This story originally appeared in in Alien Abduction: Short Fiction on the Themes of Alien and Abduction, September 28, 2015, and was reprinted in Love Stories.
The spires of Miros were tall and slender, much like Ted’s captors. They walked in the streets below the spires that shaded the streets and cast long shadows. Ted’s wrists ached from the manacles. He kept moving, although he stumbled on the stone-paved streets. His Mirosian captors, strong for their slight builds, shoved him forward, and the cold metal crushed his wrists again. As they crossed the street, the light reflected off the guard’s green exoskeleton.
Rumors said the Mirosians worshipped some kind of monster as a God. This God demanded sacrifice. Ted lowered his eyes to avoid glaring at the bald brightness of his captor’s head, and found himself staring at wings instead. There were other rumors, too, tales of insectoid hive minds. The guards murmured among themselves, though, so they must have some individuality.
A small Mirosian child shuddered at the sight of a human, its eyestalks waving and shrinking towards its skull. Ted’s stomach clenched. Other Mirosians flew to entrances above street level. The children were all about the same size, which made him think they were also the same age. He wondered if reproduction had been forbidden during their spaceflight.
As Ted’s captors shoved him down the street, they approached a large, ornate building. A palace? When he hesitated, the soldier behind him shoved a rifle in his back. Ted pulled himself up to his full height, raised his head, and marched up the stairs.
Another Mirosian sat at the end of the hall. Their King? Ted had heard of him. If so, he was the first male Ted had seen. Like the other Mirosians, he was tall and had a secondary pair of arms and large wings, but he was broader than the others, with an ornate structure atop his head that might have been a part of his body or could have been a crown. He also wore more ornate clothing and carried a ceremonial sword. If Ted had been armed, he could have struck a blow for human freedom, but he couldn’t end the sacrifices by killing the King. Another King would take his place.
Next to the King, a graceful young Mirosian female stood, wearing the robes of a priestess. She and the King murmured to one another.
Then the guard behind Ted said, “Prisoner of the Goddess, kneel!” She kicked Ted in the back of the knees, and they hit the stone floor. Pain radiated up his legs and he gasped.
All Ariane could think was how the prisoner was so fragile. All his insides on the outside, so exposed and vulnerable. And yet they kicked him in his unprotected joints. It was unkind, and she leaned over and whispered so to her father.
Father smiled at her and patted her hand. He turned back to the prisoner. “You will meet the Goddess the day after tomorrow. Until that point, we must feed you and give you rest.”
The human said nothing. One of the guards unshackled the human’s wrists, and he rubbed them.
They’d hurt him, Ariane thought. Surely the Mother wouldn’t want that. “Will She really eat him? He seems too soft.”
Father lifted a wing. “Humans are hard on the inside.”
The human watched her. She knew the Holy Mother had to eat, but it was cruel to feed her something sentient that hadn’t volunteered. Of course, her order ate no animal life at all, so perhaps she was projecting her feelings onto the Holy Mother. After all, the animals that fed the soldiers and the Mother didn’t want to be eaten, either.
A soldier offered the human a plate of food. He ignored it.
The human must be hungry after his long walk. Ariane walked to him and squatted in front of him, like she would before a child. The guards tensed, readying their weapons, but she ignored them. “Please eat. We don’t want you to suffer.”
The human stared at her, then looked away. He smelled like sweat and fear. Ariane sighed and walked back to her father.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Ariane,” her father said. “The creature is dangerous. It could hurt you.”
“He won’t hurt me, father,” she said. “He’s helpless and surrounded, and his species isn’t strong.”
Her father ran a finger along her eye ridge. “I fear the order has made you soft.”
Ariane pulled away. “May I return to my cloister?”
“Of course.” Her father sighed. “Be well, my child.”
Ariane left, walking towards the palace’s back entrance, approaching her order’s headquarters. She nodded to the guards who watched her enter the cloister. Inside, everything was calm and airy, smelling of bread, vegetables, and the Goddess. Ariane continued to the chapel, which was white and covered with statuary of the Goddess and God.
Bacran prayed inside. He smiled, mandibles sliding out, broad with genuine pleasure, and scooted sideways on the bench to make room for her, placing his ceremonial sword on the floor. “The mind of the Mother is such a calm place.”
Ariane nodded, and she knelt beside Bacran. Soon she felt the familiar ancient wisdom, the connection with all Mirosians, the peace and understanding that came from opening her heart to the Goddess.
