Tempted by Celestial Bodies

Chapter 1

chapter one

eve

I’d hoped next time I opened my eyes that heavy sense of hopelessness would be gone. I’d hoped, but I hadn’t really expected it. So as I watched the guy in front of me coming into focus and that elephant was still on my chest, I wasn’t really disappointed so much as resigned.

I was disappointed by the accommodations. I lay on some sort of smooth table, there was sky above me, and why did I feel like I’d been hit by a bus? If I’d swapped the hopelessness of the daily grind for broken ribs, I probably could’ve lived with it, but this was just the worst of both worlds.

The guy glanced over and I closed my eyes. It’s a side-effect from the medically induced nap for the journey , I told myself . Your eyesight is fine. He isn’t purple.

Or…I was talking to an alien. Aliens ate us.

“I wish you a pleasant waking,” he said, his voice a deep, vibrating timbre that made it almost impossible to keep my eyes scrunched closed. “Is your body comfortable?”

Was my body comfortable? I looked up at where he towered over me, his dark green hair falling to frame his exaggeratedly square jaw and strong, beak-like nose. Whatever I was going to say dried up.

He wasn’t purple. He was lilac.

I was utterly fucked. I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere beyond humanity’s reach. My destination was only two planets over from Original Earth. No aliens, no way. I was going to be the saltiest snack this guy had had in awhile because fuck. this.

“Do you recall how you came to be here?” he asked me, but the movement of his lips didn’t match the words.

I closed my eyes again. Five years ago, I’d married my dream guy, I’d just landed my dream job, and I’d been organising to move into my dream home. Except they hadn’t really been that; they were only dreams if they came from the Dream region in France. They’d just been sparkling toxicity. And now I had dreams of being able to afford more yarn for my knitting.

“Oh yeah,” I told him, grimly. “Yeah, I do.”

“Have you anyone remaining?” he asked me, the question so gentle I kind of wanted to throat-punch him.

I’d signed up for new and different and, sure, the program had obviously been predatory. They didn’t invite plebs like me to assist in populating a relatively new planet without adding some catches, and I hadn’t felt the need to ask a lot of questions. I could have an adventure with predators. At least I’d known what I was getting into. Go away, leave everything behind, have a fresh start, sell my soul to a different mega-corporation and eat cereal for dinner on a different planet.

I hadn’t signed up for therapy. I’d signed up for get the fuck out of here.

“Nope.” I tried to sit up and pain radiated through my whole body, taking my breath away. My eyes popped open, but he wasn’t about to try to hold me down or whatever. He was just standing there, like a big, weird, lilac lump.

Maybe this was some sort of mindfuck orchestrated by the program to ensure my compliance? I watched him, giving myself at least four chins with the unflattering angle of my face and in way too much pain to care. He watched me back. Behind him, the indigo sky seemed so close I could almost reach out and touch it. It had a different texture to what I was used to. Velvety. The stars glowed in unfamiliar patterns behind him and I wished I could try to figure them out, but I hurt.

“What’s the deal?” I asked, and the question came out somewhat pleading, because the bench I was on made all the other hurts into bigger, shittier hurts.

“You have a need to be comfortable,” he said, and I sure as hell didn’t disagree. But it was a weird way to say it, and again the movement of his lips still didn’t match the sounds he was making.

In the background, I could hear waves, and for some reason that normalcy alongside this alien’s strange speech made me want to puke.

“I am not informed of your body’s requirements,” he added. “I do not recognize how to aid.”

That’s what they all say. I cleared my throat and glanced around, but couldn’t see anyone. Someone had built rough-hewn stone walls arranged aesthetically around us to make it a semi-sheltered outdoor area. I saw some baskets that probably would’ve cost a fortune at the local farmer’s market and a lot of sand. Everything was a strange colour palette, though. Was this a side-effect of the medically induced sleep? That would probably make sense, if their drugs had fucked my vision.

Unease overcame hopelessness and pain. I struggled up despite the bolts of pain that shot from my chest and up one leg, though my head swam and my stomach rebelled. I looked down at my body and was utterly unsurprised by the rudimentary splint on my left leg. I was scraped, bruised, and one of my favourite shoes was missing. If I tossed my cookies on this guy, well, he wouldn’t be the first to suffer that fate.

