Chapter 3
I sighed at the comforting weight plastered against my body. Another living, sentient being was in my arms. It felt so right. Loneliness had dug a hole in my psyche over seven long months, and now it was filled again, restoring function to a body part I hadn’t known was broken.
Sand whirled around us in pink sheets, and each quick breath of frozen air rattled in my lungs.
The Fires That Cleanse had done a number on the planet, even fucked up the weather.
Complete erasure of every living thing it touched—according to the AI system, anyway.
Not a single blade of grass remained beneath my feet.
The injured Boola shifted and groaned in my arms, his eyes darting back and forth beneath closed lids. “No… Not the nav system too.”
The hose on my oxy tank swung in the wind, but the seal around my face held.
I paused to survey the Boola’s injuries before marching up the loose sand the meteorite had blasted out.
Icy wind whipped the torn edges of his pants, exposing a large gash oozing sand-crusted blood from his thigh.
His short black hair curled in tight rings against his scalp, and a sticky film he’d likely want to wash out as soon as we got to shelter coated it.
Shelter? More like prison.
I picked up my pace, uncertain of the extent of his injuries. This guy had a rude awakening ahead. Welcome to Thermal Station C—hell on Tern. Where loneliness devours you like a rabid wolf and every doctor is in some state of decay.
I forced those thoughts away. The price of brooding over loneliness was much too high.
I’d succumbed once, and an entire crop of corn and potatoes had gone to waste.
The research station was built into the side of a volcano that required continuous monitoring, and while I’d been trying to commit suicide by self-pity and sleeping away my future, a river of magma had nearly melted through the buffer wall of the Earth biodome.
By the time I’d snapped out of my depression and repaired the cooling unit, the only biodome with food recognizable to me had been destroyed.
Now all that remained were biodomes growing local food or food for the other species stationed here.
C knew nothing about plants besides when they needed water or to be harvested—that had all been stored in the plantbot—and testing foreign plants had not gone well.
I’d ended up sick more frequently than not.
The Boola groaned, and a bolt of anxiety gnawed at my belly. Would the med bay have everything he needed? A gust of sand beat at us, and I wished I’d had the forethought to wrap my jacket around him. How had he made it this far with his leg in that state?
Under his ruined clothes, his firm ass shifted with each step I took. Restless, he clutched the back of my jacket with trembling hands.
I wonder what his name is?
Now wasn’t the time for wandering eyes. Dragging my gaze away from his drool-worthy ass, I focused on the drifts marking the perimeter of Thermal Station C in the distance. Or its skeletal, remains anyway.
Plowing forward, I searched my memory for the research station’s layout.
If I remembered correctly, the med bay was housed somewhere in the middle, but I’d only been there briefly to complete a fitness assessment when I’d first arrived.
I shuddered as I recalled the way the technician’s eyes had roamed my body as she passed my clothes back to me.
The same thing used to happen on Earth when word got out that I’d scored in the highest percentile for all the physical parameters.
Women desperate to have children had the uncanny ability to reduce me to the sum of my genes.
Their flirty winks and strategic advances were entirely transparent.
They wanted one thing from me…well, maybe two.
Government approval to have a child, which my genes would guarantee, and a good time.
I smiled at how wrong they would be on the second.
The Boola’s warm body bounced in time with my steps. My mind drifted into forbidden territory, and my cock stirred to life. It had been way too long since I’d gotten laid. How smooth would his glossy brown skin feel against my fingers?
Then I shook my head at my body’s starved reaction, forcing away the unsettling mix of desire and guilt warming my insides. The guy was injured, for fuck’s sake, and for all I knew, had a wife and kids.
But even if he wasn’t up for getting down, I craved having somebody to talk to. That would make this situation bearable.
Overhead, the sun—a round smudge blurred by the blowing sand—rose higher. The heavy load strained my shoulders, and my fingers began to lose circulation. Though only just taller than me, he had to weigh a lot more, because last I checked, I could squat twice my weight with ease.
