After the Swimmer held my gaze, I couldn’t very well permit our connection to slip away. This being who traveled halfway across the galaxy to look me in the eye actually saw me. Me!

I had to respond.

I could feel my core pumping hot. Hotter than when I was lost on the surface of Sigma Seven without liquid for twelve cycles. I could also feel time cracking. I’ve been told I’m impulsive and bend to first thoughts. I knew I shouldn’t be breaking the time/space continuum without the consent of the subject. But, my Swimmer had no way of knowing what it was consenting to.

Instead of getting mired in the confusion generated by two truths, I swoop in. Contrary to what you might have heard, it was not a kidnapping.

We sat on the sand bar trading deep life secrets. Revealing parts of ourselves, the parts we keep hidden. And then…we swallowed each other whole.

It was totally satisfying. Easily worth the four cycles I’ll be spending in solitary as penance.

That is, only if they find us.

Right now, I am what you’d call, “on the run.”

…in a cascade shimmer. Think water falling under a bubbling layer of ice. Exactly like that.

Yeah, but…something you should probably know about me? I always describe the aliens I’ve encountered in terms of water. How it flows. Freezes. Ripples or catches the sunlight in fractals.

This shimmering thing…this “it” did all that. I could say simultaneously.  But, I wouldn’t swear to it.

I’m what you call an unreliable narrator.

We had a moment.

We locked eyes.

Yes, it had eyes.

With the two Captains talking, I’m free to roam about their ship. I scan their vitals. Their cache of weapons. They strike me as primitive. Warlike. They suffer loud thoughts. Almost scream them at me. My energy dips.

I find the one who had floated in blue liquid. It sits at the center of their command hive. Not the Captain. Perhaps an advisor? It looks directly at me as if I’m actually standing there. Which catches me unaware. Throws me off guard.

My heat core pulses.  Suddenly, I can picture our lives joining. This image, actually a series of images, comes to me just like that.

A few orbits back I shared a meal with the Captain. They are a boisterous type who delight in regaling me with stories from their youth. For instance, they were the kid who always collected the milk money. Between hearty sips of their infusion, the Captain talks about the inevitable kid who “forgot” their lunch money. “Lordy, and then I had to cover their mess”, they add with a twinkle. The message being I suppose, that a true mark of a natural leaders is a generous spirit. When the Captain suggests we take a shortcut through the Vandam Belt, I won’t lie, I am alarmed. Anyone who’s attended even the most rudimentary class in starship navigation knows that at forty-five degrees off axis sits a wide swath of radioactive decay which tends to melt the scrubbers. Factor in the increased likelihood we’ll encounter alien ships…and I panic but say nothing, knowing full well my caution will fall on deaf ears. Instead, I elect to go for a brief swim.

I’m half sensing/half scanning the crew as our ship rushes towards it. The Captain demands I relay all useful intelligence. STAT! What do I see? What do I sense? But the issue I always face with him…ALWAYS FACE…is that it’s not the way I experience it.

For instance, now? I’m sensing a life form floating in blue liquid. Eyes trained on a blue overhang. This life form is in a state of suspended…happiness, I suppose. As to my sense of where their armament sits, its strength relative to our ship, any and all other useful valuations is blocked by this piercing image I can’t seem to cancel or erase.

They call it “swimming”. “Floating”

Maybe these life forms specialize in mind control?

I’ll advise the Captain to open Chanel D so that we might communicate. It’s easier to scan the aliens when they’re distracted by first contact.

I’m halfway across the lake, flipping from the crawl, to breast stroke to back stroke, taking time to tease out the images nested within the clouds. Got to hand it to Barry. He has such a light touch. There’s nothing random in his programs. Every detail carries significance.  He even had water shooting up my nose close to shore. I’m midway through my post swim shower, methodically reviewing details, the feel of the water, the flies darting in straight lines along the surface, when Red Alert sounds.

I’m on the bridge. Luckily, I’m programmed to switch to work wear anytime I’m here as most humans grow uncomfortable, twitchy, can’t think straight when facing a naked person.

An alien vessel is approaching at warp speed.