Actually, the entire ship smelled of fuel—frightening!—and dust—not comforting at all!

What did that tell her?

Not a hell of a lot when she couldn’t seem to gather her wits to analyze the situation.

Frowning, she struggled with the puzzle pieces she had. It would’ve been easier, she thought, if she’d had more than a couple, but she had what she had.

The aliens looked like the aliens on the colony world—well, some of them. As it was on Earth, there seemed to be several different races with different hair, eye, and skin colors. But these were recognizable, in her book, as being from the same origins and they didn’t appear to have evolved in a way that suggested there’d been a significant separation over time that would have necessitated diverging physical traits.

And yet, they were clearly separated! The ship was proof positive that they didn’t even share the same world—she didn’t think. Otherwise, why would they be in space?

It seemed inescapable that these barbarians were from the sister world simply because it was closest and she couldn’t imagine the ramshackle thing she was in making it any further! She was surprised it had made the first leg of the trip intact!

That sister world was horribly inhospitable, though! That was why they’d settled where they had. The other world had been just a little further out, but that was enough to make it bitterly cold in the winter and not terribly warm in the summer. Those inhospitable temperatures would translate to more fuel burned during the long, bitterly cold winter to just keep the colonists relatively comfortable and a short growing season that, when the colonists were entirely unfamiliar with the techniques needed to grow plants in this particular soil, could mean starvation and a complete failure of the colony.

New Earth—or K’naiper as the natives referred to it—was the best choice for a successful colony, the safest.

They’d thought.

They hadn’t actually expected the natives to be hostile, though. She supposed that was because they had a skewed perception of their self-worth. They’d thought the natives might be afraid of them—at first—but could be won over with minimal effort—gifts of trinkets and so forth. And the natives would be so grateful to have god-like beings living among them they would probably be more of a nuisance (worshipful) than any kind of threat!

Boy had they been wrong!

She shook that thought and dragged her mind back to picking at the puzzle.

The truth was, they’d been puzzled about the solar system they’d targeted for their colony before they left Earth. The ‘sister’ worlds orbiting in the system’s Goldilocks zone seemed to be in stable orbits, but they were far closer than any others they’d found—almost close enough that one could’ve been a satellite of the other at some point.

Or it was possible that the two sisters had originally been a single, much larger planet that had been split apart by a major collision with a planet-killer asteroid.

Was that where the technology had come from? Was that even possible?

There was no doubt that the circumstances were dyslexic! The technology looked ancient, but it was definitely from a very advanced civilization—it wasn’t entry level space travel. As antiquated and rundown as it seemed now, this ship was clearly capable of interplanetary use and had been used for that purpose in the past.

Neither the natives of New Earth or the men aboard the ship, supposedly from the sister world, displayed customs or accomplishments that suggested it was a civilization in ruins, regressing. So maybe they’d hit bottom, or close, and were on the rebound?

Or maybe the ship didn’t represent accomplishments of this race at all but were gifts or maybe remainders of a different civilization all together? Or maybe stolen goods? These men were clearly raiders—much like the Vikings of history on Earth.

Could they have simply stolen it?

She thought they could have. She could see the possibility of an alien race setting down to explore or establish a colony and getting overrun by the giants.

Who then forced the pilot/original owners/designers to teach them how to use it?

She didn’t think that was beyond their capabilities either. They seemed pretty … persuasive!

But had it happened that way?

She needed way more data to determine that, she decided.

Unfortunately, she realized that that unknown factor wasn’t just a matter of assuaging her scientific curiosity. It could make a world of difference to her.

For if they were an advanced civilization on the rebound, then they would surely not be as savage as they seemed? Surely they would be open to reason?

She considered that for a few moments and revised it to maybe they would be open to reason.

She thought that might depend on how well their campaign for survival was going.

His captive was not native to their world, Drak concluded. He was as certain of that after only a few minutes in her company as he had ever been of anything.

She spoke the language, the most commonly used language among the people of the sister worlds, but she didn’t speak it as a native would. The way she enunciated the words was entirely foreign and he’d also noticed that she seemed to mentally interpret the things he said before she responded.

Of course, he supposed that could be explained away by caution, but the amusement she hadn’t managed to hide was hardly the act of a female of caution!

Nor did she strike him as being slow-witted.

No, as bizarre and unbelievable as it seemed on the surface, he had to conclude that she absolutely wasn’t a product of either of their worlds, which meant that, regardless of the similarity to their people, she was of a different species altogether.

And the other female that had been with her was conclusive proof to his mind!

But where had they come from?

And what did that mean in regards to his hope/determination to mate with her?

He had no real interest in producing more offspring. He had his heir and two other sons to secure his line.

And he still felt an odd little jab of disappointment at the thought that he might not be able to successfully join his line to hers.

He dismissed it. He was far more interested in the ‘practice’ than the accomplishment!

That thought brought him to an unsettling conclusion!

She’d looked very much like a Flaxen woman, despite her size, but could he count on her being the same where it counted? He hadn’t actually examined that part!

He was tempted to check that out immediately, but a very little thought made him reconsider. He was not going to be pleased, at all, if he discovered she was not made to suit him sexually and that wasn’t something he had any desire to share with the crew!

And he wasn’t sure he could contain his disappointment!

It would be better, he decided, to wait for more privacy, particularly since he found the flight unsettling to begin with and might have difficulty focusing!

In any case, he decided dismissively, she had a mouth. If all else failed, there was that!

Not that he was going to be happy about that necessity, but his raid would not be in vain! He would not return from the death defying trek empty-handed.

Having settled that much in his mind, his thoughts returned to the puzzle of her origins and her potential as an asset.

The precise ‘where’, he realized, was not something he was likely to figure out with nothing to go on, but the ‘how’ of it was like a slap in the face or a douse of icy water—a stunning revelation that was made more shocking by the time it had taken him to arrive at it!

Her people must be builders of ships like his—capable of crossing the black sea of space!

Except theirs would not be technology rescued from rusting heaps of a bygone time! Theirs would—had to be—better, stronger, capable of more speed and distance!