Beyond (18 page)

Aimee’s breath lodged in her throat.

"I scooped up a handful of that sand and it sits in a compartment inside that
terra angel
. It travels through every galaxy with me."

That was the catalyst. Aimee felt tears leak from behind her eyes. What pain this man harbored, and yet he carried himself with dignity, and not with a grudge...or hostility.

"You are sniffling," he observed. "Are you cold?"

Aimee shook her head and then mumbled, "A little." But she thought the chill had more to do with his tale than the environment.

Zak shifted and she felt his arm slip around her back.
At first she stiffened, but then relaxed against him, grateful for this warm haven.

"What about you?” he asked. “Tell me about what you've left behind."

How could she possibly answer that—after the story he just shared? What epic disaster had her parents been through?
The year they were audited?
The death of Aunt Jenny to cancer?
Her mother missed her older sister desperately, but it was not spoken of often.

"Are your parents alive?" he prompted.

It was such a sad question. It was tragic that he even felt compelled to ask it.

“Yes. I have no brothers or sisters, though. My mom had some complications with me so she was never able to have more children.”
And so they smother me. No. They love me. They love me so much, and now they don’t know where I am
.

“I’m sorry.” There was sincerity in his deep tone. “Do they have a trade?”

“A trade?
Oh, my father is an engineer, just like I am studying to be.”

“An engineer.”
He tested out the word. “Ah, you will be building space crafts. You make sense now.”

“What do you mean, I make sense?”

“You can see your way around the Horus. You were able to get into my ship. You have an analytical eye. You are very intelligent.”

She used to think that she craved being told she was pretty. She never felt pretty. But somehow, when Zak stated so matter-of-factly that she was intelligent—the compliment made her stomach flip.

"I don't know about intelligent," she felt blood rushing to her cheeks, "but my parents always said I was resourceful. Not resourceful enough though. I can't get back home."

"You tried. There is respect in that."

A branch cracked outside. Aimee jerked from her slouch.

"Stay still," Zak whispered.

She felt him shift and saw his outline fill the entrance to their cave.

"Be careful," she warned.

He slipped into the night and Aimee crawled to the cave's entrance to locate him. It was pitch black, with no
benevolent
moon to cast the faintest glow. Light did filter through the forest, but it seemed to emanate from the ground as if some of the vegetation was phosphorescent. Still, it wasn't enough to help her find Zak. She wanted to join him and assist, but she knew he would want her to stay put.

Before she could panic, he returned. He burrowed through the entrance and announced casually, "Animal life. Something
like
a Sumpum. Salvan would love to get his hands on it."

The thought of the pale scientist made her cringe.

Zak settled back against the roots. "We have several hours until light hits this planet. You better try to sleep, Aimee."

"I'm not sure I can," she mumbled, although the dark veil of fatigue reached for her.

"Are you cold?"

If she said yes, would he put his arm around her
?

"A little."

She felt the warm band slip around her back. There was a slight tug to urge her to relax against him. She didn't need much urging. She was tired, and his chest was wide and comfortable. She settled inside this cocoon and laid her head against his collarbone.

"Tell me, Aimee," he spoke softly. "Do you have a man back home?"

“A man?”
No. The one
man
who had showed any interest really wanted her Dad, not her.

“Umm, no.
No men.”

“I’m surprised,” his voice was drifting. He too sounded tired.

Aimee closed her eyes and listened to the beat of Zak’s heart. He was human. She could hear it in that confident cadence.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do they do things like get married here?”

“Married.”
He tested out the word. “Yes. You become
bonded
. It’s pretty much a universal term. Married is a new word for it…at least for me.”

“Do couples ever become
un
-bonded?”

“No. Bonding is something special. For a couple to feel that much for each other—there is no chance of it ever coming apart. My parents were bonded when they were very young. They knew already that they would spend the rest of their lives—”

Zak stopped. Aimee had reached up and placed her hand flat on his chest. Fatigue gave her liberties she would never attempt during the light of day. Her palm pressed the shiny black fabric.

“How old are you, Zak?”

There was no answer and she thought either he had fallen asleep or was still too upset at the mention of his parents.

“In your years?” he probed. “That’s hard to calculate. My planet was much larger than yours and took a path far greater. They tell me that I’m almost twelve rotations of my planet which is probably twice as many as yours.”

“Twenty-three,” she calculated. “You are twenty-three of my years.”

Aimee surrendered to a yawn, but continued in a whisper, “You look twenty-three, but you act—you seem so much older.”

Zak chuckled softly and she felt a puff of air against her hair. “I feel old, Aimee. I feel very old.”

“You need to sleep.” She didn’t even know if she had said the words aloud. His heartbeat had finally lulled her into slumber.

“It’s time.”

Her butt hurt. But the rest of her was quite comfortable. She yawned and slipped her arm around the pillow. It moved beneath her.

“Aimee, it’s time.”

She frowned.
Time for what
?

“Aimee.”

She felt the words brush against her ear and jumped.

“Easy there. That’s my jaw you almost broke.”

Aimee rubbed the top of her head and blinked her eyes. Light filtered in from the opening of the cave. Outside clouds hugged the ground like
diaphanous
patches of snow. Cognizance returned and she sat up straight, rubbing her palm into her eye and staring at Zak who wore a bemused smile. It looked really good on him.

“Are you going back to the ship?” she asked.

