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Relief flooded me as I squinted into the wind over his wide shoulders. “Anytime soon?”
The stranger continued to sit on his haunches, smiling with his eyes as if he hadn’t seen another face in an annum. The pain in my leg had worsened after rolling it in sand, and the back of my neck ached like Sola’s fire. I ignored my lengthening fangs, dipping my chin to hide them as best as I could. Any warm-blooded body would have had me salivating at this point.
“Sorry to disappoint, but it’s a rescue party of one.” His laughter fogged up his mask as he pointed to himself. “I’m thinking it’s best we just get on with it.” He stood.
The muscles in his long legs bunched and stretched as he moved, the wind lapping at the fabric of his trousers. Around his waist, a tool belt sat on narrow hips. When saliva pooled in my mouth, I passed it off as hunger. I hadn’t met many Earthers, but I thought his height seemed impressive for his species, easily matching my own.
“Can you walk?”
More than at any other time in my life, I wanted to make a good impression, so I nodded. When he held out a gloved hand, I had no choice but to grasp it. I groaned as he pulled me upright and then immediately toppled into him. His solid arms caught me without even the smallest shuffle backward.
“As I thought,” he said. “Hang on. This is going to hurt.” He crouched facing me, leaned in and hooked his elbows under my armpits. I gulped as his hair brushed over my cheeks. A second later he placed his leg between mine before standing and hefting me over his shoulder. “You made it most of the way. How about I help you out a bit for this last stretch?”
Pain ratcheted through my body, increasing one notch at a time until the edge of unconsciousness closed in. “Just wake me when we get there.”
Thoughts of coppery sweet blood flooding my tongue, followed by a meal of rare meat, a hot shower and a comfy mattress, drifted through my mind before sleep’s grip took hold.
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. TheFires That Cleansehad 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 rolledonce before closing again as I threaded my arm between his legs and clasped his wrist.
