Eden

by Louise Wise

  “Are Zack and Diana your father and mother?” he asked.

  She nodded; mute. Her throat felt thick with tears.

  “Who is Sue?”

  “Bodie’s wife.” She sniffed, and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, pulling herself up sharply. “Matt, please remember how long he’s been like this?”

  “Told you. I was out cold after Taurus came down, and I don’t know. Does it matter? There’s nothing we can do about it, anyway.”

  Jenny glared at him, and he sighed.

  “Sometimes while we were holed up, he seemed “with it”, but then began rambling, like he was just then. He’s in a world of his own. “ Matt paused as if thinking over what he had said, then chuckled dryly. “Guess, we all are.”

  As he spoke, Bodie opened his eyes and fixed a strong, steady gaze on Jenny.

  “Jen…” he said, and a smile flared over his face. His eyes closed as his body relaxed; his chest rising and falling in a gentle motion.

  With Bodie’s condition improving, Jenny felt some of the tension leave her body. She felt able to slip away to be with Fly more often, if only to reassure herself that they still had a relationship.

  She snorted to herself. Who was she kidding? Fly didn’t love her - even if his emotions could stretch that far.

  If she hadn’t sought him out on those occasions she doubted she would ever see him. He brought meat back to the old spaceship leaving Jenny to cook it on the barbecue, and ate his food elsewhere.

  It was as if he couldn’t tolerate to share his breathing space with the men. This suited Matt fine, but it grieved Jenny.

  And today was the fifth day since they’d rescued the men, and Fly seemed nowhere nearer to accepting them. Jenny couldn’t put all the blame on him - Matt wasn’t accepting Fly either. It was a vicious circle, and one that only Jenny, it seemed, could see. She could only hope that once Bodie was well he’d correct the situation; Matt listened to Bodie. She sat worrying, knowing that if - no, when, Bodie woke up he’d, more than likely, be on Matt’s side.

  “I always knew women were the superior race,” she murmured. She and Matt sat outside the spaceship eating a breakfast of fried graddy leaves and leftover stew. She hadn’t seen Fly since last evening, and her brooding was rapidly turning to sulking.

  “What’s that?” asked Matt.

  “I was just thinking, you mistrust Fly, and he in turn mistrusts you. It’s catch twenty-two, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” he said, looking at her as if she were a moron. “You really believe it’s that simple, don’t you?”

  “Well, obviously it isn’t that simple,” she said. “It’s going to take time.”

  Matt cursed lightly. “I’ve a sudden compulsion to slap you,” he said. “To knock sense into you,” he added, as she glared at him.

  She glared harder. “You’re the one that’s lacking in that department,” she said. “Just tell me what Fly has ever done to you that’s so bad?”

  “F’sake! You really can’t see it, can you?” he said in frustration. “You really are naive.”

  “I am not! Honestly, you -”

  “It’s either that or stupid.” He continued to eat. Shoveling it in as if it were his last meal.

  “It’s you who can’t see it,” she said.

  “I don’t want to discuss it anymore,” he said. “There’s no point. I’m not going to accept that alien. Ever,” he added. He shook his head. “I can’t get my head around you sleeping with him, it’s,” he shuddered for effect. “You can’t honestly believe that’s normal?” “And we’re really in a normal situation, aren’t we?”

  He offered his plate towards her, saying with a grin, “If I give you this, will you shag me too?”

  “Piss off, Matt.” She pushed his hand away and stood up.

  Matt laughed, plainly pleased with his own humor and then continued to finish his breakfast.

  “I’m going to find Fly,” she said. “Make sure you bury the leftovers, if there are any,” she added, watching for a moment as he put his empty plate down to begin on her unfinished food. “If not we’ll be under siege from wolves.”

  “That’s it,” called Matt, as she climbed the hill. “Go and shag the alien, and maybe we’ll get pudding!”

  She saluted him with her middle finger, and left him sitting outside the spaceship sipping melon juice with a smug look on his face.

