Alien Touch Read online

  Alaric grinned. “Exactly!”

  Luki still felt uneasy about their reasoning, but on one score he could completely agree. She was not attached to them—at all—at this point and would very happily go back to her old life if she had the opportunity. And forget about them.

  And he did not want to be forgotten and dismissed so easily. “I don’t suppose it could hurt to give ourselves a little time to convince her,” he agreed slowly. “I think we need to agree, though, that we cannot allow ourselves much time or she may begin to suspect that we might know and then she will hate us for lying to her.”

  “It is not lying when we don’t know,” Alaric said stiffly.

  “It is when we suspect we do know and are just playing stupid for our own ends!” Luki snapped.

  “Well! If you are going to put it that way,” Alaric growled, “I have to suppose that you are more in favor of taking her back at once and letting the chips fall where they may!”

  Unfortunately, although Luki would have been more comfortable doing just that, it took no great amount of imagination to see where that would get them.

  In the first place, it seemed way more likely that her people would view them as enemies than not when they were not familiar with them. That had generally been the case, he recalled, with the tribes of people that they had encountered when they had left their own world. It was always with hostility. And he could think of no reason that her people would behave differently, especially since they had one of their people with them. They would immediately leap to the conclusion that they had captured her and they would be hostile and try to kill them and they would have to leave with no opportunity at all for courtship.

  He still did not like to deceive her.

  He would not like to be deceived and he could see a lot of trouble arising from it.

  Then again, there was Alaric’s point—no chance with her if they took her back now.

  And that damned sure didn’t appeal to him, especially when he was just getting used to the idea that she could potentially be a mate.

  “She will think we are stupid,” he groused, “but I suppose that would be better than believing we deliberately deceived her.”

  Alaric was not happy with Luki’s assessment of the situation but, try as he might, he could not put a different spin on it. He finally had to concede that Luki was right—she would either think they were stupid or she would think it was deliberate and, of the two, they would probably be better off with stupid.

  She couldn’t hate them for that—he didn’t think.

  * * * *

  It occurred to Amber as she watched her diminishing chances of returning home straight away that she had assumed a negative attitude when she had no reason to.

  Well, beyond the fact that she was with aliens and had no way to be absolutely certain they could be trusted.

  But she could think of no motive for them to lie to her.

  They had said they would find her home and take her back and she had more reason to believe that than not to.

  It was dismaying that they were going the wrong way, but as unnerving as it was, there was the total lack of communication skills to account for that.

  Well, that plus the fact that they were a space faring species and had apparently assumed that she was taken from somewhere else and carried to the location where they found her. Just because it seemed more reasonable to her that they should assume she’d already been close to home didn’t make it so.

  And maybe they thought so because that was something those other aliens were in the habit of doing? Kidnapping people from all sorts of places and taking them off for whatever their purpose might be?

  That seemed very plausible.

  She was never going to know anything for sure, though, unless they could figure out a way to really talk. A word here and there just left more room for misunderstanding.

  They should start with names, she decided. That was customary, on Earth anyway, when trying to make friends—establishing a bond.

  “I don’t know anyone’s name,” she said with forced brightness, “and that’s really awkward. I mean, I suppose I could just call you aliens like I have been, but that seems terribly unfriendly. And you guys did rescue me—I hope.”

  The minute she spoke, she caught everyone’s attention, but she couldn’t say that they actually seemed to understand.

  They gave her puppy-dog looks that were actually really cute—the tilted head and creased brows of confusion. Heartened by that analogy, she smiled more easily. “My name’s Amber. I’m in the Space Force of the United States of America—on Earth. My military rank is Major. So that would be Major Amber Trujillo.”

  She lifted a hand after a moment and touched her collar bone with her fingertips. “Amber Trujillo. Or, just Amber will do.”

  They all exchanged looks of confusion.

  She studied them for several moments, trying to figure out how to get it across that she was asking them to tell her their names—they needed some starting point!

  She got up. “This is a chair—the seat of the chair, the arm of the chair.” She knelt and touched the floor. “Floor.” Got up and touched a wall. “This is a wall, or, I guess since it’s a ship it would be the bulkhead. And this is the ceiling.”

  She turned around and looked at them hopefully. “My name’s Amber.”

  The leader abruptly spoke. “Alaric. Dis Luki. Dis Serge.”

  Amber felt a surge of triumph. She repeated the names. “I’m from Earth.”

  They stared at her blankly, tilting their heads curiously, and frustration flickered through her. With an effort she focused on summoning an image of the Earth from space. “Home world, Earth.”

