Genesis (3 page)

She had fought back hysteria for two reasons. One, it wouldn’t accomplish a damned thing except, possibly, to convince them she was crazy and therefore useless. And two, in the back of her mind, she hoped that they’d let her go when they were done ‘playing’ with her.

Deciding about the time she’d finished eating that they had left the door open because they meant for her to go out, she moved slowly toward the door, glancing around the room futilely to see if she could spot the camera they used to watch her. She hesitated when she reached the door and then placed her hand slowly on the knob, expecting any moment to feel a jolt shoot through her.

When nothing happened, she tightened her hold on the knob, pulled the door open slowly, and leaned around the edge to peer out.

Her heart nearly failed her when she did, and the urge to collapse on the floor and weep nearly overwhelmed her.

She’d been right. She’d been
so
right she felt like screaming and never stopping.

There was no end to her habitat. Beyond the fake hotel room lay an entire fake world that went on for as far as she could see into the distance.

Bri had already begun unconsciously backing away from the view beyond her room when a painful jolt went through her that stopped her in her tracks. She uttered a muffled cry as fiery pain slithered along her nerve endings. By the time it subsided she was no longer in any doubt at all that she was meant to go out or what they’d do to her if she didn’t comply.

Panting with fear as the pain finally began to subside, she moved toward the door, hovered there for a moment, and then stepped outside when another, milder jolt, urged her on.

The first thing she noticed, because she was already struggling for breath because of her fear and pain, was that the air seemed thick, and it was a struggle to breathe. It was also hot. Within a matter of seconds she could feel moisture begin to pop from her pores.

As accustomed as she was to high humidity given that she’d grown up in the semi-tropical region of the U.S., she was still uncomfortable within moments and she hadn’t even exerted herself.

Just above the ‘horizon’, a fake sun hovered in a strangely colored sky studded with stranger colored clouds. Beneath her now bare feet was black soil that still looked somehow different from Earth’s dark soil, possibly because of the texture, and a smattering of strange, low growing vegetation. A few trees and shrubs dotted the landscape between the almost dome-like habitats that surrounded the ‘green’, but none of the vegetation looked familiar.

Why, she wondered, would they go to so much effort to reproduce a landscape and not make it Earth-like?

Because she was the only occupant from Earth, she wondered, feeling faint at the thought? Because this looked familiar to the majority? Just as her ‘room’ looked like something she was at least vaguely familiar with, or that they had reason to believe would be familiar to her.

When she’d fully emerged, the door closed behind her. She heard a distinct click that indicated it was sealed and she would not be allowed to go back inside.

Her heart kicked up several notches in beat, but when she turned and surveyed the landscape again, she began to have serious palpitations.

Emerging from the other habitats were--beings. Even from a distance, she could see that they were alien, not human, although they were humanoid in appearance and their proportions appeared to be very similar to humans. Their flesh tones, though, were not like any race she was familiar with even if she wasn’t close enough to tell much about their features. It was golden, but distinctly more yellow than brown. Most seemed to have dark hair, brown or black, pulled back from their faces to the crown of their heads and worn in a ‘pony tail’ that reached to their waists. The light from the false sun brought out greenish-gold glints, but she wasn’t certain if it was just a trick of the light or if their hair actually had that color of highlights.

They all seemed to be male, every one that she could see from where she stood--either that or their women did not have breasts, because they were bare chested, covered only below the waist by some sort of breeches and either leggings or boots that came up to their knees.

As they moved further from their habitats and closer to her, she began to see their features somewhat better, but it was no relief to see that their faces were as human looking as their bodies. They still seemed alien. They looked fierce, somehow almost barbaric, although she had no idea what gave her that impression except, maybe, plain old fashioned fear. That didn’t mean they were, and she certainly couldn’t judge them by their clothing considering what she’d been given to wear, but that was still the impression she got. Maybe because, besides looking fierce and dangerous, they appeared to be tattooed--either that or they had really strangely patterned skin--not necessarily a sign of being primitive since everybody and his brother seemed to be getting them these days--and they were built like a people accustomed to hard physical labor. Also not necessarily indicative of primitives since there were plenty of body builders and professional sportsmen that were bulked up similarly on Earth.

They reminded her strongly of the hulk, except they were yellow not green.

She was relieved to see that although they appeared to have noticed her and seemed curious, they didn’t seem inclined to approach too closely, for they stopped before they’d covered more than half the distance that separated her from them.

She refused to actually look in their direction at first, fearful that doing so might encourage them to move closer. After a few cautious glances, however, she noticed something odd.

They’d formed almost a straight line--a line which she noticed several paced along as if there was some invisible barrier preventing them from moving closer, but they were considering attempting to breech it.

Frowning, she transferred her attention from the aliens to the landscape again. She noticed the demarcation then. Stones had been set at regular intervals in perpendicular lines to separate each exercise yard.

Like dogs, they’d been fitted with control collars to keep them within their separate boundaries.

The aliens obviously already knew this, so even if they were primitive, they didn’t lack intelligence.

Curiosity surfaced, but she decided she didn’t want to test to see if they could cross the barrier.

* * * *

Frustration was not an emotion Kole had been intimately acquainted with before the Sheloni had raided his village and captured them--taken everyone they hadn’t killed outright. He’d become far too familiar with it since that time, though, and it irked him no end to be forced to behave as if he’d been cowed by their superiority, to sit idly by as docile as a grazing
nyak
and do nothing more than wait and watch for the opportunity to strike. His people looked to him to lead them, however. If he could not contain his impatience to strike back, they would not, and more would die uselessly.

