by Ruby Dixon
I lean over Kira and press my fingers to Tiffany’s forehead. She’s burning up with fever. She doesn’t stir at my touch, either. “Are the others still alive?” I ask Kira.
On the far side of the room, I see Raahosh stalk toward the blankets. He lifts one corner and then, ever so gently, lifts Liz and cradles her in his arms. He holds a water skin to her slack mouth so she can drink.
Vektal pushes a water skin into my hand as more warriors drop into the hull, looking around. They don’t comment on the smell, which is good, because that would make me angry. Instead, they look curiously at the human women who are rousing. I hold the skin so Kira can drink. There’s a strange tension in the air.
A faint, familiar purr sounds.
My head snaps up. “Who’s that?” I ask. “Who’s resonating?”
The aliens are silent. The purr dies away. I narrow my eyes. Someone just resonated to one of the other humans—yet another problem we don’t need—and is hiding it.
“Georgie,” Kira says, dragging my attention back to her. “I’m so glad to see you,” she says, her voice soft and happy. “You’ve brought help. You’ve rescued us.”
I catch the faint sound of someone resonating again, and my heart sinks. I’m not sure if I’ve freed them or brought them a new set of problems. “We need to talk,” I tell her. “All of us.”
• • •
Two hours later, the girls are feeling a bit better after eating and drinking. They’re still weak and listless, but even Tiffany has been roused by a meal of broth delivered by a sa-khui who calls himself Salukh. Warm clothing has been provided, and the men are practically fawning over the women, who view them a lot more warily.
Eventually, I give Vektal an exasperated look when yet another male hovers over an alarmed Megan and keeps trying to offer her bites of raw meat. “Can you clear this place out? We need space to talk amongst ourselves safely.”
He looks as if he wants to protest and then bites it back. Instead, he nods, kisses my brow, and tells the men, “Come. We will hunt to feed the women. Pashov, Zennek, guard the entrance. The rest of you, come with me.”
Eventually the men organize themselves and leave, though several longing glances are cast in the direction of the human women. Then we’re finally alone again, and I grab a bowl of the hot broth and sit with the rest of the girls, huddled against one of the walls.
“So,” I tell them. “I brought rescuers. They’re both a good thing and a bad thing.”
“The way I see it, it’s a good thing,” Tiffany says in an exhausted voice. “What’s so bad about a bunch of big hunky aliens acting as babysitters?”
“There’s more to it than just that,” I hedge.
But Kira’s giving me a suspicious look. “How did you learn their language so fast?”
So I tell them about the spaceship that Vektal calls the elders’ cave. The language dump it shot into my brain. The whole “parasite” thing that seems to be a requirement for Not-Hoth living. The “Vektal’s tribe only has four women, and they’re looking at us to hook up and become part of the family” thing.
The women make no comment, except for a few horrified blanches at the thought of a symbiont. I don’t blame them.
“If we stay here,” I tell them, “we’re committing to an entirely different life. It’s not a choice that can be made lightly. We have other options. We can opt not to take in the . . . symbiont. We can fight instead.”
Tiffany shakes her head. “But we’re so weak right now. I can barely lift my arms.” Others nod. I’m rather exhausted, too, just not as bad as the others because Vektal’s been taking care of me. But in another day or so? I might be just like them.
“Not to mention, we don’t know when the ship is coming back,” Megan says. “Or if.”
“I think they’ll come back to get us,” Kira says thoughtfully. “They’re not going to want to lose such valuable cargo, and from what it sounds like, we’re extra extra valuable.”
“Goody,” Liz says with a sarcastic tone. “So they’ll be back.”
“And we can fight, or we can make it so they can’t remove us from this place,” I tell them.
“I’m more than a little freaked out at the thought of getting a sym-thing,” Megan confesses. “The cootie.”
“Khui,” I correct, then shudder. What if it does look like a cootie? “So we fight, then?”
“Girl,” Tiffany says. “I can barely lift my eyelids. I cannot fight. I vote we go with the big guys.”
“Here’s the thing,” I say, rubbing my brow. I have a headache that won’t go away. I don’t know if it’s khui-sickness or the smell of the hold, but I’m aching and frustrated. “The khui picks mates. So if it decides that you would be perfect having babies with your worst enemy, you don’t get a say in things.”
“But it beats being cattle,” Liz chimes in.
“Even if we do manage to somehow take over the ship, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get ourselves back home or that they’ll take us. They could lie to us about it, and we’d be no wiser.”
“What do you want to do?” Josie asks me. “You keep asking us. Tell us what you are thinking.”
My hand goes to my stomach. “I’m kind of biased in one direction because . . . I’m pregnant. With Vektal’s baby. He’s resonating for me, and apparently it means that, despite the fact that we’re not the same species, he can get me pregnant. So I want to stay.”
The moment I say it aloud, I feel cleansed. Of course I want to stay. I’m coming to care for Vektal. I might even love the big guy. And I’m carrying his child. It’s not his fault I was kidnapped by evil aliens and now I have to get a “cootie” as Megan calls it. He’s done nothing but love me.
“Pregnant?” Tiffany repeats. “In a week? Seriously, girl?”
