His Fire Maiden - Michelle M. Pillow Page 0,36

poking out of the ground. Violette took a deep breath. She envied the odd simplicity of the Murkernals. One visiting giant handed them pieces of fruit and they were ecstatic. She couldn’t imagine anything that would make her that happy. She looked up at Dev. Maybe he’d give her a slice of happy-fruit. “Would it be so bad if I stranded you here? You could live like a god.”

He again gestured that she walk with him. “I already have a job.”

For a moment, she had forgotten who they were. Her smile fell some, and they walked I silence over the path to the field of orange grasses. The pod was just as they’d left it. Violette grabbed foil packs out of a side compartment. Dev took the emergency kit.

“There has to be something we can eat besides sludge,” Dev muttered, eyeing the packs. “I never thought I’d say I miss a food simulator.”

“At least, these have nutrients. Simulated food. The name says it all.” Violette wasn’t sure why she was defending the foil pack of all things.

“Forgive me. I did not mean to insult your childhood traditions.” Dev swept his feet as he walked, looking through the grass as they made their way back to the darkening path.

“That’s very kind of you.” The words sounded sarcastic, even though she didn’t mean them to. Violette wanted to say more but over-thought every word before it made its way out of her mouth. She was used to conversations where she either gave orders or argued a point. “Back on the ship, you said something about your father not being anyone to grieve over. Why is that? Was he a bad man?”

“He was a full-blooded Bevlon.” The statement was simple as if that should fully explain his past.

“And your mother?” He’d called himself humanoid when he was trapped in the crate, but Violette wanted to know more. The man kept his emotions close, but she saw the pain in his eyes.

“Human.”

“I guess I don’t understand. So, being Bevlon means you don’t mourn the dead?” Violette couldn’t imagine. She missed her father every day.

He sighed heavily and studied her. “What are you asking?”

“I’m trying to…” Violette gave a helpless gesture. She was about as good at these get-to-know-you conversations as he was. “I don’t know. I’m trying to make conversation, trying to understand why you are the way you are. Were you close to your parents? Were you happy as a child? Are they alive?”

“Oh.” That seemed to surprise him, as if no one had ever asked him such questions before. She found that sad. “My, ah, mother’s people, humans, they tend to think I am too fierce, a spawn of the devil, the reincarnation of Ancient Old Earth’s demons, that kind of thing. So they really don’t have much to do with me.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me,” she answered. “It isn’t as if aliens are a foreign concept in the universe.”

“True, but Bevlons just happen to look like the old earthling version of pure evil, and it doesn’t help that my paternal race as a whole are self-serving and cruel.”

“But surely your mother didn’t feel that way. I mean, she had you, so that means she had to accept who your father was.”

“I’m unclear how it happened. After my birth, my mother wanted nothing to do with her demon baby. The last I heard she’d wed a human charm-preacher and settled on some remote planet. I have no memory of what my mother looks like, and my father refuses to give me so much as her name. For all I know, she is married to the Data Moon Brimstoneman who tried to have me sacrificed several years back.”

She started to laugh at the obvious exaggeration, but then stopped. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s how I came to be with my current crew. They saved me from the fire.”

“Fire? I thought Bevlons liked the fire.”

“Fire hurts, but it won’t kill me directly. Intense heat will dehydrate me over a period of several agonizingly painful days. Accounting for that fact, the Brimstoneman had me dragged over sharp rocks to tear my flesh. A Bevlon’s skin can survive flames, but our insides cannot. If the zealots had any kindness, they would have tried to drop me into freezing temperatures so that death would come swiftly.”

“So then you were raised by your father, like me,” she said.

“Yes, I was, but not like you. Because of my mixed heritage and lack of