Get out of there

Calvo wasted no more time thinking about the alien bitch. He needed to be gone, and quickly. Rising to his feet, he glanced around the small cave in which his life had so nearly ended.

It was clearly not a home: there was no furniture, no personal bellongings, no food he could see, no where to sleep. Instead, it had the feel of a place of devotion or worship. The flat rock upon which he had been lying was quite clearly not natrual, it had been carefully worked in to a rectangle, and it's surface was carved with channels radiating from its centre. They would have filled with his blood if the Tau-Cetan woman had had her way. The walls of the cave were filled with painting, some no more than primative daubs, others beautifully detailed and lifelike. In the flickering light from the oil pots set in sconces around the walls, tentacles seemed to writhe and twitch, as if the paintings had a life of their own. Calvo felt both unnerved, and vaguely ashamed, as if he had desecrated a church.

His clothing and gear was piled carelessly beside the cave's entrance. As he dressed, he tried to ignore the strangled moans of the alien girl. Her back was arched with agony, her naked blue skin seeming to glow with sweat, jaw set in a hard rictus. She had earned that pain, He told himself, as he spun on his heel and strode out of the cave leaving her to her painful fate.