  She found Fly on the cliff top sitting beneath a group of trees, overlooking the beach. He was sharpening bones that would make excellent cutting tools.

  Silently, Jenny sat next to him.

  “Bodie’s getting better,” she said, for want of saying something. “Soon I’ll feel able to leave them alone and come back with you to the house. That is if you want me to.”

  He put the bones down and leaned his head back against the tree.

  “I want you to,” he said at last, as if she’d asked him something that required a difficult answer.

  She looked at him, but he still refused to meet her gaze. “I’ve missed you.” After a lengthy silence she touched his thigh lightly, “You’re supposed to say, “I’ve missed you, too.”“

  “Your friends have changed things between us.”

  “No. No!” she cried, and scrambled to her knees to face him. “They change absolutely nothing. What are you saying?”

  Fly finally looked at her. “They change everything.”

  “Not the way I feel about you. We have a relationship, don’t we? A partnership?”

  “Maybe the partnership has finished. I have helped you survive and you have repaid the debt. Finished.”

  She gasped. The hurt she felt from his words seemed to puncture her lungs, reminding her that he had only regarded her as a mere sexual diversion. She jerked away, unwilling for him to witness her crushed emotions.

  “Repaid a debt?” she repeated angrily. “How can you say that? How, Fly?” She rounded on him tearfully. “Go on, tell me how?”

  He looked puzzled, as if thinking over what he had said. “I have wounded you. I speak your language well, but sometimes when I am trying to describe my thoughts I find it difficult to turn them into your words.”

  “Bodie and Matt don’t change anything between us.” She pointed to herself and then him. “We’re still Jenny and Fly. Still together. “

  Fly was silent.

  “I still need you,” she said softly. He wouldn’t understand “I love you”, so she chose the words closest to them. “If that’s what you want to hear, Fly, I need you and I don’t want us t-to finish. The debt hasn’t been repaid,” she added, just in case she wasn’t getting through. “And as far as I’m concerned, it never will be.”

  He pursed his lips, thinking hard. “I don’t trust the men and they mistrust me, but I will try and tolerate them for your sake only. “ “Thank you. That means a lot.” She relaxed, and leaned back against a tree; her body still turned towards him. “Give them time to adjust,” she said. “Look how long it took me to trust you.”

  “But you were not a threat, Jenny. If you had been able you would have killed me. Is that not true?”

  “Fly! I wouldn’t have -”

  “Is that not true?”

  “I’m not going to answer that.”

  Fly regarded her, triumphant. “I am right. I can read human expression better than I speak the language,” Fly said. “Matt tried to kill me the moment I stepped aboard Taurus -”

  “I don’t think he would -”

  “Listen to me,” he said, and she fell silent. “He had a spear and tried to use it against me. He would have killed me, Jenny. If he had been able.”

  “He was frightened, that’s all. You startled him.”

  “If he tried to kill me while he was frightened, then what is he capable of when he is not?”

  “They are my friends, and they can be your friends, too. Oh Fly, think about it, we can share the workload; life will become easier. We could all live in the house -”

  “No!” />
  His denial was so forceful Jenny flushed.

  His tone softened. “Not even for you will I let them share the house. That is ours. It’s sacred. But do not worry, I am not about to turn my head on them. “

  Jenny didn’t bother to correct his speech. “So, you’re going to take care of them against your principles, just for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “On Earth we call that love,” she said softly, testing the word on him.

  “I have never felt the emotion. It is ridiculed on Itor. It is something to be trodden on before it has a chance to seed. “

  Feeling hurt again Jenny lowered her head. “You know I love you, don’t you?” she said.

  “You love me?” He stared at her; if his only concern had been a fear of her turning her back on him now her human companions had arrived, her declaration obviously came as a shock.

  Jenny scrambled to her knees and sat in his direct line of vision. She wanted to be certain he understood. “This isn’t something I’m saying because of Matt and Bodie’s appearance, I’m really in love with you, and have been for a while.