The next morning, Ariane and Bacran were supposed to pray over the prisoner and help him attain a holy state of mind. As they left the cloister, Bacran murmured to her that he had never seen a prisoner in a mental state he would call holy. The volunteers, he added, would feed the Mother with joy in their hearts.
Bacran handed his sword to Ariane’s father for safekeeping before they started the ritual. They then pushed their way to the center of the armed guards, where the human waited, arms crossed over his chest. Ariane sprinkled the human with holy water while Bacran blew incense onto him. They sang the most beautiful prayer they knew, rubbing their wings for accompaniment. The music swelled and rose and echoed in the royal hall, the incense was an exquisite cloud of sweetness. The human curled his lip at it. Ariane’s father watched from his throne.
Bacran said, “Do you have anything to say before you meet the Goddess?” He said it in the alien language, and Ariane thought he said it quite well.
“As a matter of fact,” he said.
Bacran inclined his head to the human, and Ariane did the same.
“My name is Theodore Watson,” he said. “We didn’t know this planet was inhabited when we launched our sleeper ships. We don’t have the resources to go home.”
Poor things. Ariane imagined they’d leave if they could.
“We’re intelligent, sentient beings who don’t deserve to be treated like animals.”
“You sound so noble,” Ariane’s father said from behind them, “but you were the ones who attacked us.”
“We’d never met a intelligent non-humans before,” Ted said. “We were afraid.”
“You were xenophobic,” Ariane’s father said.
Bacran’s voice was quiet and gentle, yet firm. “There’s no need for accusations.”
“I’d never met an alien before yesterday,” Ariane said. “I can see how it would be frightening.” Both the human and Bacran stared at her. She stared at the floor until they stopped. “Are you hungry, Theodore Watson?”
“No,” he said.
“Were you finished with your statement?” Bacran asked.
“To kill one person is murder. To sacrifice someone to a God? We stopped doing that centuries ago. It’s barbaric.”
Ariane looked to Bacran’s serene face for reassurance.
Bacran’s voice was gentle when he asked, “How were you chosen for to be tribute to the Goddess?”
“Random chance,” the human said. “We drew lots. My friend Mike lost. He has a wife and kid, so I took his place.”
The Goddess wanted the best; it appeared She had received it.
“So you believe in the sacrifice of one to save the greater whole,” Bacran said.
“Yes,” the human said, “but as my choice.”
“Drawing lots is not choice,” Bacran said.
“We all took our chances.”
“So your friend is more equal than you are.”
The human set his jaw at Bacran, which Ariane assumed meant he was angry.
“I am merely pointing out that the situation is more complex than you are making it sound,” Bacran said. “I did not wish to give offense.”
“I can’t believe that a species that believes in human sacrifice is in a position to judge complex situations,” the human said.
“That is because your cultural biases blind you,” Bacran said.
Ariane asked, “Do you believe in a God?”
The human said, “I believe in one God, yes.”
“Only one?” Ariane asked. “Is God lonely?”
The human opened his mouth, then closed it. He stared at Ariane again. Finally, he said, “You’re strange.”
Ariane didn’t answer.
“I’m finished with my statement,” the human said.
Ariane started to pray again.
“You should eat something,” Bacran said.
“Fattening me up?” The human snorted. “No, thank you. I’d rather be stringy and tasteless.”
“Come, Ariane,” Bacran said. “We’re finished here.” He retrieved his sword from Ariane’s father and sheathed it.
“Ariane,” the human said. “Pretty name.”
“Thank you, Theodore Watson.”
“Ted,” the human said.
Ariane inclined her head. “Ted.” Then she followed Bacran back to the cloister.
The skinny little priestess–Ariane–returned with yet another tray of food. Ted wished she’d go away. The tray smelled like fresh fruit, and his stomach growled.
“Please eat something, Ted,” she said. “We don’t want you to suffer.”
He wondered if it was possible to kill a God. Then he decided he needed his strength to put up a halfway decent fight. Whether or not he could win, he wanted to go down fighting. So he smiled at Ariane, took the tray, and said, “Just for you.”
She smiled back. It was the weird, bug-mouthed sideways smile of the Mirosians, but he’d pleased her. Interesting. Interesting and disturbing, since she had a mandible and smiling involved a lot of hinged motion.
He sat on the floor with the tray, which was piled high with fruits and vegetables. “I don’t suppose you have any meat?” Then he found himself hoping he wouldn’t be offered human meat, though he’d never heard of Mirosians eating humans… except for him.
