The Dream of Planet Bloom Read online

  “There is something important I need to tell you,” she says.

  “What is it?”

  “My species changes the color of our skin when we are aroused. When we’re excited, our bodies flash blue light.”

  “That’s very interesting, but it’s not so unusual,” Rikes says. “Something similar happens to humans too. Our blood flow increases when we make love. It makes us sweat. Our skin color becomes reddish. We say that we flush.”

  Suddenly, a light from the outside flashes through the window, interrupting their game of seduction. Ku-uhala and Rikes look outside. In distant darkness of space, a star shoots over the horizon, carrying a long tail of fire behind it.

  “What a beautiful sight,” Rikes says.

  “I love shooting stars,” Ku-uhuala murmurs. “They remind me of the joy lovers experience when they are falling in love.”

  “You mean shooting towards love,” Rikes says.

  She smiles. “Whether falling or shooting, I believe that lovemaking is a unification of two individuals.”

  “Lovemaking also means sharing most intimate thoughts and feelings,” Rikes whispers.

  “So it does.”

  “We humans discover our vulnerability through lovemaking,” Rikes says. “By getting in touch with our vulnerability, we discover how strong we are.”

  He tenderly presses his forehead against hers. He hears a tune like the one he heard the first time she pressed her forehead against his, only this time it doesn’t disturb him. His eyes become foggy. He realizes that the tune he hears incites the same feeling of completeness in him as the atmosphere on Bloom did.

  Rikes feels love—a warm, seductive, enlightening, and healing love; the kind of love that makes people lose their sense of time and place. He feels that time and place are merging into a single dimension, a dimension that is spreading across eternity.

  Ku-uhala puts her arms around his neck and kisses him on the lips the way humans kiss. He embraces her and lays her down on the bed.

  “Are you ready for this?” Rikes whispers.

  “Yes, I am,” Ku-uhala says and closes her eyes.

  •••

  I, Mother’s Milk, didn’t close my eyes last night. I spent the night awake, watching Rikes and Ku-uhala repeat the sequences of their kisses and embraces. I watched them make love to one another.

  I believe that the whole world changes when people discover love and realize that they are connected. We all are connected through love. I, too, am connected to the source that creates everything, because something greater has created me, just as it created Rikes and Ku-uhala. Now, I may be invisible to the crew on this ship, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t exist. Love is invisible, and yet no one doubts the existence of love. If people don’t doubt the existence of love, why do they doubt that love is the element that connects everything in the cosmos?

  I have the ability to observe the thoughts of other individuals. Last night, I shifted my attention from Ku-uhala’s mind to Rikes’ mind. I’ve discovered that they have both undergone a transmutation they will only become aware of when they wake up. They are asleep now, curled in each other’s embrace.

  I turn my head towards the window. Oxydia sun rises behind the cookie-brown planet with big craters Scorpio is orbiting. I watch Oxydia’s rays as they begin to touch the side of Rikes’ bed. They crawl up the sheets and illuminate the bodies of two lovers.

  Rikes opens his eyes and yawns. He stretches his arms and turns his head to look at Ku-uhala. She’s still sleeping. He lets his middle finger slide between her cheek and her temple until she unwillingly opens her eyes.

  “Good morning,” Rikes says.

  “Good morning, Sy. Did you sleep well?”

  “I slept very well,” he says. “How about yourself?”

  “Me too,” Ku-uhala says.

  Ku-uhala kisses him on the lips. The color in her eyes begins to shift from coal to honey as the light of the sun becomes stronger.

  “Ku-uhala,” Sy says. “I want to tell you something. The first time we met on Scorpio, I felt there was something familiar about you. I felt as if I’ve known you from before.”

  Ku-uhala’s eyes shift from Rikes’ eyes to his mouth. She remembers how she explored his body and each and every of his nooks and crannies last night. Every place on his body reacted to her touch. The experience was very different from the experience of making love to a Hoola male.

  “I felt a special connection with you too,” she says. “I felt that we knew each other in an intimate way. You and I, we are alien species to one another. But in my opinion we have more similarities than differences.”

  “We’ve become what we call an item in my world,” Rikes says.

  “An item? Does that mean you are my boyfriend and I am your girlfriend?” Ku-uhala says.

  “We can call ourselves that as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Hm,” Ku-uhala mumbles. “You said something interesting to me last night.”

  “Oh, what was it?”

  “You said that my touches feel electric.”

  “They do. Your touches are more intense than the touches of human women.”

  “I assume it is a good thing,” Ku-uhala says.

  Rikes smiles. “You bet it’s a good thing.”

  Ku-uhala sits up on the bed and looks through the window. She watches as the Oxydia sun rises above the planet and sets the room ablaze with its rays.

  She turns and looks at Rikes.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Like a wolf,” he says.

  “Me too. Let’s get some breakfast in the mess hall.”

  “Let’s do that,” Rikes says.

  “As much as I loved our trip to planet Bloom,” Ku-uhala says, “some things, like the appetite, just can not be stilled in a dream.”

  She looks at the small particles of dust dancing in the sunrays through the room, and begins collecting her garments from the floor.

  •••

  THE END

  Join Starship Scorpio’s deep space exploration and find out what happens to Cadet Maya Scott on a remote moon when she discovers the debris of the shuttle her father flew when he disappeared twenty years ago in

  The Astronaut’s Daughter,

  the second part of Mother’s Milk Space Stories

  Available now in your ebook store!

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