Alien Captured

by Marie Dry

  “Why did your family leave you alone on the farm?”

  She looked tired and overworked. That feeling nagged at him again--the one that said something more was going on here, and he’d better find out quick. He would also have to start feeding her. The long loose dresses she wore hid her figure, but her wrists were thin, and her collar bones stood out. Her face was pleasingly round, but her cheekbones shouldn’t be that pronounced. She was starving. The realization slammed into him, and the only other time he’d been this stunned was when he was stranded on that planet with the rats.

  She touched her hair, as if she wanted to hide the fact that she didn’t wear a cloth on her head. “None of your business,” she mumbled.

  He had to think about that, struggled to focus on anything but the fact that she was starving. “We will learn about each other through meaningful conversation,” he insisted.

  Viglar would have to prioritize the food tablets for her. It would strengthen her faster than normal food would.

  She frowned at him. “Meaningful conversation?”

  “I know everything about relationships between men and women. It is important for a couple to talk to each other, to base the relationship on more than sex.” He wanted her to realize that, unlike the other breeders, she was lucky enough to have a warrior who understood Earth women and modern ways. “Tell me about your family.”

  She gave him a strange, thoughtful look. “My people on my father’s side have been farmers for many generations. My grandmother on my mother’s side was Japanese. She traveled very far over the sea to marry my grandfather.”

  “They lived on a farm like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why have the others left you?”

  “They stay on a farm until the soil won’t yield crops anymore, then they pack up and find another farm to live on.”

  “Is it normal to leave someone behind?”

  He wouldn’t say anything about their destructive farming practices. She might refuse to kiss him again. Everywhere he looked, he saw how her humans had torn everything out to take with them. Why would they do that if they left someone behind?

  She bent her head toward her clenched hands. “No,” she said, so soft he only heard her because of his superior Zyrgin hearing.

  “Why did they leave you alone here?” They would all pay for doing that to her. He could see how sad it made her. No one was allowed to make her sad, or to leave her starving.

  She clenched her hands so tight he could see the fine bones under the skin. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He considered insisting, but he didn’t want her to be this uncomfortable. When they had talked and kissed with tongue a lot more, she would trust him and tell him. “Where are your parents?”

  “My father died when I was eight and my mother when I was twelve. I don’t want to talk about my family.”

  “You may now ask me anything.”

  Again, she gave him that strange look. “Did you always want to be a warrior?”

  Like with Viglar’s family, his had wanted him to forget his interest in technology and to become a warrior. He was the first potential warrior born to their family. “I am more than a warrior, I am the chief technician of this conquest.”

  Her forehead crinkled. “What does that mean?”

  “I am a warrior, but I can also fix machines like the TC.”

  “Your family must be real proud of you.” Naked longing was in her eyes. Mixed with the longing was admiration that he reveled in.

  “In my culture, the highest class are warriors. Warriors have small warriors, and they are considered superior.” He didn’t explain to her how potential warriors were sometimes born among the other classes.

  “That’s not fair toward the normal people.”

  He shrugged. He’d found a home among Zacar’s family. Until he’d seen how Natalie and Zacar lived with Larz and Zorlof and now with Alissa, he’d never known families could be that comfortable to be with.

  “There is hope for them. Sometimes a small Zyrgin with the potential to be made a warrior would be born to what you call normal people.”

  “That’s not what I meant. They should be accepted for who they are. Being normal should not make them less important than warriors.”

  She said it with such passion, he knew she’d never been accepted by her family either.

  “Zyrgin society is different. You cannot judge us by human standards. Without our warrior class, our people would have been extinct centuries ago.”

  She looked skeptical. “How do you make a normal child into a warrior, does it hurt?”

  “The Zyrgin, our emperor can turn a small Zyrgin with potential into a warrior. And yes, it hurts.”

  Understanding dawned on her face. “That’s what happened to you. Did it please your family, did they accept you?”

  “They were pleased that I was a warrior, but when I insisted I wanted to continue my studies in technology, my closest blood, my father, would’ve disowned me if I didn’t have higher status than him as a warrior.” They needed the status he brought as a warrior with royal connections.

  “At least you had status, you weren’t helpless. They couldn’t take whatever they wanted from you.” The bitterness in her words hurt something deep inside him.

  “Is that how you felt with your family, helpless?” Yes, he would definitely find her family and teach them not to treat his breeder as inferior to them. He’d also find what they took from her.

  She shrugged. “I don’t remember things ever being different. On the TC, they showed women who did the same jobs as men.” Her eyes widened. “They even showed a woman who became a healer, a doctor.”

  She said it as if it was the strangest thing she’d ever heard, and yet none of the other breeders had blinked at the fact that Madison was a doctor.

  “What would you choose to become if your family had allowed women to be anything they wanted?”

  She stared at him as if she’d never considered such a thing. “I don’t know. I like working the farm, I guess. It would be nice to do it right. To give the soil time to heal and then plant enough to live on.” She shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to have paint. It must be wondrous to create images in color, but that can’t be a job.”

  He would give her all the colors in the world to paint with. It could be her job. And he would beat that fat male for every day she’d spent without it.

