I feel the blood drain from my face. His words make me feel more naked than I already am. I can’t believe I wanted to—that I thought—forget it, I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. I just need to get back home. Get off this tin can where everywhere you look is some hot alien asshole wanting to get with you, for all the wrong reasons. Me,matingto have a baby? Or a few babies? I couldn’t even keep my sister safe, what the hell would I do to a bunch of alien babies?
He shifts closer, until the backs of his hands and the tips of his fingers brush against mine. “Kate. I’ve never…I’ve never touched a female…did I do something wrong?”
I shake my head quickly and try not to think that all this man just wanted was toimpregnate me.
“Kate, all I’m asking you to do is mate with me, nothing more. Must you look so tormented by the idea?” he huffs.
I move away from his touch. I need space, a lot of space, and I need to change the subject and get him back on track. My no is no. I’m not talking this out with him so he can fool himself into thinking I could be some crazy alien baby mama for his people. “Stop, let’s just stay focused, Rune. Remember what we’re supposed to be talking about? Pious, and what he said to me in the garden.”
He stops short, his eyes narrowing. “Pious. Right. What did he say?” He shakes his head and drops his gaze to the floor.
I take this moment to create a distance between our bodies, not stopping until my back is leaning against the farthest wall. “He said the Caelum created the virus that caused the pandemic.”
His body stiffens and his eyes shoot back up to meet mine. “No, Kate. He’s lying to—”
“Then how did the Caelum know when to leave Earth?” I ask, jamming my hands on my hips. “How did they know what would happen? How did they have time to build a ship and create an environment that would sustain life in space?” My lungs feel tight, like they’re fighting for air. He’s got to see how it all looks to me.
He reaches out for me but I’m too far away. “No. No, my people wouldn’t,” his voice cracks.
“But what if they did and you just don’t know?” I take a deep breath and add, “Or what if you’re the one lying to me right now?”
His expression darkens. “After everything, this—thisis what you really think of me?”
I stare at him. “You have to know—you have to realize I don’t know what to think.” My thoughts and words tumble together and they come out in a flood of tears. “All you want of me, Rune, is to be some sort of reproduction mechanism for you and your people. You…you just asked me to mate with you! You want the same thing Pious wants.”
There is no softening to his expression. And there’s no denial.
“I’m a person, Rune. With feelings and fears and wants and needs. I don’t want to be just some baby-making machine to someone…somebreeder.”
“Kate—”
“No! I won’t be with someone just because I have a significantly high chance of contributing to your population increase! I’m more than that!”
“I never said you weren’t,” he says through clenched teeth.
We stare at each other, silently. Until his gaze loses its intensity and his eyes drift down across my body, and peer defeatedly at the floor.
If he’d only just asked a few women on Earth. There’s no denying how attractive he is, how attractive they all are—perfectly created male specimens—tons of girls would have followed him back here. I’m just not ready to start having babies. “I know how desperate you must feel, Rune. I feel the same way about getting back to Claire. But mating for the sole reason of me getting pregnant…it’s not…I’m not ready for that. I come from a world where procreation isn’t just for breeding purposes.” This is all too heavy to even explain. “We have sex for fun, to feel good. Because we love, or lust, sometimes even because we hurt or hate.” I wish I could help him, but then who will help Claire and my father and all the women on this ship that are being held against their will?
He swipes his hands over his face. “The human race is at stake, Kate.”
“I want to have a baby with someone I love. Maybe one day it will happen, according to Pious’s future for me it never will, but I can’t just hand over my body to you. Like you said before, you don’t even know what the word love means.”
“Then there’s no hope for mankind,” he whispers.
“Take me home, Rune,” my words break, “and I’ll help you find someone who is willing to give you what you need.”
“I might be new to your kind of humanity, Kate. But at least one of us is being honest about knowing the difference between what they need and what they so desperately want.”
