Lucinda

 

Lucie woke to find herself naked in a massive bed, surrounded by the golems. She should have been mortified. She was naked, and someone had gotten her naked. Years on the Concord had stripped away any sense of modesty she had. The fact that she was clean and comfortable was far more interesting than if her golem alien caught a glimpse of her boobs.

Almost bare themselves, they wore the tiniest loincloths that didn’t really hide anything. The one closest to her, the one the color of smoldering charcoal, squatted, and she could see everything.

Everything.

It was… interesting. Big. Purple. Thick in the middle. Bumps and possibly spikes at the base.  Holy cow. It would either be amazing or atrocious. Maybe she’d been in prison too long, because alien wang didn’t look so bad from her vantage point.

“Eat and we’ll discuss rescuing your people,” the stern one said.

Lucie snapped her eyes up and forward. “I no looking—”

She nearly bit her tongue at her awkward words. I no looking. Honestly. She must have lost a lot of blood or hit her head.

“Eat. Please.” The slender one the color of smoldering charcoal pressed the bowl back into her hands.

The tallest one said nothing, observing everything.

And every single one of the aliens somehow spoke English.

Right. Nothing weird about this.

The weirdest thing of all was that she didn’t feel afraid. Lucie had spent the last four years of her life in a literal hell with bad people who did terrible things. She knew bad when she saw it, and these guys weren’t giving her the heebie-jeebies. That meant something, right? They were different, maybe dangerous, but she felt safe.

“Am I hallucinating? Hit my head?” She held the spoon to her lips and sniffed. Salty and not unpleasant with pungent herbs that reminded her of rosemary, the broth smelled good.

Smoldering Charcoal sighed dramatically and took the bowl and spoon away from her. He pushed the spoon to her lips. She swallowed before she could think better about it and worry about poison or alien bacteria wreaking havoc on her stomach. She tolerated the water just fine.

“I am Asche,” he said. “You are safe. You need to rest.”

She repeated his name, earning a nod and another harrowing smile. That dude had way too many pointy teeth. She wanted to ask about Halliday but considering the state she left the guard in, she decided to stick to something safe. “Who are they?”

“Big and silent is Ertale. You saw him by the river.” Another spoonful. “The creature that attacked you was an ak’rena.”

“The shrieking monster.”

“Yes, that is a good description.”

“This is a waste of my time,” the stern one proclaimed, pivoting on his heel and leaving. “We’ll retrieve her people in the morning.”

“And that is Sarsen,” Asche said.

“Is he always so—” She searched for the right word. She didn’t want to offend them. This was their home, and she was entirely at their mercy. He said he would help, but he didn’t seem happy about it. Did she need him to help her happily or did she just need his help?

“Yes, but he is our brother and we love him.” Another spoonful. “It is a struggle.”

Lucie held up a hand. “That’s delicious but salty. I need something to drink.”

The big and silent one handed her a flask, cool to the touch. She drained the vessel and returned it with a slight smile. Their hands touched briefly. His hot fingers skated across the back of her hand.

“Your speech ass improved rapidly,” he said. “Do you need to eliminate waste?”

She hadn’t until he mentioned it. Suddenly her bladder refused to be ignored. He helped her out of the bed, wrapped the sheet around her and led her to the fanciest place in the universe which was meant for pee. The floors and walls were a smooth white stone, almost like marble, and it glowed in the daylight. Warm under her bare feet, Lucie found the wash basin and toilet.

Asche watched her as she hitched up the sheets, ready to sit. Yeah, not cool. Pervert. She motioned for him to turn around before she did her business.

Finished, she rinsed her hands in the sink. A gel oozed from a dispenser instead of water but she got the idea. Hand sanitizer was hand sanitizer.

“I have so many questions,” she said as he lead her back to the massive bed. She fought back a yawn. Thirst sated and belly full, exhaustion crept up on her. She found it hard to keep her eyes open. “How are you speaking English?”

“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 their 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.