Ada
Once again she was placed in a medical pod in Zeb’s ship. If she didn’t hurt all over, Ada would have protested. She hated being in the pod. She always felt like she was being placed in a coffin. She always lost track of time in the pod, too. She fell asleep, but she didn’t know how long. What she did know was that Zeb was still in the room when she woke and the lid raised.
“Ada,” he breathed. Ada noticed that he was still wearing his uniform. She wondered if he had ever left the room. It looked like he hadn’t. His hair was disheveled as if he’d been running his hands through it. His eyes were ringed by dark shadows.
“Zeb. You look like you need to be in this pod, not me.”
He gave a soft laugh. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Have you been here the whole time? Did you rest at all?”
“I have, and I did. A little.”
Ada got out of the pod and stepped up to Zeb. “I wasn’t hurt that bad,” she said. “You didn’t have to stay with me.” Then she reached up on tip-toes to kiss him.
He groaned, but pressed himself closer instead of pulling away like he had before.
“Let’s go back to your bedroom, Zeb,” Ada whispered. “We can just sleep. You look like you’re about to collapse. You need to lie down. I’ll stay with you while you sleep.”
At first Ada was afraid that Zeb would say no again, but instead he led her out of the medical bay. Once in his room he let her help him undress.
Though she wanted to run her hands all over his body, she kept her word and didn’t do more than remove his clothes and get him to lie down.
“Can this bed fit two people?” Ada asked, noting that his bed was basically a more comfortable looking version of the med bay pod.
“It can, but You don’t have to stay with me,” Zeb answered.
There was no way she’d agree to leave him alone. “I want to.”
Zeb pushed a button or something on the side of his sleeping pod and the whole thing morphed into a bed big enough for two people. Ada was surprised, but grateful that the lid disappeared. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to lie next to anyone with a lid closed over her.
Once the bed seemed to be done moving, Ada pushed Zeb to lie down. Then she carefully lay next to him.
“I’m glad you stayed,” Zeb said, pulling her close to him. They cuddled like that until he fell asleep. Eventually, his even breathing lulled her back into slumber as well.
Zeberon
Zeb woke with Ada wrapped around him, her head resting on his chest, her legs entwined with his own. He was painfully aroused. He knew he should pull away, get up and dress, but even as he had the thought, he realized that he couldn’t do it.
He had tried to avoid caring for Ada too much so that returning home and leaving her wouldn’t be so painful, but it was too late. Even if he didn’t touch her, he knew leaving her would be more painful than he could bear.
So he didn’t move. When her eyes fluttered open and she realized she was practically laying on him, he held onto her instead of letting her pull away.
“Zeb, I’m sorry,” Ada said, flushing. “I didn’t mean…”
“It’s ok,” he whispered. He traced his hands down her body, allowing himself to enjoy her curves.
“But…”
“It’s alright.”
Zeb rolled them both so that he and Ada were lying face to face. Then he kissed her. He didn’t let up as he removed the underclothing that she was still wearing. She moaned into his mouth as he cupped her breasts and tweaked her nipples. He felt her nails dig into his back as she pressed herself closer.
Eventually, Zeb moved his hands lower on Ada’s body so that he could touch her sex. She was wet for him, and he could tell she was close to coming as he stroked her. Her hands were clenching and unclenching on his back.
He moved them so he was above her. Neither of them spoke, but he made sure she was looking into his eyes before he entered her. If there had been anything in her eyes that told him she didn’t want him as much as he wanted her, Zeb would have forced himself to stop, but her eyes reflected the same need that he was feeling.
“Ada,” he whispered her name like a prayer as he pushed into her wet heat. She urged him forward with her hands on his backside and her feet pressed into the bed. At her urging, he lost himself in her.
Ada
Although the mother plant had been defeated, Zeb seemed in no hurry to leave Sim Earth. They spent every night together. He still made her food which he’d have ready for her once she returned from work. Even if all she wanted to do was come home and fall into bed with him, Zeb insisted that she eat. It was sweet how he looked out for her.
