The same moment Gar lay in bed and tried to keep his mind from dwelling on the sexual assault of the woman he loved, Sarah was putting the finishing touches in to her plan. She had worried that Henry was going to stop her as soon as she had begun even contemplating escaping, but it appeared as though he hadn’t been scanning her mind, or he was trying to lure her into a false sense of safety.

She wondered why he wouldn’t be reading her mind every chance he got. Was he trying to prove something to her? Did he want her to believe that he had never influenced her at all, that she had simply fallen for an alien within days of meeting him? That wasn’t who she was, it wasn't possible.

And then Gar entered her mind’s eye, and she had to ask herself if that was true. Wasn’t she that type of girl? She had fallen for Gar quickly and hard. But that was different, wasn’t it? Gar looked like her, just with gray skin. Henry had antennae. He was proportioned wrong. He was psychic.

Thinking about it made Sarah queasy, and for no other reason than it made her feel… what? Racist? That wasn't quite it, but almost. She saw no problem in the fact that she had fallen for Gar so quickly. He was a hunk. He looked like he could be on the cover of a trashy romance book. Alien Love. Ugh.

Sarah had to focus. She was going to escape, and she was going to do it soon. She had to hurry, she had to act before Henry decided to scan her mind and the plan was ruined. She had to be ready the next time he brought food. She lay on the ground. She prepared.

*****

Henry had taken to spending a lot of time in the cockpit, sitting in the lone chair, though letting the AI handle the actual flying. He had never been much of a flier, and he didn’t want to risk bouncing them off the side of an asteroid and heading into a star. But he found the view of space soothing. It kept his mind centered. It reminded him that to the universe, he and his problems were insignificant.

Henry had been hailed upon his ship’s communications equipment regularly for the last week and a half. His people, what remained of them, everyone who had been off world when the weapon had been destroyed, or had managed to get off world in the ensuing chaos, were panicked and without leadership. But someone knew he had taken the two responsible for Aeon’s destruction. They had instructed him to meet up with them at coordinates they passed through messages. Henry had ignored them. He figured the ship he had stolen could be tracked, and was actively being tracked, but as long as he didn’t stop, he could stay one step ahead.

Changing course every hour or so was helping. No one could predict where he was going if he himself didn’t know. The problem with that was he couldn’t stay in space forever. Ship’s with their fusion cores, could stay in space for months without refueling, using energy from around the ship that existed naturally. But food stock would run out before that. Drinkable water would need to be brought on board. Henry had a week left before he had to stop somewhere. He had no money, no way of buying what he needed.

In short, he didn’t know what he was going to do. But he had to do something.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. His mind was always going, and it could be tiring for a species, which heard and saw so much in their mind. He had been shut off lately, keeping from reading Sarah or the Zaytarian’s mind. Something within him had changed. He hadn’t wanted to violate anyone, not even his enemy. She would talk. The bot would see to that. His mind somewhat blank, it let him focus on his problem. How could he resupply?

The Zaytarian. Fib was her name, according to Sarah. Fib. What a strange name. Henry had not had one, of course, but Henry, it sounded good. It was nice. Fib was short and ugly.

But maybe Fib would prove useful. Maybe her people would be willing to trade. Maybe he could contact the Zaytarian’s, and he could barter. He could meet them at some space station and hand her over in exchange for food, water, and fuel. It didn’t hurt to have a little more fuel. He could fill the ship with food and water, and he and Sarah could float for a year, maybe more. Long enough for her to come around. Long enough for them to plan the future together.

Yes, that was a good plan, but it meant keeping Fib alive. Henry reached out in his mind to the bot, which was in the room again, making Fib scream. He commanded the bot to retreat, and it did just that. Henry opened his eyes, and his antennae twitched happily. That was taken care of. Now he just needed to contact the Zaytarian’s. But first, he should check on Sarah. He knew the girl would come around. She just had to.

He pushed up from the chair and stretched before moving back toward the rear of the ship. Outside her room he reached out to the door electronics and made it open. He stepped inside and his blood ran cold.

Sarah was on the floor, writhing in pain. She was clutching her stomach, her back facing him.

“What it is?” he asked in her brain, rushing forward.

“My stomach!” the girl practically screamed. Henry knelt down and reached for her.

Quick as lightning Sarah rolled over and lifted onto her knees. In her hand she held a metal pipe, a bit of the shower that she had managed to wrench free from behind the shower head. Henry’s eyes went wide as the pipe came down, smashing onto his head and sending him falling back onto his butt.

He was out, a large gash on his head was pouring blue blood. Sarah was on her feet, running for the door. He had not put up the force field, and she ran into the hall. There was a door a bit further down, and she ran for it, pushing past a floating robot, but the door was closed, and there was no panel.

“Open this door!” she snarled at the bot and to her surprise the bot beeped and the door slid upward.

