FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Encounter

By AllMadHere

Marcus drove his pickup along the dark gravel road, his headlights providing minimal illumination over miles of farmland. Inside the cab, the only sources of noise were the rattle of the engine and the clanking of old Coke cans that bounced up and down at every bump and pothole. The red, rusted pickup had some serious problems with the motor; it could barely get above 50 miles per hour going downhill. Marcus really wanted to get his truck fixed (it really was HIS truck and not a vehicle his parents lent him), but he didn't have the money.

The 26 year old man had graduated from veterinary school several months before after four years studying large-animal medicine. Most of the people he had known at vet school had gone on to work in a normal veterinary clinic or had opened their own business, but since he graduated at the top of his class, the township of Mercury Creek, Nebraska had offered Marcus the opportunity to become its source of veterinary care for the 326 people and 430 square miles the township covered. In exchange for his service, the township offered to provide Marcus with a place to live and work, a stipend for living expenses, and a promise to help pay off his college loans. Marcus had thought long and hard about his future, and he calculated that working for Mercury Creek would provide better experience and allow him to pay off his loans faster than working at a normal veterinary clinic.

When Marcus accepted the offer and moved to Mercury Creek the week after he graduated, he brought his truck and few possessions to the farming community. The apartment located in the "high traffic" area of Mercury Creek was decent. The building looked like it hadn't been renovated or inspected since the 1970's, but it was comfortable. Right across the street was Marcus' "lab." Despite the fact that there were only 300 people in the area, there were easily ten times that number of cows, in addition to the numerous horses, sheep, and pigs, as well as cats and dogs. Though Marcus had mostly studied larger animals in vet school, he was still more the capable of handling normal domesticated pets. With so many 'patients' at his disposal, Marcus had a constant stream of tests going, at least when he wasn't driving across the county from one farm to another. Aside from the interstate, none of the roads were paved, and they were far from well-maintained, causing his truck to go from mostly functional to barely functioning in a few months. The stipend Marcus received was enough for food, but he hadn't been able to save enough for any of the repairs the truck needed. His special arrangement also meant Marcus was paid directly by the township, so any fees paid for his service went through the local government where it was used to pay off his loans before giving him the rest. Marcus believed he could request an increase in the amount that went to his stipend, but he didn't want to ask until he really needed it.

Marcus was driving back toward his apartment early in the morning. Mr. Becket's filly had chosen to go into labor at 11 pm. Horses could normally deliver well enough on their own, but the filly was young and this foal would be her first, so Marcus stood by just in case he needed to assist the female horse deliver her baby. Thankfully, everything followed the textbook description of the birthing process. After bidding Mr. Becket a good night, Marcus put his equipment back in his truck and began the long drive home. He looked at the dim display as the truck bounced along the road. The faint numbers showed the time to be 2:17. At the rate he was going, he wouldn't be back in bed until 3 am, giving him only three hours of sleep before he had to be up and traveling to the Hodgeson hog farm to give the pigs their yearly inspections. Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) had been hitting pigs hard lately, and the Hodgesons didn't want to take any chances. There were about two hundred adult hogs and about a quarter that number in piglets; examining and vaccinating all of them would take Marcus most of the morning, likely going into the afternoon, and then he would have to go examine a sheep with a broken leg, head back to the lab, give a checkup to a cat, and then start all the day's paperwork. If he was lucky, he would be back home by 8:00. Working an entire farming community by himself was tiring, and Marcus didn't have time for much of a life outside of his job. Still, everybody was always kind and very appreciative to have Marcus' help, as they had been without a regular veterinarian for a year after Marcus' predecessor had suffered a heart attack and retired. Everyone who Marcus visited knew about his financial arrangement, so they also made sure to get Marcus a little extra. Most of the farmer's wives gave him a batch of cookies after he was done, and more than once Marcus had been promised all the beef or pork he could eat when it came time to send the herds to the slaughterhouse.

As Marcus contemplated where he would store an entire cow's worth of meat, he rolled down the window and let the cool night air into the truck's cabin. Of all the things broken on the truck, the one thing Marcus didn't mind was the malfunctioning air conditioner. A stiff breeze or an open window was enough to keep Marcus comfortable. It was too late for any radio station within range to be playing music, and something in the area kept most AM frequencies from being received properly, so Marcus listened to the sounds of the trunk. He could recognize each malfunctioning part by the noise it made. At a constant 45 miles per hour, the pistons scratched every 3 seconds, the alternator buzzed every 4 seconds, something loose in the engine block clanged every 6 seconds, and all three sounds synchronized every 12 seconds. After a few minutes of listening to the engine, Marcus heard a sound he didn't recognize: a high pitched buzzing, similar to an electric razor, but it didn't seem to be coming from the truck. As Marcus slowed the truck down to a crawl, he could still hear the buzzing, and when the truck stopped, he could feel a vibration rocking the whole truck. Even after he turned off the truck, Marcus could still feel the tingling sensation on his skin. He stepped out of the truck and tried to find the source of the noise and the vibration, but it seemed to be everywhere. As he stood looking around, the buzzing got louder and the tremor became more intense. The ground began to shake and the gravel from the road jumped up and down. Looking over the surrounding corn fields, Marcus began to wonder if Nebraska was having an earthquake. Before he could make a conclusion, the buzzing and vibration stopped. After the nanosecond Marcus had to perceive the silence, there was a deafening bang accompanied by a flash as bright as the sun. Marcus was knocked off his feet and blacked out.

When he finally regained consciousness, Marcus groaned and sat up. His head was pounding, his ears were ringing, and his vision was still clouded with spots. Still disoriented, he checked himself for any signs of a concussion. Finding none, he slowly stood up, steadying himself on his truck which, miraculously, had survived the... whatever it was. Marcus could see some flames about 50 yards into the corn field in front of him, so he got into his truck and drove down the access road beside the field. Marcus had a cell phone, but half the time there was no reception. Living out in a rural area had taught Marcus how much people relied on each other. The township only had a volunteer fire department, and the single police officer often deputized citizens if anything actually happened. This wasn't the first time Marcus had seen a small brush fire break out, and he knew how to put one out. By the time Marcus reached the flames, he could see they had been reduced to embers and would shortly burn themselves out. Looking around, Marcus could see that a circular region almost 100 yards in diameter was burned into the field, reducing the corn within the area to ashes. In the center of the circle, a twisted mass of metal creaked and gave off an occasional spark. Marcus got back into his truck and drove toward the wreck. As he got closer, he pointed the truck's headlights directly at the wreckage. Marcus got out and approached it cautiously, trying to identify what the wreckage was. There was too much to be a helicopter, but there was no way that the wreckage was a plane. It didn't have any wings, but it was very sleek and aerodynamic. The metal was strange. It seemed to be glowing, but it wasn't hot, as Marcus found out when he bumped into a piece of it. As strange as the situation was, Marcus pushed aside his curiosity and began to look for survivors.

"Hello?" he called into the wreckage, hoping for an answer. "Is there anybody in there?"

He didn't hear any reply, but he started to shift wreckage anyway, thinking that the pilot of the strange craft was either unconscious or dead. As Marcus moved debris away from what he assumed was the cockpit, he began to see things stranger than the metal: crystals that hummed with static electricity, wiring that Marcus suspected was moving on its own accord, and materials that seemed incredibly dense but impossibly light. Moving a final sheet of metal away from the cockpit area, Marcus saw a pair of legs lying in a small passageway behind the pilot's seat. Marcus called out again, trying to get a response, but he received no reply. Stretching past the seat and into the crawlway, Marcus grabbed the legs and gently pulled the person out of the vehicle before softly setting them on the ground. Now that he was within the range of his truck's headlights, he could get a better look at the pilot. His first response was to stand in shock. His second response was to swear.

"What the hell?" Marcus asked himself. The pilot was nothing like he had ever seen. She was obviously female, if the breasts were any indication, but the rest of her was...unbelievable. A long, furry tail flowed from the end of her spine down to her ankles. Her face resembled a feline: whiskers, heart-shaped nose, and pointed ears. Her hands were human-like, but they ended with dull claws instead of fingernails, and her palms were covered with a tough tissue. "Paw pads," Marcus thought. From what Marcus could see of her body, she was covered in a dark blue fur that shimmered in the light. Most of her body was covered by a dark jumpsuit that had a few golden symbols along the front. "What is she? What's going on? Who...?" Marcus felt dizzy. He sat on the ground and tried not to pass out.

"Okay. There are aliens. And one of them has crashed in front of you." Marcus started breathing heavily. "I suppose I should make sure she's all right."

He learned over the body and started to examine the feline-thing closely. He felt around her neck, looking for some sort of pulse. Eventually, he found a spot that seemed to indicate blood was still flowing, and he also found that she was breathing lightly on her own. "At least she's alive," Marcus thought as he continued his examination. He saw one of her arms was twisted in an odd way. Ripping the sleeve of the jumpsuit past the elbow, Marcus immediately saw that her right arm was broken. The bone wasn't poking through the skin, but the pressure on the skin was visible. Her face lacked any serious injuries. As Marcus shifted his focus downward, he found a patch of the jumpsuit was wet just below her chest. "I hope she doesn't mind if I take a look, too make sure she's healthy." Marcus looked for a zipper or some sort of familiar device to open the jumpsuit, but he didn't find one. Looking around the collar, he saw a small red tab which he pinched between his finger and thumb as he pulled gently. As he tugged, a seam opened up down the front of the jumpsuit and spit as the tab passed by. "I guess that's an alien zipper," Marcus thought. He moved the folds of the jumpsuit out of the way and examined the damp spot on her abdomen. There was a large cut and most of her abdomen was covered in a liquid that Marcus assumed was blood, but it wasn't blood like he had seen before; it was light blue instead of red and it was much more viscous than human blood.

Marcus ran back to his truck and grabbed his medical kit from the cab. The supplies inside were meant to be used on horses, but this was an emergency and Marcus needed to improvise. He grabbed one of the alcohol wipes and stared to clean and sterilize the wound; the feline moaned as he did, giving Marcus a brief surprise. He had the equipment to stitch up the wounds, but he didn't want to do it in an open field surrounded by smoldering debris. Left with no other options, Marcus picked her up and carried her to his truck. She felt incredibly warm. "I hope she doesn't have a fever. An infection would be bad." As he got to his truck, he heard a beeping noise. He looked down toward the feline and noticed a phone-shaped device in her belt had a display switching between blue and red as it urgently beeped. After a few seconds of beeping, a voice started saying one word at a time, pausing about two seconds in between words. After 16 of the words were uttered, the screen flashed red and stayed that way. Before Marcus could wonder what happened, a flash almost as bright as the one before went off behind him, but there was no noise. When Marcus turned around, the craft was gone and a pile of ash was in its place.

