Fat Girl in a Strange Land

by Leib, Bart R.

  I’ve often thought that. The Sethian’s have no weapons or defence system. They’ve had virtually no war, since the planet readily provides everything they need and their slow reproductive rate keeps the population from exploding.

  “They’ve learned from their mistakes,” I say, not knowing if I believe it.

  “O’Hara would be pleased to have no ‘salamanders’ around.”

  So, the Sethian’s know the nicknames. I’m not surprised. Little gets past them.

  “What your Jake suggest?” he continues.

  “My Jake! How did you… Never mind. I haven’t got a clue what Jake would say. I hardly know him anymore.”

  “Need time to chew the flesh with him.”

  “I think I’ve lost the taste,” I confess.

  “Unfortunate. So few of your kind on the planet. You are losing bearing time as well.”

  I pause. This is not an area I can discuss. The nightmares returned with Jake’s messages of intended arrival. “I just want to be left alone.”

  “How does the male spray the eggs when you do not carry them on your back? How do you choose when to reproduce?”

  This is a conversation I’ve been avoiding. I’ve feared the Sethians would be revolted. By human history. By human biology. By me. But, then, they are far more accepting than humans. “That’s a long story. I will explain it sometime soon.”

  “Appreciation for Alina. Most humans are so closed. Closed bodies. Closed minds. Closed hearts. You are no Sethian, but I like you. If only we could co-pend.”

  He offers the tip of his tongue in a delicate goodbye, like the touch of two stamens. He tastes sweet and earthy, a faint flavour of clover.

  I ask Dr. Sigurd, the research biologist, to pick up Jake the next day and show him the labs. He’ll probably be so intrigued by the experiments on the immune properties of Sethian saliva and the marketing potential that I wouldn’t hear from him for days. I need to think.

  But Jake shows up at my quarters the next day. He opens volley immediately.

  “Tom says Yuko Mamito can marry us right here on the planet.”

  I mix a double whiskey and take a quick gulp. I’m not ready for this. Jake waits for me to offer him one, but I don’t.

  “He has military rank. We could get special permission. Like the captain marrying couples on a ship.”

  “You promised we wouldn’t have to get married until we returned to earth. Jake, I’ve changed.”

  “Not for the better either.”

  The drink is warm. I lift the block of ice from the freezer and drop it into the sink.

  “What’s with you, Alina? You’ve gotten fat. You’re disagreeable. You’re about as warm as frost bite. You don’t know what’s good for you anymore. This planet has poisoned you.”

  “On the contrary, Seth is the purest place in the universe. I feel purged.”

  I slide the laser through the ice. I pick up the slick, cool sliver and slide it into my drink. It still tastes flat.

  “Purged, of what, human decency?” Jake rumbles on. His tone is no nonsense. The tone that convinced me that I had to marry him or live my life alone. I should sign over legal rights to my savings on earth so he could invest them during my absence. To agree to sex even though my medication had forced me to forgo regular birth control for several months.

  In his eyes, an unplanned baby had no claim to survival. Abortion should be as easy as getting my teeth cleaned. Jake had never asked how it went. The blood was hot between my legs. I’d felt it tear away from me.

  How could I explain abortion to Sethians, who would view it as a type of suicide?

  “Sigurd said you walk around naked,” Jake continues, “Next you’ll be veiling your eyes and dripping spit on men. Or perhaps you’ve developed a taste for salamanders.”

  I slap him so hard his whole body jumps. Jake’s mouth falls open as his cheek reddens. My breathing speeds up. I can feel the adrenaline pumping. “You know nothing about this planet or these people.” My voice is low but I can’t stop trembling. The room is hot and small.

  “I already know more than I want to. Two of them were going at it right outside my lab. Peeling layers of skin off each other like bloody zombies.”

  “Human’s bleed, not Sethians. And they are the most wholesome, vibrant people I’ve ever met.”

  “I see,” Jake hisses.