There had been hundreds of us. We’d smiled and sat and run our phones down waiting for our turn to be put into long-term sleep and sent to the mystery land where we’d start over.

I couldn’t see anyone, though. Only rocks, plants I didn’t recognise, and a choppy, uninviting sea crouching over the horizon in various purples and oranges with the odd splash of pink for that sweet accent shade. “Where’s everyone else?” I demanded.

He shook his head. Black hair that shone with green highlights swung hypnotically around his strong neck and settled on his shoulders. “No others lived. I express regret and sadness appropriate.”

My head spun. “What happened?”

He frowned, a little. “You said you are knowing?”

For fuck’s sake. Tears rose in a wave and I struggled not to drown. “Where am I?”

“We are by the Centre of All,” he said, the words kind. “You have been Called.”

Great. Just fucking great. I wiped away tears. “You better explain that, too, buddy.”

He glanced at one of the moons hanging over my shoulder. I followed his gaze and stared at where the second one sat, low and fat, in the velvety purple sky, the source of the light that let me see with relative clarity. “A Bio-resonant Signal Not Yet Identified In Your Language alerted you to your importance by the Centre of All,” he said, slowly, as if this might help me understand. “This is not phenomena your people are knowing?”

I couldn’t begin to list every phenomenon my people weren’t knowing. I struggled to wrap my head around the fact that I’d somehow crash-landed on an alien planet and the locals were using culty justification to make it all okay.

“What’s your name?” I asked him, survival instincts kicking in.

“It will be not correct to your ears,” he said, passing me what looked like a crutch, made of polished driftwood with pretty, sea aesthetic shit carved into it. It would’ve been fit for a water wizard in a high budget movie on Original. “The meaning maker will shift the words. But it is Dreamdiver.”

Dreamdiver. What the fuck. I scooted to the edge of the table, my whole body aching. “Okay, Dreamdiver.” I could play along. “Where are we going?”

He looked at me with so much patience I damn near swung the crutch at his belly. “You should travel to cot.” He waved a hand toward the side of stone where I could make out some sort of path between the tumble of rocks and purple-tinged plant life. At least the rocks were greenish, to break up all the purple.

I was more interested in his hand, though. And the way his fingers sort of… flowed. I blinked, trying to focus, but he’d dropped his hand to his side.

Regardless of the danger of aliens, if he’d planned to eat me, I’d already have been nommed. My leg was actually broken and my everything hurt. If I was about to be alien chow, then I’d cross that bridge later.

The crutch was ungainly but the moment I touched my foot even gingerly to the ground, agony made my head spin.

He stood silently, watching me try to balance without puking or crying from the pain. I gritted my teeth and it wasn’t enough. Tears itched on my cheeks.

“Can you help?” I demanded, but it sounded more like a sad mewl and I hated that.

He made something adjacent to a grunt that came from deep in his chest, and a moment later the whole world, such as it was, tilted. His arms were barely softer than the table I’d been on, and he smelt like the sea.

Like Original sea, not some weird alien sea, and for some reason that made me relax as he carried me along.

I closed my eyes and let myself enjoy the ride.

Next time I opened them, everything hurt a whole lot more, but I was inside, at least, and he was setting me down on a huge chair made out of driftwood, except with some pretty washes to add color. I leant my upper body against the table and watched him move about the big, airy, boho beach-chic hut decorated with driftwood, strange purple plants, and the odd off-white or dark silver cylinder, stand, or rectangle that I suspected were his tech. He arranged a blanket-adjacent creation in what looked like a sized-up cat bed. I didn’t hate it.

“This is not a superior cot,” he said, and with his back turned I realised the pattern I could see wasn’t a quirky shirt but the texture on his lilac skin. “It has been many rotations since I last met someone similar to your body. I have not the ideal furnishings for your comfort.”

Hypnotised, I watched his hands. Well, his tentacles. Halfway down what would’ve been a forearm on a human, darker purple, tentacle-like digits split out from his arm. Webbing flared between them as he extended one away from the bunch and I watched as they flowed over the covers, suckers the size of the pad of my pinky clutching to some pieces and releasing others as he adjusted it.

