Eden (22 page)

Fly paused, as though thinking of his reply. “In the beginning I could not understand her gentleness, but it appealed, and her lack of aggression humbled me. While I have known Jenny, her only concern has been for you two; concern for herself was secondary. And that is what I find hard to understand, even now. Her,
your,
human emotions are vast and very complicated.

“You find the fact that I saved myself, while others died, horrific. But maybe now you can understand why I let that happen, and not judge me too harshly,” Fly continued. “Your race is pitted with kindness, and if you find no humanity in your people, the human will try to find a purpose towards it.”

It was one of the longest speeches Bodie had ever heard him make, the voice even more clipped and robotic than usual, as if Fly had been forced to consider each word before he could speak it.

Bodie glanced at Matt. The alien had actually sounded humble! Perhaps he believed he and Matt were beginning to
like
him. “Like” was far down on the list of adjectives Bodie had for describing his emotions. His looked into the alien
’s
eyes. They had lost their dry look, and glistened like black diamonds.

“If you don’t use body language, how come our expressions are easy to read?”

“There is a speech lost to you, which you would probably
recognize
as primitive. Your body language is the same primitive language we used to have, it is a mere voice that has been dropped by us over the advancing years.”

“How can we be so alike when we
’re
from different planets?” “Different planets, but the same atoms.”

“Why have you never made yourselves known to us?”

“You have nothing we want.”

Bodie felt something cold crawl up his spine, but before he could answer, Matt chortled loudly.

“You’ve got us wrong,
murderer,
we aren’t
gentle
or
kind.
We’ve had war after war since time began, and could certainly defend ourselves against a bunch of clawed aliens. “

“Without Jenny you are dead,” said Fly. “But with her we are forever enemies because you are jealous of our relationship.”

“Not jealous, sickened.”

Bodie glared hard at Matt. If he could have moved, he would’ve kicked him. If the alien believed them to be friendly, then so be it. It would make the job of killing him far easier. He looked at the alien
’s
eyes again, and was unsurprised, although disheartened, to see they had become the familiar dry, black stones.

“Surely you can understand our worry when we
realiz
ed the significance of your, er, relationship,” Bodie said in appeasement.

“I understand more than you
realiz
e.”

Bodie felt he was being warned. He glanced at Jenny and knew by her expression that Fly
’s
story hadn’t put her off. It seemed to have the opposite effect as she sat serenely by his side, sipping a cup of melon juice. She hadn’t appeared to hear any of the all-too- familiar underlying threat in the alien
’s
voice.

“You admit your race is violent, yet you haven’t harmed Jenny because she humbled you?” he wrinkled his nose. “Even
I’m
not that gullible.”

Matt made a loud noise in the back of his throat. “He fancied a piece, that
’s
the only reason he let her live - I doubt screwing a corpse is the same.”

The silence was overpowering.

Hot colour flooded Jenny
’s
face, and Bodie watched as she and Fly exchanged glances. He frowned hard, wondering what they were remembering, and finally his loathing was justified because he read the humiliation that flashed over her face.

His hands curled into fists. Oh, Jen! Jenny, what have you got

yourself into?

“It was not a question, but I will answer it anyway,” Fly was saying. “I wanted more than sex. I wanted companionship.”

“Oh, you wanted more all right!” Matt snickered. “You wanted a soft, willing body, not one petrified with rigor mortis.”

Fly launched to his feet, his eyes dancing with electricity. He hauled Matt to his feet by the front of his soiled suit, and shook him as a dog might a rabbit. His throat muscles expanded, and began to bulge. But it happened so fast that Bodie, locked in his anger and disgust, blinked and missed it.

Then Jenny was on her feet, squeezing herself between them.

“No, Fly,” she cried. “Don’t!”

Fly pivoted on the balls of his feet, and began to walk away. His tread was heavy, as if he was trying to stamp out the anger that had threatened Matt.

“Fly, wait,” she called, but whether he heard her or not, he continued to walk until he disappeared over the brow of the hill.

TWENTY-THREE

Fly stood with his arms folded. Above him the twin suns had set, and the remaining moons had risen. His affection for Jenny was finally acknowledged, and now he could understand how the emotion hurt. In a way it was more powerful than the violence he had inherited from his world.

A long moment later the natives began to call, but he failed to respond to their singing. His thoughts were deep. They went against everything he’d been brought up to believe, and if it weren’t for this strange, almost erotic, emotion that Jenny
labeled
“love”, he would kill Matt, and probably Bodie, too.

While they had talked during dinner Fly believed he was finally winning their trust; their emotions had seemed so easy to read, but he had read them wrong. They despised and mistrusted his intentions as much, if not more, than ever.

He collected a handmade spade and axe, the one and only saw from the barn, and secured several knives around his waist with twine. He came to a decision, and would stand by it, even if he wasn’t entirely sure it would work.

