Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

JESSICA

I’ve run into twenty-nine problems as a xenobiologist on Earth, but the main one is that there are no round-trip tickets to Isia.

I can study any and all of the documentation and resources the science division of the Continental Security Service is willing to send my way, but I can’t get my hands on anything from the planet.

They won’t even consider exporting their impossible-to-photograph zurgles for pets. They are definitely not going to send me samples to help answer the biblical-length document of hypotheses I’ve come up with.

My contacts on Isia have all been Sian men. And they’ve only been helpful until they realize I’m not a silly little Earth girl, using science to flirt with them. Having to start over when they figure that out—despite my telling them at the onset—has been a constant frustration.

I’m running out of competent people I can talk to who haven’t already assumed I’m on the call for their handsome faces… and the potential of what isn’t in the camera frame.

The human man calling me right now, though, has no illusions about what I want.

At least, he shouldn’t. He’s fielded a dozen proposals for specimen requests, trade grants… all of which the Isian government has categorically shot down.

“You’ve got it.” Dr. Hastings gruff words make me bristle.

“I’ve got what?” The last thing I requested was having my TA reprimanded for the way she was treating certain students.

Or maybe they were finally going to fix the water damage that had warped the ceiling drywall in ugly rings twenty years ago .

The dean doesn’t actually look at me. He doesn’t even answer my question.

“The ship leaves in two hours.”

Ship? Ship !

I take a deep breath to calm my racing heart. They’ve always said no. This is something different.

Maybe he thinks he called Dr. Jessica Corbin in the marine biology department instead. “What ship, Marcus?”

He flinches at the sound of his first name—which is why I used it—and his eyes narrow at me. “You’re going to Isia. I’ve sent over the requirements, what you’re allowed to take with you, and a contract we’ll need you to sign.”

I stare at him in shock and don’t hear anything else he says, nodding when I think he needs input.

He disconnects the call with a terse goodbye and a muttered good luck. I stare at my reflection in the black screen for a few moments before the screensaver switches to my favorite painting.

“I need to pack.” The words are hollow as they linger in the silence of my home office—the tiny alcove off the side of my apartment kitchen that was intended for a dining table.

“Holy shit.” I stand up too fast and the chair scrapes across the linoleum. “I need to pack!”

“What did you say?” Chrys calls from the room she moved into last month, but I ignore her as I pull up the email with the packing requirements and restrictions.

I don’t love the bold red line of text that’s underlined: LAB EQUIPMENT WILL BE PROVIDED FOR YOU .

There’s another line that says I can’t bring any Earth tech with me… which means I’m going to have to figure out how to remake some of it from whatever they have on their planet.

“They probably have what you’ve made on a shelf in the grocery store.” I mutter the words under my breath.

Everyone knows that the tech on Isia is more advanced than our own. Hell, half the time I asked for information analysis from one of their scientists, they sent me three decades old research.

Honestly… I’m not sure any of their scientists have done actual biological research on their species since the female portion of their population was all but wiped out.

I take a deep breath and shove that thought down into the very back of my mind. That is me being bitter, not rational.

But I print the documents out, since I’ll lose access to the digital versions as soon as I get on the ship anyway.

I flip through the still warm pages as I head for my bedroom.

Line four on the broad clothing requirements checklist gives me pause. “Cold weather gear?”

I don’t know what part of the planet they’re sending me to.

I should have asked.

There are so many things I should have asked.

Abandoning the packing list, I open the brief and start to read as I haul out the two suitcases I’m allowed to take with me.

Three months! Holy cow.

That is more than I thought they would have given me. I glance at my calendar. Well, at least I might get to celebrate Laurel’s birthday with her this year, and I’ll get to meet my nibling.

Opening my dresser, I scoop everything out of the drawer and toss it on the bed.

“Chrys!” I call through my open bedroom doorway as I dig in the closet for the jacket I wore snowboarding once—before I realized how much I hate snow-based sports—and when I turn to throw it onto the bed, my baby sister is there.

