Remnant Population

Ofelia put her hands to her back, and sighed. Tonight she would sleep in her own bed, if she was still alive, and rest. She looked around. One of the creatures was poking at the loose beads; another had picked up her beaded and fringed netted garment and was shaking it softly, listening to the sounds it made. Children! Always into things, always moving things, always making messes. “That’s mine,” she said. The heads turned, the eyes stared. It wasn’t quite as bad now; she knew they could stare very well without doing anything else. She took the garment from the one who held it — it released it to her without resistance — and then realized they could have no idea what it was for. “It’s a dress,” she said. She might as well show them; it wasn’t as if they were people, who might make comments about her handiwork.

She wriggled into the garment, enjoying as before the feel of it against her — she had finally gotten that set of beads in just the right place, and the itchy place just under her shoulderblade now had an automatic scratcher every time she moved. Her hands moved without her thought, touching the beads, the bits of bright color and softness and smoothness and texture.

“That’s better,” she said.

“Zzzzt…” said one of them, pointing its long hard fingernail at her.

“No. Not zzzzt. I made this.” Her hands spread, then she picked up a loose bead and threaded it onto one of her twisted-grass strings. “I like to make things.” She picked up another bead, a tiny spacer, then another larger one, and showed them. They all approached; she sensed real interest.

CHAPTER NINE

Ofelia finally elected to sleep in the control room. She simply could not be sure that the creatures would leave it alone otherwise. Not that they couldn’t push her aside, if they chose to, but so far they hadn’t. She collected an armful of dry fabric from the sewing rooms, and spread it on the floor for a mattress. She had slept on worse. The night before, she reminded herself, she had slept on the bare damp floor with a roomful of aliens.

She shut the door in their faces. They made noises through the door, and she ignored them. She spread her material next to the door, and lay down, grunting with exhaustion and aching joints. She really was too old for this. She could not think of a time when it would have been easy, but now she resented it with additional vigor. She had been living exactly as she pleased since the other colonists left, constrained only by what she thought of as real things: weather, the needs of her garden crops, or the animals. Now she was sleeping — or rather, not sleeping — on a hard floor instead of her own bed simply because some pesky aliens that reminded her too much of demanding children couldn’t be trusted to stay out of the control room. Like children, they could do immense harm without even knowing it, and unlike children they offered no compensations: she had no desire at all to cuddle them. If she slept, she would wake up stiff and sore. If she didn’t sleep, she would be exhausted in the morning, and there they would be, brighteyed as children, who always got the sleep they needed, no matter what happened to the adults. It was the end of her life. It was supposed to be simple. She had been so sure she’d worked it out at last. The end, she’d assumed, would be unpleasant, but at least it would be private. No one would disturb her; no one would wake her up, demand things from her.

She dozed for awhile, waking as uncomfortably as she’d expected, but unaccountably happy. From outside soft sounds came through the door… rhythmic sounds, harmonious sounds. Music? Were the alien creatures making music?