“What is the divorce rate in Voran?”
He lifted a bushy eyebrow.
“Only one in ten men in Voran gets a chance to have a wife,” he said slowly, staring at me intently. “One wife. One chance at marriage. Every husband would do anything to keep his wife. Absolutely anything. Divorce is so rare in our country, it’s practically non-existent.”
I dreaded to clarify what exactly he meant by “would do anything.” It could be as in “giving her anything she desires to remain happy in marriage,” or “doing anything possible to physically keep his wife, including tying her up in the basement.”
“What if...” I started carefully. “Sometimes things don’t work out between two people, you know.”
“There is always a way to work things out,” he said, dismissing me confidently. His tone left zero chance for arguing. So, I didn’t.
Instead, I stared ahead through the glass of the spacecraft again.
“Listen,” he said after a while, betraying that he kept thinking about the topic of our conversation even after we’d fallen silent. “My time was limited,” he explained. “They gave me thousands of pictures of alien women to choose just one. Yours stood out. And that was it.”
Chapter 3
“THIS IS HOME.” THE Colonel tipped his beard at the cluster of glass domes and spheres on top of a skyscraper.
“The entire thing?” I leaned closer to the glass of the aircraft for a better look.
The building was so tall, I couldn’t see the street below as we hovered near its top. Glass bubbles covered its walls, as if they had been sprayed with foam. The bubbles were the glass-enclosed patios and balconies of various sizes.
The Colonel watched me closely.
“No. The building isn’t mine,” he said. “I occupy the top three floors only.”
“Only?” I exhaled a laugh. “Your place must be the size of an amphitheatre.”
The main dome alone seemed large enough to enclose a coliseum. Several others surrounded it, only slightly smaller than the first.
“It’s...breathtaking.” I stared in awe at the glass glimmering under the late afternoon sun of Neron as the Colonel maneuvered the aircraft closer to the nearest dome.
The glass slid open, letting the aircraft glide inside. It landed on a green platform covered with a neatly trimmed grass. The side panels of the aircraft lifted, and I climbed out. The kitten heels of my Mary Janes sank into the lush indoor lawn, so unusual to see under the paling light of the setting winter sun.
“Is this real?” I turned to the Colonel who was walking around the aircraft to me.
“The grass? Yes. It grows year round, just like the rest of the plants.” He gestured at the planters lining the walls and the hanging baskets dripping with garlands of flowers.
“What a gorgeous patio.” I slowly turned around, taking in the luscious greenery generously sprinkled with the bright colors of flowers. “It would be so lovely to have tea here in the morning.”
“You want to have breakfast in the garage?” The Colonel lifted an eyebrow at me.
A garage?
Of course. Where else would he park his vehicle?
“Well, it’s the prettiest garage I’ve ever seen...” I mumbled.
He kept making me feel like a complete idiot. How was I supposed to know that live grass and gorgeous flowers belong in a parking garage in Voran?
“There is an actual breakfast patio on the other side of this floor.” The Colonel led me to a set of opaque glass doors that slid open as we approached. “In the morning, the view is better there than here.”
I had no chance to reply. My breath caught in my throat from delight when we entered the next room.
It was perfectly round with a checkered tile floor and a ceiling so high, I had to tilt my head all the way back to see the glass hemisphere of the skylight. Green and yellow plants grew everywhere. Vines hung from the ceiling, draped along the walls, and climbed up trellises. Some of them bloomed with large, vivid flowers, adding splashes of color. A fresh, sweet fragrance wafted through the air.
“Oh, my goodness...” I exhaled in awe.
Pressing my purse to my chest, I strolled around the room, admiring its beauty.
“Do you like it?” The Colonel asked.
His thick eyebrows drew into a frown, though I didn’t believe he was angry with me at the moment. He just didn’t seem to have many facial expressions, other than frowns of different depths. It was unbelievable that a grumpy man like him would live in a place resembling a paradise.
I couldn’t care less about his moodiness, right now. This place was too beautiful to worry about such things. Spreading my arms out, the purse with the ornament clutched in my hand, I took a twirl.
“Like it? I love it!” I couldn’t help a soft laugh. “This is gorgeous. A beautiful summer in the middle of winter.”
I faced the Colonel, catching my breath.
“You must be an amazing gardener,” I gushed, happy to have finally found something redeeming about this man.
He folded his arms across his expansive chest.
“Me? No, this is all Omni’s work.”
“Omni?” I glanced around for someone with that name.
A whirring sound behind me made me spin around. An object rolled from the opposite door. It was a frame with a screen mounted on a tall stick attached to a short platform on wheels.
“Greetings, Madam Kyradus,” a soothing mechanical voice sounded from the softly glowing screen. “Welcome to the household of the Colonel Grevar Velna Kyradus. I am the Artificial Intelligence housekeeping system or ‘the house AI’ for short. But you can call me Omni.”
“Hi Omni.” I dipped my head in greeting, since the unit had no hands to shake. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
With no hands, I wondered how the robot could do anything around here at all, not to mention create and maintain this luscious indoor garden.
“I trust your journey was enjoyable?” Omni continued. “We have received your luggage from the spaceport. I’ve taken the liberty of taking it up to your room and unpacking.”
“Oh, really? Thank you...”
“Would you like me to take this up as well?” The image of the purse in my hands appeared on the screen.
I pressed the purse to my chest, unsure if I was ready to part with it yet, even for a little while.
“Or would you like me to place it near your chair while you’re having dinner?”
Insisting on holding onto the purse at this point would make me look like a toddler who refused to give up her favorite toy. The Colonel already seemed to have a less-than-stellar opinion about me.
“No, it’s fine. You can take it.” I stretched the purse toward Omni, wondering how the screen could take anything anywhere.
With a swish of air against my face, a small silver drone appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
“Could you hang the purse on the hook, please?” Omni instructed.
I did as I’d been told, carefully hanging the purse on a chrome hook extending from the drone. It took off toward a winding staircase that circled the entire room spiraling upwards.
“Carefully, please,” I begged, watching the purse with my grandma’s ornament fly away. “It’s fragile.” That was the reason why I didn’t leave it with the rest of my luggage, carrying it all the way here myself instead.