CONTAGION

by Amanda Milo

  We jet straight across the surface of the brook.

  WHAT THE HELLS!

  I look behind me in disbelief at my tail—which, obviously I’ve always had, but up until this point it’s never proved to have a true purpose. It’s really nothing more than an auxiliary limb for gesticulation.

  Immediately, I begin to experiment. A hard thwap under the water produces a shocking ‘S’-sway that propels us forward. I find that with little concentration, almost by instinct, each curve my tail makes helps force us along the surface of the water until we reach the bacteria-blooming bank. Great clouds of it fill the water as I slog through the sticking muck at the water’s edge.

  There is one measly bonus to the entire ordeal: I no longer feel the cursed chewing gum stuck to my foot.

  Land has never looked so sweet.

  But this planet’s gravity seems to triple as I haul us from the water and carefully deposit Aurora on the crushed grass where I’d been standing moments before.

  Her skirt knots are still in place, keeping the apples she risked her life for safe.

  “Foolish!” I shout, patting her cheek. “You should have saved yourself! You’re more important than apples!”

  She’s cold and clammy. And not breathing.

  Aurora’s not breathing.

  ‘I can’t swim, so if I drown, pull me out and you have my permission to perform CPR… It’s where you pinch my nose shut and put your mouth on my mouth and force your air into my lungs to make me start breathing again.’

  I slam my mouth over hers.

  My first shove of my lungs’ air into hers shows no reaction.

  Pinch her nose shut!

  I squeeze her nares together, and I wince. “I can tell you exactly how uncomfortable this feels,” I slur my words together in my panic. “If you revive, I’ll let you pinch me again instead—I’ll even try not to complain.” I crush my mouth over hers, desperate.

  Her primary need is air, and I’m trying and trying to give her my breath, but I’m unsure if it’s having any positive effect at all. I have only a moment to wonder if I’m pressing down on her lips too hard, if I’m filling her lungs with too much oxygen, not enough, too fast, too slow, and if—asks the scientist in me—there is perhaps a way to massage her cardiac muscle into pumping from the outside as I work her lungs in order to keep her brain from dying? Time is running out! Crazed thoughts are looping in rapid fire, panicked swirls with no relief—until she coughs.

  Most unexpectedly, she coughs all this lung-clogging water she’s holding… right into my mouth.

  That’s not all that happens.

  She vomits. In. My. Mouth.

  “GALGGGAAH!” I shout, lunging back from her, jaws agape, her vomit-water and my saliva trailing down my chin as I reject the option for it to enter my throat. DISGUSTING!

  “People are disgusting!” I curse furiously, faintly tasting apple and gagging at the idea that whatever Aurora has in her system is now in mine. What if humans carry something dangerous to a Genneӝt? Yes, Erreck and Skynan exchanged salivas willingly and frequently from what I was forced to witness in the confines of our workspace—but may I point out that their exchange was mutually voluntary? I suppose, for crimping Aurora's nares together as I did, that she was due some recompense, but to expel inside me is too extreme—UGH!

  “Simmi,” she coughs. “I’m sorry.”

  “Grrrrrmmmgrrr,” is what I mumble back. It’s not a word in my language so my translator doesn’t translate. It’s simply a noncommittal sound of extreme dissatisfaction.

  Aurora shakily forces herself upright, and her knots come undone. Apples slide out of her skirt, rolling this way and that.

  Still coughing, her beautiful hair now limp and straggled around her head, and wearing a leaf in the back from where she was pressed to the grass as I CPR’d her right before she overshared her stomach contents, Aurora crawls to me.

  I stiffen when she throws one of her cold hands on my arm.

  Seeming distressed at my reaction, she sighs, the sound shaking out of her. “Thank you for saving me, Simmi.”

  I peel the leaf from her hair and toss it aside. “Grrrrrwelkem.” It’s the best I can manage. Too bad for my translator that it’s still mostly untranslatable. I sniff mightily, in the grip of a splenetic fit.

  Aurora winces, but also smiles. It’s strained, and shaky, and I instantly feel guilt.

