Awakened by the Giant Read online

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” he said, giving her a little half-smile. “Which is why I brought a lifetime supply of Kindred meal cubes when I moved here to the station. This is what the Mentats use to nourish themselves, though they do occasionally eat solid foods as well. But drinking is quicker and allows them to get back to work faster.”

  “Wow, you guys must all be a bunch of raging workaholics,” Maddy muttered. She loved working with animals but she couldn’t imagine gulping down her meal in liquid form so she could go rushing back to the veterinary clinic as soon as possible.

  “We simply love what we do. The pursuit of knowledge is its own reward,” Calden said quietly. “Oh, excuse us, Grack-lor” he added to someone else as he pulled Maddy out of the way.

  A Mentat came lumbering up with its peculiar swaying stride. It was larger than the others they’d seen—almost as tall as Calden himself and twice as massive across its burly chest. Maddy found herself leaning close to the big Kindred again instinctively. Though he was alien, he wasn’t nearly as weird as the Mentats who really gave her the creeps. With their four arms, huge, liquid-black eyes, and backwards-bending knees they resembled nothing so much as huge, mutant grasshoppers, she thought.

  Calden put one long, muscular arm around her and pulled her close to his side. Maddy’s head only came up to the bottom of his ribcage and she felt a little like a toddler hiding behind its mother’s skirts. But even so, she didn’t move away—there was something about this Grack-lor Mentat that put her nerves on edge.

  “Greetings, Calden,” the Mentat said in a harsh, deep voice like someone scraping a shovel over gravel. “And who is this you have with you?” He bent to peer at Madeline and she didn’t like the way his blank, black eyes narrowed as they took her in.

  “This is Madeline—a female from…” Calden looked down at Maddy. “I am sorry—where did you say your home planet was again?”

  “Earth,” she whispered through dry lips. She really didn’t like the way Grack-lor was looking at her. It gave her the urge to cover herself and made her wish more than ever that she had on underwear under the too-big shirt-dress she wore. “My home planet was Earth.”

  “Thank you. From Earth,” Calden finished.

  “A female specimen, eh?” Grack-lor ran a long, slippery tongue the color of raw liver over his thin, lipless mouth and Maddy noticed that he seemed to have a strange swelling about the same color under his narrow chin.

  “I was given special permission from FATHER.” Calden’s arm tightened around her. “With the understanding that she is not in any way sexually compatible with any of the Mentats.”

  “Not sexually compatible, eh?” Grack-lor ran his long tongue over his lipless mouth again. “And how would we know that unless we try?”

  As he spoke, a long, snake-like appendage suddenly dropped from the pouch under his chin. It was mottled black and maroon-red and it twitched like a blind worm, though it was considerably larger. In fact, Maddy estimated it was probably about the size of a large rattlesnake as it curled and writhed in the empty air between them.

  Suddenly she remembered what Calden had said about the Mentats keeping their organ of reproduction in the pouch under their chin. Was this big asshole actually showing her his dick? Disgusting! Again she was reminded that men were men everywhere—no matter what species they were, apparently.

  Calden seemed to be thinking along the same lines because he pushed Maddy half-way behind him, putting himself between her and the Mentat protectively.

  “Put your tokk away, Grack-lor,” he said, his voice dropping to a warning growl. “And do not speak of hurting or violating Madeline again or I will make you sorry. Your behavior is unspeakably rude and also against the rules that FATHER has laid down for the station.”

  “FATHER doesn’t know everything,” the big Mentat said. But the seeking, twitching, mottled dick-thing that Calden had called a “tokk” curled itself up and nestled into the pouch under his chin again as he spoke. He turned without another word to them and busied himself at the bubbling copper cauldrons.

  There was a stack of metal cups to one side of the huge pots and Maddy watched, half fascinated, half revolted, as the Mentat quickly filled four of them—each with a different liquid. He clutched a cup in each one of his four, many-fingered hands and drank greedily, gulping from them all in turn, alternating in some pattern she couldn’t decode. He wasn’t too neat about it either—soon his scaly, gray-green chest was covered in yellow, green, blue, and black streaks and his lipless mouth was ringed in smeary colors like bizarre lipstick.

  “Come,” Calden said quietly and they turned to go. Just as they got to the door, however, Grack-lor spoke again.

  “Better watch out for your little female, Calden,” he rasped in his metal-scraping-against-gravel voice. “FATHER doesn’t see everything either and the fact that you have a female to breed while every other male aboard this station doesn’t, won’t go over well with my brethren.”

  “Madeline is not here for breeding purposes,” Calden shot back. “She is going to teach me about her culture and the animals and plants indigenous to Earth.”

  “Of course she will. And when she’s done imparting all this valuable knowledge, she’ll part her legs and her lips for your tokk and take your seed deep inside that sweet, curvy little body of hers.” Grack-lor laughed—a thick burbling that reminded Maddy of the bubbling black scum in the last copper caldron.

  His words had a definite effect on Calden. For the first time she saw the big Kindred really angry. His topaz eyes glowed red and his brows drew low, his full lips narrowing to a white line.

