jaelle cal'Darian had given me, and what it might be, and how I might be able to appropriate it to help countless people back on earth. I was so distracted that I hadn't heard Danovan when he stopped outside of a final door.

"Ara?"

"Yes? Sorry. What?"

"This is my room-er, your room." We pushed into the space, and Danovan lit the lamps so that everything glowed a warm sort of yellow. The room was a nest of pillows and blankets, tiny mirrors on the ceiling that glimmered like starlight.

"You grew up here?" I asked, running my fingertips over a wooden trunk that I could have easily fit into and stretched out in.

"I did," he confirmed, crossing his arms over the broad expanse of his chest and smiling as he watched me explore.

"It's...lovely." I moved to stand by the window and got my first glimpse of the town: clean and cozy with yellow streetlamps dotting the cobblestone roadways. The town brought to mind the image of a hive, with the houses looking like they'd been molded out of organic structures that were still living, breathing, and infusing life into the town itself. The homes were ovaloid and made of wood and stone, shaped irregularly, making the entire scene look like an Edvard Munch painting.

"It wasn't a bad place to grow up." Sleepy and cozy and quiet: no wonder Danovan had longed

to experience something bigger, no wonder he'd enlisted and set about seeking a space adventure. I would have done the same, in his shoes.

Which isn't to say I didn't like the town-I did. But it was small and quaint, and the universe is

full of mysteries.

"Anyway," he interrupted my reverie, and I turned back to him, letting a set of gossamer curtains close behind me as I went to him. "I should let you get to sleep."

"Yeah, I am pretty tired," I agreed.

"All right, then." He moved to go, but I caught him by the arm. And it had been my innocent intention to rise on tiptoe and press my lips to his cheek. That's all. But when I tried to stand on my toes, the burns on my inner thigh screamed in protest, and I nearly collapsed to the floor. Danovan caught me, and closed the gap between us himself, catching my mouth with his mouth, and kissing me with gusto.

I kissed him back, relishing the feel of his fingers as they tangled themselves in my hair, wanting more, more, ever more from the unspoken promise of his lips.

I pressed my palm to his cheek, and we kissed and kissed like we would find all the answers we

sought somewhere in each other's breath. I had never experienced a kiss so delicious, so laced with unabashed wanting.

But after a moment-not long enough, not nearly long enough-he broke away. I didn't realize that he'd lifted me into the air until he set me down again. He was breathing heavily, his jaw slightly agape as he peered down at me. "I'm sorry," he whispered on the wings of an exhale. "Why?" I demanded.

"Because...you are vulnerable, I shouldn't be taking advantage of you."

"You're not "

"Forgive me."

"Danovan." But he didn't give me a further chance to convince him. Instead, he turned on his

heel and darted out of the room to leave me in a room that was his, that smelled of his skin. So I laid myself down in his bed, where he had lain for countless nights, and wrapped myself up in his blankets, and sank into a deep and dream-filled slumber where I could kiss him again and again and he wouldn't pull away.