by Lucia Ashta
Tanus looked away from me now. When he spoke, his voice carried a sorrow I thought I might be able to understand better than he did. After all, I was the one that hailed from a world with regular terrorist bombings. I was the one that understood that a nuclear strike could end everything in a majestic mushroom cloud no one would be around to appreciate for long.
“These are the ways of Planet Sand?” he asked, mirroring my softness, as if mourning the potential loss of life on such a grand scale.
“They are.”
“Then it’s very good that you’re back.”
I was starting to agree. “Why then do you not use these kinds of weapons here when it seems obvious that the technology is within reach?”
“Because it’s not the right thing to do. Because there’s no honor in it. Because you shouldn’t be able to take the life of another without facing him. Or her. Because if you’re going to take something so important, then you should have to look the person in the face while you’re doing it.”
“And even the, uh, bad guys have honor?” Being on a foreign planet wasn’t doing much for my sense of eloquence. I didn’t know what words he’d understand and which were unique to Earth.
“There are some things that cross all boundaries. Life is a gift. To take that gift, you have to be worthy at least of honor.”
“And is this the same with animals? When people kill animals, they don’t use long distance weapons either?”
“Why would we kill animals? They offer us no harm.”
“People here don’t eat animals?”
“Eat them? Fuck no. Why would we eat them? Killing animals would be murder. Just as I suspect the Dark Warriors meant to murder these innocents. People on Planet Sand eat animals?”
“Yes. Lots of them.”
“Do you?”
“No. I never have.” Finally, perhaps, my insistence on being a vegetarian amid a family of meat-eaters began to make sense.
“And people? Do the people on Sand eat other people too?”
“What? No! Of course they don’t.”
“Well, it seems little different than killing animals to eat them.”
I rode on for a while before deciding I agreed with him. We fell into a comfortable silent companionship before he spoke again. A hand squeezed my thigh, exposed beneath my skirt, surely not meant for horseback riding, covered only by a thin layer of mutability. His hand felt strong and masculine across my skin.
“I hope you realize how thankful I am to have you back.”
I looked at him, but offered no reply.
“We haven’t really had the chance to be alone yet, for me to show you how happy I am. But I missed you more than I thought possible.”
I felt into the heat that transferred from his hand to my thigh. I allowed that heat an unfettered path farther upward.
“I’d like to spend time alone with you. To remember what it’s like to be with you.”
From the look he gave me, it was clear he remembered what it was like to share our bodies—explicitly. Heat smoldered between us. I imagined what it might be like; he remembered. With his free hand, he adjusted himself through his pants. Then he trained his gaze forward intently, with the resolve of a soldier. I knew time alone with me just climbed even farther up his priority list. But we were still in danger on the open path, and now we had women and children with us.
I tried to cool down, not used to having to temper myself, spoiled by my sensuality and men’s response to it that allowed me mostly to indulge in pleasure whenever I wanted. When the back and forth of the saddle against my loins didn’t do me any favors, I leaned back in the saddle and tried to think of anything other than this man next to me and the burning attraction I was feeling toward him.
“Where are we headed?” I asked, trying the distraction technique.
“To these people’s village. It’s not far from here.”
“Is it on the way to the splicing lab, or wherever we were going?”
“It is. But I’m not sure we’re going to the lab anymore. Especially since it wasn’t immediately necessary, anyway. Just a step toward accomplishing… something. I don’t do nothing well.”
“Neither do I.”
“I remember. I remember so much about you.” He gave me a smile that made it harder to ignore the warmth beneath the sliver of my skirt.
I tried to focus. “What changed your mind? About going to the lab?”
“Hmmmrph,” he grumbled, not wanting to answer. Which, of course, made me want to know all the more.
“Tanus, why? Who’s this Aletox guy?”
He snorted. “I’m not exactly sure anymore, other than to say that he’s a fucker.”
“O. Kay. But who is he?” Did I have to drag out every little morsel of information he could part with? Couldn’t he just talk openly, for fuck’s sake?
“I’m not sure anymore.”
“What’s he done then that’s so bad? He’s behind taking these people?”
“I’m not sure what he’s done anymore either. But he could easily be the force behind these people’s torment. If so, that’ll only be the leaves of the turnip.”
So there were turnips on Planet Origins. Leaves of the turnip that stuck out of the ground as they grew. Like the tip of an iceberg. The similarities were astounding.
“Aletox’s a determined, fierce man,” Tanus continued. “As you know, he’s always with my father. My father’s most dedicated attendant. My father’s only confidante.”
“No, I didn’t know Aletox was your father’s sidekick. Tanus, I don’t remember anything. Please keep that in mind and inform me. I understand so little of what has happened, and continues to happen.”
“Well, here’s something to blow your mind. When you were gone, I was taken prisoner in the Palace. They—”
“Why?”
“Because they accused me of being responsible for your father’s near-assassination.”
Right. My father. The king of a planet. “And were you?”
