“I don’t know what that is,” he said, and I chuckled a little under my breath.
“Your movies never taught you about road trip games?” He shook his head, a smile twinkling in his eyes. “Well, that’s okay. The only one I can think of right now is the license plate game, and there aren’t exactly any other cars around…”
“What’s a license plate?”
I blinked. I had a doctorate in biology and another in genetics, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to explain what a license plate was. “Er, it’s… how you… it’s how someone knows a vehicle is yours.”
“Ah,” he said, and we drove on.
The view from the rover was incredible. We were heading north, directly toward a towering mountain range with snow-capped peaks and hazy cloud cover. To our left was the river along which we’d traveled, to our right, the endless rolling plains and the remnants of smoke from the Leviathan. I tried to put the loss out of my mind; I tried to focus on the task at hand. I failed.
“Ara,” he gently intoned after a few moments, “you’re weeping.”
“Am I?” I suppose I was, hot tears leaving a train of saltwater paths down my cheeks. I wiped them hastily away.
“My mother was a healer,” he said after a brief silence. “You remind me a little of her, actually.” I couldn’t say why precisely, but at that comparison, my heart dropped like a stone into the pit of my stomach. “She was as pale as you are. No red hair, though,” he amended with a grin.
“What is her name?” I asked.
“Jaelle cal’Darian.”
“You don’t share the same name—”
“Darian is our clan’s name. It is my mother’s clan, in fact, and not without some renown. She married my father for love, and he married into her clan instead of the other way around, so the Sildarine name will die with him.”
“But—cal’Darian isn’t the same as tel’Darian.”
“They didn’t teach you Galatean culture and history in your fancy school?” I felt my cheeks warm with a blush. They should have, perhaps, but they hadn’t, in fact, taught any of the cultural things to us. I knew that the Galateans didn’t sweat, that the temperatures of their bodies were better moderated, and that they didn’t have a single hair on their bodies. I knew that they had hearts that were, proportionally speaking, twice the size of ours and beat half as fast. I knew that their “lungs” were, actually, just a single lung, and that their digestive tract looked strikingly like ours for all our differences. But I didn’t know the basics of their cultures, as I had primarily concerned myself with their organs—specifically of the reproductive variety.
“Ah, no.”
“Well, prepare to be educated.” Danovan went on to explain that the beginning of their surname was something of a call sign that indicated their position, their role, in the society. “So before I came of age, I was Danovan kin’Darian—all children are ‘kin’. Then, I became a guard, or a soldier, so I became Danovan tel’Darian. My mother is a healer, so she is Jaelle cal’Darian. My father, before he retired, was a teacher, so he is Olander jin’Darian, and before that, Olander jin’Sildarine. And my sister—”
“You have a sister?”
“Mm. A younger one. She is a midwife, which is also classified as a healer, so she is Dinervah cal’Darian.”
“And what is she like?” I asked, shifting in my seat so that I could lean in to look at him as he spoke. “Your sister.”
He chuckled wryly, rubbing absently at his forehead before he spoke, as though he were referencing a long-standing headache where this particular individual was concerned. “She’s a real shimonyae, I’ll tell you.”
“Shimonyae?” I asked.
“Ah, there isn’t an exact word for it in your human English. It literally means ‘one who spreads the pitch,’ but more colloquially—”
“A pain in the ass?”
Danovan laughed, a hearty, full-bodied thing, and it warmed me from the inside out to hear it. “Precisely.” He glanced my way and smiled to find me smiling at him. I got the sense that he wanted to keep me talking, that he wanted nothing more than for me to keep my mind from the horrors we’d seen and experienced. And I was more than grateful for the distraction. “What about your family?”
I leaned back in my seat and watched the grass go by, taller than me, though easily bowled over by the rover. “There isn’t much to tell, I’m afraid,” I said quietly. “I was an only child. My parents were scientists—chemists, actually. And they instilled in me a profound love of science.” I paused, glancing up at his face, which had such a pleasant little smile on it, I almost didn’t tell him the rest of the story. “They were killed in a lab accident fifteen years ago.”
