by Ruby Dixon
She is just as hungry for my touch. Her fingers tear at her clothing until she exposes her breasts to me. I groan at the sight and drop to my knees to tug one soft nipple into my mouth. I love her breasts, how similar and yet different they are to those of the women of my people. Her pink nipple hardens when I touch it, but it’s still like brushing my fingers over soft leather instead of the armored, hard tips of my own women. I wonder how human children are, if their mothers have such soft, tender swells. I picture my child there and crush her against me.
Our child. Part sa-khui, part human.
“Mmm,” she says softly, and I don’t know if she’s humming or saying another one of her strange human words. I lick her breast to distract her, and she moans. Then she reaches down and grips my cock in her hand and strokes me through the leather of my leggings.
I nearly come undone at that touch. With a hiss, I pull apart the knots that keep my clothing at my waist and free my cock. This mating will be quick and not elegant. I don’t care. From the sounds Georgie is making and the way she squeezes my cock in her hand, I doubt she cares, either.
“You are my heart,” I tell her as I caress her breasts. I tease one, then the other, loving the soft noises she makes. Her skin puckers at my touch, and the scent of her arousal perfumes the air. My mouth waters at the thought of tasting her, and I kiss her flat belly that will be rounded with our child next season.
But children will come later, and I want Georgie now. I tug at her leather leggings until the dark curls between her legs are revealed. She pulls her pants down the rest of the way and kicks them aside, and then she drags her fingers against my pants, doing the same for me. In this way, we undress.
Georgie gives a small shiver and moves to stand closer to me, to share in my warmth. I pull my mate against me, pick her up, and then seek out the furs in the cave. As I do, she presses kisses to my face and runs her fingers along my horns, murmuring soft words.
Then I lay her down in the furs, and she looks utterly beautiful and tempting, my strange human. I cover her small body with my larger one, and her legs go to my waist, her feet brushing against my flicking tail.
Her hands caress my horns as if they are my cock, stroking the length of each one, and I groan at the sensation. I seek the folds between her legs, and she’s wet and slick, her body hungry for me as I am for her. I want the taste of her on my mouth, and I push my head between her thighs.
She makes a soft sound and spreads her legs wide for me, welcoming me. I drag my tongue over her sweetness, enjoying her cries. Her flavor is heady, her aroma intoxicating, and I lose myself to her body. I lick and suck each fold, my tongue coaxing more of her nectar from her body. Telltale shivers move through her, and her thighs grip my head and horns tighter with each stroke of my tongue. She is close, my Georgie. And I want to be inside her when she comes.
I shift my body, fitting the head of my cock to her. She feels incredible against me. Wet and willing and oh-so-soft. I push into her, and she gasps, clinging to me. Her body is tight around mine, clasping me like a glove. The sensation is incredible, and I close my eyes, savoring it. My khui responds, thrumming inside me. Soon, I will feel her khui answer mine.
It must be soon, or else Georgie will not survive.
The thought sends a stab of fear through me, and I press my form to hers, holding her close. No. She is mine. I must keep her. With a groan, I stroke into her and feel her body give to mine.
Georgie gasps. “Vektal. Ohhyes!”
I pull back and slide into her again, and her legs twitch then grip me tighter. I stroke into her over and over again, need making my motions quicken. Her cries increase as my movements speed up, and when her hot warmth clamps around my cock, I feel her orgasm race through her even before she cries out.
My own khui responds, and I thrust into her again, spilling my seed inside her. I hold her close and stroke her hair as I come, my own body locked in the process of pleasure. Her hands touch me, fluttering over my skin, and she pants small, sweet, unintelligible words.
When the last of my seed is wrung from my body, I press my mouth to hers and then roll to my side, pulling her against me, our bodies still joined. I want to stay like this for hours. All night, even. My exhaustion is gone with my mate in my arms. Already I’m thinking of how to make her cry out with pleasure again.
