by Ruby Dixon
Marisol clutches tightly at my back, as if bracing herself.
“A few years ago, I, too, woke up in a strange, cold place surrounded by strangers. I’d been taken from my bed while I slept and woke up to a new world. Nothing made sense. I was rescued by a very kind group who took me out of a pod very much like the ones you guys were in.” She gestures off to the distance.
“He’s fighting,” Liz bellows out. “Someone get over here and hold him down! We mean you no harm, damn it. Fuck off with the hitting!”
Several of the big blue aliens rush across the room and Harlow pauses. Willa’s eyes go wide and someone else begins to cry quietly.
Things quiet down a moment later and Harlow sighs. She rubs her rounded belly and I can’t help but glance over at Angie, who keeps staring down at her own like it’s betrayed her. I guess it has, in a sense. “I was kidnapped by aliens that the others call ‘Little Green Men.’ They’ve got big eyes and skinny bodies and they take human women and sell them on the black market in outer space as slaves or pets of some kind.”
“Is that what’s happening to us?” one girl asks, her tone part horror and part anger. “We’re your slaves now?”
“No,” Harlow says calmly. “Those aliens aren’t the ones that took you. The ones that did were a different kind of slaver, but the crew was…not the same. Those slavers landed here trying to gather a few more slaves and we killed them.”
Someone raises a hand. “I’m confused. So the bad guys are dead?”
“Yes. They’re dead and they’re not going to harm anyone. I promise.”
“Where is their spaceship if you guys stopped them?”
“You’re sitting in it.”
Are we? I squint at my surroundings, but all I can tell is that it’s dark and cold. Really, really cold. I shiver and huddle deeper into my blankets. If we’re on a spaceship…
“So you guys are going to, what, drive the spaceship and take us home, right?” another woman—Nadine, I think—asks. “Is that what this is about? You’re going to take us back to our homes?”
Harlow pauses. “Um, not exactly. That’s a big problem with this. You can’t go home. You are home.”
“Where are we exactly? Are we even on Earth?”
“You’re on a different planet. This one has two small suns and two moons and it’s a little chilly.” She smiles to take the sting out of her words. “But it’s a very nice place and the people here are wonderful, I promise.”
Someone begins to laugh hysterically. Samantha. “So, wait. We can’t go home? Now? Or ever?”
“Ever, I’m afraid.” Harlow’s voice is so gentle. “There’s no way back.”
“Bullshit,” Hannah says, clearly upset.
Samantha just laughs and laughs, as if this is the funniest thing she’s ever heard. Someone else starts to cry. Several people, actually. I’m numb. I don’t know what to think.
No…home? Ever again?
I think of my apartment back near the institute. Michelle won’t care that I’m missing until the rent is due or my pet cockatoo starts screaming for food. Luckily, Nugget is really noisy and Michelle likes him. My poor Nugget. My poor parents. Poor me. I feel a keen sense of grief for everything I’ve lost in a flash. I’ve done nothing to deserve this, but my world has somehow been ripped away from me in an instant. I don’t even have my glasses.
I’ve lost everything.
“This is bullshit!” Hannah cries out. “We’re sitting in a spaceship. Why can’t we just turn it around and drive it back to Earth?”
Harlow raises a hand, as if to calm her. “I know how you feel. I promise you, I felt the same when I first woke up and realized what happened. But this ship originally came here looking for more slaves. They followed the records of the old crew, who had landed here earlier, and murdered them. If this ship goes back to Earth, someone’s going to take the flight paths and trace them back to this world and make everyone that lives here unsafe. I’m sorry to say that there are dozens of families living here that would be endangered. You guys are outvoted.”
There’s a low ripple of unhappy murmurs amongst the group. I feel a stab of resentment, too, even though part of me understands it. The other part of me just wants to go home. Marisol shudders against my back. I reach backward and pat her as best I can. “So…what happens with the ship? What happens with us?” I ask. I can’t stay silent. I need to know.