I couldn’t remember feeling them on me when he’d carried me. My head spun as I watched this evidence that I was utterly, hopelessly lost.

He straightened and offered me the crutch in mass of tentacles . “Is it best for your comfort if I haul you?”

Haul. I scowled at his word choice. “Fuck you, buddy.”

His chest and neck flushed a deeper purple. “That is a kind offer, but it would be inappropriate for us, as you are in my care.”

I barely heard the words, watching the dark, blotchy purple flush. “Wait.” I held up a hand, wishing my head wasn’t so full of cotton wool. “Wait.” There was no point asking him if he was trustworthy. He’d tell me yes either way.

I was stuck with an alien guy on an alien planet, everyone I’d been transported with was dead, and I was stranded.

No time like the present to remember your survival skills, Eve.

“I’m sorry,” I said, slowly. “I didn’t mean to be rude.” Yeah, better not piss off the locals.

He tilted up his particularly square jaw and waved at his temple, where a series of circles were tattooed in blue. “The universal speaker affordance is not deprived of drawbacks. You were not asking me to fornicate?”

It sucked that he looked kind of relieved. “Nope,” I said, taking the crutch he was offering and grimly forcing myself to my feet. “I was upset by the word you used for helping me move.” I paused, though, and ran a finger over my own temple. A shiver of unease went up my spine as I felt hard, circular ridges beneath my fingertips.

“You did not have the universal speaker,” he said, tentatively. “I am not knowing how you moved through locations without it, and I am not feeling you are less important because of it. Forgiveness is desirable.” And he looked at me with big, soft green eyes that could’ve been used to sell anything from pet food to adult toys back on Original.

I really did need that nap. “Do I sound as weird as you?”

He looked puzzled. “I am not knowing how you mean.” And he was blushing again, his throat and chest going a deep purple as his eyes dipped down to my throat.

Had I just accidentally hit on an alien?

This whole thing was too bizarre. “You know what?” I put the crutch down. “I hurt and I’m tired. Please haul me to the bed.”

He hesitated a moment, but scooped me up again. This time I paid attention, but still couldn’t feel his hands—tentacles—on me, and he held me much lower, almost at hip height. There was some sort of scar running from the centre of his lip down his throat and it was comfortingly silver. I don’t know why the colour of his scar made me feel better, but it did, just like the smell of salt that clung to him.

It was about three steps, but in those three steps I’d realised he didn’t have body hair, that his skin was a little rough, and that he didn’t have nipples.

That kinda seemed like a shame?

“Are you a mammal?” I asked, then wished I could snatch the word back.

He set me down in the giant cat bed like I was a snake. “I am a Sea People Not Yet Identified In Your Language.”

“I’m sorry.” I grabbed the blanket, struggling between fury at the situation and absolute shame that I was making such a mess of it. “Look, I’m going to try not to be a dick, but it comes naturally to me. I’ll have to work on it.”

His eyes ran over me as his colour deepened. “I do not think the universal speaker is working for this,” he said. “I am not knowing how to help you be comfortable, but please use words if you have concepts to share.”

I’d just called myself a dick and he’d taken it literally.

Wordlessly, I nodded, curled up like a cat, and pulled the blanket over my head. If I was eaten, that probably would only be a good thing, at this point.

* * *

I assumed it was night, because when he returned, he turned on a glowing lamp thing that crouched in a driftwood cage and emitted a pale pink glow. I watched, fuzzy-headed from sleep and pain, as he moved around in a kitchen area. He glanced over at one point and I tried not to think about our communication breakdowns. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Eve.”

He rolled his hand at me in a weird way, then touched it to his chest. “I am eager to have seen you, Before. How is your body comfort?”

Before? A moment of confusion was all it took before I realised my name had a literal translation and he probably just got it. I was “Before.”

Jesus Christ. I didn’t have the brain juice for this. “My body isn’t comfortable.” I didn’t know what painkillers would translate to, but surely that statement and my best puppy eyes would do it.

He nodded. “I can help reduce your body being uncomfortable, if you will allow me to haul you through water.”