"I'm going to assume that was a self-destruct." Turning his attention back to the alien in his arms, Marcus placed her in the bed of the pickup. He grabbed the blankets he kept for birthing animals and placed them around her, trying to make the vehicle as soft as possible.

"I'm sorry," he said to the alien, knowing that she couldn't hear him, "I'm sorry, but the ride is going to be rough. Normally I wouldn't move an injured person, but I need to get you to a safer place. I'm guessing people are going to start looking at the crash site soon." Marcus jumped into the cab and started the truck. He slowly drove out of the field and back onto the gravel road, and he drove at thirty miles per hour the entire way back to town.

Despite the night's events, Marcus arrived at home just after 3:00. Instead of going to his apartment, he backed up to the loading bay of his clinic/lab. After he stopped, he jumped out of the truck and ran to the door, unlocking it with his key. He made his way through the small building and grabbed an animal stretcher normally used for large dogs. He wheeled it back to the loading bay and opened the large garage door. Marcus opened the rusty tailgate and gently slid the alien onto the stretcher. Once she was secure, he wheeled the stretcher back inside and brought her to the largest of the examination rooms. Carefully removing her from the stretcher, he laid her down on the table. Opening her jumpsuit again, he removed the bandage which was now soaked with alien blood. From what he could tell, the wound had started clotting during the drive back. Grabbing another alcohol wipe, he cleaned the wound again before grabbing a kit for stitches.

"I'm sorry, but this is going to hurt," he said to her. As cleanly as he could, he ran the needle though her flesh and gradually closed the wound. After he was done, Marcus applied some antibiotic before covering the cut with a fresh bandage. "Now let's get a look at that arm." Her right arm was still twisted at an odd angle. If she had been an animal, Marcus would have known how to set it correctly, but arms were completely different from legs. Marcus carefully examined the injury for a few minutes before he decided on a treatment. Gingerly placing the alien back on the stretcher, he wheeled her into the X-ray room. He took a lead-lined blanket and placed it over her body before orienting her arm underneath the X-ray camera. Marcus stepped out of the room to the control booth where he turned on the machine and took an X-ray. While he waited for the X-ray to develop, he wheeled his patient back to the examination room. Looking at the film, he could see that two bones in the upper arm were broken in half. ("Since when are there two bones in the upper arm?") Marcus could have made a cast if he wanted, but he wasn't comfortable making that drastic of a decision without knowing for sure how to set the bones properly. Instead, Marcus grabbed the equipment necessary for a split. He didn't want to move the arm any more than he had to, especially after having transported the alien over 10 miles of gravel road. He carefully placed two pieces of rigid plastic on either side of the arm and used Velcro straps to tightly secure them. Marcus stepped back and admired his handiwork. It probably wasn't the prettiest splint ever made, but it would keep the injury from becoming worse as he waited to find a better treatment. After a minute's rest, Marcus examined the rest of the alien. There were a few minor cuts and scrapes, but nothing that required treatment. What the she needed now was rest.

Marcus placed her back on the stretcher and wheeled her into the storage room. A couple weeks before, Marcus had to stay up an entire night as he monitored a very sick dog. After that, Marcus kept a cot in the storage room in case he ever had to repeat the experience. He placed the feline on the cot and adjusted the pillow under her head before covering her with blankets. Keeping her warm seemed to be the best thing to do. All Marcus could do now as wait. For the first time, he could look at her in a nonmedical way. Her body was pleasing to look at. She was skinny, but powerful, the very embodiment of the word 'lithe.' Her feline face brought powerful images to Marcus' mind. She was powerful, wild, and exotic. Marcus reached out to gently stroke her cheek, and she gently reacted to his touch.

"I'd better let her sleep," Marcus thought, leaning back in an uncomfortable metal chair, "she's going to need it."

Marcus watched her all through the night, never sleeping or even leaving the room. As the hours ticked by and the clock approached 6:00, Marcus wondered what he was going to do next. He had to be at the Hodgeson farm by 7:00, but he couldn't bring the alien with him and he couldn't leave her alone the whole day. If she woke up while he was gone, she would be incredibly confused and scared. As he struggled to find a solution, the alien turned on her side and moaned as she opened her eyes. Their gazes met as they looked toward each other. Despite the differences in race, Marcus could still read the emotions on her face and in her eyes: fear, confusion, and panic. Marcus held his hands up in a way that he hoped indicated he wasn't going to hurt her.

"It's okay. You're safe," he said gently. "I don't know if you can understand me, but I'm not going to hurt you." Still looking confused, the feline looked at her surroundings before looking down at the splint on her arm. After she examined the bindings, she lifted her jumpsuit and inspected the stitching which kept the wound form reopening. She looked up at Marcus, still afraid, but no longer in terror.

"Na thrkella kost hrrgith. Sabe luktol brog j'thell." The voice was like a soft growl. Not hostile, but clearly having a demanding tone.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying, and I'm guessing you don't understand me either, so communication seems like it's going to be really complicated."

"Bro'na thrkella kost vstra hrrgith'ata. Drabas'sab luktol brojelit j'thell."

"Repeating it won't help me. I'm sorry, but I don't understand you."

The feline rolled onto her back and raised her uninjured left arm toward Marcus, gesturing in a manner that undoubtedly meant 'come here.' She looked straight into his eyes and continued speaking in a slow, calm voice. "Brast'thil nobos dur kilth. Treves."

Marcus got up from his chair and moved closer to the cot. The feline still had her arm raised in a beckoning gesture. Marcus leaned in until he was about two feet away from the alien.

"Okay, I'm closer, but I don't see how this improves-" And that was as far as he got. The feline brought her arm down and pressed her hand to the side of Marcus' face.

Marcus had received an electric shock once in his life when he was younger. That was practically pleasurable compared to what he was experiencing. His body was rigid and he couldn't move. He could barely comprehend his own thoughts through the agony. Just as Marcus realized what was happening, thoughts, feelings, and images that weren't part of his memory flooded into his mind: The vessel from the field, intact, floating far above earth. An explosion. Part of the ship disintegrated. A sensation of falling. Emergency Procedure 8. Fear. Panic. Agony. Kinetic dampeners active. Silence. More information followed: Words that made no sense. Rules of grammar. Syntax. Military protocols with no context. One last thought entered into Marcus' mind and echoed for an eternity. A name: Cil'this. None of it made sense, but all of it made sense. As the logical contradiction ran through every part of his conscience, Marcus blacked out for the second time that night.

When Marcus opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was the ceiling of the storage room. He groaned as he rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. His head pounded and he felt dizzy. As he steadied himself on the chair, he took a glance at his watch. He had only been out for a minute. He sat back down and looked back at his patient who had a look resembling concern on her face.

"Was that some sort of attack? Not exactly effective."

"Actually, it was a means of gathering information. Your collapsing was a side-effect." The voice was rough and sounded primal and animalistic, but it was clearly English.

Marcus paused, surprised. "Why didn't you speak English five minutes ago?"

"I did not understand English five minutes ago."

"You learned English in five minutes?" Marcus asked in disbelief.

"Not learned. I...absorbed it from you. The vocabulary, syntax, rules of grammar, colloquialisms, and anything else I'd need to communicate."

"So that....thing you did was mind reading?"

"More like a low level telepathic interface. My people evolved from a tribal, hunter species. The connection developed as a way to silently send information during hunts. By its nature, the telepathy is an exchange. For everything piece of information I took, you received something equivalent from my mind."

"So I know whatever language you were speaking?"

"Yes. It is called Draj'gel, my peoples' universal language."

"So your people are the Draj, and you're from the Kasta'til tribe." Marcus stopped. "How did I know that? There's no possible way I could know that."

"It's part of the exchange. I wanted to know who you were, so I dug a little."

"And what did you find out?"

"Your name is Marcus," she said in a direct tone. "You are from a place called...Minnesota. This place is called Nebraska. You have finished academic studies and work as a doctor for animals. You were coming home when my vessel crashed. You dug me from the wreckage and treated my wounds to the best of your ability and kept my presence as a secret. For this, I thank you."

"So I know about you, too?" Marcus focused on the blue feline and began to talk, simply letting the information flow from his mind. "Your name is Second Sor'del Cil'this. You are employed by the military to scout and investigate developing civilizations. On your approach to Earth, a computer error caused an implosion in the Gradik generator which resulted in your vessel's rapid descent. You initiated Emergency Procedure 8 and attempted to reach the escape pod. When the escape pod failed to jettison, Emergency Procedure 9 automatically activated and, after you were removed from the wreckage, the ship self-destructed. When you thought you were dying you thought about your father..." Marcus shut his mouth. That was more personal than he intended to go. "Sorry. It just slipped out."

"It's all right. The rush of information takes some time to get used to. The exchange process has never been done on a human before, so I didn't know what the results would be."

"So the passing out is unusual?"

"Yes. Most races experience some residual dizziness, but all of the races studied already had some level of telepathic activity."

"Well, I'm sure I'll make a fascinating data point. So where do we go from here? I gathered from your mind that you were supposed to check in with the military command once per day, so they'll come looking for you, but that might take a while."

"Right. When I don't check in, they'll follow procedures and send a search party, but their ships will have to jump out of Gradik space outside of the solar system to avoid detection by your planet's astronomers. Once they get here, they'll detect this," she said, gesturing to the device in her belt, "and send down an evacuation craft."

"That's good, but our government isn't going to sit still. The crash must have been heard for miles, and I'm sure the military will be interested in figuring out what went down over there."

"Procedure in the event of a crash is to remain hidden from all sentient inhabitants of the planet, but circumstances changed in this case. You've already seen me, so my options are either kill you or get you to help me. Since you seem to be an important person in this community and your disappearance would attract attention, I'd like to request that you continue to hide me."

"We'll, I'm glad my life means so much to you," Marcus huffed.

"It's not personal. I wouldn't want to kill you," Cil'this said apologetically, "but horrible things have happened on planets where the existence of sentient, extra-planetary life was discovered because of accidents on the part of the observers."

"Well, I doubt anybody would believe me if I told them. We humans tend to be skeptical about fantastic claims. I think it would be best if you stayed here for the day. I'm the only person who comes in here, so you should be alone. The door locks automatically when it closes, so nobody could get in here without the key. There's a bathroom right across the hall if you need that. I'll also leave some fresh bandages in case you need to change the dressing-"

"That won't be necessary," Cil'this stated, "come over here and help me."

