Alien Mine (31 page)

"I will train our little warriors well." Clearly, he thought of them as walking around already.

"And if they are born with asthma?"

"Viglar will keep them strong."

Of course, he was pleased now. With her having twins, he could have a whole army within a few years.

Natalie gagged. What was she giving birth to?

She glanced at Viglar. She'd rather deal with him than Zacar right now. If only she could go back in time, and still be surviving in her cave with only the elements to fear. Alone and without a savage alien that crushed her heart under his big steel boots.

"Will they be babies when they're born?" she asked Viglar.

Please let him say yes.
Please let them be cuddly little babies I can influence before they become heartless warriors.

"Not as you know babies. They will be small. You do not need to fear the birth. Zyrgin breeders do not die in childbirth like humans."

She'd always considered the doctor the most civilized of the lot. Maybe she never listened for it before, but disgust for human weakness cut like a scalpel through his voice.

She was trapped. Pregnant and helpless, caught between the snow and the aliens. Maybe there was a way to trade her father's notebook for money. If there were any pharmaceutical companies left that were capable of producing the formulas. Maybe Zacar had lied to her--things weren't so bad on Earth and she could bribe someone with a working hovercraft to come for her.

She had to at least try and escape, warn someone. Did they still have a president?

"How long after birth before Zyrgin babies start walking?" she asked Viglar.

Zacar had gone preternaturally still. Not moving or talking. She noticed this but didn't want to look at him.

"A few months," the doctor answered, glancing between her and Zacar.

"Zacar told me you are born with knowledge of your language. Will they be able to understand me?"

She wanted to cry at how happy she'd still been when he'd told her that. Now everything, all her dreams were shattered. What would she do if she escaped and her babies were born but spoke only Zyrgin? If they were loyal only to their father? She'd been asking all the wrong questions all this time.

"They will be born with the knowledge of all the cultures experienced by their family line," Viglar said.

She couldn't fathom being born with such vast knowledge. Her babies would be full grown warriors before she could enjoy them as toddlers.

He turned to Zacar and grated something. They were arguing fiercely in the old language and she feared Zacar was going to beat Viglar. Then Zacar nodded. After a short hesitation, he turned to her, all traces of the savage emotion he'd shown when arguing with the doctor disappeared. "I will show you my spaceship. Come."

He turned and started walking away while all she could do was glare at his back.

She didn't want to follow him like a puppy but she still wanted to see his spaceship. She needed as much information as she could get. If she managed to get away, it might help them fight the Zyrgins in the coming war. Whatever Viglar injected her with acted fast. She could breathe and her body was not that sore anymore. But her legs and hands still trembled.

They walked down the corridor leading to the hanger the four of them had carved out of the mountain, a leaden silence between them. She was determined not to be the one that broke it, keeping a big space between them the whole time. It had been more than two months since she'd come in here and was evicted. Natalie stopped and looked around the cavern without seeing it. Was he bringing her now because she was pregnant with his twins, and thought she could be trusted? Was that what he and the doctor had argued about?

Normally, she would've been excited at seeing his ship. Now, she looked around with dull eyes, trying to gather as much information as she could. If the army still existed they would want to know what they were up against.

The outside of the ship looked like the same shiny metal they used to build everything. It had no dents or damage that supported his story of a crash, but maybe they'd repaired it. How difficult would it be to steal a sample of the steel material? Maybe from the shower?

The spaceship was vaguely shaped like a plane, but more rounded and smooth. It looked like a huge, silver predator, crouched in the alien-made cave. No wonder it took them almost two weeks to get the cave ready. As it was, it took up almost all the space in the cavern. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the cave was even bigger than the last time she'd seen it.

In spite of the hurt and fear still resting in her heart, she trembled with excitement as they walked up a ramp leading into the belly of the ship. It looked very much like the spaceships she'd seen in movies. He growled something in the old language when they reached the hatch. She heard a strange, almost sizzling, sound and the door slid open. Inside, it was darker and more functional than comfortable.

"How long does it take to get to earth from your planet?"

He hesitated. When he finally answered, she wondered once again if it was because she was now pregnant and thus to be trusted. Obviously, her feelings weren't that important to him.

"Our engine blew and we were thrown off course. Navigating a worm hole is...tricky. We ended up on Earth by mistake."

"You told me that before, but how long did it take?"