“Damn, girl, we can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” Liz says. “Dead serious this time. I feel like if you leave our sights again, you’re going to show up with a litter.”
A hot flush comes over my face. “To be fair, I thought he couldn’t make me pregnant if it was interspecies sex.”
“A Great Dane can still make a Chihuahua pregnant,” Liz points out. “Guess which one you are.”
I make a face at her. “I didn’t want to say anything to influence you guys.”
“Like, hey, someone buttered my roll while you guys were waiting for me to return, and he left a few crumbs behind?” Liz cracks.
Ouch. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t be sorry,” Kira says, butting in. She touches Liz’s arm before Liz can make another comment. “It’s just been rough for us.”
“Trust me, showing up pregnant was a surprise for me, too.”
“So we’re staying?” Josie asks.
I look at the tired, exhausted faces of my fellow captives. “If you guys are decided, yes.”
“If a guy shows up with a hamburger, he can plant as many babies in me as he wants,” Liz declares.
I hear shuffling outside and low murmured conversations. I sigh and look at Liz. “Did I mention that some of them learned English from the old ship?”
“The offer stands,” Liz says with a grin. “Should we wake up our test tube ladies?”
I eye the wall and feel a bit of anxiety. “They’re really going to hate us, aren’t they?”
“Why?” Kira says. “It’s not like we kidnapped them. We’re giving them an out.”
“An out that involves cooties and mating an alien.” I point out.
“You’re not complaining,” Liz says. “If they treat us half as good as Vektal’s been treating you, it’s not a terrible thing. And it beats being cattle, doesn’t it?”
I nod then touch my stomach. “I guess we wake them up, then. Maybe we should warn Vektal and the others that there are eleven of us.”
Around me, eyes widen.
“You haven’t told them there are six more?” Josie asks.
“Oh shit, they’re totally going to think it’s Christmas around he
re,” Liz says and starts to laugh. “I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces.”
VEKTAL
Just when I think my mate can surprise me no more, she brings something new.
“So, Vektal,” she says, sidling up to me as I return with my men and a freshly-slain dvisti for the humans to char into inedible food. “Can we talk for a minute?”
The other men shoot me envious looks as my mate touches my arm and my khui begins to hum. One of the men resonated earlier as well, but no one is stepping forward. I don’t blame them. With the humans undecided as to if they will stay or go—a thought that is like a knife to the gut—no one is sure how to act.
But Georgie gives me an encouraging smile and pulls me aside. Her hand goes to my chest, and I hold it against my thrumming khui.
“So I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
“There is bad news?” I’m staggered. The urge to grab my mate and run off with her hits me like a palpable thing. “If it is bad, you must tell me now. I cannot bear it.”
She looks a little alarmed at my response. “It’s a human tease, Vektal,” she says. “Don’t get so upset. I don’t know if it’s bad news as much as it is startling news.”
I exhale slowly. “I am ready.”
“The good news is that we’re staying,” she says, a small smile playing on her lips. “We talked and voted.”
I don’t know what voted is, but the words she’s saying fill me with utter joy. I crush her against me and press my lips to hers. She twitches, and a happy laugh escapes her. Then, she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me back, and for a moment, nothing exists outside of my Georgie and her soft, sweet mouth. “My resonance,” I murmur between kisses. “You fill me with joy.”
She breaks the kiss, and there’s a worried look on her strange, smooth little face. “You might not like what else I have to say.”
I want to tell her that nothing else matters. Not as long as she is with me. But there’s such anxiety in her strange eyes that I bite back the words. “What is it?”
“Your men are here to rescue five women,” she says, her fingers fiddling with the laces on my vest. She won’t look me in the eye. “But there are six more of us. Hibernating.”
I study Georgie for a long moment. Her words don’t make sense. Perhaps she still has not grasped all of our language. “The word you say, it means . . . sleeping? Did you mean something else?”
“No, I mean hibernating,” she says again. Her smaller hand grips mine, and she pulls me toward the wall with the strange panels and the lights, much like that in our elders’ cave. When we get to the wall, she touches it with a pat of her hand. “They’re asleep in here, and they have no idea what is going on.”
I am astonished. “Asleep in the walls of your cave?”
“Yes,” she says, her expression sad. “We were afraid to wake them.” And she tells me an incredible story of being taken from her home while she was sleeping and finding herself in the belly of the cave-ship. “We are the extras. These in the wall are the original cargo.”
I don’t understand her words, but I understand what she is telling me. “Your numbers are twice what they seem.”
“I hope you’re not mad?” Her face is worried.
Mad? I am ecstatic. That there are five women who are young, healthy, and mate-able seems as a gift from the gods. Six more is an unthinkable bounty. I want to press Georgie against me and crush her in a hug for saving my tribe from what feels like certain destruction. Instead, I must remain calm. “Six more females . . . And they will be frightened and confused and will need to be treated carefully.”
She nods. “Your men will need to be careful around them. They haven’t been held captive like us. As far as we know, they might still think they are at home, sleeping in their beds. This is all going to be very strange and very frightening to them.” She squeezes my hand. “We didn’t want to wake them when we weren’t decided. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I do. Georgie’s telling me that however reluctant the humans are to join our tribe, these women might be even more so. That it will take time and patience to bring them into our tribe. “I understand.”
