Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,73

okay? Do you need me to help you?”

He opens the door and looks down at me blankly. A clear, gelatinous pad covers the burn on his face. “I’m managing, thank you.”

“Yeah. Okay. I just thought… never mind.”

The door slides shut.

He’s back to his cold ways, and I guess that’s fair. We both have some things to think about.

But after that experience, I kind of need him close. To talk a little. Not even that, if he wouldn’t want to. Just… closeness?

I walk into the Engineering section, which no longer needs me to declare an emergency to let me in. The engines are humming away, weird and exotic. Space is like that – kind of recognizable in some ways, then really strange in others. A spaceship having engines makes sense. How they work? No idea.

I end up in my own cabin again.

Dammit, I’m totally at his mercy! He should know that. He should have some understanding for my situation. I have nowhere else to go.

Neither does he, of course. As far as I know, we only have each other. Doesn’t he feel that?

I wake up, having apparently taken a nap.

Freshening up again, I walk up to the control room.

Zaroc is there, standing at a console, not even glancing at me.

Outside the windshield there’s a big, green planet.

“Is that where we’re going?”

“In a way,” Zaroc distantly replies.

“In what way?”

“It’s the planet Xrarar. Your new home.”

I take a moment to get it. “My new home? What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure how I can put it any simpler. It is your new home. You will live there.”

Coldness spreads through me. “I don’t understand, Zaroc. What’s going on?”

He turns and fixes me with his eyes, now an icy aquamarine. “I’m running for my life. The last thing I can afford is to surround myself with useless burdens, people who can’t handle themselves in a tight spot. I can’t afford to be lured into traps. I can’t afford to carry others on my back. I can’t afford to keep taking detours because it suits someone else. I can’t afford to protect a helpless person while staying alive myself. I can’t afford to have an extremely vulnerable companion who carries possibly the most powerful weapon in the universe but can’t be bothered to learn how to use it. A person like that is not an ally. A person like that is only a liability.”

I’m stunned. My face goes cold.

“But,” I splutter. “But I…”

“I chose to ignore it,” he loudly interrupts, “until the ambush at Cromp Base. But now it’s staring me in the face. You brought me into that. You are a burden. A deadly burden. Running men can’t carry burdens. So that planet there, called Xrarar, is your new home. We will land, you will get out, and I can keep running without any dead weight. Do you now understand what’s going on?”

Acid tears burn in my eyes. “Zaroc, please… you can’t dump me on a strange planet!”

“There’s a monastery on Xrarar. The monks will take good care of you and protect you until the Bululg have lost interest and you can move among people again. It will be maybe one year, my sources tell me. The monks know you’re coming. You’ll be safe, they guarantee it. If you have things to pack, go and pack them.”

The planet outside fills the whole windshield.

“You cannot do this to me,” I protest, clenching my hands into fists. “It’s not fair!”

Zaroc touches the gelatinous pad on his cheek. His face is swollen around it. “Bringing you into my life was the best thing I could have done for the hunter IruBex. You weigh me down like a ton of sweet-smelling iron. Yes, it has been pleasant to have you with me. Dangerously pleasant. I knew from the first moment that you make me weak. I just didn’t realize how weak.”

“You took me from my own planet,” I point out, voice shaking. “You made me believe that we… had a future. And now you’re stranding me on an alien world?!”

Zaroc looks down his nose at me. “I took you. I regret it, and I apologize. If I could put you back, I would. The way things are, you might consider appreciating the fact I’m not selling you back to the Bululg. Get ready. We’re almost there.”

I can feel my face scrunching up. “You can’t do this to me, Zaroc. It’s not right. Please. I have no one.”

“It’s not the nicest thing I have done,” he agrees. “But I never