Page 98 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

I raised my other hand to stroke his forehead, fingers tracing the irregular pattern of darker spots that gave his breed its name. Simultaneously, I allowed a tentacle to emerge discreetly from beneath the back of my shirt, extending it toward the shelf where grooming tools were stored. The appendage selected a curry brush with the practiced ease of repeated motion, bringing it around to my waiting human hand while maintaining the illusion that I had simply reached for it normally.

These small deceptions had become routine—maintaining human appearance while utilizing my natural appendages for convenience. Another adaptation to this temporary existence on Earth, another sign of how thoroughly we had integrated into a world we must eventually abandon.

As I began brushing Artie’s coat in slow, circular motions, the elderly horse leaned into the pressure with evident pleasure. His eyes half-closed, his lower lip drooping slightly in what Tammy called his “bliss face.” The repetitive motion soothed us both—my natural bioluminescence dimming to soft pastels beneath my skin as tension I hadn’t realized I was carrying gradually released.

“I have grown inappropriately attached to you,” I informed Artie quietly. “This represents a significant breach of the objectivity that defines an uncompromised scientist.”

The horse snorted softly, as if dismissing the importance of remaining true to my training.

As I continued grooming, dust motes dancing in the sunlight that streamed through the stable windows, a realization crystallized with uncomfortable clarity: I was no different than Vantor with his raccoon or Kalith with his cat. In fact, I was worse. I had formed attachments not to one Earth creature, but to three—Mystery, Sassafras, and Artie. Four, if I included Tammy herself, which my biochemistry insisted on doing with increasing urgency since our bonding.

The magnitude of this attachment settled over me like a heavy weight, pressing against my respiratory chambers and making it difficult to maintain optimal oxygen exchange. My people were suffering on our distant world, their once-vibrant ocean homes evaporating into toxic wastelands while I stood in an Earth stable, brushing an Earth horse and contemplating ways to extend my stay on this planet that was never meant to be my home.

“I have a planet to save, Artie,” I whispered, leaning my forehead against his warm neck. “I couldn’t stay, even if I wanted to.”

The words tasted bitter in my mouth, their truthfulness doing nothing to ease the hollow sensation that expanded within my central cavity. My mission was clear. My duty was undeniable. The water samples we had finally collected from Earth’s Mariana Trench could hold the key to saving millions of my species.

Yet as Artie’s steady heartbeat pulsed against my skin, as the scent of hay and horse and Earth filled my specialized respiratory system, as memories of Tammy’s laughter echoed through my consciousness, I found myself calculating—not for the first time—just how long we could delay our departure before mission failure became inevitable.

The answer, like a countdown clock I couldn’t silence, ticked relentlessly forward: not long enough. Never long enough.

KALITH

I couldn’t postpone it any longer. The final repair component sat before me, its molecular structure mocking my reluctance with perfect, efficient design. For days, I’d invented excuses—calibrations that needed additional refinement, diagnostic sequences that required multiple verifications, hull integrity tests that could be run again and again with marginally different parameters. But Cyro had grown suspicious, especially after discovering the cache of components I’d salvaged weeks ago from cargo. Components that would make our ship flight-worthy again. Components I’d hidden beneath spare parts and tools, as if their very existence was a betrayal of the life I’d begun to imagine for myself here on Earth.

“Just a few more minutes,” I murmured to myself, reaching for the container of gelatin milk paste with my shorter tentacle. The appendage trembled slightly, betraying my emotional state despite my best efforts to maintain a high level of precision.

Cyro had confronted me yesterday, barely masking his accusation. “The propulsion system diagnostics indicate all functional components are present in storage bay three,” he had said, silver eyes fixing on mine with uncomfortable intensity. “Yet you reported that the tertiary navigational array still required replacement parts.”

I’d fumbled through an explanation about compatibility issues and recalibration needs—technical jargon designed to confuse rather than clarify. Cyro hadn’t believed me. How could he? We’d been mission partners for too long; he knew when I was creating solutions and when I was creating problems.

The truth was simpler and more complicated: I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to fix the ship. Each repair brought us closer to departure, closer to saying goodbye to Tammy, closer to returning to an ocean world where my tentacular dysfunction would once again mark me as different, deficient, less than optimal.

Here, in this primitive structure housing our advanced technology, my differently abled tentacle was just another part of me that Tammy accepted without question. She even seemed to find it endearing, often seeking it out specifically for gentle caresses against her cheek or to twine around her smallest finger.

The thought of her sent a deep forest green pulsing across my skin before I could check it, momentarily disrupting my human disguise. I forced myself back to the task at hand, dipping three primary tentacles into the container of gelatin milk paste. The substance—a biomechanical polymer with self-regulating properties—coated my appendages in a thin, translucent layer. With practiced movements, I began applying it to the sensor array, creating the adhesive base that would bond with the soft alloy I’d finally retrieved from storage.

Each stroke of paste felt like sealing away possibility. Each careful application brought us closer to flight capability. Each methodical motion was an act of self-betrayal.

A soft “mrrp” sound drew my attention to the command chair, where Manji had made herself comfortable. The cat watched me with half-lidded amber eyes, her tail occasionally flicking with what I’d come to recognize as contented interest. She’d appeared at the barn door three weeks ago, immediately claiming me as her human despite my complete lack of qualifications for the role.

“Just finishing the job that I never wanted to complete,” I told her, reaching for Alloy 54—softer than its Alloy 626 counterpart, but far more conductive—with my primary appendages while my shorter tentacle continued applying paste to the delicate sensors. “Cyro discovered the repair components I’d hidden. He knows I’ve been stalling.”

Manji yawned in response, pink tongue curling in a tiny display of feline unconcern.

Though I’d originally called her Manji 2 to distinguish her from Manji 1 back home, I found myself often abandoning the numeric designation. The cat was simply Manji. My Manji. An Earth creature who had somehow recognized the alien beneath the human façade and decided to stay anyway. Besides, she had the same kind of spirit as my pet Tartulus, like they were the same souls split across two planets. I truly wished I could make a translating device work with the feline and have meaningful conversations with her. It had surprised me when Vantor approached me with the same desire for his animal coined Hoover.

I rolled the soft alloy within the curl of my tentacle, and it began to warm and soften further. When Alloy 54 met another substance, assuming that substance was mostly inorganic, it would harden while maintaining the flexibility needed to resist gravitational stresses. It had taken our scientists years to develop. The alloy’s silvery surface caught the light filtering through the barn windows. It gleamed, shifting copper. It reminded me so much of Tammy’s hair when sunlight struck it at certain angles that my breath caught.

I was so distracted by the thought of Tammy—of her laughter, of her resilience, of the way she’d looked at us with wonder instead of fear when she’d discovered our true forms—that I didn’t notice how close I’d positioned myself to the control panel above. As I sat up to reach for another tool, my head slammed into the unyielding metal with an impact that sent stars exploding across my vision.

“Ghhkkk!” The sound that emerged from my speech orifice was purely cephalopod, my human vocalization temporarily forgotten as pain radiated through my skull.

Two tentacles immediately shot up to press against the injured area, seeking to alleviate the throbbing. The ridiculousness of the situation wasn’t lost on me—my head had still been in human form, an illusion of vulnerable bone and thin skin, while my true head—which would have been cushioned against such an impact by its natural resilience—remained hidden beneath.

Yet the pain was real enough. My body had adapted so completely to this human disguise that it sometimes forgot its own superior design.

“What a mess,” I mumbled, sinking back onto my work platform. “How can everything I want out of life change so drastically in such a short time, Manji?”