by Ava Castle
“So, what were you told about your visit prior to coming here?”
“Nothing really. They mentioned that we were saving the human race from attack or invasion, but that was it.”
“Well, your own people aren’t the only ones you will be saving. We need saving, too. It is a shame that there are only three of you now. We were hoping for fourteen Earth women. And as of right now, we only have two–you and your friend.”
Unlike the guards or Radon, there was no accusation when Morigon talked about the other eleven women, the ones who didn’t make the journey. However, I still felt the need to play my cards carefully. He was in a very high position of authority, and it had been our authorities who sent us all the way out to his planet, wherever his planet actually was.
Something told me there were secrets on both sides of this agreement. There were things I hadn’t been told, and there seemed to be things he didn’t know either. If he had known that I had been on death row back home for killing my ex, he might not have been so willing to allow me to walk through his peaceful garden by his side. This wasn’t part of my sentence. Being on Valmore was part of another plan entirely. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been aggressive enough to get much out of him in our conversation. I had hoped to leave that to Alecia.
“Did you even bother to ask him what the fuck we’re doing here, Becca?” she growled, snapping me out my head and back to the present.
“I tried to get it out of him. I tried to let the conversation move naturally in that direction.”
I spoke quietly with my head tilted down at the floor. We were in a small holding cell that resembled a hotel room back on Earth. We had two small comfortable beds, a sink with a separate room for a toilet and shower, and what appeared to be a window set in the wall behind a curtain that did not move. What looked like daylight came in through the window, but I assumed it was just a light controlled to mimic what the natural light would have done if it had actually been a window. Our comfort was an illusion, but at least it was comfort.
“What did you get?”
“He threatened to lock me away alone. You know I gave him a piece of my mind. The guard stood there with my wrists and ankles in restraints, just like the prisons back home. He held their version of a night stick under my chin the whole damn time. Bastards!”
I remembered when the guards brought her back from the garden room, she’d still been in restraints. They had uncuffed her before shoving her into the room with me. It didn’t surprise me that they treated Alecia as a threat. I was sure a lot of people had done so throughout her lifetime.
“Well, did you ask him?”
“You bet your pretty little face I did, baby girl. After that smug little asshole welcomed me and introduced himself, I flat-out asked him if he could tell me why he had us ripped away from our planet.”
“Did he tell you?”
“No. He just smiled while his little ass clown guard shoved that night stick up underneath my chin. I tell ya, Becca, something ain’t right here. All this military shit. That one bitch wanted to cut us. Then, the guy who came in to stop her tried to keep us hidden in his house? Something smells fishy here, and it’s not just those scaly reptile people.”
Those “scaly reptile people,” as she called them, didn’t smell fishy to me. Radon smelled like cedar and tasted like spice. Morigon’s garden had smelled like perfume. Between the aroma of his plants and the music of his birds, our walk had been a very calming experience. It had been almost euphoric.
“We’re going to keep you here for a few days to see how you adapt to our climate and to the available nutrition. I was assured by your world leaders that humans are extremely adaptive creatures, and that your ability to adapt has played a key role in your success on Earth. Hopefully it will help you be successful here.”
The statement had seemed odd to me at the time. Why would he have wanted us to be successful on Valmore, a planet already populated with a seemingly successful dominant species? It was pretty obvious already that Radon, Morigon, and their kind had a society set up that seemed stable enough to at least provide order and satisfy the needs of their civilians. We hadn’t landed in the midst of a war, not that we could tell. The Valmorians we encountered didn’t seem poor. Humble maybe, but not poor.
“I bet we’re going to be sold into slavery. This leader of theirs is probably trying to start his own harem. Dammit, Becca, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were going to try to breed us with their kind. We gotta get out of here.”
Alecia was starting to panic. She was on the verge of hyperventilating, and she spoke at a frantic pace. It was my turn to calm her down, just as she’d done for me when I woke up on the shuttle. I reached across between our beds and placed a hand on her knee. I put another hand under her chin and lifted her face. I spoke in a measured, calming tone.
“Lecia, look at me. I’m right here. We’re both safe.”
“For now. What’s going to happen next? What are their plans for us?”
“None of that matters right now. We’re alive, Lecia. We were brought here for a reason. Think about it, they brought us all the way from Earth to be here. They wouldn’t have done that if we weren’t important to them somehow, right?”
She nodded, and I was impressed that she wasn’t going off again. Her shoulders slumped, and her body started relaxing. I let go of her chin and knee and sat back on my bed.
“So far you’ve been the brave one, Lecia. I need you to stay with me here, okay? I can’t be the brave one for us.”
“I thought you weren’t the mouse anymore, Becca,” she reminded me. “Either way, I hope you’re right, Becca. About being safe.”