I stroke a hand over her skin and feel her sex quiver around my cock again. Just a few touches and she would be crying out once more. I’m intrigued by the thought and tug her closer to me, until her small back is pressed against my chest.
As I do, she props up on one elbow. “Wutwuzzat?”
I touch her arm. “Hm?” I wish again that I could speak the language of humans.
Georgie pats my hand to get my attention and then points. “Sawa lyteblink. Wutwuzzat?”
She indicates the far wall, and sure enough, a star blinks under the ice and then fades. Ah. “This is the cave of elders. The cave of stars. It is full of magic. That is what you are seeing.”
But she pulls free of my grip and crawls out of the blankets. I feel a sense of loss as my cock slides from her warm body, but she is preoccupied. So I sit up and watch as she climbs to her feet and runs to the far wall. She presses her face against the thick ice, watching the light as it slowly blinks again. Then she looks back at me again.
“Vektal,” she breathes, and there’s excitement in her voice. New excitement. “Izzit a spays ship?”
PART FIVE
GEORGIE
Holy crap, it’s a spaceship.
I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.
Well, actually, I do. I was so tired after our journey that my brain was a fog. The need to help save the others constantly burned in the back of my mind. Vektal seemed to have a sense of urgency, too; he crossed over valleys and climbed up sheer walls with me clinging to him, more agile than a mountain goat. I held on for dear life, but it was still exhausting. The cold hadn’t let up, and the wind felt as if it had chapped my face into one big cold burn. But I still had it better than the other humans, so I didn’t complain.
By the time we finally stopped for the night, I’d barely glanced at my surroundings. Yes, the cave was perfectly made inside. Yes, it was in the side of a hill that also seemed perfectly oval-shaped outside. I’d noted it and stumbled inside, heading for the warm furs that I now knew waited within.
It wasn’t until after sex, as I relaxed and cuddled against my alien, that I saw a light flash. I’d thought my eyes had deceived me until it did it again. Then I stared at the ice really hard.
And realized that the cave was perfect because it was the interior of a ship.
“It’s a ship,” I tell Vektal. Behind the thick layer of ice, I can barely make out a control panel of some kind.
His eyes narrow, and he shakes his head. He doesn’t understand. “Es sa-khui tokh.”
That doesn’t sound like spaceship to me. Right. My big blue barbarian probably wouldn’t know a spaceship if it bit him on his big ridge-covered nose. He wears leather, eats raw meat, and hunts with slings and bone knives. Big guy’s probably never heard of a space heater, much less a spaceship.
I pat his chest. “You know what? I got this. Don’t worry.” I take the blade of the knife I carry with me and use it to hack at the thick ice coating the walls.
Vektal stops me with a gentle hand. He points at the firewood pile in the fire pit, still unlit. Oh. Fire will melt things faster. He’s right. I reach up and give him a quick, smacking kiss. “Clever man.”
He doesn’t know what I’m saying, but he’s pleased by the kiss anyhow.
As I wait for the fire to start, I stare at the walls around us. I’m trying not to freak out. The ice covering the walls is thick. Vektal’s familiar with this place, and it’s set up like a camp as the other caves, which tells me that this has been here a long time. It looks nothing like the cargo hold the other girls are currently camping out in. The odds of it belonging to the same aliens are slim, I tell mys
elf.
I still worry, though. That’s why I have to see that control panel for myself. I have to know what it is we’ve found.
It’s either a frying pan about to go into the fire . . . or a ticket home.
Or neither.
I need answers. No matter how tired I am, I won’t be able to sleep without answering some of these questions.
When the fire is stoked and burning brightly, Vektal takes up a lit stick of wood and hands me the safe end. It’s like a crappy makeshift torch, and I carry it carefully to the wall and then hold it near the panels, watching the ice glimmer and then melt. It takes a long time to thaw away the layers of ice, but as I do, more and more instrument panels become uncovered. I look over at Vektal, and he seems unnerved by this discovery as well.