  “It has nothing to do with “repayment of debts” or anything like that. It’s because of your gentleness, your caring, your knowledge and,” her smile lit her eyes, “of the way you make love to me.”

  He flicked wind-blown hair back over his shoulder. “We are in an exceptional situation, both from different planets, trying to build a life away from civilization.”

  “You don’t believe me?” She sat back on her heels, feeling as if he’d slapped her.

  “Let me answer that when your people have fully recovered.” Jenny felt as if all her love had been thrown back in her face. “I’m not asking you to love me in return.”

  “I wound you. I do not understand the love emotion, that is my fault not yours.”

  “You think I’m going to leave you and go off with them the moment they’ve recovered, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Her laugh was full of raw pain. “At least you’re honest.”

  “I will try to live alongside them for the reasons I have explained, but do not ask any more of me.”

  “And stay in the spaceship with me?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “Of course it’s what I want! I hate being apart from you. But Fly, don’t ever ask me to choose between you and them because I just couldn’t do it,” she warned. “I love you, and stay with you because I choose too, but Bodie and Matt are not only friends but fellow humans, and I will not leave them. “

  “I respect that. While I am building the bridge we will continue to live in the spaceship, and I will hunt for the four of us. But only until Matt has recovered; after that, we go back to the house, but you may continue to see them. “

  She had to smile at his arrogance.

  “Oh, Fly, why can’t you believe me? I love you and want to be with you, not them. “

  “I do not dare believe, because your existence belongs with them, not me. “

  Deep in the night, almost as if the vicious howling outside disturbed Bodie, he became violent within his unconsciousness. He thrashed about on the mattress, arms flaying; his legs useless.

  Jenny was afraid he’d do worse damage to his broken bones, and she was forced to run to the cabin to Fly for help. He came quickly, and sedated Bodie with the only means he knew.

  Matt slept through the commotion, and it was the first time ever that Jenny could honestly say she never heard the wolf-call. And when Fly fell asleep next to her, with his hand still in a vice grip around Bodie’s wrist, she cuddled against him like a small animal that had found its nest again.

  Just before dawn, she was woken by Fly climbing off the mattress. She sat up on one elbow, watching him pull on his tattered boots.

  “Where are you going?” she whispered. “Surely not hunting? I thought having the cattle and crops would stop you having to do that. “

  “I have to increase our cattle; they need to believe they are still a herd to produce young.”

  She caught hold of his hand as he was about to leave. “Thanks for staying with me last night,” she said. “Matt might find it easier to cope now Bodie’s coming round. You’ll like Bodie, he’s been more of a father to me than my real father. “

  “You sell them very well,” he said. “I told you I am prepared to make this work, but I cannot share your optimism in them wanting to do the same.”

  After he had gone she lay awake stroking her own body; a pathetic substitute for his touch and then fell into a deep sleep, erotic with her dreams of Fly.

  Bodie came awake slowly. He lay staring up at the high ceiling, wondering where he was, before the pain in his legs made him remember that Taurus had crashed, and Kate, and any possibility of getting back to Earth, was lost.

  He focused on the strange ceiling again, frowning. He closed and opened his eyes, but the surroundings were still the same - and not those of Taurus. He wondered if he was delirious. Very possible in his situation.

  He turned his head, and his eyes grew wide with shock before filling with salty tears. He swallowed as his throat became restricted, and his heart began to thrash wildly in his chest as his mind registered the sight of Jenny.

  “Jen? Jenny, is that really you?”

  Her head rolled to one side, and she sleepily looked across to where he lay. He raised his good arm, and tried to touch her.

  “Bodie!” She jumped up and was beside him in an instant. “Oh, Bodie, you’re awake.”

  As she leaned over him, he traced her face with his fingers, wanting to feel what he was seeing, just in case she was a dream. He felt his tears spill over, but it didn’t bother him. He wasn’t so proud that he couldn’t cry. He felt he had something worthwhile to bawl about, anyway.

  She pressed her face against his cheek, and he felt her own tears against his skin. He felt her warmth, could hear her heart, and feel her breath.