  “If you dare to speak like that about Madeline again, you’ll answer to me, Grack-lor.” His voice was a deep, menacing growl and his big hands were clenched into fists the size of her head at his sides. “This is your first and only warning. You will treat her with respect or I will teach you how to be respectful. I promise you will not find the lesson pleasant.”

  Grack-lor’s black eyes narrowed and he took a step forward. Calden started to meet him but Maddy put a hand on the big Kindred’s arm.

  “Come on, Calden—this is what he wants,” she murmured. She’d seen enough pissing contests between male colleagues back home to understand male posturing when she saw it. “He’s just trying to upset you. Let it go—it’s not worth it.”

  Calden took a deep breath and seemed to make a visible effort to calm down which was a relief to Maddy—she’d never seen him be anything but calm and collected from the moment he’d caught her while she tried to climb out of the slime tank. Watching him go into angry, protective male-mode was alarming, especially considering how big he was.

  “All right,” he said, speaking to Madeline but keeping his eyes on the belligerent Grack-lor. “Let’s continue the tour.”

  They left the canteen but as they did, Maddy heard a deep, burbling laugh floating out behind them. She shivered and promised herself to keep well away from the big Mentat. He was seven miles of bad road, as her grandmother had used to say, and even with Calden to protect her, she didn’t want anything to do with the nasty alien.

  Five

  Calden had to take deep breaths to try and calm himself as they continued down the hallway, away from the canteen. How dare that big bastard, Grack-lor, speak so insultingly of his female? How dare he threaten and degrade Madeline? Calden himself might not know much about females—most all of the last ones of his people had died out before he himself was born. But he did know they were to be treated with respect, protected and cared for. Never hurt or threatened or insulted the way Grack-lor had done.

  Mine—she’s mine. How dare he say such things to her?

  It occurred to Calden that it was a strangely possessive way to feel about a specimen. He had never felt such things before—everything in the station, including whatever specimens he grew in his lab—was supposed to be communal property. The idea was that since all knowledge was valuable, every tool and asset used to acquire t
hat knowledge should be shared by all. Calden had never had a problem with this before but now he bristled at the thought of anyone else—especially the lecherous Grack-lor—coming anywhere near Madeline.

  “I should have punched him,” he muttered to himself, his hands clenching into fists at his sides involuntarily.

  He had never liked the big bastard of a Mentat. Though most of the other Mentats who worked and lived at the station had gone out of their way to leave their past lives behind, Grack-lor was one who liked to tell stories of his “adventures” on his home planet before he had come here.

  Most of these tales involved females he had bred—often roughly or without their consent. He seemed to think it was amusing to tell how he held females down and used his tokk on them until he filled them with his slimy, viscous seed. The thought of him trying anything like that with Madeline made Calden see red.

  “Should have taught him not to speak like that,” he said, still muttering to himself.

  “No, you… shouldn’t have.” Madeline’s breathless voice drew him back to himself and he saw that she was panting as she tried to keep up with his swift, angry strides. “That was exactly what he wanted,” she panted, looking up at him. “To make…make you angry. To make you…make you fight.”

  Calden realized he was being inconsiderate and slowed his pace considerably.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at her. “I’m afraid the two encounters you’ve had with my colleagues won’t have given you a very favorable impression of the station I call home so far.”

  “Not exactly,” she admitted, catching her breath some now that she was no longer trotting awkwardly beside him. “But what can I do? I suppose…suppose I’ll have to call it home now, too. And I’ll be the last human alive.” She lifted her chin. “Unless you have my colleagues somewhere around here in slime tanks of their own.”

  Calden suppressed a surge of irritation.

  “I told you that isn’t so. You were the only one the recovery droids found in the wreck.” He had a sudden inspiration. “Look, what if I showed you the remains of your ship? Would that help to convince you I was telling you the truth?”

  Madeline’s pale ivory skin got even paler but she nodded.

  “Yes, please—show me!”

  Somewhere inside Calden a little voice was whispering that this wasn’t the right thing to do—or at least that it wasn’t the right time. But he ignored it. He was still feeling irritated at the Mentats—Grack-lor in particular—as well as Madeline’s blind insistence that her fellow crew members must be somewhere aboard the station. Let her see for herself how impossible that was. Let her see what remained of her ship.

  “This way,” he said shortly, and strode off down the corridor.

  Madeline had to trot to keep up with him. As she ran, the way she was holding her arms curled against her chest with her limp hands dangling down made her feel absurdly like a bunny rabbit or a T-rex.

  Which are both extinct creatures now, whispered a little voice in her head. Since the Scourge probably finished off the Earth after you left and now everyone aboard the Kennedy is supposedly gone. So who cares if you look like one or the other—who’s ever going to know?

  But surely they couldn’t all be gone, could they? Part of her knew Calden was being honest about the fate of her crewmates and husband but another part—a larger part—couldn’t believe it was true. Maybe they were somewhere in the wreckage of the ship and she would be able to find them. Then Calden could put them in the healing slime, just as he had put her in it, and they would get better. Then somehow maybe they could continue their mission.

  She liked the big Kindred a lot—though she barely knew him—but she didn’t care for the Mentats at all. She would be happy to leave with her colleagues and continue their search for another habitable planet.

