The river worried Stace. He had been hoping the freeze would stay off long enough for the soldier in his bed to finish healing; a canoe trip upriver with the two aliens would be tough but it would be the quickest way to get them back to civilization. However, the ice was already starting to form on the still edges and from upstream small chunks would float past. In a few days it would be incredibly unsafe for his canoe, and not long after that it would be impossible. Stace set up his gillnet and thought about praying for some fish, but he never knew who to pray to and he was pretty certain it didn’t make a difference. He would just hope his net didn’t freeze in place before he came back to get it.

Walking the short distance back to the cabin, Stace considered his options. He didn’t know if he could supplement his larder enough with hunting and fishing for all of them. He had planned on living out of his pantry through the winter, but he hadn’t prepped enough for guests. He might need to break out his rifle and look for bigger game. Stace had been bow hunting for the last couple years, trying to preserve his ammo and enjoying the thrill of the chase, but he also hadn’t been hurting for food. A mix of farming and fishing kept his stock high and the hunting was more for variety and added protein.

Once he made it into the vestibule, Stace pulled off his coat, then his hat. As soon as his ears were clear, he stopped. He could hear voices in the cabin. Voices. More than one.

Stace practically threw himself into the cabin, startling the two aliens. Ayen had pulled the stool next to the bed and was talking quietly with the soldier, a cup of water in his hand. The woman was propped up on a couple pillows and gave Stace a look he could not identify as he came up. Scared? Determined? He couldn’t tell. “Please tell me you speak English,” he said, trying to keep the hope out of his voice as he came close.

As soon as he got in range, the soldier’s hand shot forward, grabbing Stace’s forearm near the elbow. Despite her obvious fatigue, the grip was painfully strong and only got stronger as she started to speak.

“I don’t know how you did what you did, but you are not going to get away with killing my soldiers and kidnapping us. By the time the Shil’vati are done with you there won’t be anything left. If you release us right now I might ask them to be lenient but I swear to the Goddess that I will personally destroy you and everyone you love if you don’t let us go,” the woman said, her voice starting low but becoming loud and feverish as she continued her rant. Stace tried to interrupt but he couldn’t get a word in as she continued to pour out a stream of words powered by grief and anger. Stace tried to tune her out as the threats continued, but the ache in his arm increased as her vise-like grip tightened. Finally, he had had enough and he did something he knew he would probably regret later.

He poked her.

Her howl of pain and the moan following it as she let him go to clutch at her wound should have felt satisfying, but Stace was too frustrated, too stunned by her reaction to take any pleasure in another person’s pain. Turning away, he picked up the twisted piece of purple metal from its place on the table, still black in patches from her dried blood. Stace tossed it in her lap, then slammed the door on his way out.

—

Ayen stared at the woman in shock. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but it definitely wasn’t good.

“What did you just say to him?”

The soldier stopped staring at the closed door and turned to Ayen, her pain-filled grimace turning slowly into a sly smile. She gave his wrist a pat, then started talking. “You don’t need to worry, you’re safe. These insurgents can be trouble, but they know better than to kill prisoners. He probably just wants a ransom, which of course he won’t get but we don’t need to tell him that. Once I put the fear of the Goddess into him he’ll let us go.”

Ayen could feel himself starting to shake from his building rage. “I want to start screaming at you but that won’t help anything.” He spoke quietly through clenched teeth. “Instead, I am going to ask you again. What did you just say to him?” As soon as the woman opened her mouth, Ayen raised his hand to interrupt her.

“I want you to tell me, as accurately as you can, what you just yelled at the man who saved both our lives and pulled you out of a burning shuttle wreck.” Once she started to talk, he interrupted again. “I want you to be a clear as possible when you explain to me, in detail, why you practically assaulted the man who removed twenty centimeters of shrapnel from your abdomen and stitched your guts back together. And then I want you to pray to the Goddess that he doesn’t just “let us go” because if he kicks us out we will be frozen to death by nightfall. Please. Explain.”

The look of dawning horror on the woman’s face didn’t make up for how angry Ayen felt, but it sure helped.

—

The sharp crack of the ax splitting the birch log carried through the trees as Stace worked his way through his “angry pile” of firewood. He had found in his younger years that the knotty, branched wood that was a pain to split was great for working out some aggression with a wedge and a splitting maul. When Stace had worked his way down the river, choosing his campsite and future home, he didn’t have much room in his canoe but he made sure to throw in the heads for a splitting maul, a sledge, and a few other tools. Over the years he had carved and broken several handles for each but the savings in weight and space meant he was able to be a little better prepared. He had books showing him how to make stone tools in a pinch but he was hoping to never need to.

Even though the purple alien’s words had set him off, he wasn’t thinking about her. Instead, Stace was back a dozen years, thinking about the funeral and the aftermath. The same sort of shouting and accusations had come out of his mother-in-law’s mouth. She had even grabbed his arm the same way as she yelled, accusing Stace of corrupting her son.

According to her, Daniel’s cancer wasn’t from genetics or those damnable cigarettes he smoked or sheer dumb luck, it was divine punishment, a symptom of the evil Stace had inflicted on her son by loving him. In her mind, their relationship had stolen her perfect boy away from her, ignoring the simple truth that Daniel had realized that he didn’t need his nasty homophobe of a mom in his life. He had chosen his own family. The woman shouted and threw things and caused such a scene that Stace couldn’t deal with the anxiety and, just like today, he left. Of course, that meant later on she could throw “abandoning her son’s funeral” to the list of imagined crimes he had committed, but that was a problem of a different sort.

Right now, Stace’s mind kept circling back to accusations and blame. He worked on autopilot, stacking and splitting firewood, seeking the calm numbness that he had cultivated over the last few years. Slowly, inch by inch, he was able to push the emotions down and reclaim his tranquility.

Stace hadn’t done much more than grab his ax on his way out, and though he hadn’t grabbed his coat he didn’t feel cold at all. In fact, the frozen air felt good on his overheated flesh. His undershirt was damp with sweat and the constant motion kept him feeling warm. Stace felt like he could keep this up for hours.

—

By the time Ayen had finished filling the woman in on their situation, her entire attitude had changed from grim determination and bravado to subdued horror. Her name was Elera Heleum, and she was the Pod Captain in charge of the group of soldiers on the shuttle. She was trying to put on a brave face but Ayen was good enough at reading people to know at least some of how she felt.

“So this human, Ustuz or whatever, just happened to be nearby?” Her suspicion was plain on her face.

“As far as I can tell. I don’t know how far away we are from the crash, but I wouldn’t expect it to be more than a couple kilometers at the most.”

“Seems… convenient.”

“For us, definitely. For him, I don’t think so.” Ayen’s smooth face twisted into an uncharacteristic frown. “I don’t think he likes people in general. I can’t help but feel like we’re interrupting something by being here.”

Elera let out a quiet hum. “So why is he helping us then? Just afraid of getting into trouble with the Shil’vati government if he doesn’t give aid? Hoping to get some sort of reward? What’s his angle?”

Ayen flushed a little, a quick memory of how comfortable he felt cuddled up with the human in front of the fire. He had an inkling of what sort of reward Stace might like, but he certainly wasn’t going to put that into words. “I think he might just be a good person.”

The large woman shifted in the bed slightly, wincing in pain before she shook her head. She clearly either did not notice Ayen’s reaction or didn’t want to say anything. “Everybody has something they want. Probably something the new government can provide him. Now that you have a woman here who can speak the language and take command, I’ll get him sorted out.”

Ayen spent a moment obviously staring at the bandages wrapping her abdomen. There were a few new spots of blood from where Stace had given his opinion on that course of action. Elera seemed to deflate slightly as she understood the wordless comment. “I think we should just be open and honest with him. Treat him like you would treat any Shil’vati.”