“The ship,” Harlow says heavily, “will be destroyed so it can’t fly out again.” There’s another murmur of outraged voices. “I know. I know what you’re thinking. I’m not happy about it either, but if it means the difference between keeping the children safe, then that’s what’s going to happen.”
“This is crap,” Hannah says angrily. “We don’t get a say in—”
The big blue alien at Harlow’s side snarls, the sound low and menacing.
Hannah falls silent. We do, too.
“Rukh, baby,” Harlow murmurs. “It’s okay—”
“Is not okay,” the alien growls. “Our people risk their lives to save them. Many scared. Many away from kits. Many risk themselves. For what?” He stabs a finger in the air and points off to the side, where Liz and the others are still working on taming the fighting male. “So that one can bite and try to hurt more?” He glares at all of us with angry, glowing blue eyes. “We all at risk. All. This not just you. This us.”
There’s a long moment of silence. “Sorry,” Hannah mutters.
“This is all new for us,” says Willa. “It’s a lot to adjust to.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Harlow tells us. “Truly. This is new territory for everyone. And we knew it was going to be hard to understand. There were some of our people that wanted us to leave you in your sleep chambers because it was safer for all of us already here, but at the end of the day, we couldn’t. That wouldn’t be fair to you. So we woke you up, knowing that not all of you would be happy to join our tribe, and that not all of you are…” She clears her throat delicately. “Human.”
Somewhere in the background, there’s an animalistic roar of fury.
“What’s that?” Nadine asks.
“That would be ‘not human,’” Hannah says drily.
“So you’re not lying to us,” Samantha asks, moving forward. “There’s really no way home? And no one else is coming to get us?”
Harlow shakes her head. “One-way trip, I’m afraid.”
“And the men?” Samantha asks. “How many are human?”
“None?”
Samantha pauses and then starts laughing again. She falls backwards into the furs and keeps laughing, even when she wipes tears from her eyes.
Well, I guess we all deal with grief in different ways. I squint at Harlow. “I don’t suppose you guys have any spare eyeglasses around here? I can’t see a thing without mine.”
Another woman raises a hand. “I need my inhaler.”
A second hand goes up. “I’m allergic to bees. I need an epi-pen if you guys have bees here.”
Oddly enough, I wonder if they have birds here. I love birds. I’m trying to see the bright side of things, but it’s a little tricky. “Where is here?” I ask. “Where are we?”
“Like I said, it’s an ice planet. Two suns, two moons. Nothing else you’d recognize, I’m afraid. We’re all very primitive here, hence all the furs.” She smiles. “But it’s a good life once you get used to it, I promise.”
“There are no cities?” Willa asks.
“There’s a village. Just one.”
Jesus. I can’t imagine. This sounds worse and worse all the time.
“Doctors?” Angie asks, and her hand strokes over her belly thoughtfully.
I feel a quiver of remorse. Even without glasses, I’m still better off than Angie, who’s having a surprise baby. Oh god, I wonder if her baby’s even human? I shudder at the thought. Better not think about that.
“We have a healer, but she’s back with the tribe.” Harlow gives Angie a bright look. “But both
Liz and I have had children before, so if we don’t make it back in time before your baby is born, we know what to do.” She turns to look at me. “As for glasses, you won’t need them.”
Is she being funny? “Uh, no, I’m pretty sure I need them. I wouldn’t even be able to tell how many fingers you’re holding up right now.” The thought of being stranded on an ice planet without my glasses is kind of terrifying.
“Uh oh,” Willa whispers. “Don’t look now, but red buns at three o’clock.”
Someone titters and I look over. Sure enough, there’s a big bright red guy standing off next to several of the ladies. He’s, um, endlessly red. There’s not a stitch of clothing on him…and I’m kind of bummed that I can’t see what his junk looks like.
I’m only human, after all. If there’s a naked dude, I want to stare, too.