It looks different than the sleek, bare walls of the alien ship I crashed in. Granted, I didn’t see much outside of what I assumed was the cargo hold, but this has an entirely different feel to it. The panel I’ve uncovered is upraised with hundreds of buttons, and the blips of light flick regularly. It reminds me of when I’ve set electronic devices on standby in the past, and I wonder if that means everything is functional.
I wonder if this means we can go home.
I steal a look at Vektal. His brutishly handsome features are pulled down into a frown, as if he’s not entirely sure what to make of this. He’s been wonderful to me. And the sex? Okay, the sex is mind blowing. But this place sucks. It’s cold and horrible, and I don’t know if I want to stay here when there’s a ride home.
If there’s a ride home, I remind myself. If.
I return my sputtering torch to the fire and examine the panels again. I see a lot of buttons and one blinking light but no screens. Am I wrong in hoping this works? I lean forward and examine the now-uncovered panel. The blinking light is actually a button with a strange squiggly character on it. I move forward to press it, then pause.
Is it dumb to press a strange button on an even stranger spaceship?
Yes, yes it is.
Do I have many options? I contemplate all the different things this button could be. It could be a distress signal. It could arm a security system. It could be nothing at all. Do I want to chance it?
I look at Vektal again.
Actually . . . I don’t want to chance it, I realize. I’d be just as happy turning around and going out of here with him. I know I’m safe with him. I might even be able to be happy with him. But the other women don’t have the same option as I do. They don’t have a big, wonderful alien treating them like gold and catering to their every need.
So I suck in a deep breath and punch the flashing button.
It clicks.
Nothing happens.
Well that’s . . . disappointing.
Then a slow whine starts, like the hum of something coming online. A smooth, androgynous voice says something in a fluid language that’s unlike mine. Lights appear and begin to flash. There’s a noise and then a hiss like central air was just turned on.
Vektal grabs me and hauls my body behind him, pulling out one of his blades to protect me.
I’m chicken enough to hide behind his back for a long moment. Then I pat his arm again and push forward. “It’s okay,” I say. “I think stuff is just . . . uh, booting up.” I approach the panel.
As I do, the voice speaks again. This time it raises its voice at the end, almost like a question.
It’s . . . asking us something? “I don’t understand you,” I say aloud.
There’s another whirling, chirring sound. A picture of Earth appears in midair, three-dimensional. “Query,” the voice says. “Language: Earth English. Is this correct?”
I gasp. “Yes! Yes, that’s correct! You know English?”
“This ship’s artificial intelligence is programmed with over twenty-thousand common languages. Do you wish to change language selections? If so, say—”
“No,” I say quickly. “Stay on English!” I point at the picture of Earth, spinning in midair. “That’s my planet!”
“Settings accepted. Please wait for system to come fully online before requesting a query.”
“I . . . all right.” I look at Vektal with wide eyes. He seems equally as astonished as me. He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me in close, prepared for a just-in-case sort of scenario. It’s strangely comforting.
The computer hums for a moment longer, and then I feel a gust of warm air brush my face. “Environmental controls online. Ideal habitat temperature for humans is 22 degrees Celsius or 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Ideal habitat temperature for modified sakh is 3 degrees celsius or 37 degrees fahrenheit. Which shall I program?”
“Modified sakh?” I ask.
“The male at your side is a sakh lifeform, modified for habitation on this planet.”
Oh. “Is he not from this planet?” Is Vektal a stranger here, too?
“Sakh originate from a planet that they call Kes, or home in their language. It is approximately 3.2 million parsecs from your planet Earth. This planet is 5.8 million parsecs from your planet Earth.”
That sounds . . . far. I feel faint. I have so many questions. I don’t know what to ask first. “I . . . what is this place?”