Marcus got up and went to her side. Cil'this reached down to her belt and pulled out a syringe. She handed it to Marcus and started to remove the top of her jumpsuit. She turned her back to him and gave instructions. "When I tell you to, inject that near the base of my neck. There's a major artery that flows through that region."

"I don't like to inject things unless I know what they are," said Marcus.

"It's easier to show you," replied Cil'this as she removed the splint, wincing slightly. "Are you ready for this?"

"I suppose so."

"When I say now." Cil'this grabbed her right wrist with her left arm and pulled it hard enough to realign the bones. "NOW!"

Marcus centered the syringe as best he could and injected all of the clear liquid into Cil'this' neck. As soon as he pulled the empty syringe out, he could see a faint glowing coming from the injection site which began to spread through Cil'this' entire body. Marcus thought her heard a slight clicking noise as the glow reached Cil'this' arm. After a few seconds, the glow faded away and Cil'this released her arm, which now looked uninjured. "What was...how?"

"The Draj have an immunity and repair system based on the activities of enzymes in our blood," she gasped, still slightly in pain, "the materials in the syringe supercharged them. My bones are now reconnected and all of my other injuries have been healed."

"That's amazing," sputtered Marcus. "I guess my treatment was rather primitive, in comparison."

"It's actually not that different than normal medical treatment on Draj'tera. The compounds in the syringe are used only in emergencies, and it's not healthy to use more than one or two every bristhilk."

"Every what?" asked Marcus. "You started speaking Draj'gel, and I couldn't understand."

"Not every word in a language has an equivalent in another. Proper nouns and specific scientific terms tend to get lost in translation. A bristhilk is a unit of time equal to about...eight months if my math is correct."

"I see," said Marcus, nodding. "You used the word Gradik twice before. What does that mean?"

"Gradik is our word for a combination of specific electromagnetic frequencies and particles. When the radiation and particles are aligned in a particular way, normal space bends and ships within the bubble can travel faster than light because they are outside normal space."

"And what is a Sor'del? I said it as part of your name."

"A position in the military. I think together the words observer and inspector give you the general idea of the position's responsibilities. I have my own question. Has there been some sort of radiation leak? I can feel the remnants of an energy discharge in my arm."

"What? Oh, the X-ray. We use high frequency electromagnetic radiation to examine the internal structures of bodies. You can actually feel it?"

"Absolutely. Radiation spikes occur fairly often on my home planet, so we've adapted to be able to sense drastic changes in radiation."

"Impressive," said Marcus. "Now that we have all that cleared up, is there anything else you need before I go to work?"

"I think I will need some food to fully recover," said Cil'this, pulling out her device and scanning the room. "The substance inside the blue bucket appears to meet my nutritional needs."

"Blue bucket?" said Marcus, looking around. "The dog food? Well, talk about irony," he laughed.

"Sorry, I don't see what is funny about this."

"Well, dogs and cats usually don't mix well."

"I understand the words but not their meaning. What are khats and dawgs?"

"Oh, right. A dog is a species of animal that humans keep for labor and companionship. There are a lot of different varieties; you can see some on the bucket there, but they all descended from wolves: carnivorous pack animals. In most cultures, dogs don't mix well with cats because they tend to fight. Cats are, well....cats look like small versions of you. There's a picture of one breed on the wall over there. They have whiskers, pointed ears, fluffy tails, and even their pupils are narrow like yours. They are predatory as well, but they tend to live alone unless humans adopt them as companions."

Cil'this looked over at the cat food poster and tilted her head slightly. "I guess there is some resemblance, but I assure you that I am far less docile."

"I believe you," said Marcus. "Hey, I just got an idea, I'll be right back." Marcus left the storage room and the lab, running across the street and up to his apartment. He grabbed his laptop off the table and ran back to the lab. He reopened the storage room and set his laptop up on an upended crate. "The internet," Marcus began, "is a worldwide connection of computers. Information of every sort: art, entertainment, current events, history, science, etc. can be found on the internet. If your job is to study civilizations, you might as well do some reading while you're here. Can you do that exchange thing again and absorb what I know about using the internet."

"I can," Cil'this murmured hesitantly, "but after what happened last time..."

"Just be gentle with it. And it's only a little information and not an entire language."

"Okay," Cil'this said, "here we go." She lifted both her hands to Marcus' temple and closed her eyes. Marcus could feel a strong tingling sensation over his body, but he wasn't paralyzed like before. He could actually feel his thoughts on the internet being drawn from his mind as information about the device in Cil'this' belt were added. When the process was over, Marcus felt like he had stood up to quickly, but he didn't black out.

"Do you have it?" Marcus asked.

"Yes. How do you feel?"

"Not too bad actually, and that's quite an impressive gadget you have in your belt."

"It's supposed to be a universal tool, functioning as a scanner, communicator, homing beacon, and data analyzer."

"Communicator... that reminds me of something I should show you. Follow me." Marcus led Cil'this down the hall to the main desk, checking to make sure nobody was look in. "This is a telephone," began Marcus as he grabbed a business card. "It is a communication device that uses electrical signals to send sounds from one device to another. I have another phone on me. If something happens while I'm gone, make sure nobody is looking and come out here." Marcus handed her the business card. "To call me, push the buttons that correspond to the numbers on the card. Depending on where I am, the signal might not get through, but just press the 'redial' button here and it will keep calling my phone. I something really bad does happen, just run. This place is very sparsely populated and we're close to a farmer's field. Hide there until I get back."

"I appreciate the concern," Cil'this said haughtily, but I am a member of the military and I can take care of myself."

"As long as you aren't trying to fly a spacecraft," Marcus teased.

"I believe the word your people use is "touché."

Marcus laughed as he escorted Cil'this back to the storage room. As she went to work on Marcus' laptop, he went around the lab, getting the materials he'd need for the hog farm checkup and the injured sheep. After he loaded everything up in his truck, Marcus hopped inside and headed off to the hog farm. As he drove, the weight of what he was doing began to sink in. "I'm hiding an alien," he said out loud. "I'm hiding a female, telepathic, cat-like alien from the US government to whom I have given my laptop so that she can study Earth civilizations. If anybody finds out I will either be very much in prison or very much dead, to say nothing of Cil'this."

The Hodgeson farm was about an hour away from the lab, so Marcus had plenty of time to contemplate his fate. Even when he arrived and began to inspect the swine, he couldn't escape from the topic, as most of the people in the township had heard the explosion.

"So did ya hear the bang last night?" asked Jack Hodgeson, the pig farmer.

"Yes, I did," replied Marcus. "I was driving from Becket's farm last night when I saw a flash and heard a boom. I thought it might have been the McDonald kids setting off some of their extra fireworks from the 4th of July."

"Not unless the McDonald boys got themselves a proper rocket. Trevor called me up telling me he had a huge circle burned into his corn with a huge pile of ash. Nope. I tell ya, somethin' exploded good 'n properly last night."

"Has Trevor called the Sheriff to report this?"

"He did, but not after callin' up most of the neighbors to have a look. By the time Sam got up there the whole area was covered with tire tracks. No way to tell who was goin' where."

Marcus breathed an internal sign of relief. It wouldn't be possible to know if he was there or not, so he was in the clear...for now. "So what do you think it was?"

"Well, I've been sayin' that some of those hooligans from South Dakota probably brought down a buncha' propane tanks and were shootin' 'em up, but Carl and Sam were thinking some jokers came and wanted to make a crop circle but couldn't go about doing it properly because the corn was too tall."

"That still wouldn't explain the bang," said Marcus as he checked a pig, "and a propane explosion that big would have left a crater."

"True," said Jack thoughtfully. "So whatda' you think it was?"

"I honestly couldn't say. The only part of my work that involved explosions was one of Nelson Brigg's constipated heffers."

Jack laughed. "I guess so. Well, I'll stop botherin' you and let you get on with yer work."

For the rest of the morning, Marcus was alone with the pigs. With Cil'this on his mind, he had some difficulty concentrating. After he took lunch, there were still a few pigs left to check and vaccinate, but Marcus was able to finish by 2:00 before heading to the McDonald farm to check on a sheep with a simple leg fracture. When he arrived at 2:23, Sophie McDonald didn't even bother to introduce the topic.

"So what do you think it was?" she asked without saying hello.

"What, Trevor's burned field?" replied Marcus, playing innocent. "I don't really have any good ideas. Unless your boys have been playing with fire again."

"Oh Lord, no. We keep them well away from matches after that incident at the farmer's market."

"Do you have any theories?"

"Well I was thinkin' a few out-of-towners mighta' had a bonfire and it got out of control."

"Do you think Sam will get any leads?"

"Probably not. Middle of the night. Too many tire tracks to count. No witnesses. Those ruffians are miles away by now. Poor Trevor will have to cut his losses. Anyway, let me show you that sheep."

Sophie led Marcus over to the pen where the injured sheep was kept. The ewe had been injured when she stepped into a gopher hole as she was running. Marcus jumped over the fence, slowly approached the sheep, and dropped to one knee to get a better look at the leg. "It looks like everything is healing fine, but she's putting more weight on her other legs and limping quite a bit. It'd be best to keep the splint on for a few more days. I'll come back Friday afternoon and see how she's doing."

"Thank you, Marcus. I just finished a batch of cookies. Would you like a few before you go?"

After Marcus finished some of Mrs. McDonald's delicious cookies, he practically had to fight his way out of taking another two dozen home, but that didn't stop him from leaving with only one dozen. The ride home was uneventful until he got into town. The sole paved street in town was blocked by two Humvees and a sign that said 'Road Closed." Marcus pulled his truck up to one of the soldiers and rolled the window down. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Do you live here?" asked the soldier, ignoring Marcus' question.

"Yes, I live on the second floor of that brick apartment building over there. I work in the animal clinic across the street. What's going on?

"Last night there was an accident outside the town," the soldier stated in typical military precision. A plane carrying a tank of volatile chemicals discharged its cargo over a corn field, resulting in a large explosion. These chemicals appear to be confined to the area, but we are checking every building in the area for any exposure. Nonresidents are not being permitted into town at this time, but you can go ahead and pull your truck around to your apartment. With your permission, we'd like to check your residence for any exposure to the gas."

Marcus knew immediately that everything the soldier had just said was complete bullshit, but it was probably best to play along. "Of course, Sergeant," he said, deliberately putting the Corporal one rank too high. He pulled his truck into his usual parking space in front of the building and waited for one of the soldiers to join him. Neither Marcus nor the soldier said anything to each other as they climbed the stairs to the apartment. When Marcus reached the door, he unlocked it and allowed the soldier to enter. The Private pulled a handheld device for detecting various gases in the vicinity. The soldier walked around the apartment, looking more at the apartment itself than the readout on the device. After a few minutes, the soldier approached Marcus.

