I got cleaned up and returned to my bunk to get more sleep. It took a while, but I finally drifted off. A few hours later, I awoke to the sound of my commlink. It was a holographic message from Evalee.
“Hello, Lanimer. I have to tell you about this dream I had. It was so eerily real. I couldn’t believe you weren’t there when I woke up.”
She described my dream about her from her perspective, and it ended the same way as mine. I was stunned. Evalee seemed as shaken by it as I was. It left me feeling certain we belonged together. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, nor had I ever expected it.
I thought I would just go about finding a mate like Normals and start dating women I found attractive. Instead, it seemed some force was steering me into Evalee’s arms. We both knew it was more than the sexy holograms we’d exchanged recently. After the dream, our getting together was no longer hypothetical.
The last thing she said at the end of her message gave me hope. “I have to say that when I awoke and you weren’t there, I wassorely disappointed,” she said shyly.
That gave me a good idea of how our first meeting would end. I think Evalee thought so, too.
Before I left Oltarin, I started monitoring my agricultural complex on Zevus Mar. Tregan reparations paid for the new underground home after the Federation drove the Tregan’s from the planet. Androids ran the farm part, planting, harvesting, and transporting the crops to market on Zevus Mar. In the 30 years since I left, I have accumulated a considerable fortune.
With investments in mining, I probably would not have to work at all, but that’s not how I was raised. I am glad I don’t have to work the farm. Even as a child, I wanted to be a physician. And I loved the job. Getting paid to do it was a bonus.
Evalee told me everything about her life, growing up in a refugee camp, one of many that housed the millions of Trakellisans that migrated to Zevus Mar.
The camps were noisy and crowded with cheap and temporary housing. They replaced that camp with permanent structures and built the city of Val’Kara. Life was simple there, and Evalee was happy. Her mother was a Zevian aid worker when she met Evalee’s father. Theymoved from the city to a rural village after it became more heavily populated.
A full-blooded Trakellisan, he was a tall, purple, muscular alien with pointed ears and a tail. Evalee’s mother was a beautiful Zevian woman like my foster mother, Nalina. Evalee was one of four children. She had one sister and two brothers.
Our daily correspondence was the height of my days and got me through an otherwise endless journey. There was plenty to talk about with our whole lives to share. Of course, I spoke with my adopted family a few times a week, but it was my time with Evalee that I looked forward to every day.
Things improved after I got to Rintalis and transferred to the Sential Trader. Most of the same people who transported Hankura and Chelle, Jamerin and Lara, were there. Unlike the other crew, Captain Otian’s crew dined together nightly.
I came to enjoy their company as we socialized during the evening meals. Hankura and Chelle’s journey was anything but routine. They’d nearly all perished in a Tregan attack. I’d had never heard the story the way Otian’s crew told it.
The version I knew made it sound like a casual mishap rather than the life-and-deathevent that it actually was. Both Hankura and Jamerin would have died had Chelle not healed them. Then there was the journey back when Otian’s crew learned all about what happened while they were on Velran on the way back to Oltarin.
I realized then how much I had missed by remaining on Oltarin while they took Jamerin to Velran. On the other hand, I had a great time hanging out with Saleah and the McKells. We rode horses and played horse Clan wars in the mountain forest. I even learned how to wield a sword. It was great fun.
Life was not as much fun when the rest of the family returned. Jamerin had discovered his psion mate, Captain Otian’s stepdaughter, and he turned into a little tyrant when they wouldn’t let her stay on Oltarin. They were eight years old. Jamerin tried to take over everyone’s mind, and the Wholaskans had to intervene.
Once they put him in his place, things returned to normal. Jamerin took a while to find his balance after Otian and his wife Rona took Parei away. He only saw her every couple of years until they turned eighteen and got married.
They were so happy to be together finally, and I was pleased for them—And jealousbecause I didn’t have even a prospect for love.
Despite his being so much younger, I learned much from Jamerin because he shared what he learned from the Wholaskan masters. That knowledge made me believe that I shared a special connection with Evalee.
I had many more sex dreams about her during my journey, dreams that she seemed to share. Sometimes, I told her explicitly what I wanted to do to her when she and I finally got together. Evalee admitted to pleasuring herself to the sound of my voice describing the filthy things we could do.
But my feelings for her went far deeper than physical pleasure. Evalee is sweet, caring, and dedicated to her profession. She loved her family and her coworkers. Zevus Mar was home, and there was nowhere else she wanted to live despite the growing unrest between an anti-alien faction of Zevians.
Evalee was even amenable to living on the agricomplex with me if our relationship unfolded as we believed it would. Most of the time, I felt confident we were moving steadily toward a great life together. Yet, sometimes, I’d get this ominous feeling of danger in our path.
I tamped it down, telling myself I was just afraid the woman I was falling for would change her mind once she met me in person.What if I was wrong about returning to Zevus Mar?
Then, I acknowledged my fears that I was making a big mistake. I had no friends or family on Zevus Mar except Evalee if the potential of our relationship came to fruition.
But when I disembarked from the Sential Trader at Medrin Starport on Zevus Mar, Evalee was there. It was the middle of the night, and Evalee surprised me, waiting at the dock to greet me. She was as nervous and excited as I was.
I approached her with my luggage tram following me and opened my arms. Evalee came in for a hug, and we held each other tight. Sweet Mother, she felt like home, and I sensed she felt the same.
After a long, heartfelt hug, she looked up at me, her soft, purple lips parted. I sensed her longing for me to kiss her, so I did. A frisson of awareness shot straight to my cock, and a spark of recognition seared through my mind.
Evalee wasn’t a telepath. She was an empath, and I felt a psychic connection with her. I sensed a special empathy attuned only to me. Then it dawned on me. I’d sensed this before between my mother and father, who was not a psion. Only my mother was, but they had a special connection. I believe it was becausethey were soul mates.
That was most likely what they had both sensed about each other initially.
