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“Saw something a few years ago that stuck with me. Old man and woman, well, the bodies of an old man and an old woman. Been together so long that the skin on their fingers grew in ridges around their wedding rings. They were holding hands, and he kissed her on her cheek, and she blushed under all those wrinkles.
Why did we ever think he was crazy? Mel wondered. He sees everything. He’s a genius. He’s both. Well, maybe this means we don’t have to keep quiet anymore. He knows.
I slouched against the wall, settling myself in for a long conversation. Jeb didn’t disappoint on that count. I lost track of how many questions he asked me. He wanted details — the Spiders’ looks, their behaviors, and how they’d handled Earth. He didn’t flinch away from the invasion details; on the contrary, he almost seemed to enjoy that part more than the rest.
“No, we used sunlight for food, like most plants here.” “Well, that’s not as much fun as my idea.” Sometimes I found myself laughing with him.
Jamie edged closer to me as the night wore on. I didn’t realize that I was combing my fingers through his hair as I talked until I noticed Jeb staring at my hand. I folded my arms across my body. Finally, Jeb yawned a huge yawn that had me and Jamie doing the same. “You tell a good story, Wanda,” Jeb said when we were all done stretching. “It’s what I did . . . before. I was a teacher, at the university in San Diego. I taught history.” “A teacher!” Jeb repeated, excited. “Well, ain’t that amazin’? There’s something we could use around here.
“This is my ninth,” I told him, squeezing his fingers gently. “Wow, nine!” he breathed. “That’s why they wanted me to teach. Anybody can tell them our statistics, but I have personal experience from most of the planets we’ve . . . taken.” I hesitated at that word, but it didn’t seem to bother Jamie. “There are only three I’ve never been to — well, now four.
He nodded. “All the more reason why I should stay. Doc might need help.” “Jamie —” “I’m not a kid, Wanda. I can take care of myself.” Obviously, arguing was only going to make him more stubborn. “At least take the bed,” I said, surrendering. “I’ll sleep on the floor. It’s your room.”
“Hey, Wes,” Ian greeted him. Wes watched in silence as we passed. Ian laughed at his expression.
Ian was just a step behind me — I could hear him breathing.
I found his about-face in regard to me unsettling. Was he really no longer intent on my death? Or just looking for an opportunity? The water always tasted funny here — sulfurous and stale — but now that taste seemed suspicious. I tried to ignore the paranoia as much as possible.
The soap burned more strongly against my bare skin, but the sting was bearable because it meant I could be clean again. When I was done lathering, my skin prickled everywhere and my scalp felt scalded. It seemed as if the places where the bruises had formed were more sensitive than the rest of me — they must still have been there. I was happy to put the acidic soap on the rock floor and rinse my body again and again, the way I had my clothes.
Ian was first in line. “You look better,” he told me, but I couldn’t tell from his tone if he was surprised or annoyed that I did.
Maggie was in this group, and the caramel-skinned woman, but I didn’t learn her name. Mostly everyone worked in silence. The silence felt unnatural — a protest against my presence.
But the women kept on kneading and shaping, not seeming to realize this glaring truth. After a long, breathless moment, I started kneading again, too. My stillness would probably alert them to the situation sooner than if I kept working. Jeb was gone for an eternity. Perhaps he had meant that he needed to grind more flour.
Jeb explained. “If you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will hop right out. But if you put that frog in a pot of tepid water and slowly warm it, the frog doesn’t figure out what’s going on until it’s too late. Boiled frog. It’s just a matter of working by slow degrees.”
Plus, I’ve always thought that if a person wants to, he can get along with just about anybody. I like putting my theories to the test. And see, here you are, one of the nicest gals I ever met. It’s real interesting to have a soul as a friend, and it makes me feel super special that I’ve managed it.” He winked at me, bowed from the waist, and walked away.
