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“Yes, linasha.”
“And fighting.”
I’m looking up at him, so I see the discomfort come into his expression.
“If it is necessary,” he says, sounding unhappy about it. “It has been more necessary than I would have liked of late.”
Again, I wonder what part of my subconscious this is drawing from. Dreams are just your mind processing information. Whatever drugs I’ve been given - or maybe even something in the air of this planet - might have made this dream freakishly realistic and vivid, but it still has to come from me. Have I been harbouring secret thoughts of pacifism lately?
Is that why I was in front of a board of senior commanders?
It would be really fucking helpful if I could remember more than flashes of the last however many weeks, months, years.
I release the alien’s hand, scrubbing at my eyes with the heels of my palms, frustration bubbling up in me.
“Are you alright, linasha? Does your head pain you?”
I sense the step he takes closer to me, his body heat bathing me in warmth even without touching me. The temptation to lean into that, to let it be a comfort, is strong, but I pull myself together, take a step back.
“Back off,” I warn him.
He holds his hands up placatingly. “I was only going to suggest you use these berries on waking.”
He gestures to the healing berry bush.
“Mix their juices with water and drink for a healing tonic.” He gives me a rueful smile and points to his temple where I struck his real-life counterpart. “I am on my way to mending thanks to such a tonic.”
“Figured that out already,” I say, but that’s not exactly true. I hadn’t considered diluting the bitter juice with water to make it more palatable. Thank you once again, subconscious.
But it doesn’t help move me any further forward. I have information, but no idea what I can do with it.
One thing at a time. Follow the stream to the river. Make nets, make snares. Catch myself something to supplement the MREs. Maybe the memories will come back if I give my mind long enough to recover from whatever the hell is going on with me. If I stop trying so hard to recall things.
“Just focus on the food for now,” I tell myself.
“Do not worry about food, linasha,” my alien friend says. “I will bring you some.”
“Lovely!” I say, throwing my hands up in the air. “Slight problem with that - you’re not real.”
“I am real.” He stands a little taller, as if this would prove it, and there’s something delightfully goofy about his mannerisms. I almost catch myself smiling.
“A version of you is real. I left him unconscious back at the base.”
“He and I are the same male.”
I open my mouth to tell him why this is stupid, but I’m only arguing with my subconscious mind, which is its own kind of stupid.
“This is as it was with Ellie and Anghar,” my alien says.
At first, I think he’s not making sense, but Ellie is a pretty common name - is he talking about something that happened with this mission that I can’t remember? One of the girls in the cryostasis pods, maybe? Ellie. It doesn’t make any flashes of memory appear.
But if this alien is a projection of my subconscious, perhaps it knows more than I do. Perhaps there’s a way I can use that.
“Who’s Ellie?”
He looks thrilled to be asked.
“One of my tribe sisters. A skilled huntress, and mated to Anghar.”
