Alien Scrooge - Zara Zenia Page 0,20

hands clasped together, fiddling with her fingers as she waited to see if he would respond.

He checked the time on his Earth computer, surprised to find that it was still early morning. He quickly crossed to the door, feeling an unexpected sense of relief upon seeing her standing just in front of him. With a flutter of his hand, the door slid up, removing the barrier between them.

Cara's eyes widened for a moment before a smile grew on her face. "Good morning!" she sang, all traces of concern lifting from her face. The worried expression was gone and she seemed happy to see him.

Egrix was entranced by the small woman smiling so warmly up at him. "Good morning. You're here early." He was very pleased to see her.

Cara ducked her head, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink. "Sorry, I didn't even think about it until I got here," she admitted. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"No, of course not." Egrix felt a tug on his heart, considering what she had said. "I guess you really wanted to see me, huh?"

Cara's face turned an even brighter red, almost glowing in the alien lights as she looked up to him, wide-eyed. She seemed completely at a loss for words with him calling her so obviously, which hadn't been his intention. Egrix was thrown off by her intensely honest reaction, and he could feel his own face heating up with the delighted realization that she had rushed there to be with him. He hid his joyful reaction by stepping back into the doorway and clearing his throat, gesturing for Cara to come inside while he did his best to hide his face. She appeared thankful that he was ignoring her response and seemed happy to pretend that she hadn't just unintentionally given away her innermost thoughts.

Egrix had moved the table from the cave into his house where he had been working before inviting Cara in. It had papers spread over its entire surface. Cara sat down, careful not to jostle any of the table's contents.

"It seems like I was interrupting something. Is this more research?" Cara looked over her shoulder, her cheeks still slightly pink. "Do you want me to look at it?"

"It's nothing important. I was translating these consumer reports I've been able to access from different companies and writing some notes to help the Spacing Guild understand some of the foreign concepts."

"Oh." Cara nodded, scanning her eyes across the documents in front of her. She traced her finger over the strange alien writing on one page. She appeared to be deep in thought.

Egrix cocked his head to one side, watching her. "You're quiet."

Cara looked up at him in surprise. "Oh, yeah. I was just thinking." She turned her body to face him, folding her hands into her lap. "When we first met, you told me about the Guild and why you were here, but I had a lot of questions. You were upset about being here which I didn't understand. You don't like humans, but you were sent here. I feel like there's a lot I don't know about you." She looked into his eyes through the lenses of her glasses, her beautiful, blue irises sparkling in the light of the pod, and bit her lip before continuing her thought. "I want to know more about you."

Egrix's heart throbbed at her words. She was really testing his ability to control his emotions today. He moved to the seat next to her, sitting and facing her, their knees almost touching.

"My planet has multiple intelligent species on it and we all cohabitate mostly peacefully. Because of that, when the Spacing Guild first began seeking members across the cosmos they came to Braxis first. Our technology was far advanced, but we hadn't made any efforts toward extended space travel, so the Guild helped us. I really looked up to the Spacing Guild, so as soon I was old enough, I joined and spent all of my adult years on one space station or another under their jurisdiction."

"Did you get to go back and visit your home?" Cara asked with a sad look in her eyes.

Egrix remembered how attached she was to her family and tried to figure out how to explain the cultural differences. "Yeah, I could go back pretty regularly if I wanted. My people don't really have families like here on Earth, though, and a lot of my friends went with me to the Spacing Guild. I didn't have a lot of