Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,56
cart.
We examine it.
“If there’s anything here that won’t kill me, it’s a miracle,” I observe. “Alien food might contain all kinds of weirdness.”
“Usually not,” Zaroc counters, sampling a dish. “Organics mostly need the same things to survive. It would be rare for the food of one species to be poison to another.”
In the end I identify a couple of bland things I can probably eat. There’s a lot of vegetables, but I’ve had enough of leafy greens and their shenanigans for a while. I nibble on a yam-like thing and decide I’m not hungry at all. I was always wanting to diet, and this might be as good a time as any.
Zaroc is obviously not on a diet, and after he lifts the cart and puts it right in front of a big couch, he has big helpings of most of the various bowls and plates on offer.
I plop down on the couch, sinking deep into it. “Do you think we’re safe here?” I ask. “Or will they change their minds again and decide to ship me off to the Bululg after all?”
“I was wondering why there were Star Marshals in this solar system,” Zaroc ponders. “There’s nothing of value here except the moon Verv. I can’t imagine anyone coming here except to loot the Elder moon. But looking at this ship, with a whole Elder suite ready just in case, and how they hold the Elders in such great esteem that they set their own laws aside... it’s not far from straight worship. I think that’s why they’re here, being close to an Elder moon and hoping that something would happen that might bring them closer to their idol. Most faiths have something like that, a hope that their god will show himself or give clear proof of his existence. That moon above us is probably a holy site to their species. I had no idea.”
The yam tastes like a fried banana, so I take another one. “I guess that explains it. Kind of a pilgrimage. What’s your faith? Do you have one?”
Zaroc chews happily. “My kind believes in Fate. The things that happen to us are already decided, but we can also change those things through correct living. Your fate is both firmly decided and flexible at the same time. Only slightly flexible, of course. The big things are set, the smaller things not as rigidly. I know it doesn’t seem to make any sense, but there is a logic to it in a universe as changeable as this. Though I must say that if my fate is to be the last of my species, then I should consider something else to believe in. An angry god of vengeance, for instance. How are your fingers?”
I flex them in the air to show him. “Fine.”
“What happened inside that healing pod, anyway? You were in there for quite a while.”
I think back. “There was light and warmth and a blissful peace. Time stood still, in a way.”
Zaroc pours a clear liquid from a transparent ball into a smaller transparent ball and smells it. “Wine.” He takes a sip, then puts the ball on the cart and stands up. “Excuse me.”
He saunters off to what’s probably the bathroom.
I lean back on the couch and look up at the moon. It looks very close, filling a third of the view.
My life has become so weird that I have trouble keeping track of it. There’s only one element that seems to ground me and keep me sane, and that’s my abductor. And probably the worst thing: I don’t mind that at all. He was desperate for money, thought he could make a quick buck abducting and selling an Earth girl. And then he couldn’t do it after all. Sure, I’m not ecstatic about him being that okay with slavery. But apparently nobody in space thinks that’s weird or wrong at all, so I should not be too hard on him. And afterwards, he has done whatever he could to make it right.
Every time I’m threatened, he attacks my enemy, wanting to protect me. How can I not like a guy like that?
He comes out again and walks over to me in that powerful, relaxed walk he has, his hard stomach flexing with every step. Yeah, really hard to not like a guy like this.
He takes my hand and pulls me up. “All done with not eating?”
“I was going to not drink a little bit of wine, but that’s okay. Whyyyaaaiiiee!”
He grabs me and