He sighed, all the light going out of his expression. “I’m sorry.”
I was apparently super great at killing conversations. But I didn’t want to lie to him. I didn’t want to have to put on that shiny, happy face that always felt so necessary with Christian. And, furthermore, I didn’t have the goddamned energy for it.
We drove on through the afternoon, stopping only when the light got too low on the horizon to safely cross the terrain. We would have switched on the headlights, but it ate too much of the energy, and we weren’t sure when we would be able to recharge. Same went for the pressurized cabin that made things feel normal for me.
We drove to a clearing and parked underneath the protective cover of an old tree with huge leaves that created a canopy over the ground beneath. Danovan made us leaf beds and a fire, and we ate protein bars and drank bottled water in amiable silence.
But when the fire had died down and we’d drifted off to sleep, my mind wouldn’t rest. I saw those ghastly images in my mind: the snarling faces of the recently murdered; the flower bloom of the gunshot that claimed Dr. Pierce; the gooey viscera that coated the floor. And I shot up straight where I slept, coated in a layer of sweat that made me shiver in the cold air of evening. My heart was a war drum in my chest, and I couldn’t get my breathing to normalize. I felt alone on a foreign world. I panicked.
“Danovan?”
Silence.
“Danovan?” I crawled on my hands and knees over to where he’d situated his leaves, only about three feet away from where he’d situated mine, and gave him a gentle shake, trying to rouse him from his slumber. “Danovan!”
“Huh?” His eyes flew open, and he sat up on his elbows, jerking his head from left to right as he scanned the perimeter. “What? What is it?”
“I had a bad dream,” I admitted, suddenly feeling completely and utterly absurd. Come on, Ara, I scolded myself. You are a grown adult. Act like it. “And, um, also? I’m cold.”
I hadn’t realized that I wanted to sleep in his arms when I first crawled over there. I think originally I had just wanted him to stay up a bit, stoke the fire to keep the shadows at bay, and keep me company. But when he opened his arms to me, I immediately lay down with my head resting against the pillow of his bicep. His other arm he wrapped around me, holding me tight against the washboard of his chest. I was dwarfed next to him, and with his body curled around mine like that, I was a little less frightened of the unknown enemies that lurked in the night.
***
I drifted slowly back to consciousness the next morning, still wrapped up in his arms, my breasts pressed against the cradle of his large and powerful hand. I liked how safe I felt there, pressed against him, and snuggled down further, only to be met with the swell of his member, just as powerful, just as large as his other appendages. But I didn’t move. I wasn’t scandalized. I couldn’t recall a time I’d ever felt that safe, and his sleepy desires were innocent and unobtrusive. I wondered if I might reach back, stroke him to his full rigidity, and forget the nightmares of the last two days by inviting him to plunge home between my thighs.
I could feel my desires sharpen by this sort of perversity, a need to join with him in our agony. Yes, we had suffered this tragedy but, yes, we were alive. The both of
us. And this was how we could celebrate our survival. I could feel my pulse between my legs as I dampened with my wanting, but after the span of a few breaths, Danovan rolled over onto his back, slinging the arm that had been around me over his eyes to block out the morning light, and I couldn’t help but smile a little. He didn’t want me. This was just a physiological response, natural as yawning or thirst. It meant nothing.
I admonished myself quietly and rose to my feet, stretching my arms high over my head. The day was bright and silent, and I was looking forward to arriving at the village later this evening. I had never experienced a Galatean village, and I was trying to make the best of a terrible situation. Perhaps—
Wait. Silence.
The Caromays weren’t singing.
“Danovan,” I whispered, my eyes darting furtively over the expanse of the landscape. “Danovan…?”