Maybe I squint a little. Marisol reaches up and covers my eyes, and Willa giggles. Okay, maybe I was making that obvious. My bad. “Like I said, I can’t see anything without my glasses,” I call out a little loudly. Just so they know I’m not a total perv.
Just a somewhat perv.
“I know. I promise, you won’t need them,” Harlow says again, her voice gentle. She gestures to the big blue guy at her side and he offers a blanket to the red guy. Red guy takes the blanket handed to him, sniffs, and then casts it on the ground.
Well, all righty then.
Up goes the hand again. “What about my inhaler?”
Harlow is nodding. “The khui will take care of everything. Inhaler, too. Even cancer. It’s all taken care of when you get a khui.”
It sounds too good to be true. “Coo-ee? What’s a coo-ee?” I ask. “Is that like…Lasik? Because I don’t qualify.” And I’m not really sure what it does for inhalers.
“Well,” Harlow says, and wrings her hands for the first time. “No, it’s not a surgical procedure. It’s a…well, it’s a parasite.”
2
LAUREN
“I can’t believe we’re lining up to get a tapeworm,” Hannah grumbles at my side.
“Believe it, sister,” Nadine tells her, hopping up and down to stay warm. “If it stops my ass from freezing off, I’ll take a dozen of them.”
I’m on board with Nadine at this point. I’m wearing three layers of leather and furs, my boots are double-lined, and I still feel like a frozen icicle as we stand in the snow, watching a hunt. Or rather, the others are watching a hunt. I’m watching a bunch of colorful blobs move around in a field of white.
We’re standing in the snow, our group of humans huddled a short distance away from the others. The hunters are chasing down some big animal called a sa-kohtsk so they can get us something called a khui. It seems that all living things on this planet have a khui—a parasite—that helps them survive and keeps them from getting sick. It’s what makes everyone’s eyes glow the funky blue.
Hearing that I’m going to get a permanent parasite—which Liz jokingly calls a “cootie”—has been a bit of an…adjustment. I mean, there’s a small bonus in that it’ll stop us from getting colds and help us thermoregulate—two things that are sorely needed amongst the cluster of humans in our group. I’m starting to forget what it’s like to be warm again. Steph and Penny have raging colds and Willa’s nose is so red she looks like a country bumpkin clown.
It’s cold. It’s miserable. It’s exhausting. At this point, I welcome my “cootie” overlord.
Of course, there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. I’m trying not to think about it, though.
So I put my hand to my eyes and squint, trying like heck to see what’s going on out in the distance. Liz stands nearby, along with Harlow’s husband, Rukh, protecting us. The others—including the tribe’s chief—are busy hunting down the critter that’s going to give us all our cooties and save us from freezing to death out here.
It’s been a few days since we woke up now, and it’s been an adjustment for all of us. From learning names to learning about this planet to learning, well, everything. I feel like I’m starting from the ground up. There’ve been nights that I’ve cried into my fur bunk, only to have the tears freeze on my face. I’m not the only weeper. I know Tia cries at night, because I can hear her, and there’s another sniffler that doesn’t admit it by the light of day. Some of us take things differently—Hannah’s rather angry about the situation. Samantha just laughs. A lot. Angie’s been lost in her own thoughts, but I can’t blame her.
And Marisol? Well, Marisol hides.
Or she tries to, anyhow. But she goes missing a lot and then everyone goes on a hunt to find her somewhere on the ship. It worries the others, because Mardok and Harlow—the experts on the alien ship itself—fear that she’s going to get into something that could harm her. I’m trying to take Marisol under my wing to give her courage. At night, we’re bunking together to share body heat, and I try to keep her at my side and hold her hand so she knows she’s not alone.
I kind of wish someone was there to hold my hand and tell me that I’m not alone, but if I can’t receive, I guess I’ll give.
“They’re bringing it down,” someone says, and Marisol’s grip tightens on my hand. We stand at the edge of a big snowy field, waiting to be called forward. The ship is far in the distance, and there’s so much noise and thunder coming from ahead that it makes me nervous. I wish I was back in the ship, but it’s been explained to me that if I don’t get the cootie, I’ll die. There’s something in the air here that’s toxic to humans. The cootie works symbiotically, modifying its host so they can both stay alive.
