And older than Korum. “You’ve been a charl this whole time?” Mia asked incredulously.
“Ever since I was nineteen,” Delia said, looking at her with large brown eyes. “I met Arus on the coast of the Mediterranean, near my village. He was much younger then, barely two hundred years old, but to me, he was the epitome of wisdom and knowledge. I thought he was a god, especially when he showed
me some of their miraculous technology. The day he took me to their ship I was convinced he brought me to Mount Olympus . . .”
“Where did you live this whole time? On Krina?” Mia was utterly fascinated. For some reason, she’d thought that Krinar-human liaisons were a fairly recent development. Although now that she thought about it, the existence of the charl/cheren terminology in Krinar language implied that these types of relationships had to have been around for a while.
“Yes,” Delia said. “Arus took me to Krina when he left Earth. We lived there until the Krinar came here a few years ago.”
Mia looked at her, imagining how shocking and overwhelming it must have been for someone from ancient Greece to end up on another planet. Even for Mia, who knew that the Krinar were not in any way supernatural, a lot of what they could do seemed like magic. What would it be like for someone who had never used a cell phone or a TV, who had no idea what a computer or a plane was?
“How did you cope with that?” Mia wondered. “I can’t even picture what it must’ve been like for you.”
Delia lifted her shoulders in a graceful shrug. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I can barely recall those early days at this point – everything is one big blur of images and impressions in my mind. I didn’t handle the trip to Krina well, I remember that much. Your cheren – who wasn’t even born at the time – has done a lot to make intergalactic travel safer and more comfortable. But back then, it was much more difficult. I was horribly sick during the entire trip because the ship wasn’t optimized for humans, and it took me a few days to recover when I got to Krina, even with their medicine.”
“Did you want to go?” Mia couldn’t help feeling intense pity for a nineteen-year-old who had been taken away from everything she knew and brought to a strange and unfamiliar place.
Delia shrugged again. “I wanted to be with Arus, but I don’t think I fully realized what that entailed. Obviously, I don’t have any regrets now.”
“Are there any charl who are older than you?”
“Yes,” Delia said. “There are two of them. One is the charl of the biology expert who developed the process of extending human lifespan. He’s almost five thousand years old. And another one is only about five hundred years older than me. She’s originally from Africa.”
“Wait, did you say he?” This was the first time Mia had heard about a male charl.
“Yes,” Sandra said, joining their conversation. “I was surprised too. But some Krinar women – and men – take human men as their charl. It’s much rarer, but it does happen. Sumuel – the original charl, as he’s known – is actually with a mated couple.”
Mia blinked. “Like a threesome?”
“Pretty much,” Sandra said with a naughty grin on her face. “It’s a somewhat unusual arrangement, but it works for them. The couple’s daughter thinks of Sumuel as her third parent.”
“The Krinar couple’s daughter?”
“Yes, of course,” said Delia. “We can’t have children with the Krinar. We’re not sufficiently compatible, genetically.”
Even though Mia had known that, hearing Delia say the words gave her an odd little ache in her stomach. Over the past few days, Mia had been so happy that she hadn’t had a chance to dwell on the negative aspects of always being with someone not of her own species. Korum had told her in the very beginning that he couldn’t make her pregnant, and she’d had no reason to question that. Besides, she’d had other things on her mind. However, now that Mia was certain of a future with Korum, she realized what that future held – or, rather, what it didn’t hold: children.
Mia didn’t feel a burning urge to be a mother, at least not right now. Having a child was something she’d always pictured as part of a pleasant, nebulous future. She’d always assumed she would finish college, attend graduate school, and meet a nice man somewhere along the way. They would date for a couple of years, get engaged, have a small family wedding, and start thinking about children after they were married for some time. And instead, she had become an extraterrestrial’s charl within a week of meeting him, gained immortality, and lost any chance of a normal human life.
Not that she minded, of course. Being with Korum, loving him, was so much more than she could’ve ever hoped for. And if somewhere deep inside, a small part of her felt hollow at the loss of her nonexistent son or daughter . . . Well, she could live with that. Perhaps, one day, she could even convince Korum to adopt.
So Mia pasted a smile on her face and turned her attention back to Delia, asking her about her experiences on Krina and what it was like to live for so long.
Over the next hour, Mia got to know both Delia and Sandra, learning about their stories and what the life of a charl was truly like. Unlike Delia, Sandra had only been in Lenkarda for three years. Originally from Italy, she’d met her cheren by accident on the Amalfi coast. For the most part, both Delia and Sandra seemed quite happy with their lives, although Mia got the sense that Arus treated Delia as a real partner, while Sandra’s cheren spoiled her rotten, but didn’t take her too seriously.
After most of the food at the table was gone, Maria challenged all the girls to a drinking game that seemed similar to truth-or-dare. For the ‘dare’ portion, they had to drink a full shot of tequila.
“Don’t worry,” Sandra whispered to Mia, “you won’t have a chance to get too drunk – not even if you drink five shots an hour. Our bodies metabolize alcohol really quickly now.”
Mia grinned, remembering the last time she’d gotten wasted. It would’ve been nice to have all those nanocytes back at that club; it would’ve saved her quite a bit of embarrassment.
They played for an hour and Mia drank at least six shots, choosing the ‘dare’ option over answering some very probing questions about her sex life. Other girls had no such compunction, however, and Mia learned all about Moira’s preference for black leather pants, Jenny’s passion for foot massages, and the fact that Sandra had once had sex in a lifeboat.
Finally, the party came to an end. Feeling mildly buzzed, Mia headed home, eagerly anticipating seeing Korum and finishing what they had started earlier today.
* * *
Saret walked through the slums of Mexico City, dispassionately observing the dregs of humanity all around him. He had already planted the devices in the center of the city, so this excursion served no particular purpose except to satisfy his curiosity – and to reinforce in his mind the rightness of what he was doing.