Hunger by Harmony Raines

patchwork quilt, and so she had been handed pants and a shirt. Evie had tried them on, under the sorrowful gaze of her mom, not understanding this marked the end of her childhood.
    The grown-up clothes signalled the beginning of a new stage in Evie’s life. Although she was only a child, she was expected to work in the fields for two hours a day, alongside her studies. It was at this time she learned the unwritten rules of human society. Nothing pretty, nothing frivolous, everything has to be serviceable, tough and hardworking. Life was about necessity, food, shelter, warmth.
    Karal was not the same world. She left the bedroom and went back into the garden, needing to remind herself of the unique prize she had won. There was nothing she would change. Coming here was a blessing, even if it meant a life of solitude in the breeding house. Evie had to hold on to Celia’s words. The other women would support her. Even if the father of her child didn’t.
     

Chapter Nineteen – Ishk
    “While you were on Earth, the Hier Council discussed a plan to send out five space cruisers to seek out a possible new planet for the human population,” Lytril said.
    “You aim to spread their cancer throughout the universe?” Ishk asked. A sense of betrayal seeping into his voice when he realised they had set such plans in motion without him.
    “At least some of it; limited aid would be given to those left behind on the planet. The old and infirm, plus enough people to care for them, would remain. The hope is that once the older humans died out, the Earth would be left to rejuvenate.”
    “They should be left to their own doom,” Ishk argued. “We should not waste our resources on them.”
    “And what if we had been left to our own doom?” the Hier Commander had asked.
    “The Karal are not the same.” Ishk could already see where this conversation was leading.
    “Only because we learned our lesson so much earlier in our species’ evolution,” the Hier Ruler said, his voice carrying the undertones of frustration that Ishk always brought out in him. Before the humans came, Lytril’s voice would have been flat, emotionless. His female, Vanessa was bringing about her own evolution of the Karalian Hier Ruler.
    Ishk pressed on, “We have survived this way for centuries now. Our species has thrived because there is no distraction. These human females are a disruption to our way of life. We only have three of them living amongst us, and already I can feel the change.”
    “Four. You forget you now have a female, Ishk.”
    “She does not count. Once she is pregnant she will go to the breeding house.” He paused, and then added, “Once that occurs I am returning to my home. It is time I sought out the wishes of the farmers whom I represent.”
    “That might be a good idea, Ishk. It will give you some perspective.”
    “Perspective? I will be going there to tell them that they need to improve their quotas, or we will all starve. You are talking about tripling our population in the next five years.”
    “And your plan is to simply go back to Earth, take the females we need and then leave. Imprison those we take in the breeding house and use them as we wish.”
    “As our mothers were taken.”
    “It is unworkable. Our fathers did what they had to out of necessity. We have been through this. They will still need to be fed. It makes no difference where they live.”
    “We will need less females if they are shared. And you know full well, our fathers did not build the breeding houses. Females living separately from the males and our sons has been our custom for generations.”
    “Yes. Because the grandmothers did not want to live among us. If you look back through the archives, the generation before that willingly came to our planet to breed in return for technology, but they did not stay once the children were born. Each generation has presented its own set of problems.”
    “This is not a set of problems , Lytril.” Ishk stood