Alien Mine (22 page)

Trying not to panic, she scrambled to reach the inhaler she kept in a box in the supply cave. Even though only seconds had passed, it felt like a lifetime before the medicine filled her lungs and she began to breathe easier.

I'll have to be more careful.
No more looking through her father's books. A serious asthma attack could be disastrous. If the suffocation didn't kill her, the beheading would. She shuddered at the thought.

She'd depressed the pump again, breathing in deeply, when something changed in the atmosphere. She looked up to find Zurian staring at her. He simply stared. It scared her almost as much as the raiders had that day in their camp.

Closing her hand around the inhaler, she lifted her eyebrows in as innocent an inquiry as she could manage. But he only stood watching her, unblinking, unmoving. She gave him a wide berth and went into the narrow tunnel leading to the hidden valley.

At the back entrance, she stopped and stared. She'd forgotten about the silver door they'd installed there. To the left, a new passage had been hollowed out, with perfectly smooth walls.

When did they do this
?

Curious, she went inside the short alien-made tunnel and another silver door gleamed in the faint light. She pressed her hand on the wall and the door slid open without a sound. Her mouth dropped open.

It was an entrance to her greenhouse, the last piece of equipment the forestry ever sent her. She and her father had planned to make a covering between the back entrance and the greenhouse. Now, she might be able to keep her saplings alive through the winter and plant them come spring. If they survived on their own, that would make about a hundred trees she managed to plant successfully.

She watered them and checked on her vegetables before looking through the glass of the greenhouse that appeared white with the snow covering it. She shivered, hurried back, and ran straight into Zacar's waiting arms.

"You should stay inside until we can strengthen the structure of this plant place. The pressure from the snow might crack the glass." He pulled her back through the door then moved aside, indicating she should precede him. His hand on her back brought every nerve in her body alive. Nerve endings that remembered the pleasure those hands could give. That thought led to thinking what that wicked tongue could do and she almost moaned.

"I had to water my trees and make sure they're all right. Besides, I wanted to get some vegetables for lunch."

She searched his face, but as usual, he showed no expression.
If only they had expressions like humans, she could see if Zurian had told him anything.

"My warriors will look after your plants." There was something in his voice, something that made her think the survival of her plants was of no importance to him. It was strange--these impressions she had--how she became so sure sometimes that she knew he lied to her.

"I prefer to do that myself. Thank you all the same." If she didn't know better, she would think he was acting guilty about the hothouse. They built a more convenient door, and he implied they would strengthen the structure of the greenhouse to withstand the weight of the snow. So why did she think he was acting guilty? Maybe she just wasn't any good at reading alien body language. Or he had an agenda she didn't know about yet.

"You are too stubborn for a breeder." He took her arm and escorted her back to the main cave. Her stubbornness had driven Andre crazy. Once, shortly before he left, he'd raised his hand to her. To this day she was convinced that if her parents hadn't been around he would have slapped her.

Going to the kitchen area, she took out a knife and bowl and went to sit close to one of the heating devices to prepare vegetables for lunch. Since her escape attempt, the cold had never totally left her bones.

Zacar went to a shelf she hadn't noticed earlier. They must have carved it out of the wall. It protruded in a perfect rectangle with sharp precise corners. Several gadgets were displayed on it. She'd really like to know how they'd managed to carve the stone so smoothly in such a short time.

Eight small, beautiful, glowing balls lay on the self. Zacar took them and grated something her translator once again didn't catch. Suddenly, all the small balls were hovering in the air in front of him. Zurian joined him and they both touched what she assumed were buttons. The balls hovered in the air.

"What are those?" What she'd really like to know was where they came from. Every time she turned around, she saw more alien things appearing. Come what may, she had to have a look at their space ship.

Ignoring her question, Zacar pressed a thumb against it and the ball expanded, hovering higher in the air. From the way it vibrated slightly, she would expect a humming sound, but it was completely silent. Zacar touched a second ball, and it expanded as well. Zurian walked to the door at the front entrance and pressed his hand against the panel. Although braced for the cold wind sweeping in, Natalie thought she would freeze on the spot. Even her hair ached. The eight balls floated gently out of the cave.

"What are those?" she repeated. "Where are they going? What do they do?"

Zacar said something to Zurian, who went to the door and started to install something.

"What's he doing?"