"Everything looks clear here, but I'd like to take a look at the clinic."

"Sure, let's go have a look." Marcus sounded casual, but he was panicking inside. All the way down the stairs he tried to think of a reasonable plan for getting the Private to look everywhere but the storage room. Unfortunately, nothing came to his mind. He reached the door to the lab and unlocked it. The soldier stepped inside and began his inspection of the facility. He stopped in every room and even some of the closets, barely paying attention to the device in his hand. In a cruel twist of fate, the storage room was the last that the Private tried to enter. He jiggled the handle and then turned toward Marcus.

"This door is locked. Could you please open it, sir?

"Sure, just let me find the key," Marcus said, digging through his pockets longer than necessary. "Here they are." He took the key and inserted it into the lock, purposefully turning it the wrong way before turning it the right way. After he put the key back in his pocket, he turned the knob the wrong way and gave the door a few loud shoves. "Sorry, this door sticks sometimes." Feeling he couldn't delay any longer, Marcus gave a final shove to the door and opened it. Inside, nothing was out of the ordinary. The cot was in its normal position with folded blankets. The crate the laptop was on had been put back in the corner. Even the laptop was no longer visible. Marcus managed to refrain from celebrating. The soldier looked around for a minute before thanking Marcus for his time. As he turned to go there was a blur of motion and a slam as the soldier flew into the wall.

"WHAT THE!" shouted the soldier before his voice was muffled by Cil'this' hand.

"Keep quiet you tyrannical fuck, or I will rip every ounce of flesh from your throat and drink your blood! Got it?"

"The soldier quickly nodded yes and Cil'this slid her hand from his mouth and onto his throat."

"Tell me who you are," she said angrily."

"Brian Daniels. Private. RA61 899 578."

"You're lying," said Marcus. One, your camouflage pattern was discontinued after the Persian Gulf War. Two, the American Flag is the wrong way around. Three, your dog tags are plastic. Four, the U.S. Army stopped issuing service numbers after Vietnam." Marcus turned to Cil'this. "This bastard is from some government agency that doesn't bother to do its research, but that doesn't matter. They know something is up and they're looking for someone, so we have to be careful."

Cil'this growled. "How much do you know? What are your plans?"

The imposer-soldier stuttered. "T-t-there was a p-plane crash. S-some experimental plane that flew over f-f-from Russia. The pilot escaped and we're supposed t-t-to track him down. That's it."

"And who are you? The TRUTH this time?"

"My n-name really is Brian Daniels. Former national guard, but I work for Homeland Security."

Marcus started talking again. "Looks like everybody is being lied to, but that means somebody knows that there is something weird going on. So Cil'this, what do we do with this guy?"Cil'this didn't answer but instead raised her hands to the man's temple.

"What are you doing?" yelled the solider. "Stop it...please!" Then his body went rigid and he started to shake. After Cil'this released his head he collapsed to the floor.

"What did you do to him?" Marcus asked, panicked. "Killing him is bound to..."

"He's not dead. I just used some telepathy to erase the last three minutes of his memory and knock him out. He should regain consciousness in about a minute. Pour this by his feet and tell him he slipped. Improvise from there. Got it?"

Before he could answer, Cil'this dashed off and disappeared into the shadows, leaving Marcus standing with a bottle of water. He followed her instructions and made a puddle at the imposter's feet. A few seconds after he finished and hid the water bottle, the man awoke and moaned.

"Private, are you all right?" asked Marcus, feigning concern. "I didn't even see that puddle. Did you hit your head hard?"

"W-what? I don't know. I can't remember anything after opening the door."

"You should probably go see a doctor and make sure you don't have a concussion."

"Y-yeah. Sure. As soon as I finish this. Should only be a minute."

The man ran his fake scans as he looked around the room and left as soon as he finished.

Once the man was safely out of the clinic, Marcus shut the door and turned around, about to call for Cil'this to come out before he saw she was already standing in front of them. "Christ, Cil'this. How did you do that?"

She smiled. "My race is built for stealth and speed. It was nothing, especially when your race seems to have exceptionally bad hearing."

Marcus didn't return the smile. "I have some questions to ask you later, but right now I have a cat that I need to look at, so stay here." With that, Marcus turned and left the storage room. Krissy Jones was already in the waiting area when Marcus got there. "Good afternoon Mrs. Jones. How are you?"

"Oh, all right I suppose. All these soldiers suddenly showed up out of nowhere talking about gas and detectors and road blocks and it's almost too much for me."

"Well, I think it's just a precaution. Everything will probably be fine. Now let's take a look at that cat of yours. What seems to be the trouble?"

"The past week, Spots has been acting unusual. She's been eating a lot and hardly sleeping. She's been meowing for hours every day, and she's also been trying to bite and claw at people who pet her, but then she'll be incredibly affectionate towards the same people. I'm worried something is wrong."

Marcus smiled. "I might have an idea of what it is, but I'll need to do a quick examination. I'll just take her in the back for a moment while I examine her."

Taking the cat carrier, Marcus entered the small examination room and let the cat out. He gave her a couple of pets to calm her down before examining her. He poked and prodded a few areas before placing Spots back into the carrier and bringing it back out to Mrs. Jones.

"Mrs. Jones, I know exactly what is going on with Spots, and it really is nothing to worry about. It is a very normal occurrence in cats."

"What is it?" "Spots is in heat."

"Oh my," said Mrs. Jones, blushing a little. So she...she..."

"Wants to mate, yes."

"So what can I do?"

"At this point, there's not much except to wait it out a few days. Heat in cats doesn't last more than a week or two. There are two options I can think of to keep this from happening again. The first is to get a male cat 'friend' for spots."

"Oh no." said Mrs. Jones. "I don't have the energy to care for kittens. What's the other option?"

"Have her spayed."

"Does that...hurt her?"

"Not at all. Millions of cats are spayed and they are perfectly fine. It's a routine operation. I can't do it by myself, so I'd have to call in another vet to assist me. We could have it done in a week or two when Spots is no longer in heat."

"Thank you, Marcus. I'll call in to make an appointment later. See you around.

"You too, Mrs. Jones."

Marcus enjoyed the simple visits where he could easily spot the problem and educate the owners about their pets, but he didn't have time to enjoy the satisfaction. He needed to talk to Cil'this, so he walked down the hall and unlocked the storage room again. Stepping inside, everything was back to how it had been in the afternoon. The crate was back in place and the laptop was on. Cil'this was lying on the cot, resting. "I've got a few questions for you."

Cil'this sat up. "Ask away."

"Why did you attack when we entered the room?"

"That man was a soldier. I could see it right away. He may not have been a proper soldier, but he was still a member of the military."

"But I was with him. I could have been bringing him to you. Why didn't you attack me?"

"You we're obviously trying to alert me, seeing as how you jiggled the handle a dozen times. You could have done nothing and I would have been ready."

"Really?"

Cil'this pointed toward her ears. "I could hear you the moment you entered the building. I could hear your heart beating on the other side of that door. Nothing gets near me."

"You were well hidden. Why attack at all?"

"I may be stealthy, but I'm not that stealthy. In a room this size, I could have hidden for...a minute maybe, but not much longer. He would have found me eventually, and I wanted to have the upper hand."

"Last question. Unrelated to the others. How did you manage to crash in a field without leaving a crater and burning a perfect circle 100 yards in diameter? I heard the words 'kinetic dampeners active' in our first exchange of thoughts. Does that have something to do with it?"

Cil'this nodded. "The kinetic dampeners activate when the ship is in danger of crashing. They convert kinetic energy into thermal energy and evenly release it away from the ship. When my ship hit the ground, I couldn't have been going more than a 10 or 20 miles per hour, but everything around the ship was burned. Because the ship was already damaged, some of the energy wasn't safely released, which means that the ship...exploded. But only a little."

"Hardly an inconspicuous landing."

"But it was safe."

"Safe? You crashed!"

"I survived."

"True. You can keep doing whatever you were doing. I have paper work I have to file."

For the next several hours, Marcus worked in his office filling out forms and signing dozens of papers. Being the sole animal care provider for several hundred people and thousands of animals sure took a lot of him. At some point, Cil'this must have gotten bored with the internet and started sneaking up on him. Every so often, she would sneak to his door, silently approach him from behind, and tap him on the neck with one of her claws before dashing out before he could turn around. The third time this happened, Marcus turned around and shouted out the door. "If you're really that bored, you could organize the storage room! I've been meaning to do that for a while!" The attacks ceased after this outburst. Two hours later, Marcus finished his paperwork and went to go talk to Cil'this. When he opened the storage room, he saw it had, in fact, been organized. As Cil'this explained, she developed and implemented a 14 point organization system which included properties such as purpose, size, intended species, and expiration date.

"I'm impressed. When I said you could organize the room, I didn't think you'd actually do it. Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to change sleeping accommodations. It's dark out now and the Homeland Security flunkies seem to be dozing in the vehicles. We could sneak over to my apartment and set up the cot there. It's probably more comfortable than a cold storage room anyway. And I might be able to find you something to wear besides that blood-soaked jumpsuit."

"Sounds dangerous and risky," she smiled, "I'm in."

The plan was simple. Marcus would carry the cot over to his apartment and then make his way back to the clinic. If anybody was on the street, he would distract them as Cil'this dashed across the street. Thankfully, nobody was within sight, and Cil'this made it over without a hitch. Marcus set the cot up in the apartment's living space. "If you want, you could have the proper bed in that room over there, and I can sleep on the cot..."

"I prefer to sleep rough," Cil'this interrupted, and compared to sleeping in that cockpit chair, it's practically luxurious. At home, we sleep on the ground most of the time, anyway."

"Fine with me, now let's see if I can find you something clean to wear." Marcus went to his dresser and dug through the clothes until he found something that would fit Cil'this' lean form. "I got these," he said, holding a pair of sweatpants and a long T-shirt, "You can try them on and see if they fit."

"Sure," said Cil'this, opening her jumpsuit and dropping the whole thing down to her feet, standing in only her undergarments.

"Oh boy," Marcus gasped as he quickly turned around.

"What's the matter," Cil'this asked, genuinely curious. "Is there a problem?"

"Well," said Marcus, blushing a deep red, "people generally don't remove their clothes in front of just anybody. Full nudity or even partial nudity is kind of a taboo except in some circumstances."

