There Will Be Aliens by Holly Day

Author:Holly Day
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2021-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Zenon’s skin was too tight. Carlo’s hand had burned a trail on his arm where he’d touched him, and his words were on repeat in his head.

“Are we changing the course?” Anek’s tone was even.

“No.”

“You changed the course.”

Zenon glanced down at the screen. He’d changed the course. Why had he changed the course? He corrected his mistake without comment when footsteps sounded behind him.

“Zen?”

“Grace.”

“Can I have a word?” Her gaze jumped to Anek and back to him. A word?

“Which word are you wondering about?”

She flashed her teeth in a quick but non-threatening way. “It’s an expression. I’ll ask Ghurva to add it to the translation program. I was asking if we could talk, the two of us.”

Zenon looked at Anek.

Anek gave him a nod. “You can go, I’ll take over until Brox gets here.”

Zenon got up to leave, then he remembered Carlo’s words about being polite. “Thank you.”

Anek turned in his chair and stared. Zenon ignored it.

“Can we go to the canteen, perhaps?” Grace didn’t show teeth now.

“Yes.” They could go wherever they wanted on the ship. They walked in silence and when they got to the canteen, it was empty.

Grace sat by a table and drummed her fingertips on the surface. “Are you angry with Carlo?”

Angry? Carlo would’ve known if he was angry. “No.”

“Are you…disgusted by him?”

It was a stupid question. Zenon didn’t reply.

“Carlo is gay. And I’m not saying straight men don’t like what he likes, but he…is gay. If that’s a problem on your planet, I don’t know…” She shrugged. “He’s not in danger, is he?”

Zenon wanted to roar. Was Carlo in danger? Who was he in danger from? “What do you mean?”

“You don’t punish queers or send them to correctional camps and shit, do you? If you do, we can’t come with you. Sorry. He told me, he’d told you about his…sex life.”

“No, he asked me what I liked.”

The flash of teeth was over too quickly. “And what do you like?”

He didn’t reply.

“I didn’t mean to ask.” She made one of those low laughs. “Carlo isn’t attracted to women, and he doesn’t have sex with them.”

Zenon nodded. “I don’t have sex with females either.”

Grace pushed forth her lips again. “Because you prefer sex with males?”

“Males don’t copulate with males. Males can’t have offspring together.” Could Earthling males have offspring? Zenon didn’t think so.

“No, I know. But they pleasure each other.” She blew out a breath. “Carlo is gay, which means he only has sex with other males.”

Pleasure? In Zenon’s experience, it wasn’t pleasurable at all. The Female decided if she wanted to have an offspring—which they seldom did—and triggered her reproduction cycle. When the time was right, she picked one or more strong males and stole their seed. Zenon didn’t enjoy having his seed forced out of him. He didn’t enjoy lying on his back and have a female hold him down and manipulate his body, but he’d done it for the good of the planet.

Some males did like it.

“Who holds down whom?” Even if

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