“My order is vegetarian,” Ariane said.
Ted took a bite of something unfamiliar. He expected it to taste like apple, since it was round, but it was more like a carrot. “Our colony have these.”
“They’re not native,” Ariane said. “We brought them.”
“We brought plants and animals, too, but they’re not well adapted to this planet,” Ted said.
“Rhodots are rare,” Ariane said.
So they weren’t giving him any old garbage. Interesting. He wondered if the Mirosians thought they were honoring him by feeding him to a God. “Do you have any string?”
Ariane cocked her head at him.
“Never mind.” He picked up a stalk of something the humans called Mirosian Rhubarb, a native plant like orange celery but sweet. “This, we have,” he said, and he took a big bite.
She smiled again, and he ate in earnest. The rhodot wasn’t bad, once he got used to it. He finished everything on the tray and then handed it back.
Ariane inclined her head towards him and said, “Sleep well, Ted.” She started to stand.
Ted wanted her to stay. “Will you be in the order forever?”
She settled back on the ground. “I haven’t decided yet. Probably.”
“What do you do all day?”
She cocked her head at him. “We pray and commune with the Goddess. It keeps Her from getting lonely.”
“I don’t think our God gets lonely,” Ted said. “He’s everywhere all at once, and knows what everyone is thinking and doing.”
“Are you communicating with Him right now?” she asked.
“He knows what I’m thinking, but I don’t know what He’s thinking. So I suppose I’m just assuming that He’s not lonely.”
“So the communication only goes one way,” Ariane said. “I think your God is lonely.”
“You have two-way communication with your God?”
“Of course.” Her eyestalks shone. “You’ll see.”
So the Mirosians’ Goddess was going to talk to him before eating him? Ted didn’t like the sound of that.
Ariane picked up the tray and stood. “Do you need a blanket?”
“No, thank you.” What he really needed was a mattress or pillow.
“Sleep well, Ted.” Ariane turned and went back to her convent, or whatever it was.
Ariane liked Ted. She didn’t want him to be eaten. She walked past the guards, who saluted her, their wings ruffling air at her, and she took the tray to the kitchen. She handed it to the novices there and went up to the chapel to pray.
She had the sanctuary to herself and, when she opened her heart to the Goddess, she let the Goddess know the trouble that had settled there. The Goddess understood, but that didn’t make Ariane feel much better, because the Mother still needed to eat. Someday it would be Father’s turn to be eaten, but at least he got to be King first. Ted didn’t get anything but a couple of days of food.
Ariane felt from Mother that it was more than that, that Ted would be Her bridge to understanding humans and ending the conflict between them. Peace was good. That should make Ariane happy.
It didn’t. Bacran might be unruffled in the face of Ted’s sacrifice, but she wasn’t.
The Mother added that this would spare her father’s life for another generation. This comforted Ariane, but it was still unfair to Ted.
And then there was a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Bacran. “Troubled?” he asked.
She nodded, and he knelt beside her. She felt him, too, at the edges of Mother’s consciousness, and his belief that all things change. She wished she had his self-assurance.
“Be careful, Ariane,” Bacran said. “He is not one of us, and you cannot know his heart. Not like you know ours. Humans live their whole lives trapped alone in their heads, and he can’t know your heart any more than you can know his.”
Ariane remembered her father saying that humans were hard on the inside.
Bacran nodded.
“His God is alone, with no one to talk to,” she said.
The Mother thought that Ted’s God must be insane.
“Don’t give him your heart, Ariane,” Bacran said. “You might not like what he does with it.”
When Ariane came back with his breakfast, Ted smiled and said, “How’s my favorite priestess this morning?”
She smiled the odd bug-smile again and slowed down.
He smiled back and asked, “What do you have for me this morning?” He sat up, stiff as hell from sleeping on the stone floor. His hips ached.
She handed him the tray. More fruits and vegetables, damn it. Raw fruits and vegetables. It might be worth getting eaten by a God just to get away from the boring food. But he wanted her to think he was pleased, so he said, “Yum, yum,” and took a bite of rhodot. It was fresh and crunchy.
“If you like the rhodots,” she said, “I could bring you more than one next time.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Ted said.
She smiled again, and he started to wonder if she had a crush on him. That was ridiculous; she was an insect. On the other hand, Mike–-his friend–had told him stories about sheltered convent girls back on Earth. He’d seduced more than his fair share before his wife Mia stole his heart.