"I looked into your mind. You removed part of my jumpsuit when you were treating me."

"That was completely medical. Don't the Draj have a concept of modesty?"

"We do, but it's a bit different. We do not perform the action of removing clothing around others unless they are people we trust, but being mostly or completely unclothed in sight of others is no real problem in our society. In some places it's too cold most of the year to go around in anything but thick furs, but in the summer when the day is hot, almost everybody goes around in loincloths or skirts, but if me being unclothed bothers you, I won't do it again."

"Thank you," said Marcus, "now get dressed."

"In a minute, I'm having trouble with the pants."

"What problem could you have with pants?"

"Tail."

"Of course. There's a scissors in the kitchen you can use to cut a hole."

"Thanks." Marcus heard footsteps, followed by a ripping noise and the sound of pants being pulled up. "That's better. How do I look?"

Marcus turned around and Cil'this walked into the room, pulling on the shirt.

"You look as normal as a blue, alien cat-girl with a tail can look," he said, smiling. Cil'this giggled. It was an unusual sound to here. Unlike Cil'this' somewhat gravelly voice, her laugh was smooth and clear; very pleasant to listen to. "Well, that's interesting," Marcus said aloud.

"What is?"

"I really didn't expect you to have a laugh like that. I can't figure you out. When we first met, you seemed to be 100 percent military, and earlier you threatened to maul that soldier, and now you're giggling like a high school girl. So who are you, really?"

Cil'this sighed. "In order to be part of the military's Scouting Corp, I had to take the standard military training, which is designed to bring out the more...ferocious parts of our personalities. I don't like being violent, but with all the conditioning and training I've had, it's more of a reflex than a choice. I always preferred observation to fighting, which is why I became a Scout in the first place. When I'm at home and with my friends and family, I feel much calmer. I like having fun with my friends, laughing, relaxing...but I sometimes have to be more professional and do what I have to do."

"That sounds tough, having to be something that you're not." Marcus said sympathetically. "I hope you get a lot of time off after this is all over."

"I'll probably be put on leave for a while," Cil'this said in a somber tone, "but I'll also have to spend a week or two being debriefed over what's happened. Crashing itself is bad enough, but being in contact with an inhabitant of a developing world....even though it was necessary at the time...it's going to be hard to explain."

"Yeah, I hope you don't get into any trouble on my account, but I doubt anybody would believe me if I told them about you. Everybody on this world who claims to have seen aliens or their ships is looked upon as being an attention seeker or mentally unbalanced. Maybe we should get to bed. A good night's sleep helps me when I'm nervous."

"I am tired from everything that's happened today. I will see you in the morning."

With that, Cil'this lay down on the cot and pulled a blanket over herself, and Marcus turned and went into his room. He too was exhausted from the excitement that had taken place on top of his normal duties as a veterinarian. Soon after his head hit the pillow, Marcus drifted into a sound, dreamless sleep. After a few hours of blissful unconsciousness, he awoke to the sound of moaning coming from the living room. Marcus jumped out of bed and dashed to where Cil'this was sleeping. She was still asleep, but curled up, clutching her legs to her chest as she gasped and cried out in her native tongue.

"Naj-tika! Sob'tlek clith dres? Zo'ras tenneth ruk vreth! Saemas....saemas!

Though Marcus had the ability to speak in Draj'gel, he hadn't tried to use it, as Cil'this had more practice utilizing alien tongues, but he needed to help her, so he had to learn quickly. Marcus didn't know what to do, but he tried clearing his head and focusing on Cil'this and the words she was saying. After a few seconds of intense concentration, the meaning of the words became clear: 'Naj-tika' meant father...no...not father. Daddy. Cil'this was crying for her daddy.

"Daddy! Where are you? I'm scared and alone! Help...help!

It was heartbreaking to watch Cil'this endure the nightmare, but Marcus knew he had to wake her up gently. He focused again on Draj'gel and laid a hand on Cil'this shoulder, giving her a gentle shake.

"Cil'this. Wake up. You're dreaming and you need to wake up. You don't need to be afraid. I'm here. It's alright. "

Cil'this sat bolt upright, breathing heavily, tears still running down her face. "Daddy?" She looked around for a second as memories flooded back to her. "Marcus? Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?" Cil'this choked, "I was..." She didn't finish her thought, but broke down and started crying again.

Marcus didn't know what the Draj did to console each other when they were in distress, so he could only do what humans did. He reached up to Cil'this shoulder again and held her in a close embrace. If Cil'this had any objections to the gesture, she didn't raise them, but instead grabbed onto Marcus and held him closer, still sobbing. A few seconds into the embrace, Marcus realized Cil'this' skin was like ice.

"Cil'this! You're freezing! Is it too cold here for you? I can turn off the air conditioner (didn't translate) ... cooling unit and get more blankets."

She shook her head. "No, the temperature is fine. It's just...at home, everyone in an extended family usually lives and sleeps together. Married couples are next to each other and have their young children closest, but older children sleep next to siblings or cousins or friend-siblings. We all share our body heat and it helps to keep us warm. It's no danger to be cold while sleeping alone, just uncomfortable and...lonely." She continued sobbing.

Marcus slowly rocked her back and forth like a parent would comfort a child. "You miss your father a lot, don't you?"

Cil'this nodded. "He's my closest family member. I was the only child he had, and we lost mother when I was young...He must be so worried about me. He never liked me joining the Scouting Corps and venturing away from home. It's all because mother died when she was out studying astrogeology. He always wanted to make sure I was safe, but that only made me want to take risks."

"Let's not talk about that," Marcus interrupted, "Tell me about your planet."

"It's a little bit larger than Earth , so the gravity is a bit stronger. The atmosphere has a similar amount of oxygen, but has significantly less nitrogen. Most of the plant-life conducts a light activated process releasing carbon dioxide, but the pigments reflect blue instead of green. The planetary tilt relative to the orbit is larger than Earth's , so..."

"Cil'this, I don't need a scientific report. Tell me about people, traditions, culture."

She took a deep breath before continuing. "My people are very social by nature. We used to be a loose collection of tribes before our society began to industrialize. Some old stereotypes remain: Northerners can't fish...Draj from the Bers'nath Islands smell funny...stuff like that. I've already told you about how the family lives together. Each original tribe was formed by a few family's which have grown and expanded over the centuries. Traditionally, the mate you choose comes from the same tribe (not the same family, obviously), but it's no longer a concern if your mate comes from another tribe." "Do you have a mate?"

"No. I'm of the age where most Draj engage in a courtship process, but I put my career before my 'social endeavors.' I didn't want to settle down for a while."

"What about children?"

"From what I've read, Draj females are fertile longer than human women. I still have plenty of time to have children if I want to."

"You used a word earlier. I understood it as 'sibling-friends,' but what does it mean?"

"It's something you call a friend you see as close as a sibling."

"What is daily life like on Draj'tera? You mentioned wearing furs, yesterday."

"You heard me say the planet's tilt was larger than Earth's ? Well, most of the land is located near the northern or southern poles, with a few islands in the middle. So a lot of the year is either extremely cold or extremely hot. A lot of the environment is either thick forest or tundra that becomes almost tropical in the warmer parts of the year. So we have to switch between thick furs and loincloths. This was a challenge hundreds of years ago when we were still tribal hunters and couldn't quickly adapt, but after we industrialized and developed heating and cooling systems, it became less of an issue. Hunting is more of a tradition. Most people work for some sort of business, but our technology and economy has reached a state where physical labor is no longer essential for survival, so we choose to do whatever takes our interest. I always liked exploring, so I joined the Scouting Corps. My father works in the government. One of my friends chose to work in the salvage yards after he finished school."

"He could do whatever he wanted and he chose to work in a dump?"

"Til'dar was always a bit of an odd one. Always tinkering and inventing. He has one of the highest educations in mechanical engineering that is offered. Every so often he'll build something out scraps. I still remember when he tried to build a fusion reactor in his garage-laboratory. The city had to evacuate the entire block." Cil'this laughed, finally smiling after her ordeal.

Marcus switched back to English."Are you feeling better, now?"

"Yes. Thank you, Marcus."

"I better get back to bed. I'm going to have another busy day tomorrow." He turned to go back to his room, but one thought stopped him. "Cil'this," he said, turning around, "are you still feeling lonely?"

She looked up from her cot. "A little. Why?"

Marcus took a deep breath. "If it would make you feel better, you could come and share my bed. Just as sibling-friends. Would you be okay with that?"

Cil'this' ears perked up, and in a blue blur, she jumped over to Marcus and pulled him into a deep embrace. "Thank you!" You have no idea what it means...actually, you can." She put her hands to his head and sent a few concepts into his brain, in return absorbing information about some human customs.

Marcus went through the new information. The emotional intensity attached to them seemed to indicate that what Marcus had done was roughly equivalent to giving a starving man a feast. "She wasn't kidding when she said her people were social," Marcus thought.

As the two entered the bedroom and climbed into the bed, Marcus had one more question for Cil'this. "Do the Draj normally hug each other as a sign of support and affection, or is that something that you picked up from me?"

"Lots of Draj social interaction involves physical contact. Holding hands, rubbing tails. Hugging is one of the most expressive gestures. For us, it shows that the two Draj involved share a deep sense of affection and trust."

"Good," remarked Marcus, learning back into his pillow. Cil'this pushed up to his side so that the sides of their arms, hips, and legs were touching. Cil'this still felt cold, but Marcus didn't mind.

Marcus woke up at 7 am to the sound of his alarm clock's static. He could have tuned it to either of the two local radio stations, but he didn't feel like listening to country music or gospel, so he left it as static. Cil'this was still right next to him, and her tail was curled around his left leg. The alarm clock hadn't woken her up. She looked so peaceful, Marcus hated to disturb her, but he had to get to work by 8:00 to prepare for the day. He sat up a little and gave Cil'this a gentle tap and spoke to her.

"Cil'this, wake up and uncurl your tail. I have to get to work."

The blue feline opened her eyes and yawned. She stretched her arms out and sat up, simultaneously uncurling her tail from Marcus' leg. As Marcus got out of bed and stood up, Cil'this reached over and hugged him around his middle.

"You're certainly being affectionate this morning."

"You're warm," she said drowsily.

"Great, I'm as loveable as a space heater," Marcus quipped.

Cil'this smiled but her body language became more solemn.

"I hope you understand just how much this meant to me. My race needs social interaction to thrive. Without it, we sink into a listless state that's very unpleasant to be in for long periods."

"I'm just glad you're alright. I just need you to step out of the room while I change."

