Page 6 of Caveman Alien's Heat
My heart rate quickens. “Good evening, Riley.”
She whirls around, face contorted in surprise. “Fuck!”
“No,” I state as calmly as I can, “just Nator’ax. What in the deepest Dark are you doing?”
She turns back to the panel. “It not… I want it to go down, but not happens…”
“Hmm.” I take in the bewildering amount of alien mysteries in the saucer, as well as Riley’s immensely alluring shape. Her thighs look soft, and her feet are small, and she has that female chest with a double bulge in it. Her hair looks smooth and falls softly down her back, obscuring my view of her thin neck. “It would be nice to go down.”
She gives me a quick glance. “Why you here? You know how to fly?”
“I don’t know anything about this thing except that your Dex keeps coming and going in it. The chief wanted to know what he was doing and asked me to find out.” I prod a strange alien table with many colored lights on it. “Should I assume that you also don’t know?”
“I wanted to learn howtofly it,” she says, busying herself with the panel. “So not only Dex can. But now I not know what to do. Is very high up!” She points to the side, where the many trees of the jungle are seen from above.
I take a step closer to the console, bracing one hand against the curved wall as the saucer hums beneath my feet. “Perhaps you shouldn’t touch anything else,” I suggest carefully.
“That what I thought before,” Riley mutters. “But also nothing happen.”
She presses another glowing symbol before I can stop her.
The saucer answers with a violent shudder.
“Maybe—” I begin.
The floor tilts sharply to one side.
Riley squeals as the entire craft lurches. I grab for the console, but miss, and we both stagger as the saucer suddenly shoots upward again, far faster than before. The jungle drops away in a dizzying rush, the green canopy shrinking until it looks like moss on the forest floor.
“Oh no no no!” Riley gasps, accurately echoing my own sentiments.
The saucer banks hard to the side.
We are thrown across the small chamber. Riley crashes into me, and we both hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. Instinct takes over. I wrap one arm around her waist and pull her against my chest, while grabbing a protruding ridge in the wall with my other hand to keep us from sliding further.
“Hold still!” I shout over the rising whine of the saucer.
“I am trying!” she yelps.
The craft tilts again, sending us sliding across the smooth floor. Riley’s hair brushes my face, and she clutches at me as if I am the only solid thing left in the world. She finds the waistband of my loincloth and slides three fingers under it to get a good grip.
Outside the transparent walls, the jungle spins wildly, then vanishes beneath a rising layer of mist.
The light changes. The roaring climb finally slows.
A moment later, the saucer steadies itself with a soft humming vibration.
For a few heartbeats, neither of us moves.
Then Riley lifts her head from my chest and stares out through the glowing wall.
“Uh,” she says faintly.
I follow her gaze.
Below us there is no jungle anymore.
Only a vast, endless field of soft, bright hills—clouds stretching to the horizon, glowing in the sunlight.
