by Trisha Telep
“You mean me no harm?” I parroted. At least my voice sounded even again. Mostly. “Too damned late for that, isn’t it?”
“Finlay.”
The weight of that single word turned me back to face him.
I noticed the porthole in the wall. It had been revealed when we’d ripped the curtain while we fought.
I don’t remember how I got there, but suddenly, I found my fingers gripping the chilly frame of the porthole hard enough that my knuckles went white.
I stared out into the starry expanse of dark night sky, empty, except for the big, blue, gleaming jewel of a planet hanging in the lower third of the porthole arc.
My breath froze in my chest.
Earth.
I was looking at my planet from such a distance that I could barely make out any of the land mass beneath the cloud cover.
Dizziness swept me. Carrollus gritted out something that sounded like a curse. It wasn’t one I knew. Or in any language I recognized.
He surged upright, took hold of my upper arms, and turned me gently away from the view.
It didn’t matter. The vista had been seared into my memory. I’d heard astronauts say that happened. That in the instant you look down from space on the world that gave you life, you changed. You were marked in a way that meant you’d never be the same. The only way you’d forget what you’d seen, what you’d experienced, would be to close your eyes in death.
I finally managed to order my eyes shut, but still saw my home hanging miles and miles below my feet. Disorientation rushed from my feet to my head. Or maybe it had gone the other way, but suddenly, my feet knew they no longer had ground beneath them.
Only the warmth of Carrollus’s body heat merging with my own kept me anchored.
I’d started the day interviewing for a space program and ended it on an actual spaceship. Kidnapped by aliens disguised as humans?
I cracked one eye open. My head and my feet seemed to have agreed that the floor made a fine substitute for ground. Dizziness faded and I risked opening the other eye, too.
I turned back for another look.
“No,” he said, preventing me.
“Let go,” I turned away from him. “Every kid dreams of seeing Earth from space. Now that the shock has worn off, I want a better look. You must get a terrific view of the Northern Lights.”
He chuckled and escorted me to the porthole as if I might still fall over. “One of the many charms of your little blue world. When we first arrived, we thought your civilization was more advanced than it was because of the electrical interference at the poles during a solar event.”
I felt as if the floor had lurched out from under me. I stared at him. When we first arrived? Blowing out a steadying breath, I forced myself to focus on his statement about electrical interference at the poles. That I could wrap my mind around. “Ship’s sensors can’t punch through the aurora?”
He met my gaze, his own searching. “You’ve seen too many Star Trek episodes.”
“Undoubtedly,” I replied.
The smolder of desire in Carrollus’s hooded gaze rushed heat through my body.
A self-satisfied smile touched his gorgeous lips. He traced his right hand down my arm to claim my hand in his. Bringing it to his lips, he pressed a heated kiss to my palm.
Pleasure zinged through my blood, settling between my legs. I stifled a gasp. Palm unsettlingly connected to genitalia. Who knew?
“You are remarkably resilient. The questions are back in your eyes,” he noted.
Unable to trust my voice, I nodded. Questions in my eyes and a promise of some kind in his. Did I imagine that? Did I dare hope that I could convince him to return me to my home?
“Come with me,” he said, releasing me. “You’ll be able to ask your questions of my commanding officer.”
His commanding officer. Interesting distinction. One of the only things I felt I could process in this morass of quicksand – or airless vacuum – beneath my feet.
I eased out of his grasp and turned back for my shoes. Mary had been so careful when she’d undressed me that I could account for every single hairpin I’d used earlier in the day. She’d even left a comb, which I applied to my tangled hair.
“Which military?” I asked, stepping into my sensible brown pumps. My attempt at a casual tone didn’t even fool me.
“One you won’t be familiar with,” he replied.