Cil'this left and Marcus got out of his pajamas and changed into work clothes. He stepped out into the living room where Cil'this was waiting.

"I'm going to be across the street for most of the day. I'll be back for lunch around noon. You can use my computer again if you want, or you can read any of the books in the apartment. I'll talk to the landlord and make sure he doesn't come in here. Is there anything else you need?"

"It's been a few days since I've been able to clean myself. Is there somewhere I could take care of that?"

"That...depends. How exactly do you intend to clean yourself?"

Cil'this rolled her eyes and sighed. "With water, like any normal being. I know I look like a cat, Marcus, but that doesn't mean I act like one."

"Oh. Sorry. If you go into the bathroom over there, there's a large basin with a curtain. Take off your clothes, get inside, and close the curtain. There's a knob on one side. Turn it to the right for cold water; turn it to the left for hot water. There's a white bar called soap on a shelf. That's what human use on most of the body, but since you're mostly covered in fur, you'll probably want to use the bottle that says 'shampoo.'

"Is there some kind of drying device I can use?"

"Sorry, you'll have to use a towel. I hope you don't mind being fluffy."

Cil'this laughed a little and headed toward the bathroom while Marcus went to work. On his way out, he stopped by the front desk to talk to the landlord.

"Hey Chad," Marcus said, "could you make sure nobody goes into my apartment today? I have an important project I'm working on, and I've just gotten everything organized, so I don't want anyone touching anything."

"No problem, man," slurred Chad, a man who had left his mind in the 1960's.

"Thanks Chad."

As Marcus walked across the street, he heard the sound of a large engine somewhere overhead. He looked around but didn't see anything. As he was about to continue walking, a black, double-rotor helicopter flew just over 100 feet overhead. As Marcus stood watching it fly away, two more buzzed overhead at equally low altitudes.

"Okay, I must have hit my head and I'm imagining my life is an episode of The X-Files. Any second now, Mulder and Scully are going to drive into town and start asking a bunch of questions."

Marcus pushed his internal monologue away and started to think about work. He had a whole day of scheduled checkups and vaccinations to attend before going to check on Mrs. McDonald's sheep. Then he had to start ordering supplies for the next month, which would mean several hours of making online orders and phone calls. Pushing another layer of worries aside, he started to prepare the examination rooms for the day: cleaning and organizing all the supplies he would need to examine a horde of cats, dogs, and other animals. At 8:00, just as Marcus was ready to switch the sign on the door to 'open,' two men in black suits walked into the clinic.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Marcus asked, suspicious of the two.

"Are you the owner of this property?" questioned one of the suits.

"On paper, the building belongs to the township of Mercury Creek, but for all intents and purposes, the building has been leased to me at no cost as long as I remain the veterinarian."

"So the building is yours?" inquired the other suit.

"Yes."

"In that case, I'd like to request that the building be temporarily closed and used as storage space by the Department of Homeland Security."

Marcus decided it was best to play dumb. "First the Army and now Homeland Security? That must be some accident out there. But no, I can't let you use this building. I need it to take care of the animals, and the people here need their animals."

"Do you think you can actually stop us?"

They were trying to be intimidating, and that amused Marcus. As he opened his mouth to reply, everything seemed to slow down, and a coarse, primal voice broke through the fog in his mind.

"Are you about to do something stupid?"

Time seemed to be frozen around him, so Marcus tried thinking his reply.

"Jesus Christ, Cil'this! How the hell are you doing this?"

"I don't really know. I've never heard of this happening before. I was still drying off after my shower and I thought I heard your voice, but when I tried to find you, I couldn't, so I started thinking about you, and I heard you talking to those men in the suits."

"Any thoughts on why time has stopped?"

"Time hasn't actually stopped. We're just perceiving events at the speed of thought, which relies on electrical signals in the brain. Basically, we're talking at the speed of light."

"As fascinating as this is, I'd like to get back to what I was doing. How do we stop?"

"When Draj are taught to use their telepathy, we are told to find a sudden stimulus to break our concentration. A sudden intake of breath usually does it."

"Alright then. On three. One. Two. Three!" Marcus took a quick breath and found time was back to normal. He could still hear the 's' from the suit's last word ringing in his ear, so he quickly followed up with the response he had prepared.

"Me personally? Unlikely. But I'm 99 percent sure that the Constitution forbids this. Come back when you can prove otherwise."

The two suits tried not to look defeated. "Oh. You're suddenly an attorney?"

"No, but my libertarian brother is a lawyer who extensively studied Constitutional law, and he never shuts up about this sort of thing. I can call him up if you want and he can set you straight."

"That will be unnecessary. We have our own resources." With that, the two men turned around and left the building just as Marcus' first appointment entered.

"Hi Marcus," said Kyle McDonald, walking up to the front desk, leading a German Shepard on a leash. "Who were those guys?" The 17 year old, straw-haired youth was bright, but he had a tendency to get into trouble and was all too familiar with different types of ignition sources.

"Just some men from Homeland Security about the accident. Don't you go bothering them?"

"Who? Me?" Kyle flashed a grin. "Would I ever do anything like that?"

"Careful, Kyle," Marcus cautioned. "This isn't like the time you filled Sam's cruiser with Ping-Pong balls. These guys are on some serious business, and they aren't as forgiving as Sam."

"Don't worry about me, Marcus. I'll leave them alone."

"Good. Now let's take a look at Hunter."

Marcus went through a normal checkup with the large German Shepard, checking his ears, eyes, nose, teeth, and paws. Everything looked normal and he only had a few notes for Kyle.

"Keep giving him those dental treats for his plaque buildup. His teeth are looking better, so let's keep it that way. His front paw has also completely healed from the large splinter. Other than that, he's in great shape. Are you going to be bringing Gypsy in tomorrow?"

"Yep. That's the plan. See you then."

After Kyle left with Hunter, Marcus repeated the process with two cats who had infected wounds, a ferret with a twisted ankle, a corgi covered in burrs, and an entire cage of mute canaries. When the last of the menagerie left, Marcus had half an hour before he would leave for lunch, so he stood by the front desk to see if any emergency patients came in. As he looked out the window, he saw that the number of Homeland Security soldiers was increasing. He saw five trucks carrying nothing but people, another four trucks carrying supplies, and three Humvees. He also heard at least two more helicopters pass overhead. Seeing the sudden surge made Marcus nervous, so he tried contacting Cil'this. He focused on her, blocking out all other sensations. After a minute of concentration, he felt time beginning to blur. He continued to think about Cil'this, and mentally shouted for her. She responded almost immediately.

"How did you do this?"

"What? Start the conversation? I just thought about you and shouted in my mind."

"Incredible. Your species has no aptitude for telepathy, yet you made a connection."

"We can talk about this later. Have you seen the number of soldiers passing through?"

"I haven't risked opening the curtains, but I have heard the large number of footsteps and vehicles. The flying devices were incredibly noisy; I had to cover my ears. We would never have made anything that loud on Draj'tera."

"Acoustics aside, this sudden surge has me nervous. Homeland Security is really desperate to find something. It's not going to be safe to keep you around for too much longer. When do you think your rescue vehicle will arrive?"

"I hadn't checked in the day I crashed, and they would have picked up the signal indicating the ship's destruction, so they should have sent out another vessel immediately. A normal jump through Gradik space directly here would take a day, but because of your world's satellites monitoring space, they'll have to arrive outside the solar system and come in slowly, adding another day and a half to the journey. The best estimate for their arrival I can give is late tomorrow night or early the next morning."

"Okay. This mental thing is giving me a headache. I'll come back for lunch in about 15 minutes, and then we can make plans. See you then." Marcus inhaled deeply and came back to reality. Only a millisecond had passed in real time, but he had a full conversation. It was rather disorientating. After waiting the quarter of an hour, Marcus flipped the sign on the door to 'closed' and attached a magnet reading 'lunch.' Locking the door behind him, he left the clinic and walked across the street to his apartment, trying to look inconspicuous to anyone who might be watching.

Once he got to his room, he quickly unlocked, opened, shut, and locked the door before speaking. "Hi Cil'this," he said turning around, "first things first HAHAHAHA!" Cil'this stood in front of him, most of her hair sticking up, fluffed from the static.

"Yes, yes. It's all very funny. Ha ha ha," she shot a disapproving look at Marcus.

"I'm sorry," he snorted, trying to contain himself, chuckling every other word, "I'll be serious. I promise. Just give me a minute." He went to a closet where he kept pet supplies vendors had given him as free samples. He grabbed a dog brush meant for large, long-haired breeds and returned to Cil'this. "Here, brush your fur out with this. It should help."

Cil'this took the brush and started to work on her fur while Marcus talked.

"First off, is this type of telepathy something new?"

"As far as I know, yes? Every type of telepathy with my species is contact based. A few races have a purely mental connection, but it only works at short distances, about 30 dextrel, or 50 feet, and even in those cases it's more of an empathic link rather than true telepathy."

"So what is the range of this thing?"

"No clue."

"I've got an idea. I have a sheep to check up on this afternoon, but I'll call ahead and see if I can go early. The place is about 20 miles outside of town, so I'll test out the link when I get there. After I get back and finish my work for the day, we can make plans. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I'm only on call for emergencies. We could go out of town early in the morning and find a nice, empty field away from any people. We can stay there until the night and wait for your rescue to show up."

"If we're careful, we should be able to do it."

"I'm glad we got that settled; now it's time for lunch." Marcus walked over to the fridge and opened the door. "Is there anything in here that you can eat?"

Cil'this joined him by the fridge with her scanner. She ran it up and down the fridge a few times and looked at the results. "The contents in the rectangular, metal container will be suitable, as will one of those...white things from the drawer."

Marcus reached into the fridge and pulled out the can of Spam and a block of cheese. "Would you like anything to drink?"

"Water will be sufficient."

As Cil'this devoured the can of Spam, Marcus made himself a sandwich. He sat next to her at the table and they ate in silence. When Marcus finished, he took out his phone and called Sophie McDonald, asking her if he could arrive early to look at the sheep. She agreed and Marcus hung up, excited to have the opportunity to check the mental link with Cil'this. Saying farewell, he stepped out and looked the door before walking downstairs and out to his truck. The drive toward the McDonald farm was uneventful, and the examination of the sheep went smoothly. The ewe's leg had made tremendous progress in the past 24 hours. Marcus left Sophie with instructions to watch the sheep to make sure the leg didn't get any worse. After he got back in his truck, he drove a mile down the road until he was out of sight of any buildings. He pulled over to the side of the road and started to concentrate on Cil'this, calling out her name. The stopped-time illusion came more quickly than before, and Cil'this answered quickly.

