Chapter 3

Zeke woke the next morning and discovered the lights were already on, probably the light had woken him up. He was in the same position as when he had gone to sleep. Sori was still curled up on top of him, but had shifted position during the night and was now resting peacefully under the covers on the left side of Zeke's chest, with Zeke's arm draped loosely around her.

What an experience, thought Zeke. Just yesterday he was an average college student; today he was going to become a defender of the galaxy, and had spent the night making love to a cute little alien named Sori.

The door opened and Walter walked in.

"You'll never guess..." started Walter.

Walter froze, speechless, his mouth hanging open. Finally, Walter found his voice, "No way."

Zeke made shushing motions, pointing to the sleeping Sori.

"You didn't," stammered Walter, "Zeke, tell me you didn't."

Zeke pointed to the door. Walter finally got the hint and left, looking back in disbelief.

Zeke lightly stroked the hair on Sori's head.

The look on Walter's face had been something else. As interested in aliens as Walter was, Zeke would have never figured him for a xenophobe. Well, Walter would get over it, like he had gotten over his fear of Mvek after their first encounter.

Sori wiggled a bit, waking up, then crawled further up on Zeke's chest, so her face was directly above Zeke's face. She looked into his eyes for a bit, then blew softly into Zeke's nose. Zeke blew back at her and ran his fingers teasingly down her spine.

Sori stopped blowing on Zeke's nose and climbed out of bed. She grabbed her clothes and headed towards the toilet cubicle. Shortly, she came out and entered the bath cubicle.

Zeke took the opportunity to use the toilet cubicle himself and remembered Walter's advice from last night, apparently whatever exposed flesh was over the device got cleaned thoroughly. He would never have to worry about skid marks again, Zeke laughed to himself.

Sori had already left when Zeke checked the bath cubicle, so Zeke took a quick shower.

He looked around and found some supplies in a cabinet over one of the built-in desks. A short, blunt stick was labeled "toothbrush." There was no toothpaste, but, remembering the toilet, it didn't take a genius to figure out how it might work. After some experimentation, Zeke found squeezing the end activated it. The stick labeled "shaver" worked even better. In seconds his light stubble was gone.

In the closet, Zeke found some clothes he had not seen before -- several sets of the same light, comfortable pants and sleeveless shirts he had seen Dan wearing. There were no shoes to go with the other clothes so Zeke decided to go barefoot. The clothes were a comfortable as they looked, but ordinary; certainly nothing like one would imagine alien clothing to be like.

Looking at the unmade bed, Zeke tried the hand gesture. To his delight, the sheets straightened and the covers tucked themselves back in their place -- a perfectly made bed in seconds. According to the computer, the bed was self-cleaning, so no worries about changing the sheets.

Zeke found the other humans in the dining room and went over to greet them. Breakfast was laid out neatly for them, buffet style; it looked like a normal Earth-type breakfast food. None of the aliens were about.

Walter was sitting at a table by himself. He was wearing yesterday's clothes, but they were cleaned and looked like they had been ironed. Even the pencil marks over his pocket protector were gone. Zeke had forgotten to check his own clothes, but they were probably just as clean.

Zeke picked out has food took his plate over to sit by Walter.

"Hey dude," said Zeke, "You're not going to stay freaked out over this morning are you?"

"No," said Walter, avoiding Zeke's eyes.

"But?" prompted Zeke.

"It's just..." started Walter, looking disgusted, "I mean, she's not even human."

"We're up here with all these aliens," said Zeke, "and you're talking like a xenophobe. How would you feel if Mvek and Susan got it on and Sori said 'eww, gross, she's not even an alien'?"

"Well," sighed Walter after a minute, "I guess you've got a point, but Mvek is pretty gross. If you look hard, you can see his insides through those feathery things on his chest."

"Aw," said Zeke, "those are just some sort of gills. I don't think it's gross, just different. Anyway, it seems to me the Greys and Sori are more humanlike. You don't think they're gross, do you?"

"No."

"See," said Zeke, "that wasn't so hard. If you get more comfortable with the aliens, just smile at Sori; she might pay you a visit."

"No way," said Walter, eyes wide, "You just... smiled?"

Zeke smiled at Walter, not saying anything, and started on his plate. What he thought were eggs and bacon turned out not to be real meat at all, but something like vegetarian food. They definitely tasted different, but were not bad.

