In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (33 page)

His
mother taps her foot in agitation. His smile leaves. “While I’m gone you should
get to know the rest,” he says leaving the room.

Eyes
stare at her from the forest.

“I
guess I should introduce myself since it seems like we’re stuck together,” the
man says with a laugh, Thora is not sure if he’s laughing to break the tension
or just because he’s a sick fuck. Thora caught herself, she shouldn’t think
that way.

“I’m
Thora.” She puts out her hand.

“
Punit
.” He shakes it.

Thora
never really got a good look at him. He towers a full foot over her five-foot,
four-inch frame. He’s face is chiseled, lines aggressively outlines his jaw,
his skin tanned perfectly. She doesn’t dare look down, but she never noticed
how handsome he was. She notices that she still holds his hand. Her whole body
blushes as she pulls her hand back. He smiles that charming grin.

She
looks down at anywhere but him. She sits on the ground, grass prickling her
butt. She’ll
have to
get used to that. Is that
the guy she’s supposed to live with until she dies or is given away?

It
could’ve been a lot worse she guesses, to be with him. But it’s too soon for
her to let anybody in, with Cole gone, and the world ended, it’s going to be a
very long time before she lets anyone into her heart.

Punit
sits next to her on the ground,
Indian style and they start to talk. Her with where she was when they hit,
about getting taken to Washington by the Astrons and it all being useless in
the end she guesses.

He
talks about what he was before it happened. He was a writer in Zurich, he was
self-employed and ran a sports blog. The night before he went out on a night on
the town with a few buddy of his. He got drunk a
nd
brought back a girl to his place. The next morning, she was still there, naked
in his bed when it started.

He
woke to some commotion he heard outside. He walked to his balcony and saw a
blood red sky. His apartment exploded, killing the girl instantly and flinging
him to the street two stories below. When he came to
,
he was too much in a daze to move,
a Cell ship picked him up and he
didn’t wake up until he was on the Skyeater.

They
keep talking, talking about everything, their fears, their likes, how much they
like the show Seinfeld, until—

“I
have to use to bathroom, if you would excuse me, madam,” he says. He stands up
gracefully for a naked man. He walks to the edge of the tree line and looks at
the urinal-like thing. He shakes his head and walks deeper into the trees.
Probably for some privacy.

She
wonders how long it’s been since she just sat down and talked for that long.
Well, maybe they talked for a long time, it’s a completely different world to
live without clocks
, without the constant buzzing of
her phone
.

She
looks out the window and at the star in the sky, the sky does seem darker, does
this ship have a night and day cycle or do the Serephins just live in permanent
sunshine?

She
would hate that.

She
remembers, these guys are the Eliite, they are still a whole race of Serephins
around the universe, or at least that’s what that brown alien told her.

A
blue scaled humanoid alien walks toward her, It’s has jade eyes and no lips,
just a slit of an opening. She isn’t completely alone with
Pupit
then. It walks next to her.

“I
guess we weren’t as alone as I thought,” she says to it. It doesn’t answer,
maybe the bug in her head only lets her understand and not speak other
languages.

“This
grandiose of a ship, does have a night cycle,” he says. His body is smooth with
scales but his voice is deep and masculine, maybe he’s a male but she has no
real way of knowing.

“What?!”
she says out of surprise. Did he read her mind?

“No,
I did not read your mind,” he says as he sits down next to her. “My people
mostly communicate through body movements and facial expressions. Just by
watching you since your arrival I can take a gander to why you were staring
into the sky and rubbing your wrist,” he says. “Am I wrong?”

“No.”

“Then
my race is not so much different than yours when it comes to communication.
Despite there being billions of species in the universe it seems there are more
similarities than not,” he addresses. “My name is
Fakhri
.
And you are Thora, correct?”

She
nods, she never would’ve thought she would ever have a chance to speak to
another alien from another planet, or at least have a full conversation with
one not trying to kill her.

She
looks back into the thicket of trees. The foliage shifts and moves as if there
is more than one of these thing in them.

“You
must forgive the others, they are weary of newcomers,” he says. “The last few
newcomers
were
less than welcoming. The last
one to come was a
Nedelican
, an insufferable fellow.
He was brought here and started commanding the place, taking over like the pest
that
the
Nedelicans
are.
He portioned off the food, the water, and kept most of it for himself and
threatened anyone of us who got in his way.”

If
Thora couldn’t think any better she’d say there was a hint of anger in his
tone.

 “The
Nedelicans
are known for their amazing feats in
battle, he could’ve easily killed any of us. After all we’ve been through.
Losing our homes, our planets, we did not, could not fight back. We are already
defeated which is why we are in this hell. Nevertheless the
crudent
had the gall to talk back to
Caer’s
caregiver.” He
stops. He looks down or at least looks sad according to Thora, it’s hard to
read such a foreign face.

“What
happened?”

“
Caer’s
caregiver is far less tolerable than Caer, she
shocked him, but being as prideful as he was, he didn’t give in until three
of his
hearts did. All at once. Boom,”
Fakhri
says with an odd hint of arrogance.

“Before
he
, there
was another poor seed. A monstrous
orange ball of fur. Killed two of us
. Ate them both
in one bite
. He was halfway through his next meal before Caer kill
switched him. His death is one I do not wish to relive. Afterwards, his
caregiver gave him a mouthful.”

“That
sounds horrible.”

