by Lydia Hope
His question stunned her with its finality.
“There will be no going back, will there?” her voice almost broke, and she had to pause. “If I leave, I will never see Earth again.”
“No.”
However far-fetched his plan, this was her chance of leaving this place and starting over. With him. She didn’t know how, could scarcely imagine where they were going and what kind of world she’d discover, but she and Simon, together, would have a fresh start.
It felt right.
“I’ll go anywhere with you, Simon. I can’t live without you.”
He linked their hands together and raised them to his mouth, kissing the back of hers, sealing her fate.
Chapter 26
It was strange and startling for Gemma to wake up in the morning to the sight of Simon moving freely about, unfettered by the barred door of his prison cell. She wished there was a way to freeze-frame this moment in time when she brimmed with love for him, with happiness so acute it hurt to think it may one day come to an end.
He dragged in mechanical parts to work on, preferring to do it inside during daylight hours to avoid being spotted out and about. At night, in the darkness, he went to Butan and attached the parts to the ship, wiring and welding them with makeshift tools.
Gemma rarely ventured out. She was still weak, her recovery from the near-starvation slow. She slept a lot. She ate according to the schedule she created for herself, carefully rationing out the food from behind the curtain. She felt idle and useless, but at the same time, she knew she needed rest to build up her strength. She couldn't afford to slow Simon down.
They talked little, with Simon being comfortable with long silences. He seemed to prefer it that way. Gemma also didn’t mind, much as she would have liked to hear him tell her more about himself. The learning would come in due course.
On nights when he wasn’t working they shared the bed, in a way. She slept, and he sat next to her with his back to the wall, doing that thing with stasis that Rix did to regain their energy.
They ate dinners together. Shared meals, something most couples took for granted, had been denied them in prison, and now Gemma raced to compensate for the lost time by carefully planning their mealtimes around Simon’s activities.
She hated it when he went out, chronically afraid that they would get separated again. Just thinking about it made her hands still in the process of laying out forks and plates. She aftereffects of the stress she’d experienced daily while Simon was in prison would always stay with her. Besides, Dr. Delano was out there somewhere, and he wouldn’t rest until he had Simon.
The door behind the curtain opened, telling her that her alien was home. Every time it happened, it was like a huge burden lifted from Gemma’s heart.
Firmly telling herself to stop borrowing trouble, Gemma pushed away the curtain to greet Simon. It was getting dark and… Tana-Tana wasn’t there.
“Simon!” she called out in a panic. “The landlord’s missing!”
Simon silently moved to her side and took her hand to calm her down.
“I take him outside at night. For refrigeration.”
Gemma’s mood soured. “This is wrong.”
“This is right. Or he’ll rot.”
“Okay, I can’t think about it. It’s terrible.”
“Someone else’s death is part of your survival,” he said.
“Do you ever feel sorry when you kill others, Simon?”
“No. I don’t kill without reason.”
“Is any reason worth another person’s death?”
“Many reasons are.” He remained perfectly comfortable with what was so morally wrong to Gemma.
She tried again, “Do you think this Tana-Tana may have family somewhere? That someone might cry to learn of his death? Suffer from grief?”
He answered calmly, “None of it is important.”
Ill at ease, she asked slowly, “Would you kill me if you had to?”
“You?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I kill for you.”
Gemma searched his face in the darkness. Whatever their physical differences, Gemma could more than live with them. But the value Simon placed on another being’s life diverged from Gemma’s by a hundred and eighty degrees. She struggled to justify Simon’s casual brutality and his total lack of remorse.
The four Perali he killed outside the prison. The Obu, Arlo, and all the guards that had perished at his hand. The terrifying man who had wanted to eat Gemma. And now the Tana-Tana alien. How many total? And how many before them?
Every time Simon had been so casual about it, so dismissively indifferent. She didn’t know how to adjust to this side of him.
He squeezed her hand. “Stop analyzing me, Gemma. Come, take what you need and go back. I’m expecting a visitor. He cannot see you.”
Still perturbed but the many emotions roiling within her, Gemma collected some food from the shelf and went to their side of the room, closing the curtain behind her.
Before long, she heard a quiet knock on the door. Simon answered it, and there was a conversation in a language she didn’t recognize. Simon followed the visitor outside, and all was quiet. She strained her ears, wondering if there was a danger to him in meeting this customer. All those thoughts about the dead and the killings made her restless.
Soon the door opened and closed quietly with Simon’s return, and he pushed the curtain aside as he dragged in a thick roll of a foil-like material. He looked pleased.
“Did your visitor left?” Gemma asked cautiously.
“Yes.”
“Did he notice anything untoward, you think?”
“Nope.” He squatted down. “He brought more than I expected. I may not need to look for another supplier.”
Simon pulled at the corner and checked the material out as Gemma approached to inspect it.
“This is interior insulation, for thermal control,” he explained, letting Gemma touch the fabric. It was thick as if quilted from multiple layers that stretched and crinkled under her fingers. “Our ship has one layer, but it’s old. I don’t trust it to do its job. This is enough to cover up the main environment. Keeps the heat in and rejects radiation. Now we’re on the right track.”