  “See what?” My voice rises. I don’t care. In a minute he’ll tell me I’ve lost control. I should have a massage-bath or mix myself another drink.

  “That you have become totally unbalanced since you arrived here. We’ll be returning home on the next ship.”

  Suddenly, I understand everything. “This is my home now. I will never return to earth.” Carefully, I place my drink on the counter. “I’m staying. You on the other hand, can fall off the edge of the planet. The engagement is off.”

  “I am a qualified medical doctor, and as such I can, on a planet lacking the appropriate professionals, have you deported on the grounds of mental instability.” He crosses his arms, immovable.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “On the contrary, I have the document already filled out. I’ve been concerned since our first meeting. All I have to do is sign it. Don’t think you can fight it. I also have control of all your earthly possessions. No one will oppose me. I’ve been given a special assignment. I’m to bring back a full sample of a Sethian immune system. One of your pets will become a new research project, on earth.”

  “No! Sethians can’t leave the planet!”

  “The president’s wife has cancer. He says differently.”

  “But Sethians can’t live without folia.” I steady myself against the sink. This can’t be happening.

  Jake shrugged. “So we’ll dig up some plants.”

  “Or co-pendence. Even if he could survive physically, you don’t understand the emotional and spiritual repercussions.”

  “For five million credits and the gratitude of the president, I can live with repercussions. You could convince one to come to the spaceport. Perhaps Screae Boiclan. I hear he trusts you.”

  “You’re insane. It would kill him.”

  Jake voice flattens. “You’re both leaving here with me, willing or not.”

  “Not,” I say as I lift the ice laser.

  * * *

  Screae Boiclan is grazing on the east hill when I find him. His lips and tongue are stained green.

  “Unfortunate you cannot live on flora,” he says. “Most satisfying existence, co-pendence with Seth.”

  “And other Sethians,” I add.

  “Yes. You are not repelled by co-pendence as the rest of your kind.”

  “No, I rather envy the honesty of it.”

  “How so?”

  “On my planet, we eat each other all the time. We’re just a lot more deceptive about it.”

  Screae laughs, his pointy teeth gleaming. I am amazed at how easily he understands me.

  “There are other advantages as well,” I tell him. “For example, no space wasted on graveyards.”

  “Ah, yes. Although the joy is of a bitter-sweet kind when we rejest the dead.”

  “You live long, healthy lives. Death is rare.”

  “Still sad. Not so on earth?”

  “Usually. What do your people plan to do with the humans, should they die while on Seth?”

  “We would prefer if you took them back to Earth.”

  I shake my head. “Too expensive, and difficult.”

  “Should not be here. Already having so many humans causing contamination. Not know long term effects.”

  “I see. Then, there is only one answer. I’ll see you tomorrow, Screae. I have to get some supplies.”

  “Poor humans. So much work just to feed.”

  “I’m eating something heavy tonight,” I reply.

  Screae offers his tongue. I run my hands down his sleek chest before leaving. He tilts his head in puzzlement.

  I must also pick up other supplies. The
ice laser was rather messy. I need a smoother weapon. There’s O’Hara and five of his cronies. Yuko, Sigurd and twelve other researchers. After, I will destroy all the communication systems. I need to prepare. It’ll be difficult to store so much meat. I feel full already.

  Bonnie Ferrante had two novels published this year by Noble Young Adult, Dawn’s End a romantic fantasy and Dawn’s End: Poisoned a dark fantasy. She has won several writing contests and has published poetry, short fiction, columns, children’s stories, accounts, and lectures in periodicals, anthologies, magazines, newspapers, and on-line for CBC. She lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

  How Do You Want To Die?

  by Rick Silva

  * * *

  Not like this.

  Sand grains scraped between Donna Stone’s teeth. She’d tried spitting the stuff out but more blew into her mouth every time, and she knew she shouldn’t be wasting spit. She’d need it when the sun returned to the sky. The sand was under and between the layered raiders’ robes she was wearing and it was in her nose and in her ears. It rubbed and grated against the skin of her thighs and under her belly. It wasn’t in her eyes, but that was only because she’d tied a strip of cloth so tight over her eyes that her head throbbed with each pulse of blood. She couldn’t see, but that didn’t concern Donna. Nothing with eyes could see in this.