“Listen, I understand. He’s been nice to you, he saved both of our lives, I’m not saying he’s bad, but he’s a human. They resent us for taking over their planet. They all have some sort of agenda. You’re new here, but I’ve been here since the beginning. We took over pretty easily but they have been fighting us in all sorts of ways since then. My guess? We found one of those humans that was leading the military during the initial occupation. Some of them went into hiding. Maybe he sees us as a way to get a pardon so he can rejoin society or something. We can work with that.” Elera nodded to herself. “It all makes sense. He probably has medical training from being a soldier. This cabin looks pretty old, he probably built it right after we arrived and he had to hide. Didn’t have the tits to keep fighting to the end.”

Everything she said fit together and made sense, but to Ayen it just felt wrong. He could see two different pictures of Stace in his mind’s eye; one was some sort of military mastermind, the image that Elera seemed to have made up whole cloth, and the other was the kind man who seemed to be doing his best to keep the two of them alive even to his own detriment. Try as he might, he just couldn’t get the two pictures to come together. He would have go get Stace and ask.

—

Elera laid back on the lumpy, uncomfortable bed as Ayen made preparations to go outside. It was clear to her that the male civilian was too naive, too trusting. That said, she didn’t believe her own theory either, not really. It was important to be confident and set a good example. Elera gave a little wave as Ayen pulled on a bulky, oversized coat clearly too large for him and worked through the doors. At least the blast of cold air as he went through lent some credence to his tale.

As soon as she was alone, Elera made her move. Rather, she tried to. Her plan had been to ransack the room, find a weapon, and make sure she was ready in case things turned rough. Even if you hope for the best, you need to be prepared for the worst. Instead, Elera started to roll onto her side, preparing to get off the bed, only to have a shooting pain deep in her belly curl her into a ball. Well shit.

Rolling onto her back again, she noticed new spots of blood leaking through the bandages. She was being an idiot, and she knew it. She just felt so impotent. Her entire pod was dead and she hadn’t even been able to help. Her memory of the crash was hazy. Elera remembered strapping in and chatting with the girls. They were half-jokingly blaming each other for making the cute guy move to the cockpit when the whole ship shuddered and rocked. They strapped in and braced for a crash but everything after that was a blur. She lost everything in an instant.

With a yell of frustration, Elera banged her fists on the bed again and again. She stopped when she felt the bed frame shift alarmingly. Looking down, she noticed a crack in the wood corresponding with the flat spot she had left in the wood from the repeated strikes. The frame, the rough blanket, even Elera’s arm was flecked with spots of dark blood. With a sheepish look, she inspected the side of her hand. The cut was superficial, but even a small cut got messy when you stupidly slammed it into a piece of lumber. As she heard the door to the outside slam, Elera sheepishly rearranged the blankets on her lap to cover up the damage.

—

“Stace.” The human was at the side of the cabin, stacking firewood. He seemed to be in a trance, not really focusing on anything. At least he didn’t seem angry anymore. After standing still for a moment, Stace turned and seemed to recognize Ayen. He pulled himself together and gave a small smile and a nod. Ayen waved his arm in a beckoning gesture and was somewhat surprised to see Stace obediently following him back into the house.

Once they were back inside, Stace took off his dripping shirt, soaked with sweat and melted snow. He flipped it onto the drying rack next to the fire and stood there, eyes closed, warming himself and drying his reddened skin. Ayen glanced over at Elera, who was staring at the shirtless man with a very non-professional look on her face. Goddess protect us, this is just what they needed right now. With the two distracted, Ayen moved over to the chest of drawers he was inspecting before. He quietly slid open the second drawer and took a peek.

His face flushed dark with embarassment, Ayen slammed the drawer and opened the next one. Definitely wasn’t what he was looking for. The third drawer was a success, though, and Stace turned from the sound of the drawer slamming just in time to get hit in the face with a worn, rough-woven wool shirt. Elera’s quiet “aww” didn’t escape Ayen’s notice, and he shot her a quick glare.

:Tell him to dry his feet.:

:Huh?: Elera looked at Ayen in pure confusion. :What did you say?:

:Well, since I’m obviously going to have to father the both of you, and I don’t speak his language, you need to tell him to warm up and dry his feet. Something’s wrong with him, he seems out of it.: Ayen pointed at her. :So talk to him. Maybe you’ll be able to figure it out.:

—

“Human.” Stace didn’t react. He was trying to decide if it was an insult to call him by his species or if the alien honestly didn’t know his name. “Ustaz?”

“Eustace,” he corrected automatically before looking up and locking eyes with the large purple alien. She had the same gold rings floating in ink eyes as Ayen, but on her they seemed harder, more aggressive. “My friends call me Stace.”

The alien gave a small, plastic smile, her dark lips framed by two larger, sharper tusks than what the smaller male seemed to have. “Your friend Ayen,” she said, glancing at the Shil’vati male glaring at her, “wanted me to remind you to take care of your feet.”

Stace sighed and pulled the chair over to the fire, pulling off his boots and starting to slowly unwind the sweat-soaked bandages his feet were wrapped in. “You can tell him I was going to and he doesn’t have to worry. It’s not a big deal. It’s healing up just fine.”

The two aliens spoke to one another briefly as Stace massaged his feet with his hands a little at a time. Thanks to his clever positioning of the chair, he was pretty sure they couldn’t get a good look and besides, it’s not like they were going to be experts on human frostbite. His toes on both feet were red and blistered, with the redness creeping up his right foot from the toes halfway to the ankle. Stace wasn’t sure if it would actually heal on its own, but he wasn’t holding out much hope for it.

After what seemed like a brief argument, the soldier spoke again. “I… feel that I should apologize. I misread the situation earlier and I just assumed the worst. I just lost my podmates and I took it out on you, but I am sure you can empathize. After all, our occupation is still fresh in many minds.”

“No.” Stace didn’t even look up as he continued massaging some warmth into his feet.

“No?” The woman sounded confused, wrong-footed by a response she clearly hadn’t expected. “You don’t forgive me?”

Stace waved a hand. “Don’t worry about that. It just made me think of… other things. What I mean by ‘no’ is that I have no idea what you are talking about.”

He could hear the incredulity in her voice. “You don’t know about us? The Shil’vati? The empire?”

“Nope.” Stace gave up on his feet and propped them up by the fire, turning to look across the room at the topless alien. “I am pretty sure I would remember seeing someone like you two.” He gave Elera an appraising look, Taking in her short dark hair, her indigo skin, the sharp angular face. Her tusks were larger and more prominent than Ayen’s, and speaking of prominent…

With everything that had been going on, Stace had seen Elera’s body but he hadn’t really looked at it. Now that attitudes seemed to have cooled and the crises were over for now, he could appreciate her muscular torso and large, full breasts. Her dark nipples were tight and prominent in the cold. “You are very… distinctive.” As his eyes continued to slide down, he noticed the fresh, dark blood soaking through her bandages. With a sigh, Stace began quickly wrapping his feet back up. There was always more work to be done.

Stace tried to play nurse to the large soldier in his bed, with limited success. He thought he was doing a good job until Ayen pushed him away. Through some gestures, Stace got the vague impression that Ayen had decided that it was his job to care for the woman from now on, since Stace already did his part. Either that or Ayen was trying to protect the giant from Stace for… some reason. It was hard to tell.

With no common language, Stace wasn’t sure how he was going to manage to teach Ayen everything he was going to need to know to survive out here. The supplies he had stored up for the winter wouldn’t last them long with three people, and even with two it would be touch and go. Especially since Stace was sure that the massive woman would eat for two on her own once she was up. You didn’t get that big on 2000 calories a day.

