Alien Romance: The Alien's Wonderland: A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance Read Free Page B

Fritz, but his eyes radiated a calm born of maturity and experience. Fritz struck her as young and untried. This man had seen it all, even though he couldn’t have been much older than Frieda herself. He stood still and regarded her with his mellow brown eyes while she scanned him up and down.
    Her curiosity got the better of her. “Do all Aqinas wear their hair in those ropes down the back of your heads?”
    He didn’t smile. “Yes. The algae embeds in our hair and keeps it tied like this so it can access every part of our skin. This way, it has maximum surface area to transmit oxygen into our blood.”
    “Why does it do that?” she asked. “How did you adapt to get the algae to colonize your skin?”
    “It’s a symbiotic relationship,” he replied. “The algae are small plants. They consume the carbon dioxide we produce, and they get rid of their waste oxygen by diffusing it into our blood stream. This way, we don’t have to breathe at all.”
    Frieda blushed. “I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself to you first. I’m Frieda. I apologize for being rude.”
    “You have nothing to apologize for,” he replied. “You just got here. It’s natural you have questions about us.”
    She paused. “So what’s your name?”
    He didn’t close his eyes and bow the way Fritz did. He stared straight into her eyes, and yet his gaze didn’t disconcert her the way she expected it to. She stared back into his eyes with frank acceptance.
    “My name is Deek,” he replied.
    “Deek!” she repeated. “That’s an interesting name. Do all the Aqinas have one-syllable names?”
    He studied her. “I really don’t know. I don’t know all the Aqinas.”
    His manner fascinated her. He couldn’t have been more different from Fritz if he’d been a different species. “How many Aqinas do you know?”
    “I know my family and my friends,” he replied. “And I know all Fritz’s family, and a few other families connected with them.”
    Frieda frowned. “Fritz’s family is the leaders of the Aqinas. You must be talking about families with some political connection. Are they the ones that run this faction?”
    He put his head on one side and nodded. “I understand. You came from the factions, so naturally you think we behave the same way, but we don’t have a faction. We don’t have families with political connection. No one runs the Aqinas.”
    “Then who makes decisions concerning what you’ll do and how you’ll run your lives?” she asked. “Who’s in charge of that?”
    “No one makes decisions concerning what you’ll do and how you’ll run your life except you,” he replied. “Some of the families make decisions as groups, but no one tells anybody else what to do or how to do it. We don’t function that way.”
    Frieda thought that over. “Tell me more about the connection the water makes between your minds. Sasha said you know everything everybody else is thinking and feeling at all times because the water makes them one homogeneous chemical solution.”
    “That’s one way of describing it,” he replied. “For example, right now I can see shadows of the life you had when you were on land. I can see the factions where you lived and the men who led them. I can understand why you think the Aqinas might be the same way. I would have no frame of reference for that if the water didn’t make it clear to me.”
    Frieda blinked. “Are you saying you’re reading my mind right now?”
    “You can do the same thing if you want to,” he replied. “You can see images of my life among the Aqinas, and you can understand better how we live.”
    “How am I supposed to do that?” she asked. “Right now, all I see is you standing in front of me.”
    “Stop thinking so much,” he told her. “Stop seeing with your eyes and try instead to see with a different part of your mind. If you try, you’ll find the information is already inside you. The water puts it there, but it doesn’t put it into your mind.