Page 108 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

“Do you think Hoover notices I’m gone?” he asked, his deep voice unusually quiet.

I blinked my tertiary eyelids in confusion, momentarily disoriented by the non-sequitur until I remembered the raccoon Vantor had befriended—the clever creature he’d named after the vacuum cleaner that had once attacked him (or the other way around.) Hoover was a skittish creature, who favored Vantor and appeared and disappeared at will. He matched Vantor, our security specialist, the most disciplined among us. But I was taken aback by how much befriending the small Earth mammal had affected my larger, older crew brother.

Yet, I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t forgotten my cat. I was in the process of burying the memories of Tammy and the ranch way down deep, into my stomachs, far away from my triple hearts, so I wouldn’t suffer.

But forgetting our experiences on Earth was like swimming against the currents of our home planet.

The water rushing against my body too quickly, pushing me in the wrong direction, sending me backward. Ever backward. Right where I didn’t want to be.

“Bet Artie is wondering where we went,” Cyro breathed out, voice carefully controlled, bubbles spilling from his mouth. “Animals get used to schedules and people. It would be interesting to catalog the horses’ behaviors in our absence.”

He didn’t really care about the research angle. Cyro was covering up his emotions with data. That was his way.

The implications hung heavy between us all. If any air bubbles still existed in the pressurized space, currently filled to bursting with sea water, they would be chased away by the tension building around our bodies.

Vantor missed his raccoon. Cyro missed the horses. I missed my cat. But none of us would outright say it. Just like we wouldn’t say how much Tammy had seeded herself into our bodies, like the parasitic underwater vines of our planet called Aqua-kudzu. She was twined around our many hearts, circulatory systems, ctenidia. Every part of us threaded with every part of her, inexorably.

When Aqua-kudzu attached itself firmly to coral, there were only two paths to rectify:

Eradicate it, along with all it had infected.

Or allow it to take over.

I knew which choice I would make right now, given the chance.

“Are you sure we should not at least check on the ranch before exiting the atmosphere?” I asked, hope shining dimly across my body. I crossed my human arms, fingers phasing in and out of reality, giving glimpses of the tentacle, showing the texture of my true skin. It was harder to keep my hybrid form firmly in place when emotions railed against me.

Cyro’s skin rippled with conflicted emotions—lavender lightening to smoky gray as he internally struggled. Three of his tentacles lifted, tips scraping down his rounded head, a gesture that signified deep contemplation in our species. “No, we cannot go back. If we do—” He abruptly stopped speaking, any lingering color bleeding away from his skin.

What was he going to say when he abruptly stopped? Possibilities raced through my brain.

If we do, we may not leave?

If we do, we may fail our planet?

If we do, we might kidnap Tammy and take her with us, proving all those alien abduction fictions true?

“Even though she told me trash pandas are not pets, she did not discourage my attachment to Hoover,” Vantor spoke again, his voice taking on a distant quality. His words, once again, felt out of the blue.

“If she were here, she’d make some nonsensical joke about attachments and a Hoover going hand-in-hand,” I quipped, a sadness unlike I’d ever felt settling into my three hearts, making them beat sluggishly.

“That she would,” Vantor agreed with me. “Though, I do understand her jokes about the vacuum now. She explained them in great detail after I battled with her Hoover a second time. The vacuum, not the raccoon.”

I didn’t point out that his explanation was unnecessary. Tammy’s Hoover was a loud, engineering curiosity she’d refused to let me dismantle.

“She loves Artie. It was easy to see.” Cyro’s voice was no longer neutral. It gurgled and shook. “And the elderly equine returned her affection. Always waiting on her patiently, not caring if she brought carrots or sugar cubes. Sassafras and Mystery were focused on themselves, then each other. But Artie and Tammy shared a special bond.”

I found myself nodding, my shortest tentacle curling protectively against my chest. “Did you know she found yarn in that cavity above the ceiling in the house? Colored string. Brown, yellow, green. She was knitting something, but she wouldn’t tell me what. Before our departure, I snuck a peek. An odd sweater, too small for a human body. I believe it is for Manji.”

“Or Hoover,” Vantor countered.

“Maybe for Hoover,” I agreed, smiling at my crew brother.

The shared memories floated in the waters between us like physical things, carrying their own bioluminescence that brightened the shadows and lightened the heaviness we felt.

For the first time since our departure, we were acknowledging what we had left behind. Not just a planet, not just specimens for study, but connections. Relationships. A life none of us had expected to find or to cherish.

An indicator beeped. I looked over, finding a row of three, telltale green lights. “We have reached the pressure safe zone. The internal water levels will begin to decrease.”