The storm would likely take another day or two to pass completely, Stace knew. It had come on quickly and it would leave quickly, but until then there wasn’t much to do. The first time Stace had grabbed his wooden snow shovel and went to clear off the roof, Ayen had acted like he was going to help. As soon as the door opened, though, the little guy was shivering so bad he looked like he was going to vibrate over. The human had tried to tell the lilac alien to go inside, but he just put on a brave face and tried to stick it out. Stace had closed the door, then bodily lifted Ayen up by the shoulders and sat him in the chair in front of the fire. That settled that.

After clearing the roof, Stace limped in and warmed himself up as best he could. Ayen was glaring at him, but clearly hadn’t moved from his seat. Stace looked the little alien over, still wearing the same battered clothes he fell to earth in, and had an idea. Digging through one of the wooden chests piled against one wall, he came up with a heavy long-sleeved cotton shirt and some long underwear. Both were in fairly rough shape, with holes and stains, but that could all be mended. Convincing Ayen to stand there and wear the hilariously oversized clothing while Stace figured out how to take it in took some doing, but Stace couldn’t help but smile at the result. Ayen was cute when he blushed.

The size difference between the two of them turned out to be a lot more helpful than Stace had expected. He was able to take in the clothing by cutting out the damaged sections and in the end he had enough fabric left over from the pantlegs to make some thin cotton gloves. Sewing wasn’t his best skill but he had needles and thread and had years of doing his own mending to help bridge the gap. It wasn’t going to win any fashion awards but the lilac alien seemed happy to have another layer of clothing between himself and the winter chill.

By the end of their first real day together, Stace felt like the two of them had made real progress. They had gotten at least a few gestures down and the two of them could say “yes,” “no,” and at least a couple swears in each other’s language. They had a pleasant meal together, though Stace realized that he was going to have to make some more cutlery and such. trying to eat with a ladle while Ayen had the only regularly-sized spoon was just a little humiliating.

Stace ended the evening by grabbing every blanket, hide, and fur he could find that was in good condition and making up a bed of sorts by the fire for Ayen. Stace took his blanket, wrapped himself up as best he could in his chair, and tried to drift off to sleep, ignoring the strange looks he was getting from the alien lying on the floor.

—

Stace was infuriating. Ayen was sure of it. He had suspected it when the human had PICKED HIM UP like a child and sat him down when he tried to be helpful (though, truth be told, Ayen was grateful for not having to go into that blizzard outside). His suspicions were reinforced when Stace humiliated him by making him wear those gigantic clothes so he could take them in (did the man not own a measuring tape?). But now, after this morning, Ayen was sure of it.

Stace had assumed that Ayen was asleep, but it had gotten too hot under his pile of blankets and animal skins. Ayen had looked over and watched as Stace climbed out of his chair, wincing in pain and trying to stretch the kinks out of his back. The floor was hard, but it was at least flat and between the furs and the blankets Ayen had been comfortable while Stace had apparently twisted himself silly trying to sleep in a Goddess-damned chair of all things.

That human had been treating Ayen like he was the cute little prince and Stace was the big strong warrior princess come to rescue him, and honestly he didn’t know how to react. He was scared for the future and he missed his wife but Stace gave off a feeling of… stability. This place he was stuck in was old and lived in and Stace must have been here for a long time. Ayen could feel the gravity of the place, like Stace’s life in the middle of this horrible corner of this bizarre planet had somehow pulled him to it and now he was caught by its pull.

Caught by an idiot who was clearly not taking care of himself. Ayen had seen Stace limping worse when he woke up and had feigned sleep while the human changed the bandages on his feet, wincing and tapping his toes with his fingers to test for sensation. It was obvious Stace wasn’t pleased with the results. Ayen lay there in thought, eyes closed, trying to discern a way through this situation. He had to treat it like an exercise in one of his preparatory classes. Lay out the problems, find the ones with solutions, solve those first. He let the words form like a list in his head, glowing letters in the blackness.

Problem 1 – I am stranded on an alien world and everyone probably thinks I am dead. Not much I can do about that.

Problem 2 – Outside is a frozen hellscape that will kill anybody dumb enough to go outside. Can’t do much about that either.

Problem 3 – I have no way to contact the outside world. Again, no immediate way to solve it.

Problem 4 – My infuriating but kind of lovable native guide is a dumbass when it comes to taking care of himself. This one I can work with. It’s almost like being home with Marin.

Feigning that he just woke up, Ayen let out a loud yawn and stretched while Stace hurriedly finished wrapping his feet back up, doing a very poor job of looking nonchalant. He might as well have been singing to himself. While Stace wrapped himself up in his blanket, Ayen started reorganizing the pile of fur and cloth he had been using as a bed.

Once he had it spread out a bit, Ayen went over to where Stace was curling back up in his chair. “Stace.” The human didn’t react. “Stace.” The human opened an eye and looked at Ayen, then said some human word that Ayen didn’t understand. Grunting in exasperation, Ayen wrapped his thin fingers around Stace’s wrist and pulled. The human got up to his feet warily, clearly unsure of what was going on.

Pulling the somewhat resistant human like a child, Ayen pointed at the makeshift bed.

:Get in the bed.:

“What?”

:Get in the bed, you idiot. You’re going to hurt yourself sitting in a chair.:

Stace pointed at Ayen, then pointed at the bed. Then he pointed at himself, and pointed at the chair. Ayen was really beginning to get tired of this. He pointed at Stace, then the bed, then himself, then the bed again. When Stace’s face began to redden slightly and his eyes opened just a little wider, Ayen knew the point was made.

Ayen had been a little worried with his plan. If Stace was a woman and Ayen made this sort of suggestion, there was no way it would end well. There would be expectations that come with this type of invitation and the two of them didn’t have the language to talk it out. He thought it would be safer with a male, but he had heard the stories about how sex-crazed humans were, how they didn’t even care about the sexes and would rut with any and everything. Somehow, those rumors just didn’t seem real when compared to the genuine article. Still, he wasn’t expecting the reaction he got.

Stace shook his head, brushed Ayen’s hand aside, and turned to head back to the chair. He got about a step before Ayen’s hand slapped the back of his head. Stace turned, looking surprised more than hurt.

:You. Idiot. Bed. Now.:

Ayen pointed and, with a sigh, Stace clambered his way down onto the floor. Ayen noticed that he took the spot farthest from the fire, but he wasn’t going to argue it. Ayen laid down between the human and the fire and it wasn’t long before both were fast asleep.

In the morning, Ayen awoke to a warm breath tickling his ear. He thought of Marin for a moment, her strong arms and powerful legs wrapping him up after a night of lovemaking, but he came to his senses quickly. He was still in the little cabin, his back and hips pressed up against not his wife but a male, a HUMAN male of all things. One of Stace’s arms was draped over him, but he was hardly trapped. He felt warm and comfortable in a way he hadn’t for a long time. Ayen closed his eyes and rocked himself backwards a little, feeling Stace close up around him, arm wrapping tighter and some alien words mumbled in his ear. For the first time since the crash, Ayen truly believed that everything would work out.

—

Stace woke up to the smell of frying food and a refreshing lack of an ache in his back. He stretched out and let out a deep groan of pleasure, nearly tripping the small booted feet standing between him and the fire. Ayen was there, frying something in the small cast iron pan Stace had dragged with him from civilization.

Only letting out a small wince of pain, Stace clambered to his feet and leaned over Ayen’s shoulder to look. There were caribou sausages frying in the pan, spitting and hissing. Clearly Ayen had raided the pantry while Stace was asleep. As Stace watched, still bleary, Ayen took two wooden skewers and deftly flipped the sausages with one hand, shaking the pan with the other.

