Touched by an Alien

level spiked as you looked at the dresser. Try to keep up.”
    “Smart ass.” I pulled open a drawer—underwear, bras included. And they fit. Score another one for alien technology. “Okay, fine. Back to religion.”
    “If we must. The world religion doesn’t believe in redemption. Basically, if you commit murder, you’re going to Hell. You can be as sorry as you want to be, but you can’t atone, there’s nothing you can do to save your soul.”
    “Nasty. Does it keep violent crime down?”
    “From what I’ve been told, yes, for the most part. But … we don’t believe that.”
    I could hear the fear in his voice. Religious persecution was a galaxy-wide trait, who’d have figured? “What do you believe?”
    “We don’t believe in Hell as a specific place. We believe a soul can be redeemed, that mistakes can be atoned for. We think a person should do right because it’s right, not because their soul will be in eternal jeopardy if they don’t toe the line. And,” this sounded dragged out of him, “we don’t believe we just showed up one day on the planet. We believe in evolution.”
    I let this all sink in for a bit. “How much science is there on Alpha Centauri? A lot? I mean, you built an ozone shield, right?”
    “ My people built the ozone shield. Scientific aptitude is stronger in us than in the rest of the world.”
    “Is that why you came to Earth, because you had the better scientific aptitude?”
    Martini looked right at me, and his face was like stone. “No. We were sent to Earth because it was a convenient way to get us off the planet. We were the ones saying we had to help, we were the ones who realized the ozone shield had protected our world but would just send the parasites all the faster to yours. It was the perfect political solution—exile our entire population to another planet, help that planet at the same time, double win for everyone.”
    “Except for those of you who will never see your real home world, and who are always going to be different, no matter what you do.”
    He nodded. “If one of our people had married into a standard family, then they had the choice to stay on our home world. In some cases, they did, in others their immediate families came with us to Earth. But there wasn’t a lot of intermarriage, for a variety of reasons, so that percentage of our population here is pretty small.”
    “So, your religion, is it something someone chooses?”
    “No. We’re born into it. We aren’t pretending—we may not all look alike, but we’re all related by blood somewhere, traceable back to about twenty or so original family units from centuries ago.”
    There it was. I thought this had sounded vaguely familiar. I hugged him tightly. “It’s okay, Jeff. I’m not horrified or turned off or even mildly shocked. After all, we Chosen People from different planets have to stick together.”

CHAPTER 23
    THE CLOTHES IN THE DRAWER for me were what I’d seen most of the other women wearing—a black slim skirt and white oxford-type shirt. I hadn’t known Armani made this stuff for women, but I doubted the A-Cs were into faking designer labels. “Is this the official garb of your scientific facility, or does everyone double as a waitress?” Sadly, there were no attractive shoes. I was stuck with my sneakers. Fortunately, they were black and white Converse, so I could pretend I was just dressing for semi-stylish comfort.
    “Yep. We like to keep things simple.” Martini was back in his nightclothes. His T-shirt was still a bit damp.
    “Okay, you’re going straight to your room, right? Not going anywhere near my parents?”
    He rolled his eyes. “They’re farther down the hall. And, yes, I’ll run. God forbid anyone should know I was here. Got it.”
    “It’s not like that. Come on, you’re the empath. What are you feeling from me?”
    “Anxiety.”
    “And that’s all ?” I knew I had more going on than anxiety. Lust had to be in there somewhere—he looked hot in the official nightclothes.
    “You’re kind of making me go a little … haywire.” He grinned. “Has to do with romantic involvement. It’s an empathic thing.”
    “Well, I guess that’s flattering.” We went to the door, and I grabbed and kissed him. “I mean it, I’m not ashamed to be with you. I just don’t want to deal with my parents about it right now.”
    He gave me a crooked smile. “Okay, I’ll trust you on it. For now.”
    I opened the door with the intention of