A military I wouldn’t know, and that hint of dialect flavoring his words – clues that ought to add up to something useful. Who had the kind of technology that could put me on a spaceship hundreds of miles above the planet without a spacesuit? For that matter, why weren’t we floating in zero-g? Since we weren’t floating, did I know for a fact that no one on Earth had the special effects budget to mock up something like this?
I didn’t. But I couldn’t imagine anyone going to the effort and expense. It wouldn’t make sense. Again, my thoughts circled back to why.
Impatient with the disorderly whirl of conjecture in my brain, I slapped down the comb and coiled my hair into another French twist.
Light and heat thrummed through my blood. Carrollus tangled his fingers with mine before I could reach for the pins to secure the coil.
“Leave it,” he commanded, pulling my hands away as if I wasn’t resisting.
Hair spilled down my back.
He had strength in spades, and he had me trapped between him and the dressing table.
A split second of fright trailed ice down my spine.
“Your hair is beautiful,” he said, folding my arms around my middle so that I stood, confined within his embrace.
Every piece of my biology arced to life at his contact. The reaction shook me. I’d never known that I could feel so much, so strongly.
“Mousy,” I corrected. My voice sounded small. Scared.
“I’ve yet to see a mouse with strawberry-blonde hair,” he countered, humor deepening his accent. “It’s beautiful and unruly. Like you.”
I shook my head.
“Leave it down,” he urged.
I shivered at the caress of his warm breath against my ear. While I had little inclination to indulge his whim, I couldn’t control my body’s runaway response to his persuasion. Goosebumps erupted over my skin.
“Fine. Yes,” I choked. Anything to get my body back under my control.
He chuckled, released me, and walked away.
The note of triumph in his laugh made me clench my teeth. Stiffening my spine, I tugged my jacket straight, turned on my heel, and marched to the door.
Assuming I wasn’t locked in, I’d walk out the door, and wander around until I found someone else and demand to be taken to their leader.
I left the bedroom and walked into a tiny, Spartan compartment, little more than a glorified closet, really. It had a kitchenette on one side and a scarred desk on the other. Odd. So much space devoted to a bedroom and so little to the rest of off-duty life.
The door opened at my approach. I had expected a whoosh sound effect, but it opened and closed silently.
I wasn’t locked in. Fine. It didn’t change the fact that until I learned interplanetary flight and navigation, I was more effectively a prisoner than any Earthly lockup could have made me.
“This way,” Carrollus said from behind me.
He led me through a maze of corridors, any of which could have been found inside military facilities the world over. Except that this one was over the world. By miles.
I was on a spaceship! Or was I? Could I be on a base? Or a station? Did it matter? I’d left my planet, something I’d never dreamed would be possible, much less likely. I had to fight to keep a giddy grin from my face.
We paused at a junction where several corridors met at what looked like a central elevator shaft. I felt his gaze on me.
“If I were going to hide a spaceship, which I assume you’re doing, since I haven’t heard about UFOs outside of the regular conspiracy theory circles, I’d put myself in orbit inside the a
steroid belt. Just another space rock,” I noted, slanting him what I hoped was an innocent look.
A shadow passed over his perfect face. It looked like uneasiness.
Score one for me. If his expression was any indicator, I’d nailed that.
“To stay hidden, you’d have to dodge the craft that get lobbed out past lunar orbit,” I went on.
The uneasiness drained out of him. He waved a hand. The elevator door opened and Carrollus gestured me inside.
Either he’d gained control of his poker face or I’d gotten that last bit wrong. I entered the compartment and propped one hip against the wall.
He said something. It wasn’t English. Again. Native language? A non-Earth language?
The elevator started up.
If they weren’t avoiding spacecraft, they’d have to find another way to conceal their presence, which suggested tampering with the signals in some way.
“You’re tapping the data streams of everything that could see you, and scrubbing your ship’s image?” I marveled, forming the hypothesis as I spoke it. Of course. It made sense. With the technology I’d seen so far – like the fact that I wasn’t floating through the corridors – it might be a trivial matter to splice in . . .