They’d lost almost a third of the female warriors since they’d been taken. The knowledge made him sick with the rage he had to hold inside, but he was almost as angry with the women as the Sheloni. It was one thing to give one’s life in battle. Even ritual suicide was honorable in the face of defeat, but to throw their lives away only because they’d been impregnated just to destroy the lives they’d created?

He could not fathom why they had done that. There was no honor in it even though many had claimed it was to prevent the Sheloni from using them as leverage against the men, to prevent the unborn from being born to slavery, because they had known that they would not be able to fight if they were heavy with child.

None of those reasons were acceptable for aborting their seedlings, he thought with thinly repressed fury. The Hirachi race was being systematically wiped out and
they
had contributed to that directly … and many of them had died forcing their bodies to abort.

At best it was insubordination, completely contrary to his orders, and it had weakened their force for the time when they
could
strike back.

At worst … it had demoralized the men … demoralized
him
, because their young were their hope for the future--an unexpected gift--something above themselves worth fighting for. They would have fought harder knowing it was to protect their unborn.

Now it wasn’t nearly as hard for the men to behave as if they were cowed--they were--not by the Sheloni and their machines and torture devices, but by their women. Many wondered if there was even any point in trying to throw off the yolk of the Sheloni. What future did they have anyway? With many of their women dead already and the lives of the others hanging on the decision of the Sheloni, and their young dead, all they had left to inspire them to fight was the need for revenge--and that was an emotion that made wise men into careless fools who would throw away their own lives without regard for the consequences to their brothers in arms.

He was so deep in his morose thoughts he didn’t at first notice the timid creature that emerged from the hut almost directly across from his own--or rather he did. The movement caught his attention at once. He simply didn’t consciously acknowledge what his gaze rested upon at first.

It moved cautiously. He imagined he could almost smell the fear emanating from it. The pale coloring of the creature threw him off, brought his mind to focus on it as he realized it walked on two legs. It was wearing one of the gowns the Sheloni dressed the female slaves in, which indicated that it was a creature of intelligence, not merely a beast –and female.

Curious despite himself, he moved to the perimeter of his yard to get a better look.

The creature halted, staring at him and the other men who, as curious as he was, had moved closer for a better look. After hesitating for several moments, she moved to a scrubby
mushmi
that grew in her yard and looked it over, then began to walk around it, studying it.

He more than half expected her to either mark it or begin to graze upon the leaves of the stunted tree.

What was it? It appeared to be much like the Hirachi in form. He could tell little about the features of her face from the distance, but she assuredly had two eyes, one nose, and one mouth--two arms, two legs and hands and feet. This was no Hirachi, though ….

Unless it was a child, he thought, realizing abruptly that it wasn’t merely distance that made it appear small to his eyes.

He had not seen a child since he had
been
a child. Fully half that spawning had been snatched away by the Sheloni, and the females had refused to return to the spawning grounds thereafter.

It wasn’t a child, he decided. It looked … mature if the round globes pushing against the top of her gown, bouncing and swaying with her movements, was any indication … and his cock said it was. Mindless marvel that
that
was, controlled purely by instinct, it roused in interest. It was a … miniature … something … not Hirachi, similar, yes, but not the same. The skin was such a
strange
color, almost pink, but more white … like the freakish things occasionally born without color at all! The hair, as well, not dark but a mixture of red and brown and even gold.

If he hadn’t been bored out of his mind, he might not have found the strange female so fascinating.

Then again, he thought wryly, he had been known to lie to himself on occasion.

It occurred to him, though, that the Sheloni never did anything without reason. They were not impulsive creatures. They’d brought the female for a reason.

He wondered, if he had not been in season, if he would have been more than mildly interested, but it was a mute question. He
was
in season, just like everyone else, and his reasoning mind took a back seat to his needs when that was upon him. His mind might be telling him--alien--small, weak, and strangely colored, but his body had no interest in anything beyond the fact that it was female.

I must learn what I can about this creature and the purpose the Sheloni have in mind for her, he told himself--strategically it could be of importance.

Torment, the primitive side of his mind told him. They have brought females too spindly and weak to mount and breed just to drive us mad. They
know
we have to fight the urge to spawn, and they are bent upon using our weakness against us!

* * * *

Unnerved by the watchful gazes of the aliens, and, if the truth were acknowledged, the tension she sensed in them, Bri moved to the closest plant-like shrub and examined it, thinking it must be as fake as everything else. On closer examination, however, she decided that, as strange as it looked, it was a real, living--something.

As she moved around the alien plant, trying to focus on studying it and ignoring the aliens that watched her so intently, movement caught her attention, and she looked up to see a tiny, dark skinned woman emerge from a habitat across from hers. After blinking several times in disbelief, a surge of excitement went through her. A smile curled her lips, and she hurried toward the woman.

Looking as disoriented and frightened as she probably had when she’d first been thrust from the security of her habitat, the woman looked up and met her gaze. Relief seemed to flicker over her features. She hurried forward to meet Bri.

She didn’t know about the boundary, Bri realized when she saw the woman rushing upon the line. “No!” she shouted, breaking into a trot to try to stop the woman. “Don’t …!”

The jolt that went through the other woman made her body jerk and seize. When it stopped, the woman wilted to the ground. Bri stopped abruptly in her tracks, too stunned to react at first. Her throat closed. Tears clogged her nose and filled her eyes. “No!” she cried, rushing forward again. “No! Oh god!”

One of the nightmarish robots appeared--Bri had no idea where it had come from. She’d been focused on the woman lying in the dirt. She stopped again as the thing gripped the woman’s body and began to drag her back across the line. “You bastards!” she screamed, lifting her head and looking around as if she could see the aliens that had orchestrated the nightmare she’d found herself in. “You killed her! You slimy sons-of-bitches!”