  She took a deep breath, as if gathering her courage for the next question. “How did you end up on Earth? Is it true that you came in space ships from high in the sky?”

  “It is true. Our planet is far away.” What would make sense to her? “Our planet is farther than your sun.”

  “It’s hard to believe that people can travel that far. Or that they can live up there.” She pointed to the ceiling. She seemed suspicious, as if she thought he was telling her tall tales again. “Did your family come with you?”

  “No. Only single warriors are allowed to go on conquest.” He pushed out his chest and added, “Zacar chose me to be one of his warriors and also made me chief technician. No other leader had ever appointed such.”

  “Why not?”

  He considered what to tell her. None of the breeders reacted very well when they heard how a planet was conquered. “We send out expeditions to conquer planets, and, normally, only warriors go. Technicians from the home planet visit the newly conquered planet and overhaul the equipment.” They never landed on the conquered planet, always did their work from outer space. For the first time, he wondered if the sabotaged equipment was a way for the technicians to express dissatisfaction with their lives. There was no reason why they should be confined to their home planet.

  “And no one thought to take a tech...whatever... along to look after the machines before this Zac did it?”

  “No, Zacar was the first leader who did that. The only leader.” Everyone called Zacar’s warriors misfits, but they were also acknowledged as the best warriors in their galaxy.
He glanced at the rat contentedly lying next to him, his furry paw on the side of Azagor’s thigh. The animal had no self-preservation instincts. They’d conquered, what he called planet rat, shortly after his second change. He couldn’t repress a shameful shudder. Rats, he would never forget those beady eyes, their stinking breaths, the way they ate at his flesh, tried to borrow inside him, seeing them do that to the rotting corpse of his fellow warrior. Living with the shame of being alive while Zorgon was dead.

  “So what does a warrior technician do?” She’d inched a little closer to him, curiosity making her forget her fear of him.

  “I will tell you if you tell me why the others left you behind.”

  Her face closed down, her shoulders hunched in, and she leaned away from him. He thought she would refuse to tell him, but then she said, “They said I was a sinful woman.”

  “What do you say?”

  She stared at him as if no one had ever asked her that. From what he’d learned of her family so far, he doubted anyone had ever asked her opinion. “We were not to question a brother’s judgement.”

  “Why do you call him brother? He is not of your blood.”

  She shrugged. “That’s how it’s always been. Men in charge of the farms are called brothers and the women cousins.” She smoothed the material of her brown dress over her knee. “Tell me more about what you do.”

  He knew there was more to the way they lived on the farms than that but decided not to push for more answers now. “My duties are many. I worked on a project in space for the last four years. When I’m on earth I--”

  She was staring at him with wide eyes. “You work in space?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked skeptical. Obviously, she’d used up all the belief in the unknown she had. “And how do you breathe up there. Tell me that, Mr. Clever Alien.” She tapped her finger on her knee.

  Azagor was at a loss for words. How did he explain the oxygen system on a space station to someone who never left this farm? “We put air into a big tank and use that to breathe with.”

  She smirked, as if she’d caught him in a lie. “And how do you get the tank up there?”

  “We have a space ship that is orbiting the earth. We use the oxygen it manufactures to put in the tank. Since there is no gravity in space, it is easy to maneuver the tank where we want it.”

  She stared at him for a long time, and then her lip quivered. What did Zacar do when Natalie cried? Susannah burst out laughing. Killer sat up and barked, and she laughed so hard she fell over on the rotting floor. Killer danced around and barked and jumped forward and back in front of her. Azagor might be wrong, but he thought maybe the rat was trying to play with her.

  Susannah’s laughter mixed with Killer’s barks, and Azagor didn’t know if he should be proud of making her laugh when she rarely smiled, or mad that she didn’t believe him.

  “You have a s--ship that can make oxygen?” She laughed so hard she could barely get out the words.

  “Why is that humorous to you female?”

  “You can’t make oxygen.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Everyone knows that God created the earth and everything on it. No one can make oxygen. And big tanks that you can move around in space. How stupid do you think I am?”

  She was brave, strong, and intelligent. His breeder might not know anything about the outside world, but he knew she was intelligent. He would enjoy spending their centuries together, teaching her about all the wonders.

  “When we go to our dwelling, I will show you how it is possible.”

  “That would be nice.” She dared to humor him. She sighed and got up. “I have chores to do.”

  He dragged her close and pressed his forehead against hers. She froze in place and then hurried away when he let her go. For once, she didn’t even glance at her rat in her haste to get away from Azagor. Next time, he’d get her to kiss him before she ran away.

  He didn’t like the idea of her doing her chores alone, but he’d hear if she ran into trouble. He had to get the fever so that she would sponge him down and like him and want to touch him and kiss him. Natalie and Julia had watched what the humans called a movie in the main cave while he worked on the tunnels. He’d pretended to work long after he was finished. The movie had been educational. A wounded man had gone to a woman’s house, and she’d cared for him. Taking off his clothes, washing him with a sponge. Looking at him with desire. The male had been a pale human with no muscles. If Susannah washed his warrior body, she’d be much more impressed than the woman in the movie. She’d want to kiss him without him having to instruct her to do it. If she reacted like she should. He knew from the way Natalie had held him and kissed his forehead when he’d been wounded, that human women had soft hearts. Susannah had not shown the proper concern over his wounds. He waited until he heard her leave the house before he contacted Viglar.