Their trip to outer space in a bucket called Butan became as real as the crinkly material under her fingers.
“What’s our plan?” she cautiously asked Simon.
He let the material drop from his fingers and looked up at her from his crouching position.
“Very simple. To keep repairing the ship until it works.”
It took them over two weeks to upholster the inside of Butan with the prized insulation. It would have been faster could they work openly during the day, but being a fugitive presented Simon with its own set of unique challenges. Subterfuge was key.
So many things required preparation for space travel that Gemma’s head felt like bursting from holding in all the details. As they worked, Simon took to giving her a crash course in Spaceship Engineering 101 in a valiant but largely wasted attempt to make a space cadet out of her. He even showed her how to operate the thing, which she fervently hoped she would never be required to actually do.
“You make it sound like I may be flying somewhere by myself,” she told him. “It ain’t happening, you know. If you aren’t going, I’m not going. What’s the point of my learning how to steer the ship?”
“To anticipate the unexpected,” he repeated with infinite patience. They’d had a similar conversation at least a dozen times. “If I am incapacitated, you will know what to do.”
“If you get incapacitated up there, alien, our mission will go caput.”
“Precisely. What if I get rampant diarrhea? You’ll have to take the wheel.”
“Rix can have diarrhea?”
“Anyone can have diarrhea. It’s a universal affliction.”
He thought of everything: of weapons and spare parts, of backup oxygen and food supplies. They discussed their flight plan over and over again. Simo
n could only guess how long it might take them to come into contact with a Rix spaceship. If not Rix, then any friendly freighter would do, even though only a handful of alien races were considered friendly by Rix. Worst case scenario, they would send out a distress signal to any ship they manage to come across and hope for the best.
Simon wanted them to be stocked up for a year.
A full year in space. Inside derelict Butan. It seemed beyond a dreadfully long time. Gemma only hoped the ship wouldn't become their coffin.
She helped move the preparations along by scavenging around the junkyard for whatever Simon tasked her with finding. With money appropriated from Tana-Tana’s safe, she ventured out to the market and brought back things like non-perishable food, containers to store water, first aid supplies, straps for securing items in zero gravity, and table games. Simon had given her an unreadable look, but she wanted those games. They took some of the anxiety away and made her feel like a kid going on a road trip.
She enjoyed working alongside Simon to make their dream a reality. Thinking beyond getting airborne frightened her. Beyond that, there was nothing but questions without answers, but she chased them away, preferring to live in the present. One day at a time.
“I’m just saying,” Gemma observed while taking a short break from dragging aside loads of bent and corroded metal, “but all the ships I know take off from a designated launch pad.”
“Can’t get to one. Have to jump from here,” Simon responded curtly from somewhere behind Butan. Before the ship attempted any kind of takeoff, it had to be straightened from its sideways position. Simon was working to loop some chains around the remnants of a turret that stuck up a short distance away. He planned to use the tower as a lever to haul Butan up.
Gemma looked around. It was dark now, but she knew very well what their environs looked like in the light of day.
“These are serious dumping grounds. It’s not safe to walk around, much less use this area for an airfield. I mean, the ground is bumpy. It’s littered with hazardous materials.”
“I thought you weren’t an expert in space travel,” Simon teased.
“I don’t live under a rock,” Gemma said, a little defensively. “At least I didn’t use to. I know the basics, like everybody else. And when my brother was alive, he told me stories about the ships.”
“That’s right, I remember. Your brother flew.” Simon emerged, a dark, rough-looking shape dragging a massive chain that rattled. It hit her anew how strong he was, even in his self-proclaimed weakened state. “He was killed in the invasion.”
She nodded. As usual, remembering Foy made her heart warm and tight. Warm with love that lingered, tight from the pain of his loss.
“My brother was one of the most capable men I’ve ever known. I wish he were here now. Oh, Simon, if only he could be here! He was smart and he was strong. I’m but a pale replica.”
His shape abruptly stopped and the chain rattling ceased. “Never say that again. You aren’t a replica.”
“I feel inadequate.”
“I didn’t know your brother,” he loomed over her, his face obscured, his eyes glittering with dark light. “He may have been able to earn my respect, but he wouldn't have been precious to me.”
“I only wish I could help you the way Foy could have,” she said quietly.
“You help enough.”
She looked down at her hands but could barely see them. It was pitch-black. How much help could she offer? The answer was, not much. He did all the work.
Simon was standing right next to her in his shirt with sleeves rolled up.
“Where’s your sweater? It’s freezing.”
“This cold suits me. It feels like Enzomora.”
Gemma was silent for a few moments. “Enzomora. Is it always this cold?”
“Yes. And humid. And windy.”
She couldn't imagine a more miserable climate. “What about in the summer?”
“There are no seasons. It’s always the same.”
Definitely miserable. “Sunshine?”
“Because of the humidity, there are always clouds. You don’t see a lot of what you call sunshine. We call it starlight.” He readjusted his chains and started in the direction of the turret. “You better take your coat with you when we go.”
A curious thought occurred to Gemma. “If Rix like cold weather, does it mean your homes are equally cold?”
