The passage of time had been difficult to measure. Beth thought she remembered four menses, light enough to be ignored by her, if not by the hunter. Whatever he found so entrancing about her scent doubled then. There may have been another cycle during the black depression after leaving Earth's orbit. This then, was the sixth. Six months, more or less. A half of a year of her life had been stolen.

    She had never been a cheerful person, but friends had always said she was like a force of nature in her vitality and enthusiasm. That part of her had gone on a long hiatus but, from day to day and against her will, her animated energy returned to normal. The innate will to survive proved stronger than her wish for an end.

    Another day had begun much as most of them did with her captor waking her with his hardness ready to sample her again. Beth heard a muffled klaxon above the ragged impassioned breathing of the Yeter. His ears pricked and he pulled away with a startled grunt.

    She followed to the hanger and watched as he checked monitors and consulted a guide. Beth laughed silently as his hands began to tremble, moving slowly and uncertainly across the various screens. Finally he crouched, his face a study in animated thought. She realized, with something like pleasure, he was afraid.

    “The silking is torn,” he said, gesturing to the portal and the glinting sleek gel-like covering that protected the ship. “I must go outside to repair it.”

    He reached out and drew her toward the monitors. “Watch here. When this number turns white,” the hunter pointed out a figure on the screen, “Touch this.” He touched a square on a nearby touch pad.

    He was momentarily distracted by her scent, burying his face in the curve of her neck. Beth could feel the prodding of his penis in the curve of her rump as the hunter spread his hands on her abdomen and tugged her tightly against him. She half expected him to ignore the technical problem for however long it would take for him to solve his physical one.

    Beth, knowing she had no choice in the matter either way, examined the console and the touch pads more carefully.

    The 'number' — a strange slatted series of dots — was flashing in a cool blue green. The touch pad was labeled with pictographs. The one he indicted had a spot with radiating half-circles — meaning a sound or speaker, she thought.

    “Do you understand?” he asked, finally remembering his purpose, pulling away with a groan.

    She nodded. He looked into her face a long minute. “We cannot go on unless this is repaired.”

    She nodded again.

    The square jaw tightened. “Say aloud what I have instructed.”

    Beth repeated his instructions.

    The Yeter stared a minute longer, and then made his decision. He turned to a textured panel and tapped a few of the swirling shapes. The panel opened and he removed a belt of supplies and a small cylinder. Protrusions from one side of the canister were slipped inside his nostrils. He pushed a lever on the other side and strode to the gap. He looked back at her again.

    “You cannot pilot this ship.”

    So that is what had the Yeter worried, Beth realized. He would be vulnerable and feared her. She mimicked his smirk but the angry heat in his eyes erased it.

    The gel yielded to his push, but a bubble remained around him, tethered to the silking by a gossamer cable. Beth felt her jaw drop in indignation. At no point could she have actually fallen through the opening but he had used the misconception to torture her.

    By lifting up on the cable the hunter moved the sheath in the direction he wished to go. Beth watched until he was out of sight.

    Gradually the number faded from blue-green to blue to a gray-blue. When it turned white, she pressed the communication button and waited.

    Beth felt a shuddering tremor through the soles of her feet. Movement beyond the portal caught her attention. A shower of tiny pebbles bounced off the gel coating and flashed like jet-propelled fireflies. She had seen the phenomenon several times and wondered if the flashes were the stones or fragments of silking adhering to them.

    Another shape floated into view. The Yeter drifted, still in the bubble of silking, a couple yards away, carried by inertia. The meteorites had ruptured the cable and set him in motion. The knowledge of his fate was plain in his solemn expression. He showed no outward signs of panic, which impressed Beth in spite of her hatred.

    She looked once more at the controls. Though the ship, by and large, seemed to run automatically, she had no idea how to engage the drive or how to return to Earth — or anyplace else, for that matter. How long the ship's stores would support life was another unknown. Beth weighed her options and found them to be the same as they always had been. Her life was still in the Yeter's ungentle hands.

    Pressing the sequence, she opened the locker and lifted out an air cylinder. Beth activated the feed and stepped up to the barrier. Her hands shook as she pushed through the gel, forming her own silking-sac and cable. The material surrounded her, slick and snug, covering without invading her mouth, nostrils, or other orifices. She wondered how long the silking could keep the absolute cold at bay then noticed the hunter shivering. Not long without the cable, it seemed.

    Pushing off like a cliff diver, she jumped toward the Yeter, who watched with a curious look on his face. When she glided close, he reached out, awkward and clumsy with the cold, and the two sacs merged. He cuddled her tightly, drawing warmth from inside her bubble and from her skin. Beth wrapped her arms around his neck and exhaled into the enclosed space made between their bodies. His hands would linger then move on, searching for another warm patch of her.

    Beth glanced at the spacecraft and stiffened. They had drifted father than she thought possible in the short amount of time. She pointed and he nodded. The grimness in his eyes worried her further.

    The hunter worked his fingers, griping and relaxing, until limber enough to grasp the single cable of silking. The cord thinned with the combined weight and the Yeter paused in his task. Beth trembled, fearing breakage, and held on. She had tried to save him for her own reasons but had no wish to die with him. The umbilical slowly regained its shape and he repeated the process. The ship swam a little nearer.

    Little by little, he reeled them back. He pushed Beth through the silking and stumbled in beside her. Inside the hanger, the hunter took the cartridges back to the recessed niche and attached tubing to each. Recharging the air, Beth thought, sitting where she had fallen coming through the portal.

    The Yeter tapped a couple keys quickly and a vibration announced the continuance of the voyage. The stars regained the blue to red shift.

    He stared at her, looking as if he had something to say or wanted her to say something. She averted her eyes and rested her chin on her knees to watch the stars. For the rest of the day, he avoided her — a difficult task in the tiny confines of the two-roomed vessel — and huddled alone, wrapped in blankets.

    Most of the next day, he merely watched her. Finally, he voiced one of the commands she knew. 'Come'. She went.

    He crouched with her between his knees, one of his usual positions. Strangely gentle, he gathered her in. The four needle-sharp teeth broke her skin and he lapped the droplets away. He nuzzled her ear and Beth worried. What was his game this time?

    “Seba. You saved my life.”

    Beth nodded, and tilted her head to show she listened.

    “Why? Speak truthfully.”

    She shook her head and whispered, “What choice did I have?”

    “Ahh.” His arms encircled her but didn't restrain her as he usually did. “What would you do, if you were given a choice?”

    She said the first thing that came to mind, trying to shake him from this new torment. “I'd slice open your fucking belly and strangle you with your own guts.”

    He chuckled. His arms tightened. “Struggle, and speak no more.” So she struggled, for all the good it did, to amuse him.

    “Would you accompany me voluntarily?” he asked, pinning her ass tightly between his knees.

    She shook her head and bucked against him as he entered her as roughly and carelessly as ever. Whatever passed as his gratitude apparently didn't stand in the way of his pleasure or her rape.

    “Too bad. I would have liked to keep you forever.”

    Which was the first time she been given any clue that he hadn't intended to do so all along.