“Some of them might reject the . . . khui,” she says, her mouth struggling to form the word. “That must also be their choice.”
It’s not something I comprehend, but as long as Georgie takes the khui, I care not what the others do. I press her palm to my mouth. “I shall leave it in your charge.”
She nods, a grim look on her face. “I’ll get the others, then.”
• • •
The men retreat, a little awed by the newest revelation that there are yet more human females. I see eagerness in their faces, and they want to stay behind to be the first to lay eyes on the new females—in the hopes of resonating to one. But we know the women will be hungry when they awaken, and a sa-khui male’s instinct is to feed and tend to his mate. So the men set off hunting, and Georgie and her women get to work prying open the compartments. I watch from a distance, unable to let my mate leave my sight. She and her women are weak and listless, and I am worried that the khui-sickness might be too much for them.
With Kira’s help as translator, they manage to open the strange wall, revealing six long tubes with floating, naked women. Georgie is right. Six more women, all so similar to my Georgie that it makes my heart clench uncomfortably at the thought of her being trapped inside one of those tubes.
One by one, the women are freed from the tubes. There’s confusion at first followed by sobbing. The others wrap the new female in a warm fur and take her aside to answer questions she might have, feed her, and clothe her. Some of the women stare blankly as Georgie and the others explain. One is furious. There is one with flaming orange hair and orange specks all over her strange pale skin. She sees me and chokes back a little scream, only to be comforted with small pats from Georgie and the other women.
My mate is right. It will take some time before these women are comfortable, and it’s time we don’t have. Georgie and her women cannot last much longer without a khui.
As the women share clothing and chatter together, I head out to check on the men who were exiled from the hold to give the humans time to acclimate. A few of my hunters have stayed behind to guard the hold while the others search for more food. Amongst them are Aehako and Rokan.
Aehako presses a hand to his chest. “I do not know if my heart is beating fast with excitement or if it is resonance.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “You will know when you see your female’s face. Until then, do not worry.”
“I have longed for a mate all my years,” he says. “Now I cannot stop wondering if it is one of the human females. To think of having a family after so long.” There is an ache in his voice I well understand. Before my Georgie, I felt the same. Now my life feels almost complete.
When she takes the khui and her life is no longer in jeopardy, I will know total contentment.
“When can we look upon them?” he asks.
“Soon,” I tell Aehako. “The humans are scared. This is all new, and we are strange to them. Give them a bit more time to adjust.”
“It is difficult to be patient,” Rokan says. He seems to be calmer than Aehako, but the hands that grip his spear are white-knuckled. “To know that there are mate-able females so close by . . .”
I nod, but my gaze is on the men in the distance. The hunters are returning, and there is haste in their steps. I watch them approach, and when Raahosh arrives at the head of the hunting party, he is out of breath but jubilant. “A sa-kohtsk is near. A large one.”
I nod. “Then we will bring our humans to it in the morning.” My own blood thrums with excitement. The sa-kohtsk are lone wanderers. To find one so close to the human encampment is a sign. I decide it’s time to sit back no longer. Entering the human cave, I ignore the startled looks the new humans send my way and call Georgie to my side.
She comes, all kisses and smiles. I sus
pect that’s for my benefit as much as the wary humans’. “Hi,” she says in a cheery voice. She looks tired, though. All of the humans do.
I take her hand in mine to kiss her palm again, and she gives me another tiny sigh of pleasure. I can smell her arousal bloom at my touch, and it’s making my khui hum in my chest. But I cannot take her tonight. She needs her rest. “Tomorrow, we leave here.”
“To go to your caves?”
“To go hunt the sa-kohtsk. We seek khui for you and the women.”
She flinches a little but nods. “If we must, we must.”
“We need more time,” the mouthy one called Liz says. She looks weaker than the rest, thin and wan. But she’s got a stubborn set to her flat mouth. “Not all of us are sold on the idea.” She puts an arm around a new human’s shoulders, and the woman trembles and leans into Liz’s caress.
“You may not have much more time,” I begin, but I’m interrupted by a high pitched whine. In the background, Kira claps a hand to her ear and collapses. Georgie claps a hand to her own arm, wincing.
“What? What is that?” I ask.
Her mouth opens in pain, and she pulls her hand away from her arm even as the whine dies down. There’s a light blinking in her arm, just under the skin, an angry, glaring red.
“The aliens are coming back,” she tells me. “We need to leave.”
GEORGIE
We’re a sad, sad little party as we set out from the cargo bay a short time later. The new girls are weeping and confused. They want more furs than we have to go around. They want better shoes. They’re hungry, cold, and tired. Maybe it’s exhaustion, but I’m frustrated with them because we’re doing the best we can and they just keep crying. I know this is new and scary for them, but I find myself wishing they’d catch up and get with the program already.
The women also want to avoid the men, who are giving them longing looks. Someone keeps purring, though no one will step up and admit things. It’s probably for the best, because I’m guessing that the girls can’t handle the thought of taking on an alien boyfriend right now. Not with everything else going on.
