“We’re not.” Asche tapped the device attached to her ear.
“Huh.” Those little in-ear translators were only loaded with a dozen common languages. Human languages. Learning an extraterrestrial language had to have violated the manufacturer's warranty. “But if the translator is working for me, why do you understand English?”
“You are not. You speak in the language of our people but you speak as a child. You have already improved with practice.”
“That’s not possible—” Was it? Was it too hard to imagine that the corporation that ran medical experiments in the prison would also test experimental devices that rewired the language center of the brain? Or however it worked. Better to stick to simple questions.
“Where am I?” Now aware, every word felt heavy and malformed on her tongue. Wrong. Her instincts reached for English but when she looked at the alien, the sounds that left her were not her own.
“In the Caldera.”
Well, she knew that. Obviously. It was hard to miss a freaking volcano. “The planet?”
“Sonhadra. We are valos.” He placed a hand over his chest, briefly covering the embedded crystal.
“What are those crystal things?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll answer all your questions in the morning.”
Right. Like she was going to be able to sleep.
***
None of this could be real. Not the impossibly soft bed. Not the impossibly complicated gown of shimmering red straps that Asche gave her. He had to help her arrange the horizontal straps over her torso and actually managed to cover the necessary bits. From her navel down, the ruby red straps radiated in a starburst pattern. A sheer fabric kept them in place. Although completely impractical, the gorgeous dress fitted her perfectly.
“You do not like it? I can get another gown.” Asche pressed a panel on the wall, revealing an entire wardrobe.
“How am I going to hike down a mountain and sift through wreckage in this?”
He nodded. “An excellent point. You need trousers.”
“No, I need to not wear a gown.”
He crouched at her feet, frowning in concentration. His hands skimmed up her legs. She moved to step away but he said, “Stay put. I don’t want to pinch you.”
She stood still as the fabric of the gown melted. No, that wasn't right. The fabric shifted under his hands and reformed, like clay in the hands of a sculpter. Briefly the material warmed as the skirt of the gown became pants. Asche tugged on the ends.
“Better?”
Right. Instead of a drop-dead gorgeous gown she had sparkling pants like out of music video. “It’s too nice. They’ll get ruined.”
He shrugged and ran his hands up the back of her thighs again, as if checking the fit. He stopped just at the bottom curve of her ass and gave a slight squeeze. “I’ll make more.”
The shoes were simple, non-sparkling flats. The material molded to her foot and formed a hard shell for the sole.
Right, just what an average girl wore for a hike down a mountain to go with her disco ruby jumpsuit.
The city… That took her breath away. The luxury apartment had been nice, but everything was scaled for someone taller. The bed was too high off the ground. The toilet was too tall. Even the dang chairs required her climbing up rather than sitting down. But the city, that impressed her.
The apartment was on the upper levels and the entire volcano city sprawled out before her. The buildings curved gently along the internal wall of the volcano, built right out of the stone. It curved like a crescent around the lake of magma. A slender tower with a red bulb near the top of the needle occupied the highest point in the city. The tower extended above the rim of the caldera, straight into the sky. Grand and sweeping, regular geometric designs made the city elegant and imposing all at once. It delivered a message. The city took power to construct and power to hold it in place above the active volcano. She thought briefly of the largest statue in the plaza.
Don’t fuck with the bitch crazy enough to build a city in a volcano.
“What is this place?”
“This is the City in the Caldera.”
Lucie shook her head. “You keep saying that, like it’ll magically make sense to me. Why is it here? Where are the people?”
“You already saw all the people in the Forge.”
Ertale arrived, carrying a large satchel. Provisions for the trip, she assumed. He gestured for them to follow.
“All those people were dead,” she said. Weren’t they?
“Some. Not all.” Asche’s tone grew cautious, as if he struggled not to divulge too much information.
The apartment opened onto a small balcony with no obvious stairs or a way down. Ertale gestured for her to stand in the center of the balcony. Satisfied that she was in place with Asche standing close, Ertale did something and the platformed lowered.
She grabbed Ertale’s arm, clutching the biggest, most stable thing she could see. He patted her hand and made a rumbling noise, like the ground trembling, but that could have been the blood pounding in her ears as they descended.
The balcony—well, elevator, she supposed— floated down on a vertical track, much like the magnetic levitation track up the mountain.
Sarsen waited at the bottom, scowling. “Hurry up. We can’t waste the entire day sightseeing.”
What crawled up his butt?
“Look,” Lucie said, “you don’t have to do this. I’ll go myself.”
“No,” Asche said at once. Ertale’s massive hand gripped her at the waist, as if afraid she would dash off.
They climbed into two carts. She shared a cart with Ertale because no one else could fit in with the big guy. He placed her carefully between his legs and surrounded her from the back. As the cart moved, his arms tightened briefly to reassure her but not crush her. His warmth soaked into her skin.
Brisk air welcomed them outside the caldera. Lucie forgot about the extreme heat in the city. The air felt positively cold in comparison. She leaned into Ertale, sharing his warmth. The man was a furnace; a surprisingly comfortable furnace.
