Alien Mine (7 page)

With a sigh, she went to the back of the cave and loaded some coal onto the hover board. She had to use the vehicle sparsely as she wouldn't be able to charge the batteries until she could get to town.

Her tummy rippled with nerves. The Forestry department had promised her more supplies, along with a battery charger, but as usual with government promises, nothing had come of it. Though she'd probably survive the winter without it. Barely.

She added some more coal to the dying fire she'd made that morning. She would've loved to burn small piles of coal all over the cave, to get the temperature back up above freezing. But she couldn't afford to use more than a few chunks for the circle of stones in the middle of the cave and the iron stove in the area she used for a kitchen.

A draft from the entrance sent chills through her body. Shivering, she dragged empty boxes to the cave opening. Gritting her teeth, she fetched some supplies from the storage cave to put in the boxes, making them heavy enough to withstand the wind. So tired she could barely stand, she grabbed one of the survival blankets from her tent, and draped it over the boxes, hoping the modified wind-break would stop the icy wind from reaching the alien. It would have to do for tonight.

Natalie glided her palm over the crinkly texture of the survival blanket. It tickled her skin and reminded her of her father. Like the good third-generation survivalist he was, he'd always prepared for the worst case scenario. If he'd captured an alien, he would be preparing for a full scale invasion. Her hand fisted, her nails gouging the silver blanket. But he'd died and left her alone to deal with raiders and arrogant aliens.

Still shivering from the cold draft seeping in, Natalie turned away from the entrance. She had to get organized or some unlucky explorer would find the skeletons of a stupid woman and a poor, tied-up alien come spring.

Desperate to focus on anything but Zacar, she walked to the circle of stones, where the coals were glowing red and inviting, and carefully knelt down. She held her hand out over the embers to the welcome warmth and studied the burning coals. Her grandmother told her that coal used to smoke when you burned it. Imagine. Seeing smoke coming out of those glowing coals.

Turning so that she could see the alien, she asked, "Why'd you kill those men? Was it to help me?"

She'd given up on him answering when he finally said, "Hurt Natlia."

"Do you mean you killed them because they hurt me?" Her heart beat sped up. Maybe he wouldn't hurt her. Maybe she could let him go. She snorted.
And outside it's a beautiful summer's day.

His lip curled, flashing a fang. "Kill woumbers."

A fang.
She edged a little closer to the comforting warmth of the fire. "Woumbers? What does that mean?" she asked while combing her fingers through her wet hair.

He stared at her for a long time while she pretended to relax next to the fire. "Not warrior," he said at last.

Did he mean the raiders weren't warriors? Like an insult? And why did his language improve every time he spoke. "How do you know English?" When he didn't answer right away, she got the impression he was thinking over her question.

"Head learn."

Well, that makes a lot of sense.
How could his head just learn?

Natalie shifted uncomfortably as he looked at every inch of her figure. As if he'd run a finger down her spine, hot shivers crept with slow agony over each vertebrae. For a long disconcerting moment, his eyes rested on her chest, as though he could see her unbound breasts through her sweater. She concentrated very hard on appearing oblivious.

"You know, if you would just talk to me, maybe I could let you go. But you'd have to tell me why you're here first." Maybe a gullible personality lurked underneath all those menacing muscles. "Won't you tell me about your planet?"

She loved looking at TC casts about other countries. Her project of replanting trees left no time for exploring even her own country, let alone imagine seeing a new planet. He simply looked at her with that expressionless face.

"I never met an alien before. Can you blame me for being curious? Maybe we could exchange knowledge." Not that she would tell him anything, especially if it would help him harm humans.
Just in case he's got a whole invasion force stashed somewhere nearby
. She trembled at that thought.

Still, no answer.

With a sigh, she gave up. If only she was heartless enough to kill him. Then she could forget about the whole thing and get some sleep.

Fed up with him, she turned on the TC. Passing her palm over the small pink box, she watched as the menu sprang up to hover in the air. It always irritated her that the menu would appear, even when the only thing she could watch, after her monthly allotted time had run out, was the news. The news was free and limitless, the government wanting to make sure it always had a way to alert citizens of emergencies.

As the news came on, the anchor woman was in the middle of reporting about a huge raider camp that had been destroyed by government forces. Natalie smiled in satisfaction.

About three years ago, homeless and jobless men started banding together, under the infamous Murdoch, and terrorizing everyone. According to the reporter, a hundred and fifty raiders, that had terrorised the countryside from Washington to Montana, were killed by an elite new government force.

Maybe now Murdoch won't miss the raiders that came to her mountain
, she thought. And if her luck held, they wouldn't come after her.

"About time the government did something," she muttered.

The raiders had been acting as if they were untouchable for months. Their reprisals, for any attempt at stopping their looting and killing, were brutal.

