Page 14 of The Last Aquarius
“Perhaps the person who heard you misunderstood.”
“Doubtful. Aries has excellent recollection. Speaking of whom, he’ll want to meet you. If you’ll excuse me, I shall return with him shortly.” Sage began ascending the stairs with a happy bounce, and Ishtar sighed.
“I guess there’s no point in asking her to keep quiet about my identity.”
“Not sure why you’d want to. It’s not a thing to be ashamed of, although I am curious how you ended up on Earth.”
She waved a hand. “We can speak of it over a meal. I am quite hungry, and as I recall, the food here is quite excellent.”
“It is, but I’m thinking I need the kind of meal that comes in a glass,” Aquarius muttered as they continued to descend.
“I am pleased to see Nimrod remains fully functional.”
“Who’s Nimrod?” He didn’t recognize the name.
“That is the name of the entity imbuing this structure.”
He blinked. “Tower’s possessed?”
“In a sense. While solidly constructed, such a structure could never exist without magical aid.”
“And you know this how?”
Her lips curved. “Because my people built it.”
“Nimrod is Martian?” He couldn’t help a lilt of surprise.
“The construction is, but Nimrod is an Astraeus who lost its stars and needed a new place to inhabit. The Tower of Babel is only one of many monuments erected by my kind on Earth, although most have since fallen into disrepair since they lacked a magical entity to maintain them. I’m pleased to see Nimrodthriving. A lot of effort went into creating this new home for it and my people.”
“By the sounds of it, you’ve not visited in a while.”
“Eons to be precise. I was one of the first to leave.” Her shoulders rolled. “Others chose to remain until the completion of Atlantis.”
“Atlantis was Martian?” He was beginning to lose the ability to be stunned.
“A marvelous place, where my people could be themselves surrounded by the technology that made the humans suspicious. But even with our advances, we couldn’t stop the earthquake that sank it. We lost so many that day.” Her lips turned down. “We never truly recovered, and those that survived scattered around the world to avoid extinction.”
“Why didn’t they come back to Tower?”
“Tower is lovely but confining as well. Some preferred the livelier world outside of it, not to mention, those who wished to find companionship and start families had to look elsewhere, given those who remained after a few generations were too genetically close.”
“How come you don’t look Martian?” he asked as they reached the dining level.
“Did you expect someone with green or grey skin, tentacles, perhaps those big black eyes so popular in movies?”
He couldn’t help but offer a sheepish smile. “Yeah.”
“Those traits are more common in aliens from solar systems beyond the Milky Way. Martians have always looked as you see me now, only with slightly more bronzish skin.”
“How is it possible two planets evolved the same kind of species?” He didn’t know much about evolution, but even he knew the improbability.
“Before our planet died, my people used to visit Earth and incorporated some of our genetics with the local Cro-Magnon population.”
“You mated with cave men?” His nose wrinkled.
Her laughter tinkled—and sound that had him swelling below the belt. “Goodness no, that would be like fornicating with a dumb animal. Think of it more as gene splicing, in a lab, of course, to make our species more compatible.”
“You experimented on humans.” He didn’t hide his shock.
