by Leslie Chase
“Food,” Auric said, his rough voice making me jump and squeak. I spun to see him emerging from the forest with a small animal in hand. Dark fur, matted with blood, and sharp teeth. I stared at the dead animal, trying to see it as food.
My rumbling stomach helped.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I said, then tried to figure out how to repeat it in Galtrade. Too many words I didn’t know.
Auric seemed to get the gist, though, or at least the gesture he made looked apologetic. But his eyes didn’t apologize as he stared at me, and I remembered how much skin I was showing.
Blushing bright red, I looked around for my clothes. They hung where I’d left them, drying on a rock near the water. With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked over to retrieve them.
Auric’s eyes never left me, and the lust in his gaze was as unnerving as it was exciting. There was no artifice in his look, no dishonesty: he liked looking at me and didn’t pretend otherwise. And I couldn’t deny that I liked being looked at.
This wasn’t like the guys back on Earth or McKenzie aboard the Wandering Star. It was more honest, and more straightforward. Somehow I felt that I could trust Auric. Maybe because I liked looking at him just as much.
It’s not like I didn’t take a good look earlier, I reminded myself as I pulled the uniform on. It was dry, thank god, and when I turned back to face him, Auric smiled and said something I couldn’t follow.
I really need to work on my Galtrade. Language lessons could wait, though. For now, I was starving and we needed to cook the … whatever Auric had caught.
He sat beside the lake, a small pile of firewood next to him and a perplexed expression on his face as he tried to light it. I almost laughed as he rubbed two sticks together — his technique was awful. It looked like he had heard that it was possible but never tried.
“Let me try,” I told him. It had been a long time since I’d tried to start a fire without tools, but my father had taught me how. At least I had something to contribute to this meal.
It took longer than I’d hoped. Rubbing two sticks together is a terrible way to start a fire, but eventually I coaxed a small flame out and, adding dry leaves carefully, grew it into a bigger one. Meanwhile, Auric set to cleaning his kill. By the time the fire was going, he had the animal ready to cook on a wooden spit.
For a moment I worried about poison. Would we even be able to eat this? But worrying about that wouldn’t help. We had nothing else to eat, and no way to test for poisons. If the animals weren’t edible, we’d starve.
Plus, the thing smelled delicious. Whatever his other talents, Auric knew how to cook in the wild. I struggled to wait for the meat to be done, my mouth watering.
Eventually he was satisfied, pulling the cooked meat off the stick and onto some large leaves. It tasted as good as it smelled, though that might be my hunger speaking.
We ate in silence, and while there wasn’t much meat on the animal, it was enough to stop my stomach complaining for the time being.
“What now?” I asked as I wiped my hands clean with some leaves. “Where to?”
Auric started to say something, then frowned. “Where is ship?”
I pointed to the water and he nodded grimly. He must have guessed as much — where else could it have gone? — but the confirmation hit him hard. No wonder. Without that ship and the equipment inside it we were on our own with only our wits to protect us.
There was one bright side. If I had to be stranded on an unknown planet with someone I barely knew, at least it was Auric.
12
Auric
I looked out at the placid lake and tried to control my urge to swear. If I started, I wouldn’t stop. All our supplies, all our gear, everything that would make survival on this planet possible, all of it was down there on the lake floor.
I’m not, I reminded myself. And neither is Tamara. As long as we’re alive, everything else is secondary.
That might not be for long, though. The woods were too quiet, and the animal I’d caught had been the only life I’d seen. Perhaps the noise of the crash had scared everything else away? I hoped so — that would mean that we’d find more game to hunt as we traveled.
But we couldn’t stay here.
“We must move,” I told Tamara. It took a couple of tries to get the meaning across, but when she understood she nodded. Good.
She didn’t look like much of a survivor, but she’d already proved me wrong once. Without her, I’d be on the bottom of the lake along with the ship. It warmed my heart to know she had the determination to drag me up onto the beach, even if I wished she’d brought the survival pack with her. But how would she even have known where to look for it?
Tamara gestured around us and shrugged. I nodded: which direction to go in was the first question we had to answer. I tried to remember the terrain from before the crash, but those memories were hazy and I’d only had a moment to look around.
If I don’t know, then one direction is as good as another. Better to get moving and figure it out later. And better for Tamara if she thinks I know where we’re going.
I didn’t want her to worry, and that meant looking as confident as I could. Perhaps I’ve failed every other human, but I can shield her from harm and worry. That’s something.
