Page 50 of Alien Desire
“No!”
He rattles the handle and heaves against the door, but I’ve bolted the door and moved three beds across the doorway and there is no way he’s getting in.
“Omega, do as I say and open this door.”
I do not answer and eventually he gives up, his footsteps fading away into the station.
Good. I don’t want to talk to him. I want to wallow here in my outrage.
How could I have been so stupid? So easily swayed. I’ve been alone for such a long time. And it’s safe. No one can hurt you if you don’t let them in. Because they always do. Whether they mean to or not. Sometimes you find they aren’t the person, the alien, you thought they were. Or they leave you — for no fault of their own, they leave you all alone.
But I’m not alone any more. I have my baby. It’s mine and I’m not giving it up to some alien. I’m not sending it off to be raised by Alphas who’ll deny him love and affection.
No, we’re going home together.
I sit up.
“Sheila?” I say softly into the empty room.
“Yes, Space Cadet Steele?” she answers.
“Is it possible to send a message to Earth, or one of the other occupied planets?” If he’s fixed the computer so it can reach his people, maybe it can reach mine too.
“Running analysis.” She’s silent for one long second. “Yes, connection made.”
“Tell them my ship crashed and I need picking up.”
“Message sending.” More silence. “Message received.”
“What?”
“The message has been successfully delivered.”
I can’t believe it. All these months and months of trying and failing and now finally, finally I’m through. I should be ecstatic. But I’m not. I feel as empty and hollow as I did when I first arrived on this planet.
* * *
The days on this planet are all the same. There’re no seasons like there are on Earth. Everything is as regular as clockwork. So the hours pass and the shadows lengthen and crawl across the floor and the light fades to a dark grey, the sky outside the window leeching colour.
“Space Cadet Steele?” Sheila says, startling me awake from dozing.
“Yes.”
“Message received from the commander of space rescue. Permission to play message.”
“Yes, please.”
“Space Cadet Steele,” says a deep gruff voice warped by time and space. “Your message has been received. Nearest spacecraft is space shuttle Odon. Order has been sent to detour and pick you up. Expected arrival three months. Apologies this can’t be sooner.” The message ends abruptly.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“Yes.”
Not so much of a ‘how are you doing? Do you have shelter and food?’. And no specific mission to rescue me, just a shuttle told to detour. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Tor’s ship will arrive first. I have only two options: hope he won’t bundle me onto his ship or try to escape.
There’s a knock on the bedroom door, as if my thinking of him has conjured him up.
