And then he’d just walked out.
Not a damn word about what she was supposed to do if they were leaving.
Shouldn’t she and the baby strap into something?
Were they going to be safe just laying around on the bed?
Thankfully, it finally occurred to her that they’d rescued the baby. He mattered to them. They might not care whether she got splattered or not, but they wouldn’t let anything happen to him.
No doubt Hauk would come back or one of the others and take them to wherever they needed to go once they’d gotten everything ready to blast off.
Her belly knotted at that thought.
Was she really ready for this?
Leaving Earth—Not just going somewhere else on the same planet?
Had she been thinking clearly at all?
Chapter Five
“Not really,” Emma muttered. She’d been running on emotion, mostly, not reason. She didn’t think she could gather her wits together enough at the moment to improve her understanding, though, and the truth was she was pretty sure she didn’t actually have any options regardless of what she wanted to do or didn’t.
A not-so-subtle vibration interrupted her thoughts. It grew progressively more pronounced in a very big hurry. The baby let out a yelp and lifted his head. His face was twisted in fear Emma felt all the way through her to her soul.
His distress surpassed hers in her mind, though. She thrust her own terror aside, bailed out of the bunk, and rushed to get the baby.
Something slammed into the ship so hard just as she reached the crib that it threw her to the floor—across the room. She screamed, partly in pain, or at least anticipation of it, but mostly in surprise and fear.
The baby screamed.
Half crawling, she struggled crab-like across the cabin again and grabbed the baby, who was screaming hysterically by that time.
“We’re going to crash! We’re going to die!” Emma babbled mindlessly as she rushed around the room in search of a safe place.
There was nothing to climb under or in to offer any sort of shelter, however, and she finally clambered onto the bunk again, holding the baby tightly and rocking while she tried not to think about the pain that she might feel when she and the baby hit the ground like an insect hitting the windshield of a speeding car.
She was tense with expectation so long every muscle in her body began to complain.
And the baby stopped screaming and began to whine—slower and lower as time elapsed.
She had to make herself relax the bruising grip she had on him.
“Poor baby, poor little baby,” she crooned soothingly. “Mama’s here. Hush, darling.”
Hadn’t it been long enough to crash if they were going to, she wondered after a while?
Was there any possibility they hadn’t hit something or been hit by something that had cracked the ship like an egg?
She couldn’t still her racing mind. It dashed around and around like a wild horse on a tether.
Eventually exhaustion overtook her and her brain shut down—or at least shifted to strange dreams and nightmares.
At some point, worried he might fall off the narrow bunk, she got up and wove a drunken path to the baby’s crib and settled him there where she thought he would be safer before staggering back to the bunk and crashing again.
* * * *
Emma had no idea how long she was out, but the baby woke her.
She lay still for a few moments more, trying to figure out where she was and what was going on.
A light flickered to life, thankfully a dim light like a night light, making her heart trip over itself, but not blinding her.
It illuminated a room so unrecognizable that it just threw her into more confusion when she was able to focus on it, not less.
Then the baby decided not to play nice anymore and let out a demanding wail that instantly alerted her with the certain knowledge that he was saying, ‘I’m hungry, damn it!’
She sat up with a jerk as if she’d been spring boarded, whipping a drunken look around for the bottle.
She always had one ready for late night/early morning feedings so she didn’t have to try to figure out which end to fill or how much to put in it.
No bottle magically appeared.
But an alien did.
If she hadn’t been drunk with fatigue she thought she might have had heart failure when the yellow man moved quickly into the room.
She stared at him bug eyed while he moved to a panel on the far wall and pressed something, then watched while he filled a container with some kind of liquid, replaced the lid, and then put it in a box like thing.
The ding was familiar.
It prompted Emma to bound out of bed and race to the crib where the baby was now sitting up so that he could project his wails of displeasure further.
In case she hadn’t heard his distress call.
The yellow alien man beat her to the crib and lifted the baby out.
The baby ceased bellowing as abruptly as if he’d been gagged.
Well, she supposed he had. The man shoved a bottle into his mouth.
He took a couple of swigs before he realized it wasn’t his usual food and began to fight and wail around the nipple.
The man soothed him with a hand as big as the baby’s head, stroking it over his mostly bald dome. Still complaining, the baby began to suckle the bottle and settled after a moment.
Emma was amazed.
And a little resentful.
He turned and studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “You go eat. I take care ob Runcle Pater.”
Emma felt her jaw sag.
Some of that actually sounded like English.
As impressed as she was, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to leave the baby with him—if that was what he was suggesting.
“I’m fine. I’ll feed him,” she responded, lifting her arms toward the baby.
He didn’t take the hint.
That had to be a universal
