Lesson 8 Sulking Studies

Iavoided him for the next three days, ghosting through the spaceship, hurrying in the opposite direction every time I heard him approach. Every few hours, a meal would automatically appear on the table in my little room. The AI learned what I liked with every dish and repeated only the ones I"d enjoyed. All of the meals were alien and I never quite knew what I was eating. Sometimes I wasn"t even sure if it was meat or vegetables.

My room was small, with every inch of space used efficiently. The bed disappeared into the wall every morning and instead, a table and a comfy chair rose from the floor. I never figured out how that technology worked. When the bed was there, the floor was seamless, yet the other furniture had to come from somewhere. In one corner, a toilet magically grew out of the wall whenever I told the ship that I needed the loo. It had taken me a way to get used to peeing in a plastic beaker attached to a pipe that started to suck as soon as I held it to... certain body parts. I supposed it would also work if we lost the artificial gravity, but it was still weird. Instead of washing my hands in a sink, I pressed them on a blue spot on the wall and turquoise mist would envelop them, leaving my skin refreshed and smelling of violets. Still, I didn"t like that my bedroom was also my bathroom. Efficient, yes, but not how I wanted to live long-term. I would have liked to ask Bruin how long we"d travel on the Xylope, but that would have meant talking to him. No, thanks. I preferred to be on my own.

Another thing I didn"t like was that the bed didn"t have a duvet or even a blanket. The mattress was warm, the perfect temperature actually, but I missed having something to wrap around me for comfort. I slept in my tour guide uniform the first night, but when I woke up in the morning - or at least I assumed it was morning, it was hard to tell without daylight - a stack of clothes was waiting for me on the end of my bed. I wasn"t sure if Bruin or the ship"s AI had provided them. After finding some very lacy lingerie among the stack, I hoped it was the AI.

After three days, I started to smell, so I asked the ship to show me to a shower. Light strips appeared on the floor, guiding me to a door at the end of the corridor. I could swear it hadn"t existed before. I"d explored the entire ship and snooped into every room. This one was completely empty save for three narrow shelves attached to one wall. No, they were part of the wall and I bet they could be sucked in like the other furniture. The door slid closed behind me. The ceiling glowed dimly, making it feel like a cosy cave.

Assuming that water would somehow spurt from the ceiling without the need for a shower head or faucet, I took off my clothes and placed them on the shelves.I stood in the centre of the room and waited, but nothing happened. Stretching out my arms, I waved, just in case there was a motion sensor. Nothing.

"Andromeda, start the shower."

Still no water. I was about to get dressed again when a thick white fog streamed from unseen holes in the walls, covering the floor in an instant. When it reached my feet, I jumped, surprised by how warm and wet the fog felt. That had to be the alternative to a shower – unless Bruin had programmed the room to suffocate me. Unlikely. Despite everything, I'd come to believe that his heart was in the right place. If he even had a heart. I shouldn't assume that his anatomy matched mine.

The fog rose quickly, but stopped when it wavered around my shoulders. I rubbed my hands over my skin, although that was probably unnecessary. I squeezed my eyes shut and bent down to get my hair fully immersed in the warm fog. My hair turned wet instantly, sticking to my skin. I ran a hand through it. So smooth. The fog had no scent, but there had to be some kind of soap contained within.

After a minute or two, just when I wondered what I was supposed to do next, the fog slowly dissipated. For a fraction of a second, the air turned hot, but then the temperature returned to normal. My hair no longer felt as heavy. I held up a strand. Dry and shiny. Perfect. Fastest hair dryer ever. I could get used to that.

In the following days, I had a shower every morning, then went to say hello to An'tia. The unicorn got less intimidating with each visit. I even polished her horn when she begged for it. She pointed at whatever brush or cloth she wanted me to use, then left me to figure out where she liked it the most. I quickly discovered her favourite spot to scratch was between her ears and along her belly.

And still, I avoided Bruin. I assumed he was keeping an eye on me electronically, even though I'd been unable to spot any cameras. He gave me the space I needed, but at the same time, I felt like this was only the calm before the storm. Eventually, I'd have to talk to him again. And find a way to persuade him that I had to return to Earth.

After about a week, I decided that I'd sulked long enough. I needed to face my fears – or in this case, Bruin.

I foundhim on the bridge, lost in thought. He didn't notice me enter. The darkness of space loomed outside. I'd avoided looking at space until now. I didn't want to be reminded how far from home I was. Besides, the emptiness outside the ship was frightening. I couldn't wrap my mind around how we were floating through empty space, the only lifeforms in this part of the universe.

"What's the nearest planet?" I asked, startling Bruin.

