by Marie Dry
When she emerged from the shower, she found their food, but no Zaar. She sat down and opened her dish. Zaar was called away many times, so she assumed he’d be here as soon as he could. Ruling practically the whole universe kept him busy. She didn’t envy him that job.
Sarah took one of the fried balls and popped it into her mouth. The delicious flavor exploded on her tongue. Savoring the delicious bite, she closed her eyes.
“Every time you eat armia-zare azuatzo, I want to spend many hours in the sleeping place with you.”
“Eek,” Sarah shrieked and jumped upright, almost oversetting the table. “Didn’t we agree you’d knock?” She clutched her racing heart. It was a good thing she’d already swallowed the food or she’d have choked.
Sarah stared at Zaar. His gaze burned with the same heat as they did last night; her neck and cheeks burned. Was the heat because he remembered what they did last night?
“I have a gift for you.”
She smiled at him, a soft, sentimental smile for this alien who kept surprising her with his thoughtfulness. “You know, you don’t have to keep giving me gifts.”
He merely stared at her.
“What is it?” she asked when it looked as if he’d stand there staring at her the whole day.
“It will help you conquer your fear. After you see your gift, you will be able to go through with the first knowing.” There was a distinct air of satisfaction about him.
Sarah sat back down and fiddled with her fork. All the fine hairs on her body stood upright. By necessity, she’d developed a strong survival instinct and now every primitive instinct inside her warned her of danger. This was not going to be: “Oh gosh you got me chocolates.”
He sat down and attacked his meat. “I will take you to your surprise after we’re finished first meal.”
Sarah didn’t like the sound of that. She was desperate to get out, to see anything else but this room day in and day out. And yet that internal danger sense she’d developed screamed at her not to go with him.
They ate in silence. Sarah always enjoyed her food, but worry made a knot in her stomach.
He came around the table and took her arm and led her to the door. Sarah’s heart tried to bounce out of her chest. It had been almost two months since she’d been anywhere but the opulent room that used to belong to his first wife and Zaar’s room. She dragged her feet, but it didn’t slow him down. Leaving their room, he marched her through endless silver corridors. “Please tell me where you are taking me.”
“You will see.” They went down several steps until they descended into narrow, dark corridors that had to be deep underground. Sweat broke out on her brow, in her armpits. When they’d arrived, they’d walked through endless silver corridors, as well. But they’d remained level. They were definitely descending now.
“I demand to know where you’re taking me.” Was he going to sell her? Set her aside, imprison her. Her stepmother had drugged her that horrific day, but he didn’t need to drug her to get rid of her. What if he was fed up with her not being able to do the first knowing? He might have said he didn’t mind, but she couldn’t get herself to believe he meant it.
“We are going deep underground. I will show you your gift and you will not feel fear the first knowing anymore,” he said with an arrogance that only a Zyrgin warrior could manage.
“I wish it was that easy. I’ve told you there’s no quick solution. And you should know that I don’t do so well in basements.” Not after the reverend. She cut off that thought and took a deep breath. Maybe she could outrun him. She almost laughed at that thought. He didn’t even have to run to catch her. Sweat ran down her back.
“I am with you—you will do well,” he said with such arrogance she wanted to kick him.
Sarah tried to tug back, to get him to turn back. “Maybe we can see my present tomorrow.” She had a really bad feeling about this. Nightmare visions of being taken to the reverend’s basement flashed through her mind. The edges of her vision turned fuzzy with fear.
“You do not trust me—I am your warrior.”
“Trust you?” She laughed, an ugly, hysterical sound that echoed spookily around the narrow corridors. “My own mother sold me. All right, stepmother, but she was the only mother I knew since birth.”
“I am giving you a surprise, not selling you.” He continued down the steps into the bowels of the Zyrgin headquarters, keeping a firm grip on her arms. They entered a silver box that took them deeper into the bowels of the mountain. Panic threatened to take hold of her. This space was too small, and Zaar’s big body made it feel even smaller. Normally she’d feel safe with him beside her; now she just had this awful feeling that she had to run. The doors of the box opened and he led her outside. “You will see your surprise now.”
They entered an enormous room and at first, she thought it was empty. Harsh light burned down from the ceiling. Sarah’s vision came and went and it was several agonising minutes before she calmed enough to realize what she looked at. Large glass cylinders, almost like the stasis thing, they put her in for the trip to Zyrgin, stood against the wall. Unlike the stasis pod she’d traveled in, these stood upright. They lined all four walls and instead of looking clinical, they appeared sinister to her frightened eyes. Was he going to put her into one of them?
Her legs shook so much it was a miracle she stayed upright. “What is this place?” Did he want to put her back in stasis until she’d conquer her fear? Could she outrun him? She bit her lip to stop a hysterical giggle. How would she outrun him? He moved so fast she couldn’t follow his movements and he could just poof to wherever he wanted to be. She didn’t stand a chance against him.
He walked her over to a cylinder on the left side of the wall facing them. Sarah stayed where she was and blinked to clear her vision. She glimpsed a movement inside the cylinder. Several seconds passed before her brain processed what her eyes saw.
