Page 2

Chapter Two

Roth’kar

What do these rings symbolize? I am still pondering this even as we say our commitments, and then once again confirm that we have, in fact, chosen to be married. Why did I have to say it three times in three different ways?

Lower-class Karthinian mating rituals are much simpler. You agree to be a union and then live out that union—without all this pomp and circumstance. We do not have the luxuries of rings and ceremonies in the Hole.

Adapting to human culture will likely involve a lot of change and learning for me.

Amara is an odd creature, besides the two arms. Her face is an appealing shape with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, and she has huge dark eyes.

I have never seen a being that looks like her before, with voluminous wavy brown hair cascading down her back.

I would not have made such a wild decision as bringing home a stranger, were I in her position.

In fact, I would be happy to live alone if I had the money and means to do so.

But when the Galactic Matching Program opened, I realized it was the only way I could escape New Dro’thar II in my natural life.

Once the idea was put into my head of getting off our ship, of leaving behind the scrap metal and the dirty water and constant struggle, I couldn’t shake the thought.

I couldn’t bear an entire life lived in the dark underbelly of New Dro’thar II with UV lights glaring down from overhead in the few “sun” rooms. Even just this glimpse out the window at the port steals my attention.

What is beyond? As we flew in this morning, the landscape from overhead took my breath away. Earth is strange and yet lovely, covered in a green color I’ve never witnessed in such great quantities.

I wonder if you can eat it.

“Roth’kar,” Gazargo says, “it’s time to sign the agreement to the thirty-day trial period.”

Both Amara and I write our names on the tablet, and then it’s finished. I look forward to returning in thirty days and getting my official residency on Earth, so I can leave all this silliness behind me.

“Now, should anything come up, feel free to call.” Gazargo fishes around in his pocket, withdrawing a communicator, and passes it to me. “We believe that we’ve matched the two of you well, but should there be a problem, let us know. We would like to try to mediate before resorting to separation.”

I will give the human woman no reason to send me home. In fact, I could crush this communicator right now and that would solve the problem.

But I don’t. I give the little Frahma an appreciative nod and tuck it away.

“Dang,” says Amara under her breath. “I wanted a cool alien gadget.”

Then, suddenly, we are done, and it’s time for us to leave. For me to leave, with her, with this strange woman on this strange planet where I know none of the rules or customs.

Perhaps I should have studied humans a little before coming.

There was just too much to do to get ready to leave, too many people I had to say goodbye to.

I gave away what things I had left, rationing them out to those who needed them most, knowing I wouldn’t require them anymore once I arrived on Earth.

That’s the trade. Amara gets me, a “husband,” and I get a new home on a planet that hasn’t yet been consumed by greed—with all my needs taken care of.

A life I could never have imagined for myself before that short, stubby alien showed up on our spaceship with a monstrous voice projector that enforcers had to fight to take away from him.

He was so eagerly shouting about something called “Mexican food.”

I follow Amara out another door into the spaceport, trailing behind her as we cross the crescent-moon-shaped dock. Even if we wanted to speak, we couldn’t with the sound of engines roaring to life and ships arriving. But she does glance over her shoulder at me, shooting me an apologetic look.

“We’re over here!” she shouts, loud enough my translator can pick it up. I nod in understanding and keep pace with her, carrying my one mostly empty bag.

We duck through yet another door and emerge from the spaceport into a great field of black pavement. It’s littered with ground-traveling vehicles, which stops me short.

“Wheels?” I ask, amazed. “Your vehicles still have wheels?” So the humans haven’t even reached the point of hovercraft yet.

Amara appears perplexed. “Yes? What else would they have?”

I shake my head ruefully. I heard from friends that humans were not that advanced of a species, but I didn’t realize the full extent of it.

“They would fly, obviously. Or hover. Wheels require roads, which are a terrible waste of space.”

Amara gazes out at the sprawling parking lot, then taps her chin. “You’re not wrong about that.” She shrugs. “Oh well! No flying cars yet, so Toyota Corolla it is.”

“Toyo-tah… what?”

She gestures for me to follow, so I do, eager to get to where we’re going and perhaps have something to eat. They fed me during the journey, but it wasn’t enough. After the number of meals I’ve skipped in my life, I devoured everything.

I hope Amara is prepared for a Karthinian’s appetite. I hope that her food is better than kath , the protein bars we eat on New Dro’thar II .

We pass vehicle after vehicle until we reach a squat green one. Amara opens a door for me and gestures to get in, so I crouch and slide onto the gray fabric seat. Then she closes the door, locking me inside the small space.

She hops in on the other side and tosses her bag into the backseat carelessly. The vehicle’s engine groans as it starts. Amara shoots me a nervous smile, then backs out of her parking spot, glancing over her shoulder.

Though we’re navigating long stretches of pavement and creeping between tall buildings, all I can see is the sky . It’s a marvelous bright blue, with dots of white clouds occasionally drifting over the single sun.

Real sun, not just UV lamps. As we take a turn, it hits my skin, warming me to the bone, and I close my eyes to drink it in.

“So, Roth’kar,” Amara says, startling me. She nervously taps her steering wheel. “What are you most excited about on Earth?”

I stare at her. Most excited about? I am most excited about being on a planet, regardless of what planet it is. I am most excited about breathing fresh air. I am thrilled to have real earth under my feet.

