Kate
Rune leans his head back and looks down at me. I’m not sure what he sees on my face, but his hands immediately fly off me, and he steps away.
We stare at each other in silence.
“Is that truly what you want?” His face pales as he asks the question.
“You can’t keep me a prisoner here, Rune. You can’t keep any of us.”
His jaw tightens. “You don’t understand what you’re asking me.”
“But I do.”
“The human race will become extinct, Kate. My generation will be the last.”
I clear my throat and wipe away my tears. “I think you’ll be just fine. Just ask around on Earth. Ask some females if they would be willing to come back with you.”
“You’re not willing to stay here. With me?” His expression turns grave. “Think of what your life will be like back on Earth, Kate.”
“As opposed to being here with you? Okay,” I sniffle. “If I go back home, I find my sister and father and I keep them safe. It’ll be hard, but I’ll do everything I can to survive the next thirty years until whatever happens in your past happens in my future.” I step forward and hold my chin up, “If I stay here, I get what? Inseminated? Then I get to be a mother? Then you’re done with me? And I live in a sardine can for the rest of my life wondering what happened to my family?”
“Kate, I—”
“And let’s be serious, here. You aren’t the general any longer, your crazy alien brother is. Everybody here thinks I’m the one who killed you. So I’m not going to be really popular.”
“I admit nothing here will be perfect until I reinstate the correct structure of the ship, but I can assure you of your safety, Kate. I haven’t let anything happen to you, have I?”
A quick glance down shows me Jex, mouth gaping open, gaze ping-ponging back and forth between us.
“So your promise is to keep my reproductive organs safe up in space, but my brain and heart, they can go to hell?”
“I’m not understanding your question.”
I growl out a frustrated moan and rub my hands over my face. I’m too worried about my sister and my father to be standing here talking about this. “I need to get back home. End of discussion.”
“I need you here.” For a moment, he looks earnest and desperate.
But then I remember my sister as she crawled back to me on the sidewalk just before the tin men took her. “No, no you don’t!” My tone is harsh and loud. “You can use any other woman that is willing to donate her eggs to you. I refuse.”
“This is the future of mankind,” he whispers. “This is my species. I need to save them.”
I think about everything he’s told me about his mankind and then everything I know he probably hasn’t said. “Your women went extinct and you did nothing to save them. Your mothers and grandmothers, sisters and cousins? You allowed them to die out. Maybe your men don’t deserve to be saved now.”
He draws back, stunned.
“Jex?” His voice is low and shaky.
“Yes, sir,” Jex says climbing to stand next to our showdown.
“Take Kate through the passages, back to the lower hangar, the west one not the same one as before. Take her home.” He pauses and searches my face one last time. “Safe travels, female. I give you my word the other females here who do not want to stay will be brought safely back to Earth under my orders.”
I can’t help bursting into tears. Relief sweeps through me like a tidal wave. I wish I had it in me to somehow help him, but I can’t see me staying here with the very person who destroyed everything and letting him extract pieces of me. And my sister and father, theyneedme.
Rune’s hand reaches out and stills over my cheek. “These will be the last tears you cry because of me.” His expression is a mixture of tortured sadness as he wipes away my tears.
His eyes look tired, resigned.
Maybe it’s the way he stands, a tall metallic-clad statue, that I know he’ll be fine. He’s resilient; he’ll figure this all out for his men. His way of life will go on like normal, somehow he’ll fix it all with an upload of some software and everything will be what it was for him.