I crouched and heaved his body over my shoulders. With his legs draped over my front and his head behind my opposite shoulder, I tried not to worry about causing further damage. His molten eyes opened and rolled once before closing again as I threaded my arm between his legs and clasped his wrist.
The sudden desire to speak to someone besides C, to know what had happened to Tern, gave me a burst of energy, and I quickened my steps.
Had the city been evacuated in time? Would the Boola have news from Earth?
When it came down to it, hearing any fucking voice besides C’s would be music to my deprived ears, no matter how sweet her voice was when she listed the never-ending repairs, harvest deadlines and watering schedules.
Guilt tightened the back of my throat. Without C, I’d be dead. Yeah, she was an AI, but she’d been my only company for seven months, and I’d grown to rely on her. To think of her as a companion. I swore she was mad at me for delaying leaving level thirty-one for so long.
Surely, she’d be able to help this poor sap too.
The oxy mask sensor blinked red as I maneuvered my unconscious companion into a wheeled transport chair.
I may have overestimated my ability to get him to the research station.
My back cramped as I lowered him, and I made a mental note to squeeze in a workout every now and then.
Clearly, lifting a torque wrench all day and dragging around watering hoses was not enough to maintain my strength.
“Mmm…for the love of Sola, what are you doing to me?” Copper-ringed eyes that faded to molten gold, framed by long, dark lashes crusted with sand, squinted in my direction.
Beautiful.
Creases bracketed his eyes, and he bit down on his full black lip with razor-sharp teeth, groaning in pain.
“Hang on just a minute longer, buddy. We’re heading to the med bay.” I squeezed his shoulder, relieved by his apparent awareness, and tapped the level with the medic’s red cross badge into the hovertube’s navigation panel. “C, we have a visitor. Can you register… What’s your name?”
Before he answered, the frenetic pulse of the red light on my oxy mask stole my attention. I tapped the flashing sensor—it had to be a malfunction—and fought back the panic trickling through my veins. The last drags of uncontaminated air tasted of tin and ash as they met my parched lungs.
“You know that thing’s out of oxygen, right?” He twisted his inky lips to one side while tightening the strap he’d wrapped around his thigh. Blood as thick as syrup oozed from his wound, and his copper eyes drifted closed while he bit back a curse.
Out of the wind, the deep rasp in his voice became clear.
Though threaded with pain, it wrapped around me like a friendly hug.
It kept my heart from jumping through my rib cage as the hovertube descended in what seemed like slow motion.
Each level flashed on the screen over the silver door like a harbinger of horror.
What macabre hell lay waiting on the other side?
I sucked in a breath of thinning oxygen.
“Yep. I’m going to grab a new tank when we get off. ”
C’mon, get yourself together. Sporemaggedon’s over.
He clutched his thigh, then his narrowed eyes scanned the space as if looking for something physical lurking there. My head grew muzzier as I watched him stick out a long, thick purple tongue, tasting. “Air seems fine. Something I should know?”
“I’ve never seen a purple tongue before.
” I sucked in a metallic breath as he clamped his mouth shut and looked away.
“Shit, I didn’t mean to say that.” My head felt like a helium balloon detaching from my body, but my knees pulled me down as if they were filled with lead. “There’s nothing wrong with the air.”
His eyes widened, and he smiled. “Then you might want to take that off before you pass out.”
“Yeah, I should.” The spores had been evacuated, the research labs blown to bits and scattered to the wind, and the lethal bacterium safely contained in the magma buried deep within the bowels of the volcano. “I like purple. It’s a fine color for a tongue.”
“Sterling Peoples.” Thermal Station C’s AI voice barely registered through the hovertube’s com system as my head drooped.
I’d asked her to call me Silver a thousand times.
“Sorry for the delay. It took me some time to process your incomplete request. I would be happy…” Dizziness overcame me, my knees gave out and his purple tongue blurred as I collapsed.
Hot air hit my face, and I jerked my head back at the rank smell clogging my nose. My mask sputtered in my lap, the last dregs of oxygen wheezing out. Useless. C’s voice echoed in the cramped hovertube as sour-tasting air rushed back into my lungs.