“Don’t overcrowd them,” Stace said, reaching out to point at the pan only to earn a quick and light slap across the knuckles with the skewers. He put on a hurt face and a fake frown, then turned away with a grin. He didn’t need to look to know Ayen had a matching smile, if a little more toothy. Tusky? Stace gave himself a mental reminder to look up the difference between tusks and teeth.

Once Stace was fully stretched and had made a quick trip to the outhouse, it was time to examine their patient. She seemed to be sleeping calmly, with no trace of fever. He pulled up a corner of the bandages and examined the incision and puncture site. The staples were holding it together and the purple flesh seemed to be healthy, if strangely blue and raw. His brain dredged up the word “granulation” as he looked at the wound. It was healing well and significantly faster than he had expected it to. Maybe she was genetically modified or had nanobots or there was an implanted medical tracker releasing hormones or any number of things. Or maybe she just healed fast. Stace honestly had no clue.

Breakfast was quick but nice. Ayen seemed to be well satisfied by the grunts of pleasure and thanks Stace gave him while eating, but truth be told Stace’s mind was wandering. He was trying to remember the last time someone had cooked for him. If he didn’t count restaurants or drive through…

Stace snapped to attention at hearing his name called. Ayen was offering him the last of the sausages, a look of concern on his face at the human’s distance. Stace shook his head to the negative, then began to get dressed.

“I am going to check for storm damage, maybe do some fishing. We need more food.” He knew the alien couldn’t understand him, but he felt like he had to at least say something. After a moment of staring at each other, Stace pointed at himself and the door, then at Ayen and the soldier before pointing at the floor. “I am going out, you two stay here.” Ayen nodded and began tidying up the dishes.

Snow was still falling, but most of the storm had passed and the large, fluffy flakes were more of a mild inconvenience than anything else as Stace began inspecting his little cabin and the surrounding grounds. Over the years he had built something he could be proud of, but as he looked it over Stace couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was time to move on. Things had been changing in the world outside and he might want to be a part of it again. Then again, he might not live to see it. Time would tell.

—

As soon as Stace was gone, back outside in the cold, Ayen did something he had promised himself he wouldn’t do. He started snooping.

Well, it wasn’t snooping, he told himself. He was going to be living here and if that was the case he would need to know exactly what was going on, what was available. He couldn’t be helpful if he didn’t have a firm grasp on the situation.

Ayen had taken stock of the provisions in the cellar/cooler/pantry type room in the morning, and even if he didn’t recognize most of the vegetables or strange cuts of meat he could at least tell what was edible. He had recognized the sausage as a component in the stew they had the night before and Ayen was proud of his cooking skills when he had an actual kitchen to work with instead of, well, this.

Next on his list was the strange room that lead to the outside. It was an airlock of sorts, separating the cold outside from the warm inside. Stace used the vestibule for storing tools, outdoor layers of clothing, and other odds and ends that could handle the cold. To the left was a small door he had missed at first, leading to perhaps the worst part of being stranded here: the “outhouse”. A literal hole in the ground to shit in while sitting on a smooth piece of wood. The first time he used it Ayen was sure he was going to end up with butt splinters or fall into the dark abyss below. It was freezing in there too, barely warmer than the outside.

After giving one last glare at the outhouse door, Ayen went back into the main room. There were lots of boxes, crates, and even a chest of drawers to look through. As he inspected each, he could see a sort of progression. The oldest, most battered boxes were also the most crudely made, and each successive generation seemed to improve in quality. The least banged up was the small dresser. Since that would be the easiest to check (and the easiest one to hide the evidence), he decided to look that over first.

The top drawer slid open easily and revealed a piece of oiled leather folded over, hard lumps underneath. He unwrapped it carefully, revealing two weapons of unfamiliar design. On was some sort of long gun, a meter of dark wood and matte silver steel. Holding his hand up to the stock, Ayen noticed that his fingers would be going through loops of steel, a smaller loop for his trigger finger and a larger one for the rest. Across the top was a magnifying optic made of glass and metal.

Below the rifle was a handgun, a very different design than what Ayen had found in the duffel bag but still instantly recognizable in its function. He could see five individual empty chambers in a circular pattern attached to the frame and a large grip with a spiked lever above it. The barrel was a tube wide enough he could slide a finger in. Underneath both was a box made of paper and stained with oil. Ayen’s hands trembled slightly as he opened it and looked inside.

The ammunition inside gleamed, straight brass cases with darker copper caps. Ayen slipped one out and held it in his hand. It was nearly the size of his thumb. He knew very little about weapons in general, but the sheer size and weight of it left him uneasy. He carefully slid the round back in the box, then put everything back and closed the drawer. Of course Stace would have a weapon, there were probably turox-sized monsters out there and there was meat in the pantry. Knowing where it was in case of an emergency is a good thing. Perhaps Ayen could convince Stace to show him how they work. That would make him feel more at ease, at least.

Ayen was about to continue with the next drawer when he was stopped by a quiet noise coming from the bed behind him.

Devastated.

There was really no other word to explain how Marin Elbruk felt. It was like her heart had been ripped from her chest.

She had taken a day of leave to clean up the apartment. Ayen would tease her no matter how well she cleaned, but taking the time to move the dirty clothes into a hamper, bag up all the takeout containers, and putting away what she could would at least mitigate the comments some. She wanted him to see that she could take care of herself and that their two years apart hadn’t reduced her to some sort of living disaster.

The knock at the apartment door gave her a moment of panic. It would be just like him to find a way to show up early and catch her unprepared. Marin booted the last of her dirty clothes under the bed and pranced her way to the door. She flung it open excitedly to find not her pretty purple husband but a large woman in a military uniform.

“Marin Elbruk?” The formally-dressed soldier was boxy, an older woman with her hair pulled back tight and wide shoulders. The uniform was tight enough to show a rather impressive chest over a hint of paunch. Despite being the same height, she made Marin feel small. She had always been less well-endowed than her peers and her more slender frame added to her feeling overwhelmed in her pajamas and bare feet. “I am afraid I have some bad news.”

Bad news was, of course, an understatement. The soldier explained that there had been an accident at the orbital station. One of the shuttles hadn’t managed to fully unlatch from the station and when it tried to move away the resulting torque cracked part of a bulkhead. The loading area had been briefly exposed to vacuum and by the time the rupture was sealed, nearly two dozen Shil’vati had lost their lives. Marin’s husband had been one of those lives.

The soldier had explained to Marin, in too much detail, that the air pressure venting from the station must have pushed Ayen out into space. They weren’t able to find his body, but they were able to track his cracked, vacuum-scarred data pad floating in the void. Now that was the only thing she had left of a partner she had loved but had not seen in years.

It wasn’t until long after the older woman had left that Marin realized that she had never given her name.

—

“What was that all about, you think?” The two humans stood at the glass double doors and watched the large Shil’vati soldier walk back to her car, another soldier already opening the rear door for her. It was an impressive vehicle, not quite a van, not quite a truck, not quite a tank. It had a rough, angular look and the purple steel favored by the Shil’vati didn’t look quite as garish as it could have.

“Hard to say. Probably some military secret. She smelled like one of those Interior agent folks.”

“Well I think she smelled nice.”

“You think everybody smells nice.”

“Think she’ll be back?”

“Let’s hope not. Those hard drives she took are coming out of the snack budget.” The man shrugged, then continued. “At least she didn’t smash anything. I don’t even know what budget a new primary mirror would come out of.”

His partner shrugged, then grabbed his hand as they went back inside. “Probably the ‘time to find new jobs’ budget.” They let out a small sigh. “We should probably be doing that anyway.”

