Married to the Alien Cartographer

Xeno-spatial surveyor Priya Raman needs this contract. It pays off her student debt, it's nine months of real science, and it requires only one thing she doesn't have: a spouse. The Vithen don't negotiate with unmarried humans, for reasons nobody will explain. So Priya marries Ossian, a Vithen cartographer with two vocal tracts, a permanent exile, and no interest whatsoever in small talk. They fly into a wormhole corridor that changes shape when observed. They fight about dinner, about protocol, about whose turn it is to sleep. They build a map that shouldn't exist. When the tenth world appears on their survey and Priya realizes Ossian was exiled for finding it the first time, the fake marriage becomes the only thing either of them is willing to protect. Married to the Alien Cartographer is a sci-fi alien romance with a contract marriage, a wormhole that eats mistakes, and two unbearable colleagues who fall in love over a spreadsheet.