The Boola beamed down at me. Slumped against his transport chair, I listened as he answered C’s question. I hadn’t even heard her ask it. What else had I missed?
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Thermal Station C. I’ll get Sterling Peoples to bring me to the terratherm hub to scan my palm.” His smile grew bigger as his raspy voice slid over my name, sending shivers down my spine.
“I look forward to putting you to work, D’alton of Clan Lasting.”
D’alton. A name at last. I rolled the sound of the letters along my tongue, where they melted like sugared candy.
Instead of eye teeth, he had two sharp fangs, but they didn’t diminish the glow of his smile.
He’d one hundred percent heard the tongue thing.
I’d never been a great conversationalist, but after a year alone my peopling skills had hit rock bottom.
Below his sweat-slicked brow, eyes the color of swirling copper and magma scanned my unmasked face, as if cataloging every detail. They locked me in their grip.
The level fifteen door announcement rang through the air, shattering our unlikely moment of connection.
My gaze shifted to the oxy tank just outside the hovertube’s open doors.
I reluctantly wheeled D’alton through, taking shallow breaths.
The air was fine. If I woke up alive tomorrow, I prayed that would be enough for this irrational fear to be done.
The chair lurched and came to an abrupt stop. What had I run into? D’alton jerked, clutching his ribs. When I dragged my gaze away from him to see what I’d hit, I wished I hadn’t.
Frozen in place, we took in every awful inch of the devastation before us. Bodies, seven months decomposed, blocked the corridor to the med bay. Ranks, names and positions—identifiable from the badges on their crisp black, yellow and blue uniforms, not their eyeless faces—blurred before my eyes.
I snapped my head back to watch D’alton’s brown skin turn ashen. His shoulders stiffened like an iron bar, and I strained to hear the words he uttered no louder than a breath. “What happened here?”
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the transport chair’s handles. “There was an accident.” Goddamn it, I should’ve known better. The med bay would’ve been the first place people ran to when they couldn’t breathe.
The sickly sweet scent of corpses saturated the air. Stomach acid roiled in my gut, and I spun the transport chair back toward the hovertube before my breakfast ended up on the floor. In the mirrored corridor walls, a glimpse of D’alton’s tear-streaked face filled my line of sight.
“I’m getting us out of here.” I hustled us away like we were trespassers caught robbing a grave, though we’d stolen nothing but the silence. “There’s gotta be supplies somewhere else.”
Safely locked inside the hovertube, D’alton shifted in his seat and ran his purple tongue over his sharp fangs. “Are there any Boola here?”
It wasn’t what I’d thought he’d ask. I remembered their sharp-toothed grins. Eighty Boola had occupied the research station, their laughter the loudest among the two-hundred and five staff. “Not anymore.”
He flinched. “Is there blood stored on-site?”
What an odd question. “Possibly in the med bay. But we’re not getting in there anytime soon.”
“Damn this hellfire mission.” D’alton dropped his face into his hands, only to snap it up once more, clutching his ribs with a long groan. “Don’t suppose there’s a doctor about to magically appear?”
I smiled at him, though his jet-black lips were pressed together in a grimace. “Not unless you can conjure one.”
“What about coms? I need to let my brother know I’m all right.”
I hated being the bearer of bad news. “The Fires That Cleanse melted the satellite.”
He slumped farther into his chair, and I followed the swell of his Adam’s apple as it bobbed up and down his long, smooth throat twice.
The hovertube came to a stop, and the doors to level thirty-one opened. “Home sweet home. Welcome to paradise.” My sarcasm was about as pleasing as the rank scent flooding my nose. It must have been ten times worse for him with his heightened Boola senses.
“Sola have mercy. What is that horrid odor?”
“That’s the aroma of life. Rotting plants.” I chuckled. The biodomes produced so much food that most of it ended up in an enormous compost pile. “Now let me see what I can do to get you fixed up.”