QSFer Blaine D. Arden has a new MM sci-fi romance out (ace, gay, pan, trans): How Six Saved the Frogs.
Can you leave your heart on the other side of the galaxy?
When Wouter, a down-to-earth dyslexic caretaker, accidentally activates a travel disc sent by his late brother, he finds himself whisked away to a distant planet. Desperate to go home and reassure his grieving mother he’s alive, he’s instead stuck struggling to fill his brother’s shoes to keep the amphibian bani from freezing to death.
Nif, a bani healer, clings to human music as a lifeline to memories of joy and a world beyond grief after losing his mate. Intrigued by the culture behind the songs he cherishes, he volunteers for Wouter’s support team—even as many of his kin distrust the humans, fearing exploitation of their fuel production.
Their first meeting is one of necessity—a human in need and a bani ready to mend. As they navigate mistranslations, killer plants, and space pirates, a deeper connection blossoms between them. Each shared moment and conquered challenge draws them closer to an inevitable farewell. Will Wouter leave his heart or his home?
In this slow-burn ace romance, discover a low-angst intergalactic adventure where true connection transcends stars and species.
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Excerpt
Chapter 3: Is This What Aliens Look Like?
Wouter’s ears popped painfully as he came to, surrounded by a cacophony of clucking. Chickens? What were chickens doing in his flat? No. Memories of Ruben telling him about disc travel after his first off-world mission flooded his mind. Ruben had sent him a travel disc. He was not in his flat. Somewhere with chickens, though, and a sound system, because someone was playing a vintage ballad Ma loved. Safe to assume he was at least still on Earth.
His whole body ached, and the sensation of vertigo lingered, as if he were going to topple over, even if he seemed to be lying down already. The air was hot and humid, with a heavy, earthy, and musty scent that made him gag. Maybe it was chicken poop. That wasn’t such a strange leap to make, right? Not with all the clucking. So much for arriving with dignity.
He made to turn, but the ground was slippery and sticky beneath his hands. He wasn’t bleeding, was he? Raising a gooey, tired arm, he opened his eyes. A sharp glint of sunlight brought on spasms in the back of his neck, just below his skull. A headache. Great. He moved his hand to block the bright light, but that made it impossible to see what coated his palm. So, he closed his eyes again and smelled his hand… and gagged again. It wasn’t blood, thank Earth, but the off-putting and musty chicken poop smell.
He tried to breathe through it, but the stench invaded his nose, even his throat, and he barely turned his head in time to throw up. As he emptied his stomach, the clucking became louder, echoing all around him. Lowering his hand to the ground, he tried to catch his breath, but that heavy, off-putting scent invading his senses was so much worse than his vomit. At first, he gagged every couple of breaths, but it became easier to ignore the smell and the verdoezde clucking when he tried slow, shallow ones.
Why were there so many chickens? Why was it so hot? And where the heck was he?
“What’s my location?”
“Connection not detected.”
Verdoezie. He’d get up soon. Find a spot with coverage—as soon as his stomach settled and his headache faded. As long as he had his eyes closed he could imagine himself in his flat. He could pretend the ground beneath him was hard and chilly, and not slippery, damp, or smelly. Damp that was already seeping into his T-shirt. He shivered, but didn’t move until the spasms in his neck eased, and breathing no longer caused him to gag.
Telling himself the worst that could happen was that he’d throw up again, he finally opened his eyes. He’d expected chickens, even chicken poop, but hadn’t been prepared for the brown and green gunk-covered ground resembling the walls of an aquarium that hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. And nothing could have prepared him for the creatures staring at him from a distance. Some even hung in the trees. Unimaginably tall trees with trunks in browns and muted reds and leaves in various shades of green, big enough to carry humans. And… were those frogs? Clucking frogs? Where the heck had Ruben’s verdoezde travel disc brought him? And where was that music coming from? His phonet’s bone conduction dot had a decent sound, but they couldn’t produce this surround-sound quality.
If only he’d stopped his phonet from reading his favourite lines from The Blackout Bandit. If only he could dismiss this as a bad trip after smoking synthetic joints with Simon, but he hadn’t seen Simon since Ruben’s funeral. Nor had he smoked synthetic joints since that dinner when…
He wiped his hands on his shorts, ignoring the echo of Ma’s admonishing on the proper ways to wipe his hands, even if his shorts—and T-shirt—had a basic repelling layer. Basic because sensitive pale skin didn’t like the texture of the heavy-duty one. Since he’d been soaking in the stuff, two more smears wouldn’t matter. Besides, she wasn’t the one lying in slippery gunk, surrounded by giant frogs standing on two legs. Frogs in a vivid range of mottled blues and purples with colourful wet-looking bellies, who were watching him with their protruding eyes. Watching him, watching them, watching him. Wouter could only imagine what they thought of his appearance.