Carrollus crossed the tiny space in a single stride, slapped his hands against the wall on either side of my head. An odd combination of anger and regret sparked in his eyes. “Stop. No more synthesizing observations. Your hope of returning home diminishes the more that you know.”
My fleeting sense of satisfaction at having hit so close to home evaporated. I clenched my fists. “I’m a scientist. I can’t stop.”
He spun away from me.
The rigid set of his shoulders warned me to watch my mouth. I took the caution to heart. Studying him, it hit me.
He looked human. I’d naturally assumed he was human. At first. How far had they come? From which star system? Why? Was it a quirk of genetics that allowed them to pass as human? Or had they modified . . .The elevator stopped and the door opened.
He led me through another short maze of corridors to a set of double doors. He muttered another incomprehensible command.
The doors opened. Bright lights blinded me. I squinted against the glare.
Either the place was huge, or it had been soundproofed. Our footfalls disappeared into the quiet. I smelled . . . Did expectation have a scent? I drew in a breath and knew that other people filled the room.
As my eyes adjusted, I caught several things at once. Uniformed, young men stood at attention in front of instrument panels. The oval room was terraced, personnel and equipment arranged in descending concentric horseshoes down to a central floor. An enormous table of what looked like black glass dominated the lowest point.
Definitely not an office. A command center? Or a coliseum?
Carrollus and I paused on the top tier where the horseshoes opened into a broad aisle up the steps.
A thin, brittle-looking man with white hair, a hawk nose and rheumy, pale-blue eyes watched us. A blue uniform hung on his frame. No visible rank insignia. On any of them. Including Commander Trygg Carrollus.
“Ms Finlay Selkirk,” Carrollus said, “may I present Orlan Grisham? Sir, Ms Selkirk.”
“Captain,” he didn’t say. But it was obvious.
We sized one another up.
In the deep frown lines around his mouth and eyes, I believed I saw a despot.
“Ms Selkirk.” His tone dripped with misgiving.
“Captain Grisham.”
Frozen silence.
Crap. First words out of my mouth, I’d messed up. As if Carrollus hadn’t warned me to guard my tongue. I attempted an innocent smile. I don’t think any of us bought it.
“Did I guess the rank system incorrectly?” I inquired. “Commodore? Admiral? Or is it that I pegged the military thing?”
“Finlay . . .” Carrollus growled.
I quelled and slid my gaze away from the older man.
“Perhaps we should refrain from interviewing academics,” the old man said to Carrollus, his tone flat.
“You’ll want to broaden that to anyone with an IQ over fifty,” I muttered. How should a captive address her kidnappers? Bravado? Caution? Diffidence? Did I know how to pretend that last one?
“My apologies if I’ve offended protocol in some fashion,” I offered. “Am I to understand that I might be permitted to ask a few questions of you pursuant to my presence here?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then glared over my shoulder at Carrollus. “Definitely no more academics.”
The asperity in his voice made me bite back a grin.
“We require your assistance, Ms Selkirk.” Grisham said. He’d thrown his shoulders back and straightened as if trying to assume a more commanding presence.
He had the act down pat. I pasted a neutral expression on my face and nodded.
“We have need of men and women with good hearts and quick minds,” he said.
Irritation flashed through me. Quick minds, my foot. “You’re capable of interstellar travel. Yet you’ve come to a world that hasn’t managed to land manned craft on its nearest planetary neighbor, and you’ve shanghaied a high-school physics teacher. You’re blowing sunshine up my ass, not telling me the truth.”
The at-attention onlookers gasped.
I swallowed a curse. Mistake number two, Finlay.
The old man blinked. His upraised palms fell.
“Interstellar?” he repeated.
I shrugged. “It’s plain you aren’t from around here.”
Grisham tipped his head and eyed me as if sizing me up for a vivisection table. “What makes you say that?”