  Something between a huff and a growl exits my throat. “Please allow me several of whatever your planet’s longer-incremented moments are. I find I’m somewhat mollified by your apology—helped along due to your reaction being involuntary—but even knowing this, I’m afraid I’m not yet up to feeling able to manage civil conversation.”

  Aurora exhales a light breath, and her smile becomes a little wider and appears more natural. “Only you could warn me so politely to back off.”

  I sniff and deign to give her a nod.

  After a moment in which Aurora gives me the silence I requested and she looks extremely pitiful and shaken while she does it, I’m unable to help myself any longer. My hand darts out and my claws move into her dampened strands of hairs.

  Aurora goes still.

  Since she doesn't object, I work on combing through the wet mess she’s become. I’m relieved and intrigued that the quiet task is so soothing—to both of us, it turns out, because Aurora’s stopped shivering and is leaning into my hands.

  Her voice is a whisper when she offers, “I’m surprised you’re touching me.”

  I pull back to meet her eyes. “You’ve flicked me, dragged me through choking swarms and clouds of insects, guided me by the hand when I wanted to wallow and shriek at the sky—we’ve done nothing but touch.”

  “I’ve touched you. This is you voluntarily touching me. I guess it feels different,” she offers. She relaxes then, wearing a small, grateful lip-curve. “Can I talk to you now?”

  I take a moment for self-evaluation, and decide that I’m in a better self-space to listen. I give her a nod.

  “Okay, I know that was really gross and I can just imagine how upset you are, but I want you to know, I really am so, so sorry. It was a reflex—I didn’t mean to.” Her eyes implore me to hear her. “And seriously, thank you. There was no way for me to save myself. Without you giving me air, I’d be dead.” She leans her weight on my arm and latches onto me with her other hand too, this one as cold as the first one was before she warmed it on my chitin. “You’re a hero.” Without warning, she lunges at me with her face and squishes her lips against my jaw.

  I flinch back, and because she’s got her weight half on me, this throws us both off balance and I land on the grass, with her collapsing on top of me.

  There’s an apple compressing under my back, but I don’t care to shift even to accomplish the task of moving off of it, and this is odd. It’s probably leaking acidic fruit juice on me, which is generally sticky, and I dislike all manner of sticky things.

  I stare up at the sky until Aurora’s head pops into my view, her hair glistening, backlit by golden rays of sunlight. “Sorry again.” Her eyes are wincing and her upper lip skin is held tight as she sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. “I just wanted to thank you.”

  “You did that,” I point out.

  “Sometimes thank-yous come with kisses,” she explains.

  “I didn’t know that.” I relax more under her, wondering why I haven’t peeled her off.

  Carefully, she props herself up by planting her elbows on my thorax, two thunks accompanying the movement as her ill-padded bones land on my carapace. “Are we okay?”

  I take stock of myself. “I’m no longer nauseous.”

  “That’s good,” Aurora says, eyes on my throat. It strangely makes her look demure—a thing she is absolutely not. One of her hands moves over my sternum, and pats it. “Okay, well, I really do appreciate you, and I’m going to get off of you now.”

  Why I don’t shout ‘PLEASE DO,’ I’m not able to explain.

  In f
act… I could lie here, with Aurora atop me, just like this.

  It’s… peaceful.

  I observed Skynan atop Erreck like this after the pair chased each other around the lab like lusty subjects dosed with libido enhancers—but a peaceful, comfortable state is not how I’d classify their interactions.

  I’m therefore at a loss as to what I’m experiencing under Aurora.

  With a smile that slingshots into my cardiac muscle, she unfolds her arms, plants her hands on either side of my sternum, and sits up.

  The position is strangely sexual. This is how my people arrange themselves when they intend to couple.

  I begin reciting formulas to quell the strangest reaction happening behind my groin plating—but Aurora helps me out with unconscious accuracy.

  She drops her knee on me.

  Right on my swelling groin.

  “OFF!” I shout, catching her and lifting her right into the air, holding her well, well above my aroused—now in pain, now very confused, concealed organ.