—

Marin was very good at her job. She had been doing data analysis for the military for years, and even if the rank and file soldier thought she was just holding down a desk she knew her work was important. Information was her weapon and she was an expert marksman, which made her current problems even more frustrating.

She had planned to throw herself into her work, try to bury the ache inside her, but the death kept nagging at her. It just didn’t make sense. Accidents did happen, of course, but it wasn’t on any of the news feeds. When she had requested a few extra days of leave, none of her superiors knew about the incident at the space station. At least, they claimed to know nothing. Trying to find the soldier who had told her about Ayen’s death was another dead end. It was like chasing a ghost.

Of course, that ghost did not expect Marin Elbruk. She started approaching the problem obliquely. Sure, the ghost didn’t leave any evidence, but her passing did. Marin found a gap in the motor pool requisitions, a ground car that had been unavailable for use during the same time period as the soldier’s visit to her apartment, despite there being no requisition or maintenance ticket to explain why it was tagged out of service.

Tracing it back, she found a trans-orbital vechicle that had visited the space station of Ayen’s disappearance. Nothing out of place on the crew or cargo manifests, but some quick math showed that the fuel consumption indicated a mass a full 192 kilograms heavier than the combined manifests. Her ghost looked to weigh about that. “Got you, bitch.”

Twenty-six hours after receiving the news about her husband, Marin knew Commander Silia Marek, Shil’vati Military Comptroller and secret Interior agent. More importantly, Marin knew where she had been. Marin had been the first stop the agent had made after examining the station. Losing a husband must have afforded Marin the privilege of a special visit. After that, Marek had traveled from Base Sixteen to a place completely unexpected. An unusual sub orbital flight to the middle of nowhere, a place called Durango, Colorado. Motor pool records showed that the orbital was loaded with a small personnel carrier, and mileage reports on THAT gave Marin a circle to work out from.

As she began to throw some clothes in a duffel for her trip, another knock on the door threw Marin’s heart into her throat. She opened the door to find a pile of luggage, hard-shelled lightweight metal with tasteful leather accents. Marin started to laugh. If the Goddess was going to send her any sign that Ayen was still alive, having her send his luggage ahead of him was just the sort of thing he would have asked Her to do.

—

Samuel opened the door to see a very disheveled looking Shil’vati. They hadn’t been expecting anybody and seeing the rental van coming up the winding path did NOT prepare him for the reality of seeing his second alien in as many days. While the first one was a broad, tough, no-nonsense type, this one looked rough. There were bags under her eyes and her hair clearly hadn’t been brushed in days. Her clothing was hanging on her loosely and her posture was terrible. Before she could open her mouth to speak, an arm shot past Samuel’s shoulder and grabbed the Shil’vati by the wrist.

“Oh you poor thing, get in here and let’s get you settled.” Samuel turned to the side as the unkempt indigo amazon was pulled bodily into the room by his partner. Watching five feet of dark skin and bleached hair pull the Shil’vati into the room was like watching a tugboat pull a tanker. A confused, exhausted tanker.

Moments later, the woman was taking up most of a beat up love seat in the foyer of the large building. “You look like you need some coffee. Or tea.” The elfin figure looked her in the eyes. “Nope. This is a job for hot chocolate.” They scampered away.

“…what just happened?”

Samuel shook his head and plopped down on an adjacent chair, dust puffing out around him. “They’ll do that. Just let it happen. Sam likes to mother people.”

A faint cry of “I heard that!” came from the breakroom.

“I, um, I am here to-” and the woman was interrupted by an enormous steaming coffee mug being stuffed into her hands. “…why do you have Shil’vati sized mugs?”

“Oh, that’s mine!” A hand was thrust out for a fist bump. The hand was as small as the rest of them, connected to a rail-thin body with chocolate brown skin. Their eyes were shining, thin silver spectacles with thick lenses magnifying the emerald orbs so they seemed to dominate the small, round face. The hair was a bleached blond puff sticking no more than a couple centimeters from their head. “Sammi Painter-Forscythe.”

After a moment of pause, the woman released the mug with one hand and returned the fist bump. “Marin Elbruk.” She took a sip from the mug, then released a pent up sigh. “this is… really good.”

“Yeah, Sammi takes pride in comforting beverages.” Samuel held up his own fist for a bump. “Samuel Forscythe-Painter, at your service.”

—

Marin knew she was not at her best, but she was wholly unprepared for the sheer strangeness of her visit to the Painter Planetarium, Observatory, and Science Center. It was in the middle of nowhere, and since Marin didn’t want to leave a trail of her own she had taken some cash and rented a human vehicle. Over twenty hours of driving up to an elevation where the air was thin and Marin knew she was at her limit. The smart thing to do would have been to stop at a hotel or at least park the van and take a nap, but every time she thought about Ayen she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting. If he was still alive somewhere, her husband needed her.

Then she knocked on the door and was pulled in by that little tornado and the other human. She found herself in a foyer on a dusty leather sofa across from the two of them. At least the hot chocolate was good.

Samuel was small for a male with short brown hair and pale blue eyes. He had the clean and smooth look she would expect more from a Shil’vati male, not the more muscular feminine look many human men strove for. Sammi was… Marin couldn’t quite figure out the words. “I, well… don’t your names get confusing?”

Samuel shrugged. “I don’t see why. When I say Sam, I’m referring to them. When they say Sam, they’re referring to me.”

“But what if other people are talking about the two of you?”

Samuel and Sammi looked at each other before Sammi asked, “why would anybody want to do that?”

‘Why wouldn’t they?’, Marin thought to herself. If she had friends to chat with she would definitely be talking about these two. “Why are your last names so… however they are?”

“Oh, that one’s easy!” Sammi grabbed Samuel’s hand and held it up in both of theirs, showing matching rings. “We’re married!”

“We took each other’s names, but kept our own. So I started with Forscythe and got a bonus Painter, and they started with Painter and got a bonus Forscythe. I get the feeling that you didn’t come here to talk about our relationship, though. Unless you’re some sort of Shil’vati anthropolgist.”

“Oooh, are you?!” Sammi bounced up and down in… their? chair.

“No…” Marin let out a long sigh and settled deeper into the couch. “I’m here to-“

Marin woke up sprawled diagonally across a bed, fully clothed. Looking around, she found a small room with a tiny dresser, a nightstand, a television hanging on the wall, and two doors, one closed and the other open, showing a small tiled bathroom. It was like waking up in a hotel. On the nightstand was a pitcher of water, a glass, her datapad, and a note.

Marin – you must have been exhausted. Don’t worry about spilling the hot chocolate, I’ll make you more. Just come upstairs when you’re ready. The shower’s fully stocked and Sam brought down your luggage. -Sam

Sure enough, Ayen’s luggage and Marin’s duffel were piled next to the door. She wasn’t sure why she had packed her husband’s things but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. At least now she felt more put together. Standing up, she realized the ceiling was a bit low, even for a human built residence. She almost banged her head on the door frame as she made her way into the bathroom and did her best to use the shower. By the time she was dressed and out of the room, she felt awkward and gangly, like she was going through her first growth spurt again. At least she was clean and dressed. It was easy to find the staircase, and from there she just had to follow the voices.

—

“Am I crazy, or did we kidnap a Shil’vati yesterday?”

“Of course not! She needed a nap, you saw her!” Sammi was digging through the kitchen cabinets, nearly waist deep in a lower compartment. “Didn’t we have vanilla extract?”

“It’s up here,” Samuel replied. “And I am pretty sure she didn’t consent to staying at our little bed and breakfast. I don’t think either of us expected her to collapse like that.” He cracked another egg into the batter one-handed and continued whisking.

