“To mate with us,” he went on, watching my every move. “To ensure the continuation of our species.”
“I mean, that’s why they sent me here…”
“It’s very noble of you.” He tried to catch my gaze, inclining his head toward mine so that he could look me in the eye. “You are very good and generous. Through you, the Qet will continue. You will bear our progeny, and — ”
“I won’t,” I insisted. “I didn’t come of my own free will. I was… taken. Abducted, right out of my own bed. I fell asleep at home, and the next thing I knew, I was on a spaceship orbiting this lethal planet. And now? Now I’m told that I’m some walking incubator for alien babies, and I just… I can’t.” He was staring at me, but I couldn’t look back. “Let’s go back to the pod,” I said and slid from the root to stand on my good foot.
“For what purpose?” he asked, uncoiling to his full height.
“I don’t know. To look.”
“Look for what?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just… look.”
“If I knew your purposes — ”
“For something to help me go home,” I spat out, without thinking. It was the first time I had spoken this truth to him, at least in a manner he could understand. I couldn’t look at him, but I felt a shift in his entire demeanor. Understanding dawned on him like daylight, though he grew cold.
“Of course,” he murmured, “Of course, you want to go home. How foolish of me.” He set off at quite a clip, leaving me to hobble along behind him.
“Odrik,” I called out, but he didn’t turn. And for the first time since I met him, I was left to my own devices. I looked frantically around me and saw nothing but trees and tall grass, a mountain to the east — but was it even east? The sun rose there, but that was some other star, wasn’t it? I had no bearings, nothing at all to cling to. Except for him. “Odrik!”
But of course this entire time I’d been trying to find a way off of this planet, away from him. And now he knew it. My heart broke to think that I had broken his, so I sank down into the tall grass and buried my face in my hands. My cheeks were hot as I fought down the knot in my throat — when had I started to care so much? I took in a sharp breath of air, shook my head as though to jostle myself free of my feelings, and stood up again, shambling toward the pod once more.
By the time I reached it, he had climbed out again, a few white plastic boxes in his hands. “I don’t believe that this egg is equipped with anything that could fly you off the planet. But I found some items that may be of use.”
He opened one of the boxes and it was a basic first aid kit. Another had a collection of toiletries and a second gossamer gown. The third box had food rations and bottled water. “What about a communicator?” I asked. “To, I don’t know… hail a passing ship?”
Odrik shook his head. “You’re welcome to look for yourself,” he said, “but the language on that console isn’t one I recognize.” I didn’t have to look for myself — I believed him. I had known it was hopeless even before he and I had set off to look at the pod. At least we’d gotten our translators for our efforts. I had expected to feel my heart sink at the prospect of having to remain on this planet, but it didn’t. I had to admit, there was something appealing about it. Fine, then. The choice was out of my hands. I would just have to stay and deal with it.
“I guess we should just — ”
“There is some way I can help,” he muttered. And it was his turn to avert his gaze.
“There is?” I asked, meek as a church mouse.
“Our tribe,” he said at length, “the village was constructed around the ship that brought my people to this planet. We could go there, see if there’s a communication device on board.”
I was stunned by his selfless generosity; I knew it pained him, the idea of my leaving. But he would help me anyway. I swallowed hard, my eyes stinging with tears I would not shed.
“Thank you,” I whispered and placed my hand on his arm. He stiffened beneath my touch but did not jerk away.
“It is several days’ journey on foot,” he continued. “Longer, with your injuries. I suggest we rest at my dwelling for the winternight and begin the trek tomorrow.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “whatever you say.”
“Indeed,” he said, tonelessly. “Because if we’re going to make this journey, you have to do precisely as I tell you at all times, do you understand?” I nodded. “You don’t know this terrain, or my people. But I do. So none of your… running off to be eaten by plants.”
I cracked a smile and peered up into his face, his strange, alien face that I had come to find so beautiful. “I promise, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”
He gave a sharp nod and crouched down low to the ground with his back to me, his silent indication that I should climb on. And so I did, and he hoisted me high, and we set off back in the direction we had come, two aliens on a foreign world.
Chapter 9: ODRIK
She wants to leave me.
She wants to leave me.
I was heavy with the truth of it as I trudged across the plains back to my dwelling, my lady situated on my back, a triad of odd white boxes in my hands. I was weighed down, but her heat against me was pleasant, and I tried not to allow myself to consider what her absence would feel like after she was gone.
I do not know why I had not considered that she might not want to stay. Why should she? This was a strange and violent planet, that boiled you at high noon and froze you during the night, with huge meat-eating beasts that stalked in the early morning, and plant life that would nibble your flesh throughout the day. Rich with gemstones that no one off planet wanted to trade or sell, I had the feeling that the Qet were a long ways away from the rest of the civilized galaxy. And so be it: we could hunt and live peacefully here, with our myths and our stories and our traditions.
But certainly something about this planet had killed off our women. We were a thousand strong when we came to this place, or so I am told. And we had slightly more females than males when we made the journey. Many of our women died out all at once, growing sick and giving way in childbirth, their systems weakened by something in the air or the water or the food. Why should my lady be any different? And if this was not a place she could survive, then it would be selfish of me to try to entreat her to stay.
