Hunger (9 page)

That had been her usual dress code since she was seven. Before then her mom had made her dresses out of any spare scraps of material she could find. But as she got bigger, they had come to resemble a mismatched patchwork quilt, and so she had been handed pants and a shirt. Evie had tried them on, under the sorrowful gaze of her mom, not understanding this marked the end of her childhood.

The grown-up clothes signalled the beginning of a new stage in Evie’s life. Although she was only a child, she was expected to work in the fields for two hours a day, alongside her studies. It was at this time she learned the unwritten rules of human society. Nothing pretty, nothing frivolous, everything has to be serviceable, tough and hardworking. Life was about necessity, food, shelter, warmth.

Karal was not the same world. She left the bedroom and went back into the garden, needing to remind herself of the unique prize she had won. There was nothing she would change. Coming here was a blessing, even if it meant a life of solitude in the breeding house. Evie had to hold on to Celia’s words. The other women would support her. Even if the father of her child didn’t.

“While you were on Earth, the Hier Council discussed a plan to send out five space cruisers to seek out a possible new planet for the human population,” Lytril said.

“You aim to spread their cancer throughout the universe?” Ishk asked. A sense of betrayal seeping into his voice when he realised they had set such plans in motion without him.

“At least some of it; limited aid would be given to those left behind on the planet. The old and infirm, plus enough people to care for them, would remain. The hope is that once the older humans died out, the Earth would be left to rejuvenate.”

“They should be left to their own doom,” Ishk argued. “We should not waste our resources on them.”

“And what if we had been left to our own doom?” the Hier Commander had asked.

“The Karal are not the same.” Ishk could already see where this conversation was leading.

“Only because we learned our lesson so much earlier in our species’ evolution,” the Hier Ruler said, his voice carrying the undertones of frustration that Ishk always brought out in him. Before the humans came, Lytril’s voice would have been flat, emotionless. His female, Vanessa was bringing about her own evolution of the Karalian Hier Ruler.

Ishk pressed on, “We have survived this way for centuries now. Our species has thrived because there is no distraction. These human females are a disruption to our way of life. We only have three of them living amongst us, and already I can feel the change.”

“Four. You forget you now have a female, Ishk.”

“She does not count. Once she is pregnant she will go to the breeding house.” He paused, and then added, “Once that occurs I am returning to my home. It is time I sought out the wishes of the farmers whom I represent.”

“That might be a good idea, Ishk. It will give you some perspective.”

“Perspective? I will be going there to tell them that they need to improve their quotas, or we will all starve. You are talking about tripling our population in the next five years.”

“And your plan is to simply go back to Earth, take the females we need and then leave. Imprison those we take in the breeding house and use them as we wish.”

“As our mothers were taken.”

“It is unworkable. Our fathers did what they had to out of necessity. We have been through this. They will still need to be fed. It makes no difference where they live.”

“We will need less females if they are shared. And you know full well, our fathers did not build the breeding houses. Females living separately from the males and our sons has been our custom for generations.”

“Yes. Because the grandmothers did not want to live among us. If you look back through the archives, the generation before that willingly came to our planet to breed in return for technology, but they did not stay once the children were born. Each generation has presented its own set of problems.”

“This is not
a set of problems
, Lytril.” Ishk stood up, his colours slipping from his control as he lost his grip on his already frayed temper. “This threatens to change the way we live forever.”

“As did the extinction of the females of our species in the times of the great sorrow, Ishk. We have never found a more reliable species to breed with.”

“Reliable? Is that what you think humans are? Look what they have done to themselves.”

“And look what we have done to ourselves, Ishk. We are on the brink of extinction. The prime only lasts for another five years. Surely you can see the sense of making sure our species never gets to this stage again. Space is a vast place; we have searched farther than any generation before us. The wormhole technology is stretched to its limit to enable us to visit Earth. Let us take this chore away from our next generation and those that come after.”

“They live a different life span to us, Lytril. They will die, and what then?”

“A colony on another planet will keep a constant source of breeding females available to us,” Lytril said firmly. “We have discussed this.”

“Yes, and made plans, in my absence. Although I thought I was an equal member of this council.” Ishk made sure his words lingered to hit home the implications of ostracising a necessary part of the council. The farming belt was the single most important part of the workforce.

“We simply asked the scientific team to locate planets they feel may be suitable for exploration, planets we have visited over the last few centuries. The plan is to send teams out to explore them.”

“So we will still be sending our people out into space, not to hunt for breeding partners, but instead we are on some mission to find habitable planets for the humans.”

“Yes, but we are using data already collected. The dangers are greatly reduced.” The Hier Commander rose now to give his support to the Hier Ruler.

Outmanoeuvred, and outvoted, he looked around the table and knew he was alone. His frustration grew. “Fathers have been the sole guardians of our children for generations. Why change things? Do you want our sons to lose two parents, Lytril? Surely you know the depth of grief that was sustained during the loss of
our
fathers. It was almost too much; I would spare our sons the prospect of twice that grief. The mothers of our children should not become part of their lives.”

Ishk was shocked at his own words. Looking down, he saw the bright blues and greens flashing across his skin and then they passed, his hands becoming red. Lytril placed his hand on Ishk’s. Ishk wanted to pull away, but it was the Hier Ruler’s right to read any Karalian, including members of the Hier Council, whilst in this chamber.

“I think I understand you now, Ishk,” Lytril said quietly.

Ishk pulled his hand away and left, slamming the door behind him.

Until this stupid lottery had started, there had never been disagreements. Now they were like splintered wood, and he couldn’t see a way of repairing the damage.

