by Marie Dry
“She can’t hear you.”
Aurora couldn’t tear her eyes away from the miracle in front of her. “Please, I have to go in and speak to her.”
“Choose.”
Aurora blinked and tore her gaze away from Ter. “What do you mean?” Her joy faded, replaced by a terrible dread.
“Choose who will live. Humans or your sister.” She turned to face him. Not believing he could say something like that to her.
“You’d kill her?”
He hesitated, and hope surged. “That will depend on you. If you choose your sister, she will be safe on the ship when I destroy Earth.”
Her knees turned as soft as the paste the cyborgs used to eat. “No, Balthazar, please. I’ll do anything, but please don’t do this.”
“You may go in and speak with her, and then you will choose.” There was no emotion, no mercy in him.
“That’s monstrous.”
“I am a monster.” He motioned to the wall that had slid open. “That is why you used the code on me.”
“You know that’s not true, Balthazar. I just wanted you to calm down.”
“It did not work. I am not calm, and I will destroy Earth.”
Hesitantly she walked in. Maybe she could play for time, he might still calm down. “Ter?”
Her sister didn’t look up or respond. Aurora rushed over and hugged her but, Ter remained unmoving. Aurora leaned down to stare into her face, half expecting her to be in a comatose state, but blue eyes, the same shade as hers, glared at her. She’d hoped to see forgiveness in her sister’s eyes when she found her. That they could learn together to move on and forget the past. Instead, pure hatred blazed at her.
“I’ve been looking for you. I never gave up.”
“Yeah, right.” Ter pointedly looked Aurora up and down, her lips pulling down in a sneer at the long formal dress and elaborate hair do.
Aurora knew if she told Ter that the dress and hairdo was something she endured so that she had the power to search for her, Ter just wouldn’t believe her. “I didn’t know he had you here, Ter.”
“What do you care? You get to walk around the ship in your fancy clothes, screwing a tinner, and getting fat on rich food.”
“I had no choice, Ter, the president said the fate of the human race depended on my coming here.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t care.”
“But I do. I never stopped looking for you. I’d just heard you were in New York when the president made me come here.”
Ter’s lips pulled down in a sneer. “I’m sure it was a hardship.”
Why couldn’t Aurora make her understand? “I was negotiating with the president to have you rescued. I didn’t know you were on-board. If I knew you were this close, I’d have come sooner.”
Her sister continued to sneer at her. “Negotiating with the president now, are we? Well, la dee da. Some of us haven’t been that fortunate.”
“How long have you been on board?”
Terra shrugged. “About two months, I think. That big bastard came out of a flaming door and grabbed me. Next thing I knew, I was in this cell.”
Aurora looked around. The room wasn’t as opulent as the one she shared with Balthazar, but it was not a jail cell either.
“He’s making me choose,” Aurora said with bloodless lips. She heard the words, but couldn’t feel them leave her lips.
“Choose what?”
“Between you and the entire human race. If I choose you, he will destroy Earth with a planet-killing weapon.”
Ter didn’t even blink. That ugly sneer covered her whole face. “We both know what your choice will be.”
“No, we don’t. I can’t make a choice like that. I would have to choose y--”
“Get out,” Ter screamed at her.
“Please, Ter, help me think of a solution.”
“I said get out,” Ter screamed and, jumping up, she grabbed the reader on the bed and threw it at Aurora.
Aurora ducked, but before it could hit her, a large cyborg hand plucked it out of the air. At first, she thought it was Balthazar, but Nebuchadnezzar stood with the reader in his hand. Balthazar right behind him.
Terra took one look at Nebuchadnezzar and went to the opposite wall. She stood quivering, and Aurora stepped toward her. Balthazar grabbed her and dragged her out of the room.
“No, please let me go. Ter, I’ll come back, I’m not leaving you, Terra!”
Aurora struggled with all her strength, but Balthazar easily subdued her and took her to their room with a hand clamped around her upper arm. Once inside he turned her to face him.
“Choose.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then looked up into that cold gaze that looked even more reptilian at this moment. “What do you think will happen if you make me choose? If you destroy Earth, I will be devastated forever because I will not be able to live with the knowledge that I killed my species. That there won’t even be history books calling me the cause of the end of humanity.”
“You think I care?”
Aurora didn’t want to relax her guard, but there had been emotion in his question, for the first time since he’d watched the cyborg bones clanging on that porch. If she could stall long enough, he’d calm down and change his mind.
“I think you’re too much of a person not to care, Balthazar. Please think about this. If you make me choose, I will be the one destroyed, no matter what I choose in the end.”
“You have twenty four hours,” he said and left.
Aurora sank down on the chair and, when it massaged her neck, she didn’t jump up like she usually did. She’d take all the help she could get. They might just live through this crisis. If he changed his mind, she’d have to make it easy for him. She couldn’t afford to put him in a position where he had to stick to his decision to save face.
Listlessly, she picked up her reader but couldn’t concentrate. She ended up pacing. Dinner came and went with no one bringing her food, and Balthazar didn’t appear to take her to the mess hall. The doors wouldn’t open on her command.
