by Tammy Walsh
The same symptoms I had.
The bastards!
I cleared my throat. “Thank you for informing me, but I don’t see how you can benefit from the situation with your deal.”
“It’s simple,” she said as if she were speaking with a simpleton. “At least two of your men are involved in this. Maybe all of them. I don’t know. But I do know you can’t trust them. But you can trust me. I’ll make sure your food is clean of those black things from now on. You’ll get meals that will make you stronger, not weaker.”
“I don’t need you to make me stronger,” I said. “I’m a Titan—”
“And you recover quickly, I know, I know,” she said with the same tired tone Maisie used.
“Then your deal is useless to me,” I said.
“Except for one thing…” she said, and once again I heard the relish in her voice. “Because you’re a big and powerful Titan thing, they’ve had to poison you for weeks. They think you’ll be weak enough to beat in some sort of Challenge within the next three days. If you don’t want me to help you, fine. But your crew will kill you if you’re not strong enough. I hope you can watch the food that’s prepared for you every minute of every day until then.”
She was a smart one, I had to give her that.
I had wondered why they hadn’t Challenged me already if they knew I was sick. Now I knew.
I wasn’t weak enough yet.
I wet my lips. “What do you want in exchange for your assistance?”
“After you win the Challenge, I want you to take me home,” she said. “Back to Earth. Right away. But not before we pick up my friends.”
“You’re asking for a lot,” I said. “One life in exchange for six. You save my life, and I’ll save yours. And I’ll show you where I last saw your friends.”
“And take us back to Earth,” the girl said.
“Okay. Fine. Well? What do you say?”
“I…” She couldn’t bring herself to accept the offer. “All right. I’ll make you stronger for your Challenge, and you’ll show me where you last saw my friends. Then you’ll take us home.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Do we have a deal?”
She loosened her grip on the blade. So did I.
“Yes,” she said. “We have a deal.”
She stood up and stepped back.
I rolled off my bed and peered at her. She was small and was dressed in the clothes we’d stripped off her when we loaded her and her friends into the pods. Despite myself, I admired her curves. I didn’t recognize her until our eyes met.
“You!” we said at the same time.
She was the girl that approached me at the bar back on Earth. I never would have thought that same girl would be capable of holding a Titan hostage until we agreed a deal.
“You’re the asshole who abducted us?” she said. “I can’t believe this!”
I folded my arms. “If I didn’t, this would be one hell of a coincidence. Alice.” I moved to the door. “I suppose I should tell the crew I found you.”
She bristled. “Why?”
“You’ll have to move freely around the ship if you’re going to be my spy. You’re not going to be able to do that while they’re still out there looking for you. And put the blade down. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
She pulled her arm back and tossed the knife at me.
My heart rate spiked as it struck my chest. I stumbled back…
The ‘blade’ clattered to the floor.
I bent down and picked it up. It wasn’t a sharpened blade as I expected but a ruler I used for annotating star maps.
“There you go, Mr. Great and Mighty Titan,” Alice said, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “Or should I say, Nighteko. I’m not sure you’ll measure up.”
I bit back a curse. I was going to have my hands full with this one.
Alice
I was relieved Nighteko agreed with my deal. I put everything on the table to meet and convince him. If he hadn’t agreed… I didn’t know what I would have done.
Actually, yes I did. His crew would have come in and forced me back in the pod. This time with added security. Then I would be sold to the alien master who’d bought me.
The thought of being bought and sold like that made me feel sick to my stomach. It concerned me somebody still might.
It all depended on me helping Nighteko grow strong.
Nighteko.
It was a shock to discover he was none other than the guy I approached that night at the bar. It was no coincidence. He was on the lookout for women to abduct.
And I’d handed us over to him.
It was all my fault.
And now here I was, chopping vegetables on a spaceship hurtling through the galaxy at unimaginable speeds, cooking a meal for my abductors.
You just couldn’t make this up.
I thought about my friends. Where were they now? Were they awake? Were they on some distant planet having adventures? Had any of them managed to find their way home yet? Did any of them blame me for what happened?
If I’d never approached Nighteko, none of this would ever have happened.
And I would never have found myself in a pod in the loading bay of a smuggler’s ship…
I bolted awake and smacked my head against something a few inches above me. I jolted back and raised my arms instinctively to protect myself. When nothing attacked, I opened my eyes.
My vision was blurry. I could only make out what appeared to be a grey cloud above me.
I had no concept of who I was, where I was, and most of all, what I was doing there.
I might have been born right at that moment.
I felt at the ceiling of my world. I was contained inside somewhere, enclosed beneath thick fabric I sensed I could not break. Cold air whispered from a crack forming on one side. I scrabbled at it with my fingers, still barely able to see, as the thick grey clouds floated to one side.