Zacar turned his head and stared at the three-dimensional holograph projected in the air in the middle of the cave by the TC, his red eyes slowly bleeding back to black.

She peeked at the alien. Did he understand that the newscaster was talking about men like those he killed earlier?

When nothing was said about an alien space ship she leaned forward to press the off button but paused when a human interest segment came on. An image appeared of a tiny baby, almost entirely wrapped in casts, held in the arms of his mother as she cried soft, relieved tears. The newscaster intruded, reporting how the baby was born deformed, how it had taken more than a hundred operations to straighten his bones and give him the chance to walk one day. He looked so small and frail, to have to endure such suffering. Natalie had to wipe away her tears.

"Why no kill baby?" the alien grated over the newscaster's report.

Natalie nearly screamed in fright. Spinning around, she was about to yell at him for startling her when she noticed him watching the scene in the hospital as it played out almost eerily in the middle of the cave, the mother crying and the father stoic.

"Why would they kill the baby?" she asked, confused.

"Baby weak," he said with his usual gravelly, shiver-inducing voice.

Her stomach turned. Nauseous, she jumped up and glared at him with her hands on her hips. "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard anyone say. Do you kill babies on your planet just because they are weak?" she asked.

"Yes." There was no hesitation or shame in his response.

She stumbled back from him. "I can't believe you'd do something so...so disgusting." Natalie held up a hand. "No, wait. After seeing the way you chopped off heads earlier today without even flinching, I
can
believe it."

And now she knew for sure he hadn't done it to help her. He probably saw all humans as weak. Walking toward the corner of the cave where she'd put up her survival tent, she said bitterly, "I'm trapped in this cave for probably six months, with an alien who kills babies. You'll probably kill me, too, the first time I get an asth--"

Natalie bit her lip and rushed into her yellow, top-of-the-range, survival tent. Images of murdered babies flashed in front of her eyes. Would he find her weak because of her asthma and kill her as well? She fell onto the patchwork quilt draped over her narrow bed while shudders racked her body. Touching the quilt, she tried to think of happier times, times when she used to snuggle next to her mother as she hand-stitched quilts.

The cave was only supposed to be her workplace, made comfortable enough for her to sleep in if she worked late. Yet, that was the only reason she still had one of her mother's handmade quilts. Everything else had been consumed in the fire.

A teary laugh escaped her lips. With his typical paranoia, her father had immediately started to turn the cave into a backup retreat, in the event something should happen to the ranch house. She and her mother had just smiled at each other and helped him with his crazy plans. But time had proved him right. Everything he'd predicted had come to pass. The government had lost its grip on nearly everything. Water was rationed to two litres per household per day, and electricity was cut several times a week. And now, on top of all that, she had an alien infestation.

She shook her head, clearing her melancholy thoughts, and moved to the corner of the tent to put on her pyjamas. Once dressed in her thick, insulated pyjamas, she trudged over to her bed and lifted the blankets and quilt to climb into the sleeping bag beneath. Laying her head down on her pillow, she tried to enjoy the warmth of her sleeping bag. After the worst day, bar none, she was ready for a good night's sleep.

She tossed and turned for a few moments then groaned and got up. Her conscience wouldn't allow her to let the alien to freeze to death overnight. Even if he came from a race of baby killers. She could feel his gaze on her as she walked sluggishly to the storage cave to collect the silver survival blankets she kept there.

The alien hadn't moved when she returned.

"This will keep you warm." Keeping a watchful eye on him, she moved to slide it under him. When his lip curled back, showing a fang, she said, "Don't be so stubborn. It will protect you against the cold of the cave floor." It took every scrap of courage she had to ignore that flashing fang.

"Warrior not cold," he said with arrogant disdain.

She turned her back on him, making sure to exaggerate the shrug of her shoulders. "It's okay to kill babies, but I get my head bitten off for trying to keep him from freezing to death," she muttered, not caring if he heard her, then went back to the dubious safety of her tent, shivers racking her body. The long-life coal that had kept the cave comfortable through autumn was now as effective as old fashioned bullets against the alien. Putting the shotgun beside the bed, she lay down, facing the clear plastic entrance of the tent. But even when she closed her eyes, his unblinking stare burned through her eyelids.

Every time she drifted off to sleep, she would jerk awake, convinced he'd gotten loose and was on his way to kill her, only to find him in the same position, staring at her. That night for the first time in months she dreamt of her mother's death. She stood by helpless, while her mother fought for every breath she managed to take into her lungs.

When the TC came on for her normal eight o'clock wake up, Natalie groaned then lit a solar lamp to dispel the early morning gloom and recoiled when she found him still watching her. Didn't the dratted alien ever sleep? Had he stared at her the whole night? Did aliens not need to blink, or sleep?