  “You aren’t a dream,” he said.

  Jenny sat up and rubbed a shaking hand over her eyes. “It’s not a dream,” she said on a loud sniff. “I’m real, and I’m here.”

  “Where’s here?” He frowned again. “Where are we, Jen?”

  “Try not to upset yourself. The important thing is, you’re safe.” “How…? Taurus was completely destroyed… Thought Matt and I were going to die, thought we had died.” His voice sounded dry even to his ears. He looked up and around at his surrounding, and then returned to his first question. “How…?”

  “Ssh,” she said softly, pressing a finger against his lips. “I bet you’re starving.”

  “Jen…” he said, stopping her as she was about to rise. “What is this place? Please, I need to know. “ He paused, swallowed and asked, “Are we inside the alien spaceship?”

  “Yes.”

  He furrowed his brow. “So is the alien dead?”

  “No, Bodie, the alien is very much alive.” Her smile was soft, as if he were a child and she the consoling parent. “He saved you. He saved us all.”

  Matt sat up yawning, and cursed as he tried to move his forgotten injured leg.

  “Bodie?” he stared, then grinned. “You’re awake!”

  Jenny kissed Bodie’s forehead again, before standing. “I’ll let Matt fill you in. Try not to move, and don’t worry.” She disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.

  Bodie let his head fall back on the mattress, sweat dampening his face. He watched as Matt clumsily got up and rearranged his pillows.

  “I don’t understand…” he said. “What happened?”

  “We crashed,” Matt said stonily.

  “I - I know. But… Sorry,” he said at last. “I guess this is my fault.”

  Matt sighed, and then shrugged. “It’s useless blaming anyone; what’s done is done,” he said graciously.

  Bodie looked down at his legs. “Feels like I’ve just about broken every bone in my body. Did Jen do all the repair work?”

  Matt opened his mouth to a
nswer, but the sound of Fly entering caused him to close it again. He threw Bodie a despairing look then turned to watch the opened doorway as if Death itself were approaching.

  Bodie had followed Matt’s turn of head and looked towards the dim doorway. His eyes widened with shock as Fly came into the room. The alien’s empty stare fell on him, and he cringed beneath its touch. He felt the alien’s hesitation, before it swept passed, out of sight.

  “That,” said Matt flatly, “was Flitespinter, or Fly as Jen calls him. It was him who dragged us from Taurus and bandaged us up.”

  “Jesus Christ… Jen was right? He saved our lives.”

  “Yep,” he said on a sigh. “Although I’m still trying to fathom out why, when it’s clear he wants Jen all to himself.”

  “How… how is he treating her?”

  “Her services in return for food and shelter.” His voice was low, as if afraid the people they were talking about would hear. “But she more or less told me to mind my own business. She’s completely under his thumb. It’s sickening. We’re gonna have to find a way to get rid of him.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Bodie stared upwards, feeling sick; he absently noticed a steel bridge crossing the high ceiling. He wondered about the alien’s intellect, being advanced didn’t mean it’d be humane. He gave a low, joyless chuckle. “Humane,” he muttered. “It wasn’t even human. “

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  They fell silent, and only the creaking of the decrepit spaceship and the far-off chatter of birds broke the stillness. Somewhere a deep baleful cry shattered the peace, sending ripples of cold shivers up Bodie’s spine.

  “What the hell…? The wolves?” he asked.

  “Yeah, they’re the wolves Jen spoke of over the waves. I hear the voice, but haven’t seen the animal. I haven’t got round to talking about that day yet. But it seems you were right, and she was rescued, after all.”

  “So, we’re all in his debt.”

  Matt chuckled humorlessly. “He had his reasons for rescuing her. I had a definite impression that he expected us dead when he entered Taurus. He’s bad news, Bo, an omen telling us we’ll not get off this gloomy planet alive.”

  Bodie didn’t reply. He felt exhausted. Mentally as well as physically. He didn’t want to think anymore, the mere action involved too much strain.