My assumption that we were safe was just that–an assumption. I didn’t know for sure. Nothing was really certain for us in this new place. The only thing I knew was that the thought of Radon made me feel a little more secure. There was at least one person looking out for us. He hadn’t turned us in. Sure, he had turned us over when they showed up at his door, but our safety seemed to be his number one concern.
And that kiss! It was hard not to blush every time I thought about it, but I could still feel his confidence on my lips and could still taste him on my tongue.
***
“Alright, ladies, stand back from the door!”
Alecia and I shared a glance across the aisle between our beds. The voice was hard and barely muffled through the door. It sounded the same as law enforcement back home, before kicking in the door to a real hotel room.
There was a brief pause, where I actually considered backing up to the wall opposite the door. Then, the door slowly slid into the wall, allowing four guards to enter. These men were dressed in what looked like military uniforms. One carried a clipboard. He was obviously the supervisor. Two grabbed Alecia, who let out a string of obscenities as she resisted. The fourth soldier stepped over to me and put a firm hand behind my arm. The difference in how we were treated was stark, but so were our reactions.
“Get your fucking hands off me! Where are you taking us now? Can’t you just leave us alone or tell us why we’re here?”
“Ma’am, we need you to come with us calmly. Don’t make us hurt you.”
“Boys, we need her intact,” their supervisor reminded them.
“Becca, I told you, there’s something fishy going on here. Why aren’t you fighting? You can’t just allow them to treat us like animals.”
It took both guards to put her hands behind her back and cuff her once they got her to her feet. She growled at them and continued to berate them, until the supervising officer, having had enough of her shit, pulled out a small syringe and gave her a quick injection. She slumped against the guards holding her up almost immediately.
“What was that? What did you just do?”
I felt my guard’s grip tighten on my arms as I started asking questions. Apparently, questions were frowned upon by lower level officials.
“Your friend will be fine. Please, Becca–is that right? Becca?”
“Thank you. Please, Becca, come with us. You and your friend have a very important task ahead of you, and we need to make sure the two of you are fit enough to start.”
“What task? What do you want us to do?”
“You are going to save the Valmorians.”
That was all anyone had told us since we started this program back on Earth. Save this, save that. But what did it mean? How were two Earth women going to save a planet they knew nothing about, lightyears away from home, when no one would tell them what they were doing? I felt like I was starting to understand how Alecia must have felt all the time, her constant annoyance at the world.
The guards led us to a long, white, non-descript hallway. I couldn’t tell how far it reached because it was all the same color. At first it seemed like we were in a small room, but as we walked, my depth perception adjusted to allow me to see that the far wall was actually some distance away. We were taken into a room that looked like a large hospital room back home. There were two metal tables and several machines standing around that looked similar to the monitors we used in our hospitals. I was led by my guard to one table while the other two carried Alecia over and dropped her onto the other one.
“For your protection, you will both be strapped down. Our scientists will be in soon to run some basic tests so we can make sure you are physically fit for the task ahead.”
“Right, for saving Valmore and the Valmorians from whatever it is that’s threatening you. Why won’t you tell us anything?”
“It may serve you well to consider your friend’s current state of consciousness before running off at the mouth, Becca. So far, you have given us no problems, so we have been able to treat you as a guest. Do not make us treat you as a prisoner. And before you utter another word, think about this. So far, it has been your attitude that has kept your friend safe.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but instead I just looked over at Alecia, still passed out from the sedative they had given her back at our room. It was not time to try to start any fights or make any enemies. If I wanted to change anything, I knew I had to go through Morigon or Radon, but it all seemed futile. They were going to do what they were going to do regardless.
“Well, boys, look what we have here. Looks like our scientists might have their hands full with this one.”
I heard screaming coming from the other side of the glass partition separating the room Alecia and I were in from the room next door. The pink girl from the crash site–Shaley, they called her–was assisting two other guards in dragging what must have been the third girl from our wreckage into the other room. She had dirty, ratty blonde hair and wore a torn prison uniform. Her face was smudged with some kind of dirt, either from the shuttle or whatever she’d gotten into when she escaped.
“She made it,” I said, in awe, as I thought back to how hard it had been to catch my breath when I first woke up. As far as I knew, she hadn’t had anybody to coach her the way Alecia had coached me.
“Well, now we have all three of you. Hopefully, we can calm her down enough that she doesn’t hurt herself. Do you mean have everything under control in here?”
“Yes, sir, we’re just waiting on the doctors now.”
“Good, I’m going to assist them.”
With that, the supervising officer left the room. A moment later, he appeared on the other side of the glass, where the third girl was kicking so violently at the guards and Shaley that she was coming up from the floor. She was spitting and gnashing her teeth at them, trying to bite them. The men showed incredible reserve. Their scales had not come up the entire time she’d been fighting with them. A moment later, she slumped between the guards as the superior officer pulled his hand back and discarded the syringe into a nearby trash bin.
