Page 12 of Alien's Challenge
“Falsespire is the closest settlement,” Faris said. “I will take the female there and you will—”
“Deliver the goods to the buyer. I know.” Perrigaul sat astride his cycle and added the blaster to the satchel at the cycle’s side. “What will you do with the female?”
“Alice. Her name is Alice.”
At the mention of her name, she tugged on his coat sleeve. She babbled a question. He could only guess but as she seemed to understand him, she probably wondered about her fate.
“Find a safe place for her,” Faris said.
Perrigaul snorted. “Ain’t no such thing.”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Send her back to Urf?”
Alice made excited noises at this. “Urth! Urth!”
The cold made the tip of her nose and her cheeks pink. Something hard inside him uncoiled at the eagerness on her face.
“Urth,” he agreed, because he was a fool.
He could help her return to Urth. Tickets off the planet were expensive. Few freighters came to Reazus Prime, and the ships that made regular visits weren’t the kind that offered luxurious accommodations to paying customers. Not to mention the added complication that Urth’s location was a closely guarded secret and the only people who knew died when their ship exploded in orbit.
“I’ll think of something,” he repeated. He’d use his portion of the blaster sale, if needed, to get Alice home and keep her safe.
Especially from him.
Alice
Okay, tense.
Alice wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but she heard Earth. Big put her on this motorcycle that hovered above the ground—also, can we talk about that?—and sat in front of her.
Riding on a hovering motorcycle was not fun. It looked cool in the movies, but all she got was a face full of snow and cold wind. Pulling the hood down and pressing her face against Big’s back helped, but the gloves were huge and did nothing to keep the cold from slipping in. Still likely better than nothing. The entire ride, Big sat stiffly, like touching her was gross.
To sum up, Alice was cold and gross, which is exactly how she felt on the train with Randevere. At least now there was no Randevere.
The bike bounced over rough terrain. He reached back to keep her in place while she clutched at his middle. His two hands remained on the handlebars, and the bike steadied.
Wait.
That was a tail wrapped around her, pressing her to his back.
Okay, okay. Breathe.
It was a tail. A helpful tail. Red with bits of faded gray, some scales had black at the edges. Just a tail.
Eventually, when this rollercoaster of the last few days finally ended, Alice would freak out. She had a lot to process since getting caught in that levitation beam and absolutely no time to process. New facts were put into a holding pattern, just running on a loop of,“Wow, that’s weird! I’ll deal with it later.”She neatly placed Big’s tail in that box.
She pulled up the scarf to cover her nose. Her breath steamed against the fabric, but it was warm and smelled…nice? Like cedar or pine. Outdoorsy.
He understood her when she told him her name. That meant something. He repeated it back, dragging out the last half with a soft hiss. Al-iss.
Did Big offer his name or the name of his companion? No. That also had to mean something, like maybe they knew she wasn’t going to stay around long so don’t develop any attachments.
He mentioned Earth. She wished she knew what they had said about Earth. Hopefully, it was something like “Let me get this chick on the first ship to Earth and we’ll go out for pizza.” Okay, maybe not pizza.
Her stomach rumbled. How long had it been since she ate? At the warehouse, they made her drink this gloopy, jelly-like liquid. It made her gag but took away her nausea and dizziness. Randevere gave her little bites of food and water, never enough to satisfy but just enough to keep away the worst of her hunger pains. Every time she ate, the mental fogginess returned, so the food was probably drugged.