"How far away are you?"

"Just under 20 miles. What does this mean?" "Normally, I'd try a proper investigation, but at this point, I'd say we can assume this telepathic link we seem to have generated can occur at any distance."

"Great. So what are you doing right now?"

"I was just skimming through a book on the history of government. Why do you have this book? It seems a bit out of your field."

"My brother got it for me as a joke."

"It's quite interesting the number of ways humans try to govern themselves. On Draj'tera, all the tribes had a fundamentally similar leadership system, and after we united under one government, each tribe had an equal number of representatives in the central government. A few centuries later, the tribal system was abandoned for a conventional, district-based system."

"You can tell me all about your government later. Right now, I've got to get back home and order supplies for the next few months."

"We're talking at a nearly impossible speed; only a few milliseconds have gone by."

"What's that?" asked Marcus, making fake static noises in his head. "I can't hear you-khhhhhh-you're breaking up-khhhhhhhh-talk to you later."

Marcus inhaled deeply, breaking himself out of the trance-like state. He turned his truck back on and started the drive back towards civilization. When he got back into town, he noticed the number of soldiers and vehicles in the small settlement had increased. After stopping for a second at the military roadblock, Marcus was waved through by one of the guards. He didn't return to the clinic; he was done with scheduled appointments for the day, going to his apartment instead.

When he opened the door to his room, he saw Cil'this sprawled out on the couch, flipping through the pages of one of Marcus' college textbooks on animal anatomy. More books were on the floor, arranged in two stacks. Marcus assumed these were read and unread books.

"You find that stuff interesting?"

"Mmhm," Cil'this murmured before looking up. "Biology and medicine were never my field of study, but I enjoy seeing the diversity in animal life your planet has."

Marcus didn't reply, but went to work on the supply orders. He set the laptop on the card table in his kitchen and began to look through online catalogs and read through emails from suppliers, looking for good deals. For three hours, Marcus read details, compared prices, and ordered materials. The bill was quite high, as the diversity of Marcus' patients required him to buy more medicines. Thankfully, the township took care of the charges as part of Marcus' agreement to work for them. As Marcus worked, Cil'this kept her nose in one of the many books that were stashed throughout the apartment. When his orders were finished, Marcus shut the laptop and leaned back in his chair. Cil'this lifted her head and closed the book.

"Are you done?" she asked.

"That's all the work I have for today, unless somebody calls in an emergency."

"Good. Now what are we going to do tomorrow?"

"Right. Now there are a lot of soldiers out there now, but most of them should still be sleeping in the morning, and those that are awake will be too tired to notice us if we're inconspicuous."

"I guess that means we're sneaking out."

"You're the one who will be sneaking out. I'm just a vet making an early morning emergency call. You'll be the one going incognito."

Cil'this sighed. "I guess that means I'm hiding inside something."

"Most likely. How small can you scrunch up?"

Cil'this pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and bowed her head. When she completely compacted herself, Cil'this didn't even fill one cushion of the sofa.

"I think I know just the thing. Hold on a second." Marcus got up and rummage through his closet. He found an old supply crate that he had been used to store several pairs of boots. He dumped them on the floor and brought the large crate into the living room. The box was a meter on each size, large enough for Cil'this to easily fit.

"If I add a little padding, you should be comfortable. Hopefully, you'll only be inside for a few minutes, just until we're out of sight of the soldiers."

Marcus and Cil'this didn't talk about the next day any more that evening. After eating dinner, Marcus turned on the TV and flipped to a channel that played nothing but old science fiction and monster movies. Cil'this, having never seen a human entertainment program before, was eager to learn how human's amused themselves. After three movies, the pair started to get tired, and during the middle of House of Frankenstein, she fell asleep with her head on Marcus' lap. He didn't have the heart to disturb her, so Marcus carefully set the alarm on his watch and allowed himself to doze off.

At 4:45 in the morning, Marcus' alarm went off, and both he and Cil'this woke up.

"We have 15 minutes before we leave. Get ready and I'll move the truck around to back."

Though residential parking was in front of his building, there was a small parking area in the back where maintenance and delivery vehicles parked. The loading dock nearby would make loading Cil'this' crate easier. After pulling into the partially concealed lot, Marcus returned to his room, grabbing a hand truck on the way. Back in his room, Marcus found that Cil'this hand changed back into her jumpsuit. With more important things on his mind, he filled a cooler with food and grabbed some blankets plus a few boxes of medical supplies.

"What are those for?"

"The food is for us, but I also have to make it look like I'm responding to an emergency. Now get in the crate and hold on; the next few minutes are going to be bumpy."

Cil'this stepped in and scrunched up. Before he put the lid on the crate, Marcus pushed the blankets into the corners. He pushed the crate onto the hand tuck, followed by the cooler and medicine. Moving swiftly, he wheeled the load to the elevator and road down to the loading dock. When he reached his truck, he carefully placed the crate in the middle of the truck, making it difficult for any wandering eyes to examine it.

"Ready?" he asked quietly.

A faint voice from inside the crate seemed to answer affirmatively.

Marcus got in his truck and drove out of the parking lot. As he neared the edge of town, he saw that there were some soldiers already maintain the roadblock. They stopped him as he approached.

"Where are you heading this time of day?" one of the soldiers asked him.

"A cow got stuck in a barbed wire fence 10 miles north of here," Marcus said, trying to look displeased. "It got cut up pretty badly, so now I have to go give stitches to a bad-tempered bovine. You want to come help?"

The soldier stepped back. "I think I'll leave it to you, sir. Go on through."

Marcus drove past the roadblock and headed north. After five minutes of driving, Marcus hadn't seen anybody and he was far from any farmhouses, so he pulled the truck over and hopped out before jumping into the bed of the truck and pulling the lid off.

"Enjoy the ride?"

"I've had better, but then again, I've also had worse."

"I think we'll be safe from here on out. You can ride up front with me."

Cil'this got in the cab and Marcus showed her how to use the seatbelt. Once she was settled, Marcus resumed driving.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"We're heading north. In about two hours, we'll cross the state border and enter South Dakota. There's a State Park not too far from there. Far away from any people or towns."

As Marcus drove, he and Cil'this talked, conversing about their homes, their families, and dozens of other things. After a while, Cil'this stopped talking and started staring out the window. Marcus let her be. He sometimes enjoyed just watching the scenery pass by, and he figured that Cil'this might enjoy doing the same thing.

There was nobody else at the forest when Marcus pulled up, so Cil'this didn't even bother to hide. As she grabbed the blankets and the cooler of food, Marcus walked over to an unmanned information station and grabbed a map of the area.

"It looks like there's a large clearing about two or three miles from here. We can wait at the forest's edge until your people arrive. If anyone else comes by, we can hide, but I think that's unlikely. The clearing isn't by any marked trails, so I doubt anybody would be walking in that area. If you're ready, we can get going."

The two walked for a little less than an hour, taking turns carrying the cooler. The journey took them up a hiking trail before they followed a deer trail down to a creek, which they followed until it brought them to the clearing. The day was bright and sunny. Marcus set the cooler down and placed the blankets on the ground. Neither he nor Cil'this felt particularly hungry, so they both lay down on the blankets and dozed in the sun. As Marcus felt himself drifting off to sleep, Cil'this reached across his chest and pulled herself close to him.

"Marcus," she whispered, "I just want you to know. I'm going to miss your when I leave. You helped me even when it would have made sense to run. You healed me, kept me safe and hidden, made me comfortable. If it were possible for me to stay, I would, but I belong with my own people." She rolled back into her prior position and sighed. "I'm thinking of leaving the Scouting Corps when I get back. After experiencing all this, I can't go back to watching civilizations from orbit; I need to go talk to people and see how they live firsthand. A friend of mine in the Diplomacy Service told me there was a job available where I could interact with new spacefaring civilizations face-to-face. I think I'll call him up and take it. There aren't many races on the brink of developing practical space travel, so I could stay home more, maybe settle down."

After a moment of silence, Marcus replied. "I don't know what I'm going to do either. After everything I've learned...what can I do? It's not like anyone would believe me if I told them, but how could I possible go back to being a country veterinarian?"

Cil'this didn't answer, but went back to dozing. Before she could fall asleep, Marcus calmed his mind and sent her a mental message.

"You don't have to be sad. As far as we know, we could be at opposite ends of the galaxy and still reach each other."

"That's true."

Marcus didn't bother Cil'this anymore after this, allowing her to doze and sleep. Around lunchtime, Marcus woke her up, and they both ate the food Marcus had hastily packed. After their meal of Spam, they continued to sit in silence, counting down the hours until nightfall, neither wanting to break the silence and discuss what was coming. At 6:00, Marcus opened up the cooler and got out enough food for another meal. He had run out of Spam, so he had brought some cold roasted turkey, one of his favorite meats. Cil'this seemed to share his enjoyment, quickly devouring her portion.

"Thanks," she said. "That was good."

"I'm glad you like it," Marcus replied. "What do you normally eat on Draj'tera?"

"In the North, we mostly have animals called Thlidek. Imagine a deer, but with a longer tail and a single antler, plus the size of an elephant."

"I've only ever seen you eat meat and cheese. Does your planet have fruit?"

"It doesn't commonly grow in the north, but we do have access to it on the island nations. I haven't eaten any hear because some compound within the cellular structure comes up as a toxin on my scanner."

"You've mentioned those islands a couple of times. Have you ever been there?"

Cil'this' ears perked up. "Oh yes," she said excitedly. "My father and I used to go every summer when I was younger. It was warm all the time, and there were tons of dishes with fish in them. The year before I joined the Scouting Corps my friends and I all went together. We stayed up all night during one of the festivals and watched the stars."

After she finished talking, Cil'this continued to smile, happy to be thinking of the more pleasant parts of going home. Marcus reached over and put his hand over hers. She looked over at him.

"Cil'this," he said softly, "promise that you won't forget me."

She pulled her hand out from under his before giving him a tight embrace. "I promise that I will never forget you or all that you have done for me," she whispered into his ear.

As Cil'this leaned to pull out of the embrace, Marcus reached up, putting one hand behind her back and another behind her head. Pulling her in closely, he kissed her. Cil'this didn't resist or try to pull back, but instead put her hands back around Marcus. The kiss wasn't lustful; it was honest. Marcus knew he had been feeling attraction toward Cil'this since he had met her, but now it was ending. After the kiss ended, he sat back and sighed.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

"It's all right. I think we both wanted that."

"But it would never work, right? I mean, I'm a veterinarian from Nebraska and you're..."

