The dress was truly beautiful, made of a shimmery blue fabric that seemed to flow with every move. It had three-quarter-length sleeves – perfect for a chilly restaurant – and looked like it might end just above the knees. It also seemed tiny, and Mia doubted that even she would be able to fit in it.
Nonetheless, she went to her room and tried it on. Twirling in front of her mirror, she was shocked to see that it actually fit her like a glove. The dress was very modest in the front, but had a deep plunge in the back, so she couldn’t wear a bra. However, it was so cleverly made, with the cups already sewn in, that no bra was necessary for someone of Mia’s size. The young woman reflected in the mirror was more than merely pretty; she actually looked hot, with all her small curves highlighted and shown to their best advantage.
Feeling shy, Mia walked out of her bedroom and modeled the dress to her audience. Claude and Bridget made admiring noises, and Jessie wolf-whistled at the sight. “Wow, Mia, you look amazing!” she exclaimed, walking around Mia to look at her from all angles.
“Here,” Bridget said, her tone less snooty now, “you can wear these tights and shoes with it.” She was holding up a pair of silky black pantyhose and simple black pumps with red soles.
Trying on the shoes and tights, Mia discovered that they were a great fit as well. She wondered how Korum knew her size so precisely. If she had been the one choosing the clothes, she would have never gone for the dress, sure that it was too small to fit her. Still caught up in the beauty of the dress, Mia graciously allowed Bridget to take her full measurements.
Checking on the time, Mia was surprised to see that it was already six o’clock. She only had a half-hour to get ready – not that she needed all that time given that she was already dressed. Her hair was still magically behaving, so she only needed to worry about makeup. Two minutes later, she was done, having brushed on two coats of mascara, a light sprinkling of powder to hide the freckles, and a tinted lip balm. Satisfied, she settled on the couch to finish studying and wait for Korum to pick her up.
* * *
Greeting Korum at the door, she was pleased to see his eyes turn a brighter amber at the sight of her in the dress.
“Mia,” he said quietly, “I always knew you were beautiful, but you look simply incredible tonight.”
Mia blushed at the compliment and mumbled a thank-you.
The dinner was the most amazing affair of Mia’s life. Le Bernardin was utterly posh, with the waiters anticipating their every wish with almost uncanny attentiveness and the food somewhere between heavenly and out-of-this-world. They got a special tasting menu, and Mia tried everything from the warm lobster carpaccio to the stuffed zucchini flower. The wine paired with their courses was delicious as well, although Korum kept a strict eye on her alcohol consumption this time, stopping the waiter when he tried to refill her glass too often.
Keeping the conversation neutral was surprisingly easy. Korum was a good listener, and he seemed genuinely interested in her life, as simple and boring as it must have seemed to him. Since he knew everything about her anyway and she wasn’t trying to get him to like her, Mia found herself opening up to him in a way that she’d never had with her dates before. She told him about the first boy she’d ever kissed – an eight-year-old she’d had a crush on when she was six – and how jealous she’d felt of her perfect older sister when she was a young child. She spoke of her parents’ high expectations and of her own desire to positively influence young lives by serving as a guidance counselor.
She also learned that he normally lived in Costa Rica. Supposedly, the climate there best mimicked the area of Krina where he was from. “Our Center in Guanacaste is the closest thing we have to a capital here on Earth. We call it Lenkarda,” he explained. She remembered then that Costa Rica was where John had said his sister was being held. She wondered if Korum had ever seen her there. It was feasible – he’d said there were only about five t
housand Ks living in each of their Centers.
As the dinner went on, she found herself straying more and more from the safe topics. Unable to contain her curiosity, she asked him about life on Krina and what the planet was like, in general.
“Krina is a beautiful place,” Korum told her. “It’s like a very lush green Earth. We have many more species of plants and animals, given our longer evolutionary history. We’ve also succeeded in preserving the majority of our biodiversity there, avoiding the mass extinctions that took place here in recent centuries.” For which humans were responsible – that part he didn’t have to say out loud.