“Yes. It has been quiet out there. Maybe we’re going to get lucky.”

“Or maybe they were waiting for the morning as well.”

Zak shook his head. “I admire your keen sense of impending doom.”

She had to laugh at that. “I’m here to help.”

He smiled, but his lips thinned and his eyes grew alert. He moved to the rim of the cave. "I’m going inside the ship, but I want you to stay here. You can see the TA from here. When I open the panel, you run like an erect sumpum is after you.
As soon as you’re in, we’re taking off—” he paused and added, “that is, if I can fix the damage. And don’t you dare ask me what we’re going to do if I can’t.”

Aimee snapped her mouth shut. It was exactly what she was going to ask.

“Alright,” he leaned forward with his gun extended, “remember…as soon as you see that panel open—”

“I become an Olympic sprinter.”

Zak’s lip curled up at the corner. “You think I don’t know what that means. I have heard of your Olympic games. They’re nothing compared to the Zorgan races on my planet.”

“Oh, sure, sure.
Hit me with the,
my planet is bigger than yours
speech.” Aimee laughed, trying to subdue her apprehension.

Zak looked at her. When he stared at her like that she felt her ears go numb and the world go fuzzy, and all she could see was a golden light…and it beguiled her. It beckoned her. But she could not go to it. The golden light shifted, and he was gone.

***

From her perspective, the Zari looked like a big horse lying on its side with its legs stretched out. The swell of the cockpit resembled the swell of the horse’s belly. She saw Zak slip inside without incident and she finally started to breathe again.

There was light now, but it was a haze bogged down with clouds and wispy vapors. It was like a haunted version of the
Aurora borealis.
Lofty cacti secreted a glistening liquid that trickled down their sides as if the tree was crying. Red-stalked plants spiked out of the ground to form a stockade around Zak’s ship.

Aimee hugged her arms about her and listened for him. What did she expect to hear, him hammering away? She didn’t hear a hammer, but she did hear
something
. It wasn’t coming from the
terra angel
, though. It was coming from
the opposite direction. It sounded like the wind sifting through the underbrush…but there was no breeze. Shifting onto her knees, she leaned forward for a better view. No signal from Zak. The hatch was not open. Her head turned into that whisper of wind as it channeled from the other direction. On it rode the musty scent of cedar and moss.

Aimee squinted, longing for her glasses.

There!
The vegetation wriggled, while the stalks around it remained as straight and stoic as British guards before the Tower of London. In the melee of underbrush, the stretch of a jade trunk emerged. She would have disregarded it as one of the myriad cacti competing with each other for dominance over the rosy skyline, but this trunk was mobile. She followed its progress until it grew and produced branches. No—not branches.
Arms.

A long torso resplendent with leaves emerged and Aimee looked up at the head shadowed beneath a crown of woven vines. Moss grew over a stony face with lifeless eyes the shade of a stagnant pond. She yanked her head back into the shadows.

It was the jolly green giant, and he didn’t look very jolly. Slung across his chest was a weapon akin to a bow and arrow, but from her brief glimpse, she could tell the arrows were much more potent than anything earthly.

To her horror another set of arms and legs trailed—a forest of athletic limbs with a single goal. Aimee swerved her head to follow the trek of their soulless eyes.

Zak.

Could he see them from inside the TA? Was he completely vulnerable to this attack? Damn him for not leaving her with some method of communicating with him.

As elusive as the trickle of a breeze, the tree men advanced.

Think. Think. Think
.

Aimee cast a futile glance at her surroundings, but what single obstacle could she produce to halt them? The green giants were now only ten yards away from Zak's ship. It was hard to see them. It was hard to hear them.

She watched helplessly as they drew their weapons and the first arrow arced towards the
terra angel
. When it struck, an explosion shook the ground beneath her. Her cry of protest was muffled by the next tumult.

Through the melee of fog and smoke Aimee noticed the hatch slide open as return shots volleyed through the air. They weren't like lasers, though. Either they were invisible, or lost in the vapors. Their percussions were evident at impact. One struck a giant in the shoulder as the creature staggered backwards under the impetus. Where he faltered, his teammate rallied and struck the ship again.

Zak was trapped. There was no way he could fend off this assault.

Frantic, Aimee looked out into the trees for some magical weapon. The only advantage she had was that these giant vegetables had no idea she was behind them. She considered running out into the path and waving her hands in the air as a distraction. It could possibly afford Zak a few precious seconds to regroup. But she would be dead before he could do any damage.

Think. Think. Think
.

Another explosion shook the ground. The trunks of the giant cacti shuddered. The motion caused her eyes to latch onto the
over-sized
vines snaked around them. These thick
lanais
were within reach. Without considering the consequences, she lunged out of the cave, grabbed the closest vine, and started to unwind the thick cord.

She was a little freaked by the fact that the plant in her hand squirmed like an earthworm, but there was no time to dwell on it. Crawling into the thicket of trees, she banked on the fact that her tread would be drowned out by the blasts. On
all fours, she braved the clearing between the trunks, passing directly behind the three green men. Bursts of hot air stirred her hair as Zak struck another shot. One of the giants stumbled backwards, nearly colliding with her. She held her breath, but the creature righted himself and drew his bow. Aimee cleared the path behind them, dragging the vine with her. Now she had to find a way to circle back and cross the ground in front of them…
unseen
.