  Aurora’s lips part, her jaw dropping and her eyes getting round. “Did I just…” Her mouth opens and closes. “Oh, Simmi! I’m SO sorry—”

  “GRRRRRR,” is the best I can manage as I twist and set her down on the grass, fist my hands, and suck in air, trying to rid myself of the not pleasant, red-hot sensation behind my plating.

  “Don’t move!” Aurora suddenly shouts.

  Incapable even if I desired to, I can only bare my teeth in acknowledgement of her wisdom.

  Aurora pauses. After two long moments after which I feel less nauseous, and Aurora watches my face as if it will tell her something profound, her hand hitches slightly but she reaches for my leg. “You have a leech.”

  “Excuse me?” I grit out.

  “A leech, it’s—” She’s probably still speaking, but my ear depressions seem to have caved in.

  All of my focus is taken by the gelatinous, sludgey-grey maggot that stretches as Aurora tries to peel it from my chitin.

  “GAAAAAAH GET IT OFF ME!” I holler, leaping to my feet.

  It rips away from my plating, and I howl—watching a string of vile, viscous slime stretch from its underbelly—and slap my leg.

  Aurora tosses the maggot off to the side and I scuddle back a few paces in the opposite direction, wondering why in the hells she didn’t smash it with a rock or fling it into the chilly, life-stealing waters to make it drown, or stomp it into the tetanus-filled dirt at our feet at the very least.

  Although, what we really need is fire. If only we had access to the right chemicals, I could mix compounds and create a fair-sized, pinpointed explosion—

  “Simmi!” Aurora shouts, and I realize this is not the first time she’s called my name in the last few moments. She’s on her knees at my feet, examining the site of my attack. When my wild eyes meet hers, she smiles, and sighs. “It’s okay.”

  “This is NOT okay.” I point to my leg. “NOT okay, Aurora.”

  She gives me a patient look. “The leech didn’t even bite you.”

  My voice notches up to an unnatural frequency. “THEY BITE?”

  The loudly delivered words echo around the clearing. Aurora grimaces. “They tend to stick in swamps, but maybe you picked it up from the riverbank.”

  My eyes shoot to the mud-filled, foot-sucking, oozing bank—and I’m suddenly certain that leg-biting maggots lurk in it. Of course they do. I was reluctant for either of us to step in the bacterial blooms and Creator, the maggots probably belch up those clouds of filth and one was on my leg! I’m lucky to be alive...!!!!

  *Cue loud, loud mental shrieking.*

  “—either way, it probably hasn’t been on you long. We’ll watch out for them and be careful, all right?”

  I stare down at her, trying to swallow past the saliva building up in my mouth. I will not expel my apple. I will not—it’s the only food I’ve had (save for what Aurora attempted to feed me mouth-to-mouth) and there’s no way in hells I’m crossing that river to obtain more now that I know it’s teeming with biting slugs. What is wrong with this planet?!!!

  “Simmi.” Aurora tugs on my wrist. “You need to get a grip.”

  “Of what?” I gesture around us wildly. “And correct me if I’m mistaken, but it appears as if nature has the upper hand, as it’s had its grip all over me!”

  Aurora’s features have become pinched. “I’m going to ask you to stop shouting in my face.”

  Immediately, I back away from her. “My apologies. It’s not—it’s not my intent to shout at you. I’m distinctly aware that this is all the fault of our circumstances—not you.” Still, I’m panicked. I whirl around, seeing the alien landscape as far more sinister than it started—and before, I was considering pathogens and microorganisms. Now I’m worrying about those and whatever other creatures are lurking, just waiting to leap on me—

  Aurora spins me around and stops me from dwelling on animal attacks, germs—even communicable germs. She stops me from thinking of anything else but her for a very long time by doing one simple thing.

  She kisses me.

  CHAPTER 10

  I’m still quiet, following docilely behind Aurora, when we near the rocky outcropping we saw from far, far away, because we’re in the middle of rutting nowhere, where even the trees have ended and there’s nothing else for whatever measurements this Creator-forsaken wilderness uses to calculate distance. It’s hot, and although the sun is almost gone, I still feel it warming my exoskeleton. Thankfully for Aurora, it’s also dried her off and kept her from sickening. Of course, walking for forever surely helped too.

