Alien Desire by Hannah Haze
Chapter five - Emma
In the morning, I creep away before he wakes, and wash under the shower, dressing in clean clothes. I brush out my long red hair and find myself glancing at myself in the mirror. I’ve not worried about my appearance for months, maybe years. Our mission to the moon Excalibur at the far side of the universe, known for its abundance of the rare substance glimbar, had left little time for pruning and preening. It had been hard work, a test of endurance. I’d rarely bothered to look at myself and my hair had remained plaited down my back for the whole of the long, long journey.
Now as I look at my reflection, I see I have aged slightly. I am still very young for a human. Only twenty-four years old. But I have the first traces of where my face will line with wrinkles in the future.
How do I appear to the creature? To Tor? My eyes, and the colour and texture of my skin, must look plain and dowdy compared to the glittering colours of his kind. And I must seem small and insignificant compared to his broad, muscular frame.
His broad, muscular frame.
I think of what it felt like to lie against that frame, his flesh warming and brightening beneath me, and to my surprise I find myself shivering.
I flip the mirror over and step back. Then in annoyance at myself I twist my hair roughly into a knot on my head.
Tor is examining his wound when I return to him. It still weeps purple liquid, and carefully he peels back the bandages I’ve stuck across the wound and touches the gash on his side, wincing as he does.
I gather up the medical bag and bring it to him, unzipping the top and starting to pull out the content. He rests his hand over mine to stop me. His skin is cold again and the feel of it against mine makes me jolt.
“Emma,” he says and then he talks to me in his strange language.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” He looks around desperately, searching for something that will help us to understand each other. He points to the giant computer system.
I shake my head again. “It’s so old, it can barely puff a signal out to space. It can’t make us understand each other.”
He shakes his head too, copying my action.
“No,” I say, shaking my head at the same time.
He copies me. “No.”
I smile and once again he examines what he seems to find a strange expression.
He glances down to the floor, then back to me. He holds his hand out and arcs his finger through the sky, crashing it against his other palm. “Boom,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows and shake my head. I don’t understand.
For the first time I see something other than pain flutter across his face, something that appears vaguely like frustration.
He repeats the action.
“Boom,” he says loudly, then pointing to his palm, adds, “Tor.”
He does it a third time and then I deduce his meaning. “Your ship. Your ship!”
Seeing my comprehension, he jabs with urgency at his palm, at the site of impact.
“You want to go back to your ship?” I drag my palm down my face.
It’s a long way over the frozen ground and I wonder what it will do to his condition. The wound on his abdomen continues to disturb me and what he needs to do is conserve his strength and recover. I point to my chest. “I can go. I can go to ship.” I gesture to my palm.
He shakes his head in imitation of me. “No,” he says. The pronunciation is good, although his voice is very deep and very low. “Tor. Ship.”
“Uh uh,” I insist, “you need to stay here and get better.” I push him gently backwards, encouraging him to lie down. He allows this, but once my hand is removed, rolls back up. “Tor. Ship.”
“Fine.” It’s his life. I shrug at him and he gives me one of his blank stares. “But you need to eat first.”
I find him a selection of different food items and leave him to explore them while I go about the daily routine I’ve neglected for the past two days, hunting for Fluffy who I find sulking in the sleeping bay, inspecting the food supplies, and checking the comms system for any new signals or messages. As usual there are none.
When I’m done, I go and search for suitable clothes for Tor. Most humans are at least a foot smaller than him but there are some extra large snow suits which may just about do, and I dress in one too, making sure I have a snow snood and goggles for the journey this time.
He does a double take when he sees me enter in my furs and I can’t help laughing. This helps him to identify it’s me and his stiff shoulders relax.
“There’s no one else here. Only you and me, Tor.” But then Fluffy appears at my heels and another unsure expression flicks over his face. “Oh, and Fluffy, my dog.” Fluffy stares over at our guest and growls.
Tor leans forward and growls back.
Shit, I wasn’t expecting that. I can literally smell tension in the air and see Fluffy’s hackles rise. I crouch down, and stroke a calming hand over the dog’s back.
“It’s ok, Fluffy,” I say, although the dog’s wariness rubs off on me and I am uneasy. “Let’s be friendly to our guest.”
Fluffy ignores me and bares his teeth at the alien, snarling.