“Evie.” As if she had conjured him from the clean, clear air, Ishk was behind her, walking through the house and into the garden. When he saw her, he stopped in his tracks. “You look different.”

“Do you like it? Okil came over with some clothes. He introduced me to Celia and Elissa. Don’t worry,” she added hastily, “I didn’t invite them in.”

“I see. And what did they have to say?” Ishk asked, his voice flat.

“Nothing really. Just to welcome me, and they gave me some toiletries, moisturiser and shampoo, that sort of thing. And the clothes.” She stood up awkwardly, her legs stiff. She stood smiling at him, wanting him to be happy in some small way. But the frown on his face told her he would never be happy with her. “Did your council meeting not go how you wanted it to?”

“Why would you ask that?” A flash of red crossed his face.

“Well, you don’t look too happy. So it’s either me, this dress or the meeting.” Evie tried to make light of it, but she had hit a nerve, and the warnings from Okil came back to her. She wanted to trust Ishk, but he gave her nothing to work with. Moody, arrogant and aloof, she could see no way of bridging the gap between them. But she had to keep trying, not for herself, but for the other women on Earth who would one day come and live here.

“I will prepare some food.” Turning on his heel he went to the kitchen and began to get utensils out of the cupboard. She could hear him working and wondered if she might help him, or if it was best to let him get on with it.

When her parents were alive, they had seldom argued and when they did, they had always talked it over. It had always soothed the situation. Would that work with Ishk, or simply make it worse?

Could he dislike her any more than he did? She doubted it, so she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He placed the pan he was holding down on the top of the stove and looked at her; muted colours appeared below the line of his tunic. He was fighting for control of his emotions. This did not look good.

“What?” he asked sharply. “Do you expect me to divulge all my secrets to you so that you can use them against me?”

“No.” She frowned, “I’m sorry. It’s only, humans have a saying: A trouble shared is a trouble halved. At least that’s what my mom always told me when I was upset.”

“But
you
are that trouble. Human females. They are going to be set loose on the planet I love.”

“Is that all we are, a problem, and if so, is there no way of coming up with a solution? Rather than just condemning us?” Evie asked quietly. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with Ishk, especially as he already appeared to be in a bad mood.

“Humans have been aware of their problems for centuries but they chose not to act. Now you expect another race to come and save you.” Ishk turned towards her, and the colours were no longer, muted, no longer under his control.

“Isn’t it better to try, then to just let us die?”

“What does it matter to you? You are safe now; you are here on my planet. I am willing to save enough of you for us to breed with, but beyond that, no. Not at the expense of my planet and my people.”

“Ishk, the females are going to live on your planet, it doesn’t matter whether you shut them away or not. We will still be here. Why not let them be part of your society, let then raise the children?”

“Because they will die!” he shouted, not anger, but sadness emanated from him.

“Everyone dies,” she said quietly. “Some before their time. But everyone dies.”

“But to lose two parents instead of one? That is hard. The time when the last fathers died was tough. How much harder will it be to lose both parents? It is better to never love a mother than to have to go through the loss. You must see that this would save them heartache.”

She shook her head. “No, Ishk, I don’t.”

“But you would not know, you simply walked away from yours, from your life before. The promised land of Karal was too important. Or were you abandoned, because I cannot see how any parent would let their child end up like you?”

He might just as well have slapped her around the face. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she tried not to let him see how much he had hurt her. “Ishk, that is not fair and not true. If my parents were still alive, I would have stayed on Earth. But they weren’t. I know the sorrow and loss of losing two parents, but I would never wish to have not known my mother’s love.”

He stood rigid and did not speak. For a long time he fought for control, the colours of his skin like a violent storm, a hurricane which threatened to destroy all in its path.

Evie trembled as she walked toward him, moving around the counter, ready to stop if he told her to. But he didn’t and she moved closer to him, so close she could feel the heat from his body, and as she reached out to place her hand on his arm, she could feel the current of electricity flowing across the surface, static electricity which prickled her finger as she touched him.

“Ishk, it’s OK to love someone and lose them. Surely you see that.”

He shook his head. “No. I was a child when my father died, I lost the only parent I had and that broke my heart. Then, when the others lost their fathers, I saw their grief through different eyes, the eyes of one who had put some distance between the pain. I had closed off my emotions, and knew I would never let anyone else in.”

“But what about the child I will conceive?”

“I will teach it about the land, I will teach him everything I know, and I will prepare him. As I wish my father had prepared me. But we always think we have time. My father’s death taught me that was not so.”

“I think I am beginning to understand you. Somewhere, you are still that small boy who lost his father. But to live without love, without risk, is not the answer.”

“You humans have compounded my belief. You live on your emotions, your passions, to the disregard of all else. It is a hunger to feel every emotion, to feed your senses, a hunger the Karalian race would be better to ignore. Or it will eat at them and then there will be nothing left of who we are. If my father’s death affected me so, what will happen to those children of the next generation who have been taught to open their hearts even more?”

“They will learn to cope. You were orphaned so young, Ishk. Any child would feel the way you do. But once you have a child of your own, you will see it differently.”

“I think you should go to the breeding house tomorrow. It is perhaps best if I do not have a child.”

“I don’t believe that, Ishk.” She took his hand and placed it on her stomach. “We might already have created a new life. And if we haven’t, then why not try now?”

“Why should you care? If I don’t want you, you will be given to another, one who would want you to share their life.”

“You are my prize, Ishk. I want you. Right now I want you to take me to bed and mate with me,” she said, using his own word for sex. “I think that a child would make you see things so differently.”

“I don’t want to see them differently.”

“You might. Won’t you at least give it a chance?”