He jumped off his chair and swirled around to face me. "VX9821, but it's an uninhabited gas giant. The closest inhabited planet is Quendrin, about two lightyears away. It's on the Galactic Council's banned list of planets, however, so it cannot be visited until the local sentient species is more evolved." He gave me a cautious smile, as if worried how I'd react. "Your planet was on the same list until recently. Even now, only research ships are allowed to breach the atmosphere."

I swallowed a harsh remark that even research ships shouldn't be allowed to abduct humans. I'd come here intending to stay civil and get some answers. A week's worth of questions was waiting to be asked.

I flopped down in one of the smaller chairs. Bruin visibly relaxed when he saw that I wasn't going to scream at him again.

"How are you feeling?" he asked after a while. "Any more strange laughing episodes?"

"You would have seen them."

He didn't deny it, confirming that he'd indeed been watching me.

I sighed. "Well, besides being abducted from my home, I'm okay. But how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

I pointed at the dome above us. "Look at space. It's so…lonely."

"The first time I left my planet, I found it frightening, too," he admitted. "My sire didn't understand. He told me to suck it up and be strong. So I pretended to be alright with it, but inside, I continued to be scared."

"When did it change?"

He looked me right in the eyes. "The moment you joined me on board the Xylope. Until then, I'd felt alone every time I travelled through space. Even when surrounded by other travellers or my sire, the loneliness didn't go away. I think it's the absence of light out there. It feels like you're the only person in-"

"All of space," I finished the sentence for him.

"Exactly. But with you, it's different. Now I can look out into space and enjoy the view. I know I'm no longer alone."

His words both touched me and made me uncomfortable at the same time. He didn't even know me. We were strangers, no matter what he'd said about soulmates.

Bruin sat down again and we stayed quiet for a while. It was a comfortable silence as we both looked at the stars sparkling in the darkness. Tiny spots of hope in a sea of despair. That's how they'd seemed to me yesterday. And now? I wasn't so sure anymore.

"How much further is it to your planet?" I asked eventually.

"Sixteen IG days. That's eighteen Peritan days, if I'm not mistaken."

"How long is an IG day?"

"Twenty-seven of your hours. You're one of the lucky planets where the difference isn't all that big. The conversion is a lot more complicated for other alien species."

He did something with his wristwatch and a star map appeared on one of the screens. A dot flickered in a particularly empty spot.

"That's us," Bruin explained. "And this is our route."

A dashed line materialised on the map.

"Why isn't it a straight line?" I asked. "This doesn't look like the fastest route."

"There are planets in the way. Because of their gravitational fields, we have to circle around them. And there will be asteroid fields, space debris and other obstacles. The AI has selected the best route for us and it's rarely wrong."

"Rarely?"

"Never."

"Then why did you say rarely?"

He shot me a sheepish look. "My sire's bad influence. He believes there's an exception to everything. And he sees me as living proof for that."

His smile disappeared as a shadow crossed his face.

"Why?" I asked.

"I suppose you need to know. I was not born in the conventional way. My sire doesn't have a mate, but he desired to have an heir, so he had me created. I'm his clone."

It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. A clone. He didn't have a mother. Instead of shock, all I felt for him was pity.

"I'm sorry," I said and meant it. "It can't have been easy to grow up without a mum."

He looked at me in surprise. "You're not repulsed? Do you understand what I am? I was created in a lab. It has become more commonplace now, but it's still not fully accepted on Allopo. There are some Ferven cultists who believe clones don't have a soul."

"Do you think you have one?"

Bruin didn't hesitate. "Yes. Sometimes I think I have more of a soul than my sire. He's a brilliant male when it comes to his work, but he wasn't a good sire. Nor is he particularly nice to his colleagues. Come to think of it, I doubt there's anyone he likes."

"He doesn't sound very pleasant," I said.

"He isn't. I hope you won't think badly of me when you meet him. I might be his clone, but I'm nothing like my sire. It's why he thinks I'm a failed clone. I should be his identical copy, but somewhere along the line, I got my own personality. I look like him, though."

I supposed seeing his father would be like looking into Bruin's future. How did Xervens age? He didn't have any hair that could go grey and I couldn't imagine wrinkles or liver spots on his smooth purple skin.

"Speaking of my father," Bruin continued, "I need to ask you the questions he sent me. He's been reminding me every day, but I wanted to give you some time."

I was grateful, even though that didn't mean I'd forgiven him for abducting me. Nor had I given up on finding a way home. For now, it was no use fighting Bruin. He'd made it clear that he wouldn't change the ship's course. But maybe once he realised that we weren't actually mates, he'd let me go. And if he didn't realise that on his own, I'd have to force him.