She tried dialing the president, but the symbols on the wall wouldn’t light up and place the call this time. Aurora went to bed and actually managed to fall asleep. Hopefully, the cyborgs would take Ter some food. She’s been through so much, was her last thought.
Aurora woke alone in the room. She quickly got up, took a bath, and dressed. Remembering Ter’s comments about her dress, she wore jeans, boots, and a light sweater. The ship tended to adjust its temperature wherever she went so that she was always comfortable. Her heart galloped, like a unicorn on the run. Would Balthazar allow her to see Ter?
She missed Balthazar as well, had missed sleeping with him, seeing him get up early to do the work of six men. The door still wouldn’t open for her, and she couldn’t place any calls. She didn’t even try to read. Instead, she paced up and down, convinced Balthazar was arming his weapon, or putting a gun against Terra’s head. Did he rescue her sister to hold her as hostage from the beginning, or did he initially plan to give Terra to her. He didn’t like sharing her. She suspected that was why he’d brought Terra to the ship without telling her. He wanted her safe for Aurora’s sake, but didn’t want to share her with her sister.
The door opened, and she straightened. Did he come to take her to the observation deck? She’d gladly stand on that glass and look down at that terrifying empty space between the ship and Earth if he would talk to her. If he allowed her to see Terra again.
She sagged. Agrippa stood in the doorway.
“They allowed you out?”
They’d kept Agrippa locked in one of the cabins. Every time Amelagar suffered a setback, they were convinced Agrippa was responsible and would lock her in. When the crisis was over, and Amelagar’s recovery dragged at a snail’s pace, they’d allow Agrippa to work on him, and the cycle would start all over.
“We are allowed to go to Amelagar so that you can read to him, but the ship will monitor us.”
Aurora grabbed her reader and got out while the doors still opened for her. She pulled a face at Agrippa. “That’s so creepy.”
“Why?” Agrippa asked with genuine confusion.
“Is such monitoring normal on your planet?” Sure, almost every inch of Earth was monitored with security cameras, but it was unobtrusive. They didn’t have symbols flashing at them wherever they walked.
“Of course, most Tunrians need to be rushed to the hospital when their next clone should be awakened.”
“It is done when the...uh...current Tunrian turns sick?”
“Yes, their forms degrade much faster with each new generation. They used to live for four hundred years. Now a generation is less than three hundred years.”
Aurora couldn’t imagine being cloned over and over. In the last century, most humans lived to about a hundred and eighty years. “How many times have you been cloned, Agrippa?”
“I am not a clone. My family is of the few who chose to live a normal lifetime and die,” she said as if confessing a great sin. “We live for about three hundred and eighty years, if the clones don’t kill us young.”
Aurora couldn’t imagine a system where you were killed for not wanting to be cloned. They entered the lift and pressed the symbol for the medical area. “Why did most of the Tunrians choose to clone themselves?”
“They wanted to be immortal.” Agrippa smiled, but it was sad. “They thought they’d found a way to control the exploding population and, at the same time, live forever.”
They exited the lift and turned into the infirmary. “Maybe no species is supposed to live forever.” Aurora stopped walking. “Do you know where they’re keeping my sister?” She had to see her, make sure she was real and safe on board the ship.
“Your sister?” Agrippa said, clearly confused.
Aurora sighed. “Never mind, let’s go read to Amelagar.” She had no doubt Balthazar would search her out soon. Please let him have calmed down. If he was still in that ice-cold rage, she didn’t know what she’d do. She missed Balthazar, the Balthazar who had emotions. Who tried to please her. Who kept asking her to run like a hamster. She was getting desperate enough to suggest he get a big hamster wheel, and she’d run in it if only he would let his cruel ultimatum go.
Aurora realized she’d been standing in the middle of the infirmary, daydreaming. She went to Amelagar and smiled down at him. “You’re looking good. One of these days, you’ll be out of this thing and joining us in the mess hall.” If she was ever allowed to eat there again. Two eyes now looked at her out of a fully formed skull with a thin layer of skin. He looked so much better. His legs and arms now had a complete skeleton and every day muscles and sinew was woven over the bones. She placed her hand on the glass. “It’s almost over. Just a little more patience.” She shuddered to think how much pain he had to be in. If not for Agrippa’s skill, it would’ve taken years for him to regenerate to this level.
“I found a new story to read you.”
He blinked.
“Do you want me to read it to you now?”
Slowly, painfully, he nodded. She couldn’t imagine the kind of pain he must be enduring while he regrew his whole body. “Yes.”
Agrippa settled down next to Amelagar, and Aurora accessed the book she’d been reading to him. She couldn’t figure out what Agrippa felt for Amelagar. Sometimes she thought she saw more than caring, but at other times the woman looked cold and emotionless, and Aurora would wonder if she was only helping Amelagar to save her own skin.
An hour later, her throat was dry, and she was just about to tell them she wanted to stop for the day. She barely knew what she read. All she could think about was her sister and that soul-destroying ultimatum Balthazar made.
