Shalia's Diary Read online

  I don’t know what to do. she’s gone. Moms gone and I can’t fine her Woke up to she up and left. In broad daylight.

  I went out to find , hacking and bringing up garbage out of lungs I think this flu turn into broncitis. So damned sick. But I looked for her. I swear I lookd everywhere. I went up and down streets, check in ever house. If it not for the alien shutles I kept to hide from. I swear I was last living person on Earth.

  MOM WHER ARE YOU?

  I failed her. She probably dead in middle of some street. Is all my fault. I let my guard down I let her down. She gone and I’m going to die here all by myself just like I deserve and no one

  Okay. Getting hold of myself. Crying not going to fix this. I got to keep tryin got to keep looking. Can’t give up.

  September 4

  So much has happened. I’m still recovering from pneumonia and I am so weak right now. I’ll probably pass out pretty soon from both that and the medication they keep loading me up with. I’ll write as much as I can, but getting it all down might take a few days.

  The last thing I remember is going outside to look for Mom a second time after she disappeared. Things were really blurry, and I can only recall bits and pieces as I wandered around, crying and trying to find her.

  Then I found myself lying on the ground. Guess who I saw looming over me? That Kalquorian Dramok Dusa. I’d passed out in the middle of someone’s overgrown hydrangeas, and he found me. So here’s the big alien guy crouched over me, staring at me with those funky purple eyes.

  I tried to scream and ended up coughing instead. I nearly choked on the stuff I brought up (sorry to be so gross). Dusa rolled me on my side so I wouldn’t drop dead drowning in my own phlegm.

  Between spells of hacking, I heard him say, “Easy, Matara Shalia. Emergency transport is on its way to get you to our medical facility.”

  When I could catch my breath to send some oxygen to my brain, I had only one thought. “My mother.”

  It was all I could gasp, but Dusa quickly told me, “She’s fine. Matara Eve came to the Academy and told us you were sick, but she couldn’t remember where you were hiding. We had to backtrack her trail, and then I had to locate your scent to trace you to here. It took me some time to find you.” He grinned, his expression a little shamefaced. “I can’t believe I let you get away. I completely lost you when you left your first home. By the time I tracked you to that transportation repair place, you were already gone.”

  I gave him my best mean look, though with the state I was in I’m sure I was as big a threat as a fluffy little kitten. “My mother is okay? You didn’t hurt her, did you?”

  His eyes went wide with shock. “Of course not. We’re here to rescue as many of your people as we can.” He stroked my hair. “Matara, you have nothing to fear from my people. We only wish to help.”

  And breed us like prize mares, I wanted to point out, but another fit of coughing seized me and I passed out before I could skewer him with that little factoid.

  When I next came around, I was in a small, all-white room that hummed, flat on my back on what seemed to be a table. I had what felt like a couple of small rubber tubes shoved in my mouth and down my aching throat. I couldn’t breathe, but I felt my chest rising and falling as it filled with pressure and then deflated. Two Kalquorians stood over me. One waved a scanner up and down my body while the other injected something in my neck. Dusa stood back, looking over their shoulders at me.

  Not being able to breathe on my own sent me into a panic. I started fighting to get up, trying to get away from whatever torture they were putting me through. The Kalquorians talked in their language – it sounded sort of like dogs barking in staccato bursts – and my entire body froze. I couldn’t move shit and I couldn’t breathe. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t do that either.

  From his position a few feet away, Dusa called to me. “It’s all right, Shalia. The machine is breathing for you. You’ve been placed in a suspension field to keep you still until we get you to the facility. Please try to stay calm.”

  Try to stay calm? Right. I’d been captured by Kalquorians who also had my mother, I was too sick to fight even if I wasn’t being held helpless, and I was being worked over by alien Dr. Frankensteins. Calm, my big fat ass.

  I didn’t have too long to worry over it though. Everything drifted away again, to my very great relief. The next thing I knew

  Dr. Nayun is here and wants to talk before I fall asleep again. More later.

  September 5

  Let me start today’s entry with the observation that Kalquorian drugs are wonderful. I feel better than even before I got sick, though they tell me I’m not ready to be up on my feet yet. I’m being nagged at that I need to build up my strength, get some more vitamins in me, etc., etc. I’m told I’m malnourished and anemic. Dr. Nayun is such a mother hen. I think that must be what ‘Imdiko’ translates into.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Back to where I left off.

  When I woke up again after my terrifying shuttle ride, I was in another white room. Only this time it was an actual room and not the cabin of an emergency medical shuttle. There were strange machines and weird sounds all around. Several Kalquorians bent over me. I would have panicked, but I felt so woozy. I couldn’t keep my eyes open even after just a few seconds.

  That kept happening. I’d come around for a moment or two and find myself in an all-white room. Everything fuzzed around me in soft focus, I guess because I was mostly out of it. If not for the machines, I might have thought I’d gone to Heaven. Yeah, me allowed in Heaven. Let there be hysterical laughter.

