The Unkillables by J. Boyett Page B

He’d shown no sexual interest in her—in fact, he’d shown little more than a merely polite interest. And recently she suspected that not even that was real. Given how unperturbed he seemed to feel at the death of all humanity, as long as he’d escaped—and the death of a lot more than that—how could she expect him to care about her, personally?
    She got up to leave the chert bed and head back into the forest, in the direction Dak said Chert and the Jaw had gone. “Anyway,” she said, “I should be able to bring them around to helping us, once I learn the language well enough to explain the ultimate stakes.”
    “Er, I wouldn’t count on them actually believing you about those ultimate stakes.”
    “I’ll have to win their trust, obviously.”
    “Might be more involved than that. I doubt their primitive minds will be able to grasp what you’re talking about at all.”
    “They’re just as intelligent as we are!”
    “But hardly the beneficiaries of rigorous post-graduate educations. I’m sorry, dear, but all I’m saying is that these are primitive people, so it might make more sense to establish a bond in some primitive way.”
    “For instance?”
    “Well, Veela, I think surely you know that I’m referring to a sexual bond.”
    “Ah.”
    “Don’t be touchy, I’m merely being pragmatic. Besides, I thought I sensed in you a certain affection for the pair.”
    “Do you have a recommendation as to which of them I should pick?”
    “Well, on the one hand, the younger might be the more valuable of the two, since he may be physically stronger.”
    “I don’t know about that.” Veela was thinking of the way Chert had picked the Jaw up and run off with him like he weighed nothing. Also of how she’d thought her head might snap off, when he’d hit her in the visor with that rock.
    “True. And I was about to say that the older one might be more valuable, anyway, because of his greater knowledge and experience. Although, given the average human life-span in this era, his best years may already be behind him.”
    “Gee, maybe I ought to stay on the safe side and fuck them both.”
    “I detect your unhelpful sarcasm, but as a matter of fact that could be ideal, if the sexual mores of their particular culture allow it. My fear is that sharing you would prove divisive, leaving the group as a whole more vulnerable than ever. One of them could kill the other for your sake, and then there would be one less ally. Worse, sharing your body might so cheapen you that they wouldn’t see the point in risking their lives on behalf of such a low-value female.”
    “Have no fear, Dak, because I was only kidding.”
    “You really must stop taking offense. We’re in a desperate situation, and if we’re going to survive we have to take an honest tally of all our available resources.”
    “I prefer not to think of what I’m carrying around between my legs as a ‘resource.’”
    “Regardless of your enlightened, civilized preferences, we’re going to have to get used to living in a brutal, unforgiving world. Both of us will. I’m sure there are going to be adjustments I’ll find painful, as well.”
    “Okay. Convince me later, please.” Veela was on the verge of pointing out that Dak had yet to make any of those adjustments, drifting around as he was in his invulnerable, climate-controlled spaceship. What stopped her was once again her sense that Dak just might up and fly around to the other side of the planet and set himself up as a god to be worshiped by their easily impressed ancestors, once he’d established to his satisfaction that all the zombies had been destroyed. Perhaps he’d establish a little empire for himself, humanity’s first. In his place, Veela would never have been able to even consider such a course of action, partly because of the intense experience they’d shared as fellow survivors, partly out of simple humanity. But something warned her not to assume that Dak would feel the same