Page 15 of Dark Space
Firstly, the information Bryn had accessed suggested that their bodies were about sixty percent water, and that two of their major organs had an even higher percentage of the liquid. My kind needed water, too, but we could survive for months without it. Bryn and Alcide had been able to create some in the lab, but it had taken hours and it wasn’t a sustainable method, so Bryn had agreed to harvest some ice for us to use instead.
Secondly, their food wasawful. Roth ate meat, but we ate it lightly seared, if not entirely raw. We didn’t addspicesto change the taste. And wecertainlydidn’t have it with a side of green things grown in dirt.
‘This is disgusting,’ Bryn said.
Alcide poked at one of the vegetables, steaming hot from the food generator. ‘Are you entirely sure this is right?’
Bryn shrugged. ‘This is what their internet said, Prince.’
Bryn was a burly engineer I’d met during the military component of my pilot’s training. When Alcide’s orb ship needed a head engineer, I’d recommended Bryn due to his ability to think on his feet, and for the fact he’d been kind to me when others hadn’t. I didn’t trust him completely – I didn’t trustanyonebut Alcide – but we couldn’t have found the information without him. We didn’t confirm we had a human on board, but Bryn was smart enough to know that we needed the information for a reason. Luckily, he was also smart enough not to comment.
‘Pillows, chicken, and water,’ Alcide said dubiously, when Bryn left to find an ice net. ‘This seems very odd.’
‘She’ll let us know if it’s not what she needs. She wasn’t shy with the starling.’
‘The starling is also chained to the floor and can’t touch her,’ Alcide pointed out. ‘She might be more wary with two strangers twice her size who are under no such restrictions.’
‘Well, if you want to claim her, you’ll have to get her to trust you.’
Alcide flicked me a glare. ‘I will remind you whose idea claiming was.’
‘Yes, Prince,’ I said, ignoring the twinge of jealousy in my stomach. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was jealous of – whether it was jealousy thatshewould be claimed by Alcide, or jealousy thathewould claim her.
Alcide tried – unsuccessfully – to smooth down his unruly hair, his expression tight. I bit my tongue; I hadn’t seen him this nervous – well,ever.
I understood; simple foot soldiers could go to the public brothel after too much spiced wine and come away knowing what a female felt like, even if they didn’t remember much about it afterwards. Princes couldn’t. I assumed he wasn’t a virgin, but couldn’t be entirely sure; he was fairly tight-lipped about thevarious educational experiences his father subjected him to in the name of histraining. It was entirely possible, I supposed, that Alcide had never touched a female. Given the current state of our home planet, it wouldn’t have been unlikely.
I hadn’t.
Other planets and Sectors had pleasure houses, I knew, where the beings within them were paid and worked under fair conditions, like any other job. The public brothel in Scytha City wasn’t like that. The females were captives; there was no payment, and no escape. The first time my brothers-in-arms had stumbled towards it and dragged me with them, I’d taken one look at the females – some terrified, some resigned, some simplyempty– and had vomited straight onto the red mud cobbles.
I became something of a joke after that – the trainee pilot who couldn’t handle his wine and had to be put to bed before the evening even started. No one recognised the coincidence of my excess drinking and their visits to the brothel – no one but Bryn, who, every time the other soldiers planned that particular outing, suddenly hadtoo much work to do. The others would go without us, laughing.
I didn’t know how theycouldlaugh. Somewhere along the line, they’d misplaced the knowledge that those females were sentient beings, and what they did was abhorrent. I could make suremyactions were in line with my values, but I didn’t have the courage – or the charisma – to speak up, to try to change the actions of others.
Alcide did. It was part of why I believed in him so fiercely. His grandmother had taught him that princes worked to make their world a better place, and that’s what he’d always done.
He’d spoken publicly about the Scytha City brothel already. Short, to-the-point speeches to his father’s Court about the history of our kind, and the sort of power females had held in the past. Reflections on when it had changed, and why, andpersuasive arguments on why the females in the brothel should be freed and returned to their planet of origin with a hefty reparation.It would not erase the crime, he would say,and nor will it give us a fresh start, but it is a step in the right direction, and a step we must take.
His father thought it was amusing, and when the King laughed, his Court laughed with him. Alcide tried to let their mocking slide off him like rain, but it took its toll.
He squared his shoulders and kept doing it anyway.
As long as you believe in me, Cal, I can do this,he’d said, and I wouldneverstop believing in him.
And so no matter how I felt about the little human – no matter how much I kept thinking about her delicate features, her shining hair, her enticing springtime scent, the way she made my chest coil tight – if she wanted Alcide, that was that. He deserved something beautiful in his life. She’d be close by, even if she was never mine.
We’ll just hope she forgives the whole kidnap thing, or at least knows who to blame.And I’d try not to break under the weight of my guilt in the meantime.
And if she refused Alcide, and he took her back to Earth –
I didn’t let myself think about it.
‘Come on, Cide,’ I said, aiming for lightness and failing. ‘Let’s take the female what she needs.’
I took up her food, and Alcide carried the extra water that he’d managed to extract in the lab. Remembering Vesper’s instructions, I grabbed some of the pillows from Alcide’s bed as he entered the code to unlock the cell door.
When we’d walked down the tiny corridor, he studied the cell through the glass. It would be opaque from inside. I was aware it didn’t mean a thing to the starling, but the female wouldn’t be able to see us.