I didn’t see it at first. It blended easily in the tall grass, looked, in fact, like just another hill. The broad ridge of its humped back had moss growing on it, like the hair of a wooly mammoth, the perfect camouflage. But when it rose to its feet, I saw that it was no hill, though it was almost as big as one. The trihorned monster looked like a cross between a rhinoceros and a mountain, with much sharper teeth. Those sharp teeth, in fact, it bared to me, showing me the green saliva dripping menacingly from its needle-sharp canines. It had four eyes—two in front and two on the sides—that glowed a catlike green and were shrewd with its intelligence. Then it peeled back its grey-scaled lips and launched a missile of neon green spit right at me.
I knew enough to dive out of the way, but some splattered from the ground onto my leg, and I felt all sensation begin to drain out of that limb. I shrieked, stumbling toward the rover where I knew Danovan had kept a foraged pistol. But he was already there, rolling away from the rover with the gun in hand and taking aim at the great beast that was gearing up to spit at us again.
He shot once, twice, three times, right into the Ribomax’s armored skull, and it staggered back, shaken but decidedly not dead. Danovan unloaded the rest of the rounds into the creature, but all it did was look at us like we had deeply offended it by not lying down and dying for its dining pleasure. All of the sensation was gone in my left leg, and it was creeping ever upward; I collapsed in the dirt where I stood.
Danovan darted over to me then and lifted me into his capable arms, scooping me and getting me seated and strapped into the passenger seat of the rover. Then he rushed around to his side, and snatched my key card from where it was clipped to my jacket, using it to start the rover even as the Ribomax began to charge.
The left side of my face had grown numb as well; my left eye was going fuzzy. I swallowed hard and peered into the rearview mirror—I tried to urge him to go faster, but my tongue was a heavy sea creature in the cavern of my mouth and it wouldn’t do what I told it to do. The Ribomax was gaining on us as Danovan urged the rover forward, only very slowly picking up speed. I thought you said these things weren’t fast? I silently admonished Danovan before everything went black.
Chapter 9:
Danovan tel’Darian
I woke when she whispered my name.
That isn’t the whole truth; part of me was roused from the depths of my slumber when I felt her soft, sturdy form pressed against my own, when I felt the weight of her breasts in my hand. But I couldn’t hold her there, as much as I wanted to. I had to let her go.
But when she whispered my name, I climbed up from my dreams and started to listen. The second time she said my name, I opened my eyes, and by the time she shrieked, I sprang into action.
I’d seen a Ribomax only once before, and at a great distance, charging paralyzed prey some hundred meters off. And I had the good sense to run before it ever turned its attention to me. But there I was, finding out firsthand that a pistol isn’t a sufficient weapon with which to defend against an aggressive Ribomax, and also that they are significantly faster than I had been told. Maybe, I thought as I got into the rover beside a paralyzed Araceli, they told us that because a smart, gigantic, mean, fast monster was just a little bit too much.
My heart raced, pumping blood through my adrenaline-saturated system at such a rate that I thought I might pass out. And the speed on the rover didn’t seem like it was going to cut it. I looked back in the rearview and saw the beast gaining on us, pressing the pedal to the floor of the compartment because that pedal was the only thing between being eaten and being not eaten.
“Ara!” I shouted, wanting to keep her conscious, but it was to no avail. Her head lolled to the side as she lost her last shred of consciousness, and maybe it was for the best. Maybe it would be a blessing to be unconscious if we were eaten.
But then, the beast slowed. First to a trot, and then altogether, its hump heaving madly in the air as it attempted to catch its breath. All right, then: the Ribomax could be quick, but only for small bursts of time. The thing collapsed where it stood, plum tuckered out. I cheered where I sat, pumping my fist in the air as I put a safe distance between us and the beast.