He seemed unsurprised to see Ian tagging along beside me. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought they exchanged a significant glance. I half expected them to strap me to one of Doc’s gurneys at that point. These rooms continued to make me feel nauseated.
How strange that Ian, of all the humans, should have such a surprisingly gentle interior. I didn’t realize that cruelty would seem a negative to him. He waited in silence while I considered all this. “If you don’t want to kill me, then why did you come with me today?” I asked.
“You . . . you and Doc are trying to protect me?” “Strange world, isn’t it?” It was a few seconds before I could answer. “The strangest,” I finally agreed.
The sleepy-eyed mother was named Lucina, and her two boys were Isaiah and Freedom — Freedom had been born right here in the caves, delivered by Doc.
Doc and Sharon were partnered, and Maggie, in her rare moments of sarcastic humor, teased Sharon that it had taken the end of humanity for Sharon to find the perfect man: every mother wanted a doctor for her daughter.
Ian always sat near, though not really with us. I could not fully accept the idea of his self-appointed role as my bodyguard. It seemed too good to be true and thus, by human philosophy, clearly false.
He was developing an uncanny ability to sense when I was turning skittish. I sighed and stayed where I was. It should probably have bothered me more that I was such a slave to this child’s wishes.
I nodded. “They see a different range of colors — the ice is full of rainbows. Their cities are a point of pride for them. They’re always trying to make them more beautiful. I knew of one Bear who we called . . . well, something like Glitter Weaver, but it sounds better in that language, because of the way the ice seemed to know what he wanted and shaped itself into his dreams.
I watched it start — watched the terminal patients walk out of the hospital whole. . . .” A frown etched a V-shaped crease into Doc’s narrow forehead. He hated the invaders, like everyone, but unlike the others, he also envied them.
“Ian and Doc do not like me, Jamie. They’re just morbidly curious.” “Do so.”
They have three different genders. They have really long hands with tough, strong fingers that can build all kinds of things. They make cities under the water out of hard plants that grow there, kind of like trees but not really.
“Here we go,” Ian muttered beside me, his voice barely audible above the crackle of the flames. The dirty man Jamie was still clinging to took a step forward. One of his hands rose slowly, like an involuntary reflex, and curled into a fist. From the dirty figure came Jared’s voice — flat, perfectly devoid of any inflection. “What is the meaning of this, Jeb?” My throat closed. I tried to swallow and found the way blocked. I tried to breathe and was not successful. My heart drummed unevenly. Jared! Melanie’s exultant voice was loud, a silent shriek of elation.
Kyle — easily identifiable by his size despite the grime — was shoving his way around Jared and heading toward . . . me. “You’re letting it tell you its lies? Have you all gone crazy? Or did it lead the Seekers here? Are you all parasites now?” Many heads fell forward, ashamed. Only a few kept their chins stiffly in the air, their shoulders squared: Lily, Trudy, Heath, Wes . . . and frail Walter, of all people.
I was surprised at the amount of anxiety this caused me, at how much I didn’t want him hurt. It wasn’t the instinctive protection, the bone-deep need to protect, that I felt for Jamie or even Jared. I just knew that Ian should not be harmed trying to protect me.
Jeb had wasted his efforts on the wrong people. It didn’t matter that Trudy or Lily was speaking to me, that Ian would put himself between his brother and me, that Sharon and Maggie made no hostile move toward me. The only one who had to be convinced had now, finally, decided.
Most of the other humans, all those who had hung their heads in shame for admitting me into their society, shuffled out behind them. Only Jamie, Jeb, and Ian beside me, and Trudy, Geoffrey, Heath, Lily, Wes, and Walter stayed.
I found something different from the crowd of boxes. It was rough fabric, like burlap, a sack full of something heavy that shifted with a quiet hissing sound when I nudged it. I kneaded the sack with my hands, less alarmed by the low hiss than by the plastic crackle — it seemed unlikely that this sound would alert anyone to my presence. Suddenly, it all came clear. It was the smell that did it. As I played with the sand-like material inside the bag, I got an unexpected whiff of a familiar scent. It took me back to my bare kitchen in San Diego, to the low cupboard on the left side of the sink.