The gap grew wider and I pressed my lips to it. I sucked in that cool fresh air. I still had no idea where I was but, with my heart pulsing, beating a hectic rhythm in my chest, I did know one thing…
I had to get out of there.
Right now.
As the crack widened, I became aware of a soft whirring sound. It was the ceiling shifting away from me. Some sort of machine, I thought.
A machine was something I knew, something familiar, and I clung to that thought.
Once the gap was wide enough, I slipped my arm and leg through, then my chest and head. I landed on the floor on my hands and knees. My vision was still blurry and unclear, but not with grey, but dark shades of black and brown. The white clouds that’d shifted above me were not clouds at all, but some sort of shell.
It thumped into place and echoed around the room. It was large, wherever I was. Now my wits came back to me and I focused on my surroundings. I wouldn’t run, not yet. I had no idea where I would even run to.
My vision cleared with each blink until I could see normally. I was in a large room with boxes glowing with intense white light along one side.
No, not boxes. Pods.
The word came naturally to me now. I stood up and saw that the thing I’d come out of was one of these many pods.
I felt at my clothes. A gown, something hospital patients wore.
Or mental patients.
Was I trapped in some sort of mental home?
I felt at the gown material. It was rough and coarse. I instinctively felt it wasn’t the right material.
Something bumped against my arm. My bracelet. I clutched the locket between my hands, grateful it hadn’t been taken from me. This small object was important to me. I couldn’t remember how or why, but it was.
I focused. I could remember what happened. I just needed to concentrate.
I shouldn’t be wearing an itchy hospital gown. I should be wearing a cute little dress…
What I’d been wearing in the last memory I had.
My last memory…
&nb
sp; I tugged at the thread.
A blinding light had sucked me toward it at an impossible speed…
And before that, clutching at a floating seatbelt…
And I’d been driving a minivan…
With my friends in the back. All six of us. Celebrating my best friend’s wedding the following day…
We’d been partying at a nearby party resort town. I was so happy. Yes, a little sad at losing my friend, but mostly happy…
The floodgates opened and the memories poured into me all at once. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Not with any specific emotion but a confusing miasma. Relief, fear, sadness, excitement…
Everything congealed together in one noxious mix. The only way I could express it was with tears rolling down my cheeks and a giant grin on my face. I must have looked like a madwoman.
My friends…
I turned and peered at the pods, arranged in a single long row. I moved past them, one after another, counting dozens.
They were empty. None contained my friends. Then I came to both larger and smaller ones. In that one, a fat pig. Beside it, two smaller pods with baby piglets inside, still fast asleep the way I had been.
In a much larger pod stood a dairy cow. Her bell was still wrapped around her neck with her name (Daisy) engraved on it.
In another pod, a full-grown male African lion. In another, a female Bengal tiger. That one housed a polar bear…
On and on they went as far as the eye could see.
They were all frozen, asleep, maybe both. They could have been dead if it wasn’t for the fact I’d woken up.
But my friends weren’t there.
And suddenly I felt very alone. There probably wasn’t another living soul for miles around…
“Hello?”
The voice shocked me.
I flew back, my arms waving from forgotten self-defense classes. I fell and slid back on my ass and didn’t stop until I reached the far corner.
“It’s okay,” the soft voice said.
She carried a lantern that illuminated the area around us. She didn’t come any closer.
There was something strange about her voice. She spoke in English but in the background and all around it, there was a slight humming, as if a thousand other voices were speaking at the same time, each in different tongues. One was a twisted grunt, another the shriek of a cornered rat.
The woman reached for something on her throat and yanked it off. It was a flimsy piece of sticky plastic.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just a translation device.”
She spoke with a lilting Scottish accent, and for some reason, that surprised me even more.
I backed as far into the corner as I could get, too terrified to do anything else.
The woman wasn’t big. She was small and might once have been beautiful. She wore a ragged shirt and jogging pants that were too short—even for her. It was cinched around the waist with a length of string.
“Who… Who are you?” I said.
“My name’s Maisie. You’ve just woken up from a long sleep.”
“Where are my friends?”
“They’ve already been delivered.”
“Delivered?” I said. “Delivered where?”
“To their new masters.”
Masters? Delivered? This was not a normal conversation.
Maisie checked over her shoulder. “You should get back in your pod. This shouldn’t have happened. You shouldn’t be awake yet.”
“My pod? No. I’m not getting back in there.”
“You have to. If you don’t, they’ll catch you and make you.”
“They? Who are they?”
Maisie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter who they are. Oh dear, oh dear. This isn’t good at all. You need to go back to sleep so your master can give you a purpose.”
“Purpose?” I said, fear seizing my throat. “I already have a purpose back home! I need to go home. Now.”
“You can’t ever go back home,” Maisie said. “Not without your master’s permission.”
This lady was off her rocker if she thought I would willingly get back in that pod. And yet, Maisie might just be the only reliable source of information I would get in this place.
“How long have I been asleep?” I said.