  She’d dug herself out a hollow when she’d lost hope of finding her companions in the storm, and now she lay on her side with her back to the wind. She kicked her leg up every few minutes to keep the sand from piling too deep on top of her.

  And that voice kept asking her how she wanted to die.

  Not like this.

  Donna wasn’t even sure how a person died in a sandstorm. Suffocated, probably. They’d find her mouth and her lungs filled, if they found her at all. Or maybe it would trap her arms and legs when she finally got too tired to keep digging herself free. The sun would finish her then. It might take hours. Or could she be crushed under the weight of the sand? Was there enough in the air to break her bones when it all settled on her? Donna suspected there might be.

  They’d thought it was mountains in the distance. Wishful thinking. The desert was supposed to be impassible, and there on the horizon they could see the end of it.

  The small band of escaped slaves and arena-fighters had left Ahman with the simple idea that death would be worse than what passed for life in the pits and quarries. They’d all crossed the desert before. You crossed the desert to get to Ahman. You had to.

  But none of them had ever crossed this desert, and they hadn’t understood the difference between the caravan trails with their waystations and oases and the empty wastes that only the raiders traversed. It was the fastest way out of Ahman’s reach, and it was the route with the least chance of pursuit.

  They’d taken a vote.

  And they’d wasted precious minutes, even after what was happening should have been obvious. As the storm bore down on them like some monstrous wave higher than the rock walls of Donna’s homeland, they wondered what sort of trick of the light could make mountains appear to move.

  For the hundredth time, Donna cursed herself for acting the fool, and again she heard that damned voice in her head.

  Not like this. Not alone.

  The voice belonged to a traveling mercenary fighter, what they called a bravo in the southern ports. But it wasn’t really his question, not anymore. Donna knew the question was her own.

  When Donna was eighteen, she got into a fight with a bravo from one of the southern port cities. She didn’t remember many of the details of the fight after all the years that had passed. She could take any fighter in her village back then, and there was talk about the King’s Tournament. Donna had been caught up in what everyone was saying about her, and she’d taken up the challenge from the newcomer and he’d made her look slow and unskilled.

  When it was over, Donna was on her back with the point of the mercenary’s sword at her belly and his foot planted firmly on Donna’s own blade, which he’d taken from her grip with the casual ease that comes with years of expert instruction. One of her eyes was swollen shut from a basket-hilt punch, and blood from a cut flowed freely into the other.

  And he was asking her how she wanted to die.

  She didn’t want it to be from a gut wound, and she told him as much.

  The heart or the throat. Make it quick.

  “You don’t understand the question.” The mercenary laughed, and gave a flick of his wrist. Just enough of a cut to scar her. He walked away.

  Donna never saw the man again. That ruined the story. A real tale would have her find the man years later and challenge him to one final fight that she would win triumphantly.

  But that wasn’t how it turned out, and if the man’s intention had been to discourage Donna, it hadn’t worked. She found teachers. She practiced. She got better. She kept fighting, and in the middle of a fight there wasn’t usually time for contemplation.

  But once in a while, there would be some other danger, some danger where she had time to think: clinging to the rail of a ship tossed in a storm, lying in a camp tent with fever burning her up, or setting her pike as the cavalry massed across the battlefield and awaited the order to charge. Those were the times the question rang in her head.

  How do you want to die?

  Not here. Not now. Not like this.

  Not buried in sand or parched under the desert sun.

  The storm had taken hours to approach, but they’d wasted much of that time and they’d still been caught unprepared. It was a bad mistake, the worst they’d made since they escaped the city. They were twenty-two when they’d fought their way to the walls and climbed over. They were all soldiers, captured and brought to Ahman as laborers or as arena fighters. The escape had been a matter of luck and opportunity more than planning, but somehow they’d fought their way to the freedom of the desert.

