by Cara Bristol
“Hello.”
“Happy to be here.”
The women responded with their own greetings. They did not appear to be offended by being called “female.” Anticipation and excitement rose palpably in the room.
“Let me explain how the selection process will work. We were informed fifty of you would arrive in the first phase. To be fair to all unmated men, the council held a lottery. Winners drew a numbered chit. In order, they will choose a mate. If you do not like the man who picks you, you may refuse, and he will choose someone else.”
A schoolyard pick? Were they serious? When the rejected man moved on to someone else, woman number two would always remember she’d taken second place. And what about the last woman standing? The men hadn’t thought through their little selection process. Still, a part of me warmed to the fact I would have some say-so. For the first time in a long while, I would have input into what happened to me.
The men were still grinning. Their happiness and appreciation seemed genuine—and infectious. Would settling down with an alien be so bad? What did I have waiting for me at home, anyway? My parents had been killed in a hovercraft accident when I was a child; my maternal harpy-of-a-woman grandmother had raised me but never allowed me to forget the depth of her sacrifice. As soon as I was legal, I’d left and never looked back.
But Terra is my home. And it’s warm there. I shivered and snuggled deeper into the stinky coat. Was it always this cold?
“Once you have agreed to the selection, you will join your mate and travel with him to his camp,” Enoki said. “Let us begin. Number one!”
A tall man with black eyes and hair flowing to the hood of his fur—which pretty much described them all—bounded forward. His gaze zeroed in on a pretty woman with olive skin and almond-shaped eyes. Callie, I recalled. Embezzlement. “My name is Krok. I choose you.”
Callie smiled, fluttering her lashes. Some people were born flirts. “I would like that.”
He held out his hand, and she took it and told him her name. As he led her away, she waved with her free hand. “Bye, ladies! Good luck!”
“Bye, Callie!” We waved.
The farewell hit me with a thud, and I glanced at Tessa and Andrea. We’d become friends. Would we ever see each other again? How far apart were the camps? And what did they mean by camp? That sounded…primitive.
Number two approached Andrea. “You are very beautiful. I’m Groman. I would be honored if you would consent to be my mate.”
She sized him up, her scrutiny just shy of a visual rectal exam. For as long as it took her, I almost felt sorry for the guy. I could see his confidence slip with every passing second. Finally, she nodded. “I agree.” Andrea grabbed me in a hug. “We’ll find a way to meet up,” she whispered in my ear. “Remember, his name is Groman.”
“Groman,” I repeated, hugging her tight. A lump formed in my throat. “I hope you get what you came for, Andrea.”
“You, too. Good luck!”
I was looking for my appeal to come through so I could return to Terra.
She embraced Tessa next and then left with her alien beau.
“Number three!” Enoki called.
No one bounded forward. The men glanced at each other. Several checked their chits as if they might have the wrong number.
“Number three?” Enoki called. “Torg?”
“Torg is not here,” one man said.
Enoki shook his head. “Very well. He can wait until the end, then. Number four!”
A grinning alien jumped forward.
One by one, women and aliens paired up. Nobody refused anybody. Tessa was chosen tenth by a man named Loka. “Take off your hood so they can see your face,” she whispered in my ear when we hugged good-bye.
My chest tightened as she skipped away with her tall alien squeeze. They reminded me of newlyweds. The only thing this party lacked was confetti. And cake. I wished I had some. The selection process had triggered an urge to stress eat. Out of fifty women, Andrea had been chosen second and Tessa tenth. An irrational jealousy knotted my stomach, and the beginnings of humiliation heated my face.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Taking Tessa’s advice, I pushed off the hood. Twenty-five, twenty-six. Not a single alien glanced in my direction. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. I was no raving beauty, but I rated on par with at least some of the remaining women. I had nice eyes. Good skin. A cute nose. Sure, I carried excess baggage around my hips and thighs, but in the disgusting, smelly fur they couldn’t tell! We were all bulky blobs. What was wrong with these aliens? Forty-five. I crossed my arms, tucked my still-freezing hands under my armpits, and glowered. Fine.
