Alien Barbarian’s Little Human

9. Varona

CHAPTER 9

VARONA

F lashes of lightning on a sundered plain…eyes as blue as the everlasting sky…love so pure it makes my heart weep…

My mind reels with the aftershocks of eyes-meeting-eyes. After centuries of life, I have found my jalshagar, but in the place I least expected to find her.

Worse, the visions which plagued me for so long have only grown more intense. Dreams of fire, dreams of war. My hands wielding a tool designed only for killing. A thought that should fill me with revulsion.

Yet, I feel…nostalgia? I must meditate upon this further. Though I have seen seven centuries of life, I am considered barely an adult by Ishani standards.

The woman from Earth, who would hvae thought she would be my soulmate?

Further down the street, my fellow Ishani quell the unrest. The various sapient species disperse and return to their dwellings upon our command. Ureki, my oldest friend and mentor, is the closest of my kind, swooping between the canyons of the skyscrapers. His voice quells those who were out of earshot of the ground-based Ishani.

He twists about in the air, our gazes locking for a moment before he descends. Ureki’s eyes narrow as he approaches me.

“Are you feeling alright, brother?”

“Ureki, I think I have just found my jalshagar.”

He tilts his head to the side and snorts with derision.

“Come now, Varona. Surely you are mistaken. It’s been some time since you’ve unleashed the power of your Voice.”

“My Voice is unwavering as ever, Ureki. I tell you, with no ambiguity, she is my jalshagar.”

“Who is it? Malagrith? Don’t tell me it’s that Vakutan girl who cleans up the lavatories.”

“It’s a human woman, and she’s the ambassador from the IHC.”

Ureki stares at me for a long moment.

“Ishani cannot lie to Ishani,” he says simply. “If what you say is true, and I know you believe it to be, we must use it to our advantage.”

“What?”

“You must use this unexpected connection to manipulate the Earth woman into telling us her true purpose for being here.”

My stomach twists up in knots.

“Listen to yourself. We become more like them all the time, plotting and scheming and using everything to our advantage. If she is my jalshagar, this is a miracle, a gift from the Ancestors.”

“We are the Ancestors,” he replies as if casually stating a fact.

“Not quite, and you know it.”

“We are the closest to them in form and culture.”

I don’t feel like having this argument with him, again. The presence of outsiders has increased the divisions in our own society. Many of our folk sympathize with the Ataxians, but almost as many favor the Alliance.

Adding the IHC to the equation is a fusion reactor awaiting a single spark to overload.

“The unrest is at an end,” Ureki says. “You should get to your appointment.”

“Are you sure it is over?” I ask sullenly.

“WHat makes you say that?”

“This riot, the unrest as you call it, it could have been orchestrated by one side or the other just to see what our reaction would be.”

“And so what if it was? They have seen our reaction and know they do not stand a chance.”

“They have seen, and felt, the Voice in action, Ureki. We have shown our hand.”

He scoffs.

“They have only seen a mere hair’s breadth of what the Voice can do.”

“True, but they have seen enough to plan for Compulsions in the next encounter. Our guests are endlessly clever, particularly the humans.”

He shakes his head.

“You sound as if you admire them. Away, to your meeting, master ambassador. Try not to be hypnotized by the human’s curves.”

I frown at him as he takes to the sky. When I reach Green Angel Tower, the receptionist at the welcome center flags me over.

“The human ambassador is waiting for you in your office. I have to say, she seems rather distressed.”

I smile and nod. I’m feeling rather distressed myself.

“I’ll see if I can’t calm her down. Please hold all of my communication and visits for the next few hours. I want to give this human woman my undivided attention.”

Lurid thoughts spring up and take over my consciousness. Suddenly I cannot stop picturing the most carnal, physical pursuits of ecstasy. The Jaslshagar bond…nobody told me this would be an aspect.

Or maybe I’m just blaming it on the eyes-meeting-eyes instead of my own lusty desires.

My office lies on the top floor. I step into the lighted circle of the transit beam and speak my destination aloud. The beam lifts me with anti gravity tech, depositing me perfectly on the landing platform at the top.

I enter my office and Chloe stands up quickly. Her black and gold formal attire does nothing to detract from her physical beauty. My heart races at the sight of her. Those eyes penetrate through my every defense. I can’t help but reveal how I feel, and what I want.

Our subconscious minds mingle like the flames of two candles held together. I get inundated with her recent memories--leaving Earth, her orders from the IHC, something about not comparing Ishani noses to human sex parts…

That last bit makes me smile, because I feel the memory as much as see it in my mind’s eye.

Her reaction is not quite the same, to say the least. Chloe’s jaw falls open and her face turns a bright shade of pink.

What did she see in that moment when our thoughts mingled? What was I thinking of last…oh no.

She visibly composes herself, and straightens her uniform.

“I’m not sure the human body bends quite like that.”

“You saw?”

“Yes, I saw.”

She sinks to the rounded conversation pit and folds her hands in between her knees. Chloe sighs and drops her gaze to the floor.

“I don’t know what you saw in my head.”

I start to open my mouth but she holds up a finger.

“And I don’t care. Listen, this jalshagar thing, I’m not going to admit it’s soulmates or true love or any of that bullshit. I will admit, however, that it’s some kind of real phenomenon that’s been blown out of proportion by myth and legend.”

I chuckle softly.

“It’s so like you, Chloe, to try to admit something without admitting it.”

Her face twists into a scowl.

“You see, it’s creepy shit like that I don’t like. You’re talking like you know me.”