  Then the desert began to kill them. One man was bitten by a sand snake. He managed five steps before he dropped dead. A scorpion sting killed another man, but that one was slow. They dragged him with them for two days, worrying that Ahman’s soldiers were tracking them.

  After nearly two weeks with no sign of pursuit, Donna began to suspect that nobody was coming for them. Nobody was expected to live out here. They’d brought water, of course. Not enough. Not enough food, or enough cloth to keep skin from peeling off and sand from working its way into every bit of flesh.

  Not enough direction, not enough leadership.

  They’d made Donna their leader. She was pleased that she’d only had to fight one man over that. It usually took at least three: One to figure she couldn’t fight because she was a woman, one to decide she’d gotten lucky once or that she just used her size or her weight, and one to think he had her figured out and just had to stay out of her grasp and wear her out.

  Donna appreciated that last type. At least they were using their brains. Donna did look like she’d tire easily. A bit shy of three hundred pounds, and she’d always looked soft, especially if you weren’t paying attention. But up in the mountains where Donna spent her childhood, nobody traveled by horse. They walked and they climbed.

  Donna had to admit that she wasn’t much of a climber. But she could walk uphill for hours. For days if she had to. When it came to fighting, any habits of rushing in or wasting breath had been beaten out of Donna years ago. Her opponents usually ran out of patience long before Donna was even winded. And she didn’t give many second chances.

  Jaxian Keln was a ditch-digger in Ahman, but he’d been a mercenary in Cygna and he didn’t want to take orders from anyone. But he had enough sense to change his mind when Donna slammed his face into the sand and locked her thick legs around his knee. The walk across the desert was going to be hard enough with both legs working.

  Most of the others had seen Donna fight in the pits, and once she handled Jax, no one else gave her any trouble.

  Now they could be miles away or they might be almost within the r
each of her hand and Donna would never know it. The scream of the wind left her deaf, and even without her blindfold there would be nothing to see.

  She’d accepted the leadership of these men and she feared she’d marched them to their deaths.

  Not like this. Not with their lives depending on me.

  Donna clenched her teeth, grinding sand. The storm gave her too much time to remember. The bravo’s blade flashed in the light of clear mountain air. Donna parried. Steel rang out on steel. Another thrust, another parry. She was defending, not fighting. She didn’t have a chance to hit back. He was too fast. Each slash and thrust backed her up a step and each of her parries was the tiniest bit slower and closer to her body. He didn’t even wait for her to fall. They both knew how this would end, and Donna looked through a haze of her own blood at the question, ready on his lips before she even began to lose her footing.

  “Not here! Not now!” Donna screamed out, lending her voice to the cry of the wind, but neither could silence the ringing of the clashing blades.

  Donna coughed on a mouthful of sand as she realized that the sounds of clashing steel weren’t coming from her past or from her fears. She could hear it here and now, over the sound of the wind. Donna shifted her weight onto her side and then slowly rose to one knee, shedding sand in piles.

  The wind was dying. The storm was over.

  And someone out there was fighting for his life. Donna lowered her head and got her feet under her. She moved toward the sounds in careful steps, trying to feel the spray of sand to judge when it would be safe to unbind her eyes.

  She’d lost her staff to the storm. The group was only carrying the weapons they’d been able to grab on the way out of the city. Donna hadn’t bothered with a sword. There weren’t enough to go around and she figured the staff was less likely to slow her down.

  Now all she had left was a knife. She drew it out as the wind faded to a breeze and slashed the blindfold.

  Nobody close. The fighting was half a mile away. The desert could do strange things with sound. Donna started walking. She resisted the urge to run. The dust was clearing and the sun hung above her at its full strength. And for all the surprising endurance that Donna possessed for someone her size, she’d be in no condition to fight if she tried to rush into battle across shifting sands and under the sun’s full heat.