Blue Light of Home Read Free

anything at all, she guessed, because in spite of his more or less familiar bipedal and symmetrical shape, this was an alien life form. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t human. It was holding her in his inhuman hands and looking at her with his alien eyes.
    The urge to cry was very strong.
    Slowly, the alien set her on her feet and let her find her balance. It was difficult to tell just where he was looking, as he had no whites or pupils in his black eyes, but he seemed to be inspecting her just as intently, although without her obvious alarm.
    Without warning, he brought his hands up and gripped the spacesuit’s helmet. One quick twist and he pulled it away, releasing a hiss of trapped oxygen. He studied her face as she gasped on alien air that was, in retrospect, more or less exactly like Earth air only staler and warmer. Then he dropped the helmet indifferently, unlocked and removed her gloves. He picked up one of her small, pale hands and held it in his slick, scaly, three-fingered one, turning it over and examining it in silence. Finally, he undid the closure at her neck and peeled the whole rest of the suit down so that she stood there in her clunky boots, white tank-tee, and plain jane panties.
    He straightened up with a thoughtful grunt, his gaze moving over her without emotion. Finally, he came back to her eyes.
    “Do you know why you are here?” he asked.
    Skye shivered in the warm air. “I’m here to represent Earth’s people and to answer any questions you may have about humans.”
    He waited, and then his thin lips curled around the edges of his beaked face in a deep frown. “Did no one tell you there would be sexual services required?”
    Skye swallowed hard, trying not to drop her eyes, to look at those clawed hands, those contorted legs, that powerful and wholly inhuman body. “There was an implication,” she admitted.
    He kept frowning. “You agreed to this duty.”
    Was that a question or a reminder? Skye forced a smile of sorts. “They gave me the choice of being locked up for an indefinite amount of time, or dropping off a dumptruck full of money in front of my new house in the Caiman Islands when I get back. I’m not an experienced prostitute, but seeing as those were my options, yes, I am willing to make one hell of a prostitutorial debut.”
    The fingers of one hand flexed, drumming on his armored thigh in a preoccupied manner. He glanced at her suitcases, then turned around. Without another word, he went out through a doorless opening and into a narrow hall.
    Well, she guessed the interview was over. Skye stepped out of her boots, gathered up the spacesuit and spent a few minutes trying to juggle it and both suitcases (which, thanks to the gravity, were now both heavy as hell), and finally trudged after him.
    It wasn’t a long walk. He was waiting by a closed door maybe ten feet away, and while he did not offer to hold one damned thing for her, he did open the door. “This will be your room,” he said.
    Grand. She got everything inside, let the suit drop, and looked around. The room wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Low-ceilinged, but bigger than her bedroom back home. There were cupboards all along the walls, a nice view of the Earthrise out the window, and, of course, a fairly good-sized egg-shaped bed.
    She stared at the bed, wondering if the next phase of orientation included a trial run of “sexual services”.
    “Here,” the alien said behind her, and when she turned, he thumbed a panel on the wall. Out came an oddly-shaped but perfectly recognizable toilet bowl, with a sink where the tank should be.
    “Waste,” said the alien, toggling each of three switches in turn. The toilet hissed a flush. “Wash.” Water jetted up from the sides of the bowl. “Dry.” Another hiss of air. He hit the panel again and the toilet took itself away.
    Much nicer than Earth’s space-faring setup, she had to admit, although she wasn’t sure how she was going to feel about a