He was also teaching her about his planet’s technology. Not everything…Zeb admitted that technological inventions and devices were not something he was well versed at, but he gave her schematics and tried to help her figure out how they worked.
Because of these advanced technologies, Ada was quickly becoming one of the top research scientists at the National Sims Institute. She couldn’t admit to the others where she was getting her ideas and designs, so she reluctantly accepted the accolades and promotions that they insisted on giving her.
The first device Zeb helped her create was a sensor that would send pulses into the atmosphere that should help protect Sim Earth from other hostile alien incursions. It would not work on humanoid species, but Zeb promised that it would keep away more Stra’Cinortcele and something called a Sitnam, which were a sort of insect-species.
“When your people are ready, this device can also send messages into space to contact more civilized beings,” Zeb told her.
“So it’s like a universe satellite phone?”
“In some ways.”
Ada thought about that. “So I could call you once you return to Sixam?”
Zeb’s brow furrowed. He didn’t like it when she brought up his home planet.
“Not like you mean,” Zeb answered. “You could send a message and it would reach my planet. It would not come to me directly.” It was the first time he’d talked about going home since they’d made love on his ship for the first time. Ada turned away from him, letting the subject drop. She didn’t want Zeb to leave because she was falling in love with him, but loving him meant that she’d have to let him go eventually. He couldn’t stay on Sim Earth indefinitely.
He had told her that his ship was repaired and that he had worked out a way to leave Sim Earth without being detected. He also told her that he’d contacted his home-world. She kept waiting for him to tell her it was time for him to go, but he didn’t.
Instead he kept helping Ada work on adapting Sixam technology for Sims. He even gave her plans for a crude version of his replicator. It didn’t quite work like the ones on his ship, but it could make an exact duplicate of small items. Everyone at the Institute was really excited by this invention once it was discovered that the replicator would duplicate precious metals and crystals.
“We’ll never need research grants again!” Dr. Clement enthused. “We can replicate gold and silver, diamonds and rubies, anything we want!”
And it was true. They could replicate those items. Ada was worried that having such power would corrupt anyone who was even a little bit greedy, so she altered the actual schematics in the Institute system and she destroyed her initial prototype.
“I made it so that the duplicated item isn’t entirely the same structure and purity of the original,” she explained to Zeb as they talked about it. “So if someone were to duplicate a gold bar, for example, the resulting bar wouldn’t exactly be pure gold. It would really only be worth about a 10th of the value of the original. This way no one can use the device to get rich.”
“That was probably wise. My people have no need for currency. We haven’t used such a system in thousands of years.”
“We’re just not there yet,” Ada said, acknowledging what Zeb had always said about her people: They were primitive and uncivilized compared to the rest of the universe.
The final schematic Zeb gave Ada was one for a wormhole generator.
“My people haven’t actually managed to perfect this device,” he warned her. “Theoretically, it should allow you to open up a wormhole to travel from one place in the universe to another, but it has never been successfully tested.”
“Why do you want me to have this?” Ada asked. “If your people, who are much more advanced than us Sims, can’t make it work, what makes you think we will be able to accomplish it?”
Zeb looked at her sadly. “It is just a hope,” he said.
And that’s when Ada knew that their time together was nearly over. Instead of burst into tears and beg him to stay with her forever, Ada threw herself into his arms and kissed him passionately. She tore at his clothes, desperate to feel his body on her, in her. She wanted him to burrow so deeply that she wouldn’t be able to tell that they were two separate beings. She wished that there was some way that she could meld with him so that she wouldn’t be left alone when he finally departed.
Zeberon
It was time.
Holding his disguise protocol in place was becoming more and more challenging. Sixamians were not meant to be disguised so long. It was taxing no matter how much brain power they held, and he was not the strongest of his people in that regard.