“I looked it up, Shil’vati don’t have the same stamina curve humans do. They’re either on or they’re off. Poor girl nearly killed herself by the looks of it.” Sammi snatched the vanilla extract and added it to their own ingredient pile.

Samuel stopped stirring for a moment. “Sounds like the water just shut off.” He reached over and turned on the waffle iron. “I just wish we were better prepared. Never met an alien and then one right after the other? We aren’t even stocked for human guests.”

“It’ll all work out! It always does,” Sammi said, throwing a saucepan on the stove and adding some milk, sugar, cocoa powder, and the vanilla. Going to the snack cabinet, she pulled out an assortment of chocolate bars. “Which chocolate should I use?”

“The dark. Throw some cinnamon in there, and maybe cayenne pepper.”

“You sure?”

“I was doing some reading of my own. Shil’vati tend to like more savory flavors. Besides, you’re making it, and you’re pretty spicy yourself!”

Marin walked in just in time to see Samuel slapping Sammi on the ass. Their bare ass. Her quiet cough brought everything in the room to a stop. The two Sams looked over to see Marin’s face flushed dark.

“Umm, Sam? I think we forgot to get dressed again.”

—

Marin had never had a more confusing morning in her life. First she awakened in a strange place, feeling like a giant, then she walked in on some sort of naked sex cooking game. Some awkward apologies, two hastily grabbed aprons, and now she was sitting on a tiny folding chair at a kitchen table eating some sort of breakfast bread and drinking perhaps the single most delicious thing she had ever partaken of with a pair of charming but excitable humans.

“I suppose I should tell you why I’m here,” Marin finally said, setting her mug down.

“Because of the data,” the one called Sammi replied promptly. “The data we don’t have anymore.”

“The data that we were told would get us in big trouble if we shared with anyone or spoke about,” Samuel added.

“Oh.” Here was Marin’s hope dashed immediately. Everything was falling apart again.

“Can we ask why you want it?”

Marin pulled in a breath, then looked the two of them over. No fear at the thoughts of being “taken care of” by the Shil’vati government, just earnest curiosity. “Two days ago, the same Interior agent who came to visit you visited me. She told me that my husband was killed in an accident at a space station.” Marin heard a quiet “oh no” come from Sammi and the two humans looked distressed as they listened with rapt attention.”It didn’t sound right, so I did some digging and found she visited here after she visited me. To be honest, I’m not even sure what you do here.”

“Nothing, mostly,” Samuel said, earning him a smack from Sammi.

“We’re a museum! We have a planetarium, a bunch of exhibits on the history of human astronomy, and our own radio and optical telescopes. We teach classes and collect research data for universities as well.” Sammi was practically buzzing, with energy, giving the full sales pitch. Marin couldn’t help but give them a glance as the fabric of the apron they were wearing slid up and down their smooth chest as Sammi bounced up and down in their chair.

“And the basement room I woke up in?”

Samuel looked sheepish and ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “You probably noticed we’re in the middle of nowhere.” Once Marin nodded, he continued, “well, if you want people to be able to visit, they need a place to stay. We have a dozen rooms down there and a restaurant on this floor.”

Sammi joined in. “Between schools visiting, our university research contracts, and people coming to use our little venture as a hunting lodge, we are doing okay.”

“Were doing okay.” Sammi smacked Samuel again, but the man continued. “Nobody really needs the research when Shil physics is at least a hundred years ahead of ours and you’re willing to share it. Plus the new firearm regulations have really kicked hunting in the butt.”

“So why would the Interior visit here?”

Samuel shrugged. “No idea. The lady just took all our hard drives with data from the last week, told us she’d be back if we talked about the data, and left.”

The casual ease the two humans seemed to have concerning the possibility of Interior agents coming to get them was concerning. Marin wanted to know the truth about Ayen’s death, but she didn’t want to get other people in trouble along the way. “Aren’t you scared? The Interior doesn’t mess around. If they wanted to make you two disappear, it wouldn’t be a problem for them.”

A large frown appeared on Sammi’s face. “But we can’t talk about the data. We never even saw it.”

“Never saw it?”

“Nope! When we don’t have any work going, we set the telescopes to wide field, point them at whatever looks interesting, and record. Hard drive space is cheap and you never know what you might catch. We used to live stream it too, but the Shil’vati sent us a very official letter telling us to stop.”

Marin frowned. Looks like she had wasted her time coming here. “So you have no idea what you might have recorded?”

This time it was Samuel who replied, a big grin forming on his face. “We didn’t say that.” He slid his chair back and hopped to his feet, making his way out of the room. Marin followed him with her eyes, seeing a geometric tattoo between his shoulder blades, circles and lines in precise mathematical shapes. She kept staring, working her way down past the neat bow of the apron string.

“He’s got a nice ass, right?” Marin’s head snapped over to see Sammi leaning in close, a mischievous grin splitting their face.

“I heard that!”

Ayen awoke to a feeling of warmth and a half-remembered dream of someone holding him tight, skin to skin, his face, hands and feet being vigorously rubbed. As he snapped out of his stupor, Ayen found his skin was bare except for an animal fur draped over his waist and he was lying on wooden floorboards next to a roaring fire.

At first he didn’t want to move, but the sensation of being snug and warm was quickly being outpaced by the realization that he was naked, which meant someone had undressed him, which meant at least one person had been looking at him naked, which meant if his vague recollections were true one of those sex-crazed human males had actually snuggled up against him, spooning him like they were a woman and he was their mate. His face flushed purple in embarrassment and he pulled the fur blanket up to cover his chest as he sat up and looked at his new surroundings.

The room was not large, perhaps five meters on a side. The walls were broad wooden beams stacked one on the other and Ayen could see two doors, one next to the fireplace and another on the wall to his left. There were no windows and not much furniture. He could see a primitive looking bed against the wall closest to the fireplace and, if the large purple feet and smooth calves sticking off the end were any indication, the soldier they had rescued was naked too. The human was clearly asleep in a chair made from bent strips of wood woven together, curled up under an animal hide blanket with just the top of his head and his cloth-wrapped feet showing. Aside from that there was a small table, a three-legged stool, an area in the corner with assorted pots and a small built-in shelf that was clearly a food preparation area, and a few home-made wooden boxes, dressers, and chests. There was nothing Ayen could think of as “modern” or even “civilized” on view. These humans really were savages.

After a few moments of searching, Ayen’s clothing was found hanging on a wooden rack near the fire. They smelled heavily of wood smoke but were dry and warm. Freshly dressed, Ayen resumed his pocket patting ritual he had started near the ship. No comm-pad unfortunately, but considering it was already missing before the group had made their watery getaway he shouldn’t be too surprised. There was a moment of panic when he couldn’t find his tusk ring and ear cuff, but he soon found them lying on the table near the sleeping human. Ayen retrieved the jewelry but the man didn’t stir.

As quietly as he could manage, Ayen crept around to investigate his new surroundings. He checked the door closest to the fireplace and found that it lead into a small, dark room. Cold wafted forth along with a dry, earthy smell. Some sort of plants, dried and cured meat, and a few other things he couldn’t quite identify were hanging from the rafters, and boxes and clay pots lined the walls. He noted that there wasn’t any way out from that room and quickly closed it, already regretting opening it as he rubbed his arms and tried to get warm again. Dreading what he might find, Ayen approached the other door and gently swung it open. The lead into a small, wide room, a vestibule with another door immediately to the front. The temperature in this room was much colder than he expected and for a moment Ayen wanted desperately to go back into the warm room with the backwards (and possibly handsy) alien and a woman who would protect him from that alien. Steeling himself, Ayen moved forward to the other door, grabbed the wooden latch, and pushed the door open a crack.

