Kiera's Moon Read online

“Come on. I’ll tell you about Romas and where we’re going.”

  *

  Kiera’s tears stopped sometime during the hours of explanation and history lessons Evelyn gave. She heard very little of any of them but somehow managed to nod when required and even respond with words her shocked mind did not hear or understand. She sat very still on the dark grey bed, her legs folded and hands in her lap, and stared at Evelyn.

  She wondered if she had died, for she seemed able to see the conversation occurring from a dozen feet away, as if she were watching television instead of involved in it. She nodded and accepted Evelyn’s far-fetched explanations just as she might nod and temporarily accept the equally unreal world of Star Wars. When the movie was over, she would smile, get up, and go home.

  But this movie had no end. The world around her was real. And it was uglier than she imagined a spaceship to be. There was dark grey and sterility in the absence of anything remotely friendly, homey, or welcoming. A yellowish glow emitted from some unseen light source in the grey walls reminded her of a late winter afternoon that never ended.

  Kiera wasn’t watching Star Wars but living it. The only thing that seemed to click was Evelyn’s insistence that there were no spiders. Yet she’d seen the most incredibly huge spider dangling over her head when she awoke. It even slapped her with one of its long legs. She shuddered and asked again, “Are there more spiders on the planet?”

  Evelyn looked defeated, and Kiera expected she had already covered the subject exhaustively.

  “That was a cat, not a spider.”

  “It had eight legs,” Kiera insisted.

  “It has six legs.”

  “It’s still more than four. Cats have four legs.”

  “Kiera!” Evelyn snapped. “It’s their version of a cat!”

  “Does their version of a dog have eight legs?”

  “No! They don’t have dogs, and it only has six legs!”

  “What does? The dog?”

  “The cat!”

  “What else has more than four legs?” Kiera pressed.

  “My God, Kiera!” Evelyn sighed and rubbed her face. “You want Romas to come in here and explain things?”

  “I want to go home,” Kiera replied.

  “This will be better than home,” Evelyn promised. “And I’ll be with you. So will Romas. You needn’t worry about anything. Besides, you said you’d stay at least a week, right?”

  “And the cats?”

  “The cats … they’re domesticated and really very nice.”

  “Are there other creatures with more than four legs?”

  “I really, really don’t know.” Evelyn shook her head. “Can you think of anything else but spiders?”

  “Is there air on your planet?” Before Evelyn could answer, another thought occurred to Kiera. “Are you an alien, too?”

  “No, no, no! I was born in Mississippi. I swear it to you, Kiera. I wouldn’t lie to you about anything like that.”

  “Just keep it from me until I awaken on a spaceship?” she retorted.

  “I asked you if you wanted to come,” Evelyn reminded her.

  “I said no!”

  “You said you’d think about it.”

  “You didn’t tell me where we were going!” she said, incredulous.

  “It’s far away, like I said!” Evelyn said somewhat defensively.

  “Omigod! It’s so not just far away!” Kiera replied. “And women don’t have any rights where Romas is from. He said as much! So I’m going to be stuck on a planet far away without a bus ticket home surrounded by spiders the size of basketballs and being bossed around by Neanderthal barbarians who forbid me to talk and lock me in the bathroom!”

  “You’re adorable even when you’re so upset!” Evelyn grinned. Kiera’s chest clenched as she began crying again. Evelyn threw her arms around her and hugged her, chuckling. “You’ll be okay, K-K. You’ll see.”

  Kiera squeezed her back, feeling very, very lost. She forced herself to withdraw from the surreal world and let herself go numb. After all, when she finally awoke from this nightmare, all would be back to normal, and she would have new inspiration for her paintings. She kept telling herself she’d wake up from this wacky dream soon.

  Six days passed on the ship. She awoke six more times willing the nightmare to be over. On the seventh morning— if there were such a thing in space— she lay in bed and stared at the dark grey ceiling. The world was becoming more real as the days passed. She’d avoided the galley Evelyn had tried for three days to drag her to and said it would prove they were on a ship after she challenged Evelyn to prove it wasn’t a dream.