"A blue, alien cat that can read minds?"

"That about sums it up."

The two sat hand in hand as the sun went down and the stars appeared. As the night became darker, Cil'this and Marcus lay down, still holding hands. Just as the urge to sleep was coming upon them, the scanner in Cil'this' belt activated, beeping loudly as the display flashed. Marcus released Cli'this' hand as she sat up and grabbed the device, pushing a button which stopped the beeping. She spoke into it in her native tongue.

"Second Sor'del Cil'this responding."

"Sor'del Cilthis. This is Recovery Ship 45-194. What is your current condition?"

"Personal status: Alive and healthy. Ship status: destroyed. Mission status: Emergency Procedures 8 and 9 are active. Complications have arisen."

"Have you been spotted or captured?"

"The circumstances are difficult to explain and will be clarified later. Rescue Procedure 4 may be implemented immediately.

There was silence for a moment at the other end of the communicator.

"Confirmed Sor'del Cil'this. Rescue Procedure 4 will commence. Your current location is suitable for landing. Remain there. RS 45-194 out."

Cil'this didn't say anything, but Marcus decided to chime in.

"I think that 'complications' is a bit of an understatement."

"As my people say: 'That tree will be climbed when it is within reach'."

Over the next few minutes, both Cil'this and Marcus stared up at the sky, looking for a craft. Just as Marcus was getting nervous, he felt a static charge building in the air.

"Do you feel that?"

Before he could get an answer, a deep vibration filled the air and a large, elongated craft passed over the trees before descending into the clearing.

"It looks like a big Tylenol," Marcus thought to himself.

Two struts folded down from each end of the vessel as it landed. As a door opened, Cil'this began walking toward it. Marcus followed her, and watched five individuals walk out of the craft. As Cil'this got closer, she looked at one of them and stopped dead in her tracks.

"Cil'this," Marcus asked, "are you okay?"

She didn't answer him, but started running toward the person. Marcus quickly followed. As they got nearer, he heard Cil'this shout 'Father!' before flinging herself into the male's arms.

"What are you doing here? You hate long space voyages."

Cil'this' father held her tight and answered. "Well, I had to find you, didn't I? I wasn't leaving my daughter in the hands of these...simpletons. He released her and stared at Marcus, as the other four had been doing. "Who is this?"

"As I said, there were...complications."

One of the other Draj standing by spoke up.

"This is in violation of every military protocol. I want to know why you've brought a native inhabitant to the landing sight."

Cil'this looked toward her feet. "Well..."

"NOW, Sor'del!"

"She was dying!" Marcus practically growled. "She was dying and I helped her. I kept her alive and I kept her hidden from everyone until you could arrive, and believe me, it wasn't exactly easy. Somebody in our government knew something crashed, and they were looking for it. So I'd say this was a necessary breach of protocol."

Cil'this' father stepped forward."Return with your men to the ship, U'del. I'll handle this."

"Sir...!"

"Now, U'del!"

The man glowered before gesturing toward the three remaining Draj and entering the vessel. Cil'this' father looked toward Marcus.

"My name is Qra'this. You saved my daughter. My only child. For this, I thank you. However, your knowledge of our existence cannot continue. Under normal circumstances, any witnesses would be killed and have their bodies destroyed...."

"Father you can't!" Cil'this said, panicked. "It was my fault he got dragged into this. He's also an important person in his village. If he disappeared, they'd look for him, and who knows what they'd find? I told him this as I was recovering, and he trusted me not to hurt him."

Qra'this raised a hand. "....but these are not normal circumstances. However, the U'del is correct, and military protocol has to be followed. We can't allow knowledge of our existence to be allowed into a planet-bound civilization. His knowledge will have to be removed."

"But..."

"Cil'this, you know it has to be this way. There is no other way."

Cil'this looked destroyed. Tears started forming. "I can't....I....I don't want to."

Marcus felt confused. "Cil'this, I don't understand. What's going on?"

"I'm so s-sorry," she sobbed, "I n-n-never should have gotten you involved in this. I knew this c-c-could happen when I first met you. I didn't want this. I thought if you understood what was at s-s-stake, they might not have to do it." "Do what?"

"Take your memories of this."

Marcus' heart sank. "N-no. No! You can't do that. You don't have to. I won't tell anybody. They wouldn't even believe me. Don't make me forget all of this. PLEASE!"

Marcus begged and pleaded, but Qra'this wouldn't budge.

"There can't be an exception. I'm sorry. You saved my daughter and I am thankful, but I must insist this rule is enforced. Disasters have occurred in the past, and we cannot take the chance one will happen again."

Marcus sighed. "Please, you don't understand. Meeting Cil'this was one of the best things to happen to me in my life. I can't willingly let that all go."

"Perhaps if I show you the possible consequences, then you will understand," Qra'this said, holding out his hand.

Marcus stepped forward and brought the hand to his head. Memories started flowing through him. The inhabitants of planet Drelax, upon discovering the existence of other inhabited planets, had become isolationists and xenophobic, attacking any ship that came within their space. Death toll: 12,258. On an unnamed planet, the hunter-gatherer culture formed a religion about 'sky-spirits,' delaying the civilization's development for 2,600 years. The Brelon invented bio-weapon technology that resulted in a 200 year plague. Death toll: 356 million. All four inhabited worlds of the Castabar system were destroyed after one world used the mechanisms of an antimatter reactor to make bombs. Death toll: 32 billion. Ras'ith experienced a technological revolution which resulted in the world expanding its control to 28 solar systems in a 30 year war. Death toll: 130 billion. The memories came faster than Marcus could process. Nations rose and fell. Planets died. Entire cultures were eliminated. Pristine worlds became Hell.

The memories stopped and Marcus gasped. He understood. He saw the damage that had been and the damage that could be. It only took one person to bring about the end. Anything was worth keeping the rest of the galaxy safe.

"I understand now. I don't like it, but I understand. Just give me a minute before you do it."

Qra'this frowned. "It won't be me doing the erasing. In practice, I could do it if I had to, but it would damage your mind. Only Cil'this can remove the memories cleanly."

"You'd make your own daughter hurt someone like that!?"

"She has to be the one who does it," Qra'this said, frustrated, "my relation to her is irrelevant."

"No," cried Cil'this. "No, I refuse to..."

Marcus switched to English so that only Cil'this could understand. "If this has to be done, then I want you to do it Cil'this. I wouldn't want anybody else to do it."

"And make you forget everything we've done together? How could I do that?"

"It's the only way, Cil'this."

"No it's not! I could appeal the military council to make an exception..."

"They know everything you and your father know. What do you think they'd say?"

Cil'this sighed, tears dripping down her cheeks. "They'd say no," she sniffed, "I'm sorry things had to end up this way."

"Me too," Marcus said, smiling sadly before switching to Draj'trea. "It's okay. Do it."

Cil'this sniffed one last time before reaching up towards Marcus' temple. As her hands got closer, Marcus quickly focused his mind and sent her one last thought.

Be happy, Cil'this. Don't worry about me. Settle down. Find a good man for a mate. Have a big family. Just do one thing for me: Promise me again you won't forget me."

"I promise. I love you."

Marcus let the trance fade and felt Cil'this touch his head. His entire body went limp and he collapsed to the ground, and then everything went dark.

The ground was cold and wet. Marcus sat up, confused. He looked around, not being able to remember where he was. Then the memories came back to him. After a rough week at work, he decided to visit South Dakota for a day. He parked his truck and then went for a long hike. Once he got to the clearing, he decided to stay there overnight. Marcus looked down at his watch: 5:43 am. It was still early, but he felt rested. He decided that he'd watch the sunrise then go back to his truck. Marcus wasn't disappointed. The sun rose gloriously over the horizon just after six. When he got back to his truck, he was more confused. Why did he bring an empty crate and a box of syringes?

On the long ride back, Marcus had lots of time to think. He wondered if the chemical spill had been cleared up yet. He'd have to ask about the nature of the contaminants and the threat they posed to livestock. If the vapors got into the air, he'd have a hell of a week ahead of him.

---

Five Years Later

---

Far above Earth, a small, sleek vessel sat in orbit. The onboard computers searched through electronic transmissions, looking for information on one person. After a few minutes, the results appeared onscreen, the latest information appearing first:

'Small Town Veterinarian Invents 'Miracle' Medicine.

From his veterinary clinic in Mercury Creek, Nebraska, Dr. Marcus Callahan developed what is being hailed as a 'miraculous' advancement in medical science. Dr. Callahan's immune supplement, Sildis™, works to accelerate the immune system and the body's natural repair mechanisms beyond what they are normally capable of doing. In studies, patients recovered from broken bones and internal injuries in a matter of days, instead of the weeks or months normally associated with such injuries. Previous immune system aids have only attempted to provide the immune system with what it needs to function, as opposed to increasing its ability to function. Dr. Callahan described Sildis™ in an interview earlier. "The body uses enzymes in order to more easily complete chemical reactions, but many of these enzymes require a certain molecular cofactor in order to activate. Sildis™ takes the place of these cofactors and stimulates the production of more enzymes, resulting in an overstimulated immune system until all damage is completely repaired." Some researchers have encouraged caution regarding the sale of Sildis™," said Dr. Stephen Cho of the FDA. "We don't know how far this reaction goes or what the body will consider 'damage' in need of 'fixing.' If it thinks the body has damage when it doesn't, the drug could cause an effect like a fast-acting autoimmune disorder." Dr. Callahan has largely agreed with many of these concerns. "Of course we don't know everything about it, but we're working on it. I, for one, wouldn't want to see anybody hurt by this, which is why I agree caution should be exercised when determining if the usage of Sildis™ is appropriate."

---

Cil'this smiled as she read the article. She knew she might get in trouble if anybody found a human using something similar to Draj technology, but she had followed her orders. She had removed all memories stemming from her three days with Marcus, but that hadn't stopped her from keeping her mental link with Marcus a secret and using it in subtle ways. She hadn't given Marcus any technology; she knew better than that. All Cil'this had given him was an idea and a name, which must have gotten partially distorted in his mind.

It had been almost four years since she had officially resigned from the Scouting Corps and joined the Diplomacy Service. Cil'this was supposed to be on her way toward Xycor to study the civilization as the development of practical space travel changed it, but she had left early in order to make a stop at Earth. As she thought about the young planet beneath her, she rubbed the bump growing in her belly. She hadn't told Tyr'drell that she was pregnant yet; he would probably insist she not make any more space-trips. It had been almost three years since she had met her mate, and she loved him very much, but she would always have a place in her heart for the kind human with whom she had shared a brief encounter.