I made up my mind to be good, and kind, and resolute, and to do anything in my power to ensure my lady’s safety. And I knew it had to begin by simply speaking to her again, as we had said nothing to each other for the entire duration of the walk back to the dwelling.
I set Novalyn down on the packed dirt floor and she limped over to the furs and sat down, rubbing at her good foot, which was undoubtedly sore from overuse. I set the strange white boxes down on the trunk behind her head and lingered awkwardly behind her. “Do you hunger, my lady?” I asked, and she turned, smiling up at me.
“You do not have to be so formal with me,” she said.
“To what do you refer?”
“‘My lady’,” she said. “It seems so… stiff somehow.” She leaned back and wiped at her brow with the back of her hand. The day was hot, and she had beads of sweat forming at her hairline.
“I mean only to show you respect,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me.
“I know, and I appreciate it. But it is not necessary. We are… friends, you and I.”
Friends. I gave a nod of my head and came around to stand at the mouth of the dwelling, peering out toward the waters of the still pond. “But I am hungry,” she said at length, “and I imagine you are as well. You have done all the real work today, after all.”
I proffered the feint of a smile and turned around to face her. “What shall I fetch for you?” I asked. But she simply turned and snatched one of the strange boxes from atop the trunk. She opened it and rifled through its contents, casting a broad smile down upon whatever it was that she found within.
“Come, sit with me,
” she said, and I went obediently to her side and sat down cross-legged on the furs. She reached into the box and produced a bar of some sort, wrapped in shiny green paper. She handed it to me. It was light and small, and it fit in the palm of my hand.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A Nutrigrain bar,” she explained and snatched it from me. She split the paper with her fingers and handed it back, and I saw that the bar looked like dried porridge. “Oats and honey,” she said.
I sniffed it and bit off one corner. It was sweet and it crunched and I liked it very much, even if little pieces of it did get stuck between my teeth. She reached out and broke off a corner for herself, popping it into her mouth and closing her eyes. She consumed it with delight and relish.
“They are from my home planet,” she explained, laughing a little. “Actually, I did not really enjoy them much, but they were everywhere. In vending machines, corner stores, gas stations. Is it not strange, the things we end up taking for granted?”
“What else did they send with you?”
“Protein bars, dried fruit, vegetable chips, and…” She laughed and pulled out something else in a shiny metallic wrapper. “Astronaut ice cream, because apparently they think this is hilarious.”
“What is astronaut ice cream?”
“It is a sort of… sweet confection. Um… a… Here. Just try some.” She opened it up and handed it to me. It was pink and white and brown, and when I bit into it, it dissolved against my tongue. But it was sweet, sweeter than even the sweetest fruit that was native to this planet, and I could not help but smile. “Do you like it?” she asked.
“Very much.”
She reached out and took it from me, helped herself to a bite, and handed it back. “The rest is for you,” she said. “I have had it before.” Next came dried fruit in small slices that crunched when you ate it, then vegetables, dried and salted. We drank fresh water from clear containers and I set them, once emptied, atop the trunk so we might use them again.
We finished off the box in companionable silence until we were sitting among crumbs and metallic wrappers. It must be nice, living in a place where food was prepared for you all the time. Still, it wasn’t as satisfying as taking down wildfowl and cooking it over open flame. Novalyn patted her tummy and smiled, a gesture she had used to indicate her satisfaction before she had words to tell me. And we laughed lightly together when she finally said, “I am full.” I watched her as she set about collecting the detritus and placing it back in the box before sweeping her hands over the furs to clear away the crumbs. Then, something in her shifted, like she didn’t know quite what to do with herself. She sighed and leaned back on her elbows, her legs stretched out in front of her, and I wanted nothing more than to put my hand on her thigh.
“I, ah…” I cleared my throat and gestured absently toward her legs. “I ought to change your bandages again. With your permission.”
“Well, the wounds do not hurt, at present,” she countered, canting her head gently to one side.
“That is because I have taken excellent care of them. Lie back.” She did as I bid her and tugged the tunic up to her waist, baring herself fully to me. I stood and rifled through the trunk for some strips of fresh cloth and the wineskin full of Panyan liquor. When I came to sit once more beside her, her legs were bent at the knee and winged out to the side. This position certainly gave me access to the wounds on her thigh, but also an unobstructed view of the flower of her sex. I salivated at the sight of it, knowing what it felt like to plunge myself into that sweet, soft flesh. I smiled to see where she glistened with her desire; I smiled to know that my cock would slip easily inside of her, with barely any insistence on my part.
Her breathing quickened as I began my ministrations, gently taking off her old wrappings and dripping stinging hot liquor over the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. She sucked in air through her teeth and closed her eyes, and I pursed my lips and blew cool air over flesh.
I wrapped her leg with a new bandage and pretended that I was not in agony, desperate to touch her.