He jerked his head up toward me so fast, I feared he might get whiplash. “Of course not,” he said. “Your failed memory’s no excuse for saying shit like that.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” By hadn’t I? I didn’t truly know what kind of man Tanus was. Or anyone with us for that matter. Or even what kind of person I was supposed to be, princess of a whole planet. Did I have a huge ego, a swelled head? An attitude (greater than the one I usually had on Earth)? Or was I benevolent and kind, generous and caring with my people? Or something else I couldn’t think of, because I was on a different planet, where I couldn’t even conceive of the extent of differences between Origins and Earth.
“Go on. I’m sorry. Really. Please continue,” I said after it became clear he was angry and had no intention of saying anything more right then. “You were taken prisoner at the palace,” I prompted.
“Yeah. Well. When I was there, Aletox broke in to rescue me.” Resentment tumbled along with each of his terse words. “It didn’t make sense then, but he did. When I was trying to escape, he broke the great, dandy news.”
“Oh? What news was that?” I trod carefully then.
“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but Aletox told me he was my father.”
“Instead of the man who runs the splicing facility?”
“Correct. Now enough talking. I need to figure out what we’re going to do after we drop these people off.”
The topic was closed for further discussion. It wasn’t time to push it, even if I wanted to, and I didn’t know if I did. It sounded like Tanus was trying to figure out some heavy shit.
So I did as he told me and kept quiet. I ran my hand along the mare’s neck and turned my face to the Suxle Sun, high in the yellow sky of another world that was starting to act as if it were mine.
TWENTY-ONE
APPARENTLY DISTANCES WERE MEASURED DIFFERENTLY on O than they are on Earth. Tanus said the women and children’s village wasn’t far away, ye
t we’d been traveling all day already, and we still hadn’t arrived. I’d stopped asking how much farther we had to go once it became obvious that my repeated question irritated Tanus. I finally figured, what did it matter, anyway? Whether we were here or there, I was still on an alien planet. Our arrival at the people’s village was unlikely to change that one crucial fact.
So I continued on in silence, settling as contentedly as I could into the rocking motions of my mare. I was the only to ride continually. Even Lila regularly dismounted and offered her mount to tired women and children, even though no one asked her to. I wanted to do the same, feeling selfish to be the only one not to share. But Tanus had been firm. I was to act like royalty in front of these people—for reasons I didn’t fully understand, this was important—even if I didn’t know how royalty was supposed to act. My experiences with the behaviors of royalty hailed from TV shows and tabloid magazines on Earth. I doubted these were sufficiently factual to allow me to play the role of princess convincingly, but it’s all I had to go on. For now it would have to be enough, because Tanus wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
With a literal world of unknowns spanning ahead of me, I allowed Tanus the space he needed to delve into his thoughts. It was clear whatever he was trying to figure out required all his concentration. Whoever this Aletox was, Tanus didn’t welcome the revelation that he was his father. Tanus appeared to be about my age, and I was twenty-six. Twenty-six years was a long time to believe the wrong man your father.
I could empathize. On Earth, my father was kind and approachable Douglas Walters, a man everyone who knew felt comfortable calling Doug and greeting with a pat on the back. Here, my father was supposedly a king, one I imagined far less approachable than the man I’d always considered my father. But I had a maroon-metal coin smoldering in my pocket, haunting me with physical proof of the doubtful origins of my own patrimony.
I could understand what Tanus was going through, at least somewhat. Not knowing with certainty who your father is unsettles every understanding you have of yourself. Perhaps it shouldn’t, but it does. If we don’t know where we come from, how can we know who we are, or where we’re going? I imagined that for a man like Tanus, a soldier who took life based on allegiances, understanding who he was and what he stood for would be even more important than for me.
“We’ll be there shortly,” Tanus said to me over his shoulder, his voice still sounding far away. It wasn’t an invitation to converse.
And so I continued on in my own thoughts, hoping that upon Planet Origins “shortly” meant the same thing it did on Earth. My thoughts were tiresome. There were only so many times I could consider how in hell I ended up here without having any idea of the answer. Sure, they’d told me I transported. But I didn’t even comprehend what exactly that meant or what the process entailed. All I knew was it was something people on Earth didn’t do. Earthlings didn’t accidentally transport across galaxies. They didn’t discover, by chance, that they were royalty. And they certainly didn’t do all of this only to find out that they were expected to be the salvation of a royal dynasty and a way of civilization of an alien planet.
Fuck. There’s nothing like landing on the wrong side of the galaxy to make you feel lost and out of sorts.
I had to put a stop to these kinds of ruminations. They got me nowhere but hot and bothered, and not in the good way.
What if I thought of this as some kind of adventure, one that I might somehow wake up from? Alice went down the rabbit hole, and encountered things as bizarre as what I had, and she eventually woke up. Maybe I’d wake up too. Maybe what I should be doing, instead of trying to figure out the unresolvable, was enjoy the moment and all the mystery it contained.
That’s better. I could do with an adventure to an undiscovered foreign land. I was always up for adventure, no matter how remote or dangerous. That’s what landed me on that torrential mountaintop in the electrical storm to begin with. Men from Earth had supposedly stepped foot—or space boot—on the Moon. Now I was on another planet, and I didn’t even need a spacesuit. Take that NASA.
