left side was gone. She was also bleeding very badly from her thigh.
My right wrist was cut and I was bleeding out and there were slashes on both our necks close to our jugulars. The little bastards knew just how to kill us.
'I think I am a goner, Steven.' A tear rolled down her face and she started tunneling out on me.
'
CHAPTER 12
We both lay there not moving but holding each other for several minutes. The bleeding had stopped and the wounds had all been healed as though they were never there. Tatiana's broken arm was mended and there was little pain for either of us. Mostly we were in shock as we surveyed the little white room filled with dead alien bodies and the blue-green syrupy blood—mixed with a lot of our own red blood splattered everywhere. It was a hell of a lot to take in.
After several more minutes I could no longer endure the scenery.
A few seconds later and there was nothing left in the room but Tatiana and myself. She was shivering and clinging to me.
'I'm freezing, Steven,' she said in Russian.
The clothes appeared on the floor in front of us. 'See if those fit you.'
She grabbed them and was in them in the blink of an eye. She tossed the torn and bloodied tank top to the floor and pulled the new top over her. The clothes were a perfect fit.
'What about shoes, Steven?'
'Oh, sorry. Hold on.'
A pair of socks and shoes materialized and Tatiana put them on.
'That is amazing technology,' she said in English.
'I agree.' The shock began to subside and survival instincts began to take over. 'I wonder if it can make food. I haven't eaten in days. How about you? Could you eat?'
'Sure! I'm more thirsty though,' she said.
I told the thing a full six-course meal menu complete with wine, dessert, and music. We had also gotten tired of staring at the white walls, so I had them turned into monitor screens that would display the view outside the spacecraft. Slightly below us was Saturn in all of its majesty. The rings were amazingly brilliant from this distance. We were in orbit around Titan, which was beautiful in its own way. I didn't know it was Titan; the SuperAgent told me.
As we ate and relaxed a little, we got to know each other. The computer had assured us that we were in absolutely no danger and could be returned to Earth whenever we pleased. Tatiana filled me in on her story, which was about as sad as mine. Her family had been completely wiped out from the meteors as well. Only her father had survived, and he was now the Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations and had very little time for her. She had apparently been an emotional mess since The Rain and had not recovered well either. She was lonely like I was. We talked about the damned implants and the different drugs we had each been exposed to.
You might think that we should have been more amazed and dazed by the alien technology than we seemed to be. But keep in mind that the two of us had been alone and literally nuts for nearly four years. The most important thing to us at the time was interacting and being with someone and just, well, not being alone. And, of course, there was nothing in the alien spacecraft that my generation hadn't seen in movies or games or on television, so we were quite adapted and prepared for things like nanomachines. Talking and being with someone else was more interesting for us at the time. And I finally had someone to share my loss with, so I told her all of my story—except, that is, for the classified parts.
'That is the saddest thing I have ever heard, Steven.' Tears rolled down her cheeks. 'Your poor puppy dog!'