“This planet has many names depending on the language. Your species has not discovered this solar system yet. Our current location is the second planet in this binary sun system. This particular world completes an orbit around the suns every 372.5 days and rotates on its axis every 27.2 hours. The current temperature is—”
“Cold. Yeah. I know.” I wave a hand because none of this information is helping me out any. “So if he’s not from here,” I say, pointing at Vektal. “How did he get here?”
“This vessel was originally a sakh pleasure cruiser,” the ship continues in a melodious voice. “Due to a solar storm, the crew was forced to shelter at the nearest habitable planet, which you are currently on. They experienced technical difficulties.”
“Technical difficulties?” It sounds so absurd. “Really?”
“This ship is keyed to a specific pilot. The pilot experienced congestive heart failure, and a secondary was unavailable to pilot the ship. A distress signal was launched but malfunctioned. No further signals were sent.”
So Vektal’s people are stranded here too? “When was this?” I ask, feeling a little faint at this new tidbit of information.
“This event occurred 287 years ago. Please note that when this system references ‘years’, it is calculated based upon the orbit of this planet versus the planet Earth.”
And the years were longer here. Jesus. I look at Vektal with wide eyes. He’s looking at me curiously, impatience stamped on his features. I know he has questions, and my conversation with the computer is probably just giving him more of them.
But I still have more questions, so I’m selfish for a little longer. “How many of his people crashed here?”
“Log books record sixty-two passengers and one pilot. Many also died before accepting the symbiont.”
That catches my attention. “Symbiont?”
“The definition for ‘symbiont’ is an organism that lives in symbiosis with another organism.”
I’m starting to get creeped out. “Wait . . . Vektal has an . . . organism in him?”
“This planet has an element in its atmosphere that is toxic to human kind and also to sakh. It is a gas element similar to nitrogen that has not yet been discovered by humans as it does not exist in any form on Earth. Your body is not equipped to filter it out of the air. Once you reach toxic levels of the element, your body will slowly shut down. The sakh at your side exists in mutualistic symbiosis with a creature they refer to as a khui.”
“Khui,” Vektal says, suddenly speaking up. He asks the computer a question, and it immediately answers him. Then he nods and looks at me.
“I told him I am explaining to you how the khui functions in the atmosphere,” the computer tells me.
I rub my forehead. “I’m not understanding. So you
have to have this khui thing inside you or . . . you die?”
“The khui enhances the body of its host and makes subtle changes in order to allow it to thrive in an otherwise hostile environment. Those who originally found themselves stranded on this planet lasted eight days without the symbiotic relationship.”
Eight days? All I have is eight freaking days? “M-modifies it?” I ask weakly. I feel sick. I either get a . . . parasite or I die?
“The khui modifies its host. Genetically modified khui-symbionts are altered to perform at lower temperatures and to filter the chemicals from the air that the body cannot process. It improves the host’s recovery from wounds and sickness, and it ensures procreation of viable offspring.”
Oh, God. So I get a cold-resistant tapeworm, or I get to die. “What if I get this khui thing for now and when I leave, have it removed? Can I do that?”
“Once implanted, the khui and host are dependent upon each other. The khui cannot exist outside of its host for longer than a few minutes, and the host will need a replacement khui in order to survive.”
And here I thought staying on Not-Hoth with my sexy barbarian was the better option than waiting for the little green men to come back. If I choose to stay here, I can’t ever leave again. It’ll just be me and my parasite . . . forever.
Ugh.
But if I don’t get the parasite, I only have days left to live. Not even a week, now. The green men must know that we humans can’t survive on this planet for long. That means that either they aren’t intending to pick us up again . . . or they’re going to be returning very, very shortly. I suck in a breath at that.
The odds are not looking good. I have to get the others out of there, and fast.
I want to ask the computer more questions, but the welfare of the others takes priority. One step at a time—we have to rescue the other women, and then we’ll figure out the khui thing. I turn to Vektal. “We need to talk.”
He touches my face, glowing blue eyes tender. “Sa-akh mevolo.”
“Shit. You’re not understanding me.” I turn to the computer. “Can you translate for me?”