Ted shifted to a less sore part of his butt. “So, tell me about the Goddess.”
“She’s our Mother,” Ariane said. “We all come from her, and she watches over us and comforts us.”
“If she’s a Goddess, why does she have to eat?” Ted took another bite of rhodot.
Ariane tilted her head at him, and her antennae waved. “I don’t understand the question.”
Ted chewed, swallowed. “So she’s corporeal?” She didn’t answer, so he added, “Physical? She has a physical existence?”
“What else is there?” Ariane asked. “She’s not imaginary, if that’s what you’re asking. Is your God imaginary?”
Anger, white hot. Ted struggled to maintain composure. “No, He transcends physical reality.”
Ariane’s eye stalks moved closer together . “I don’t understand how anything can transcend reality. Reality is everything that is.”
“So your Gods are physical beings, like you and me? They’re mortal, and are born and die?” If so, they weren’t Gods, and he could kill them.
“The God dies and is reborn. The Goddess is eternal.”
So. Christ and the Virgin Mary, perhaps, although the Virgin Mary didn’t eat people. Interesting. “And yet she needs to eat.”
“I don’t understand why that surprises you,” Ariane said. “Although I suppose I should, since your God sounds so strange to me.”
“In what way?”
“Your God doesn’t need to eat, because He’s not physical, but He’s not imaginary and hears you but you can’t hear Him. If you can’t hear Him, how do you know He hears you?”
A small, traitorous voice pointed out that if God heard him, Ted wouldn’t be here. “It’s called faith. He wants us to believe in Him.”
Ariane’s antennae twitched. She stood and stepped backwards. “I’m sorry to have upset you. I’ll come back for your tray.” She started walking towards the door.
Ted sighed. “Wait. I’m sorry.”
Ariane stopped, She didn’t move at all for a long moment.
Ted needed information if he was going to defeat her Goddess. “Please don’t go. I like talking to you. We’ll talk about something else.”
Ariane came back, looking at the ground. She sat down on the floor next to his cell but didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” Ted said, “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
She didn’t look at him. “Is there anything else you’d like for dinner?”
He’d kill for some meat. “No, thank you. You’re very kind.”
When she looked at him, her eyes were hurt and vulnerable. “Thank you.”
He reached between the bars and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. It was hard, but smooth and silky. She flinched from his touch.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was curious. I’ve never touched a Mirosian before.” Well. Not willingly.
“Have you ever killed one?” she asked.
Six, all soldiers. “No. You?”
She laughed. “My order forbids me to kill. I cannot eat meat, or any whole plant.”
That explained the menu. “Not even a plant?”
She shook her head, smiling that odd Mirosian sideways smile. Ariane wasn’t what he expected. He’d been told that Mirosians were all cold-blooded killers.
It didn’t matter. Her people would feed him to a monster in the end.
“What else are you forbidden to do?” he asked.
“There is less that I am forbidden and more that I am required,” she said. “I must do penance if I am cruel, even if it is unintentional. I must help the poor; my order feeds and clothes them. I must pray twice a day, but usually do it more often. Mother’s voice is soothing.”
Ted felt a surge of envy. He’d love to hear the voice of God. He reassured himself that the Mirosian’s Goddess wasn’t God, and asked, “What about love?”
“I am supposed to love all beings,” Ariane said, “although sometimes it is difficult when they’re tired and grouchy.”
“I guess I was talking about romantic love,” Ted asked. “You know. Pair bonding.”
Ariane tilted her head at him. “You mean, as in reproduction?”
“Is that forbidden?”
“No,” she said
Ted finished his fruits and veggies and set down his tray. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Not in the way you mean,” Ariane said. “But Bacran is easy to love.”
“But not in the way I mean?” Ted smiled at her.
“No,” Ariane said.
She wasn’t looking at him. His questioning bothered her.
She picked up his tray. “It is time for prayer.”
Ted watched her leave, wondering if there was something she was hiding about love.
The next morning, the soldiers led Ted down stone stairs, below the palace and cloister. He expected the dungeon to smell musty, but it was clean. He was stiff and sore, and he resisted, but a Mirosian carried him the rest of the way down. At the bottom of the stairs was a large doorway, with a smaller door cut into it. They opened the smaller. He fought harder then–if they shot him, the Goddess didn’t eat–but they were stronger and shoved him through. The door slammed behind him.