"We travelled two of your Earth years. If we planned to come here straight from Zyrgin we would have to go through three worm holes to shorten our journey."

While he was now answering her, she was determined to get more information for when she escaped. "So who was the alien you talked to from your home planet? Can you still contact them?"

His grip on her arm briefly tightened. Without answering her, he steered her down a long steel corridor. "This way to the bridge."

Obviously, her pregnancy hadn't made her as trusted as she'd thought. She couldn't truthfully say she could bear anymore savage revelations. With what she knew, she would give humans a chance against these...these parasites that wanted to steal her world.

The twists and turns they took had her quickly losing her sense of direction. The ship's interior was like a maze.

She was looking around for a porthole or a window when Zurian came striding down the corridor with only a small white cloth around his loins. He'd clearly been showering, as water dripped from his gleaming muscles.

He stopped, his eyes flashing with anger before he spun on his heel. Snarling over his shoulder, he said, "Your woman is not respecting of you."

She opened her mouth to blast the arrogant alien, but Zacar lifted her chin with his hand. "Never look at my warriors naked. It is not respectful."

"But I wasn't--"

"Never," he growled at her.

He was starting to sound like the Zacar she knew, but she didn't care. She would leave him, get to town, and warn everybody. When he came down the mountain, there'd be a huge army waiting to catch him.

"All right."

Before his revelations, she would've teased him, said something like
If I ever see another almost-naked alien, I'll close my eyes and run away
. Now she waited dully for the tour to continue.

Zacar looked at her. He seemed almost hesitant when he took her arm again and steered her into the far left corridor. He took her to what looked a lot like the bridge of the Space Ranger's ship and stopped beside a console. She walked around and idly touched the gleaming surfaces. How wonderful this whole experience would've been only an hour ago.

She wanted to ask more questions but didn't want to speak to him. Instead, she looked around, feeling helpless. What was she supposed to look for that might help Earth? Even if she stole something, what was she supposed to steal? Nothing small was lying around loose. None of the buttons or flashing lights meant anything to her.

He pointed to a seat that looked like a leather chair. "I sit here for take-off. The rest of the time, it is on autopilot."

"Oh."

He didn't object when she walked to the chair he'd indicated. Her body still felt frail from the asthma attack and losing her breakfast, but she was afraid to let him know that. Half-convinced she would touch some important button and cause the ship to move or start up, she kept her hands in her lap.

The chair was high off the ground, and she was trying to maneuver herself up when he lifted her and placed her carefully down in the seat. Stroking her fingers down the gleaming, surprisingly soft silver armrests, she couldn't stop herself from asking the one question burning in her mind. "Would you really kill our babies if they were born weak?"

He'd seen her asthma attack. Now he knew her mother had died after an attack. He had to wonder if his children would inherit it.

"Our sons will be strong warriors."

And if they aren't
?

She wanted to get off this ship and run far away from him. She ran her fingers over some of the buttons. Looking up, she tried to appear innocent. "Don't you have laws protecting children?"

She pressed a button. Nothing happened. Determined, she pressed another one. Still nothing happened. Sweat ran down the side of her face. She knew it was childish but she wanted to hurt his precious ship the way he'd hurt her.

"We have laws."

"But do you have any laws protecting the weak from the strong? Could you kill a child and get away with it on your planet?"

She could feel two buttons under her fingers and pressed them, too. She could've cried when still nothing happened.

"We are warriors. For generations, we had to be strong to survive." He leaned over and gently took her hand in his. "The buttons are set to work only at my touch," he said gently.

"Oh." She waited for him to slap her or throw her in the brig.

He looked at her hand for a moment, before letting it go, then strode over to a console, and pressed some buttons. She thought he did it to avoid having to look at her.

"We were barely surviving for many centuries. Sacrificing the weak so the strong could survive became a way of life." He turned around and looked her straight in the eye. His were so black, they looked like endless mirrored pools. "Come. It is time for dinner."

"Yes, you have to carefully feed the little woman. You can easily kill her if she's weak, but you have to make sure she doesn't starve herself when she realizes she's sleeping with a snake."

She snarled the words at him in a way that would do any warrior justice. Looking him right in the eyes, she defiantly pressed down on a few more buttons.

Drawing her out of the captain's chair, he molded her against his body. Red flames danced in the black eyes staring down at her. Lowering his head, he kissed her, a passionate, almost-desperate kiss that shouldn't have curled her toes, but it did.