The atmosphere changed, the oxygen in the room became electrified.
Balthazar walked in. Agrippa scurried away before Aurora realized her intent.
“I will take you to lunch.” None of the warmth she’d come to expect was in his voice.
“I’m allowed to go to the mess hall again?”
“Yes.” He didn’t sound as if he wanted her there.
Aurora smiled down at the regenerating soldier. Seeing him suffer had put a lot of things in perspective for her. In Balthazar’s shoes, she would’ve wanted to destroy humans too for hurting his people. She’d used the picos on him and the shutdown code. She couldn’t imagine how betrayed he must feel. “I’ll return tomorrow to read to you again, Amelagar.”
They walked to the mess hall and the silence became unbearable.
Aurora turned to Balthazar. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” She couldn’t stand this distance from him anymore. “I won’t make such a choice.”
“I do not wish to kill you.”
“Of course, you do. I used the off switch. Anybody would be furious.”
“I am not furious.”
“Then you won’t make me choose anymore?”
They entered the mess hall before he could answer her. If he was going to answer her. It was only after a silent meal, during which none of the cyborgs, talked to her that he turned to her. The other cyborgs had left the mess hall with stamping feet. “I have decided that if your president agrees to marry Anatu, I will not destroy Earth in retaliation of my cyborg’s murder.”
“Excuse me?”
He repeated his words.
Her heart beat so loud she half expected the wall to form a long arm to pat her. “And if he agrees, you will free Ter. Allow her to go to Earth.”
Never in a hundred years did she expect this. Ter would be safe at the foundation. A small mean part of Aurora enjoyed the thought of the president confronted by such a decision. Balthazar was willing to forgive her and was using this arranged marriage with the president to save face. The day that had been dreary and without seasons suddenly brightened.
“Yes,” he said.
She wanted to tell him how grateful she was. How much it meant to her that he’d found her sister. The words wouldn’t come, the moment bigger than any words she could come up with. Now that Earth had a reprieve, the full impact of what he’d done hit her. Even while he told her he wouldn’t search for her sister, he’d done exactly that. For her. She knew he’d done it for her, not to use her sister as a bargaining chip. That only happened because of his feeling of betrayal.
“What happens now?”
“I talked to the president. He asked to think about it before he answered me.”
If the president refused, what could she do? Though it was only fair that he should be willing to do what he expected of her. “May I see Ter, please? Before we talk to the president, before you release Ter, I want to tell you something. No matter what happens that won’t change.” He waited, and she swallowed. “Balthazar I lo--I like you.” She was a coward. A miserable coward who couldn’t even tell him she loved him. “I admire what you have accomplished.’
“Thank you. I like you too. You are beautiful, even with spider hands and a smashed-in face.”
“Uhm, thank you, I think.” He wasn’t going to like the rest of what she had to say. “She won’t even look at me.” After that one scornful gaze, Ter had stared straight ahead.
“Your sister was kept in a cage. When we went in to--”
“We? You helped rescue her?”
“Nebuchadnezzar and I went.”
She cupped his cheek, and he nestled subtly into her touch. “Thank you, you have no idea what that means to me.”
“We found her in a cage, making music for a human male.”
“What did you do with him?”
“We asked her, and she said she wanted him dead. We killed him.”
“I see.” She paced restlessly.
“Where is your dress? Why are you dressed like this?”
She stared down at her jeans. “Ter doesn’t like my dresses.” She might not want to talk to Aurora but she never failed to make a sarcastic remark about the long formal dresses Aurora wore.
“I like
them,” he said.
Aurora squared her shoulders and met his gaze. “I want to be with you, Balthazar. But you have to understand about Ter.”
“I understand that you like her more than me.”
Tenderness spread through her. He could be so wise and brave and then so endearing. So afraid of not having all her attention. “She needs me right now, Balthazar. You are strong, if I left you for a little while, you would be all right. If I left Ter alone now, she’d be lost.
He took her hand and placed it back against his cheek. “You cannot leave me.”
“I don’t want to leave you. Please try to understand. I can’t fail her again.” She never thought when she finally found Terra that she’d be this torn.
He paced and she waited anxiously. Everything was balanced on a very sharp edge from a very high cliff right now. If the president refused to marry Anatu, if Balthazar wouldn’t let her help Ter, what could she do?
“You will stay on board, but you may spend as much time as you want with your sister.”
She soon realized that staying on board the ship wouldn’t work to bring her closer to Ter. Aurora clung to him. “I’m so scared, Balthazar. She won’t speak to me or even look at me.”
“I will send Nebuchadnezzar to instruct her in the proper behavior toward my human,” he said, his look intent, as if gauging the correctness of what he’d just said.
“No, please don’t do that. She’s had a lifetime of being told how to act. No, I need to take her home. I’ve got a room ready for her in the foundation. I’ve bought her things over the years. Maybe if she has a space where she feels safe, she will try to heal.”
“She is safe here.”
“I’m talking about a different kind of safe. Mentally, she has to believe that she’s safe. That she’ll never be a slave again.”
“She can do that on the ship,” he insisted.