But why should I be shy? We had lain together already — we were mated, she and I. Even if she decided ultimately that she would leave me, so long as she remained, she was mine. I had had her; she had had me. I shifted where I sat so that I could bend forward and press a kiss to her inner thigh, the one not riddled with bites from the carnivorous plants. She moaned almost imperceptibly.
“Odrik,” she murmured, but I could not tell if it was a protest or an encouragement. I reached forward and brushed my fingertips over her most sensitive center, and they came away damp with her emissions. I used my thumbs to spread her open, to peer into the bloom of her flower, before I finally leaned in and ran my tongue along her rift, from bottom to top and back again. She overwhelmed my senses: her taste was sweet, her scent was musky, and the softness of nether lips against my tongue was driving me to madness. I had grown hard in an instant, but I was more concerned with bringing her to climax than I was with my own desires.
I slid one finger inside of her, then two, before my tongue gained purchase on the tiny kernel whose stimulation made my lady buck her hips and arch her back, made her grip the furs and cry out.
I worked my fingers in and out of her, imagining as I licked her that it was my own member sliding into her warm, wet center. I quickened the pace of my tongue, relishing how my lady whimpered, how she whined and writhed, how she became desperate for her own release. “Please,” she groaned, and I could not tell if she wanted me to stop or not to stop until her body had given itself over entirely to her pleasure. I chose to believe she wanted me to go on and thrust my fingers into her in time with how I flicked my tongue over her most sensitive parts.
In a moment, she grew silent, her body tensing like a tightly coiled spring before she let out a guttural cry and collapsed, all of the rigidity evaporating from her body. I could feel her internal muscles clamping down around my fingertips as I slowed them and stopped them altogether, retracting them carefully as her body spasmed with the aftershocks of her culmination.
I licked my fingers clean of her juices and lay down on the furs beside her, her breasts heaving as she tried to catch her breath. “You should not have done that,” she said on the wings of an exhale, her eyes closed.
I smirked. “You are welcome.”
“It will just be confusing,” she continued.
“How so?”
She opened one eye and peered at me. “You know how. I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding between us.”
“Did my lady enjoy herself?” I asked, one brow quirked high over the other.
“Yes, but — ”
“Then nothing else need be said.”
She was silent for a long while as her breathing calmed, and I adjusted on the furs next to her, my erection straining painfully against the raw leather of my hunter’s wear. “I am sweating like an animal,” she muttered at last, and swept her hands over her face and back through the tangle of her hair.
“The star has reached its zenith,” I remarked. “It will not get any hotter today than it is right now.”
“Perhaps, then, it would be a good time to cool off.” She pushed herself up to standing and braced her unsteady form with one hand on the tensile leather of the dwelling walls. “If that is all right with you?”
I gave a nod of affirmation and sat up on the furs. “Of course,” I said, aware that the way she posed the query did not give any indication that she wanted me to join her. “Yes, of course. Just do not wander off.”
One corner of her mouth hooked up in a sly little grin. “I have learned my lesson about wandering,” she said and moved with labored steps toward the dwelling’s entrance.
“Would you like me to help you?” I asked, watching her go. But she shook her head, a gesture that set her curls to bouncing.
“I can manage,” she insisted, so I just watched her struggle forward until she’d exited into the harsh light
of midday.
I think the fight against our baser natures is what links all sentient creatures the galaxy over, and my own struggle was brought violently to the forefront when Novalyn stepped alone into the daylight. It was a microcosm for the overwhelming sense of absence I knew I would feel when she finally left me, something that I was going to help her do. But for a moment that afternoon, when I rose to my feet to glimpse her down by the water, I considered what it might be like if, maybe, I did not let her go.
Certainly, I could overpower her. She was small, and although she was fierce, she posed no real threat to me, even when I slept beside her. I could keep her here, get her with child and restrain her until she became too round with life to run away from me. And when she bore our progeny, she would come to love them, and through loving them, she might even come to love me. And I would care for her: feed her, clothe her, ensure that she wanted for nothing, and she would see that she was not a prisoner, that I was offering her a life in which she could find happiness and stability.
I stepped toward the mouth of the dwelling and peered out into the day, and I saw her tug my tunic over her head and drape it across the branch of a low-hanging tree. She was intoxicatingly beautiful, her plump rear and soft, rounded belly, the smooth skin of her fleshy thighs, her pert breasts, her long arms. Her hair was the color of Panyan bark, twisted into tight curls, and her eyes were limpid blue like still water. And when I had the opportunity to slide my cock into the slippery cleft between her legs, it always felt like coming home.
Something welled up in me as I watched her wade into the waters, slowly, tentatively, and I knew I could not force her to stay.
But I could ask.
And why not? I had taken good care of her, we seemed to get along well, and when we came together, time stood still. What more, really, was there? I stepped out of the dwelling and marched, resolute, toward the water, running my hand over the scale armor implants on my left arm.
Novalyn dipped down low in the water when she saw me, concealing her breasts from view, as though she had grown suddenly self-conscious; I had, too.
Alien Survivor: (Stranded on Galatea) An Alien SciFi Romance Page 28