This is for Jenny, he told himself.

“You may be larger than life, Matt, but he
’s
physically hardened. If you take him on and get yourself killed, where will that leave us?”

“I
’ll
wait until you
’re
better.”

“Thanks,” Bodie replied with dry
humor
. He knew Matt was intelligent, he wouldn’t have got where he was if he wasn’t, but he had an uneven temper, and often acted on impulse: it was one of the reasons why Bodie had failed his appraisal.

He shifted down on the mattress where Matt had put him only a moment ago, and cried out when pain ricocheted up his legs. He waited for the pain to pass, eyes tightly closed, before gingerly lowering himself backwards. At this small achievement he felt elated and lay back panting but satisfied.

Matt tutted. “Let me help you next time.”

“Have to do something for myself. Christ, it
’s
bad enough when I want a piss.”

Matt grinned. “It
’s
not so nice helping you piss, either!”

Bodie grunted, closing his eyes, and tried to force sleep to claim him. But all that filled his mind were the images of Jenny and the alien. He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to stay with them tonight; listening to Matt
’s
demented speeches would have driven Bodie away had he been able to walk. She had stormed off to her cabin only minutes ago, after telling them both to, “Go to hell!”

He worried about her. She hadn’t been merely subdued after the alien left them, she’d brooded. And when Fly
’s
absence stretched towards dusk, she’d not spoken at all.

Bodie felt stuck. He loved Jenny to bits, but couldn’t share her perspective. The thoughts of her and Fly together made him uneasy, as though he were watching an innocent kitten playing with a crocodile.

Fly wasn’t at the house, and walking through the hand-ploughed field, she saw he wasn’t there, either. Jenny stopped and, shading her eyes, she peered over the river. She dropped her hand, disappointed.

Turning, she noticed him over the far side of the meadow, near a cliff-face coated with brown, abrasive vine. Her heart flip-flopped when she saw him. Naked from the chest up, his hard muscular body, sleek with sweat, was a beacon to her eyes.

She stopped to drink in the sight of him as he chopped into a felled tree; cutting it into smaller, manageable sizes. She knew then
that, for Fly, she’d leave Matt and Bodie.

He must have sensed her for he looked up. They stood watching one another for a moment; both understanding that Jenny had saved Matt
’s
life last night.

She walked forward, feeling anxious that he’d want nothing more to do with her and he’d send her away with some harsh words.

“Is this where you disappeared to last night?” she asked, as she drew near. She felt ready to burst into tears, or even throw herself at his feet and beg him to forgive her for having such stupid friends. “I came earlier, but you weren’t here. I didn’t know where you were!” Her voice rose into an accusation.

“I’ve been chopping trees over the river.” He wiped sweat off his temples.

“Why didn’t you come for breakfast?”

“I was not hungry.”

“Is this what we
’re
reduced to now? Avoiding one another, sleeping in separate places?” She ended on a heavy swallow, as if something had lodged in her throat.

He left the axe embedded in the tree and came towards her. “You speak too fast.

“
I’m
sorry.
I’m
nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?” He looked affronted.

“Because you stormed off and didn’t come back! I thought you’d given up on me,” she burst out.

He showed her his hands, filthy. “I would prove that I have not given up on you, but I would make you dirty. “

With a shriek of delight Jenny ran at him, throwing her arms around his neck.

Fly laughed, and the relief that threaded her voice matched his.

“Oh, Fly,” she said, her face buried in his shoulder. “I thought this was the end, and that you’d chosen and decided you’d be better
off without any of us.”

Fly gently unlinked her arms from around his neck and lowered her to the ground. Cupping her chin, so she was forced to look at him, he said, “That is your choice, Jenny, not mine. My past is a bad one, I deliberately killed many people.”

She swallowed. “Why did you kill them?”

“It was my job. I was.” he struggled to find the correct word, “an assassin -”

“Like a vigilante?” asked Jenny, but he didn’t understand.

“The people I killed were bad,” he said. “They were tainted with evil and at times it was kill or be killed.” He spoke directly into her face as if to make sure his words were understood. “Sometimes it may appear that I would harm you, but I never will. “

She turned her face into his palm lying against her cheek, and kissed it. “I know,” she said softly. “Our future is what
’s
important now, and I really don’t care what you did in the past.” She reached up and clung onto his shoulders, as if afraid he would push her away. “Somehow, the more Bodie and Matt find a reason for me to leave you, the more I want to be with you.”

Fly buried his face in her hair. His hands cupped her bottom, pulling her against him. She could feel his groin come to life against her belly.

“Then I have been right in my decision.” He raised his proud head, and looked down at her. A nerve twitched deep in his scarred cheek, one that she had come to
recognize
as embarrassment. “I am making them a shelter near ours as a peace-offering.”

Her mouth opened and closed. He continually surprised her, but never more so than now.

