Page 4 of Dark Space
The female was limp over my shoulder. Her hair escaped its plait in pale wisps as she hung upside down, her sharp chin bumping my back with every step.
What are you doing, Callan?
The scuttler hatch lifted silently as I drew close. I’d stunned the female in a kind of mindless reflex, panicking when her expression flickered into fear and she’d turned to run.
There’s still time to put her down.
I did put her down – in the scuttler’s co-pilot chair. I positioned her gently, trying to support her head; I winced when I saw the bruise from the stunner on her slender neck. I strapped her in carefully, then slid into the pilot’s seat.
What are you doing, Callan?
It was never my voice I heard – it was Alcide, always Alcide.Callan, you’re better than this, whenever I turned up with eyes bruised blue after a fight.Callan, you can do this, when I’d failed the theoretical component of my pilot’s exam and needed to re-sit the test.Callan, this isn’t you. Go home, when I’d drunk too much spiced wine and the other trainee pilots were trying to drag me towards the long line for the public brothel.
Callan, I need you to see what they’re doing,when we’d tailed a Tirian peacekeeping ship to an unknown planet in an ass-end of the universe Sector. We’d been telling Alcide’s father that the Tirians were onourtail, and not the other way around; Alcide thought knowing what they wanted with this small blue planet might help us keep up the ruse.Callan, you can look, but don’t touch. Be careful. Don’t be seen.
‘So much for that,’ I muttered, glancing at the female as I flicked on the scuttler’s start sequence.
The female moaned.
‘You’re all right,’ I murmured to her. ‘You’re safe.’
You’ve stunned her and you’re in the process of abducting her from her home. While she’s unconscious. I doubt she’d agree.
‘Shut it, Alcide,’ I growled.
I strapped myself in and tapped the control screen to launch the engines.
Last chance to let her go, Cal.
I looked across at the female. Her head lolled to one side. Her skin was dewy, her hair a blend of honey and wheat. She was small –sosmall – and her frame was slight; she was made of angles, her body planes of light and shadow.
My heart constricted, just as it had the moment I’d first seen her, glowing in the starlight. Despite that, despite how beautiful she was, despite how much my heart thumped and my body tightened, I could have walked away in that moment. I could have stayed in the darkness, could have let the shadows hideme from view. I could have stayed quiet, and let her slip away. Instead, I’d stepped forward, stepped into the light, into her line of sight, and I’dlether see my pearlescent skin and my curving horns – the things that screamednot like you– all because I’d caught her scent on the cool night breeze.
Spring.
I’d never known a spring – our home planet, Scytha, was too far along in its own death to have any season other than endless drought – but somehow, somewhere deep down, I still knew what it should feel like. What it shouldsmelllike. All freshness and hope, all life and blossoming, all determination and rebirth. The female’s scent was all that and more, and once I caught it, I knew I couldn’t let her go.
Ineededher.
Even if I never saw a spring, I’d have her scent, have the life and the hope and the blossoming it promised. Haveher.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I told her quietly. ‘But I’m taking you with me.’
It felt wrong and right all at once. Sometimes, I couldn’t tell the difference.
That was what I had Alcide for.
‘What thefuck, Callan?’ Alcide said, his black eyes wide with horror. ‘What isthat?’
I lowered the female onto his bed. ‘A human.’
‘A human,’ Alcide repeated. ‘Right.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Take it back, Callan.Take it backright now.’
‘Her,’ I corrected. ‘And no.’
‘I –what?’
‘No. I’m not taking her back.’