The walls were smooth, and the only light came from a skylight. Ted looked around for something he could use as a weapon. He searched for a handhold, a foothold, some way to climb.
Now he had an almost blinding headache. Shaking his head, he continued to look for an exit. The sensation spread across the bottom of his head, and a gray blur expanded across his vision.
Ted shivered. Goosebumps covered his arms. He spun around, expecting someone inches behind him. Nothing. He looked back to the wall. The gray blur grew.
Curiosity. He wondered what he was curious about, until he realized he wasn’t the one who was curious. Ted leaned against the wall and said, “Get. Out.”
She didn’t get out. Instead, She moved closer, all of Miros behind Her, the bug hive-mind touching Her, not him. He had no secrets, no barriers, so instead he thought about how much he wanted to kill Her.
She was old and had seen hate before. She wasn’t impressed by his hate.
Ted found himself reviewing the defenses of the few free human colonies. Tears streamed down his face. He wished she would just kill him.
His altruism touched Her, but he didn’t want Her compassion. He wanted Her to hate him as much as he hated Her. She was truly a God, and She loved and accepted him in all of his alien flaws, and he hated Her for it.
There was a movement in the shadows then, and She showed herself, a giant figure in jade, the Mother, the Queen. Her mandible was the size of his torso. Her front claws could snap a cow in two.
Ted realized then why Ariane had been so bemused by questions of romantic love. Ariane, the daughter of the King–were they all children of the King?–was a worker bee.
No. Ariane was an attendant of the Queen.
The Mother came closer still. She was going to eat him now. An odd calm spread over him, and Ted realized it was Her. He fought, tried to be angry, hateful, defiant. But the Queen needed to eat. His flesh would nourish a new generation of Mirosians.
The door opened, but he couldn’t even move enough to see who opened it, let alone run.
“Let him go.” Ariane. “He doesn’t want to die.”
Everything dies.
Ted had wanted to die, just a moment ago, but he couldn’t remember why.
Ariane’s mind was a pure, bright flame, innocent and burning for truth and justice. Ted loved her then with all his heart, and the Mother did too. Then Ariane grabbed his hand and pulled him from the room.
He followed her, running down the street in a daze. The Mirosians around him were also dazed, uncertain, and Ted realized they knew his heart as surely as the Mother did. He loved them, all of them, but especially Ariane. She took him up a hill, far from the Mirosian city. He didn’t know how far they’d gone, how long they’d run, he just knew he should follow her.
Once over the hill, he was Ted again. Oh, God. She’d saved him, but what was he going to do with her? He couldn’t take her back with him. Humans would kill her.
He’d used her, tricked her, and even with telepathy she couldn’t see it. Ted shoved her away from him, and she tumbled down the hill. He didn’t look back.
What if she had seen his deception, and forgiven him?
Ted ran in the opposite direction. He’d lead an attack, humans would destroy the Queen, and they’d end this war by wiping out all the insects, starting with their Queen.
A deep whirring buzz sounded overhead. Ted looked up. Bacran dove, wings beating. And then the sword came, and Ted’s head bounced down the hill as his vision went dark.
Ariane wept at the bottom of the hill. How could Ted turn on her after seeing her heart? Poor humans, all alone in their heads. They were mad, just like their God was mad. And hard on the inside.
Bacran landed and knelt beside her. “Are you injured?”
Ariane shook her head. She managed to stand, despite the overwhelming smell of human blood. She was relieved when Bacran lifted her like he would a small child and carried her back to the city. A guard told her that her Father was dead, that he hadn’t said a word to anyone. He went downstairs and fed the Mother. It was time, and everyone knew it.
Ariane hungered, and the fruits no longer satisfied. When she started to grow, she knew the Mother had chosen her. Soon, Ariane would begin to lay.
She went to the chapel, and the Mother confirmed it. She would take Bacran, some of the sisters, and some of the guards, and she would start a colony where the Mother could protect them until her children grew. Humans reproduced so slowly that the Mirosians would soon outnumber them by a factor of hundreds, then thousands, especially if the Mother called more attendants to be Queens. No matter how mad the humans were, they would surely see the odds were against them, and the fighting would end.
Ariane didn’t want to take Bacran. He might become King. He was easy to love.
As she watched the towers being built, she mourned her father. She mourned the animals that died to feed her. She even mourned Ted. Soon, the time of mourning would be over, and the time of peace and new life would begin.
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