  She sat and crossed her legs, thoughtful. She didn’t feel quite as traumatized today. In fact, she felt angry, and she wanted to see the galley to confirm this all wasn’t an elaborate hallucination. She tucked in her shirt in the way Evelyn had told her was customary. She liked the space clothing. It was comfortable, like wearing pajamas all day long. All she had to do was choose the color she wanted to wear— black for the past several days in silent objection to her presence aboard the ship— and the ship’s computer wove it for her.

  At least, that was her version. Romas had attempted once to explain the clothing was not woven aboard the ship but created on his home planet, molecularly broken into invisible pieces and stored somewhere aboard the ship.

  She didn’t understand. It was safer for her to imagine someone sitting just behind her wall weaving clothing and sending it to her or anyone else as they requested. It made the clothing unit much less intimidating than Romas’s lecture on matter and antimatter and how to store the two successfully without blowing up something.

  The parts of the room were well hidden. It had taken her two days to work up the courage to walk alone into what appeared to be the rear wall but was really a mirage disguising a grey bathroom with a clothing unit in the corner. She closed her eyes as she stepped into and through the wall and opened them after two steps. A waist-high bathtub and a round disc serving as an alien toilet, also waist-high, were on one wall. If she asked, a mirror would appear on the opposite wall.

  “Teal,” she said to the clothing unit.

  There was no other purr aside from the constant, low hum similar to the hum surrounding electric wires. A flicker of light, and the clothing appeared on a slate grey slab serving as a bench near the door.

  She changed into the comfortable clothing. She stood spread-eagle until it shrank to fit her, shuddered at the creepy sensation of life-like silk caressing her skin, and hurried out of the bathroom.

  She held her forearm out to the door as she approached, glancing again at the gold band around her wrist that Romas had emphasized she needed to wear at all the times. For once, she hadn’t corrected his English, only nodded once more and held out her arm for the bracelet. What had appeared to be a thick, gold, hard band of about three inches in width had molded around her arm and felt no heavier than the clothing she wore. It was flexible and moved with her when she tested it by flexing or releasing her forearm muscles.

  Romas had felt no need to explain his insistence of her wearing it, but Evelyn had explained it acted as a visual identifying piece and also happened to open all the doors on the ship.

  All the doors.

  It made her mind leap until she recalled she was supposedly on a spaceship. She couldn’t order the exit door open and walk home. And if there were more of those monstrous spiders on board, she probably did not want to wander around opening doors at random.

  Except for today. Today she wanted to see the window to space in the galley Evelyn wanted her to see.

  She placed a dark grey device the size of a small button on her earlobe like an earring. It stuck, but she forced herself not to ask why. It was allegedly her translator and emitted a low-level hum similar to the walls. Without it, the ship wouldn’t understand her outside of her room. She exited and touched the wall of one corridor.

  “Main galley,” she said.

  A trickle of lights lit
up on the wall to her right. She followed. Several of what Evelyn had called warriors passed her in the hall. She thought she recognized one or two from the men who had accompanied Romas to the wedding.

  Evelyn’s many history lessons had covered the strange kin of Romas’s, explaining they weren’t the cousins Romas claimed them to be at the wedding. They weren’t relatives at all, but members of Romas’s army. Kiera had nodded as was expected while wondering what the hell Evelyn drank to make all this seem reasonable.

  Romas’s clan was very large and his father’s influence the greatest on the planet of Qatwal. The race of warriors was ancient, dating back a hundred millennia. Their planet had been a barbarian planet, until the Five Galaxies zone, in which Qatwal sat in the middle, was discovered by a master race of super-genius aliens Evelyn referred to as the Brains. The Brains set up the Planetary Council— the alien version of the United Nations— several generations before to mediate between the warring planets within the Five Galaxies. The Brains also brought technological advancement that—

  A massive man passed her in the hall, and she stopped mid-thought to stare at him as he walked away. All the men on Romas’s planet were larger than those on hers. She believed Evelyn’s tale of a race of people bred for war. The man she just passed was a foot taller than Romas and one and a half times as wide. She felt dwarfed whenever she crossed one of the men aboard the ship.