  Sometimes I’d be alone when I woke. Sometimes I’d see my mom sitting in a chair nearby, knitting. At least she wasn’t making baby booties anymore. She seemed to be working on a winter scarf. In muggy-ass south Georgia. Hey, it might get below sixty degrees for a week or two in six months. We can’t have the Kalquorians’ necks getting cold, right?

  Sometimes I’d see doctors and orderlies. These were big alien men in green tunics standing over me, muttering to each other or busy doing stuff I couldn’t comprehend. I especially got used to seeing the one older guy, Dr. Nayun. I saw him so often in fact, that about the fifth time I woke up I fought to stay conscious so I could ask him his name.

  He told me and then said, “How are you feeling?”

  “Like shit,” I croaked. I was glad he spoke English. I didn’t know if he spoke profanity.

  Apparently he did because he laughed. He has a nice laugh, by the way. All warm and rolling, like the world’s happiest giant. He even kind of looks like a storybook giant, sort of like an illustration I once saw in a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk. He’s big with lots of curly, gray-tinged hair tied back in a ponytail. He has a mustache that covers his upper lip as well as a nicely trimmed beard. A wide nose. Fat cheeks that make his eyes look all squinty when he smiles, which seems to be all the time. Plus he’s as wide as a barn door. I kept waiting for him to bellow, “Fee-fi-fo-fum!”

  “Go back to sleep,” he told me. “You need the rest.”

  Exhaustion was already trying to claw me back under, but I wanted to know how much trouble I was in and mostly how Mom was doing. “Has my mother been here, or was I just dreaming?”

  “Matara Eve spends most of her day in here with you. I think you’re her one anchor to reality.”

  “She’s okay though? She’s eating? Not scared?”

  He put his palm against my cheek. For such a huge guy, Dr. Nayun has an amazingly gentle touch. “Physically, she’s doing very well. She doesn’t always rest well, but when we get you out of semi-isolation, she’ll be able to sleep in your room. I think that will help.”

  I don’t know why I asked the question. Maybe I did because I was so out of it. I mean, I had no reason to trust Dr. Nayun, not one bit. But my mouth opened, and the words just kind of popped out. “Can you fix her? Can you make the dementia go away?”

  He blinked at me. “You mean the buildup of proteins in her brain?” H
e patted my cheek, but his look was sad. “We don’t have the resources here, Matara. You’ll have to take her to Kalquor for such procedures.”

  “But it’s possible on your planet?”

  “I couldn’t say. Brain treatments are tricky. I’m not qualified for such delicate work myself. All I can do is perform a basic diagnosis and keep her comfortable until she sees someone who specializes in such matters.”

  He’d held out a carrot, and like a stubborn mule I didn’t want to let it out of my sight. “Still, there is a chance she could be made better, right?”

  Nayun nodded. “There is a chance. Now I insist you close your eyes, Shalia, or I will be forced to sedate you.”

  See what I mean about him being a mother hen? Or a father giant, ha-ha. Fee-fi-fo-shut up and go to sleep, Shalia. But I had run out of steam by then anyway, so I closed my eyes and was out like a light.

  I hear someone coming up the hall outside my room. Probably Nayun again, ready to cluck over me some more, even though I’m no longer on the endangered Matara list. He’s a good guy. I don’t know about most Kalquorians, and I’m still leery over what they have planned for me when I’m better, but at least one of them seems decent. Maybe they can do something to get Mom back into fighting shape. Look out, Kalquor. If the real Eve Monroe shows up on your doorstep, you may wish you’d never met Earth.

  Well, hello. Dramok Dusa is walking into my room. Later.

  September 6

  I know I’m getting better, because I’m going stir crazy. I swear, if Nayun doesn’t let me get up and go for a walk soon, I’ll yank his beard.

  He’s like a big alien dad. He told me on more than one occasion, “Take your time. I’m not going to let you relapse. Get strong for your mother’s sake if not your own.” The man must stay up all night writing lines to feed to his patients.

  I had a visit from Dramok Dusa yesterday. He’s another surprise like Nayun in that he seems to be a nice person. In fact, with the orderlies and Mom’s babysitters (she has three that rotate shifts, keeping tabs on her and seeing to her needs), I have yet to meet one of the monsters we were told Kalquorians are. Really. Truly. They’ve all been nice.

  Where are the sex-crazed, primitive abductors I was told about? Where are the beasts that I produced so many cautionary (read ‘alarmist’) films about? Not a single one of these men has threatened me in any way. They treat Mom like a queen, never getting angry when she spills something or starts to wander off or forgets what she’s saying in the middle of a sentence. She even came back to herself once, the old cranky Eve that never sees anything good in anybody. For every insult she hurled at the Kalquorians that crossed her path, they only seemed to get nicer. Let me tell you, my mom can sling some mean in her natural state. I thought for sure the guy who keeps an eye on her during mornings and early afternoons would punch her right in the mouth. But no, Imdiko Weln only cocked an eyebrow at me. I swear the guy was on the brink of hysterical laughter. He bit his lips during her outburst, but I could still see them lifting at the corners as Mom told him the various things he could shove up his own backside.

  “Bipolar disorder,” I told him. “It’s either this or she’s crying and looking for a noose to wear around her neck.”