“A what?” She looked over her shoulder, noticing the foundations for the first time. “You
’re
building them a house?”

“I am.”

“You’d do that for them?”

“For you. I’d do that for you,” he said.

The constriction in Jenny
’s
throat tightened again.

“Building them a shelter will mean they can trust me.” Sweat glistened on his face. “Bodie loves you and is not going to let you go without a fight. We need to call a truce before someone dies.”

They both understood that what Fly really meant was before he killed one or both of the men.

“The house might work. It
’ll
please Bodie, and if we get him on side then... “ she shrugged and grinned happily up at him.

“How long have you known Matt?”

“Matt and I met in during our university years in our late teens. We were, er, friends for a while but it didn’t last long. It was as if he couldn’t stand me being more successful than him.”

A rumble low in his stomach caused her to step away from Fly with a chuckle.

“Not hungry, eh? Come on, let
’s
go back and show the others we
’re
still a united front.”

“Wait,” he said, pulling her against him again. His erection was more pronounced this time, and she looked seductively up at him from beneath her heavy fringe, as he said, “It is not food I am hungry for.”

“Oh?” she murmured, flattening her palms against the hard wall of chest. “Then what are you hungry for?” she purred, teasingly.

Fly
’s
smile was a mere parting of his lips, before he lowered his head to take possession of her mouth. Jenny wrapped her hands around his neck, and Fly lifted her, securing her legs around his waist. She locked her ankles, enjoying the snug feeling of his manhood against her femininity.

Fly and Jenny walked slowly, both carrying armfuls of twine taken
from the trees. The substructure for the bridge was in place, and once Bodie
’s
and Matt
’s
shelter was finished he was keen to continue with the bridge, and the twine, albeit rope, would be the simple material used.

Neither was keen to get back to the spaceship and meet Bodie and Matt. They reached the beach, and began to walk along the ice- encrusted shoreline. The waves crackled as they hit land, and ice sparkled on it like crystals.

Jenny still felt the imprint of his body against hers from his lovemaking. She still had the scent of him in her nostrils, and her mouth felt swollen from being kissed so thoroughly.

In the distance was Matt, Jenny noticed with a sinking heart. He had been watching them heading towards him, but at their spotting him he deliberately turned away and now his figure was bowed as he
scrutinized
something in the sand. He bent down and picked up a wriggling, snake-like creature between finger and thumb, before tossing it into the sea.

“If he
’s
come to say one more remark about you and me I
’ll
.” Fly chuckled. The sound of it made her smile. She would have taken his hand, if they hadn’t been carrying so much twine, just to show Matt that his snooping last night hadn’t mattered one iota.

“I mean it,” she said. “He
’s
seriously pissed me off.”

“Pissed?”

“Never mind,” she said. “Matt
’s
always been insecure, come to think of it.”

“He is envious of you.”

“Of me? Because of you?” she asked, puzzled. “Why?”

“Your intelligence,” he said. “Your ability to move forward, your beauty, your tolerance, your compassion -”

“Stop,” Jenny cried, laughing. “You
’re
biased, I think.”

Fly said nothing, and Jenny looked at him side on knowing he was storing the new word in his mind to look it up later if he could find a working translator.

“Once, I told Matt, in confidence, that my father was
the
Zack Bodie, a famous astronaut, but the following day it was all around the plant and he’d gone cool on me,” she said as they steadily approached the man they were talking about; his figure small in the distance.

“I was so angry with him, but he swore he never said anything,” Jenny continued. “He seemed so sincere I believed him. Then he was promoted to the lunar station ahead of me - despite my higher qualifications, but I was glad for him. I got his old post, but he seemed to resent me for accepting it.” Her brow furrowed as she remembered. “I could do nothing right.”

“He has the gun.”

Jenny looked up, and noticed the gun strapped to Matt
’s
head in the distance. It wasn’t placed over the eye, but that didn’t make it any less a threat to Fly. Jenny
’s
heart began to thump as she saw Matt turn towards them, and raise his hands up towards the gun. But all he did was pull it off, and it hung from his fingers.

Slowly they got closer towards him and watched as Matt, his back to them, threw pebbles into the sea.

He turned and called as they neared. “You’ve been a long time, Jen, dinner
’ll
be a huge affair, I should think.”

Both Jenny and Fly registered his pretentious smile.

“That
’s
right, Matt. I’ve been working hard all morning just so you and Bodie can eat.”

Jenny spoke several faltering Itor words, and Fly smiled in return. He snatched the gun from Matt
’s
fingertips as soon as they were close enough, and they continued along the beach with Matt following, scowling at their backs.

The rest of the day passed slowly, as did the following day and the next. Jenny was cool towards Matt, but found it hard to be the same towards Bodie even though his view on Fly was the same; his broken body drew out her pity and love until she felt torn between the two men who loved her - albeit differently.