  Expressions flickered across their faces then that she couldn’t quite interpret. There was a touch of … reluctance.

  The one who’d told her he was Alaric glanced at the other two. “No home world,” he said flatly.

  Amber gaped at him. After a moment, she decided he must have misunderstood. They had to have a home world! She couldn’t imagine that they’d been born or evolved in space.

  Before she could pursue it, though, all three turned away and focused on the consoles they were seated in front of.

  The one called Serge got up and moved toward her, indicating with gestures that she needed to put the safety restraints on.

  That worried her.

  Especially since she had taken her helmet off and her gauntlets. Without a sealed suit, she might as well be naked.

  He was insistent, though, and seemed in a hurry and she wasn’t even sure of where she’d left the helmet because she’d been so desperate for air at the time.

  He helped her fasten the harness and returned to his own seat.

  She noticed none of them put a harness on. Before she could ask why, she felt—a sensation that was indescribable. She looked around uneasily and then through the windows.

  That’s when she saw there were shutters moving across them.

  “What’s happening?” she gasped, trying to keep her voice even despite the fear that arose in her chest.

  Alaric turned to look at her, studied her for a long moment.

  And then made a totally obscene gesture at her!

  Amber gaped at him in disbelief and then whipped a look at his hands again, wondering if she’d just imagined that gesture.

  But no! He’d formed a circle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and poked his index finger through the hole he’d made in a wiggling sort of motion.

  Amber snapped her jaws closed, feeling the heat of embarrassment climb her cheeks.

  Was she losing her mind? Or did he just suggest that they fuck? This was a hell of a time to make a pass at her!

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked stiffly.

  He looked confused. Then he frowned. She realized after a few moments that he must be searching his mind for words he may have picked up.

  “Hole?�
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  She gave him a narrow eyed look. “I got that,” she responded tightly and then imitated his gesture, stabbing one finger into the hole repeatedly. “So what does this part mean?”

  He blinked several times and then abruptly blushed and laughed.

  It totally blew Amber’s mind.

  It was clearly spawned by amusement and she was blown away to think of aliens chuckling.

  Then he said something to the other two. They looked taken aback for a split second and then they also laughed.

  But they gave her those purely male ‘undressing’ looks she would never have attributed to alien males in a million years!

  All three.

  She was torn between embarrassment and uneasiness and anger, feeling like the butt of a joke she didn’t get.

  “Tang hole,” Alaric elaborated, looking somewhat harassed.

  “Tang hole?” Amber echoed.

  And then, abruptly, she realized what he was saying.

  Wormhole.

  Amber struggled with the urge to run and hide from her embarrassment, reflecting that, as stupid as it made her feel, it was an ‘honest’ mistake and there were bound to be more.

  At least, even though it was obvious she’d put the idea of sex into their heads, they hadn’t pretended to misunderstand and behaved as if they thought she’d extended an invitation.

  If they’d been Earth men they certainly would have.

  So nothing could more surely set them apart as aliens.

  Although … Maybe they just didn’t think of her as a woman and that was why it hadn’t crossed their minds before?

  That was disturbing in an entirely different way although Amber refused to even try to analyze why she found that thought so dismaying.

  Chapter Six

  They chuckled every time they thought about it.

  Amber fumed.

  It could be just her paranoia showing, she knew, but she didn’t think so.

  Thankfully, for their sakes, before she reached the point of looking for something to brain them with, they left the wormhole and that was enough to distract them.

  Well, and her also.

  The moment the shutters began to open, she removed her harness and headed to a window to stare out.

  And it was clear as a bell they weren’t ‘in Kansas’ anymore.

  Nothing looked familiar.

  Wormhole technology, she thought, amazed, envious.

  This—traveling from one galaxy to another or even one solar system to another—was always going to be beyond the reach of humans if they couldn’t figure out something like it—instantaneous or almost instant travel from point A to point B. The distances involved were just too vast to conquer otherwise.

  Baby steps.

  She frowned, thinking about it.

  It was hard to judge intelligence when there was a communication issue, but she was damned if she felt intellectually inferior to the guys.

  She certainly didn’t feel superior.

  The question was, was it possible to be so technologically advanced without also being light-years smarter?

  Maybe.

  These guys were worlds different from the aliens that had captured her—at least they seemed so.

  And yet both species seemed to have extremely advanced technology.

  Well, obviously did.

  Unless this was a mind-boggling hoax but that was more insane than accepting it as real.

  She’d just gotten tired enough of standing to contemplate returning to her seat when she realized they’d left deep space and entered a solar system.