  And it feels like forever. Forever, and forever, and forever, with not even a tree to mark our progress now. We may as well be on one of those slow-moving conveyors, ones that travolate persons from one side of a room to the other, except we’re walking on it backwards and getting nowhere.

  Perhaps the natives use the length of a fallen body to assess distance here, as in it’s two-hundred bodies deep out of the forest—provided that the local wildlife leaves anything of their carcasses.

  “Simmi, are you still with me?” Aurora asks, a teasing note in her voice.

  “Please don’t make me state that I’m really here and not safely stretched out on my freshly sanitized foam pad in my dorm, simply having an uncomfortable dream cycle,” I tell her. “I’m not ready to admit the truth of my circumstances out loud yet.”

  She sighs.

  After a moment, she asks, “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m so hungry,” I complain. “I could eat a leg-biting terrestrial mollusk,” I claim dramatically.

  “Really?”

  “Not if I were starving to death,” I admit. “I was exaggerating. However, I have a very expensive batch of ğurk at home that, depending on how long it’s been since my capture, we should really eat before it spoils.”

  “Sounds delicious.”

  “It is!” I confirm. “If only we weren’t stranded here.”

  We both sigh.

  We’ve consumed every one of the apples from Aurora’s skirt, even though initially, I balked because they had rolled on the ground. But even for me—as dearly as I desired to avoid germs and pathogens—hunger eventually trumped caution.

  Also, Aurora’s idea of cajoling has suddenly begun to involve her lips tapped to mine.

  Aurora’s idea of cajoling is abstrusely effective.

  After a moment of reflection and a few more of the ever-ongoing, drudging steps towards wherever Aurora is leading us, I share, “If we’re lost out here for much longer, and our situation becomes the direst of circumstances, you have my permission to eat me after I perish.”

  “Shut up, Simmi,” Aurora says on a laugh.

  “But only after I perish,” I stress.

  “Simmi!” She’s cackling into her hand.

  I incline my head politely. “And you are clean enough that—in theory—I suppose I might be inclined to dine on you. Although I assure you I would not.”

  Aurora stops
walking to nictate up at me. “I’m so clean, you’d eat me? You? That’s the most interesting compliment I’ve ever received.” The humor lacing her words adds a depth to our conversation; I just don’t grasp what’s humorous about what I’ve said.

  “Well,” I prompt her when she doesn’t say anything more. “Now that you have my permission, would you eat me?”

  She looks at me sharply.

  “If I were perished,” I rush to clarify—and she huffs a tiny laugh. “And please remember we’re speaking purely theoretically.”

  “Would I eat you purely theoretically,” she mouths, before she makes a “Hnh!” noise that sounds like a close relative to the beginning of another chuckle.

  She gazes up at me thoughtfully for a long moment.

  I shift my weight, growing oddly tense—but not unpleasantly so. For some reason, our prolonged eye contact makes sensation slam down my spine, especially when a slow smile makes its way across her mouth and she finally says, “Maybe I would.”

  “Oh, that’s good to know,” I return with a nod. “Although I have every sincere hope that we’re not lost out here long enough to test if you like how I taste.”

  Her answer is a noncommittal hum.

  When we pass a rather large, thickly-leafed bush, Aurora stops.

  So do I. “What is it?”

  “It’s gonna be our bathroom in a second,” is her reply.

  “Bathroom?” I ask in confusion. I look around for a washing station.

  Seeing my confusion, Aurora clarifies. “I’m going to piss behind it.”

  I stare at her in horror. “We’re to eliminate… here?”

  Aurora opens her arms wide before dropping them to her sides with soft slaps. “Do you see any other options?”

  I turn away to give her privacy. “Oh my Creator. I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  Aurora snorts.

  After a few beats of me staring off into the endless distance of uncultivated land with no civilized accoutrements in sight, Aurora rejoins me.

  “Your turn,” she says rather brightly, considering our circumstances.