Instead, I say, “The food.” That’s true enough. Karthinians and humans can digest the same types of proteins, so everything on this planet should be safe for me to eat. And if Amara is well-off enough in her society that she can bring an alien “husband” to her planet, she will have plenty of food.

“Oh?” Her thick brown eyebrows fly high on her forehead. Humans are so expressive, almost exaggeratedly so. When Amara smiles, it is a big, broad smile, the type of smile a Karthinian would save only for their closest loved ones. It’s blinding. “What foods in particular?”

I fidget in my seat. “They didn’t give me much information about Earth’s culinary, um, delights.”

Amara snaps one of her fingers. “They didn’t tell me anything, either! Like, I didn’t even know you were going to be a Karnathawan. ”

“Karthinian,” I correct her.

“See?” Her eyes travel to me, and I urge her silently to look back at the road. “If I had known, I would have practiced my introductions and stuff.”

I did know I was coming to Earth; I simply didn’t spend the time looking into what that meant. Would I have changed my mind if I’d been aware they only have wheeled vehicles?

“It’s not a problem,” I say as she turns the car through an intersection with enough velocity that I have to hold on to the door. Honks fill the air, and a tire screeches. “We have plenty of time to learn about one another.”

Right. I must assure her I’m in this for the long haul. I do not want to give her any reasons to end the trial. Once the thirty days are up and I am a permanent resident of Earth, then I will sort out the logistics.

“Aw, I like how you say that.” Amara smiles at me again as she takes her eyes off the front window of the vehicle. Surely we’re going to collide with another car. “You’re really all-in, huh?”

“Yes.” The lie burns my throat a little on the way out. I’m not a habitual liar, but I’ll do what I have to do to survive, as I always did in the Hole. “Though I would be more comfortable if you look where you are going, seeing as there is no autopilot in this vehicle.”

Agreeably, Amara turns back to the road. “Well, I have some food at home I can put together, or we can go out for dinner. But that might be a lot for you to take in on your first night.”

Perhaps seeing her home today is enough for now. I want to get an idea of our living arrangements.

We are officially “husband and wife,” and as a pair, I believe it’s expected that we will participate in sexual activities.

Once I have a moment alone, I plan to find a guide on my communicator to learn quickly what I need to learn.

Thanks to the Frahma, I’m aware that our species are compatible, but I know little more than that.

We cannot reproduce, though, given we are entirely different species. We are lucky to even have the same number of fingers.

“Eating at your home would be ideal,” I say. “It was a long trip today.”

“You’re all worn out, huh?” Amara gives me another beaming smile. This must be a human idiosyncrasy, to give intimate smiles out like they mean nothing.

I am frightened of what her frown might look like. Does she shoot laser beams from her eyes?

Eventually the buildings give way, growing shorter and shorter, until suddenly, great walls of green appear to either side of the road. We’re traveling fast now, along with many other wheeled vehicles. I’d have far greater anxiety about it if I weren’t completely entranced with the view.

“What is this?” I ask, reaching out as if I could touch all the green.

“Trees?” Amara giggles. “Those are trees.”

“They’re so… green.”

“Wait until we’re deeper into autumn. Then they all change color at once, right before the leaves fall off.”

I spin around in my seat. “Fall off?”

“Yes! The green stuff is the leaves on the trees. In the winter, the leaves change from green to yellow and orange, then they all die and fall off.”

I screw up my lips, disturbed by all this talk of dying among humans, and how it seems so common and regular to them that they would say until death do us part .

“The leaves grow back,” Amara assures me when she sees my face. I beg her silently to look at the road. “Every spring.”

“They die and regrow every year?” It seems laborious, when they could just grow once and leave it at that. “Why?”

Amara simply shrugs. “Who knows? That’s just the cycle of life.”

I sit back against the headrest, thinking this over. In my world, the cycle of life is to be born, to suffer for a while, and then to die. When you die, of course, you’re ejected from the ship without a pod. They stopped giving out pods a long time ago unless you’re one of the very wealthy.

Not even Earth is free of this inevitable destruction, I suppose. But at least it sounds beautiful on the way to death, and then there is this spring she mentioned, when it all comes back.

“I look forward to seeing it,” I tell her, attempting a version of a smile.

This seems to please her immensely. “Good. You’ll love it. And that time of year is Halloween?—”

“Halloween?” I repeat, trying to commit this to memory. The more I know and understand about Earth, the easier it’ll be for me to build a life here later.

“Oh, it’s the best holiday,” Amara says, brightening even more. This time she does, thankfully, keep her eyes on the road. “Everybody cuts open pumpkins and carves faces into them.”

I hope that a “pumpkin” is not an animal of some kind. My translator supplies some kind of large, awkward fruit.

“What do you do with these pumpkins? That seems like a waste.”

“You put a candle in the pumpkin and then set it on your porch, so at night, it glows! Then you can see the scary face. Or happy face. Or whatever you want it to be. Some people do, like, really amazing pictures.”

She talks so fast that even my translator has a hard time keeping up, blending her words together until all I can picture is a fruit covered in ominously grinning faces.

But something about her voice… settles me. I can sense that she’s nervous, but she appears to be a kind enough human and is enthusiastic about our future.

I think this will work in my favor.