CHAPTER 29

 

TARA

 

I have to get out of here.

Things haven't been the same since the night I hurt Tac’s feelings when I tried sleeping on the floor.

I hurt him bad.

I feel horrible.

It’s just… I couldn’t curl up with him again.  Because I’m starving to curl up with him again.

And I can’t do it.  I can’t afford to grow attached to Tac.

Oh, who are you trying to fool?

Okay: I can’t afford to be addicted to Tac.

I’m.  Not.  Staying.

And instead of the platonic cheek kiss I’d intended, when my lips landed against his lips, I realized that leaving him is going to hurt me.  And his super-sweet, more-than-just-affectionate look told me something worse.  His eyes had gone hooded, and his skin started mottling with beautiful, colorful patterns, and his look said it all: he feels the same way about me that I feel for him.  That’s when I realized I’m not the only one who is going to hurt when I go.

And I’m going.

I’m going home.

I’ve got to get home!

Tac put his feet down about me sleeping on the floor though—do kangaroos thump their feet?  I have to wonder, because when I tried to move camp, Tac sure did it: a loud, alarmed whump!  Like he was punctuating a “NO, YOU WILL NOT.”

So we’ve been sleeping on opposite sides of his bed, because I wouldn’t let him sleep on the floor either.  I’ve been so worried that I’d crawl over to him at night, an unsanctioned mattress-migration, that I’ve barely gotten any sleep at all.

I tried to explain that this isn’t a punishment: but I swear that’s exactly what he thinks this is—that the kiss is the reason I’m doing my best to… basically hide from him.  And when it feels like a punishment, none of my useless human words do a thing to assure him otherwise.

I have to shove aside my feelings—whatever feelings I’ve been growing for Tac, aside.  They have no place in my life: I can’t stay, and he can’t go home with me.

I hope that if I keep telling myself this, my heart will stop aching.

I hear the soft whir of a door.  I scramble to my feet, not even slowing to dust myself off—this floor is so pristine you could eat off of it so whatever dust bunnies managed to find my butt as I sat there are about to get lost as I race for my target.  “Lem!” I shout.

I can see him hunch his shoulders as he tries to scuttle even faster.

However, I’m wearing the medical booties he’s been supplying me with in lieu of socks, so I grab momentum then bend my knees so that I can glide over the sparkling-clean corridor floor like I’m a figure skater.  Lem isn’t impressed.

But I am—this is the only happy feeling I’ve experienced in days.  It’s brief though, and snuffs out as soon as I slide to a stop.  Lem looks around us like we’re about to get busted for a drug deal, but I try to ignore this.  He’s been more nervous than usual, and it seems like every time I show up, he’s in even more of a rush to see me clean and gone than the last time, and he’s getting so impatient that he’s almost tries to cut me off before I’m done.

Quite a change from the first time we did this.  Tsk-tsk: someone isn’t a very responsible human-pet owner.

But bathing by washcloth and water in the bathroom sink isn’t the same as using this soap, and since he won’t let me take it with me to use wherever and whenever at my leisure, he’s going to have to suck it up and wait while I spot-clean myself in all the acceptable areas.

And when I’m done, I make an attempt at training/communicating with him again.  “Lem.  I’m Tara.  I have,” I hold up my arms—but he cuts me off.  Not by a gesture, or words—he just leaves.  Turns and walks away, like I’m not even speaking!

“You know,” I grouse.  “I’ve spent more time watching pet goldfish’s mouths move than you pay attention to me trying to talk.  You’re a terrible human-pet owner!”

The only reaction I get is him checking various things on his suit.  This guy’s a trip.

In a snit now, I stalk him as he makes his way to the kitchen, but I get bored of watching him do nothing more than ignore me while he sucks his lunch down with this fingers (strangest thing I’ve seen since I was carried onto this ship, and that’s saying a lot).

“I’ll be back,” I warn him.

I try to hurry past the door of Tac’s equipment room.  I’ve come to the painful decision that it’s best if we don’t… see each other more than we have to.

I wish I could stop thinking about him as easily as I manage to walk past his door.  Except that it isn’t easy to walk past—and I can’t stop thinking about him.  The look in his eyes after our lips—

Distraction!  Find a distraction!

I hear the faint sound of metal clanging.

That’ll do.

I’ve never been in here, but I’ve caught glimpses whenever someone is passing through the door.  And when it slides open at my touch, I step inside, and the noise is so much louder than I expected it to be.  Machinery.  This room is a steampunk-lover’s cog and copper and nearly Victorian-elegant styled dream, with swooping pipes and parts filling the space.

When Grake spots me, his wings pop open.

I cover my ears and stare at him, feeling a mix of pity and horror.  How can he stay in here all day with this racket?

He’s got grease under all of his claws and up his arms and he looks ashamed as he hastily tries to clean up, like he needs to make himself presentable for me.

The fact that I haven’t even started talking yet and he’s stressing out stresses me out.  This is not the mindset for complicated exchanges, and as I glance around, grimacing so hard my cheeks are starting to ache, I see neither is this an environment that’s conducive to learning.  I try to bite back my disappointment at the inkling that Grake is not going to be an effective pupil, and probably not my teacher either.

The gargantuan rotating thing in the middle of the room makes an unsettling death-rattle and falls still.

AHHHHH!  Isn’t this the engine?  Isn’t this the engine that keeps this flying ship from floating uselessly through the vastness of space?  If the engine isn’t turning, does this mean—!

The lights dim and the entire ship gives a shuddering groan.

Grake shoots me a harried, apologetic look before he picks up a wrench and bangs it into a big, rotating, hose-and-various spaceship parts-covered cylindrical engine… thing.

It shudders and heaves itself over once, twice; then it thankfully smooths out and rolls like it’s apparently intended to.  And now it’s actually nearly unobtrusive enough to fade into background noise entirely.