Additionally, as Ada continued to make advancements in her career based on his inventions, the military and science people in Strangerville began to look at both of them more closely. He’d seen the men in black suits lurking near Ada’s trailer and poking around his crash site. Ada said they’d also been spotted near the Institute where she worked. Zeb feared that Sargeant Dimitrius or Ted Roswell had let the people in power know who and what he was.
After making love with Ada, Zeb cuddled her close. Their coming together was always passionate, but lately it had also been tinged with desperation. He was sure that she felt the same need as he did to store each kiss and caress into his brain to be brought back in as much detail as possible when they were separated.
He was once a man who loved being with many women. He had never thought he’d find lasting love, only fleeting moments to sate his body’s lusts. And he’d been content with that, enjoying the pleasure he found in each of the women he’d been with. But now that he’d known Ada, he knew that he’d be with no one else. He’d need his memories of her to survive the loneliness of his future.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Zeb whispered to Ada.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she answered. “Stay the night. I can take a day off tomorrow and we can spend the whole day in bed.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Zeb sighed. “But that’s not what I meant.”
Ada tucked her head into his neck and he felt wetness trickle down his shoulder. She was crying.
“I know,” she said.
“Tomorrow night,” Zeb told her and felt her nod just a bit. “We can still spend the day in bed,” he added. “Call your work and claim illness.”
She didn’t answer, just lifted her head and kissed him.
Ada
He left the next night just as he had said he would. They’d spent the day in bed as promised, but in the end, he had to go. She had gone with him back to his ship buried and hidden at Cliffside Crest. But he did something she couldn’t tell what and the area around the ship wavered. That’s when she saw it for the first time.
It was immense. Much bigger than she had imagined, even though she’d been inside it several times. With its size, she was shocked that it hadn’t made a much bigger impact on the earth than it did.
“It was a bit of an illusion,” Zeb explained. “My ship used our cloaking technology to disguise as much as possible. It didn’t work perfectly, but enough that we could stay relatively hidden.”
“But not anymore,” Ada said.
“No.”
“Won’t people be able to see you leave? Won’t there be a huge hole here and more burnt landscape?”
“No one will notice me leaving. I can keep the ship cloaked until we leave the atmosphere. But I can’t disguise the hole or the landscape. Those will have to remain a mystery.” Zeb gave a small, ironic smile.
“Just one more mystery in Strangerville,” Ada agreed.
As if by some unspoken agreement, Zeb didn’t touch Ada as they stood by his ship. She knew if he did, she’d never be able to let him go. Instead, he motioned her to stand just off the property at a distance he deemed safe. Then he waved and turned to board his ship. It took all of Ada’s willpower not to run to him.
In the end, she had to turn away. Her tears were flowing as she heard the ship doors close and then a few minutes later a roar of engines, and then a shimmer of light.
She felt the ship lift off, but she couldn’t see it. Zeb had cloaked it. Then a great wind whipped her hair into her face and swirled the dust around her. She stood, as if in the middle of a tornado, and let the stand sting her face. When the wind died down, she collapsed onto the ground, great heaving sobs escaped her.
Zeb was gone.
A few weeks later…
She’d thrown up again. It was the fourth morning in a row. She touched her flat stomach and smiled sadly. Even without a test she was certain.
She went back and forth with herself about what to do about her now certain pregnancy. She had a way to contact Sixam…not Zeb specifically, of course, but at least his people who could then pass on her message to him. Part of her wanted to send the message immediately in hopes that it would make Zeb want to come back to Sim Earth. She’d do anything to have him back! But what if Zeb didn’t come back? What if he didn’t care that she was having his child? She’d hate it if she told him and he didn’t respond.
But then she thought that it was possible that Zeb couldn’t come back. It might be impossible. Even if he knew about the child and wanted to return, he might not be able to. And if he couldn’t return, that wasn’t his fault. Did that mean he didn’t have a right to know that he had a child?
In the end, Ada decided to send the message. Zeb needed to know. Even if he never came back, even if he’d stopped caring about her, he deserved to at least know.
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