  The young, cute Weln looked like he would respond, but that little salvo re-directed my mother’s fury at me. “I am not ill! Shut up telling these murdering aliens our private business!”

  All the yelling brought in Nayun. He sedated her, quite against her wishes but completely in line with mine. When Mom woke she was once more in happy, if dim, Dementia Land again.

  Anyway, I was going to talk about Dusa. He’s a young one, it turns out, a little younger than me. I was writing my latest entry when he walked in yesterday. As he entered, his smile was tentative, as if he just knew I was going to toss him right out of the room. Or more likely, order him out. Yours truly is not going to be literally tossing a 200-plus pound example of pure brawn anywhere.

  “Hello, Matara Shalia. You are looking much better.”

  Ha. I haven’t seen a comb in days. I’m wearing no makeup, I’m starved, and I’m completely hagged out from being sick. If I’m looking much better now, I can only imagine how gorgon-ish I was when he found me passed out in the middle of someone’s flowerbed.

  He, in comparison, was wonderful to look at. I know, I know, the enemy, the monster Kalquorians, the rapists looking to damn our souls. Whatever. Dusa is a very handsome version of his kind. Of anybody’s kind. So take me out and shoot me for appreciating it.

  I smiled and self-consciously raked my fingers through my hair. I really need to ask for a brush. “Hello, Dramok Dusa. I’m starting to feel more like myself.”

  “May I visit with you for a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” I said, wishing mascara and lipstick would fall from the heavens like manna. Okay, I know I’m being stupid here. But he is that handsome and I felt really unattractive.

  He stood at my bedside. His long hair hung loose. Black and sleek, it lay down his back in a sheet. He has high cheekbones. I almost want to characterize them as ‘arrogant’. If he didn’t wear such an open, innocent expression, those cheekbones would make him appear haughty.

  Dusa also has a nice strong jawline and an almost pointed chin. His lips are a bit thin but when he smiles, which is a lot, I don’t really notice that small imperfection. And of course he has those funny purple cat eyes. I’m starting to get used to those, so they didn’t freak me out too much. And his fangs were folded away, so that also helped.

  “I owe you thanks for giving us food and rescuing me,” I said after a few moments of uneasy silence.

  “Not at all.” He looked pleased just the same. “I am happy we were able to find you in time.”

  “I guess I didn’t make it easy on you.” I felt a little pride in that. I’ve been hearing what great trackers Kalquorians are, so slipping away from Dusa was something of an accomplishment.

  He reddened. “I was assigned to monitor five other Mataras we’ve been trying to get to come in. You left the first house while I was checking on some of those. I lost your scent.”

  Lost my scent. Like he’s part bloodhound or something. Then I remembered the first time I saw him, coming down the street with two other Kalquorians. They’d had their noses in the air.

  “Oh well. I’m here now.”

  Dusa nodded. “I only wish I had been able to find you sooner before you got too ill. You scared us, Matara. We thought you might die.”

  He actually looked upset over my becoming so sick. It startled me to see that.

  We talked a little more. Dusa is away from his home planet for the first time. He’d just missed out on combat when the war ended. I was kind of glad to hear that. It was easier to not feel guilty talking to him knowing he hadn’t killed any of my kind. He’s clanned to a Nobek who is also here at the Academy and serves as onsite security. They haven’t found an Imdiko yet.

  “Before the virus that killed most of our Mataras, Imdikos were the rarest of our breeds,” Dusa told me. “It can be difficult to find one, especially since I’m serving off planet.”

  I was fascinated to get a glimpse into the clan thing. We’d been told by our government that Kalquorians liked to lie in sin with men as much as women. That whole homosexual business would land you in the fiery pit faster than anything else, or so said the Church.

  I’m pretty antagonistic about the state religion, and I’ve usually felt that if the Church wanted me to believe in something, I’d go in the opposite direction. However, I wasn’t sure what to think about three men together, doing THAT. But then again, I don’t much care for doing THAT, so what do I know?

  “You, uh, you don’t think any of the Imdikos here would be a good match for you?” I asked. “There are some very nice ones that are orderlies and nurses here. Handsome too.”

  Dusa grinned. “I wish I had time to meet them. More rescue teams are supposed to be arriving soon, so maybe my Nobek and I will have an opportunit
y when they get here. Right now, we’re too exhausted from working double shifts. When we get done with work, we eat and go straight to sleep.” He ducked his head. “This was my first chance to check on you since you got here. I had hoped to see you sooner.”

  Something beeped on the wide belt Dusa wore around his waist, and he grimaced. “And now my time is up already.” He blew out a breath. “I am glad you are doing so well, Matara.”

  I was disappointed to see he was getting ready to walk out. I have so many questions, but much like Dusa, everyone is really busy around here. No one has much time to talk.

  For this reason I asked, “Will you be able to visit me again?”

  Dusa gave me a big, surprised smile. “I would like to. May I?”

  “I invited you, didn’t I?” I held out my hand. “And since we were never properly introduced, my name is Shalia. You don’t have to call me Matara all the time.”