Ice Planet Barbarians (Ice Planet Barbarians, #1)(3)

That Liz, such an optimist. I wrap my arms around my chest and notice I’m still wearing the sleeveless shorty pajama set I’d gone to sleep in. It’s not very warm or very concealing, and I absurdly wish that I’d gone to sleep in a big flannel pajama set.

And then I want to weep. To think I haven’t dressed properly for alien abduction. My shoulders shake with mirth until mirth turns into tears. So yeah. Yesterday? I didn’t believe in aliens. But that was yesterday.

I quietly weep myself back to sleep.



? ? ?





I figure out a few things over the next day on the spaceship.

I figure out that there’s no toilet. It seems our captors hadn’t thought through the whole stuff-the-hold-full-of-stolen-girls thing. We have to make do with a bucket in a corner, hence the sewage smell. Dignity? Gone. Nothing like waiting your turn on the poop bucket to make you lose what little humanity you have left.

I figure out that food is tiny little bricks that look like dried seaweed and taste like shit. We get two of those a day. Water? It’s dispensed from a faucet of some kind that reminds me of a gerbil feeder set in the wall.

The welts on my arm go down over the next several hours, though one rough little bump remains. Through feeling it and peering at the other girls’s arms, I’m guessing it’s some sort of electronic tracking device they’ve implanted. Cattle tags, as Liz had called ‘em. At the moment, I think it’s pretty damn apt.

I figure out that there are two kinds of aliens. There are the fragile green ones that seem to be in charge and the basketball-headed ones that are security. I call them basketball heads not because they’ve got oversized brains, but because of the pebbly, hairless orange-ish texture of their skin. It looks bizarre above the collar of the gray bodysuits they wear day in and day out. The basketball heads are pretty horrific, no matter the stupid name. They have weird little bug eyes with an opaque eye-lid over them and needle-like teeth. They have two fingers and a thumb instead of five, and they’re tall. The little green men, the ones that make the bird noises? They’re not more than three feet tall or so, and they rarely show up. The basketball heads, though? They’re in the hold constantly.

Everyone’s terrified of them, too.

I figure this out when I wake up the next morning—though I suppose it could be the afternoon—and see everyone else is awake. The last of the dopey meds seem to have worn off, and I stifle a yawn, blinking. I want to be silent, because silent is good. It takes me a moment to realize everyone’s moving to the far side of the cage, huddling away from the bars. The hairs on the back of my neck rise, and I follow the others, heading to the back. I want to ask what’s going on, but the moment I open my mouth, Liz shakes her head silently, her gaze fixed on something over my shoulder.

I turn and flinch at the sight of a basketball-headed alien peering through the bars at me. I flinch again when he gives me a leering grin, and I scoot closer to the others.

“No screaming,” someone murmurs as a warning.

God, this is freaking me out. I nod. No way am I making a sound.

The ball heads remain in our room all day. It’s like they’re waiting for something. I’m afraid to wonder what it is. We huddle in the corner of the cage, on edge, and another unconscious girl is brought into the room after a few hours. No one even tries to escape when they open the door. We just sit and watch as they shove the newest girl inside and close the door again.

I can guess why no one wants to attempt a break out. Where would we go? And the consequences of disobedience must be bad, because everyone in the cage is utterly frightened by the basketball heads.

Someone grabs the new girl by the arm and tries to pull her into our huddled pile. She’s about my age and has pretty red hair. I notice the ball heads keep coming back to the cage and commenting on her in their weird garbled language, making hand gestures from time to time. Then they laugh, a high-pitched, eerie sound that grates on my frayed nerves.

It’s almost like they’re taking bets on the new girl.

A few hours later, she wakes up. I’m hunkered down next to Liz, and I startle out of my stupor when she inhales sharply.

The girl sobs aloud, her eyes going wide.

“Don’t scream,” I hear a low voice hiss. I can’t make out who’s said it, but I know we’re all thinking it.

The redhead isn’t listening, though. She takes one look around her, panics, and begins to scream. Her shrill cry echoes in the hold. She won’t stop, even though others are waving their hands and touching her, trying to calm her down. She’s hysterical, her cries getting louder and more panicked the more awake she gets. She flails and thrashes against our warning touches.

Something beeps overhead.

The others in the cage go utterly still.

Weird birdlike chirps fill the air from the intercom.

One of the ball heads touches a panel that lights up, and he gargles a response. The crowd of girls seems to shrink back as the other ball head approaches the cage and opens the door.

It’s freedom, but no one’s reaching.

The redhead is snagged. She’s a fighter, I’ll give her that. She thrashes and flails as they touch her, screaming obscenities in French and shrieking for help. Everyone else sits quietly, watching.

I can’t stand this. I try to get up, to go help her. Liz grabs my leg. “Don’t,” she hisses. “Don’t call attention to yourself, Georgie. Trust me.”