After breakfast Mvek invited them to the sitting area. Mvek requested the humans wait in the sitting area while he conducted the tour for their last guest, who was being picked up this morning. To Zeke's surprise, Mvek activated some holographic viewscreens so they could watch.

The ship rapidly descended towards Earth. They were headed towards the night side of the planet, but the viewscreen showed an enhanced image making it easy to see. Not that there was much to see, they seemed to be descending towards an ocean, far away from land.

Soon a small watercraft came into view, and the ship stopped just above it. Mvek did his platform trick. A man came out, dressed in a heavy coat. This time the platform hovered beside the boat, and after a few minutes of looking at Mvek, he jumped aboard the platform.

Mvek had not turned on the sound so they could not hear the discussion as the man toured the ship, but the man definitely seemed impressed and was asking Mvek a lot of questions. For some reason, Mvek did not lead the man to the sitting room when they were done, but instead took him back down to his boat using the platform.

Once Mvek came back aboard, the ship rapidly left the ocean surface and returned to space. It did not stop after exiting the atmosphere, but continued onward, the Earth visibly dwindling in the viewscreen.

"I somehow expected the stars to streak by," said Dan, "but if it weren't for the view of the Earth shrinking so fast, I'd swear we were standing still."

"We're probably still in the solar system," said Walter, "the stars are so far away we'd have to be moving a lot faster to even notice them moving."

Just then, Mvek entered the room.

"How come the guy didn't join us?" asked Zeke.

"He stated joining the Hirthal was not his desire," said Mvek.

"He's not the only one," said Susan to Zeke, "five people chickened out before you two came."

"You are all here," said Mvek, "do you reconsider your decision to leave Earth? Know we require a month to return after today."

"No way, I still want to see the galaxy as much as before," said Dan.

They all agreed.

"I am pleased," said Mvek, "We now start the mental stimulation procedure. Please follow me."

Mvek led them to a room they had not seen before. Circular, about 30 feet in diameter, with comfortable looking chairs around the circumference. The chairs each had a built-in padded headset in the open position.

Sori was also there, but did not give Zeke any special attention. Was last night it, or was she just being professional around the others? Zeke wished he could speak Sori's language now.

"Be seated," said Mvek.

The humans each took a chair and Mvek showed them how to get into the headsets. It was pretty simple, just position their heads comfortably against the mesh and pull down the top part. With the headset closed, it shut out most of the light and ambient noise.

Zeke wondered what the mental stimulation would be like, and soon got his answer. A gentle prickling radiated throughout his scalp, barely noticeable. Then a hologram appeared before his eyes. It was an empty space surrounded by a faint wavy line, and was soon replaced by a single dot, then two dots, then three dots, all the way up to seven dots. Then he heard a monotone voice say "numbers." The voice then said "Ovi," as the an empty space glowed. "Nai," as the single dot glowed. "Sri," as the two dots glowed. It continued up to the seven dots, "Tei."

Was he supposed to remember them all? Zeke realized he had already forgotten what number one was.

The voice went through the numbers again. This time each word was accompanied by a strange feeling, as if his attention were completely focused on the moment. Zeke found himself forgetting everything else, his entire world the voice and the numbers. And then it was over and he could think again.

Zeke realized he could remember the words for all the numbers easily: Ovi, Nai, Sri, Hoi, Wui, Lyi, Mbi, Tei.

He didn't have too much time to congratulate himself though, an outline of a circle appeared, the voice said "shapes," and in moments it had gone through more shapes then he even knew existed. From circle to dodecahedron.

And it continued with units of measurement, body parts, household items, foods, plants, planets, spaceships, actions, and everything under the sun. In between times of the strange focused feeling Zeke knew he was remembering everything. Too bad he hadn't had this to study for zoology tests at his college.

Zeke was startled when it finally stopped and Sori was lifting his helmet up. He started to get up but as soon as he raised his head he felt dizzy. Sori gently pushed his head back down.

"Four. Minutes," she said.

Good idea thought Zeke as he waited for the spinning to stop. In a few minutes it did.

Zeke considered what Sori had said, he knew she had told him to rest for a few minutes but had said it in Standard. Not a complete sentence, just individual words. And he knew what those words meant without having to translate them into English in his head. He knew Wua's of Standard words, but probably not all of them.

But he had no idea how to put them together in a sentence. Well, that could come later.