  “In here,” Calden said shortly, coming to a stop before another one of the ubiquitous sliding silver door panels.

  “Where? Let me see!” Madeline came up beside him eagerly but instead of waving his hand to open the door, he stopped and stood there, a troubled expression on his face.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured, his deep voice sounding uneasy. “Maybe you shouldn’t look at this yet, Madeline.” He looked down at her, his topaz eyes uncertain. “It might be…traumatic for you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him hastily. Please, Calden, I just want to see.”

  “Well…”

  When he still hesitated, Madeline stepped forward and waved her forearm over the blinking red light of the door sensor. She wasn’t sure if it would work since she wasn’t a Mentat or a Kindred but the door beeped once and the light changed to green as the metal panel slid to one side.

  Maddy took a step inside…and gasped.

  On the other side of the innocuous-looking door was a room so vast it reminded her of an airplane hangar. It was half-filled with something so twisted and mangled that at first she didn’t recognize it at all. Then, as she took a step forward, she saw the familiar red, white, and blue of the US flag stenciled on the charred skin of the ship and she knew what she was looking at was what remained of The Kennedy.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, taking another hesitant step into the enormous room. It was cold in here—so cold she shivered in the thin shirt-dress and her feet felt like she was walking on ice, but she barely noticed.

  The ship had literally been torn in two, as though a petulant giant had broken it like a toy in a fit of rage. What she was looking at, she decided, must be the back half. The long canister of the ship had been ripped apart at an angle and what she was seeing was the storage area where most of the embryos and plant cuttings and seeds as well as the terraforming equipment had been kept.

  Trundling in and out of the ruined ship, their small treads rising easily over the twisted metal, were many little robots, about the size of small dogs. They appeared to be collecting samples from the wreckage and bringing them to a large silver rectangular box with many drawers in it, which looked like a blown-up version of the one in Calden’s lab.

  “My God,” Maddy whispered again. “It’s…completely ruined. This isn’t salvageable at all—none of it is.”

  “I did try to warn you,” Calden murmured. He was looking at her anxiously. “Are you well, Madeline? Do you want to leave now?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, I need to see this. I need to look through and see if I can find…find…”

  “There’s no one to find,” Calden said gently, apparently guessing her thoughts. “You were the only one in this part of the ship when the droids discovered it. Believe me, we looked for more.”

  “But what was I doing back here? Why can’t I remember? I need to see—maybe that will bring it back.”

  Maddy started to run forward, towards the ruined remains of the Kennedy, but Calden stopped her with a large hand on her arm. Before she could protest, he had swung her up into his arms and was walking rapidly towards the wreck.

  “I can walk!” Maddy exclaimed. “You can put me down.”

  He shook his head.

  “Your feet are too tender to run over the wreckage barefoot. I won’t stop you from getting a closer look but you’ll have to let me carry you.”

  Maddy wanted to protest again but then she caught a closer look at the jagged edges of the Kennedy’s hull and thought better of it. Her hands already didn’t work—there was no point in injuring her feet as well.

  Calden picked his way carefully over the wreckage, holding her like a child in his arms as he went. The little robots whirred and scattered in his wake, getting out of the way of his black boots. At last they came to the interior, which seemed to be a little less scorched and blackened than the rest of the ship.

  “The cold storage locker.” Maddy looked around, her mind’s eye showing her how the room used to look. “Where we kept the embryos and the seed vault. Everything had to be kept at a certain temperature and it was my job to check it every day and night to be certain
the equipment was running smoothly.”

  Was that why she had been back here when the asteroid hit and the rest of the crew got smashed into the blackness of space? Or was there some other reason? For a moment she seemed to see bright flashes of color…angry words…pieces of emotions, none of them happy…and then it was all gone again.

  “What’s wrong with me?” she whispered, looking around at the now-silent embryo storage chambers and seed vault. “Why can’t I remember?”

  “Maybe you’re not ready to remember yet,” Calden remarked softly.

  “Yes, I am! I need to know what happened. Put me down!” Maddy struggled in his arms until he set her gently down on her feet. The broken hull was cold and rough against her tender soles but Maddy didn’t care. She peered around her, trying to remember, trying to see into the past and figure out why she alone had survived such a terrible wreck when all the rest of her crew—her estranged husband included—had died.

  No more memories came to her but she didn’t give up. She wandered further into the storage area, looking around at the immense, ruined machinery which had been meant to terraform a new planet. Some of the terraformers had broken free of the chains that held them in place and had rolled all over the place, like a huge, haphazard game of bumper cars.

  Then she saw something that stood out in the jumbled ruins—a dull splash of maroon decorated the floor under one of the vast round wheels of the nearest terraformer. A splash that looked an awful lot like a puddle of dried blood.

  Madeline went forward, crouching low, an awful pain blooming in her stomach. She could almost remember…but even as she felt the memory coming forward, a wave of nausea overcame her and she bent over and retched.

  What came out of her was green slime. The same kind that had been in the tank she’d woken up in.

  Maddy stared at it, her stomach heaving and her head pounding.

  What’s wrong with me? How did that stuff get inside me? What happened here that I can’t remember?