All it took was a good beating.

Realizing my hands are still clamped over my ears from back when I was horrified about the sound of the engine, I drop them, but now I’m shaken: it’s not anytime soon that I’m going to get over the moment when I faced the possibility that this ship could be stuck drifting through endless darkness for forever if this alien doesn’t keep on top of the, um, ‘maintenence.’

I peel my eyes from the very important component to stare at him.

He gives me a distracted smile and I decide this really, really, really isn’t a good idea.  He’s busy keeping us all afloat.  And I need him to do this.  I need him to do this very much.  He is not the alien to distract.

I thank him for his time, apologize for interrupting him, and as a parting gift, I toss him the treat that Tac left for me this morning.  As food goes as far as I’m concerned, it’s... okay.  If you like raw radishes.  But since Tac leaves them for me, I hope it means they’re special here.  With the way Grake looks stunned but cheered up, I think I did a good thing.

So I feel like I’m leaving on a good note.

His door is just sliding shut behind me when I hear the shuffle of my favorite clean-freak alien’s feet.  Hallelujah for good timing.

Lem notices I’m making a beeline for him and speeds up.

So do I.

Because unlike the other doors, Lem’s doesn’t slide back and forth—it has hinges and some sort of suction chamber and a big, heavy bolt that is thrown across the inside of the door.

I’ve never actually been inside to see this in action, but I can hear it plenty fine when he slams it down to lock me out.

Again.

“Coward!” I tell the door, but I don’t say it with any heat.  He was never a good bet anyway.  He’s too fussy to concentrate on what I’m saying, and he seems to have no interest in teaching me at all.

There is one alien who does care enough about me to listen, who does show an interest in communicating: I hate thinking that it will feel like I’m using him.  He doesn’t know yet that I’m going to leave at the first opportunity.  However, he’s so nice, I believe he’d still help me, no matter what.

I just wish I had a way to warn him that we can’t—shouldn’t—become—more—attached to each other.

Because I’ll do anything to get home to my babies.  Even leave the alien that I—

That I—

That I… like.  A lot.

And it’s one thing for me to get hurt: I’d take it, because I don’t have a choice.  I have to get to them.

It’s the part where I cause hurt to someone else that I’m struggling with.  Anything for my kids.

Even at the expense of someone so good?

Inhaling a deep breath to bolster myself, I catch the scent just as I slowly turn around.

And groan.

Brax.

Options on this ship suck.  Grake is way too busy ensuring our transport stays transporting, Lem won’t spend enough time near me to be of any use, and then there’s this bossy jerk.

This one likes to hear his own voice way more than mine and I think his idea of ‘communicating’ is him doling out commands and ordering me around.

Which… isn’t too outrageous as far as pet-rearing goes…

If I felt like giving him any credit.

Which I don’t.

I shake my head, holding a silent conversation with myself, and Brax tilts his; he seems to be enjoying my silent censure.

And that’s good, because I’m deciding that because he doesn’t listen to me, and he doesn’t give me baths, he gets no points.  Any points he’s gained are null.  Even the points he gets when he feeds me.  Yesterday, he kept shushing me whenever I tried to talk to him, and when that didn’t work, he resorted to stuffing food into my mouth.  As positive reinforcement, whenever I was silent? He’d pet me with the feather.  Message: do what I tell you to—and don’t speak.

I throw my hands into the air in defeat.  I can’t work with this one.

I need to go to Tac.

CRACK!

I jump—but this time, only barely.  Which is great news.  At this rate, I’ll be one hundred percent inured to his brand of ‘attention-getting’ in no time.

Of course it might be because I’ve gone deaf!

He smirks, and points to the spot at his feet.  Where he wants me to be.  At his command.

Mulish.  Mulish is the way I feel like my face should look right now.  I straighten and hope he sees on my face, in my expression, just how crazy he is if he thinks that I’m going to keep—

His tail loops around my arm, and even through the sleeve of Tac’s shirt, I can feel the little bumps of scales.

“Let go of me!”

I’m reaching my free hand up, wholly intent on prying off his tail—but before I can touch him, he uncoils it like I’m about to burn him.  Testily, he snaps his fingers.

And out comes the feather duster.

I hear a metallic slide—thhhht!—behind me, and I whirl around to see a peephole has opened up on the door.  And I can just imagine Lem is on the other side, watching this play out.

Lem’s a jerk too.

I hear the sound of the big horned beast at my back inhaling in that funny way he does, but I ignore him.  As an idea forms in my mind, I slowly turn back to him, and I also ignore the way he’s wiping points on his temples with his tail.  So caught up in my own thoughts, I barely register when he drags his tail across my midsection—so, Tac’s shirt—wiping it off on me like I’m his napkin after he’s devoured a pile of barbecued ribs.

I’m going to try something new.  I hold out my hand at hip level, then lower it, hopefully relaying an image of a person of small stature.  “I have kids.  I have kids that I was taken from.”

I stop for a second, and search his features for any sign that he’s following along.

His eyes have narrowed and his eyebrows have swept low, like he’s concentrating.  And that bossy mouth of his is pressed in a flat line and not barking out commands so… I’m starting to feel giddy.

He’s listening to me!

I’m hit with a tidal wave of relief so strong my eyes water.  “I have to get back to them.  My—”  My voice breaks and Brax’s shoulders go back.  I think the depth of my emotional swing is surprising him.  “My babies need me.  And I need them!  Brax—”

His entire body twitches.

“—you don’t know how much I miss them!”  Annnd, here come the tears.  I let the tears fall.  I can’t stop them now anyway.  It’s like opening up about this in any way also opens the floodgates holding my heart back.  “I’m scared for them, and I’m scared—w-what if I can’t… I have to get back!”