Page 62 of Infala: The Alien's Bond
Shalia and the other women nodded, commiserating over their labors. “They have us working fields for them. It’s not a big operation, but they have several groups of captives separated into different work details. We never interact with the others, especially not the males.”
“They don’t want intermingling?”
“No. They want us to themselves,” Shalia replied quietly.
A sour tone fell over the group and a woman with deep green hair and velvety brown skin sobbed quietly. Shalia didn’t need to say more. It was as bad as Darla had feared, and mad as she already was, she felt a new anger building inside her even brighter.
“How many of them are there?” she finally asked as the bellyful of rage settled into a low blaze.
“Can’t say for sure, but maybe twenty or thirty on the ground at any given time.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have a small shuttle that flies down to swap out crew, drop off gear, and pick up what we’ve harvested. It comes every day. Sometimes there’s not much of a transfer going on but they do it anyway.”
“Keeping to a set schedule regardless, most likely.”
“That’s what it seems. Some of the others who have been here a while think it must be linked with an orbiting ship up above, or maybe some sort of space station, but no one knows for sure.”
“And the Dohrags certainly aren’t going to be forthcoming with that information,” Darla grumbled. “So we’re pretty much stuck here without a real clue what’s going on.”
Shalia managed a tiny grin. “Unfortunately, that more or less sums it up.”
“Ugh,” Darla sighed. “Then now what?”
“Now? Now we wait for them to slide our dinner in under that slot over there. Eat as much as you can, because you’ll need all the energy you can muster, believe me.”
“I’ve heard.”
“And then we try to get a good night’s sleep and hope all they want of us tomorrow is to work in the fields.” She glanced at the green-haired girl with a pitying look. “Not all of us are so lucky.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
At sunup a loud clang snapped Darla from her fitful sleep. She’d managed to drift off eventually, but the sparse cushioning on her bunk bed had proven barely enough to spare her from the hard metal beneath it, making for one hell of an uncomfortable night.
But it had been a hard, long day, and when she did finally succumb to slumber’s warm embrace her body welcomed the chance to repair itself in preparation of whatever lay ahead no matter how unpleasant the mattress might be.
“Get up!” a brusque voice shouted as the metal door slammed open. “You know the drill. No slacking.”
A pair of guards stepped in behind him and dropped off several large buckets of some sort of slop then headed back outside. Darla caught a whiff and crinkled her nose. Shalia couldn’t help but chuckle at the newcomer’s reaction.
“Yeah, it’s not exactly what I would call tasty, but at least it’s food. Eat what you can while you can. It feels like it’s going to be a warm day.”
The women gathered up the bowls they had washed and stacked from their meal the night before and handed them out. Unlike what one might expect of prisoners, the group was respectful of one another, each waiting her turn without shoving or jostling. They were all in the same boat, and if they didn’t support one another, they had nothing.
The food appeared to be a simple puree of native vegetables. Unseasoned and barely cooked, but quite edible in spite of the smell.
“No solids, I take it?” Darla asked.
“On occasion they may throw in some imperfect vegetables that they don’t feel are up to export standards for their superiors, but no, usually this is it.”
“And no protein to speak of,” Darla noted.
“Actually, I mentioned the same thing when I got here, but I was informed by one of the old-timers that several of the plants they grow here are actually quite protein rich. It’s why several races are able to be herbivores and still grow as muscular as the omnivores.”
“If only we had that sort of thing back home, right?”
Shalia nodded. “Our world would certainly be a better one if we could reduce livestock farming even a little bit. But that is not our concern now. Now we must focus on the task at hand.”
