“Nobody will believe you,” she says, grinning quite wickedly. “It’s already been done, Freak. It’s already happened. Over and over. Again and again. There’s nothing you can do…”
* * *
Mara
I almost forgot what the main function of a prisoner is supposed to be. It’s actually very simple, really. Escape. I have to escape. I have to get the fuck off this lizard ship, I have to find Freak and find my dad, and I have to get water for the colony. It’s a very reasonable to-do list, really. The fact that I haven’t done any of it is probably some kind of indication as to what a damaged and terrible person I am.
I do not know where Freak is, but I know I cannot handle the idea of him being hurt on my account. I do not want him to be recaptured. I am bait, and I have to become not bait.
Escape is easier than it might be, because they do not have me tied up or caged, but it turns out there’s no real reason for them to do that because I am under reptilian observation at almost all times.
They laze about under steaming red lights for relaxation. They bask, they feed, and they never allow me to wander very far at all. The king seems to find me particularly amusing.
“Tell me again how you came to be trained as a pet?”
“I was drowning inside a booby-trapped spaceship designed to kill me,” I tell him again, giving him the shortest version of the story possible.
“Yes, because after your father went missing, you refused to be married off and allow his business to be absorbed into the families of your elders. You could have become a pawn in theirgames, but you refused, and instead you became an amusement for a Psyon.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I sound a little defensive, because I am.
“What’s wrong with following around a creature so much more advanced than you that you will never entirely understand his mind and powers? You think he cares for you, but the truth is the depth of his love, when he gives it, would be enough to drown you. Meanwhile, your human devotion is so shallow he can barely dip his toes in it. It is a mismatch of truly cosmic proportions. You should have stayed home and married the one you were offered. You would have been pregnant by now. You would have had a human child.”
I do not say anything to him. I do not want to speak so much as a word to him. His thoughts echo my own somewhat. I have thought many times that I have made mistakes. Too many of them. I wonder if I am the reason my father left and did not return. I have wondered if I should have stayed and gotten married as the elders wanted. But the one thing I have never questioned is if being taken by Freak was not the best thing that could have happened to me.
“Retreat into silence if you want,” he laughs. “I hope to reunite you with your lover soon enough, if only for a short while. I imagine you will be excellent leverage to use in order to get him to cooperate.”
“He might not come for me,” I say. “He might have already forgotten about me. You’re right. I’m so insignificant. Why are you keeping me as leverage? I’m pointless.”
The king flashes his teeth at me. “For now, you are an amusement. Think about that.”
“You must be very bored to find me an amusement,” I reply.
He chuckles. “I enjoy the thought of your precious Tasin not knowing where you are, or what has become of you. If he takes too much longer to come and find you, I might have to send him a bit of you to remind him to hurry up.”
Tasin.He uses his home realm name. That fact sticks out to me, but for the moment I cannot tell why it seems so important. There is too much happening here in this terrible place.
“Take her away,” he says to a guard. “Put her somewhere out of my sight.”
I am taken and put in a hallway. There is no other place for me. There is not a room, or a cell, or a cage. I do not matter to these aliens very much at all. They clearly doubt my ability to escape. I am the human equivalent to a small shaking dog to them. I am the chihuahua of captives.
People are always underestimating little dogs. And right now, these aliens are underestimating me. I start to look for a way out. It’s going to have to be an escape pod again. I try not to think about the fact that the escape pod route hasn’t worked out for me once. I couldn’t find one on Freak’s ship, and I couldn’t get out of my own ship with one. But the third time may be the charm.
I search for several days, slowly, in a way that makes it look as though I am not looking at all. I am being underestimated again, and I could not be more pleased about that fact. I scuttle about the ship, most of the time drawing no attention whatsoever to myself.
Eventually, I find the escape pod rack. These sorts of things are never too difficult to locate because they have to be easily accessible during complete and utter crises. They are small. Barely bigger than a lizard-sized coffin, really. Clearly designed to be expelled and then maybe have enough power to route to the nearest safe place. Hm. Not ideal. I’m looking for a smaller shuttle.
“What are you doing, human?” One of the lizards stops to question me.
“I was wondering why all these beds are in this room?”
The lizard gives me a pitying look. He thinks I am very simple and very stupid, and I intend to let him think that.
“They’re not beds. They’re stasis chambers for long-term flights. They allow us to go cold if we need to travel between galaxies.”
“Why?”
“Because there is no point consuming resources if there’s no need to. And our bodies do not age while in stasis, so instead of arriving where we need to be at advanced ages, we arrive in peak condition.”