Still ignoring her questions, Zacar sat down a little away from her. One moment his hand was empty and the next his sword appeared. He proceeded to rub a purple sponge over the blade of his sword.

"How do you do that. Make you sword appear?" she asked.

He only grunted and continued to rub the sword. It was fascinating, seeing the sparks the round sponge-like thing struck off the blade. It left the blade gleaming, with a threatening edge. Clearly, he had no intention of telling her anything. But she'd watched enough space movies and sci-fi in her time. If those weren't probes, or something like that, she was a busty blonde.

When she glanced over at Zurian again, he'd erected some kind of shimmery shield outside the cave door. Even with the big silver doors open, no cold wind blew in.

"Zacar?" That something she'd heard in his voice earlier still bothered her.

"Yes, my breeder."

She was starting to wonder if he called her that on purpose. Just to enjoy her reaction. She suppressed the urge to tell him off again and said, "What are your plans?"

"We will stay here in the cave and find women for my warriors."

"I meant long term. Will you go back to your planet?" Her heart ached at the thought of saying good bye to him.

"We can never go home." Normally, if she listened to him very carefully she could pick out some emotion in his voice. Now she heard the voice but no inflection, no emotion to tell her how he felt about that. And that was telling in itself.

"Will you miss it?"

"It would serve no purpose, missing it," he answered immediately, as if he'd thought it through and was now set on a course on which emotions weren't allowed to interfere.

"What are the women like on your planet? Are Zyrgin women as tall and tough as you are?"

"There are no Zyrgin women anymore. The breeder of my father's father was the last Zyrgin woman born."

What
?
Women on his planet have gone extinct
? "But why?"

"We do not know why this happened."

"But you said, um, when you were talking about the number of hours we should, you know--anyway, you said Zyrgin women were strong."

When he said nothing, just continued to rub his sword until it shone so bright it hurt her eyes, she asked again.

"So, how do you find wives?" Maybe they went to other planets and kidnapped women. Like he did with her.

He stopped moving the stone over his sword and looked at her. "We take breeders from other planets."

"And these women are stronger than earth women?"

"Much stronger."

"Where were you going when you crashed to Earth?" She would ask as many questions she could come up with while he was in an answering mood.

"We discovered a galaxy with several populated worlds. We were going to conquer one of those worlds." His voice tightened just the slightest bit on the word
conquer
. Obviously, he'd relished the thought.

"Do you mind having to stay here instead?"

"No."

"So what are you going to do for, say, the next ten years?" No matter what he answered, she knew it would involve war. They'd make really good mercenaries.

"We will stay out of sight of humans. This cave will make a good home, and we will raise little warriors here." She liked the way he talked of his future children as
little warriors
. Not that she necessarily wanted to be the mother of said little warriors.

"So you're not planning to charge the nearest army base and start conquering?" she asked.

"First we make warriors," he said.

Natalie shivered and pulled her jacket closer around her. She didn't want to know how many and when he expected her to produce them. Or what he would do once he realized she was on birth control. And on top of that Murdoch was looking for her.

"Those raiders will come back. If anyone opposes them, they retaliate viciously. And now that you've attacked their camp, they will know about you."

"No one saw us. The women were kept separate and they didn't even realize what was happening. The raiders who did are dead."

"Why didn't your men take some of the women from the camp?

"They were broken."

"What about the raiders that ran the day you saved me? Won't they tell the others about you? You didn't use your camouflage trick that day."

She shivered in dread. The raiders moved in groups of varying sizes. They might be drunk and undisciplined, but they had dangerous weapons and numbers on their side. Even the government had trouble controlling them. From what she had seen of their destructive capabilities, they had to have some serious guns tucked away somewhere. Still, there were only four aliens, but newscasts always talked about hundreds of raiders attacking at a time.

"No raiders escaped."

"No, I saw three of them run away."

"I followed them." He said matter-of-factly. Natalie realized her fingers ached and she looked down. She'd gripped the knife in her hand so hard the bones under her skin were clearly delineated.

"If you keep going out and killing people, someone will eventually see you, probably even take pictures, and the government will send the army after you. What will you do then?"

Before Zacar could answer, Zurian came to a stop in front of them. He didn't acknowledge Natalie and she had to concentrate not to shrink away from him. Did he come to tell Zacar he saw her use the inhaler? Could she convince him it didn't make her weak? Slowly, carefully, she put the knife into the bowl with the vegetables. She'd only cut herself if she tried to continue now.