“Ara, we got away,” I shouted, hoping the good news would break through the fog of the paralytic. But my heart was still beating madly because I didn’t know how permanent her situation was. After I drove for a solid half hour, I pulled the rover to a stop in the tall grass, checking to see if I could hear the Caromays singing (I could) before unstrapping Araceli from her seat and climbing out myself. I rounded the rover and opened the passenger-side hatch, sliding my arms beneath her body and lifting her easily out of the compartment. I’d seen her dive out of the way, seen how the paralytic had splashed on the dirt at her feet and ended up on the inside of her left calf and thigh. Examining it, I saw that the spit was acidic in quality, and had eaten through the leg of her pants, and burned her flesh down to the muscle. Horrible third-degree burns, like splatter paint, on her otherwise impeccable skin.
“Gods above,” I murmured, and fetched the first aid kit with as much speed as I could muster.
“Ara,” I said, not knowing what else to do, “we outran a Ribomax.” I pulled out some disinfectant, burn salve and gauze. “You and me, we outran one, together. I don’t know of any other living soul that can say that.”
She made no response, of course; she couldn’t even move. And I hoped that she was asleep, instead of trapped like a prisoner inside a body she couldn’t command.
Without giving it a second thought, I plucked off her shoes and socks and tugged down her pants, discarding the destroyed fabric in the tall grass next to us. “I’m sorry about this next part,” I murmured, and unwrapped a disinfectant wipe before pressing it to the worst of her burns. They were red and angry, and I knew that if she had been awake, cleaning them out would have made her wail in agony. Honestly, I would have preferred it over her silence.
Once they were clean, I opened the tube of salve and squeezed a generous portion out onto my fingertip. It was a clear sort of gel, and I smeared it liberally over her inner calf and thigh before wrapping gauze around the worst of it.
“Okay,” I whispered, “wake up now.” I stared at her as though my will could command her, but she didn’t move. I lifted her head and poured water onto her lips, but it just pooled there and dripped down her chin. I was at a complete loss.
I collapsed back onto my ass in the dirt and watched her, her eyes still wide open but unseeing. It was horrifying, the most horrifying thing I’d seen during those last few days; I had seen the contorted grimace of a half-exploded face, and this was still worse.
This was worse because there was nothing to be done for those poor people. They were already gone. But Ara… and I couldn’t help but feel that, in more capable hands, she would have been fine. If I’d been better prepared, or if I were smarter. If I were a healer like the women of my clan, maybe I could have done something for her.
The women of my clan.
I reached out and swiped her eyes closed with two gentle fingers before springing to my feet and scoop
ing her up into my arms. Depositing her back in her seat in the rover, I took care to remove her black jacket and drape it over her bare legs, tossing her shoes and socks and ruined pants into the rover at her feet before strapping her in and resuming my spot in the driver’s position. Then I floored it again, north, because I knew what I could do to help her.
The village we were headed toward—it was my village.
***
I drove straight through the day, focused and intent, and not caring about anything but arriving at the gates of my hometown, until a low-battery light starting to blink on the console of the rover.
“Come on, buddy,” I muttered, “don’t crap out on me now.”
It was a small miracle that the rover made it all the way to the gates of Hiropass, the town where I’d been born and raised. The sentries at the gate flung them wide for me, as the gates were meant to keep predators out, not other humans or Galateans.
I drove through the center of town, too concerned for Araceli’s health to stop and appreciate the scenery for nostalgia’s sake. On and on I went, throwing the thing into park right by my parents’ front door.
I scooped Ara once more into my arms and banged on the intricately carved wooden door of my family home. Banged like my life depended on it, because it did. Banged until my sleepy mother came to the door.
Her eyes were wide when she threw the door open, ready to scold whosoever disturbed her slumber. But when she saw me, and the precious cargo I carried, she stepped aside to grant me admittance.
“Put her there, my son,” she said to me in Galatean, her tone formal with her urgency, and indicated a plush divan in the sitting room. I laid Ara down as gently as I could and stepped back to give my mother room for her ministrations.
Alien Survivor: (Stranded on Galatea) An Alien SciFi Romance Page 8