by Marie Dry
He held her with her feet dangling off the floor, brought her closer to that cruel face than she ever wanted to be. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat, her eyelashes fluttered with a will of their own, and her legs trembled. If he put her down now, she doubted she’d be able to stand. He had to be enormously strong to hold her like this, dangling off the floor, his arms not even shaking.
“Put her down,” the president commanded. “You’re hurting her. Human women are fragile.”
The alien turned his head to the president with a strange smooth machine-like movement. “I am pleased that you produced the human Aurora as agreed.” Still, he kept her dangling off the floor, his arms steady. His strength was frightening. Her arms hurt where he held her, and her shoulders ached.
“Please put me down.”
If he didn’t put her down soon, her arms were going to come out of their sockets. He slowly, with impressive control, lowered her until her feet touched the carpet.
The president stepped closer. “May we have your name? You didn’t introduce yourself during our conversation.”
“I am Balthazar.” That bass drum and metal grating sound reverberated around the room.
Aurora half expected the walls to rattle from the combination of metallic machine and deep man’s voice. A strange, hot-cold shiver traveled over her skin. His voice abraded her nerves. She exchanged a look with the president. Balthazar? Like from the bible?
“Is that a typical name for your people?” the president asked. “In our history, there was a civ--”
Balthazar didn’t take his eyes off Aurora. “You will come with me,” he said, ignoring the president.
Aurora had to resist twisting her hands together and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She didn’t have to pretend to brush back tears, to appear scared out of her mind. “I can’t go without saying good bye to my friends. I have to pack and leave instructions for my personnel.” Maybe she could disappear. She had resources she could use to search for Ter while she hid from this terrifying being.
Balthazar didn’t react. “You will come with me now.”
The president touched her arm, a gesture of support, but she jerked away. “Your luggage has been packed,” he said, “and your assistant was told you had to go on an unscheduled trip.”
The alien’s chest rumbled. Before she could blink, he’d pushed the president away, hard enough that he stumbled a few steps before he gained his balance.
“You do not touch my human Aurora.”
She had to give it to them. Tinners knew how to intimidate. He loomed over the president, leaning slightly forward and giving every impression of being willing to pummel the President of United Earth to the floor.
Aurora forced herself to place a gentle hand on the alien’s muscled arm. Muscles, that not only looked like braided steel but felt like it too, moved under her hand, without a hint of fat. His skin was colder than a human’s but not cold and clammy as she expected. “It’s normal among humans for friends to touch each other like that.”
The door crashed open, and two guards rushed in, weapons drawn. They stopped when they saw Balthazar then leveled their machine guns.
“Stand down,” the president shouted.
Balthazar stepped in front of her. She stared at his broad back and his even broader shoulders. Her hand inched up to touch the glass pin in her hair. She didn’t like the odds for the two guards if he took them on.
After a long, curious look at the alien, the guards left, and Balthazar turned so he faced her and the president. “You do not hug friends.”
“No problem, I’ll pass a law about that today,” the president said, deadpan.
Aurora bit her lip hard and searched for something to distract Balthazar before he pummeled the president. “Did you know that your name means ‘protect the king’? In our history, Phoenicians had a king with the same name.”
“It is a solid Tunrian cyborg name,” Balthazar said.
“Cyborg? Is that what your species calls itself, or are you half person, half machine?” the president asked.
Aurora had discounted the idea of him being a machine the moment she saw his coarse black hair and arresting eyes. He might look fierce and alien, but nothing about him reminded her of a machine. Did “cyborg” have the same meaning for these creatures as it did for humans?
Something unpleasant rumbled from Balthazar’s chest. “We will go now.”
He took her arm and steered her toward the dimensional doorway that shimmered in the air. She had the curious impression that the president’s question had upset him. There was a pull toward the shimmering air, and she breathed golf balls.
“No, please, let me go.” She pulled against the merciless grip he had on her arm. Not this. She couldn’t go through this again. How would she ever see forgiveness in Ter’s eyes if they enslaved her?
Aurora had never felt so small and vulnerable as she did being dragged to the rectangle hovering in the Oval Office. Swirling electricity-like sparks outlined the red and orange triangle. Inside the triangle, colors swirled--strange unearthly hues, not quite black or white or orange--as if it came from a spectrum of colors forged in a foreign dimension. It reminded her of pictures she’d seen of black holes, the triangular doorway pulled them subtly forward. She pulled back, tried to resist that sucking pressure. Her heart beat so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. If she went into the swirling lights, she’d be lost.
His large three-fingered grip could’ve encircled her upper arm twice, and it brought home their differences. How small and vulnerable she was. He was taking her to a place where she’d be surrounded by beings that were so totally “other.” Where she’d be the alien. The past and future merged, and she blinked when she saw her father’s image hover over the president.
“No, Daddy, please, Daddy, don’t send me away.” She heard the childish pleading and didn’t want to accept that the words came from her mouth.
Reality rushed back, and she sagged in the alien’s grip.
Although he didn’t loosen his grip on her arm, it was not as hard and unyielding as she’d thought it would be.