The blast of icy wind took any thoughts of leaving and threw them as far from Ayen’s mind as possible. The door was almost ripped from his hand and past the gap he could see nothing but a swirling expanse of white. It was like the world just ended in a featureless and frigid void. Ayen wrenched the door closed and backed into the main room, closing that door as well. As he retreated towards the fire, he noticed the duffel bag thrown casually next to the door. The Shil’vati duffel bag.

—

Stace was never a particularly light sleeper, but there was one noise that would always instantly throw him into full awake all-hands-on-deck panic mode. His partner had suffered from irregular but severe night terrors, and Stace would regularly pull himself out of even the deepest sleep to come to the rescue whenever the call came.

This time, the call came in the form of quiet sobs. It was the sound of someone who was trying desperately not to cry but couldn’t quite manage to hold it in. Stace snapped awake and looked around, trying to find the source, his mind throwing him back a decade or more, before the death and the scandal and the cabin, until he remembered where he was and what had happened in the last 24 hours.

The alien Stace had rescued, the male with that soft pale lilac skin, was fully dressed and sitting cross-legged on the floor. The contents of the duffel bag they had rescued were strewn around haphazardly, clothing and papers and such, but there were two items that immediately drew Stace’s eye. The first was some sort of electronic tablet reminiscent of the smart phones that were becoming increasingly popular before he took his sabbatical. It was sitting right in front of the alien, like a relic he was saying a prayer to. The device was very clearly smashed, the center crushed and the whole screen nearly folded in two.

The second was the pistol.

Stace had never seen an alien firearm, but he had known enough of guns in his life to be sure that what was sitting in the small man’s lap, held loosely in delicate fingers, was a handgun of some kind. It had the right shape, and form follows function when dealing with instruments of violence. Stace sighed and tried to stand up, but with the shooting pain in his feet it took a few moments for him to be stable. Once he was sure he could move without looking like a fool, he quietly stepped over to the alien and knelt down in front of him. Gingerly, Stace reached down and took the pistol from unresisting fingers and moved it out of reach before grasping the other man about the shoulders and pulling him tight against Stace’s bare chest.

The alien seemed hesitant at first, impassive to Stace’s embrace, but after a few moments the smaller man wrapped his own arms around the human and pulled close. Stace felt an unfamiliar ache near his collarbone before realizing that one of those peculiar tusks was pressing against him. Stace ignored it and let the little alien release all the pent up anger and fear and impotent frustration that was plaguing him.

Once the sobbing subsided and the smaller man seemed to have calmed down, Stace let go and leaned back, finally face to face with the alien he had rescued. The previous day had been a blur of survival and exhaustion, forcing heat into frozen fingers and toes, dragging the unconscious amazon out of the canoe and into his bed, trying desperately to get everyone dry and warmed up. Now, with a clear head, he could finally take it all in.

The alien was small, at least by human standards. Five and a half feet tall by his guess. Stace himself was six foot even, but even without the height difference the pale purple body was slight by comparison. Stace noticed the curve of the hips and the flat chest under a very tasteful (if battered) jacket. The alien’s face was round, the skin smooth and hairless. The lips were a darker purple, the color of plums and would be considered pouty if not for the small tusks. One had a silver band with a chain going to an ear cuff. That strange jewelry Stace had found in the alien’s jacket finally made sense. Add in the disheveled hair, and the look was striking. It was something Stace’s partner would have worn and called it his “indie rocker ensemble”, and Stace would have teased him about it and they both would have been laughing…

The half memory hit Stace like a truck, and he found tears in his own eyes as he looked across at the first intelligent being he had seen in a decade. He knew helping these two would be hard, but the pang in his chest told Stace that this was going to be far more difficult than he first thought.

—

Ayen found himself blushing furiously as the human looked him up and down. He would be willing to admit that he needed the hug, and even perhaps that he found being wrapped in the larger man’s arms soothing in the same way that he would have felt in a female’s embrace, but he couldn’t help but feel confusion more than anything else. His brain and his body seemed to be reacting to a very different set of signals.

The human was much taller than Ayen was and far wider at the shoulders. His torso (and why was the crazy human shirtless in this freezer?) was muscled but didn’t have the striking definition he was used to seeing on females in magazines or on vid. It was the musculature of someone who worked hard every day, not of someone trying to look pretty. Still, there was something so strikingly feminine about seeing a man with that sort of physique. It was disorienting.

On top of that, the human’s chest and arms seemed to have a light covering of dark hair over the pale skin, matching the hair on his face and head. It was far too thin to be called fur and Ayen had a brief flash of memory, an arm with hair like that wrapped around him as he shivered with cold. The hair on the human’s face was trimmed short and through it he could see that the human’s cheeks were a bright red. Was he blushing?

With a start, Ayen and the human seemed to realize that they had been looking each other over and they were both flushed with embarrassment. The human turned away and let out a small cough as they continued to sit across from each other, Ayen cross-legged and the human on his knees, sitting back on his heels.

Ayen’s embarrassment (and what little calm he had left) was short lived.

—

Stace was livid and more than a little angry with himself. Here he was having his first contact, possibly humanity’s first contact, with an alien race and the two of them were checking each other out like bashful high schoolers at prom. That part of his brain that never shut up was trying to put together a probing joke but that just made him more uncomfortable. Stace turned away from the alien and tried to get his bearings.

Seeing the pistol he had placed out of the way, Stace reached over and picked it up. He looked the piece of futuristic tech over, noticing that the purple metal frame was far too large even for his hands. To the smaller male it would be massive, but to the purple giant in the bed it would probably be a fine fit. There wasn’t a barrel but instead what looked like some sort of embedded black glass or crystal. Energy weapon of some kind, maybe a laser? Stace wan’t a physicist.

Glancing up slightly, he noticed that the alien was frozen in terror. He looked down at the pistol, then up at the alien again. Looks like any goodwill he might have earned from that hug was gone. Letting out a quiet sigh, Stace flipped the gun around in his hand and offered it to the smaller man. The relief on his face was palpable as he took it and set it down out of the way of both of them. After a moment of silence, Stace pointed at his own chest.

“Eustace Grant. Stace.”

The alien pointed at his own chest.

“Ayen Elbruk. Ayen.”

They both grinned.

—

Stace was in a lot of pain when he stood up. He tried to hide it, but Ayen took note as he slipped to his feet and thought about what they had gone though the night before. He was certain that when they were at the ship the human didn’t have any sort of limp. Then they went through everything with the boat and the water…

Ayen wasn’t much of an outdoorsy boy, but everybody knew the dangers of getting too cold for too long. Stace had pulled him out of the water, then done whatever he needed to get the two Shil’vati inside and warmed up. That likely meant getting wet again. It put everything into a different perspective. Not only had the human helped them but he hurt himself doing so, possibly badly.

“Do you understand me? Do you speak Shil?” Ayen asked, looking at the man. He spoke each word carefully, trying to make sure to hide any trace of accent. The human just looked at him for a moment before spouting gibberish back at him.

:I don’t have the foggiest idea what you just said. Do you speak any English?:

The two stood there staring at each other and, after a moment, the laughter started. The sheer absurdity of the situation hit both men and soon they were hanging off each other, tears streaming from their faces as they let go of their last bit of anxiety. They both knew they were fucked by the situation, but at least they were in it together.

After taking a few moments to stuff everything (pistol included) back into the duffel, Ayen’s eyes caught something he hadn’t noticed before. There was another tablet in the room, sitting on the table closest to the chair Stace had been sleeping in. He practically danced over to it before his heart sank. It was a tablet, yes, and a large one, but it was clearly some sort of incredibly stripped down device. The screen had the texture of paper and it only had a couple tactile buttons on the bottom. He poked it with a finger, but nothing changed. Not even a touch screen. The screen itself was covered in illustrations showing surgical procedures, some sort of medical reference book.

