“And now we know why."
We use each other’s shoulder for balance as we stretch one quad and then the other.
“So, what do you intend to do?” He asks as if I have a fully formed plan on how Tiril can help us.
“At the moment, I need to keep investigating and giving them enough information that they let me keep going. I don’t know what they’ll do with him if I finish…" Or should that be when? How long can I stretch this out for?
The fear that has been lurking inside me grows now I have given it voice. The leaders won’t let Tiril walk around the colony and assist, or as he worded it, be a brute used for labor.
“They will kill him." Patrick gives me the answer I don’t want to hear, even though it’s the truth. “And if you don’t want him to die, you need to come up with a plan.”
“I don’t have one. I don’t think Tiril will flee because he’s protecting his brothers by being here.”
Patrick gives me that look again, as if I have revealed too much. “Just friends, hey? In the way that we are just friends?”
I start running to avoid answering him. My face is already hot, and not from exertion. What I have with Patrick is complicated. We are friends, but we were once more and we are very close, so the colony doesn’t become too interested.
He catches up to me. “I was joking…you haven’t?”
“Of course not. I don’t want him to be bound to me." That would be unethical. But giving him a blow job? At the time, it made sense. And I can’t explain it. I want to blame some alien pheromones, but I’m not sure I can.
It was the way he was looking at me, as though I were the only woman on the planet that mattered. Most of the men in the colony don’t care. No matter what encouragement the leaders give them to settle down, they know they can move on and that most women will be grateful for the attention and affection. Which must be the way Tiril and his brothers feel.
What did he say?
That it is a warrior's job to ensure his mate is happy because being brushed aside meant the warrior had done something awful. Fuck up your relationship and receive a painful death sentence doesn’t seem fair.
I wonder if other animals on this planet have a similar set up. Is the imbalance due to something in this world? I haven’t been allowed to study animals in the wild to find out. But it's a study that needs to be done.
I push myself hard, so I’m panting and can’t talk. Patrick keeps up because he’s got long legs. That niggling voice is back, reminding me that Patrick wouldn’t be my friend if he hadn’t been assigned to be the father of my compulsory children.
We are making the best of the situation. Though I wonder if he is getting the better end of the deal. He is free to see other guys, but there is no man for me, for most of the women.
“I'll ask Mandy to look at the data,” he says, panting slightly.
I glare at him, unable to respond except with a huff.
“She found a back door in. It should be safe."
“Nothing is safe.” I force the words out.
The colony leaders will make us disappear. How many people needed to vanish before everyone else begins to ask questions?
I think we’re reaching the tipping point. Three outspoken people, now the four women the aliens took, plus the other three who died in the screamer attack.
Only so many disappearances can be covered up with misfortune and misadventure.
They will need to use other means to bring the dissenters into line. Perhaps they will turn us into brute labor and work us to death.
16
TIRIL
Idon’t like the way the pen Chloe gave me smells, but I love the way it leaves marks. It is nothing like the inks and dyes I am used to. I draw pictures of the animals my tribe kept as livestock, and I write their names, even though she won’t be able to read them.
I have learned her numbers. It was easy as I wrote a number on each finger to remember.
And while I could draw all our crops, I am not much of an artist, nor do I want to give away all of my information at once. As much as I crave her touch—a weakness I am blaming on being around a woman for the first time in many years, along with the hope of finding my own mate—I do not trust her people, and she is far more loyal to them than her sister.