He marched to the triangle with that steady hiss-release gait, all set to step into it, dragging her along. Aurora held back, tried to resist, stretching a hand back to the president. “Remember your promise.” She hated the pity in his eyes. He’d do this no matter what he felt.
The alien pushed her into the triangle, and the last thing she saw on Earth was the president standing tall, his expression resolute, not making an effort to grab her back. She saw his lips move--didn’t hear him but knew he promised to find Ter.
Shimmering air sucked her in. It felt like being consumed by a large glob of heated liquid rubber. For one terrible moment, she lost her senses, couldn’t hear, saw nothing, and couldn’t feel her own body. If she screamed, she didn’t realize it. The air solidified and pressed her as if some unseen hand pushed her out of whatever was inside the triangle. She half expected to be expelled with a plopping sound, but she emerged into harsh noise. Something screamed, and she flinched.
CHAPTER 4
Aurora threw her hand up in front of her eyes, blinded by the light. Balthazar said something, but she couldn’t hear him over the screaming coming from all around her. The walls pressed in on her. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and, for one disorienting moment, she thought she’d fallen straight into hell.
Aurora shook her head and looked around. Pulsing walls surrounded her. She thought they might be in a small shuttle, and the screaming was the engines. She’d seen the spaceships through a telescope, and this looked much smaller than she expected. The glaring light came from somewhere on the ceiling. Aurora stumbled, and Balthazar held her upright. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want the alien touching her. Didn’t want to think what he could do to her with that strength.
Three more aliens stood facing the walls. No one turned to look at her or spoke, and the ship with its pulsing walls covered in colorful ta
ttoos was downright eerie. Balthazar pulled her to a wall and pressed a button. A panel slid out. He pushed her firmly down onto the surprisingly warm surface. “Do not move, human Aurora.” His voice scraped over her already frayed nerve ends.
Instead of taking another panel seat for himself, he went to the wall of the craft and stood facing it. At his back, there was a type of window, and it made more sense for him to face that than to stand in front of a blank wall. She couldn’t see anything resembling a screen or a button on the wall in front of him. What did they all stare at? The way they didn’t look at each other or talk was downright creepy.
The wall and the seat under her subtly shifted and molded to her body. She felt as if she was in a living lung. When she’d imagined what the inside of their spaceships looked like, this almost living, breathing, thing wasn’t it.
She narrowed her eyes at the aliens. Not one of them even twitched. She couldn’t see any buttons on the wall they faced or how they flew the small shuttle. The strange patterns on the wall reminded her of Balthazar’s tattoos. He’d called himself a cyborg. Did that also mean half machine to the aliens? Could they be communicating telepathically? Or with some kind of interface, like computers.
It would give them an advantage over humans if the war they’d all been bracing for happened. Aurora tried to stand, but a kind of force field held her back. If they kept her immobilized like this when she was on their mother ship, how would she find their weaknesses? She had the strangest urge to throw off the force field, stand up, and sing the United Earth anthem.
If the president kept his promise, would Ter be freed into a world where humans were slaves to the cyborg?
The floor under her feet gradually turned into clear glass. Aurora forgot about cyborgs and telepathy. She stared like a mouse mesmerized by a snake, as the Earth receded, becoming smaller. Her feet cramped and her toes curled away from the growing drop between their ship and Earth. That whimper couldn’t have come from her.
Beneath them Washington receded, the collapsed buildings and charred ground, where they’d bombed the city, flashing under them. Skyscrapers that had once stood tall now lay on the ground like fallen giants, the shuttle’s shadow an eerie specter creeping over the devastation--over the demonstration of the aliens’ fire power. For almost a year now, everyone had braced for a war that never came. Any missiles fired at the aliens exploded before they could reach the spaceships.
Would she ever set foot on her planet again? Aurora firmed her lips that wanted to tremble. Another glowing triangle appeared inside the craft. Aurora gripped the hard seat she sat in. She never liked heights and always considered flying a necessary evil. “What is that? Is it going to make us crash?”
No one answered her. The cyborgs didn’t react, Balthazar stayed facing the wall.
The triangle brightened. She blinked. Three cyborgs walked in, loaded with luggage. She didn’t know which amazed her more--that they brought her luggage or that they opened the dimensional door in mid-flight.
The president had said explosives were in her makeup. What would these cyborgs do to her if they went through her luggage and found it?
With the small craft now filled with seven aliens, it became stuffy, as if there wasn’t enough air for them to breathe. The shuttle...if that was what this thing was...had walls wider at the bottom that tapered up to meet above their heads, big enough for the aliens to stand comfortably upright.
Balthazar turned and did an unmistakable, very humanlike double take at the many suitcases and one trunk the aliens brought with them. His head turned toward her with a sharp snap, and his gaze seared her. Aurora had the strong urge to deny the luggage was hers. Now, she realized why the soldiers had packed her belongings. How much explosive did they think she’d need? She clenched her hands together to stop herself from touching the hairpin he gave her. How was she supposed to catch this cross between Super Terminator and Alien 3000 unaware?