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Intuition? My intuition tells me that we don’t know this place as well as we thought we did, Melanie said. We pondered the ominous sound of that.
We stared at each other for two long minutes, both our stomachs rumbling as we inhaled the smell of the eggs. Every now and then, he would peek down at the food out of the corner of his eye. That’s what beat me — the longing look in his eyes. “Fine,” I huffed. I slid his bowl back to him and then retrieved my own. He waited until I took the first bite to touch his.
No, they were sad. Despair was etched on every face in the room. Sharon was the last person I noticed, eating in a distant corner, keeping to herself as usual. She was so composed as she mechanically ate her breakfast that at first I didn’t notice the tears dripping in streaks down her face.
“He really thought he had it this time. He was so sure. . . . Oh, well. It will be worth all this if he figures it out someday,” Kyle disagreed. “If.” Jared snorted. “I guess it’s a good thing we found that brandy. Doc’s going to blow through the whole crate by nightfall at the rate he’s going.”
He grinned again. “I feel silly standing here with my arms empty while you lug these around. Chalk it up to gallantry. C’mon — let’s go relax somewhere out of the way until the coast is clear.”
I shrugged, giving up. “I was back at the . . . the hole. Where I was kept in the beginning.” Ian frowned; he didn’t like that. But he got up and led the way back to the storage corridor.
“Her name is Wanda, not it. You will not touch her. Any mark you leave on her, I will double on your worthless hide.” I winced at the threat.
The parasites are holding the Olympics in Haiti right now. From what we can see, the aliens are all hugely excited about it. Lots of them have Olympic flags outside their houses. It’s not the same, though. Everyone who participates gets a medal now. Pathetic. But they can’t really screw up the hundred-meter dash. Individual parasite sports are much more entertaining than when they try to compete against each other directly. They perform better in separate lanes.
I recognized the intention in his eyes; I knew how he would move, exactly how his lips would feel. And yet it was so new to me, a first more shocking than any other, as his mouth pressed against mine. I think he meant just to touch his lips to mine, to be soft, but things changed when our skin met. His mouth was abruptly hard and rough, his hands trapped my face to his while his lips moved mine in urgent, unfamiliar patterns.
A test with results he’d anticipated with confidence. But he’d been surprised.
Mel?” he asked again, the hope he didn’t want to feel coloring his tone.
sighed. “Bread’s fine.” “Let it go, Wanda. Ian says you’re too self-sacrificing for your own good.” I made a face. “I think he’s got a point,” Jamie muttered. “Even if we all want you here, you don’t belong until you decide you do.”
“Walt must have been keeping quiet about the pain for a long while now,” Ian added somberly.
His eyes flashed down to see Jamie’s hand in mine, and then his lips twisted into a snarl. Ian squared his shoulders as he absorbed his brother’s reaction — his mouth curled into a mirror of Kyle’s — and he deliberately reached for my other hand. Kyle made a noise like he was about to be sick and turned his back on us. When we were in the blackness of the long tunnel south, I tried to free that hand. Ian gripped it tighter. “I wish you wouldn’t make him angrier,” I muttered.
Because you do belong here, oddly enough, Melanie whispered. She was very aware of the warmth of Ian’s and Jamie’s hands, wrapped around and twined with mine.
“We’re lucky it was Wanda,” Ian murmured in my defense. “No one else —” “I know,” Doc interrupted, good-natured as always. “I guess I should say, it’s too bad Wanda didn’t have more of an interest in medicine.”
I stretched my arm to the limit, trying not to jostle Walter, so that Ian could arrange the cot under it. Then he grabbed me up just as easily and set me on the cot beside Walter. Walter’s eyes never fluttered. I gasped quietly, caught off guard by the casual way Ian was able to put his hands on me — as though I were human.