“That’s because I do. Or more aptly, my soul knows your soul. Surely you don’t think this is the first time we’ve crossed paths, Chloe? Don’t you sometimes see other faces, other places, when your mind drifts?”

She stands up quickly, her eyes filled with equal parts fear and hope.

“You have to make this thing stop. Turn it off or something. I have to meet with the Ishani ambassador, and I can’t do it if I’m a big bundle of raging hormones.”

I spread my hands helplessly.

“My dear Chloe, there is no way to turn it off. That’s not how it works.”

“Who decides how it works?”

“The Precursors. Or as we call them, the ancestors.”

“Oh, that’s right, you Ishani think you’re basically the children of the galactic gods.”

I find her reaction more amusing than insulting.

“If you like. We prefer to think of ourselves as scholars and teachers rather than deities, however.”

“And you all just float around on your own little tiny planet while the galaxy burns around you. Aren’t you worried that their blood and sacrifice buys you guys the right to sit around and philosophize?”

I sit up a bit straighter, a slight grin on my face.

“Is this how you’re going to address the Ishani ambassador?”

She purses her lips in thought, then shakes her head.

“Probably not. I’ll probably be a lot more, um, diplomatic. But I’ll still bring it up, I guarantee you that.”

“You think you’ll be able to handle the ambassador?” I ask, trying to contain my mirth.

“Oh, honey, I’m going to handle him all right. I know all about who to stroke and for how long. Give me an hour and that ambassador will be eating out of my hand.”

My laughter makes her frown.

“Why is this so funny to you? Never mind. Are you going to turn this jalshagar thing off or what?”

“As I said, that is impossible.”

She sighs.

“All right, fine. Then we should probably get this over with.”

She looks around my office, and then starts clearing the desk.

“What are you doing?”

“This jalshahagar thing, it’s got to be some kind of biological imperative. A survival of the species kind of deal. So if we take care of the biological aspect, I should be able to concentrate on my meeting with the ambassador.”

My heart jumps in my chest.

“You are suggesting that we…?”

“Yeah, you do have sex on this planet, don’t you? Hurry up, we have to do this before the ambassador gets here.”

“Alas, that is impossible. The Ambassador is already here.”

She stops clearing the desk, holding a tiny computer in the palm of her hand. Her blue eyed gaze raises to meet my own.

“You’re the ambassador?”

I nod.

“Oh fuck me, this is embarrasing.”

She tosses the sculpture back onto my desk and rises to her feet.

“All right, it also simplifies things, though. You need to sign this pact with the IHC, or the instability here is only going to get worse.”

“I disagree. If we sign that pact, we will increase the instability. You saw what it was like on your arrival.”

“Look, you’re going to have to pick one side or the other. The Coalition or the Alliance. It’s just the way it is.”

“I disagree. We can forge a path to peace by remaining neutral.”

She shakes her head with vehemence.

“Not a chance. The war is already here. You’re just too blinded by your own hubris to see it.”

“Hubris? Is it hubris to believe that our culture, our ways can help bring the galaxy to a more mature understanding?”

“Maybe,” she says without missing a beat.

Chloe is like a recurring dream I’ve never been able to quite remember. I feel as if I know her, but at the same time she’s a mystery to me.

Even if she were not my jalshagar, I think I would wish to pursue her. My primal urges have never been so visceral, so near and so raw.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she says. “You guys aren’t the perfect allies the IHC was hoping for. But just the symbolism of your signing a pact with the IHC should be enough to get the coalition to withdraw from your system.”

“Our political experts predict the exact opposite, Chloe. Any perceived alliance with one faction, even tangentially, will be seen as an exclusion of the other faction.”

Her sensual lips draw into a thin, tight line. She knows that I speak the truth, but she has her orders. She’s trying to do what she perceives is best for her people. I can respect that.

But I cannot allow the Ishani to be drawn into, and be corrupted by, this centuries war. We must remain separate and pure, no matter what the cost.

“All right,” she says at length, holding up her hand. “It’s obvious I’m not going to convince you in the next hour or so, and it’s getting late. Maybe we can pick this up tomorrow? After I’ve had some rest?”

“Of course, Chloe. Perhaps you would care to join me for brunch in the Ishani Botanical Garden?”

“You guys have Brunch?”

“It is said the Precursors originated it, like all good things.”

She groans.

“I like how you slipped that in there. Okay, fine. You can feed me, but I’m hoping when I wake up tomorrow this Jalshagar thing will have cleared up. Like a case of the flu.”

I can’t help but laugh. She gives me a strange look, and then I show her to the ambassador quarters located in an adjacent building. We take a long, thin glass tube bridge to the other side. Her vertigo amuses me.

“I guess if you can fly you don't see a need for opaque floors,” she grumbles as we make it to the other side.

“Do not worry, though it resembles your silicate glass, the bridge is many times stronger than starship hulls.”

“You’re talking reality, I’m talking perception.”

“Are they not one and the same?”

She snorts.

“They overlap. Is this me?”

“This is you.”

I gesture to the entrance arch of her quarters.

“You have three bedrooms, two lavatories, a sauna, and a fully automated kitchen with AI chef. The computer terminal in your office connects to the Ishani mainframe. There is no password, we share our knowledge with all.”

“You guys aren’t worried about hackers?”

“No, we are not. Is there anything I can do for you, Chloe?”

She swallows, blue eyes glowing in the half light of the hallway.

“No, I think I’m alright. Good night, Varona.”

“Good night, Chloe.”

Only when the door closes do I realize, I never told her my name.