  “What do you want?” Viglar demanded. “I’m busy.”

  In the background, Azagor heard children laughing and talking. Viglar had to be either at the hospital or one of the orphanages that Margaret, Larz’s breeder sponsored.

  “I need you to come and give me a fever.”

  Silence and then Viglar laughed and laughed. At last, he quieted and said, “You want to impress your human by becoming sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have claimed my breeder. I can give you advice. Acting weak and sick will not impress her.”

  “I watched one of Natalie’s movies. The one that makes her cry happy tears.”

  “You want your breeder to cry happy tears.”

  Azagor sighed. “No, I want her to think I have a fever. Then she will sponge me down with a cold cloth to bring down the fever. She will see my naked warrior body, and after only seeing weak human males, she will want to do kissing and many other things with me,” he explained carefully.

  “That is a good idea. I will have Madison sponge me down and admire my muscles as well,” Viglar said.

  “You need to get here fast. She won’t be out long. And bring food tablets suitable for a human who is malnourished.”

  “You allowed your breeder to starve,” Viglar said, and it wasn’t a question. He might be rude to them, but if anyone mistreated a breeder, Viglar would destroy them.

  “She wears long thick dresses. I didn’t realize the others had left her alone on the farm. I should’ve been more careful with her.”

  Viglar sighed. “Send me your coordinates.”

  “Make sure you come in cloaked. I don’t want you scaring my human.”

  Viglar sighed again, long and hard. “I have a breeder. I know what to do. If yours see me and prefers me for obvious reasons, I wouldn’t be interested.”

  For the first time, Azagor understood why Natalie and Julia called Zyrgins arrogant. Susannah would never look at Viglar with desire now that she’d seen Azagor.

  Viglar appeared half an hour later, and he stood looking down at Azagor. He cocked his head at Killer who had his head down, his ears flat, and the hairs on his back upright. “You eat rats now?” He growled at Killer, and the rat ran and hid behind Azagor, his body vibrating.

  Azagor suppressed a shudder at the thought of eating it. He would’ve preferred to lie, but Susannah would bring it along when they moved to their dwelling. “No, my breeder has him for a pet.”

  Viglar curled his lip at it. “At least, my breeder only talks back to me a lot.”

  Azagor would pay good money to see that, but right now he was more concerned with his own breeder.

  Viglar handed over a silver vial. “She should take three of these with meals every day.” He handed over a pressure injector. “This will give her immune system a boost. I developed it for the other breeders. Most humans are malnourished.”

  Azagor nodded and put it in his uniform pocket. He’d administer it while she slept. “The fever needs to last at least three days. But I cannot be weak. I have to guard my breeder.”

  Viglar pressed another
injector against his neck. He pulled open Azagor’s uniform and looked at the wound. “How did you prevent it from healing?” he asked.

  “Knife,” Azagor told him.

  Viglar injected him in the wound in his shoulder. “She will think your wound got infected. This will irritate it enough that it would appear not to heal. You will be an ugly unnatural color for three days, and, to her, it will appear as if you have a fever.”

  “I do not want to be an unnatural color. She is supposed to find me pleasing to look at,” Azagor snarled.

  Viglar glared at him. “If you want to have a fever, you will have to take the unnatural color with it.”

  Azagor knew better than to argue with Viglar when he stood over him with medical equipment. “I want your breeder to examine her when I bring her to my dwelling.”

  Viglar nodded. “I will tell Madison.”

  Killer had been staring at Viglar from a safe point behind Azagor. He suddenly decided Viglar was a threat and stood on all fours, his hair raising, baring his teeth and growling at Viglar. It sounded like the mewling of a baby battle leopard.

  Viglar cocked his head. “What’s he doing?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think he’s defending me.”

  Viglar and the rat stared at each other, and then Viglar laughed. Azagor knew what all the warriors would be talking about tonight.

  “Quiet, you’ll alert Susannah.” Ever since he found his breeder, Viglar was prone to too much laughter.

  Viglar looked around. “Where is the furniture?”

  “Her people left her and took everything with them.”

  “When you go to wipe them out, I will go with you,” Viglar said.

  “I can handle a few weak humans, but you may accompany me.”

  Viglar cloaked and Killer went crazy. The rat kept growling long after Viglar had left through the front door.

  “Quiet, rat.”

  Azagor settled against the wall and waited for the fever to kick in. Three days should be enough for her to fall madly in love with him. It had taken the woman in the movie a month to tell her male she was madly in love with him. It would not take that long with a superior Zyrgin warrior. He’d take her to his dwelling once he was “cured,” and she’d be grateful not to have to work in the fields and live alone anymore. The dwelling he’d built for her was much finer than this one that was falling apart. He’d give her colors to paint with, and she would be happy to stay with him.