“Your
kind do not seem like that kind of race. To cause havoc. You have my trust and
the others will too. In a matter of time.”

“Oh,
there are some who are like that, they are a lot of different kinds of humans
out there
Fakhri
. But I’m not one of them,” Thora
says with a sincere smile. “How many others are there in here?”

“Eight,
I’m the only one of my species here. But I have accepted that. We all have. It
looks like you have, too.”

“Your
dialect, I understand how their technology allows me to understand you but your
dialect sounds way too human.”

“It’s
amazing isn’t it? Their technology and how much more advanced they are than us.
My race conquered entire star systems, thirty planets we ruled over in five
different systems. We discovered how to move through space without disrupting time
itself. And yet, just with this little bug in our communication modules, it
shows just how much farther we had to go. We stood no chance, we couldn’t even
be able to begin to comprehend most other races languages, much less
communicate with them in a sensible manner. They even translate a races idioms
to the listener’s race’s closest idiom.” He laughs and looks at Thora with his
jade eyes. “It’s truly is amazing.” His eyes seems to show some admiration for
what they did. Thora doesn’t admire them at all.

“How
long?” Thora asks.

“It
shouldn’t take long, Caer treats us fine if we do as he says.”

“No
how long have you been here?” she asks again. He looks out the window,
thinking.

“If
I had a gander I would say, five Skyeater days. They run on thirty-two hour
cycles. It usually runs on the cycle of the planet they are on. The last one
was mine. Which spun 1.5 times slower than your planet. The Serephins are
highly adaptable.”

Only
that long? The Eliite must travel fast, planet to planet, for him only to been
here seven Earth days. She doesn’t even know his story. How far more advanced
was they compared to us humans. His jade eyes seem to gloss over.

“I
was the leader of my planet. Only one of the four we have conquered in our home
system. Twenty-five billion of my species in the system and I ruled over ten
billion of them. I doubt the other systems have had any luck,” he says to her,
basically reading her mind.

“You
can even predict I wanted to ask that?”

He
nods.

“Then
you probably already know my second question.”

He
looks down again, into the grass. It already feels like it’s been years and
he’s told this story enough times to not feel the sting from it. But he still
does, and he probably always will, because that was his home, his world, now
gone.

“They
came out of nowhere. They destroyed everything in hours and left my home planet
barren. They didn’t even attempt to take our resources, not
heeding
our pleas when we wanted to surrender and
come up with a treaty. We tried to send caution to your planet but—“

He
stops and gets up and runs into the trees.

“I
want at least one of every dominate species of every planet we conquered,” Caer
says as he walks into the room. “But I have to wait for my mom’s promotion so
we can get a bigger place. She’s an ascended so her promotion is basically in
the bag. I want a place on the other side but my mom says the schools are
better in our neighborhood, so instead I’ll be able to have a room just for my
pets!”

He
bends down over them, his boyish grin hovering over the cage. Maybe she
should’ve run into the trees. Eyes peer from the shadows of the trees behind
here.

“So
don’t you do any funny business with that man over there, you’re already pregnant,
and I want to talk human politics and Reaganomics.”

“What?!”
she says. She stammers back. Even she forgot she was pregnant.

He
walks to the bookshelf.

“Surprised?”

“Yes,”
she replies. She hears murmurs behind her. Don’t respond to him, she thinks they
said.

“We
know everything about the races we conquer.” He pulls a book from the shelf and
opens it. Its pages are like metal sheets. He opens to a page that says Earth
or the equivalent in his language.

It
projects an image of Earth, in its former shining glory. The bookshelf is
filled with hundreds of the same kind of book.

“This
thing has info on everything from the dinosaurs, to the rise of Christ, to the
rule of the Roman Empire and to the fall of mankind.” He taps the page and does
a movement with his fingers. A projection of the human anatomy pops up next, a
male and female standing together splayed out like the Vitruvian Man. Every
single part of their bodies are labeled like frogs on a dissection table.

He
walks back to the cage and bends down really close to Thora. She can smell his
sickly breath.

“I
know how you work.” He jabs her in the chest with his pointing finger. She
stumbles back but doesn’t fall down.
She
yelps
when he jabs her privates. Her hands move to push his finger but—

“And
I know how fragile you are.” He flicks her in the head. She sees black as she’s
hit. She tumbles down, she tries to crawl away but she just moves into the
fetal position and covers her head with her hands.

“As
long as you know that you should be fine.
Ahh
.” He
pets her, his childish hands oddly smooth.

“Don’t
worry, as long you listen I won’t hurt you again.”

“Caer!
Come here!” his mother yells from another room.

“I’ll
be back!” he says as he runs out. Thora doesn’t get up. She’s tired, scared and
alone. She just cries into her arms.

In
the middle of the Skyeater metropolis, a magnificent building stands. A place
of marvelous wonder and magic, The
Lubitec
Menagerie.
It stands at ten Serephin stories high and five miles long. Its glass dome of a
top reflects the Skyeater’s sun. Yet in the alley behind its courtly back, a
transport ship lands in a less than dignified way.

The
Serephins in light blue jump suits jump out of the front seats and slam the
doors close. “Dammit Intei, we’re hours late!” one of them says.

“It’s
alright, Rect,” Intei replies.

“No
it’s not! If you didn’t have to make a pit stop,” Rect says
motioning
quotation marks. “On the way, we would’ve
been done by now.”

They
walk toward the end of the vehicle, the ship is only as tall as they are.