Forty-seven, forty-eight.
Last one. Forty-nine strode up to the other woman not chosen. “I’m so relieved,” he said. “I worried someone else would claim you before my number came up. Would you be my mate?”
Smarmy asshat. My throat thickened, and I yanked the hood over my head. If I could have crawled into a snowdrift, I would have. These aliens, desperate for women, had passed me over—every single one of them. I huddled in my fur and pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth to keep from crying. Only me and Enoki, the head alien, remained.
He cleared his throat. “By default, Torg will be yours.”
I’d forgotten about missing number three. It didn’t matter because nobody had chosen me; no one had looked at me. Why?
“I cannot imagine what is keeping Torg,” Enoki said.
A blast of cold air shot into the room as the flap lifted. “I’m here!”
Chapter Four
Torg
A multitude of double sets of footprints led away from the meeting place; most, if not all the choosing had already been done. Fury ignited anew. The thaw would come before Armax and Yorgav got out of the warding cave.
I hurried to the lodge, pushed aside the flap, and entered. “I’m here!”
Enoki faced a lone figure wrapped in kel. Tiny, hardly bigger than a child. I hoped first impressions were deceiving.
“You’re late! You have been disrespectful.” The council chief glared at me over the woman’s bowed head. No, she was as little as she appeared to be.
“A problem occurred in camp. I apologize for my tardiness.”
“It is not me you should apologize to. Torg, meet your mate.”
The woman turned. Yellow straw like the grasses that fed the kel before the onslaught of winter stuck out from beneath a hood that hid half her face. From the little I could see, she had a tiny chin, well-shaped lips, and a button nose stung pink from the cold. She raised her head and pushed back the hood.
I tried not to recoil, but shock shot through me. The straw covered her entire head! It sprang from her scalp in loose spirals, curling around her neck and brushing her shoulders. Just as shocking, her eyes were blue like the sky during our too-short growing season, an unnatural and disconcerting color to see on a person.
Worse, she was scrawny. Her head didn’t reach my shoulder, and even with the added bulk of the thick kel, I could tell she was skin and bones. I’d hoped for a female who resembled a Dakonian but had gotten one who couldn’t have looked more alien if she’d tried.
But she was mine. I had a mate! Satisfaction and possessiveness I’d never experienced filled me in a rush, and in a flash I understood why the two men in the warding cave had fought over the female. I would fight anyone who would take this one from me.
Even if she wasn’t quite what I would have chosen.
Even if she did glare at me with dislike.
I couldn’t blame her. I had disrespected her with my tardiness. I approached. “I am sorry for my lateness. My name is Torg.”
She remained silent. Was the translator malfunctioning? Had she had one implanted at all? The Terrans had promised to take care of that.
“Starrconner.” Her voice was low, husky voice, and despite her alienness, I felt an immediate quickening in my groin.
“Starrconner.” I repeated the unusual name to ensure I got i
t right.
“Juststarr,” she said.
“Juststarr?”
“Call. Me. Starr.” She pointed to the ceiling. “Star. Like what’s in the sky at night.”
“Starr,” I tried again.
“That’s right.”
“We must go now. It is a bit of a walk, and it will be night soon.” The brightness of the snow amplified the starlight, providing more than enough illumination to see, but the temperature dropped precipitously once darkness fell. And if the winds kicked up… Despite her kel, Starr appeared cold already. Plus, I was eager to take her home. My mate. How incredible that sounded.
“Walk? Out there? How far?”
“Approximately two tripta.”
She did not react at first, and then she clapped a hand behind her ear, and her eyes widened. “A tripta is almost five kilometers. Two tripta is nine and a half kilometers. In the snow?”
