Chapter Six
Forty minutes later and drenched in sweat, Adam rose from the crumpled sheets of the bed and made his way into the grooming station. After relieving himself, he took a moment to reflect on his image in the mirror. He had to admit, he’d let himself go. His hair was oily and stringy, and like his beard, long in places and short in others where he’d casually hacked away at it when it got in his way. His skin was sallow from not enough natural sunlight, and he’d acquired bags under his 27-year-old eyes. He did, however, brush his teeth on a regular basis, but that was mainly so he wouldn’t have to experience alien dentists, or whatever passed as dentists out here. The thought sent a shudder through his body. And on top of everything else, he hadn’t found anything that adequately passed as deodorant in nearly nine months.
My god, I must smell like shit!
He almost didn’t return to the room with the girl; he was embarrassed, not only for himself, but for all MAN- kind.
Wrapping a towel around his naked lower torso, Adam stood in the doorway of the grooming station and looked at the woman. She was sitting up in the bed, wrapping a sheet around her nakedness. For the first time since they’d met — a brief one hour ago — he took a really good look at her. Her hair was blonde, and like his, it too was long and oily with no curl in it whatsoever. She wore no make-up on her pale skin, which was understandable in an alien universe. He noticed hair under her armpits, and her exposed leg also displayed a generous amount of fuzzy blonde stubble. Still, she was the most glorious thing he’d seen in a long time…
A generous and dark-nippled breast presented itself to him as she attempted to wrap the sheet around her body, then noticing him standing in the doorway, he saw her blush and she pulled the sheet up over herself. He simply smiled back at her, raised his eyebrows a couple of times and shrugged. The woman coyishly smiled back, nodded yes, and let the sheet fall back on the bed.
And with that, Adam dropped the towel and dove back onto the bed, ready and willing for round two.
Now fully-exhausted, the two naked Humans lie wrapped in each other’s arms, the woman’s head resting on Adam’s chest. After awhile, she lifted herself away from him and looked into his eyes. He stared back.
Then simultaneously, they both burst into laughter.
With tears streaming down their faces, a flood of questions erupted from their throats.
“Who ARE you?” Adam asked first.
“I’m Sherri Valentine,” she answered in a sweet Southern accent. Seeing the reaction on his face, she quickly added, “I know, it sounds like a porn star. I’ve been dealing with that my whole life. What’s your name?”
“I’m Adam Cain.”
They shook hands.
“You’re from the south somewhere, right?”
“How’d you guess? Kentucky, actually. A little town called Owensboro. It’s still the South.”
“I know where Owensboro is,” Adam said a little too enthusiastically. “It’s near the Ohio border?”
Sherri nodded. “How ’bout you? What’s your story?”
“I’m from southern California, but I’m in the Navy now — or I was in the Navy. Now…I don’t know.” He was feeling as nervous as a schoolboy around her.
Sherri smiled at him. “I’m sure we both have some stories to tell. How long have you been out here?”
“Around nine months now, as best I can tell. Time is all fucked up here-” he stopped, embarrassed with his language; it had been so long since he had to be careful around a lady, especially a Human lady.
“It’s okay, stud,” she said to him, smiling. “I’ve heard a lot worse than that. You need to relax. We’re a just couple of lost Humans a long way from home.”
“You’re actually the only other Human woman I’ve seen here. There was another Human male, but he’s dead now.” Adam noticed a cloud come over Sherri’s face and the smile drained away. “How about you? How long have you been here? And have you seen any other Humans?”
She looked away, and at the solitary window in the room. “It’s probably been three years now. You’re right, time is hard to track.” And then she looked back at him. “As far as seeing other Humans, you’re the first free one I’ve seen.”
“What do you mean…free?”
She frowned back at him. “You know… Weren’t you abducted like the rest of us?”
Adam nodded. “Yeah, but I was never a prisoner.” He went on to explain how he’d awaken aboard the alien spaceship and run off to hide while the ship had been attacked by pirates. He related the story of Kaylor and Jym and of his arrest on Nimor, before telling her of Riyad and their encounter with the Juireans. Lastly, he concluded his story with the explosion of the Klin spaceship.
“Klin!” she exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. And I’ve been looking for them ever since. They know where Earth is located.”
Sherri wrinkled her nose and frowned again. “Yeah, right,” she said. “I’ve heard rumors of the Klin, and I don’t believe it. There’s only one group of people who can tell us where Earth is — and they’re other people just like us.”
Adam was shocked by her statement. “What do you mean?”
“Let me tell you my story.” Sherri sat up on the bed and wrapped the sheet around her. Adam was glad she did so; the continued sight of her naked breasts would have been very distracting.
“Woke up in one of those pods myself,” she began in her cute southern drawl, “but I was being helped out by other people — other Humans. There were a lot of us being revived, and even though I was real groggy at the time, I knew something wasn’t right.
“These young men, mostly, gave us all robes to wear then herded us down a long corridor to a room with bench seats running along each side. I didn’t know it at the time, but we were being put on a shuttle, and when the gravity shifted, several of us vomited. These other Humans just stood there and didn’t offer to help.”
Adam could tell it pained her to recall the story, but he needed for her to continue. This was valuable information he needed to know.
She took a deep breath and continued.
“Once we got to where we were going, they separated us into two groups, taking the men away while the women were paraded through a shower and given orange tunics to wear. One of the women protested to a male guard and he bashed her in the face with a baton. He told the room that no one was to talk unless asked a question. I was getting pissed.
“Then in a large room, a male doctor of some kind examined us — it was all so embarrassing and sterile. He was real rough and didn’t seem to care at all. A few of the women looked sickly, and they were taken away and we never saw them again. The rest of us, about thirty women, were moved to a barracks and feed plates of mush that I could hardly keep down.
“That night, some of us talked. We had all been out by ourselves, either jogging or returning from work or whatever, when we felt a hot bright light. Next thing we knew, we were being helped out of the pods. The time shift was almost non-existent.”
“I know. I felt the same thing,” Adam said, letting Sherri take a break from her story. “I was on a mission in Afghanistan when they took me.”
“I was on a jog in the desert,” countered Sherri. “I was a student at the University of Phoenix — a veterinary major — when I was taken.”
“Sorry,” was all Adam could say.
Sherri shook her head and continued: “The next day, this older asshole came into the barracks and announced that we were to be breeders, doing our duty for the common good, whatever that meant. By this time, I’d had enough. I was raised in the country and I’m pretty tough, for a girl.” She sent him a smirk. “You also have to understand, at this time I had no idea I wasn’t on Earth anymore. In fact, we all thought this was some super- elaborate sex-trade operation; we hadn’t run into any fucking aliens at the time. But I wasn’t about to let these assholes turn me into a sex slave.”
Adam smiled slightly and relaxed. It was refreshing to hear that the two of them shared the same vocabulary coach “So I attacked one of the guards and kicked the shit out of him,” she continued, not noticing his smile. “I tried to get away but was stopped by five more guards — and the first alien I’d ever seen. Needless to say, I was scared
