“She’s suffered enough,” Boss says. “She can sleep with me.”
Sharp gives me anI know what you’re up tolook.
I give him anand there’s nothing you can do about itlook right back.
Boss takes me back to his bedroom. These guys seem to each have a very large room to themselves. There’s a bed that is built into the wall, and some storage that is similarly constructed. Other than that, there’s not really anything in the room. I don’t know what I expected in terms of personalization. Something, I guess?
“Are you not allowed to stick stuff up on the walls?”
“I don’t have a lot of things,” Boss says. “I come from a planet where we live on wild grazing with very little shelter at all.”
“But you’re spacefaring?”
“We get off the planet when we are taken off the planet,” he says. Sounds a little mysterious, if I am to be honest.
“Taken as in… someone comes and brings a taxi? Or taken as in…”
He sighs, and then answers.
“Taken as in rounded up for slaughter. Your species is not the only sentient one in the universe being used for food by others. The food chain gets messy once multiple talking species are in it.”
There’s a heavy moment after those words leave his mouth. Rounded up is a very loaded term. I can imagine what that must be like. I can imagine how much evil is going on in the universe at all times and in all places.
“I am sorry that happened to you,” I say, meaning it. “That’s fucked up.”
“How did you get here?” He asks the question with a curiosity I find endearing. The others haven’t asked me that yet. The scene in the bar was too stressful and intense for any getting-to-know-you nonsense.
“My boss sent assassins to kill me because I knew too much about the interstellar slave trade.”
I didn’t think I’d bond with Boss. I thought he was too big of a creature, too blunt and too brash and just too… masculine. But he’s had a hard time and I think I can relate.
“You’re good at getting out of danger,” he says. “You’re brave. But you’re a little reckless.”
It’s interesting having him assess my character. He’s not wrong.
“I didn’t used to be reckless,” I say. “But then the world got worse and being reckless was the only way to survive. I realized nobody was really playing by the rules, and that the people who were responsible for making them and enforcing them were following them least of all. They’re selling us even though they’re not supposed to. And that’s the least of it. They’re lying to us as well. They’re screwing us at every turn. They took the world from us, and they made us retreat to islands in the fucking sky. It’s fucked. So… I did what I had to do.”
Boss nods. “I understand what you mean. When the harvesters came to our world, I was taken. I was carted to the slaughterhouse with my herd when I was but a teenager. One by one we were fed into the tight halls that smelled of blood and death. Fear was thick in the air.”
I listen, holding my breath.
“They were shooting us in the head with guns designed to deploy the same bolt over and over. One by one we watched each other fall, be hooked and dragged away. The gun that killed my father was destined to kill me.”
“What did you do?”
“When the Harvester put the gun to my head, I pulled it from his hand, twisted it, and fired it into his chest. Then the others got the horns.”
I feel tears pricking my eyes imagining such a scenario. The horror really does reach me on a visceral level. I can imagine a young Boss roaming free on alien plains, then being taken and facing the worst fate possible along with everyone he knows and loves.
“I killed every Harvester I encountered in the plant. Once the other warriors saw that we did not have to simply submit to death simply because it had been organized, they broke free as well. Now the same plant that used to be designed to kill us is the base from which we run our military operations. I have never been back to the Prairie Lands, and I never will. I travel the universe, routing out Harvesters whenever I find them.”
“I understand. And I’ll help you.”
“You will not,” he says roughly. “You will stay far from Harvesters. They are terrible alien creatures who destroy everything they encounter. They would turn you into fresh raw meat treats. They would slice you thin and smoke you and package your flesh in little plastic packets, then ship them around their stores where you would be sold to anybody who consumes meat products. You are a delicacy.”
“Are there any here? On the station? Will there be any at the auction?”
Boss picks me up, strips me, and puts me in bed, all without ever actually putting me down until he finally settles me under the covers.