  A binary solar system from the look of it.

  Her belly clenched with nerves immediately since the first thought to leap to her mind was that, regardless of what they’d said to the contrary, they must be taking her home—to their home.

  It hadn’t occurred to her—which was really stupid!—that she might be facing a planet full of these people.

  As if three of them weren’t enough!

  Not that they were actually horrible or anything. Even when they’d looked like beasts they hadn’t looked scary ugly—well definitely scary—but they were damn fine looking males in their current form.

  But just them being able to change forms was unnerving—not something she could imagine getting used to anytime soon, especially if they all went around changing all of the time.

  Would she be looked upon as a freak because she couldn’t?

  Or would they be so used to seeing aliens of all sorts that they wouldn’t even notice another one?

  Would they be hostile?

  In all honesty, she knew damned well if the guys had managed to get her home to Earth they would’ve been met with extreme hostility. She hated to think it, but she knew her fellow man.

  If something scared them they hated it and wanted to kill it.

  She supposed it was part of the survival instinct to see ‘different’ as a threat and react violently, but generations hadn’t mastered that tendency—yet, and it was beginning to look like they never would however hard they tried.

  She was sorry she’d thought about that because it made her feel guilty about wanting them to take her home.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to go less, by any stretch, but she didn’t like to think they could be hurt or killed trying to help her.

  And she realized, now that she thought about it, that it was a real possibility.

  But she thought it was a good thing, overall, that it had occurred to her because she could work on figuring out how they could get her home without getting hurt.

  Nothing immediately came to mind, but she had the feeling that she had a little while to think of something.

  Especially since it seemed to be taking a very long time to reach their home planet.

  Amusement flickered through her when she returned to flop in her seat to rest.

  It was like the microwave all over again.

  Before the microwave, people were used to it taking hours to cook anything.

  After that, they were so used to nearly instant gratification that they stood impatiently waiting for the sixty seconds or so that it took to heat their food.

  After this adventure, she was never going to get used to human travel again, she thought with amusement.

  * * * *

  There was no planet, Amber discovered, wondering if she had completely understood them after all.

  Instead, after what seemed hours, they docked with an enormous ship, pulled right in to a huge hanger that rivaled the other alien hanger in size—the one that had swallowed her capsule.

  She was dismayed to discover once they disembarked, that the aliens had towed her capsule with them.

  She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at it blankly, wondering, crazily, if the thing had just gotten tangled and dragged along.

  Why would they take it?

  She didn’t think for a second that they’d brought it because they thought it was hers.

  The suspicion instantly arose that they’d ‘stolen’ it to capture American technology—probably because that was always foremost on everyone’s mind at any time they weren’t dealing with Americans—but she realized almost as quickly that that had to be ridiculous even to consider such a thing.

  Their technology blew everything anybody on Earth had right out of the water—including the U.S.!

  That would be akin to stealing flint from the Indians to make weapons.

  She discovered once she’d settled in, though, that she might have been wrong about that.

  Either they had a habit of ‘collecting’ things—pretty much anything they ran across—or they just had some weird tastes in things.

  There was only one ship in the hanger—the one that had brought them from the Moon. The rest of the space was cluttered with an assortment of things that looked like they’d taken delivery of supplies—several times—and never gotten around to putting them up.
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br />   There also didn’t seem to be anyone else onboard the vast ship—which was weird and unnerving given the vastness of it and the abundance of what at least appeared to be supplies in the hanger.

  It was actually more than a little unnerving, but they didn’t behave in any way that suggested everybody else had just disappeared while they were gone so she had to accept that it was completely normal to them.

  Naturally enough, that wasn’t something she learned right away. She’d been on the ship for a while before she realized she wasn’t running into anyone else because the ship was a ghost ship except for the four of them.

  She’d actually braced herself for an alien greeting party when they’d first arrived and just been relieved when they weren’t.

  They’d split up almost at once. Alaric and Luki had stayed on the lift they took up from the hanger when Serge had urged her off of it two levels up and then walked her down a long corridor to a room that was damned near as cluttered with junk as the hanger.

  There was a bed in one corner, though, which he pointed out and then he led her from that room down the corridor a short distance and showed her a huge facility that looked like the locker room of a football team—rows of showers and toilets.

  It shouldn’t have given her the creeps for being empty, but it did. Every sound echoed and there were tiny little creeks, like the ship was so old it might not actually be space worthy anymore.

  She shook that thought off, partly because it wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on and partly because the guys seemed so totally unconcerned about it that she felt like her imagination must be running away with her.