Quarantine signs were a joke, one nailed to almost every door in the city before the entire area out to the suburbs was cordoned off with containment chains blocking all roads in and out. Only a handful of checkpoints were left open to allow the bare essentials to come in.

Nester Vex and his new wife Grisha remained blessed with good health. At the first sign of public infection, Grisha had withdrawn a sizeable sum of her savings and purchased several months worth of canned provisions, then retreated to Nester's house, outside the heavily populated city.

After a week of the plague burning through Laushek, Nester's hovel felt very much like an inviting home.

Sitting at his diningroom table, Nester fiddled with one of the devices he'd found in Sophia's coat pockets. The strange objects intrigued him as much as that enigmatic alien had, and he hoped to unlock their secrets which could prove beneficial to Lesher society.

Turning a dial on the small box, a nasty squealing noise sounded, forcing Grisha to drop a recently washed plate. The cheap, wooden dish clacked harmlessly against the brick floor.

"Turn that off!" she shouted covering her ears.

Nester didn't need her to ask; he was already fumbling with the device, trying to shut it down. It took him a couple of seconds to find the off switch.

Grisha left the remainder of the dishes to be cleaned later, and walked over to join her husband. "With all the books I brought for us to read, you have to spend all your time fiddling with this nonsense," she chided.

"This nonsense is advanced alien technology, which may hold the key to our survival someday," Nester replied, continuing to examine the little, gray box, its knobs and buttons still a mystery. "I just wish I had a greater understanding of the physics involved."

"This stuff is so alien to us. I doubt you'll get anywhere, unless you happen to run into another human to explain it. Come on, give it a rest," Grisha said, rubbing his cheek with her hand.

"I suppose you're right," Nester said, sliding the device across the table in frustration.

"Come on, why don't we turn in early tonight?" Grisha said, wrapping her slender arms around Nester's neck.

"I'm not terribly tired," Nester replied.

"Perhaps we'll do something more than sleep," Grisha said, kissing his cheek. "I can't wait to start a family."

Nester shook his head. "You know it takes months, sometimes even years, of cohabitation before the female body becomes hormonally acclimated enough to produce the proper pheromone to initiate mating. Right now, you aren't producing eggs, and my mating instinct is dormant."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and my body will condition itself early," Grisha whispered. "Besides, we don't want you to have a relapse of scale-rot, do we?"

"I have been pushing myself a bit hard the past few weeks. Maybe I should give it a rest," Nester said, feeling fatigued.

With a short trip to the kitchen for a glass of water, Nester prepared himself for a long night's sleep, trying not to think about the hundreds of thousands of Leshers dying a few miles away.

Nester didn't let on, but Grisha could tell it was driving him up the wall, the thought of death, the fear that they might be the next to be stricken with the plague. The probability of them contracting it was diminished by their isolation, but the odds were still too high for comfort.

* * *

Sleep came easily to Grisha, though Nester's nights were not so pleasant. Not since he'd gotten over the scale-rot. His mind just didn't shut off; it constantly reflecting upon the reality of his circumstances.

A hard thump roused Nester from his restless sleep. Sitting up in a drowsy state, the noise was heard again, except stronger and louder. By the time he slid out from under the covers, the force was so strong it shook the walls.

The last thump was enough to rouse Grisha from her deep sleep, and she cracked an eye to see Nester throwing on his clothes. "What's that?" she asked quietly.