Slag comes to my side and gently forces me onto the ore bucket as he pulls my axe out of my hands. He holds a scolding finger up at me, his silent admonition to take this enforced break, even as he speeds up his pace to extract enough ore for both of us.
I don’t argue, thankful for the quick respite, but after a few minutes, I stand and get back to work. My grandpa used to call this ‘stoop labor’. He wasn’t kidding.
After several more hours pass, my arms are shaking from muscle fatigue. I’m tired to the bone, and my thoughts are hazy. I wonder if I’m already experiencing the first symptoms of radiation poisoning.
Although I have no way of telling time, I imagine it must be close to the blessed relief of the gong. But several more hours pass before I hear the signal.
I’m slightly unsteady on my feet and having trouble thinking, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that Slag filled over half my bucket. I’d be heading toward a lashing if not for him.
He doesn’t carry me today; he carries our two buckets. I shoulder our axes. I may be fuzzy-headed, but I pay attention at every spur, making certain we’re not accosted by some males more interested in raping me than turning in their quota. A few approached, but with one sniff of me and a growl from Slag, they steered away with a grumble.
At the scales, we both pass muster, are given our food rations, and then head back toward our den. Halfway there, Slag bends to invite me to ride his back as I did yesterday, but I can’t rely on him forever and press forward on my own.
I stumble, though, so bleary-eyed I trip over some loose rock. He doesn’t ask my permission this time, just hefts me onto his back as he carries me and the axes to our den.
The water tastes different this time, tinnier than it did yesterday. When a wave of nausea hits, I give up eating my bar before I’m even half done.
I know nothing more about radiation sickness than a person who’s watched more than my share of sci-fi movies, but I think I’ve already contracted it. From what I remember, depending on the dose, it’s fatal.
Shit.
Slag lifts me and gently sets me on the bed of rags. He sits next to me, leans to my level, and tips his head, inspecting me.
I push him away just in time to avoid barfing all over him. Not much comes out. I barely ate any of my bar.
Slag picks me up and carries me to the dripping water. He cleans me, his huge hands surprisingly gentle. Although my translator tells me he’s not saying any words, he’s vocalizing, like one would talk to a kitten. Soft little syllables to indicate concern. If I wasn’t worried about my imminent death, I’d think it was one of the sweetest things anyone’s ever done for me.
He cups water in his hands and dumps it on the floor to clean it, then sits on the little pile of rags with me in his lap. And then this huge mountain of a man, an alien slave in a devilishly hot mine on a nightmare planet, rocks me back and forth in his lap like a child comforts their dolly.
I tip my head down so he won’t see the tears brimming from my eyes. Maybe this isn’t the sweetest thing I’ve ever experienced. Maybe it’s just that I need a crumb of kindness right now, and it’s coming from the most unlikely source. I’ll take it.
I order my muscles to relax as I melt into his granite-hard chest and allow the wave of concern he’s expressing to permeate my barriers. A tiny bitch in the back of my mind predicts this is what humungous green aliens do before they rape you, but at this moment, I refuse to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I lean forward and dry heave, my hands on the stone floor holding me up as wave after wave of nausea hits me. Bile burns the back of my throat as I try to come to terms with the fact that I was right about the radiation poisoning.
Was it only yesterday in Sooma Ryone’s living room that I tried to kill myself? Because right this minute I don’t want to die. Not really. And at the rate things are going, I won’t live to see Ryone again. Which, come to think of it, is the only small blessing to this scenario.
When the lights go out, Slag gets up, then settles me back onto his lap, my back against the muscular wall of his chest.
I’m drowsy, maybe sleeping a bit, when I’m woken by flute music. I wonder for a split second if they play flutes in the hereafter instead of the harps you read about, but I immediately realize I’m still alive and Slag is playing a flute.
That must have been why he got up a moment ago. He must have one possession to his name and he keeps it hidden in a special hideyhole.
I’ve never heard anything this beautiful. How could I think he was just a big, dumb alien when those thick fingers can perform magic on what has to be a handmade flute?
I rearrange myself so my hip nestles against his abdomen and press my cheek against his chest. Listening, I allow the lilting notes of the music to take us soaring on a