  When he disappeared around the corner, she returned to her thoughts and following the lights. There were still wars, Evelyn had confided, even though it was frowned upon by the Council.

  Another giant of a man passed her, and she shook her head, amazed. The warriors never spoke or even gave her more than a passing glance. She continued down the hall, watching the lights. They stopped a short time later and surrounded a metal door. She waved her arm band, and the door opened. The room she stepped into was triangular shaped, consisting of a wall of angled windows, small tables against the other wall, and round seats facing the windows. The galley was occupied by three hulking men at a table.

  She gazed out the windows, unease making her stomach churn. She couldn’t help feeling disappointed; space looked no different than it had when she was lying on the roof of Evelyn’s house. She expected real space to look closer if nothing else.

  Which way was home? She didn’t see any glowing blue planets. She sat in one of the chairs and slid down in it until her head rested against the back. They seemed to be moving very slowly for being on a spaceship, she mused.

  “I thought you would come here eventually.” Evelyn’s voice was soft. Kiera grunted without turning. Evelyn slid into the chair beside her. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t make sense of things,” Kiera said.

  “You overanalyze things. Don’t try, just accept,” Evelyn advised.

  “Is that what you did?” Kiera glanced at her.

  “Don’t give this blonde the credit for thinking too deeply.”

  The three warriors at the table relocated several chairs down.

  “Take off your earpiece,” Evelyn whispered. Kiera did so and set it carefully on her knee. It would blend in with everything around her if she dropped it.

  “Neat little things,” Evelyn said with some excitement as she placed hers on the chair’s slender arm. “I see you’re not wearing black today.”

  “Too depressed,” Kiera said. “Needed some color.”

  “Don’t think they like not knowing what we’re saying,” she said with some satisfaction. “Romas isn’t bad, but I can imagine most of these guys have a bit too much testosterone.”

  “Romas has too much testosterone,” Kiera retorted. “I bet this was his idea, wasn’t it? Dragging me away from home?”

  “No, it was mostly mine,” she said. “He agreed you needed a real life, though.”

  “That’s bad enough.”

  “You’ll be fascinating to his people,” Evelyn continued. “You’re what they might call petite.”

  “Petite?” Kiera echoed with a raised eyebrow. “I’ve never been called petite in my life! I’m of above average height by an inch and above average weight by ten pounds.”

  “The women there are grown bigger, too,” Evelyn explained. “Like me.”

  “Omigod. So I’m going to a planet of models and body builders,” Kiera said. “I’ll be the rotund brunette no one wants to talk to!”

  “Stop! Romas said you’re being a five-year-old, and I agree! They like you Kiera,” Evelyn said, and raised her chin toward the warriors near them. “The one who saved you from the cat asked Romas on the spot to marry you.”

  Kiera gave an unladylike snort. “I’m sure Romas told him he wouldn’t want to deal with my fiery tongue. That’s absurd, Evelyn.”

  “Well, they’re different, hon,” Evelyn said with some frustration. “I have the feeling we’ll both stick out.”

  Kiera glanced at her, hearing the nervousness for the first time.

  “Are you worried about … things?” she queried. “Other than being on a spaceship with aliens and super-tarantulas?”

  “Yeah. The usual, I guess. Meeting his parents, them accepting me, fitting in with the new place, you know.”

  “You’ll do great, Evelyn,” Kiera said. “You’re perfect, brilliant, and beautiful. Rum-ass thinks so, and so do I. There’s no way they won’t be bowled over by you.”

  “That’s sweet, K-K,” Evelyn answered.

  “If not, we can steal a spaceship and go home,” Kiera added under her breath.

  Evelyn giggled. “Not if Romas hooks you up with one of his brothers.” She grinned. “You’ll get to meet them all when we land tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Kiera echoed.