The luggage barely fit into the transport that shimmered and expanded, and any urge to laugh deserted her. She clenched her hands together until the knuckles turned white, and then she deliberately relaxed them, one finger at a time. Earth still depended on missile technology. How could they prevail against beings who had dimensional doorways?
Two years ago, the ships built to undertake missions to Mars and Jupiter had blown up while still in orbit around Earth. These cyborgs have managed to come God knows how many million miles to Earth.
All the cyborgs were dressed in the same black uniforms, but Aurora would never mistake any of the others for Balthazar. After one searing look at her, he turned so that he stood facing the wall again. Aurora shivered. Seeing the aliens standing so still, facing the wall rather than sitting at computer consoles, disturbed her. They had their backs to her, as if they disdained her as a threat.
She would’ve been fascinated by the walls becoming glass and periodically opaque, the tattoos moving around the walls, if she hadn’t been staring up at Earth’s greatest nightmare. She’d looked at the alien spaceships through the telescopes. Had known they were big. Knowing it and seeing it, were two different concepts. Seeing it stole her breath, her rational thought. The ship they approached was monstrous.
She could fill Anacostia River with the sweat coming out of her pores. Her soaked dress clung to her skin, immobilized her. They couldn’t fight this...this monstrosity of advanced technology that was big enough to house thousands of Cyborgs. What kind of advanced weapons would the people who built such ships have? Why hadn’t they used those weapons in the last year? What are they waiting for? She bit back hysterical giggles. More spaceships to arrive?
Exotic orange and blue symbols filled her vision. They decorated the underbelly of the massive ship. Symbols shimmered and moved, as if ants crawled all over the outer surface of the ship. She couldn’t see where the ship ended. Her horizon consisted of a shimmering fluid hull. Through the telescope, they’d seen only one alien ship. Many had speculated that there could be more.
“We’re lost,” she whispered.
She jerked when Balthazar turned his head to stare at her. It could only have been for a few seconds, but she thought several minutes might have passed while they locked gazes. He turned back to face the wall.
If they could open a dimensional door...or whatever that triangle was...mid-flight, why couldn’t they have cloaking technology that hid more ships? Or have more ships on the way?
Several minutes later, they docked inside the hanger of the spaceship, large enough that Washington, DC, might fit inside. What looked like hundreds of little spaceships were docked there. Row upon row of little ships--shuttles whose patterns were dormant. How was she supposed to save Earth from such a powerful threat? The president thought she could single-handedly save Earth from this? She’d have a better chance of stealing one of their small shuttles, going back to Earth, and searching for Ter.
“Why are you using a shuttle? Why not go directly onto the ship with your inter-dimensional door?” she hollered over the screaming engines. For that matter why didn’t he use it to go from the mothership to the president’s office? Why use the shuttle at all?
“Silence,” Balthazar said.
He didn’t move or even twitch during the whole docking procedure. None of the other aliens did either. She still thought the way they stood facing the wall without moving was the creepiest thing she’d seen in a long time. Almost as strange as flying in a shuttle whose walls behaved like breathing lungs.
She could see Balthazar’s profile. He’d been standing with his eyes open, unblinking the whole time. He didn’t look like what she thought someone who was half machine would look like. But he’d called himself a cyborg. For all she knew, their brains could interface with computers. Maybe they flew the shuttle with their minds. Which would be more evidence that Earth is toast. The engines screamed, and they landed with a jerk. She lurched forward, would’ve fallen if some invisible force field hadn’t held her back. The cyborgs didn’t move at all.
> She’d give a lot right now if that triangular doorway would open, suck her in, and spit her out back on Earth. They’d arrived. This was really happening to her. What would they do with her? Her ears roared, as if the engines of the shuttle had suddenly revved high. Her muscles ached, they trembled so much. Sweat broke out over her skin, and the roaring intensified, the patterns on the walls moving with greater speed until everything around her took on a nightmarish, surreal quality. The chances of her seeing Earth again, of going back to her old life were slim. Aurora clenched her hands into the seat, gnashing her teeth when the chair tried to massage her fingers. She would get back to Ter. She’d rescue her and atone, see the forgiveness in her eyes at last, and help her start a new life.
Balthazar turned. Taking her hands, he drew her upright. She might as well have been weightless. Her hands appeared small and pink in his large, three-fingered grip.
For just one moment he stared down at her hands in his, his rough thumb rubbing softly over her palm. “My sensors show your heart and respiration rate are too high. Correct it now,” he said.
So much for trying to hide her fear. “Humans can’t do that.” Aurora bit her lip. She was supposed to get information about the aliens, not give him insight into humans.
He led her outside, and Aurora had to concentrate hard not to draw back. She could at least appear dignified. Two rows of aliens stood to attention on either side of them. Large, menacing, and alien-looking, they made her aware of being smaller, paler, and vulnerable--a feeling she’d promised herself years ago she’d never again experience.
“Regulate your heartbeat and respiration now,” he repeated, an unsettling note of “or else” in his voice.
“I told you I can’t do that.” She hated that she sounded apologetic. Just because she couldn’t adjust her heartbeat and respiration didn’t make her inferior.