“Um… are you going on the run or something?” Chrys asks.

Her ice-blonde hair is up in two space buns with metallic streamers fluttering from them, and she’s in a leotard that looks like it’s straight out of a seventies psychedelic b-movie.

“They’re letting me go to Isia!”

“No!” The disbelief in her voice is real, but she hurries to the other side of the bed and starts folding the messy pile. “I thought you said there was no chance.”

I said it was a one in a trillion chance, but she’s right. It’s impossible, and yet…

“Right now, I’m just counting my blessings and getting myself to the spaceport on time.”

“How much is it going to cost you?”

“Won’t know until I get the bill.” Because this is not a free trip. We both know that.

Together, we manage to get through the rest of the list. The restrictions list is fairly small, so I do slip in one of my gadgets. If they make me surrender it, I can always get it back when I come home, or make a new one.

“Oh!” Chrys runs from the room, returning a minute later with a package wrapped in hot pink paper with an even brighter bow. “You can deliver this to my niece. Save me the postage.”

“We don’t know that it’s a girl.”

“It’s called manifesting.” She winks at me. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride to the spaceport. My instructor can yell at me for being late. I’ll just dance circles around him again.”

“Careful. He’ll take away the net if you’re too mean.”

“No he won’t. If I fall, it’s bad press.” She extends one of the handles of my suitcase and pulls it out into the hallway.

I grab the other. “What am I missing?”

Chrys looks me over. “Nothing… except that those are my pants.”

I look down, staring at the mustard-colored denim. She wouldn’t wear a color this muted if someone paid her.

“No they are not.”

“Just messing with you. You’re good. You’ve got this. If there was anyone in the world I’d trust to send off into the stars to study unknown and potentially hostile creatures… well, it wouldn’t be you. But that’s just because I want you safe.”

I huff a breath instead of laughing.

“But Isia’s safe. There’s like… no danger there.” She pulls on a maxi-skirt over the leotard and heads for the front door. “Laurel would have told us if there was something scary, right?”

That makes me hesitate.

Because, no. No, she definitely would not have.

Our middle sister doesn’t lie to us, but she would also never tell us something that might get back to Mom that could result in a conversation that starts with I told you so .

“Let’s hope so.”

Two bags and my purse stuffed into a carry-on in her car later, Chrys turns to me in the driver’s seat. “You’re sure you’re good to go?”

“Do you think I forgot something?”

“I’m not talking about packing. You’ve got everything you need back there.” She takes a deep breath. “You’re going to be gone for three months, Jess. That’s a lot and you’ve had like no time to prepare, mentally.”

She does look genuinely concerned. Because she’s the one who jumps into things. Laurel seems like she jumps into things, but that’s just because she doesn’t tell anyone when she’s been planning things for months—if not years. And Chrys is right.

I don’t jump.

I’m not silent.

“If I don’t take this opportunity, another one may never come around again and I would regret it for the rest of my life. So, yeah… I’m not ready. But this time, I don’t have the chance to get ready.”

Chrys nods. “Okay then. Let’s get you across the universe!”

She drives me to the spaceport, drops me at the curb and waves a cheery goodbye.

She has more faith than I do.

But the man I’m supposed to meet is here. He takes me through a special set of doors that completely bypass the Agency admittance desks and security screenings.

“Dean Hastings asked me to remind you that you’re representing the university and not to do anything that would embarrass us.”

I nod, trying to remember if I’ve ever met this man before. He didn’t introduce himself and in the end, he doesn’t matter, so I don’t ask.

They scan my bag and take my batteries, leaving my mini spectrometer useless. It’s just extra weight in my bag until I get home.

The man doesn’t pass through security with me. He hands me off to an Agency rep who looks at me cautiously. “Please do not mention to the others on this flight that you are not going to be bonded.”

“Of course.”

I don’t belong here. She knows it.

The other women don’t.