He swallowed and tried not to think about how this might be where Ruben had been off to…
He needed to not go there. And he needed something he could pull himself up on. When he found Ruben’s duffle, he could at least push himself to a sitting position. It took a lot of effort, with his feet and arse slipping and sliding through the gunk until he managed to arrange himself into a seated position. Well, half-seated and leaning heavily on the duffle.
The scenery started his stomach turning and twisting again. He didn’t throw up this time. Keeping his breaths shallow, Wouter lifted his, now mostly clean, hand in a greeting.
The clucking picked up, but he had no idea what it meant. They didn’t seem eager to approach him, and he couldn’t blame them. If a tall, solid-as-a-house alien suddenly landed in his garden, he’d be on his guard, too, whether or not they were expected. He was pretty sure these frogs had been expecting Ruben, the interplanetary survival specialist who knew what to do and would have come prepared. They certainly hadn’t expected an over-sized, soft-bellied, dyslexic caretaker. And especially not one who’d been daft enough to activate a travel disc his brother sent him.
Oh. Chips. The disc. Where was the disc? If it got him here, it might get him back home.
Ignoring his protesting stomach as well as the loud clucking he was never going to understand, Wouter rooted through the slippery green gunk, coating his hands in it all over again, but all he found was the unopened package. Dripping package. The disc had been on his chest. It couldn’t have got far. Unless it had disappeared, but Ruben had never mentioned anything like that happening. Of course, Ruben had only mentioned travelling by disc that one time, and Wouter’d had no reason to ask for more detailed information.
His hands slid away from him, and before he could catch himself, he lay nose to the ground, the world spinning around him. Up close, the smell was even worse, something rotting or fermenting. With his eyes closed, he kept searching until he started gagging. Rolling carefully onto his back, he lay his head on the duffle bag, bracing his hands against the ground until the world stopped spinning. He’d have to try again later if he didn’t want to be stuck here.
One frog moved away from the group. They weren’t clucking, they didn’t even raise their paws—claws, hands?—yet the rest quieted instantly. This had to be an important frog. Alien. Person. They tilted their head and stared at Wouter with large blinking eyes, waving their hand—small with pale, suction-cup-tipped fingers—in front of Wouter’s face. When they moved closer and touched his cheeks, their suction cups sticking and pulling loose with a squelch as they seemed to pet him, he tried not to flinch.
Maybe he should have asked Ruben more about how he communicated. “Waar ben ik?” Oh. Wait. Didn’t he mention they spoke English at work? It was probably as comprehensible as Dutch to these frogs, but if they expected Ruben, maybe they’d at least seen one of their kind before. “Where am I?”
A cacophony of clucking burst out around them. In the sudden silence that followed, the frog—person—next to him put one suction-cup hand against his cheek again, and clucked at him.
Well. That was less than helpful. Even if they understood him, he couldn’t understand their clucking.
“Translate.”
“Clucking is not in my database,” his phonet answered.
Of course not. “I’m sorry.” Wouter shook his head without thinking, and gagged as the world started turning again. He wanted to say more, but he didn’t dare open his mouth. Instead, he closed his eyes and took shallow breaths, trying to stave off another bout of nausea. While the vertigo faded, his stomach wasn’t having it, and sticky fingers or no sticky fingers, he had to move his head. The suction cups were still stuck to his cheek when he leaned his forehead against the duffle and threw up, again and again.He’d thought he was done with the foul smell, that his stomach had already been empty. Wrong. He barely even had time to breathe. He grew lightheaded and the edges of his vision greyed out… and
Author Bio
Blaine D. Arden is an EPIC Award-winning author of Romantic Speculative Fiction and Suspense who sings her way through life in platform boots.
For most of her sheltered youth, Blaine read, daydreamed, and made up stories. As she grew up, she slowly transitioned from telling them to her favourite doll and acting them out with her Barbies, to putting pen to paper. Her motto is Our Difference is our Strength, and her stories are often set in worlds where gender fluidity and sexual diversity are woven into the bare bones of society.
When not writing or reading, Blaine has singing lessons and hopes to be in a band someday.