In a moment

They didn't talk much after that. Neither of them tried to initiate any conversation, instead they just lied on their respective bench beds, and stared into the ceiling, expecting who knows what. Until the big question came.

From her.

"So who are you, Mark Veers, that I can call just Mark?"

She must have caught him napping, because he didn't respond right away.

"Hey, you there?"

"Yeah, yeah... I'm just trying to think how to respond to your question."

"Trying to think, haha." Kaliasi mocked him. "Just be careful, or your head processor will overheat. Oh, hang on, you don't have those."

She was clearly making fun of him, and it didn't sit well with Mark, but considering she was the only person he was able to talk to, he let it slide. Again.

"I'm just a guy, I guess. No more and no less."

"Oh, come on, there has to be more to that."

She changed her tone and encouraged him.

"Well... I'm almost thirty years old, which probably tells you nothing..."

"Correct, we count our times in cycles."

She interjected.

"Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to ask that, how long is a cycle?"

"Oh, it's just the measure of time, based on how long the holy big-giant head travels the sacred tri-solar system."

She explained. They both paused for a moment, because there was some noise, like metal hitting metal, and not that far away from their cell.

"That tells me absolutely nothing... We use days, which is basically how long it takes our planet to fully rotate."

"And that tells me absolutely nothing."

She responded, and showed Mark her tongue. It was long, and pointy at the end.

"Let's see... The lowest standard measure of time for us are seconds. They go more or less with one... Two... Three..."

She raised her eyebrow this time.

"Just... Forget it. We can't just translate such a simple thing without the proper fucking devices."

Mark sighed, and nodded.

"Anyway, I'm almost thirty, which for us means that I should be right near peak of my physical capabilities."

"Oh yeah, I can see those." She slipped in, while winking at him.

"What?"

"Nothing, continue."

Mark shook his head again. He needed a lot of patience with this alien.

"I'm a military engineer, got some meaningless education and I was taken on the ship to explore the universe to fix basic machinery and such, so the big brains, scientists and pilots didn't have to care about unplugging the toilet. Basically, I did all the dirty work on the ship."

"Unplugging the toi..."

She began with a growing smile on her face.

"Don't even start. Still, the job was okay, the pay check fantastic and I was one of the first people to be out there. So I took it. Like I said, I'm just a guy, no wife, no partners, no kids. Family on Earth basically forgot about me, and my biggest achievement in life is signing up for this trip, which turned out to be a suicide mission, because the last thing I saw before ejecting myself into space was a black hole and our ship getting ripped apart by something."

He finished talking.

"Do you know if anyone else survived?"

"No. I have no idea, but it didn't seem like it."

She chuckled.

"You know, for all I know, you are the big brain amongst your people. You survived in a completely foreign and possibly hostile environment."

Mark huffed.

"Yeah, and I landed straight to alien prison."

"Not for long. I used my superior intellect and figured out how to escape."

"Escape? How?" He asked, curious. And cautious, because he didn't want to be shot while trying to escape an alien prison.

"You'll see. Right now stick to me and do exactly as I say."

"Okay. Is it dangerous?"

She turned her head to him, and smiled, showing him her pearly white teeth, very similar to human ones.

"Very. But it would be no fun if it wasn't. Now strip."

She stood up and began to remove her silver jumpsuit.

"What? Why?"

"The shock bracelets. We need to deactivate them, and we can't do that without them frying us completely if we have hostile emotions. So we will overload them instead."

"Overload?"

"Yes. With sex."