Why would he want her?
"Uh."
He glanced at Re-lee. "Does she speak?"
Well, that just pissed Tina off. "Of course, I speak. I'm very articulate. I've just been taken from my homeworld, wound up on another planet--"
"It's a space station, actually," Kolvin said.
"Whatever. I'm not on my world, and my world doesn't travel in the stars yet, and I have family that's probably wondering where I am and what happened to me. So, if I'm not jumping for joy over meeting you, maybe it's because I have had a hard day."
"I think I win," he said.
"You don't win anything," she said. She glanced at Re-lee. "That's it. I've met my mate. I reject the match. Send me back to my home."
"We told you, that is just not--"
Gianna stared at her. "Don't do this, Tina. You do this all the time. Give him a chance."
"He's an alien! We're not the same species!"
"So what? They look like they have all the same parts."
The other male stepped forward. "We are available for physical inspection if that will ease your concern."
Kolvin glared at the other male.
"Well, maybe I want an inspection," Gianna said, grinning.
The male nodded. "At your convenience."
"I thought you said they were looking forward to meeting us?" Kolvin said, narrowing that weird gaze of his on Re-lee.
Re-lee smiled. "I believe the ladies were not expecting you both to be so large, comparatively. I imagine their males from their homeworld are not such tall figures."
"No, they are not," Gianna said. "And we're not complaining." She winked at them.
Tina's eyes widened. Had they injected Gianna with something besides an inoculation? "What is wrong with you? Why aren't you completely freaking out over this? This is not how alien contact is supposed to go! And certainly not with me." She shook her head. "I cannot believe that we are here."
"That's the difference. You cannot believe it," Gianna said. "You always have to have evidence and proof and pounds of research to validate everything. By the time anything gets worked out, the situation is over. The guy is gone."
Tina froze. "I--"
Gianna put her hands on her hips. "Do you realize how amazing this is? You're standing here, with life. Life beyond our solar system! You should want to know what this is. Study. Test. Learn. All of it."
"How do I know it's not just a dream, and we're not drowning on the floor of the cave?" It's true. How did they know? That was far more believable than they were here, with aliens from other worlds who could cure diabetes. This could all be a delusional dream.
"Then this is way better than that, don't you think?"
She did have a point.
Gianna lowered her voice since everyone was staring at the two of them. "Thirty days. Just see what happens. You might learn some new factoid you can take back and write that paper that will win you the Nobel Prize or something."
Tina snorted. "Not exactly the most encouraging."
"What do you want me to say? Try." Gianna turned back to Re-lee. "So, if you can cross dimensions, can you also return us to the same time we left, so no one knows we're gone?"
"Time is linear, and we typically--"