I was a pioneer. A female Lewis or Clarke without the cold and without the desolate terrain. And with a much better view.
Even brooding over who-knew-what, Tanus was a handsome sight. Lost in thought, he’d moved several feet in front of the mare, leading her absently by the reins. He was fine in mutable tights that displayed muscular legs, and tunic and jacket belted, with part of his arsenal hanging heavy at the waist. His shoulders were wide and strong, his build athletic and able. I was sure his ass must be fine as well, even though I couldn’t make out much of it beneath the tunic that ended right below it. His hands were strong as well, and I lost myself for a minute imagining what he could do to my body with them. I had enough experience with strong, athletic men to give credence to my imagining. And I hadn’t had the same kind of connection with any of them as was already apparent between Tanus and me.
This was way more fun to think of then to try to figure out how I’d ended up here. I’d pass the time nicely like this.
Tanus turned to look at me. His movement was sudden and unexpected. Instantly, I felt caught in the act. Even though I realized there was nothing for me to be embarrassed about—after all, according to him, we were lovers—I blushed, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever done before. I wasn’t the blushing type. I was the grab-life-by-the-horns kind of girl.
But Tanus pinned me in his gaze, looking at me over his shoulder, while he continued to lead my horse, and the train of us, forward. If it were possible for a man’s eyes to set me ablaze, his did. He knew what I’d been thinking. Somehow, he sensed that I’d been undressing him in my mind, wishing to know what it felt like to have him inside me. He already knew what it was like when we made love. It only seemed fair that I should know as well.
Though it seemed impossible that it should do so, his gaze heated more. Without meaning to, I licked my lips, for it was apparent that we’d share sex unlike any I’d had before. Perhaps it was because he’d called it lovemaking, and making love was far different than making the beast with two backs or whatever Shakespeare had called it. Or so I imagined it was. Before the smoldering heat of his gaze and the intimacy it implied, I felt like a tentative virgin, the one thing I hadn’t felt like in a very long time.
His lips curled up at the ends, and his demeanor shifted to incorporate something greater, the one thing I was wholly unfamiliar with. Within the heat of promised passion, he smiled at the idea of the love he shared for me.
In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to love this man the way he loved me, the way he believed I already loved him. If I’d thought about it then, I would have likely laughed at the thought that I’d had to travel across galaxies to find love, the one thing my parents on Earth had fretted over, worried I might never find it. However far I’d had to come to find love, I expected it would be worth every light year. I could tell all of that just by looking into Tanus’ sparkling green eyes; they promised me heaven.
“Soon, my love, as soon as I can make it happen,” Tanus promised, not caring who overheard him, even though it was likely that no one did. He’d purposefully allowed space between my mare and Lila’s and everyone else behind her.
Then he turned his gaze forward, his shoulders took on a determined posture, and he picked up the pace. “Just the very second I can secure some time alone with you,” he said, more to himself than to me. If he wasn’t already before, now he was a man determined.
He marched forward with purpose, and I was the prize he sought to win.
TWENTY-TWO
I SPOTTED the people’s village just as the sun, the Suxle Sun, the ochre one, neared the horizon of this alien land, with its purples in the place of greens. I’d always been a lover of the dawn and the dusk, often adjusting my schedule so I could enjoy the beauty that illuminated the sky for those precious moments, when color seemed to be the tool of the gods to convey hints of the eternal. The sunset that burst to life in the sk
y around us was no exception. For the first time since Tanus yanked me out of my world and into his, I thought there might be reason to stay a while. I could enjoy twice as many dawns and dusks as I had on Earth. Perhaps for normal people this wouldn’t have been reason to embrace an alien world, but for me it was a big one. For I wished to be reminded of all within life that was breathtaking, multiple times a day, the more often the better.
I embraced the gift the sky offered us, inhaling its beauty as if it were the breath of air I needed to fuel my lungs. The colors were magnificent, all the more so because colors uncommon to Earth glowed in the sky like flames. A brilliant turquoise burst in haphazard splatters throughout an entirely cloudless sky. Greens juxtaposed purples, like the Aurora Borealis, and I momentarily forgot who and where I was. What I was meant to do. Could this sky and all its brilliance possibly be real? Was I real? Did it matter whether I was or wasn’t?
Maybe that’s how I’d inexplicably arrived on a different planet from the one I considered home. If I were a figment of the imagination, contained only within a thought, couldn’t I disappear and reappear at will? Or without my will? Perhaps Tanus had conjured me from thin air because he wanted me with him.
Of course, these questions didn’t take into account the fact that, according to Tanus and Dolpheus, I’d existed and loved Tanus before I magically appeared here. And as far as I knew, I’d been on Earth for twenty-six years, most of which overlapped with the time I was supposedly also on Planet Origins.
But the finer points were unimportant before such vibrant grandiosity. And I cared not about any detail in between the feeling in my heart and the colors that washed across the sky, proclaiming that something greater than us existed, as clear as if it had been scrawled in godly penmanship across the expanse. Something I’d never believed in before beckoned me now.