There he went with the hauling again. It was lucky my possibly-vegetarian alien looked like he could deadlift a truck. “Sure.” Don’t be a dick, Eve. “If you’re okay to do that. Thank you, Dreamdiver.”

He nodded again, turning his back quickly and bringing whatever passed for food to his mouth. Pain pounded me as I waited. Moving was hard, but I got to my feet to make his job a bit easier. My throat was dry as a desert. Before I could figure out how to express that, he was in front of me, holding out his arms.

I wanted coffee, some paracetamol, and a couple ibuprofen with a tequila chaser. That was a beachy mix, right?

When he picked me up and started walking, I settled back as much as my aching body would allow. Outside, the sky was dark. The obligatory two moons hung in the sky. They showed similar amounts of shadow. Shouldn’t they be different?

He carried me in silence away from the hut. I wanted to be able to enjoy the landscape, but I hurt. And also, for some reason this guy didn’t have nipples. He was straight up and down, no abs, no pecs. Just rough, streamlined purple flesh.

“We will enter water soon,” he said to me. “You are not a Sea People or Name of Aquatic Beings Not Yet Identified In Your Language, so you will need to hold onto me.”

I heard splashing before that could process. Aquatic beings I didn’t know about? The image of merfolk swam through my head. I surprised myself by wondering if Dreamdiver could answer the age-old question of how they reproduced.

“I will put you in the water to shift how my hold is on your body,” he said.

The universal word thing was unhinged. “Cool.” I glanced over the water, uneasy, as he lowered me. Flashes of deep burgundy with frothy pink waves were all I could process. The water was warm, but the pain was phenomenal.

I struggled to breathe and he held me gently, leaning over me with that kind expression on his face and too many moons behind him. And his tentacles wrapped around me with the sweetness of a thousand forehead kisses.

“Draw in air,” he said, kindly.

As if I’d ever stopped? The water’s movement against my splinted leg was agonising, and something brushed against my back. Alarm spurted through me. I jackknifed, and spots swam over my vision.

The sense of being submerged, of water rushing and his body moving beside mine, made the panic flutter. I clutched at him. Darkness, cool water, stinging bubbles. Above me the moons appeared distorted, but the light travelled through the water in a way that didn’t make sense, exposing endless purple depths and silhouetting underwater forests far away. My heart was hitting my ribs like my ex smashing the ring for service bell.

“We have a little distance to travel now,” he said. “Remain not panicking.”

I could hear him talking underwater. Somewhere, in the back of my brain, I realised how deeply fucked up that was. But the majority of my mind was taken up by the fact that we were underwater and going deeper at a rate that I suspected wasn’t good for my poor, up-fucked body .

We turned a corner and the moon was suddenly gone, but a soft green glow came from somewhere that I couldn’t see. He was still swimming. He didn’t know I couldn’t breathe water. I was going to drown. Alien man was going to drown me.

I tried to kick my good leg and felt his attention on me. But if we could go faster , maybe I’d live. Maybe. A bubble escaped my mouth and I watched it vanish into the dark water above me.

And then we ran into the faintest barrier, and the water was left behind.

I sucked in air, grabbing hold of the stone lip of the cave entrance. Green lights, steel, shelves full of wicker baskets that were neatly labelled in a curving, fluid-looking writing I couldn’t read. A big, messy net puddled to the side. Beakers and glass science-y stuff sat along one wall. Tanks of some sort of fish were stacked, the creatures staring at me in their individual glass houses. I didn’t know enough about caves to know if it was natural, but it was big. Not like, stage-a-concert big. As in, could fit a family of five and still have pets sort of big.

With his tentacles still wrapped gently around me, he climbed out of the water. “It is with much courage that you swam,” he said, smiling at me. “Allow me to provide you with A Medication That Is Similar To Opiates Not Yet Identified In Your Language.”

I couldn’t speak. I didn’t have the air, or the backbone, or something. He rolled me onto a steel platform and the green glow above me increased. A dark green metallic disc thing floated above me.

“There will be no pain from my medical treatment,” he said, and he put on glasses.

Glasses.

I lay back and let the darkness take me.