What is it about nice old men that makes them so hard to be angry at? Jade thought as she tried to decide whether to stand her ground or sit and listen. Finally, she sat down, concluding that stalling was better than facing whatever came next.
“Your planet is a Class 4 planet. That means that they don’t know about life on other planets and their technology isn’t advanced enough to venture outside of their own galaxy yet,” Zikas explained calmly. “It’s against the law for any Class 1, 2, or 3 planet citizens, or their inhabitants, to contact or otherwise interfere with these planets.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed bu—”
Zikas held up his hand for silence. Jade sat back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest in silent protest. “There are always those who want to break laws. So, of course, we occasionally find ourselves in situations like this. A long time ago, The Galaxy Supervision Federation and The Intergalactic Alliance signed a treaty, The Planetary Sanctuary Treaty, that outlines what we’re required to do in these instances. Whichever species rescues or otherwise encounters a being from a Class 4 planet is responsible for the welfare of that being for a period of one year. We’re also required to report the species that exposed themselves to the planet in question, which we’ll do as soon as we figure out who took you.”
“The last time I checked, welfare does not include forced marriage,” Jade said pointedly.
“Ah, yes, well that is a law only on Clecania.” Zikas sighed. “As you may have noticed, the Clecanian males on this planet outnumber the females 20 to 1.”
“You don’t say,” Jade commented, feigning disinterest.
“It wasn’t always that way. There used to be an equal number of males and females. I believe the acts of courting and marriage were very similar to Earth—if what I read was accurate, that is.”
Annoyed at her own curiosity, Jade asked, “What happened? Why did it change?”
“About three hundred years ago, there was a plague. We don’t know how it started. Some think enemy species contaminated the water somehow, but we haven’t found any evidence of that. Some blame their gods.” Zikas shrugged. “They think we’re being punished for irreparably damaging our original home planet, also called Clecania. Either way, the plague ended up killing about twenty percent of our men and seventy percent of the Clecanian females. Young and old alike.”
Jade leaned forward and put her hand over her mouth. It’s a wonder this planet is functioning at all. If seventy percent of Earth women were wiped out, I can’t even imagine what would happen. Wars, slavery, rape. We’d destroy ourselves in a matter of decades. She looked up at Zikas, nodding for him to continue.
“After some time had passed and they were certain the plague was gone, people started to try and lead normal lives again. They all knew that having more children, especially girls, was a priority, so they did what they could to ensure our species had a future.” Zikas’ eyes grew sad as he continued, “Mating was decreasing as well as conceptions.”
“Mating? People weren’t having sex anymore?”
Zikas stared at her quizzically. “No, mating. Two beings who are drawn to one another and stay together forever. Do humans not have mates?”
“Sure, I guess. We just call it getting married.”
“Marriage and matehood are two different things here. Marriage is common, matehood is not. It cannot be chosen. It’s a blessing.” A dreamy smile appeared on his face. “When a Clecanian meets a potential mate, someone who could possibly turn out to be their true mate, they feel it. They’ll change, and their body will awaken in a way it doesn’t for others.”
His eyes traveled to the floor, the dreamy expression disappearing. “There hasn’t been a record of a mating in one hundred fifty years.”
Jade frowned. His tone was so wistful. She felt that although Zikas was a psychopath who was trying to pimp her out to some alien, he was also a romantic and was describing something he would always wish for and never have. “How would you know that you had a mate and weren’t just really attracted to someone?”
He looked up at her. “When a Clecanian recognizes their true mate, mate markings will appear on their bodies, and both the individuals will become stronger and faster in order to better protect each other and their offspring.”
What he was telling her sounded more like a fairy tale. …and then the prince broke her curse with true love’s kiss. It would be unsurprising to see tiny whistling birds perch on his shoulder.
Jade did not for one minute believe in soulmates, and the fact that the Clecanians had “stopped” finding their soulmates just proved to her this was some old wives’ tale that was passed down to make their current circumstances seem more bearable.
Zikas cleared his throat hastily. He must have noticed that Jade remained unmoved by his words. “Anyway…it’s always been much easier for a mated couple to conceive than an unmated one. Even so, the rate of success for an unmated couple to conceive has dropped so dramatically that we’ve had to adapt.”
“Why can mated couples conceive more easily? You haven’t been able to use artificial insemination or grow babies in test tubes?” Jade asked, thinking through other ways of having a baby.
“No one knows for sure how or why mating works, just that it does. While some races on our planet believe mated couples are spiritually bound, the more scientifically minded of us continued to study mated pairs in order to find some tangible reason. Now that mates have become so rare, it’s hard for our research to continue. As for artificial insemination, we’ve tried, but natural conception continues to yield the most successful births. Artificial insemination can be used if the couple cannot conceive on their own, but unfortunately it’s rare for couples who cannot conceive to stay together for very