The question managed to surprise him. “Actually, yes. There are no furnaces. But we’ll get one for our home.”
Our home. Just the sound of it filled Gemma with warmth, and it no longer mattered that Enzomora sounded as welcoming as Antarctica. She wasn’t in this for good weather.
They got back to the Tana-Tana’s hovel when the first light appeared on the horizon. Utterly exhausted, Gemma fell on top of the bed covers and dropped into a deep sleep. When she woke up hours later, Simon was gone. The curtain separating their side of the room from the dead landlord’s was firmly closed, but she knew the body was sitting by the window, keeping its macabre watch.
Muscles aching from hard work, she rolled out of bed and stripped off her clothes, heading for the shower, thinking that she’d never be able to come to terms with the Tana-Tana situation.
The water felt heavenly, and she took her time washing her underclothes while she bathed. Simon still hadn’t returned when she emerged, but, hungry though she was, she decided to wait for him to eat. He rarely went out during the day, and if he did, they were short, careful outings.
She fetched a can of noodles in a nasty red sauce that the label advertised as tomato and poured it into a small pot to warm up. The heating process didn’t improve the taste much, but in her experience, the noodles went down easier when warm.
Getting out two mismatched plates, she set the “table” on a stool that she had pushed next to the bed for them to sit on. There was only one chair in this place, and it was presently occupied by the former owner. Or was he, legally speaking, still the real owner since his body cohabited with Gemma and Simon? And when did an owner cease to be one, right upon their death or when their body was interred? Every time Gemma remained home alone with the Tana-Tana, those questions invaded her mind and drove her insane.
Simon walked in wearing his usual stony expression. He could have been bolting cables to the wall in Butan or killing aliens by ripping their heads off - neither action left a permanent mark on his Rix psyche.
“Hey, handsome,” she smiled brightly. “Dinner’s ready whenever you are.”
He halted his progress to the bathroom and drowned her in the full regard of his oversized eyes. “Give me a minute.”
While he washed, she laid out several strips of jerky meat on his plate in a flower pattern as a joke on their squalid surroundings, but also as an honest attempt at making their dinner affair homier.
Simon came out of the bathroom and lowered onto the bed next Gemma, keeping a distance between them. He wasn’t going to touch her. After their first coupling, he had backed off, unwilling to hurt her again, denying her the pleasure she now craved. She could tell him a thousand times that she could handle it, that she liked feeling the power of him moving all around her, sliding in, burning her with the desire so intense it threatened to incinerate her. But in typical Simon fashion, he had single-mindedly deemed Gemma too delicate for sex with him and decided to abstain for both of them.
Yet she had caught him looking at her, and those brief hot glances told her he hadn’t forgotten, and he was far from immune. Rix did experience lust, after all.
Gemma looked him over.
“Your braid’s come undone,” she said quietly. Her heart fluttered at the prospect of handling his hair. It stimulated her like foreplay.
He made an impatient jerk with his head. “It isn’t important.”
She climbed onto the bed and kneeled behind Simon.
“It’s important to me. No, shh, sit still.” She wrapped her hands around his head firmly. She wouldn’t be denied this touc
h.
“Are you going to eat?” he asked.
“Later.” She didn’t care that the pasta would grow cold and lose what little appeal it carried now. The small sacrifice was well worth a session of playing with Simon’s hair.
She quickly undid his tangled braid and picked up a comb. Working in small sections, she brushed his smooth abundant hair until it shone and fell like a waterfall down his back. He held still as a statue.
“The feel of it so so exciting to me,” she whispered. “The feel of you is exciting.”
In a blink of an eye, she landed on his lap, the room spinning and he hauled her over his head. She had no time to squeal. Dazed, she stared into his eyes, seeing his pupils and her own reflection.
“You’re so strong, Simon,” she observed in wonder.
“Yes, and I want you to remember that. I can break you if I don’t take care.”
She heard the warning but didn’t heed it. The smell of him up close was too potent. She pressed her nose into the hollow at the base of his neck and inhaled, the curtain of his hair all around her. Her veins heated up with buzzing desire.
She moved to sit astride his lap.
“You make me mad. Why won’t you listen? Stay away from me,” he growled and took her mouth in a bruising, hot kiss. His tongue rasped against hers, and the inside of his mouth felt cool and dry. “You have the sense of a chicken. My teeth can shred your tongue, and you kiss me on the mouth.”
Gemma blinked, dazed and off-balance. “I’d rather die happy from your kisses than not know your kisses at all.”
He laughed, she felt it in his chest. “No self-preservation, either.”
He kissed her again and touched her breasts through the rough material of her borrowed shirt. He pressed one finger against her sternum and slowly traced it down with a nail sharp as a razor, until the shirt parted in the middle, neatly sliced in half. Her breasts popped free, nipples taught and ready for him to do with as he pleased. Gemma felt a rosy blush warm up her neck and chest, not from embarrassment, but from the acute pleasure of being displayed to his gaze. She wanted him to look at her. Her full chest, the bane of her existence with men, finally felt right. She held her breath in anticipation, willing him to put his mouth on them.