“Kilometer? I don’t recognize that word. A tripta is the distance a man walking at a steady pace can cover in one hour.” Rushing, I’d completed the trip in much less time, but I didn’t expect my female could travel that fast. “We’re fortunate. My camp is close to the meeting place. Others came from much farther away.”
Enoki nodded in confirmation.
“You don’t have any kind of transport? No hovercraft? Ground vehicles?” She tugged the fur around her neck.
“We have wagons on skis,” I replied. “They are pulled by kel, but the animals can be only partly domesticated, so they are unpredictable and bolt without warning. We limit wagon use to transporting materials, not people.”
“You use animals?”
“What else would you use?”
“Oh, I don’t know…illuvian ore?”
“Rocks? What would we do with rocks?”
“Okay, energy cells. Solar power. Hell, even fossil fuel or steam.”
I shook my head. “We have none of that anymore.”
“Good gods. I’ve been transported to the Stone Age.”
Once our lives had been different, but then the asteroid changed everything. For two centuries, we’d clung to survival and had been about to lose our grip when the Terrans showed up. Fifty females wouldn’t be enough to save us, but it was a start. And if more arrived…
I glanced at my undersized female with the yellow straw hair and eerie eyes. She represented our last hope. Our children would be only half Dakonian, but half was better than none.
“You should be on your way,” Enoki urged, “before night falls and brings greater cold. You do not wish for your female to grow chilled.”
I knew that! It irked me that he had felt the need to point it out like I’d been derelict in my duty to care for her. I did not like the way he smiled at her, either. Or the way she responded. If she smiled at anyone, it should be me.
“Let’s go. Follow me,” I said tersely, and then noticed her bare hands. “Don’t you have mittens?”
“I lost them.”
“Take mine.” I dug out my set.
She slipped them on. They were so large on her she could have put two hands in one mitten.
The cold snapped at my face when I held the flap open for Starrconner to exit. With a brisk pace, I led the way across the compound, the snow packed to icy hardness from people treading over it. The sooner we arrived at camp and our cave, the sooner she and I could get to know each other.
“Oh-oh…crap!” Thud.
I whipped around. Starrconner lay flat on her back. “Motherfucker…son of a bitch.” From her tone, I surmised the unfamiliar words were curses. I rushed to her side and assisted her to her feet.
“Are you all right?”
“The ground is slicker than dog snot.” She pushed off the hood and rubbed her head.
I didn’t know what dog snot was, but I understood slick. I pointed toward the woods. “We’ll go that way. Walk in my footsteps, and it will be easier for you.” I brushed the snow from her coat, flipped the hood over her head, and tucked wayward strands of hair inside. Though it resembled straw, it felt very soft, slippery in a good way, and I had to resist grabbing a handful and stroking it. It was too soon for such personal contact. But maybe a compliment would break the ice? “Your hair is slicker than dog snot.” I tried an idiom from her language.
Her jaw dropped, and then she scowled at me before stomping toward the woods, and I realized I must have said the wrong thing. The translator left a lot to be desired. If it was an example of advanced Terran technology, it did not appear to be all that helpful.
I raced in front so I could lead the way. I located my indentations in the snow and stepped into them. The hike was easygoing, and I moved quickly, but when I checked on Starr, she’d fallen behind. So much smaller than I, she struggled to reach the holes I’d left for her. My footsteps were too far apart for her short stride, and the snow was too deep. Where it came up to my shins, it banked around her thighs. Her kel, dragging through the snow, hindered her progress further.
I retraced my steps, planting a deep footprint in between the original ones.
“How long is your winter?” she asked.
“Twelve months,” I replied.
“The whole year?” She looked horrified.
“There are fifteen months in our year. In two centuries, our winter has gradually receded. When the asteroid first hit, we did not see sunlight for years,” I explained. “That was long before I was born.”
She tilted her head. “How old are you, Torg?” It was the first time she’d addressed me by name. Spoken in her husky Terran accent, it sounded alien and oddly arousing.
“Thirty-four annual rotations. You?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Now I knew two facts about my female. Her name and her age. Starrconner was twenty-eight rotations.