“So what’s happening? Why are we in here?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, ma’am. The doctors and scientists who will be examining you may be able to tell you more, but we are just here to carry out our orders.”
The two guards standing over Alecia shot my guard stern looks, as if to tell him to watch his words while he talked to me.
“I’m going to have to assume that’s all you can tell me, I guess.”
“Yes, ma’am. We really don’t know why you’re in here except to receive a physical and medical checkup from our scientists. As my supervisor said, to make sure you ladies are ready for the task ahead of you.”
“Yes, the ‘task.’ Another concept I keep hearing about that no one will explain.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but before the doctors come in to examine you, I do wish to thank you for doing this.”
Another guard cleared his throat.
“Thank you. I just wish I knew what we were doing.”
I also wished Alecia was awake so she could try to get out of the guards what it was we were supposed to be doing. They seemed to be more apt to speak when their superior wasn’t around. And if anyone was going to be able to make them talk, it was her. However, she was sleeping soundly on the table next to mine.
“Hello, girls. Gentlemen, that will be all. Oh, one of them is asleep. No problem, we’ll just wake her, once you three are gone.”
Two scientists, or doctors, or whatever the guards had been calling them, entered the room. They wore masks over their faces similar to the ones our doctors used when dealing with infections. They also wore long aprons that reached the floor and gloves that looked like they were made out of something similar to rubber or silicone. They shooed the guards out and stepped to our sides. The one who had spoken as he entered stood over me and smiled with his shiny silver eyes. The other one leaned over Alecia for a moment as he woke her up.
“Wha-what the fuck? Who the fuck are you? Where are we? You can’t strap me down like this.”
“I’m afraid I can, and apparently, I have to. I hope your friend is more compliant than you are.”
“Ma’am, we’re doctors. We’re here to make sure the two of you are fit to enter the program.”
“Fit? You mean we have to go through another round of tests? We did this already back on Earth. What do you mean fit? What do you mean program? Why aren’t you telling us anything?”
“You mean no one has told you why you’re here?”
The first doctor sighed and touched his hand to his forehead. Their skin was a luminescent blue, the same color as the sky back on Earth. I realized we hadn’t seen the sky here on Valmore yet. It had been nighttime when we awoke in the shuttle and were confronted with the people of this planet, and the closest thing we’d had to sunlight was the faux window in our room. I wondered if it was going to be the same color as their skin, similar to sky at home.
“No one has told us a damn thing. I demand answers before you start poking and prodding. I want to know why we’re here and what our fitness has to do with this program, this task, or whatever the hell it is you guys keep going on about.”
The doctors shared a glance. I watched their faces as they seemed to communicate with their eyes and expressions. They were trying to decide if they should tell us what was going on.
“I’m sorry, but if they haven’t deemed it necessary yet to tell you why you are here, it is not our job to do so.”
“Have you been instructed not to, like the soldiers?” I mustered up the courage to speak.
They shared another look, before the first doctor looked back down at me.
“No, not exactly, but if the Masters are withholding this information, we are not at liberty to discuss it. Our job is to run some basic tests. We need to see if you are going to be able to adapt to our world.”
“We see you have already adapted to our air, which is similar to Earth’s atmosphere, but not quite. It is much richer, which is why you may have had trouble breathing it in at first.”
“Yes, we don’t actually have oxygen here. We actually have a compound that functions in a similar way to oxygen, and it takes a minute or two for Earth lungs to accept the
new compound.”
“It’s quite remarkable, really, that our biology is so similar to yours.”
“So, wait, you mean to tell me that humans have been here before?” Alecia snapped, interrupting the back-and-forth between the two doctors.
“Yes, ma’am. How long has it been now?”
“About fifty years or so. Some of the younger ones don’t remember it, but we did experiments on some of them to get an idea of just how similar we were.”
“Experiments? What kind of experiments? Seriously, don’t be trying to leave us in the dark here. What is going on?”
“I think that’s enough for now.”
“Yes, let’s begin. Ladies, some of these tests may be uncomfortable, but from what we understand of primitive Earth science, you should be used to much worse.”
Chapter Eleven
Becca Cross
“Becca, please come with me.”
“No, where are they taking you? You can’t just get up and follow these people anywhere, Becca.”
“It’s okay, Lecia. I’ll be fine.”
“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to remain calm.”
The guard who has escorted me down to the medical examination room stood in the doorway. A second guard entered the room and towered over Alecia, his gray scales standing on end as a warning to her not to continue with her aggressive tone. She was right, though. I needed to know where I was going.
“May I ask where we’re going?”
“You have a visitor.”
A chill ran through my body. It was the statement that had started all of this. A visitor? Who on Valmore would have been visiting me? There were only three Valmorians I knew–Radon, Morigon, and Shaley. Only one of those would have been a good visit, and I hoped it was him, coming to assure me that everything was okay.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am. He is here to see you specifically. It has been arranged and approved by the Masters.”
