Free Eden by Louise Wise

her.
    Had he been aware of her furtive scrutiny of him? Jenny ’s face burned.
    “Thank you for the food,” she said, for want of saying something.
    He inclined his head. “Thank you for the.” he said, and replaced the last of the sentence with a word from his own language. Watching her, he spoke several more words in his native tongue.
    Jenny copied them, becoming tangled in the strange terminology. The alien man looked pleased at her attempt at his language. He yawned again, and closed his eyes.
    He looked peaceful, and Jenny watched as his huge chest rose and fell in a gentle motion.
    She wondered whether she should leave. But it was so warm here and she was so comfortable. She couldn’t bear to go back the confines of the buggy, not yet.
    She told him about her mother, and of her famous father; the Zack Bodie, the astronaut who successfully mined for lunar water - pockets of water left over from billions of years ago on the moon, and whose footsteps she was walking in.
    She knew he couldn’t understand a word she was saying, even if he was listening but it was a comfort to talk about her parents, and to think back to the days where she was invincible. She almost laughed at that.
    After a while, with her belly full of food and with the warmth of the fire close by, her eyes began to grow heavy. The alien was clearly asleep, and unable to resist the temptation she lay down and closed her eyes.
    *
    He opened his eyes, wondering why she had stopped talking. She was asleep, laying on her side, with her hands a cushion for her head. She looked so childlike and vulnerable he knew it would be easy to crush her.
    He had been taking things slow, and gently forcing her into accepting his presence. It had been a challenge on his character but he was pleased with himself so far.
    He hadn’t understood much of her chatter for she had spoken too fast for him to catch many of the alien words. But he’d understood she’d spoken of home, and of her childhood. This pleased him for it made him realiz e all the studying he was doing of the human ’s language was working.
    When she woke she felt confused by her surroundings. For a moment she thought she was back home in England and in her bed. She sat up blinking, and visibly jumped when she saw the alien. He was leaning against a boulder sharpening an already lethal looking spear.
    From his position Jenny saw a variety of scars on his shoulders. They stretched down his back and disappeared into the waistband of his raggy trousers.
    The fire had burnt down to ash, and Jenny shivered.
    The alien turned and looked at her. He drove the spear into the hard ground beside him, causing Jenny gasp. As if remembering he was supposed to act gentle, the alien held up his hands and attempted another smile.
    Jenny wasn’t sure she liked his smiles.
    She stood up, feeling flustered. “Thank you for the food a-and company,” she said almost automatically.
    The alien reached for the computer.
    “I ’ll , er, go and leave you to it, then,” Jenny said, and pointed to the spear. Cheerfully she added, “You know, lots to do, and all that.
    Fires to make, spears to sharpen.”
    The alien looked at the spear, and then back at her. He seemed confused. He spoke into the small computer, “Come tomorrow at dawn, and I will share my kill with you again. “
    Jenny licked her parched lips. “Share your, er, k-kill?”
    The big alien man consulted his computer. “Eat with me tomorrow,” he said. “Sun rise.”
    Jenny nodded, realiz ing she’d been summoned.
    EIGHT
    As she drove the short distance to the spaceship, Bodie came on air. When she heard his voice she knew he wouldn’t understand this new and dangerous friendship she had with the alien, so she deliberately kept her talk about Taurus and the problems they had with it.
    Come tomorrow at dawn, he had said. She couldn’t get the alien ’s words out of her mind.
    She had fallen into a restless sleep as the sky brightened whilst wondering if