SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“Will it be safe?” she asked.“ Erdlanders do not much like Sualwets.”

“We’ll keep away from the city. But I’d love to show you the forest, and perhaps my home. You might like to see the gardens.”

“You have gardens?”

“Yes, dear girl.” He walked toward the line of trees separating the beach from the dark forest beyond. “But instead of seaweed or the stalky vegetation you grow, we have flowers of every color and vegetables that grow as tall as me.”

Nilafay felt the ground change beneath her webbed feet. The silken sand grew hard and rough, its grains growing into painful pebbles. The sparse trees thickened, becoming larger, closer together, and more menacing. “Perhaps I should return.”

Dr. Rhine frowned. “No, dear girl. You should not.”

Terror seized her stomach. She looked around her and realized she had followed him far enough into the thicket that she could no longer tell which way the sea lay. “Where are we?”

“Where we have always been. We are at war!”

Her panic soared.

Large, hairy bipeds in dark clothing stepped out from behind trees and rushed toward her.

Nilafay ran.

She ran through the densely packed trees, grinding her sensitive feet against the ground. Tears built behind the membrane covering her eyes and distorted her vision. The sun hid above the canopy of leaves to darken the terrain. She stumbled and fell, slicing her hand on a sharp rock. The yelp of pain slipped past her lips before she could bite it back. The next thing she knew, rough, dry hands grabbed her arms, and a loud shout assaulted her ears.

A painful whack struck the back of her head, and she tumbled into darkness.

Darkness slipped into pain with ease. For Nilafay, it felt like the two belonged together. The dark was so complete she could have been at the bottom of the Drop, only her and the prehistoric monsters that dwelled in those primordial depths.

The pressure against her body was wrong though: her lungs inflated with oxygen instead of absorbing it through her flesh. Dry air breezed across her skin leaving her parched.

Her eyes flitted open—only a spark at first, the light a fresh new attack on her senses. It flashed to her brain, reigniting the painful throb she had thought couldn’t get any worse.

“Where am I?” she squeaked out over a thick, dry tongue. Her words sounded scratchy.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

A large, warm hand touched her head. The intimacy of the contact repulsed her. She tried to shift away from it but couldn’t move.

“Shhh, don’t pull now. You’ve been strapped down to keep you from hurting yourself when you wake up. Give yourself a minute to adjust. You’re fine.”

“Where am I?”

“At my home, just as we discussed.”

Nilafay forced her eyes open, squinting until her vision adjusted to the glaring light. Dr. Rhine stood next to her, his large hand still atop her head, his other resting next to her on the strange bed she’d been strapped to. Her legs and arms were immobilized, her head held down with a strap across her forehead. The restraints were tight and bit into her flesh.

“What happened?”

“I’m afraid you stumbled into something you had no idea about. I don’t think you ever intended to be a traitor, but that is what you now are. You are here to aid the efforts of the Erdlander people. Dear girl, we owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“No.” She pulled against the straps, desperate to wiggle loose from her confinement. “I’m not helping you. I need to get home.”

“That’s not possible. You came to us, remember? You came on our land and entered our forest.”

“I thought you were a friend.”

“I am! I’ll keep you safe from the death we’ll be delivering to your people, and I’ll help you fulfill your destiny. You see, we’ve had a series of disappointments with our other test subjects.”

He gestured across the room, and Nilafay turned to look. Along the wall were a row of cages. In each one, a Sualwet man sat chained. One met her eyes, pain and fury in his gaze. Another appeared to be sleeping—or dead, she feared.

“Our females simply could not conceive after your male’s genetics were introduced,” Dr. Rhine continued. “Even the eggs we extracted and attempted to inseminate directly were dead ends. Those that became fertilized grew, but none survived long enough to take a breath. You see, dear Nilafay, what we required, was a Sualwet woman and access to her eggs.”

“You want Sualwet children?”

“Oh no, we want Erdlander children who possess some of your better Sualwet characteristics.” He stood up and walked to her feet, forcing her to look down her body to see him. She had been stripped of her bodysuit, but a thin sheet covered her. “Our aim is to create a stronger, hardier race of Erdlanders who can succeed us when we’re gone. A race who will finally obliterate the Sualwet from the sea.”

Nilafay’s mind spun. He wanted Sualwet children who would kill Sualwets? Did he expect her to mate with one of the men in the cage? His words, spoken in his harsh accent, didn’t make sense.

“When can I go home?”

Her question was answered with laughter. “Oh, certainly not anytime soon. We’ll need to wait for your body to give us enough eggs to fertilize and incubate.”

Dr. Rhine turned to a man sitting at a table near her. She hadn’t noticed him before, but his features were strong and handsome. No facial fur distorted his appearance.

Rhine spoke in his abrasive foreign tongue quickly and loudly. She couldn’t tell if he was scolding the man, but his companion did not appear submissive. Instead, this man nodded and replied, his own words sounding more like the scraping of a rickshaw under the weight of an indulgent Sualwet.

The assistant handed Rhine a syringe.

“This should stimulate your body to produce more eggs than usual,” Rhine told her.“ Our scientists have been studying Erdlander female cycles and believe the same medication will work on you.”

Nilafay struggled as he plunged the syringe into her arm muscle, the contents burning as he emptied it into her veins. The straps holding her in place tightened against her as she tried to pull away.

“In a few days,” Rhine said, “we’ll be able to extract them and begin our work. Until then, we’ll make sure to keep you comfortable.”

He handed the syringe back to the man at the table, and after a few more moments of their awful talk, Dr. Rhine returned his focus to her. “Nilafay, this is my assistant, Dr. Vaughn. He’s going to unstrap you and settle you in to your new”—he paused and gave a wicked smile—“accommodations.” He gestured to the cages and placed his hand on her bare foot.

She tried to pull back, but the strap holding her leg in place forced her to suffer the touch.

“You behave.” He squeezed her foot, and she bit back a growl.

When Dr. Rhine left, the other man approached her. The first thing he did was undo the strap holding her head in place. As soon as it was removed, she attempted to sit up, only to find another strap around her ribs.

“Please, let me go. I have to get home.”

Dr. Vaughn’s heavy brows lifted, scrunching the skin between his eyes and hairline. He looked so strange with all that head fur, like he was weighted down so he didn’t bounce to the surface.

He pointed to himself. “Vaughn.”

A tear broke through the gap between the membrane over her eyes and the world.

He pointed to her. “Nee-la.”

She shook her head, more tears falling. Hearing her private name fall mutilated from his lips was almost more than she could bear. She wanted Adaltan. Her Adal. He was the only one who should ever speak that name.