They’re excited. Some are scared, but they’re all headed to the same place I am. Just for different reasons.

There are only twelve of us waiting to board the ship. The Agency recruitment hasn’t had a real increase in their numbers in years. That’s probably part of the second half of my requirements.

I scan the document again. The study of Isia biological fauna, including, but not limited to cavrinskh—whatever those are—zurgles, and Sian physiology.

I reread that line a few times and wonder if that’s where the cost is going to come in when I get back; I’m going to have to go to Agency promotional events and give first-hand accounts of what Sian men are like, physiologically.

I pinch my nose to keep from laughing, because all I can think of is standing in front of a room full of curious women holding my hands in a way to illustrate girth.

Because that’s what the other eleven women are here for: an alien cock.

Okay, that’s uncharitable.

I’m certain Laurel didn’t go to Isia because of some fetish. Though a few of these women might be headed across two galaxies for that exact reason, I have to hope that most of them aren’t.

A woman sitting a few feet away from me keeps peeking at an image of her mate. There’s a message written beneath it and I watch her lips move each time she reads it. I don’t know what it says and I don’t plan on trying to find out, but she blushes before she locks the screen each time. She looks like she might already be in love… the soft kind that always feels like it’s going to last.

The boarding lights flicker and flash and two of the women jump to their feet with little squeals of delight as they grab their carry-ons and hurry to be first in line.

I let them all go ahead of me. My excitement feels so different from theirs… somehow less genuine.

But we’re not so different.

Agency placement takes months, if not longer. They’ve probably spent years learning one of the Sian dialects. And some of them probably chose their whole professional trajectory with the understanding they’d have to be able to carry it over to a different planet.

They’ve also done a lot of work to be here. They have intense plans too. And they definitely plan to study anatomy, even if it’s not in as clinical of a way as I do.

The same Agency woman checks me in and glances cautiously in to where the others are. “Good luck and… be safe.”

I want to ask her why there’s a note of concern in her voice, but she walks away before I can fully process that it’s there.

The door closes, and I hear the locks thunk into place before I join the others.

The space inside the ship tickles my brain, not because it looks alien, but because it looks so normal.

Like the “living room” in a boutique hotel, it has plenty of couches and chairs, and there’s a complimentary food selection as well as an automated barista/bartender.

One of the women has already ordered a round of champagne. Offering glasses to all of us with the reminder, “This may be the last drink you have!” She chuckles as she hands one off to me and turns to the woman beside me. “My best friend was matched last year. She told me her mate didn’t even close the front door before he’d gotten her pants off and plowed her into the tiles.”

I’m very glad when she moves on to relay more of her stories to other soon-to-be alien mail-order brides.

I’m happy for them. Honestly. But I don’t get to be plowed.

I blink, all my focus on the bubbles in the coupe glass in my hand.

Are Sian men sexy? Yes. Would I like to know what it’s like? Also yes.

Have I dreamed about it?

I chew on my lip and find my way over to one of the singular chairs that haven’t been taken.

It might be the most comfortable thing I’ve ever sat in.

I check the cushions for some kind of belt, but there aren’t any.

There’s nothing in this room that makes me think they’ve taken any precautions for the fact that we’ll shortly be punching through the Earth’s atmosphere and hurtling across two galaxies.

That makes me jittery and I finish the rest of my champagne in a single gulp. I feel the brief loss of gravity as I go to the automated bar and get a cup of coffee. It’s so momentary, I don’t know if any of the others notice. Their drinks don’t float out of their glasses and come crashing down, and they’re all wrapped up in conversations.

It’s probably better that way.

Tucking myself back in my chair, I try not to feel self-conscious that I’m being anti-social.

But making friends with these women feels like a waste of their time. In three months, I’ll be back on this ship, heading home.

With my notebook in my lap and my pen firmly gripped in my hand, no one comes over to bother me.

We’re two hours into the flight before I realize I didn’t sign the university’s contract.

“Oops.”