Hunger by Harmony Raines Page B

or the meeting.” Evie tried to make light of it, but she had hit a nerve, and the warnings from Okil came back to her. She wanted to trust Ishk, but he gave her nothing to work with. Moody, arrogant and aloof, she could see no way of bridging the gap between them. But she had to keep trying, not for herself, but for the other women on Earth who would one day come and live here.
    “I will prepare some food.” Turning on his heel he went to the kitchen and began to get utensils out of the cupboard. She could hear him working and wondered if she might help him, or if it was best to let him get on with it.
    When her parents were alive, they had seldom argued and when they did, they had always talked it over. It had always soothed the situation. Would that work with Ishk, or simply make it worse?
    Could he dislike her any more than he did? She doubted it, so she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
    He placed the pan he was holding down on the top of the stove and looked at her; muted colours appeared below the line of his tunic. He was fighting for control of his emotions. This did not look good.
    “What?” he asked sharply. “Do you expect me to divulge all my secrets to you so that you can use them against me?”
    “No.” She frowned, “I’m sorry. It’s only, humans have a saying: A trouble shared is a trouble halved. At least that’s what my mom always told me when I was upset.”
    “But you are that trouble. Human females. They are going to be set loose on the planet I love.”
    “Is that all we are, a problem, and if so, is there no way of coming up with a solution? Rather than just condemning us?” Evie asked quietly. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with Ishk, especially as he already appeared to be in a bad mood.
    “Humans have been aware of their problems for centuries but they chose not to act. Now you expect another race to come and save you.” Ishk turned towards her, and the colours were no longer, muted, no longer under his control.
    “Isn’t it better to try, then to just let us die?”
    “What does it matter to you? You are safe now; you are here on my planet. I am willing to save enough of you for us to breed with, but beyond that, no. Not at the expense of my planet and my people.”
    “Ishk, the females are going to live on your planet, it doesn’t matter whether you shut them away or not. We will still be here. Why not let them be part of your society, let then raise the children?”
    “Because they will die!” he shouted, not anger, but sadness emanated from him.
    “Everyone dies,” she said quietly. “Some before their time. But everyone dies.”
    “But to lose two parents instead of one? That is hard. The time when the last fathers died was tough. How much harder will it be to lose both parents? It is better to never love a mother than to have to go through the loss. You must see that this would save them heartache.”
    She shook her head. “No, Ishk, I don’t.”
    “But you would not know, you simply walked away from yours, from your life before. The promised land of Karal was too important. Or were you abandoned, because I cannot see how any parent would let their child end up like you?”
    He might just as well have slapped her around the face. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she tried not to let him see how much he had hurt her. “Ishk, that is not fair and not true. If my parents were still alive, I would have stayed on Earth. But they weren’t. I know the sorrow and loss of losing two parents, but I would never wish to have not known my mother’s love.”
    He stood rigid and did not speak. For a long time he fought for control, the colours of his skin like a violent storm, a hurricane which threatened to destroy all in its path.
    Evie trembled as she walked toward him, moving around the counter, ready to stop if he told her to. But he didn’t and she moved closer to him, so close she could feel the heat from his body, and as she reached out to place