  “Their traditions are a little different.” Evelyn gave her a sidelong look. “You may not have much control over some things.”

  “I think I’m already experiencing that.”

  “Yeah … “ Evelyn said, and hesitated before continuing. “You might not have a choice in what man decides … to like you or propose or something.”

  “What?”

  “You know. Think of it as a tribal warrior society that’s kinda backwards or antiquated in its customs.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “You’re a guest of Romas right now, but if he decides to put you on the market, so to speak, pretty much anyone can … um … claim you as a … you know, a bride.”

  “But I’m going home,” Kiera said blankly.

  “Well, I’ll talk to him,” Evelyn said, and rushed into a new subject. “Isn’t this an awesome view?”

  Kiera looked at her, attempting to decipher her warning. It sounded very much like Evelyn was trying to tell her Romas could marry her off at his will when he pleased. The idea was absurd, even for someone as chauvinistic as Romas. Her instincts didn’t like Evelyn’s nonchalance on the subject.

  “Yeah, nice view,” she murmured. “Do they have anything unusual, like four moons?”

  “There are two moons and two suns, but the suns are so close together, you can’t tell,” Evelyn said. “The standard day is longer than ours, about thirty hours instead of twenty-four, with that divided evenly between day and night.”

  “Have you been there before?” Kiera asked.

  “No. I’ve been interrogating Romas for about two months now,” Evelyn admitted with a smile. “They have green grass, oceans, and blue sky just like us.”

  “Is the sun yellow?”

  “Yes, Kiera!”

  “So the only difference is their animals and the size of their people,” Kiera said.

  “Pretty much.”

  She shifted in her chair. She had many more questions, but the more she asked, the less she could deny the world around her was real. Tomorrow she would meet Romas’s alien-brothers and parents. Or maybe, just maybe, tomorrow morning she would finally wake up.

  They sat for a while before she felt a familiar sense of anxiety at the reality of her situation. She wandered back to the safet
y of her room, wanting paper and pencils, her favorite jeans … anything familiar to comfort her. She lay on the bed as she had for several days already, sick of the jerky-like food Evelyn brought her.

  She couldn’t sleep, even when the computer turned her lights out in the only sign it was bedtime. She spent the night waiting for the nightmare world to end and dressed the next morning with an undertaker’s solemnity. Soon after, a warrior came to her door and led her down several halls and into a tiny box resembling an elevator. Unlike an elevator, it didn’t appear to move. She felt silly standing in it with the three warrior strangers around her, waiting for something to happen that never did. When the doors opened, she realized everything had changed. For one, she was no longer faced with dark grey. For two, it was not just Romas and Evelyn before her.

  There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of cheerfully clothed giants and models lining a petal-strewn pathway. Brilliant sunlight blinded her after days of grey, and she blinked at the bright, familiar blue sky.

  It was morning. She smelled dew. A light, warm breeze brushed her cheek. The sensations made her want to cry. Relieved, she focused on the blue skies, yellow suns, and thick emerald grass that reminded her of pictures from a tour book of Ireland. She felt more grounded as she stepped out of the horrible grey elevator onto a thick carpet of green. She was no longer confined in purgatory, afloat in space. She avoided turning around to see what must have been a hulking grey mass of metal spaceship.

  One of the warriors flanking her nudged her forward. Romas and Evelyn were already several dozen feet down the flowered path. Evelyn appeared serene and perfect, as usual. Romas was detached and unreadable, the supreme warrior prince.

  Kiera stepped forward, eager to reach Evelyn. Her friend hadn’t been joking about her being considered petite and unique. She didn’t see one woman under six feet tall or any man who didn’t tower over six feet. Romas’s people were fair skinned with light hair in varying shades of blond and red. She saw a full range of eye colors, though she noticed with some interest that blue or green eyes were unnaturally clear— unlike her Mediterranean, green-blue-grey gaze.

  She took in their bright clothing, glad she thought to wear light blue today. Any darker color, and she would stand out even more.