Throwing my arms wide, I snapped, “The fact that I’m standing a couple thousand miles above the surface of my planet was a real tip-off.”
The old man spun on Carrollus and jabbed a finger at him. “You let her—”
“There was no ‘let’ to it!” I yelled.
“Ms Selkirk discovered our orbital position on her own,” Carrollus said. He looked troubled when I tossed him a glance. “Sir, I think we’d be best served—”
“I know what you think,” the captain snapped. “You’ve been overruled. As you were, Commander.”
Fury leaked past Carrollus’s glacial mask. It made my blood run cold.
Grisham turned his rheumy gaze upon me and attempted a paternal smile. “May we first beg a single boon of you?”
Alarms rang in my head at the captain’s antiquated phrasing, painfully polite though it was.
Wary, I said, “You want to trade for information? What coin?”
“No coin, Ms Selkirk. We aren’t mercenaries. Choose a man,” he directed, waving a hand in a wide sweep to indicate the soldiers lining the tiers, “or as many as you want to sample, from amongst those assembled.”
“Not mercenaries”? “Sample”? My mind twisted in on itself. I winced. “You did not just tell me you kidnapped me for sex.”
“That is precisely what we did.”
“Wow. We are all going to be so disappointed.”
The old man blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Put me back,” I said.
“You’re inhibited?”
“What? No! Yes! Who the hell cares?” I squawked.
“We care. Let these men help you,” Grisham said, his entire demeanor overtaken by sudden concern and compassion. The old faker.
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why?” I repeated. “What do you stand to gain from this?”
“What makes you think we harbor ulterior—”
“Kidnapping stirs up an awful lot of trouble,” I noted.
Grisham frowned at me. From the corner of my eye, I caught Carrollus studying me.
“It’s no trouble,” Grisham countered, shaking his head.
“So you burned down my apartment?” I prompted.
“Of course not.”
“Destroyed my computer files and my backups?”
&nbs
p; “We’ve done nothing of the kind,” Grisham said.
Carrollus shifted, drawing my gaze to his. He scowled.
“Do you believe the police will secure a search warrant for your home”, he said, “where they will find your computer with your résumé files and the address of the building where we met?”
I held his gaze for several moments. “They’ll find my briefcase with my belongings still where I set it against the coffee table, yes.”
“Release your cares,” Grisham urged. “Cast aside your culture’s notions of morality. We value physical pleasure. These men want to fulfill your every desire.”
My every desire? Did I have any? Other than going home and maybe kicking Jill repeatedly in the ribs? I shook away the vision.
“Are there no women in your crew? Is that why you’re kidnapping sex slaves?” I asked.
The captain jerked upright, glaring. “That, madam, is a grave insult. We have never and will never force anyone—”
I frowned. “You put back the people who refuse?”
“No one has ever refused.”
“No one—” I echoed before clamping my mouth shut.
“Pick a man,” he coaxed. “Give us thirty days, then we’ll talk again.”
I stifled the urge to put my spike heel through his foot. Even I knew that would negatively impact on my captivity.
“‘We’ll talk’? Oh, no. You want me to play this game? Give me something to fight for. Swear you’ll put me back when the time is up, and then I’ll pick someone. Otherwise, we’re at an impasse. You’ve been kind enough to say no one will force me. I’d like to return the courtesy. I do not want to have to force your hand.”
Every man in the room stared at me. That’s right, boys. Long legs, short skirt, cute pumps. Harmless.
“You have no means to carry out that threat,” the captain scoffed.
“Look up Gandhi,” I said, pressing my voice flat. “Then look up ‘hunger strike’.”
“You would destroy yourself?”
“You’ve destroyed my freedom,” I said, “my career, and now you’re threatening to destroy my life. I’m clear that getting your soldiers laid is vital to you. It’s also clear that you won’t tell me why. I may have little interest in dying, but I’m less interested in being kept as a sex slave. So many willing, young, fertile women in the world. Why me?”
