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With fingers curled in the netting for what feels like safety, I drift off, anticipating our future.
…
“You slept a very long time.”
I wake up to see Kail’s face in front of me. I smile, glad he’s here. He is another element of safety in what seems to be a very unsafe universe.
“You changed your disguise,” I notice. He’s gone from blue to red. Dark maroon slashes cover parts of his face, some of his shoulders and torso, and all of his hands and forearms.
I am sleepy, and the fact that I am just waking up makes me slow. Realization creeps through me one little bit at a time, confusing me and horrifying me as I fight to reject what my eyes show me.
“Kail,” I whisper. “What have you done?”
“I’ve cleared our passage and kept us safe. The ship is yours to captain.”
“No!” I sit up and would have fallen out of the hammock but for bloody hands catching me.
I squirm out of Kail’s grip, cursing him.
“Why!?”
The word is raw in my throat. I could understand him killing humans. He has great hatred for my kind, understandably. But the Persinians never did anything to him or to me.
The mark of slaughter is upon him, and now on me.
“WHY!?” I make the demand, harsh and furious.
He looks at me with those golden eyes and does not seem to register my anger. He’s not in a rage. I don’t think he acted out of emotion. I think this was colder and much more practical.
“I had to kill them. They were going to radio our position in.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I heard the captain discussing it with his second-in-command. Once I had killed them, the others inevitably had to be destroyed, for they would have liked to make the same decision. I will not allow any threat, whether you like it or not.”
I do not like what I hear. “And even if they were going to call it in, we can’t murder our way across the universe.”
“We can, and we will if that is what it takes to save our lives. I don’t care who you are, or on what world you exist, you must act to preserve yourself. It is a basic law of nature.”
“I’m starting to feel like we’re the bad guys,” I sigh. “And I don’t want to be the bad guys.”
His expression suggests confusion for a moment. “I don’t understand what that means, except, maybe, that you need to feel as though you are a good person. The irony being that you have never, since I’ve known you, seemed to feel that way. Your guilt will get us killed. And my lack of it will preserve us.”
He’s right. Logically, I know he’s right. We shouldn’t have stowed away. We should have bought a ship. We should stay far away from anybody I’d like to remain alive, because Kail is ruthless in his protection of me.
“We’re going to take the escape pod and make for the next station,” I tell him. “We’ll let this ship drift and hope the universe swallows our sins.”
Kail nods, agreeing with that plan.
“And at the next station, we won’t be pursued, so we’ll buy a ship. And we’ll stop killing absolutely fucking everybody we encounter.”
“I didn’t killeveryone.”
Those words should make me feel better, but something about them gives me the worst sense of creeping horror, even though I really do not know what he has or hasn’t done. I should be glad that he hasn’t killed someone. Instead, I am wondering who he wouldn’t kill.
“Who didn’t you kill?”
“I will have to show you. I don’t want to touch it.”