“What are the other three months like?”
“Warmer. The snow melts. Grasses grow, and flowers bloom almost overnight. That is our growing season when we plant and then harvest and prepare for the cold. How many months of winter does your planet have?”
“By the calendar, three, but the length and intensity vary. Some places get very cold like this, and winter lasts five or six months. Other places are tropical and don’t get cold at all. But, usually, winter is three months.”
“I think I would like a short winter.”
“Yeah, I didn’t appreciate the shortness.”
I wondered why she’d come if there were plenty of men on Terra and the climate was so nice, but that discussion would be better in front of a warm fire. “Let’s proceed.” Most of our trek lay ahead of us. “I should carry you.”
“No. No, I can walk. Just…go slower and try not to take such big steps.”
“I can do that.” I nodded.
This time, I made fresh tracks, stepping between the ones I’d left on the way to the meeting place, so they would be closer together for her. Still, progress was slow. Every time I checked on her, she seemed to be struggling but refused my many offers to carry her.
My kel and fur boots held the outside chill at bay, while the satisfaction of having a female filled me with inner warmth. Many times I’d trekked to the meeting place, sometimes with Darq or other men, but never had I felt the degree of companionship I did with Starr, even though we didn’t speak. Already I regretted my initial reaction to her appearance. Her yellow-straw hair, while unsightly, was as soft as baby kel fuzz. I did wish for her sake she was bigger, had more padding on her, because she would have an easier time with our winter, but her skinniness didn’t affect my growing attachment.
Perhaps Armax and Yorgav deserved my thanks. Had I arrived on time, I would not have chosen Starr, and then I would not have known this satisfaction. However, I couldn’t unward them prematurely. They needed to learn fighting didn’t resolve differences. The climate provided enough of a challenge without us battling each other. Discord consumed energy and resources we needed for survival, and even the new arrivals did not assure our future. Dissension threatened us all. Dakon
ians had a long, hard hike before we could rest. The female shortage would not resolve itself for at least a generation or two.
But, now that I had a female of my own, I empathized with Armax. If anyone tried to steal Starr from me, I might react as he had. Perhaps I should be more lenient.
In the stillness of the wood, I became aware of an odd sort of clattering. I stopped and cocked an ear. “Do you hear that?”
“W-w-what-t-t?” Starr asked.
I whipped around. Her teeth were knocking together, and her entire body shook with the shivers. I stomped the few paces toward her. “You’re freezing!”
“H-h-hell, y-y-eah!” Her tone implied my comment had been ridiculous.
“The kel should have kept you warm.”
“The c-c-coat is fine, but my feet are w-w-wet. We don’t have much f-f-farther to go, right? We’re almost th-th-there?”
Her flimsy footwear! Why hadn’t I brought her some warm kel boots? The Terrans might be able to travel across the galaxy in flying ships, but they didn’t know snowballs about how to dress in the cold. I should have predicted this and been better prepared. That’s why the council had collected and provided the kel—just in case. And they’d been right.
Had we been able to walk at my pace, we would have been home already. “We have traveled half the distance.”
“Oh g-g-gods.” She looked ready to cry.
Enough. Sometimes a man had to do what was right despite what his female said. I bent, scooped her up, and slung her over my shoulder.
“No! S-s-stop! P-p-put me down!”
Snow clung to her from feet to mid-thigh. The thin leggings covering her limbs were wet and stiff with ice. Cold could be deadly to the insufficiently insulated. I hurried, jogging now that I didn’t have to slow my pace.
Dangling over my shoulder, she struck at my buttocks and legs, her pats ineffectual through my thick kel. The exertion would assist in warming her.
“Your protests would carry more weight if you could utter them without your teeth chattering.”
“I’m t-t-too heavy for you to carry all that way.”
She weighed scarcely more than a snowflake. “Ha! You make a joke. I like that my female has a sense of humor.”