She screamed.
Sarah tried to run, but he was back by her side before she saw him move and he held her in place. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t break his grip. She kept screaming—couldn’t make herself stop.
“Quiet, my breeder. They are trapped inside the prisoner pods—they cannot harm you.”
She stopped screaming and stared up at Zaar, the same alien who’d been so patient with her last night. Did she wake up in an alternate reality?
“That is Agent Parnell. The man responsible for the camps. The raiders were his servants.” He pointed to the emaciated man in the glass cylinder on the left.
Sarah shuddered and after one horrified look, she averted her gaze.
“That one was in the second camp they kept you captive. I had the worst offenders brought here.” Sarah recognised the raider, but barely. Again, after a fleeing glance, she looked away. It was just too horrible. They barely looked human anymore.
“Whenever you feel much emotion you cannot control, you may come here and torture the prisoners. You will feel better,” he said with a kind of jovial benevolence that made her palms itch.
Sarah stared at him—he might be alien looking, but she’d always found him attractive. Now he looked like a monster, the harsh light of the cylinders casting sinister lights and shadows on his features.
“I don’t want to even look at them. Please, I want to go,” she pleaded.
“No, you will face your abusers and your aversion to do the first knowing will go away.”
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look at the first cylinder. If it was the only way to get out of here, she’d rather get it over with. It was like a live horror show. Except this wasn’t make believe. A man, a human man, was trapped alive in that glass thing, his eyes pleading with her to help him. “He created the raiders?”
“Yes, he tortured women. He is the one who changed your friend Margaret so that she became an ugly female with eye-colored hair.”
She opened her mouth to tell him Margaret was not her friend, but she couldn’t. Logically she knew Ma
rgaret’s choices had been taken from her. Maybe in time she’d be able to think of her as her friend Margaret and not Marcie.
“What are you doing to them? How are they breathing in that fluid?” A clear fluid with a liquid, jelly substance filled the cylinders. It looked like something out of those old science fiction movies.
“The fluid keeps them alive and aware. We do not want them to die during torture.”
Sarah shuddered and wrapped her arms tight against her middle. She just wanted to get out of there. Away from the horror of seeing the only other humans on this planet tortured.
He continued, oblivious to her distress. “We keep them naked—humans feel vulnerable naked. Their cocks are all shrivelled up and even more ugly to look at now so I had my warriors cover them to spare you,” he said.
“How kind of you,” she sniped and stared down at her shoes.
“I knew you would appreciate my thinking of ways to spare you unpleasantness.”
How could he be that clueless? Sarah clenched her hands into fists and kept staring at her feet. Julia had told her that Parnell was ultimately responsible for the existence of the camps. But it was a distant knowledge. She shouldn’t feel pity for him, but she did. She glanced at the other cylinders and then back to her shoes. The two men in the cylinders on his right were the monsters in her nightmare, their skins an angry red, their bodies emaciated, their eyes wild and desperate. Still she recognised them from that year of hell.
“I had buttons installed to make it easier for you to torture them. If you want any of their limbs removed, I will do it for you. I know your soft human heart will not allow you to do it.”
He walked to the glass cylinders and opened his mouth in a silent sinister hiss, incisors lengthening in his mouth. The prisoners screamed, their eyes wild and panicked. “You press this button here and then you can observe their torture. It will make your memories of the camps better.”
A spark appeared in the cylinder of the man who’d made everyone call him ‘big boss’ in the worst camp she’d been held. He’d been a big, brutish man; now he was mostly skin and bones. Sarah whimpered. The spark entered his body and he jerked and screamed, his face contorted in horrific pain. The other two prisoners went crazy, screaming and gesturing with hands missing several fingers. Sarah turned away with a sob. It was so cruel. How could Zaar be so sweet to her and then do something like this? As she turned, she noticed that most of them were missing fingers and one a foot. She clamped her hand to her mouth, her stomach roiling.
Some small, mean part of her liked knowing they hurt, the way they’d hurt her and the other women in the camps. But that was a minuscule part. The horror of treating any human being like that overwhelmed her and she swayed on her feet. “I can’t do it,” she whispered, her throat dry.
Zaar turned her around again. “See how easy it is. Try it—there are buttons for each of them.”
Sarah put her hands over her eyes. “But I don’t want to. Please, let’s just go.” She’d convince him to stop this. But for now, she needed to be away from this room of horror.
He took her arm and pulled her toward the cylinders. “It will heal your fear,” he insisted. “You will face your enemy and be aware that you are now stronger than them. You may torture them as many times as you wish. It will stop your nightmares. With the buttons I installed, you do not need to be strong to torture them until they cry human tears.”
“No, please, I can’t,” she moaned. She’d wanted to be tough and unfeeling. Strong like the Zyrgins, but if it meant enjoying the misery of the men in those tubes, she’d rather be a miserable coward. She definitely didn’t want to torture anyone. Not even these monsters. “Please, I want to go now, please, Zaar.” The light from the cylinders showed what had been done to the prisoners with cruel clarity. She averted her face and tried to pull away from Zaar, but he wouldn’t let go of her.