“The majority, with the exception of your human-like primates, right?” Mia asked caustically, slightly chafing at his holier-than-thou attitude.
“With the exception of them, yes,” Korum agreed. “And a few other species that were particularly ill-equipped to survive.”
Mia sighed and decided to move on to something less controversial. “So what are your cities like? Since you’re so long-lived, your planet must be very densely populated by now.”
He shook his head. “It’s actually not. We’re not as fertile as your species, and few couples these days are interested in having more than one or two children. As a result, our birth rate in modern times has been very low, barely above replenishment levels, and our population hasn’t grown significantly in millions of years.” Pausing to take a sip of his drink, he continued, “Our cities are actually very different from yours. We don’t enjoy living right on top of each other. We tend to be very territorial, so we like to have a lot of space to call our own. Our cities are more like your suburbs, where the Krinar live spread out on the edges and commute into the denser center, which is only for commercial activities. And everywhere you go, the air is clean and unpolluted. We like to have trees and plants all around us, so even the densest areas of our cities are nearly as green as your parks.”
Mia listened with fascination. This explained the flora all over his penthouse. “It sounds really nice,” she said. Then an obvious question occurred to her. “Why would you leave all that and come to Earth, with all of our pollution and overpopulation? It must be really unpleasant for you to be in New York, for instance.”
He smiled and reached for her hand, stroking her palm. “Well, I’ve recently discovered some definite perks to this city.”
“No, but seriously, why come to Earth?” she persisted. “I can’t believe you’d give up your home planet just to come here and drink our blood.” Which he still hadn’t done with her for some reason, she realized.
He sighed and looked at her, apparently coming to some decision. “Well, Mia, it’s like this. As beautiful as our planet is, it’s not immortal. Our sun, which is a much older star than yours, will begin to die in another hundred million years. If we’re still on Krina at that time, our entire race will perish. So we have no choice but to seek out some other alternatives.”
“In a hundred million years?” That seemed like a very long time to Mia. “But that’s so far away. Why come here now? Why not enjoy your beautiful planet for, say, another ninety million years?”
“Because, my darling, if we had left Earth to humans for another ninety million years, there might not have been a habitable planet for us to come to.” He leaned forward, his expression cooling. “Your kind has turned out to be incredibly destructive, with your technology evolving much faster than your morals and common sense. When your Industrial Revolution began, we knew that we would have to intervene at some point because you were using up your planet’s resources at an unprecedented pace. So we began preparations to come here because we saw the writing on the wall.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “And we were right. Each generation has been more and more greedy, each successive advance in your technology doing more and more damage to your environment. As short-lived as you are, you think in decades – not even hundreds of years – and that leads you not to care about the future. You’re like a child who takes a toy apart for the fun and pleasure of it, not caring that tomorrow he won’t have that toy to play with anymore.”
Mia sat there, feeling like the said child getting castigated by the teacher. The tips of her ears burned with anger and shame. Maybe what he was saying was the truth, but he had no right to sit in judgment of her entire species, particularly in light of what she knew about his kind. Humans may be primitive and short-sighted compared to the Krinar, but at least they had the wisdom – and morals – to stop enslaving intelligent beings.
“So you came to our planet to take it over for your own use?” she asked resentfully. “All under the guise of saving it from our environmentally unfriendly ways?”
“No, Mia,” he said patiently, as though explaining the obvious to a small child. “We came to share your planet. If we had wanted to take it over, believe me, we would have. We’ve been more than generous with your species. Other than banning a few of your particularly stupid practices, we’ve generally left you alone, to live as you wish. That’s far better than the way you have treated your own kind.”
Seeing the stubborn look on her face, he added, “When the Europeans came to the Americas, did they let the natives live in peace? Did they respect their traditions and ways of life enough to let them continue, or did they try to impose their own religion, values, and mores on them? Did they treat them as fellow human beings or as savage animals?”