Starport: Zeta Prime (Alt) by S.A. Jackson

it,
purposely fumbling the vowel sounds at first, until she had copied
it a few times. The woman laughed, delighted.
    “ I am
Sennan.” The woman placed her hand on her chest. Slowly, Jillian
did the same, once again being careful not to be too perfect right
away.
    “ I am
Jillian.”
    Sennan smiled as she reached for more
grain.
    “ You
will be fine here. Keep your eyes out for that woman. I warn you
that she may stop at nothing to take Faron as her own. Protect
yourself however you can.”
    Jillian heeded the
warning internally, but lifted her shoulders in an attempt to
portray her loss of understanding at Sennan’s
speech.
    The woman talked the entire time they sorted the grain,
knowing that Jillian couldn’t
understand her but wanting to be friendly and not have the pair of
them sit in silence. She spoke about births and marriages within
the tribe with great pride, Jillian was warmed to learn of their
sense of community, of togetherness, and was also fascinated to
hear about natural births–similar to that of humans on earth a long
time ago, and not even possible now.
    As
morning moved into afternoon and both of their sacks bulged with
the bulk of the powdered wheat, Sennan got up from the table and
with one hand, invited Jillian to do the same.
    “ Now, we’ll go and eat. The men
will be back by sundown.”
    She felt
excited at the prospect of seeing Faron that evening, and happily
followed Sennan back to the communal hut.
    Smells
of cooking hit her once again–a now familiar scent of spices and
honey. She presumed that the door at the back of the building must
lead to a kitchen of sorts, given that was where the fragrances
were coming from. The room was much more buzzing than it had been
that morning, alive with the shouts of children teasing each other,
adults talking in groups and eating. They all turned as she stepped
inside, Sennan next to her, and she saw nothing but a sea of kind
faces looking towards her.
    She
scanned the room quickly for signs of the one who had bought her
food when she’d thought she was prisoner. She had a strong feeling
this was the one she’d been warned about, but there was no sign of
her so relaxing, she sat with her new friends to eat.
    * * * *
    A
trail of blood followed the males as they made the arduous journey
on foot back to the village.
Nobody spoke to each other, knowing that they had to preserve their
strength. The whole way, Faron admonished himself for not being
quick enough, not being able to avert this horrific catastrophe. He
hoped they had enough time, hoped it wasn’t too
late.
     

Chapter Thirteen
    Shouts alerted Jillian as she lay on the bed. Surprisingly, she’d enjoyed
her day. It had been nice to help out with the processing of the
grain–to do something useful. But she had found following the
language, and pretending she didn’t, exhausting. So later in the
afternoon she had come back to her new dwelling to relax before the
men returned.
    She hovered in the doorway to try and see what the
commotion was about, and was horr ified to see a group of the men–including hers, dragging
themselves from the tree line. Clearly, all was not well. One of
them was being carried by another, his head supported by Faron to
prevent it flopping backwards.
    Dread stuck in her throat as, like all the
other villagers, she raced over to help them.
    “ We need
to get him to the healing hut.” Faron gestured to Ashan needlessly.
His eyes were closed as he hung over Charin’s back, alarmingly
unresponsive.
    “ You all
need to go there,” said an elderly woman, stern enough for none of
them to argue. Ashan’s wife pushed through the group that had
gathered and started sobbing at what she saw.
    The woman put her arm around her
comfortingly.
    “ The healer has been fetched. He’s
in safe hands.”
    His wife
stroked his face and cried out to him, begging that he stay with
her. Charin, Ashan and Camil made their way to a stone building on
the opposite side of the village.