From her vantage point on the mountain, she could see the entire valley, bordered by forest and river. The crashed ship left a long, ugly scar across the green of the valley. Finding the wreckage wouldn’t be difficult.
The journey down took minutes. The journey across the valley to the wreckage took two hours of hard walking; much better than the day’s wandering and backtracking when Halliday tried to lead their expedition.
Lucie asked for the name of every plant and animal she spied. Asche gathered edible items, letting her try a bite and stuffing the bag of the ones meeting her approval.
“What about you?” she asked around a mouthful of red berries. They were tart but not unpleasant with a hint of citrus. They’d make a nice jam, if this planet had jam. Or bread. Or butter.
“We do not eat,” Asche said matter-of-factly, adding more berries to the bag.
“Seriously? You don’t eat?” That did not seem right. Everything ate. Everyone ate, she corrected herself. Because her aliens were obviously people, not things.
“We derive our nutrients from the sun and moisture from the air,” Sarsen said. “Now talk while you walk or stop talking. I do not want to be at this crash site when it is dark.”
“Big solar-powered man like you scared of the dark? Afraid the monsters will get you?” she asked in a teasing voice, trying to elicit a smile.
“Yes,” he said bluntly, not breaking his stride.
“Seriously?” Lucie hurried after him.
When the sun approached the zenith, the valos insisted she stop for food and water. She wasn’t that hungry, what with all the snacking, but ate and drank enough to satisfy them.
She didn’t really understand why they were helping her. She had nothing of value to trade. She knew nothing about surviving on this planet. She’d nearly died of dehydration the first day. Grateful they helped her and didn’t leave her to die, she didn’t understand t
heir angle. Part of her brain, a small pre-prison part, reminded her that some people did things to be nice and they didn’t have an agenda, but they clearly weren’t happy about helping her. Okay, Sarsen wasn’t happy about it. Asche was personable, but he could be too charming, too intense. Ertale hadn’t spoken a word to her or in her presence. She had no idea what he thought.
And where were all the people?
That city was massive, easily large enough to house ten thousand people, but she only saw three. Three people for one huge city. And it wasn’t like the city was made of empty shells of buildings. The buildings had purpose and function. They were meant to be used. The ones she checked out yesterday had furnishings. You don’t build and furnish a city for ten thousand when you only have a population of three. So what happened to everyone?
She smelled the Concord wreckage before she saw it. Smoke and burnt plastic permeated the air. Underneath that the unmistakable rot of death.
All those people Halliday pretended not hear as they pounded on locked doors and begged for help…
She rushed forward, helpless to do anything except get there a bit faster. She’d whack Halliday on the head and spill his brains out all over again if she could.
The twisted pile of metal still smoldered. Despite being only a small section of the prison, it was massive. The hatch she escaped from was a good ten feet off the ground and well out of her reach. She jumped up, grabbing for a hand hold but found only jagged edges.
Fuck. Why did she listen to Halliday? Why did she let herself be led off like a good little girl?
“Please,” she said, turning to the nearest valos. “Lift me up. I can’t reach on my own.”
Ertale
He did not understand this female.
She cried at the death of her people but did not even ask about the man she killed and abandoned his body in the Forge. She did not care about the disposal of his remains.
These people, though…
She cried. Tears streaked her cheeks as they went from room to room. He threw his weight against uncooperative doors, forcing them open. Every door revealed another tragedy. Whoever these people were, they had been trapped in the wreckage. Help came too late.
Lucie babbled. He found it difficult to follow her words, but the meaning was clear. She was upset. Her ship had fallen from the sky. What more needed to be said?
He crouched to burn the bodies. Carrion would only attract predators, and surely that would upset Lucie.
“What are you doing?” She threw herself at his back, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Don’t do that. Not here. Don’t make them spend eternity in here.” New venom entered her voice.
Interesting. He wondered if Sarsen or Asche had discerned the purpose of this ship. The locked doors and simple rooms were very similar to the alcoves designed to hold valos. Like those alcoves, this was a prison.
“Bring them outside. Please.” Lucie wiped at the tears on her face, smudging soot on her smooth skin.
Ertale didn’t have to obey, he realized. He could ignore her request and burn the bodies here. Certainly that was easier. He wanted to comply, but he didn’t have to. Changes from the returned heartstone were so gradual, he hardly noticed.
He opened his mouth to share this insight.
Lucie tilted her head, watching him. “Yes?”
No sound issued. He remained as voiceless as ever.
“Still not much of a talker? It’s okay. Talking’s overrated.”
He moved the bodies—humans, Lucie called her species— a good distance from the ship. He faced them towards the mountain. Each one was smaller compared to a valo. And soft. Floppy even. Many had multiple broken bones and their limbs just flopped all wrong. Others had not a mark on them. The fire and smoke had suffocated them.
Humans were terribly fragile. This alarmed Ertale. Their Lucie had staggered into the City in the Caldera dying of thirst and exhaustion. Clearly she couldn’t keep herself alive. She needed them.