“Ayen?” He turned at his name and saw Stace standing at the opposite end of the table. Stace pantomimed lifting the table, then pointed next to the bed. With the two of them, moving it wasn’t too strenuous and they soon had it positioned. Ayen’s confusion turned to understanding and then shock as Stace grabbed a white metal case with a red cross that was hanging on the wall and placed it on the table. Opening it up, Stace started removing supplies. Individually wrapped bandages, sterilized packs of suture needles and thread, a scalpel handle, individually packed sterilized blades. A syringe. A few glass bottles and one larger brown plastic one. It was like Ayen was looking into the distant past, back to the barbarous days before the Shil’vati were even civilized. He shuddered.

Stace went over to the fire and removed a steaming metal pot. From there, he used a piece of wood to fish out a couple sets of tiny locking pliers and some small scissors, all bright and shining steel. The water was then poured into a small clay basin. Once it was slightly cooler, the human grabbed a cake of soap and began scrubbing his hands and forearms in the hot water.

Ayen’s eyes widened as he realized what he was about to witness.

—

Once Ayen figured out what Stace was about to do, he half expected the lilac alien to try to stop him. This was clearly not a proper operating room and Stace was very clearly not a doctor, but if something wasn’t done the much larger alien would die. When he was warming her up the night before he had noticed the piece of shrapnel lodged in her abdomen, jagged and thicker than Stace’s thumb. He had wrapped the injury as best he could but if it didn’t come out she would either bleed to death or die from infection. He wasn’t about to let one of the first aliens he had ever seen, possibly one of the first aliens to end up on Earth, die without doing everything he could.

Stace thought back to the stickers that were on the packages on the ship. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he had missed a LOT in the last few years. Aliens using a standardized international symbol for explosives meant they probably were interacting with humans and wanted to make sure those humans didn’t do something stupid. Not that it changed much. Stace knew from long experience that humans were traditionally stupid. It was practically part of their culture and was one of the main reasons Stace was alone in the first place.

It had taken these two crash landing nearby for Stace to realize that he was lonely, perhaps desperately so. After his partner died and the scandal that followed, he had figured he was done with people. A decade living by himself in the Alaskan wilderness had left Stace comfortable and content. And now, with two extra-terrestrials in his little cabin that he couldn’t communicate with, one of which was dying, he realized that he had let his emotions scar over without actually treating the wounds beneath.

Removing the bandages he had wrapped around the large woman proved difficult. They had been glued to her skin by the dried dark blood and as they pulled free the unconscious woman let out a small moan. Finally, the wound was exposed. It was a puncture low on the left side of the alien’s abdomen with a twist of purple metal sticking out by a couple centimeters. On a human, it would almost certainly pierce the large intestine and with the sharp upward angle it might even hit a kidney. On an alien? Who knows.

His education would probably be helpful here, but dissecting dead and preserved animals for classes was a lot different than surgery on a live alien with quite possibly an incredibly different set of organs, morphology be damned. With his luck he would make the first incision and this huge, heavy alien would pop and go flying around the room like a balloon. Before setting off on his sabbatical, Stace had audited some classes including a few paramedic courses. He wanted to make sure he had enough knowledge of trauma medicine and emergency care that he could keep himself alive and make a trip back to civilization if needed, but he was also aware when he put his trip together that there was a lot he couldn’t plan for. If something serious happened out by himself, he would certainly die, but he was fine with that. What he was not fine with was letting someone else die in his bed. Luckily for him, and hopefully for her, he packed a lot of reading material.

As Stace opened a sterile dressing and poured some iodine on it, he noticed that Ayen was washing his own hands and forearms. Maybe they were lucky and Ayen was actually some sort of doctor or surgeon, but Stace doubted it. Oh well, it’s not like he was one either. He nodded to Ayen and got a nod of his own in reply. Time to save a life.

—

Ayen didn’t know anything about surgery, but he was pretty sure the soldier on the bed was going to die without intervention and that was enough for him to want to help. He washed his hands in the hot water using the odd-smelling, clearly homemade soap and went to stand next to the human at the bed. Stace was using a piece of cloth coated in a brown liquid to clean the wound and the area around it. He could see a piece of purple metal sticking out of the soldier’s abdomen and Ayen felt queasy for a moment before pushing the feeling down. He was not going to get sick. He was going to help.

Stace was putting his face close to the wound to look at it and Ayen realized that the man was having trouble seeing in the room’s uneven light. The fireplace provided most of the light in the room and the only other sources were a couple of small candles on the table, also clearly home made. Glancing into the medical kit, Ayen noticed a small mirror tucked in the bottom. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a small bowl, flipped it upside down, and put it on the bed as close to the soldier he could manage. Using the flat bottom as a makeshift stand, he placed a candle on top and used the mirror to help reflect the light onto the wound. Stace pulled his head back and gave Ayen a bright smile before going back to cleaning the wound. Ayen felt a little tingle inside, glad for the wordless praise. He was helping!

Once the wipe down was complete, Stace turned to the table. He glanced over to see that Ayen was following his actions, then began pointing. “Gauze,” he said, pointing at the sealed plastic packages. “Scalpel. Forceps. Scissors. Sutures.” Ayen nodded along. Lastly, Stace pulled out what looked somewhat like a small plastic pistol in a sealed bag. “Stapler.” Ayen said the words to himself in his head again and again, memorizing the names. The little litany in his head was interrupted when he saw what Stace was up to.

As Ayen watched, Stace began carefully lengthening the wound with a scalpel, freeing up space around the piece of purple shrapnel. He worked slowly, hands shaking slightly as the soldier let out a low groan. When the bleeding began to get worse, he reached out a hand and said, “Forceps.” Ayen placed the strange locking pliers in the human’s hand and watched as he used then to clamp a blood vessel. Using a wad of bandages, the two of them soaked up the blood, then Stace heated the tip of the scalpel with the candle and touched it to any small vessels that were leaking. With those cauterized, he asked for sutures and sewed up the large blood vessel. Then it was time to go deeper.

Ayen’s face went from pale lilac to almost pink once they got through the abdominal wall, seeing the slick dark ropes of intestines and the nearly-black purple of organs he could recognize but, in his mild shock, couldn’t recall the names of. Stace used his fingers to feel around the piece of metal, then nodded and slowly pulled it free. When Stace held the piece of metal out, Ayen took it gingerly and practically threw it onto the table. It was easily longer than his hand and he was pretty sure that if it had hit him it could have gone clean through. He couldn’t stop staring at that twisted piece of shuttle wreckage.

“Ayen. AYEN.” With a start, he turned back to see Stace pointing at the mirror. Blushing dark blue, Ayen angled the light down into the soldier. Stace seemed to be looking intently for something, fingers gently pushing and prodding inside. Finally he nodded and said “sutures” once again. It took Ayen a moment to see exactly what Stace had been looking for. There was a cut on one of the dark walls of the intestine. Stace stitched it closed with a few tight twists of line and asked for the scissors to cut the remaining thread.He then began closing the soldier up. He worked in layers, sewing as he went until he made it to the skin. “Stapler.”

Ayen was nauseous and a little dizzy as he handed Stace the stapler. It was the only medical device he saw that he didn’t understand at a glance, and when the first “THUNK” put a steel wire into the young woman’s skin to hold it closed Ayen finally lost it. He grabbed the water dish and heaved into it as more loud “THUNK” noises followed. Finally the noise stopped and Ayen looked over with watery eyes to see Stace filling a syringe. He injected it into the woman’s arm, then refilled the syringe from a different bottle and did it again. Finally, the human folded some bandages and covered the jagged, stapled wound.