And while I’m not really keen on a cootie, I’m pretty keen on being alive. So here I am.
“Someone just jabbed a spear into it,” Willa says, and next to her, a girl named Raven makes a grossed-out noise. Steph sneezes.
“What’s it look like?” I ask, since I can’t see anything but blobs moving around at the edges of my vision. “The sa-kohtsk?”
“Ugly,” says Willa. “Kinda like if Godzilla and an alpaca mated and had a hairy baby with too many eyes.”
Rather makes me glad I can’t see it, then. To me it just looks like a moving blob chased by a lot of smaller blue blobs. Kind of like how Farli’s pet dvisti, Chompy, looks like a skinnier-limbed camel with too much hair and far too many teeth.
“Stay with me, Lo,” Marisol whispers, and holds my hand tighter.
“Of course,” I tell her reassuringly. I know she’s scared. I’m scared, too. There’s been a lot of scared lately, and every day seems like a struggle to get past it.
“Do you think…” Willa begins, and then stops.
“What?” I prompt. “Do I think what?”
She stomps her furry boots, shaking the snow from them. “I dunno. Do you think we’re going to, you know. What do they call it? Reverberate?”
“Resonate,” Marisol corrects shyly.
“That’s it. You think that will happen?” Willa looks to me.
“I don’t know. For me, I hope not,” I tell them.
Because the cootie, the symbiotic tapeworm that will give us electric blue eyes, a built-in space heater and super-charged immunity, also has a catch. It likes pairing up people and making babies. Seems that the cootie will pick out a “mate” for its person and you start “resonating” or vibrating from your chest. Someone else vibrates to you and that’s it. Boom. You now get to make children together and that’s that. I’ve been told that it’s impossible to deny and that the cootie always seems to pick correctly. Everyone here has resonated happily, including Harlow and Liz, both to blue guys.
Also, it seems to be not an “if” but a “when,” to hear the others talk. Which worries me. I’m still thinking about my own survival, not about starting a family or settling down with an alien stranger.
I decide an optimistic tactic is best. “Let’s just take it one step at a time. Cootie first. We’ll worry about resonating later.”
“I’ve never even had a boyfriend,” Willa says thoughtfully, ignoring my cheery advice. “Kinda
neat that a cootie’s gonna find the perfect guy for me.”
“Unless he’s not a great guy,” Marisol chimes in. “What if he’s scary? Like the beast guy?”
I shudder at the thought. Jeez, Marisol finally decides to speak up and she’s Debbie Downer. “Let’s not go there.”
The “beast guy” is one of the four males that were in pods, along with the sixteen girls. Two of them were the bright red, fond-of-being-naked twins. One was a big golden guy who has a shock of golden hair that’s so stiff it stands up like a ruff. He’s even got horns, someone said, though I can’t make them out. And then there’s beast guy. He’s darker. And scary. And scarred. And the least human-looking with his hulking shoulders and hunched form. I haven’t peered too closely. He snarls at everyone and has big fangs and claws and red eyes, and that’s enough for me to stay the fuck away.
They keep him tied up and under guard.
But Willa doesn’t seem upset at the thought. She glances over at the cluster of people a short distance away. “I feel sorry for the beast guy,” she admits. “I bet he’s scared like us. He just doesn’t know how to handle it.”
“Mm.” I’m not sure I agree. I find his rage unsettling, and I know I’m not the only one. No matter how friendly some of these aliens are, they’re not people like us. That much is evident from the tails and the horns, right down to some of the language choices. Liz calls her husband her “mate” and their children “kits.” They eat their meat raw and it seems they have a healer who does the whole “laying on hands” thing back in their village. To these people, Summer is a person (I’ve been told she’s nice) and not a season. I’m not even sure they have seasons other than cold and colder.