The realization that he didn’t want her fragile human form to come to harm alarmed him more. With Sheenika, he was compelled to defend her city and her person. He had been unable to refuse, forced to obey, but he personally did not care one bit about her wellbeing.
Lucie was different. He was different.
The heartstone pulsed in his chest.
They cleared all the rooms but one, where the fire damage had been most severe. There was one badly burned corpse on the floor. Ertale moved to carry the charred remains, but Lucie placed her small hand on his arm.
“She can stay,” she whispered.
The sun had moved to mid-afternoon when he finished his task. He had carried out a dozen humans and prepared them for whatever ritual humans performed.
Lucie hung her head, pain visible as her body trembled. “I know I should say something.”
Asche pressed another red berry into her hand. She looked surprised before laughing and swallowing the morsel. It stained her lips red and Ertale had the overwhelming desire to plumb the depths of her mouth to taste that berry.
He didn’t understand himself.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. I’m sorry I hurt you,” she said before stepping back.
Ertale called forth the fire easily. The bodies burned hot.
Lucie turned away, eyes no longer crying. The time for tears had passed.
Chapter Nine
Lucinda
The valos took her down a different path, into the forest.
“I thought you wanted to be back at the city by nightfall,” Lucie said.
“We would, but you slowed us down,” Sarsen replied, his long legs covering ground at a pace she struggled to match.
She ached. Yesterday—or the day before, she lost track—had pushed her body to the limit, then she did it again. She was bruised and sore, cut up and covered in soot. Whatever healing salve the valos gave her worked wonders on her hands, but she opened the wounds climbing around the wreckage.
She searched for another radio, or the components to fix the busted radio back in the City in the Caldera. Her search turned up nothing. Maybe Amber might be able to fix it, but Lucie just didn’t have the skills. She could plug in new parts and fiddle with a dial, but that was her limit. She needed a working radio to find the other survivors and send a distress signal home. Assuming the ship hadn’t sent a signal as it entered the atmosphere.
The part of the Concord she had been confined to had been for medical research. The communication array wasn’t there. The best she could hope for was the comm system used by the prison guards, but all the equipment suffered damage from either the crash or the fire.
Repairing the radio she had waiting up the mountain was her best bet, even without a fresh supply of spare parts. The volcano city had been a strange blend of rough primitive and unexpected high-tech with the maglev. There must be something there she could use. Some forgotten tool or ancient component. Radio wasn’t even that advanced a technology. The first radio used crystals, and she had seen plenty of crystals in the vault.
Lucie adjusted her plan slightly: repair the radio, find the survivors, go home and scratch off some names on her list.
And keep her brother and his kids safe. She couldn’t forget that part.
Now she just needed to figure out if her valos would let her back in their city or if they planned to abandon her in the woods. Sarsen certainly acted like nothing would make him happier than leaving her to the elements.
Asche caught her staring daggers at Sarsen’s back. He nudged her with a shoulder. “He means well.”
“He doesn't like me.” Like that mattered. This was survival, not a popularity contest.
“He feels deeply,” Asche said in a quiet voice, like he divulged forbidden information. “We are all learning how to process.”
“You don’t need to make excuses for his bad behavior.” She had dealt with worse. She could deal with one moody alien.
The valos continued to wear nothing more than a loinclot
h. Ertale was a mountain of muscle. Each step was efficient motion and, frankly, mesmerizing to watch the muscle bunch and flex. With hard to describe skin, he was fire made flesh, contained in a shell. His mottled colors of gray and brown shifted as he moved and in the cracks she could see embers of yellow and orange.
Asche kept her pace, although it was clear she walked far slower than his normal pace. His dark skin was more gray in the sunlight than charcoal, but underneath, deep inside, he burned. There was no doubt in Lucie’s mind that he could be dangerous when the time came.
Sarsen, though, he was a work of terrifying beauty. Every inch of him designed for battle, decades of combat honed his athletic frame. While Ertale was large, like a tank, Sarsen was meant to be quicker, a blade to slice through the enemy lines. He moved with a feral grace. His mottled gray and brown skin shifted and flexed as he moved. The fire burned in him, though; came up through cracks and fissures, like a network of scars that never properly healed. A map of fire spread across his back, following the contours of his muscles, from his strong shoulders down to his trim hips.
None of them could be mistaken for human. They were too large, their features too rough, but the view was intriguing.
Asche gave her another nudge with his shoulder, that toothy grin back.
“I’m not staring,” she muttered.
The forest cleared. A small collection of stone buildings huddled together. Years of neglect left obvious signs on the village. None of the buildings had roofs but the walls appear stable. Grass and weeds grew amongst the paving stones in the street. Vines climbed along walls and the side of the roofless buildings. No one had lived here for a very long time.
As they moved through the village, other signs of abuse became apparent. Stones were blackened from ancient fires and split from the heat. Furnishings inside were broken, but Lucie did not believe the damage was due to exposure to the elements. A bad thing had happened in this village. It had been attacked and never recovered. Either the people fled or there no one remained alive to flee.
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