I glance up at Tor apologetically, keeping a grip of Fluffy’s fur in case he decides to launch forward. In return, the alien assesses the situation, then growls a second time. Only this growl is deeper and louder and somehow seems to shake the very walls.
Instantly, Fluffy is on his belly, pressed into the floor, eyes downcast. And I find myself wanting to do the same, although I fight it, forcing my chin up to glare across at the alien. He stops and Fluffy jumps to his feet with a whine and scuttles away.
I don’t know whether to be relieved the confrontation ended peacefully or annoyed he scared my dog.
Frowning, I hand him the suit and after examining it for several minutes, he climbs into it slowly, the action obviously causing him pain. The bottoms of the trouser skim his muscular calves but they will have to do.
I frown harder. “I’m really not sure this is a good idea,” I mumble.
But he starts to hobble towards the doorway and I’ve no choice but to follow him. I have a hunch he’d head off even if I refused to take him, and the strange responsibility I feel for him, means I’m obliged to go too.
I hop onto the snow mobile and pat the space behind me. He points to the second snowmobile but I tell him no firmly, and I swear amusement dances in his eyes for just a fraction of a second. Then with effort, he climbs up. I can’t feel the temperature of his body beneath the layers of thick snow suit, despite the way he leans into me. I worry that he’ll get even colder out there. He’s trying his best to disguise his weakness, but I know my body will support him and I bolster myself for the long ride.
At least the weather is fair. This planet’s feeble sun is the brightest I’ve seen it, and the ice sparkles around us as we drive out into the white world. I shade my eyes, blinking against the brightness and slip on my goggles. I turn around to look at Tor. His eyes seem to adjust to the light, the irises shifting a shade darker.
By the time we reach the crash site, Tor is slumped right against me and I have to use every bit of my strength to keep us both upright and driving forward. My core screams in agony and so does my back and my thighs, but when we pull up at the carcass of his ship, he seems to rouse and slips off the bike.
For a moment he just stands and surveys the blackened husk, a few shards of metal still singing with heat. He mutters something in his language, then walks decidedly towards the main hull.
“Careful,” I call, “It may still be hot.”
He ignores my warning, stepping right inside the shell and sifting through the charred remains. I can’t tell if he’s looking for something in particular or scavenging in the hope of retrieving whatever is salvageable. Eventually he heaves out a black trunk with a grunt and drops it to the ground. Snapping off its lid, he begins to pull objects from its interior. Things I do not recognise.
At last, he seems to find the item he is searching for, what looks like a pad, the size of a comms tablet. Unzipping his suit and tugging it from his arms and torso, he stands topless in the ice, his translucent body glistening like the snow. Tearing away the bandages I’d applied to his wound, he slaps the pad to the gash and groans in obvious relief, sinking to his knees and remaining there for several minutes. The dancing colours return to his skin, spinning around the edges of the pad. I assume this means he’s healing.
When he raises his head to look at me, it’s as if a fog has lifted from his face and from his eyes. He seems to see me with more clarity and he appears more sturdy, more sure of himself.
I remember how big he is and how alone I am, and his cold hard look makes me shiver as if I’m the one kneeling topless in the snow.
He stands, and his movements are less laboured than before; his posture straighter and more intimidating. He seems to have grown another few inches. Placing the lid back on the trunk, he grips a handle and drags it across the snow. It makes a squealing sound and leaves a track behind him. Together, we heave it onto the back of the snowmobile.
Then he climbs back on, gripping the handle bars with one hand, and with the other, patting the seat behind him. I cross my arms over my chest and chuckle.
“No way. That’s my snowmobile and I’m driving it.” It seems that there is a universal trait for chauvinism no matter what the species. At least, I’m assuming he’s male. Perhaps he’s not.
“No?” he says, and there’s that amusement skipping in his eyes again.
“No,” I repeat. “Emma does the driving.”
He shrugs, just like he’d seen me do earlier, and scoots backwards on the seat, making room for me up front. I squeeze into the space and he places his large hands on my waist. They encapsulate me almost completely and I try to dismiss the treacherous little part of me that likes that. It seems whatever healing power was in that patch he applied has also given him a serious dose of cockiness.
A cocky alien. I have a a suspicion this is the last thing I need.