He tilted up her face with a claw under her chin. “You do not like your surprise?”
“It’s horrible,” she whispered.
“We will go back now. Later when your soft breeder heart has gotten used to the idea, we will return and torture them together,” he said with such oblivious pleasure, she stared up at him, half expecting a punchline.
They walked back through endless silver corridors and if it wasn’t for Zaar, she’d have fallen. She kept stumbling and her eyes wouldn’t focus. When they reached their room at last, she ran for the bathroom.
She threw up until her stomach cramped and her throat and mouth felt raw. How could he do that? Make her watch? Expect her to torture those poor excuses for human beings? Only a monster could do something like that. She moaned and kept losing every bit of food she had in her stomach. He came to stand next to her.
Empty at last, shudders wracking her body, she lay down on the cool, silver floor. She’d wondered if she’d degenerate into as cruel a human being as the men who’d hurt her in the camps if she ever had the opportunity for revenge. At least now she knew she still had enough humanity in her to feel pity. Even for those who’d wronged her. She clutched her arms tighter around her aching stomach. How could he do something like that? She’d thought he was different, had thought Zyrgins were these honorable warriors who saved people like her. She should’ve remembered that they conquered every planet they could reach and they’d conquered violently.
“Why did you do that?” he asked. He stood with his arms folded across his chest.
“Do what?”
“Make your food come back out.”
“I didn’t make— Never mind. Did you really expect me to enjoy their—” She had to stop to hurl again. “Oh, go away and let me die in peace.” She lay down again and the silver floor was cool against her warm cheek.
Strong arms picked her up and held her against his warm body. She didn’t want to enjoy his warm heat, but she was so cold. “Zyrgin doctors are the best in all the known galaxies.” One moment she kneeled in the bathroom, the next he lay her down very carefully. He put his hand over her stomach.
“What are you doing?”
“The doctor will ensure you do not die. I am monitoring your stomach.”
“I don’t need a doctor. And I’m not dying.” His hand on her stomach was soothing though. The hands that tortured men. But the same hands that had handed her a teddy bear.
He tilted his head. “You said you are dying and you did a lot of making your food come out. It will not be allowed anymore.”
“Your gallantry is amazing, and how can you be this oblivious? I threw up, you moron, because what I saw in that basement was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” she snarled and knocked his hand off her stomach. Or tried to. Nothing moved him if he didn’t want to.
The bell rang and she didn’t hear Zaar give a command, but the door opened. The doctor walked in and stopped a good distance away. He and Zaar growled at each other and then the doctor produced his silver instrument.
He gave it to Zaar, who held it above her stomach. He handed the instrument back and the doctor left.
“Satisfied that I’m not dying?” she sniped.
“Yes.”
Now she felt about one inch tall. She sat up and crossed her arms over her knees. “I don’t understand how you can be so cruel. I thought you were nice.” The moment the words left her mouth, she realized how stupid she sounded. Of course he wasn’t nice. He ruled half the galaxy. You didn’t manage that by being nice.
14
They stared at each other as the silence stretched, Zaar standing over her with his arms crossed over his chest. Feeling vulnerable sitting on the pelts while he loomed over her, she clambered to her feet.
“Okay, I know you can’t rule the universe by being nice, but you brought me chocolates and told me bedtime stories. I just didn’t think you were capable of such cruelty. Fighting in a battle is one thing. But torturing a helpless man?”
He seemed to grow to twice his size. “Are you accusing me of not having omgraz’ra?”
Sarah resisted the urge to run to the corner and sit there quivering with her hands over her head. “No, I’m not, but I just can’t believe you could be that cruel. And expect me to be that way, as well.”
“Torturing the prisoners will not make you cruel, it will help you feel less afraid. I even had the buttons installed to ensure you do not have to touch them.”
Sarah stared up at him and for the first time she realized how different their cultures were. She’d known it, of course, but now the realization sunk deep. He’d never understand why she couldn’t torture the men who’d hurt her. “I know they’re evil men, and I don’t expect you to let them go free. But at least kill them fast and mercifully.”
“No. It is not the Zyrgin way.” He stiffened and turned to face the door. It opened and two Zyrgins came in and set the table.
He pointedly pulled back her chair and she walked forward slowly and sat down. The last thing she wanted to do was eat, but she wasn’t going to let a meal go to waste. Zaar ate his bloody meat, glancing at her, as if ensuring she eat. She should insist he stop the torture. But not now. So they ate in silence while he kept glancing at her.
“I won’t stop arguing with you about this. I know you do things differently here, but all the chocolates in the world won’t make me accept such cruelty.” Sarah took a bite of her favorite food in the universe, literally, and suppressed a moan lest she found the doctor standing over her in record time. “What is this made from?” She meant what she said—she’d fight him tooth and nail to give those men a mercy death. But right now she didn’t have the energy.
“Armia-zare Azuatzo are the eggs from spiders.” He waited, obviously expecting hysterics. He reminded her of a schoolboy showing around snakes and frogs to frighten the girls. How could he be this endearing and then torture those men with such viciousness?