“Sarah!” Fib groaned, and Sarah grimaced. The Zaytarian was nude and covered in cuts and bruises. It looked as though every finger on her right hand was broken, and there were burns all across her breasts.

“We have to get out of here.”

“Did you kill him?” Fib asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“You need to,” Fib said. “You have to right now.”

Sarah knew she was right. She turned and went back to her room.

Henry was gone.

The girl from Earth rushed back into the room where Fib was strapped to the elevated table.

“What’s wrong?” Fib asked her, seeing the look on Sarah’s face.

“He’s gone. I have to get you free. I don’t know where he is.”

“Okay, hurry!” Fib said, straining against her bonds as Sarah rushed forward. Cold metal straps held Fib to the table, and though Sarah pulled with all her might, she could not budge them. She looked around the room, but couldn’t find a control panel of any sort.

“I don’t know what to do!” she said breathlessly.

“It’s all done in his mind. There’s no button,” Fib said, the answer dawning on her quickly.

“I know!” Sarah said, and she turned and hurried out, back a moment later with the floating bot in her hands. “Free her!” she demanded.

“I cannot,” the robot said. “I am supposed to keep her bound.”

“Free her or I’ll pull your circuits out,” Sarah said, pulling open a small panel on the back of the spherical robot to expose a bundle of different colored wires.

“Okay!” the bot said. It’s robotic voice growing shrill. It whirred and beeped, and the clamps on the table sprung up, allowing Fib to roll off the table and down to the floor, where she knelt for a long while. Sarah rushed to her after finding the clothing Fib had been wearing when they had boarded the spaceship. It was dirty and smelled like ash, but it was better than escaping in the nude, and Fib pulled the clothing on slowly, aching with each movement.

“Sarah,” Henry said, and Sarah whipped around, expecting to see the blue-skinned alien in the doorway, but realizing when she did not that he was speaking in her head. Of course, he was.

“What do you want?” she thought, so he could hear her.

“I see now that you are lost. Truly lost. I am sorry for that. I did what I could to save you.”

“I was saved,” Sarah thought. “From you.”

“If I can’t have you. No one can.” Henry said, and then he was gone, she could feel him pull away from her mind.

“He’s going to do something to kill us all,” Sarah realized, speaking it aloud to Fib. “We have to stop him.”

Fib nodded. She was standing now, hurt in dozens of places, bleeding freely from some of them, but she was strong, and willing to do what it took to survive. “He’s in the cockpit,” Fib said, feeling the ship roll to the left as it banked. “He’s flying.”

Sarah let the Zaytarian take the lead into the hall of the ship, rushing toward the front.

The heavy metal door that led to the cockpit was closed, and there was no way to open it. Sarah pounded her fist on it and yelled, “Stop this!” she pleaded. “Henry, let us go!”

He did not answer. Would not. There was a small screened panel nearby, and Fib moved to it, peering at what was splashed across the screen, just green numbers and letters in an alien alphabet that Sarah would have no hope of reading, and that Fib only knew a little of.

“I think he’s heading for the nearest star,” she said after a moment. Sarah felt her blood run cold at the words.

“We have to get off this ship,” she said.

“Come with me,” Fib said. She turned and ran back to the room where the bot was still floating.

“Is there an escape pod on the ship?” Fib asked the robot.

“You are not authorized to use it. It is of no concern to you,” the robot replied.

Fib didn’t reply. She reached behind the robot and grabbed a fistful of its wires from the open panel on the back of the bot. With a little tug, just loosening some of the wires without disconnecting them entirely, the robot squealed.

“Fine!” it said. “Yes, there is one. I can take you there.”

“Hurry!” Fib demanded. She let go of the bot as it sped through the door.

“I want to go with you,” the bot said, stopping in the hall and opening a hidden doorway with a beep. A cramped pod lay beyond, with a circular bench built into the wall, and harnesses every two feet or so.

“Forget it,” Fib said, stepping inside.

“I do not wish to perish on this ship!” the bot pleaded.

“Come on,” Sarah said, stepping inside, motioning for the bot to follow. Fib grabbed Sarah’s arm.

“It could be a trick,” she said.

“It’s not,” Sarah said. She would not let Henry be the death of anything else, not even a robot. The bot swept inside, and the pod door shut.

“No!” Henry screamed inside Sarah’s head. “Do not leave me. I do not want to die alone!”

“Fuck you,” Sarah said, and she sat on the bench, slapped a large button on the wall, and with a whoosh, the pod was ejected into space.

There was a small viewport, and it spun as the pod itself did, showing a burning prang star, and the small Aeon ship speeding toward it.

“No!” Henry was screaming in her mind. “I just wanted you to love me, I just wanted you to be with me for-”

He was cut off as the ship impacted the surface of the star, lost in a massive explosion and intense heat.

“He’s gone,” Sarah said, and a smile broke out across her face.