“Not long. About three weeks. You need to go back to sleep…”
Three weeks?
It wasn’t possible. I was locked in my head in a coma somewhere. This Maisie was some sort of internal projection, that’s all. Maybe one of the nurses taking care of me in the hospital. Or someone I passed on the street one time.
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“It’s the truth,” Maisie said.
“I have to go,” I said, pushing myself up onto my feet. “I have to leave. I can’t stay here.”
Maisie waved her hands. “You don’t have a choice. If they find you, they’ll hurt you.”
“This isn’t real,” I said. “I’m trapped in some kind of nightmare.”
But how could I prove it?
I know! You can’t feel pain in a dream. I pinched myself.
I felt it.
Oh no…
I pinched myself again. Harder this time.
I felt that too.
The room spun as I realized everything Maisie told me was true.
I was on a spaceship heading to my new ‘master.’
This sure wasn’t part of my plans for Hazel’s hen night.
I grabbed Maisie by her shoulders. “Tell me how to get out of here. There must be an exit, a way out. Something.”
Maisie shook her head. “There’s no escape. You have to go back to sleep—”
“There must be a way back home,” I said. “There has to be.”
Instead of grasping at the woman, I wrapped my arms around her and bawled like a baby.
“Please,” I said. “Please help me get out of here.”
It felt good to hug another human being. Even if she was working with the mysterious ‘them.’
I pulled back and she too had tears in her eyes. “There might be a way, but you must be careful. If they catch you and they discover I helped you…”
And that was when she told me the two-part plan to aid my escape. First, she would swipe a translator strip from the captain’s room and then use it so I could work a craft in the shuttle bay.
It’d worked perfectly until I had second thoughts in the shuttle at the moment of the launch—
A tray clattered on the table as a member of the crew eyed me with suspicion and raised his bowl. I ladled the stew into it and, still not taking his eyes off me, he backed away to a nearby table, joining the others with the same expression on their faces.
“Don’t worry about them none,” Maisie said. “Except for me, they’ve never seen an abductee free to roam the ship.”
“They sure look pissed,” I said.
They glared at me not with anger but hunger… The kind only a female companion could provide.
Well, not this female!
“Are they dangerous?” I said.
Maisie looked at me and then glanced away. “Only if they’re in a bad mood. Which is why we made one of their favorite meals. I’ve never known a good stew to end up with an argument.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I grumbled under my breath.
I got back to chopping more vegetables. Maisie kept a close eye on me and altered my posture so I could do it faster. I’d never been much of a cook.
Maisie leaned in close. “Did he tell you about his little… problem?”
I glanced the crew, covered my mouth, and whispered back: “His sickness?”
Maisie nodded. “The rest of the crew can’t know about it. If they did, they’d take action. And that’s the last thing we want. As strict as he is, Nighteko is fair. And he has a streak of honor in him that not many of the others possess.” She sidled up to me. “Don’t tell him I said that. He doesn’t need a bigger head.”
; I considered telling Maisie the truth—that the crew not only knew Nighteko was sick, but they were causing it in the first place. But I didn’t want to worry her. She was better off not knowing.
Hell, I was sure a lot better off not knowing aliens were real and abductions actually took place.
Now I was here, I was just going to have to put up with it.
By now, as Maisie had promised, the crew focused their attention away from me and on their bowls of stew…
All except one.
He was by far the largest and needed a whole table to himself. He had small piggy eyes and a flat snout with two large nostrils carved into it. In fact, there was a whole lot about him that was piglike. One long ear folded forward, the other bore notches in it and a pair of gold rings. The stew ran over his flat nose, down his chin, and splattered across his uniform. He didn’t appear to care. After all, the uniform was already doused with meals of yesterday.
“Maisie?” I said. “Who’s that? And why is he staring at me?”
“That’s Horn Tusk,” she said. “It’s best not to make eye contact with him. He can be a little… grouchy.”
One of the other diners leaned his elbow on Horn Tusk’s table as he enjoyed a conversation with his friend. Horn Tusk froze with a spoon to his lips and glared at the elbow. When the unfortunate crewmember didn’t notice he was encroaching on Horn Tusk’s space, Horn Tusk seized the elbow in his hoof and gently twisted. A cold hard snap and the diner fell to the floor, screaming in pain.
Horn Tusk calmly resumed eating.
Yowza.
Once Horn Tusk was done, he carried his tray over to the kitchen and dumped the contents in the sink. He affixed a smile to his face. Just the sight of it turned my stomach.
“Maisie, Maisie, Maisie,” he said. “Just what do you put in your food that makes it taste so good?”
Maisie grinned and slapped his arm good-naturedly.
“If I ever get my own ship, I’m taking you with me,” Horn Tusk said.
Maisie chuckled. If it were me, I’d be shaking with sheer terror, but she appeared to be used to his gruff nature.
