“We could try eating some of that,” he said, motioning towards the dead worm in front of them. They stood outside, in the stench of the dead worm. It was even worse than he thought it would be from the inside of the shuttle.

“No, thank you.” She made a gagging motion, then gagged for real when the stench got into her mouth.

“I have a smaller worm you could try?” he said, slyly, glancing at her innocently.

“As if, I couldn’t find that worm with a microscope.”

Glancing down, he feigned horror, then grinned at her, when an honestly alarmed look came over her face.

“That’s not what you said last time,” he said.

“Wait, what?”

“I could offer you a protein shake?”

“No, seriously, what did you mean by the last time?”

Not really wanting to go into that, he moved closer to the dead worm, stopping just at the edge of the water. Nothing should be able to survive in that sludge, right? On second thought, he moved back just in case. He didn’t want to be wrong, and get pulled into it.

“The first thing we need to do, is make sure you don’t die, the first time something hits or spits at you.” Dustin pulled off a scale and held it out for her.

“Don’t think, I’m letting you go without an answer. You said you would answer all of my questions. What do you want me to do with this?” she asked, moving forward, taking it and holding it up.

“You know how the PED works,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, I do. If this is so important,” she said, waving it at him, “Then, why didn’t you give me one before we ran into the shuttle station?”

“I was in a but of a hurry, now do you want to go hunting for something, or not?” He turned around without waiting for a response, but only got a few feet, before a sound filled the silence of the cave around them.

Other than their voices, it had been completely silent. Not even the dripping of water off of the shuttle could penetrate the deep silence. However, as their voices died, a wet popping sound reverberated throughout the darkness around them.

The sound of one of them swallowing, was almost drowned out, as the sound of a splash was quickly followed by another.

Turning towards the dead worm behind them, they saw in the dim lights from the shuttle’s exterior lights, white maggots the size of their legs, wiggling across the top of the scum in the water towards them. Dustin backed up, really fast, almost losing his footing, as he scrambled for the door latch on the shuttle.

Olivia, half evolved, was right behind him. It didn’t take long for them to scramble into the shuttle and shut the door.

“So, we need to get out of here, right now.”

Nodding in agreement, Dustin moved a few things out of the pilot seat, and sat down. The shuttle shuddered for a moment before lifting off, and he wondered if he did more than just disable the antennae.

“You can tell me about what you meant, now,” she said, strapping herself into her seat, as she stared at the mess around her.

“Well, you know how I knew your name when you first popped out of the pod?” he asked, focusing on flying through the tunnel. He was looking for anything that might be worth hunting, or maybe a smaller tunnel that might lead to something edible.

“I remember,” she said.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve been on the planet. This is actually my twentieth trip, and possibly yours as well.”

“How can that be?” she asked confused.

“They mess with our minds. While you were with the Josagn, did you notice anything like a survival television show? Something they would watch for fun?”

“I could see them enjoying something like that…wait, maybe? There was something like that in the works. I think I remember them asking lots of questions about how our television shows worked, and how our people would test themselves in survival scenarios. But they didn’t have television, at least, not that I knew of.”

Dustin thought about that a bit. The prince hadn’t told him about the television show until after they had collected her. Maybe he had withheld that information because she knew more about it. There were things that weren’t adding up, and it bugged him.

Spying a thick crack in the wall, that he had ignored before, he slowed the ship down, and set it gently on the ground. They were a lot closer to the other worm tunnel, and he didn’t want to draw its attentions.

“Ok, look. This is what has happened to me, since I got out of my pod: I survived on my own for a day or two, escaping monsters and the Josagn hunters that came for me. I found out about the shuttle station, and decided I wanted to escape instead of waiting a full year. Then your pod arrived. However, when I tried to save you, you tried to escape from me, just like you did this time around.”

“But that’s because you were the Lady Killer!” she exclaimed. “You were known to woo them and then kill them after having sex. It was all over the broadcasts back home!”

“But, when were you home to see them?” he asked.

She paused as that realization came to her. She shouldn’t have been able to see such broadcasts. She hadn’t been home since becoming an alien advisor.

“Once I save you from the monsters, the Josagn showed up again, and tried to kill us. We escaped to some caves, just above us, actually, that lead to an underground city. Had I known that the PED’s were being tracked, I wouldn’t have stuck around as much as I had. The Josagn followed us, and killed all the people who were down there.”

“How many?” she asked, quietly.

“Hundreds. They must have figured out the truth, because they were forced to give up their PED’s in order to stay there. I refused, so we went to leave, and they captured us. I’m still not sure why. We managed to escape, then hid in a small cave while the Josagn murdered everything. That’s when we had glorious sex.”

“Was it really that great, knowing that so many people were dying?” she asked, turning her head to the side.

“Totally! I’m honestly not sure when I had gotten some before then,” he confirmed with no hesitation at all.

“Did you go back and get samples from everyone?” she asked, curiously.

He opened his mouth, then shut it. The thought may have occurred to him? Honestly all he had thought about was getting out of there, especially after he encountered the crystal prince.

The crystal prince!

“Do you remember a Josagn prince going missing?” he asked. “I think his father’s name was Ath, or something like that?”

“Aioth! Yes, there was a prince who had gone hunting and disappeared on his first trip. It was feared he had died, but the royal crystals remain lit until the royal member they are bonded with dies. His never did. But that was hundreds of years ago… why do you ask?”

“While we were down in the underground city, we came across a small man who was all crystal. He claimed to be that prince, had a pretty convincing story, that you believed, and we took him with us when we left the caves. It wasn’t long after we left, that we got separated fighting a monster, and you were taken by the Josagn. I found your PED, still bloody, afterwards, but you were gone. One of the locals, those stick things you saw fighting the Josagn at the shuttle station, told me it was common for us to arrive for a while, then be called back by the Josagn for another trip.”

Her brow scrunched up in thought.

“I got into a fight with him, and he was knocked out. I hid and when he woke up, he was talking to the Josagn about me as if he was a spy. I followed him for a while, in the form of a worm, like the ones who dug these tunnels, just a lot smaller, and every time I got close, I would dream of real memories, instead of the fabricated ones they put in our heads. It was after I found out he knew I was following him, that I got mad and started running towards the station in the form you had found me. I’m glad you arrived when you did, though I think they did that in the hopes I would slow down, because it meant we could escape together.”

“How do you know this is your twentieth trip?” she asked.

“Remember the PED’s I was using to upgrade ours with?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I was the one who upgraded everyone of them. The same wires were twisted, in the same directions. There were nineteen, which means this is my twentieth trip. One of my memories had the human judge who sentenced me to this hellhole, telling the Josagn I should be returned after twenty trips.”

“That’s messed up,” she said. “I’m glad the sex was good, I just wish I remembered it.”

“Come on, lets go look for something to eat.”

She admired the crystal scales that covered her arms and nodded. “I’m starving!”