Page 107 of Exiles on Earth

“Hi! Don’t panic, I just want to ask you a question about another Gerverstock. I know it’s probably futile, but I can’t think of anything else to do. Time’s ticking, I’ve delayed long enough, and my farm might be falling apart without me. The pull to go home and fix everything keeps me up at night.

“But my realization on the podium hit me hard. Of course he couldn’t ask me out! He’d been trained from birth—or the clone equivalent—to take the lead from females. I wish I’d toldhim he could refuse me and then asked him out, and now it might be too late.

“But I have to try. Wherever he is, I hope he’s happy, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion he isn’t. Whoever claimed him won’t look after him the way I would.

“So I just want to talk to him. Do you know where Ilia Gerverstock is?”

Licking my dry lips, I wait patiently for one of them to be brave enough to speak. Seeing the fear and doubt in Ilia’s exact face breaks me every time, but slowly an individual raises his head.

“El-len. Human,” he says. “Saw the broadcast. Heard… the love.”

I nod fiercely, chest aching with the force of holding in my sobs. “Yes, that’s right. Do you know Ilia? Have you seen him?”

My hope crashes when he lowers his head. “Deepest apologies, female. This one hasn’t. But we’ll search for you.”

“That’s okay. Thank you.” It’s not okay, it’s far from okay, but what can I do?

Keep going, lass. I don’t want to leave until I see Ilia and how happy he is. Then I’ll go home with a broken heart, but a full one.

As I jog back to the Pranastock, he gets out of the low gray hovercar, wringing his hands. Something must have happened. I speed up as much as I can, arriving in a swirl of dust and coughing hard.

“Honored female,” he begins, “you have a missive from the Prif. Please, step inside and attend to her.”

I slide into the car to find Floss and Rex with their fur on end, snarling softly at a hologram of the Prif, seated in the seats opposite me.

“Holy shit, that’s realistic,” I say, cracking open a carafe of water and drinking deeply.

“Greetings, El-len,” the Prif says dryly. “I’ve been awaiting you on my launchpad. Your departure is imminent, is it not?”

“Yeah, I…. Yeah.” The water I guzzled sits as a cold ball in my stomach, heavy as iron. “I’ll be there soon.”

A light starts blinking behind the Prif, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “My personal craft won’t be available for much longer. You need to arrive within the next cycle if you wish to use it.”

Great, now the nice fast spaceship will be taken from me if I don’t get a move on. She probably wasn’t enthused with my interview, either, and reconsidering the offer.

“I’ll be there,” I promise, and her image flickers out.

I put my head between my knees, that light on the roof still blinking in my peripheral vision. I can’t go. I haven’t seen him.

But I have to leave. I’ve got to get back to my farm. I can’t stay on an alien world looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. He might not even be on this planet anymore.

His eyes haunt me, how he watched as I lifted away in the elevator to be swallowed up by the jungle. How he fought with his hands manacled together, then stayed to protect me even though he knew I’d be safe. He ruined his chances in the Games for me.

And I love him.

Tears drip into my palms, mingling with the sweat on my face. “I just want to know where he is,” I say. I’m not a praying person, I don’t know who I’m speaking to, but if the universe is listening as Arabella says, I want it to hear me now. The farm I’ll fix, I’ll make it work, and even if I do have to knock the barn down, I’ll build it again somehow.

But I can’t replace Ilia.

“Esteemed female.” The strain in the Pranastock’s voice makes me sit up.

Wiping my face in my shirt, I ask, “What’s up?”

“There’s another incoming transmission. It’s… it’s…” He gulps. “It’s the All-Mother.”

The blinking light from the roof flashes insistently. Oh, a call is coming in.

“I’ll take it,” I say, and where the golden Prif had sat is now the silver All-Mother, scales rippling in agitation.