Awakened by the Giant: Brides of the Kindred Read online

  She liked the big Kindred a lot—though she barely knew him—but she didn’t care for the Mentats at all. She would be happy to leave with her colleagues and continue their search for another habitable planet.

  “In here,” Calden said shortly, coming to a stop before another one of the ubiquitous sliding silver door panels.

  “Where? Let me see!” Madeline came up beside him eagerly but instead of waving his hand to open the door, he stopped and stood there, a troubled expression on his face.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured, his deep voice sounding uneasy. “Maybe you shouldn’t look at this yet, Madeline.” He looked down at her, his topaz eyes uncertain. “It might be…traumatic for you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him hastily. Please, Calden, I just want to see.”

  “Well…”

  When he still hesitated, Madeline stepped forward and waved her forearm over the blinking red light of the door sensor. She wasn’t sure if it would work since she wasn’t a Mentat or a Kindred but the door beeped once and the light changed to green as the metal panel slid to one side.

  Maddy took a step inside…and gasped.

  On the other side of the innocuous-looking door was a room so vast it reminded her of an airplane hangar. It was half-filled with something so twisted and mangled that at first she didn’t recognize it at all. Then, as she took a step forward, she saw the familiar red, white, and blue of the US flag stenciled on the charred skin of the ship and she knew what she was looking at was what remained of The Kennedy.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, taking another hesitant step into the enormous room. It was cold in here—so cold she shivered in the thin shirt-dress and her feet felt like she was walking on ice, but she barely noticed.

  The ship had literally been torn in two, as though a petulant giant had broken it like a toy in a fit of rage. What she was looking at, she decided, must be the back half. The long canister of the ship had been ripped apart at an angle and what she was seeing was the storage area where most of the embryos and plant cuttings and seeds as well as the terraforming equipment had been kept.

  Trundling in and out of the ruined ship, their small treads rising easily over the twisted metal, were many little robots, about the size of small dogs. They appeared to be collecting samples from the wreckage and bringing them to a large silver rectangular box with many drawers in it, which looked like a blown-up version of the one in Calden’s lab.

  “My God,” Maddy whispered again. “It’s…completely ruined. This isn’t salvageable at all—none of it is.”

  “I did try to warn you,” Calden murmured. He was looking at her anxiously. “Are you well, Madeline? Do you want to leave now?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, I need to see this. I need to look through and see if I can find…find…”

  “There’s no one to find,” Calden said gently, apparently guessing her thoughts. “You were the only one in this part of the ship when the droids discovered it. Believe me, we looked for more.”

  “But what was I doing back here? Why can’t I remember? I need to see—maybe that will bring it back.”

  Maddy started to run forward, towards the ruined remains of the Kennedy, but Calden stopped her with a large hand on her arm. Before she could protest, he had swung her up into his arms and was walking rapidly towards the wreck.

  “I can walk!” Maddy exclaimed. “You can put me down.”

  He shook his head.

  “Your feet are too tender to run over the wreckage barefoot. I won’t stop you from getting a closer look but you’ll have to let me carry you.”

  Maddy wanted to protest again but then she caught a closer look at the jagged edges of the Kennedy’s hull and thought better of it. Her hands already didn’t work—there was no point in injuring her feet as well.

  Calden picked his way carefully over the wreckage, holding her like a child in his arms as he went. The little robots whirred and scattered in his wake, getting out of the way of his black boots. At last they came to the interior, which seemed to be a little less scorched and blackened than the rest of the ship.

  “The cold storage locker.” Maddy looked around, her mind’s eye showing her how the room used to look. “Where we kept the embryos and the seed vault. Everything had to be kept at a certain temperature and it was my job to check it every day and night to be certain the equipment was running smoothly.”

  Was that why she had been back here when the asteroid hit and the rest of the crew got smashed into the blackness of space? Or was there some other reason? For a moment she seemed to see bright flashes of color…angry words…pieces of emotions, none of them happy…and then it was all gone again.

  “What’s wrong with me?” she whispered, looking around at the now-silent embryo storage chambers and seed vault. “Why can’t I remember?”

  “Maybe you’re not ready to remember yet,” Calden remarked softly.

  “Yes, I am! I need to know what happened. Put me down!” Maddy struggled in his arms until he set her gently down on her feet. The broken hull was cold and rough against her tender soles but Maddy didn’t care. She peered around her, trying to remember, trying to see into the past and figure out why she alone had survived such a terrible wreck when all the rest of her crew—her estranged husband included—had died.

  No more memories came to her but she didn’t give up. She wandered further into the storage area, looking around at the immense, ruined machinery which had been meant to terraform a new planet. Some of the terraformers had broken free of the chains that held them in place and had rolled all over the place, like a huge, haphazard game of bumper cars.

  Then she saw something that stood out in the jumbled ruins—a dull splash of maroon decorated the floor under one of the vast round wheels of the nearest terraformer. A splash that looked an awful lot like a puddle of dried blood.

  Madeline went forward, crouching low, an awful pain blooming in her stomach. She could almost remember…but even as she felt the memory coming forward, a wave of nausea overcame her and she bent over and retched.

  What came out of her was green slime. The same kind that had been in the tank she’d woken up in.

  Maddy stared at it, her stomach heaving and her head pounding.

  What’s wrong with me? How did that stuff get inside me? What happened here that I can’t remember?

  Or maybe don’t want to remember, whispered an ominous little voice in her head. Maybe can’t bear to remember.

  Maddy retched again but this time nothing came up, though her stomach clenched like a slick fist. She stared dully as the puddle of green slime that had come up the first time slid towards the dried blood. When the green and maroon mixed, it made a disgusting brown color that made her feel like heaving again.

  Then Calden was sweeping her up into his arms again and cradling her close to his chest.

  “Come,” he said, his voice sounding half tender, half stern. “We need to get you out of here. I never should have brought you in the first place—it’s too much for you to handle right now.”

  “You had to,” Maddy said weakly. “I never would have believed you otherwise. But I see now. They’re dead…all dead. I don’t understand how I survived myself.”

  Calden didn’t offer any opinion on that. He simply carried her out of the vast hangar-like room, away from the wreck of the Kennedy and the remains of her old life.

  Maddy shivered against his chest, trying not to think…trying not to feel. She felt cold and empty and broken inside. And alone…so alone.

  Chapter Six

  Maybe I did the wrong thing in bringing her back—in cloning her. Maybe the memories of her own death and the loss of her mate and the rest of her crew is too much emotional pain to bear.

  It was something he hadn’t even considered before starting this project, Calden admitted to himself as he stood and watched over Madeline while she slept. He should have though—should have realized that cloning a sentient being—a person—would