Her hand flew to her mouth. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What was she evensaying?The fruit had obviously derived more honesty from her than she was prepared for.
Before she could finish the sentence, he waved a hand over the floor across from her. Another column rose a few feet and stopped. He put two fists on the table and sat down on it.
Her eyes moved to his broad shoulders as he hunched over the table and leaned in. Then they locked with his, drawn in by the intensity of his stare. Wonder worked through her. He wasn’t just a big, imposing beast now. His features looked different. Still stern, but somehow magnetic. The more she stared at him, the more she couldn’t help but think that he was kind of… gorgeous.
“You must understand that I will not likely be your reproductive partner,” he explained.
His words seemed to work beneath her skin, making her blood freeze just below the surface. Flotillas of ice moved around in her chest, sharp ends colliding with the tender walls of her heart, squeezing the air from her lungs. A pang of lovesickness and angst, as though she were watching a trashy romance film, made her flush.
Rychor had somehow summoned symbols and markings of light on the table, which she looked at with mild interest, realizing that they must be the equivalent of human computational interface screens.
He looked at the information with interest, then looked up at her. “I can extend this information to the partner you are eventually matched to. For breeding. Naturally this must result in maximal sexual arousal for it to be incorporated into your profile.”
Sonya found herself making a face.
“It does not appear to be stimulating you,” Rychor told her, after reading something on one of his screens.
Sonya slapped her forehead and shook her head. “Not likethis,” she agreed.
Rychor looked at her for a moment, and his gazedidhave the effect of burning her up. Not with pure sexual arousal, but with something else. A deeper connection seemed truly possible with him…
What was shesayingto herself, she wondered?
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Your species and ours are at very different points of evolutionary development,” he said. “You remain in a primitive state, breeding only with your own species, absorbed by a focus on individual desires.”
Sonya was lighting up inside, her curiosity getting the upper hand over her instinct for survival. As he spoke, she began to regain control over her thoughts, and her desire to discover and understand started to overcome the primal urges Rychor seemed to be tapping into.
“You consider individualism to be primitive?” she asked. She got a little haughty in spite of her mantra to remain objective.
She was asking because she had scientific curiosity, she reminded herself.
Rychor gave this some thought. “The language may have been an incorrect choice. Our language model struggles with the emotional connotations of certain words. We have also evolved… differently… in this respect.”
“Why did you choose the word ‘primitive,’ then?” Sonya asked.
Man, was shehigh.Exchanging flirtatious banter with an alien.
“All intelligent species in the universe, that we have encountered to date, follow a similar path of evolution. Individual desires precede species-level desires in all cases. For that reason. I chose a synonym for ‘under-developed.’ Perhaps ‘different’ would be less distressing.”
“It would,” Sonya agreed, letting a flare of annoyance simmer on the back of her neck and die out. “Can you tell me about the difference? I like to know what I’m getting myself into.”
“It is precisely in this context that you are different. You view this as something your ‘self’ is ‘getting into.’”
Sonya’s mouth fell open. “Well… that’s judgmental.”
“It is an assessment based upon your own words. Is it not accurate?”
“Am I the one who will get knocked up, or what? How else would I see it?”
“I do not understand this statement.”
“I will be the one who is…bred,” Sonya said. “So itis,you know, a… an event about my ‘self.’”
“You are not expected to bond with your mate or the subsequent offspring, which will be predominantly composed of Ryvokia DNA,” Rychor told her.
Sonya blinked at him and then grumbled in frustration. “Do you guys ever think that maybe this is the reason you’re having a hard time reproducing?”
Sarcasm, straight from Kat.