“There,” I told her, pointing uphill through the trees with as much confidence as I could muster. With luck we’d be able to see something from the high ground, and if not, at least we were moving.
She nodded, and I caught a little grin. Perhaps she wasn’t fooled, but as long as she was amused rather than frightened I didn’t mind.
There was nothing to pack up at our little camp, so I made sure our fire was out and then turned my back and walked into the trees. Tamara followed, hanging back a little to start with but catching up as the shadows settled around us.
The forest wasn’t thick, but the tree canopy blocked enough light to make me wary. There was something ominous about the silence that surrounded us and I felt on edge. Still, it was better than being out in the open. I’d lived too long on a spaceship to be comfortable with the sky above me.
I kept myself alert for any predators that might be in the area, hoping there was nothing large enough to see us as prey. Whatever animals hunted here wouldn’t have any fear of us, and I didn’t want to take any chances.
After a little while, Tamara spoke up behind me.
“I must learn more words?”
I looked around, frowning, and she pointed at a tree. Made a noise. Oh. She wants to learn more Galtrade?
If we could communicate, we’d be better able to survive. At least that’s what I told myself as I started to trade words with her. In truth it was more than that. Speaking meant I felt less alone, and hearing her voice warmed my soul.
It was bad enough being stranded on this planet, but being here on my own would have driven me insane. Marooning people on isolated planets was a punishment for the worst traitors of the Silver Band.
It was the kind of fate that Zaren deserved, and the punishment he’d have decreed for me if he had the chance. Growling, I tried not to dwell on that and concentrated on the language lessons.
Fortunately, Tamara had a basic grasp of the language and she was a quick study. Galtrade was an ugly, awkward tongue, designed for ease of use rather than poetry. But it was a lot better than nothing, and with the help of her virtual cat the human learned quickly.
The hologram made me smile and shake my head. Simulating a small mammal was a curious use of computing power, but it came in handy as a translator and there was something appealing about the little creature.
I wondered how the hologram still functioned when my technology didn’t. Perhaps the humans’ batteries were simply too primitive to be targeted by the taveshi? I hoped so — that would mean that the Wandering Star might be salvageable. It was a distant hope, but something to cling to.
It took most of the day for us to get to the top of the hill I’d started us on, and the
sun touched the horizon as we clambered to the top. On the far side was a steep drop, and from the edge we stared out over a deep forest.
“Oh good,” Tamara said, followed by an unfamiliar word in her own language. I recognized a swearword when I heard one. “More trees.”
“Could be worse,” I pointed out. “Could be a desert.”
That wasn’t a word she knew and she had to ask the cat for help. After a quick back-and-forth she nodded reluctantly. Forest might not be the easiest terrain to move through, but it was a lot better than some of the options.
We both fell silent, looking out over the purple-red trees and hoping for some hint of where we should go next.
“There,” Tamara said, grabbing my arm and pointing out over the canopy. “Look. Smoke!”
I followed her outstretched arm, trying to resist the distraction of her touch. As close as we’d been all day, the feel of her fingers on my skin was still enough to make my heart beat faster and it wasn’t easy to keep my attention on where she was pointing.
It took me a moment to see it. The thin plume of smoke rising from the forest was hard to spot but unmistakable once she pointed it out. I squinted, trying to see more detail. A native camp? Another crash site?
The forest looked disturbed, but from this distance I couldn’t be sure. Probably another crashed Silver Band raider, then, or a colony pod from the Wandering Star. I didn’t want to rule out the possibility of sapient natives, though, or even other space travelers.
It didn’t matter: it gave us a direction to go, and that was what we needed. Whoever or whatever waited for us, it would be better than striking out with no goal in mind.
“Too far for today,” I said, reluctantly estimating the distance. There was no way we’d make it before nightfall and navigating in the dark would be impossible. That smoke plume was hard enough to see now. “We must camp.”
For a moment I thought Tamara would mutiny at that. She looked exhausted, but her eyes sparkled as she stared out at the distant smoke. Her body was practically vibrating with hope.
“Tamara,” I said, voice firm. “We will not reach them today. If we try, we will just get lost in the woods. Make a fire.”
My tone of command made her turn back to me, her jaw clamping shut and face darkening. I met her gaze levelly, not giving an inch, and after a long moment she nodded. Reluctance written in every inch of her body, she looked around for fallen wood.
I nodded, relieved. If she’d tried to run off, I’d have had to restrain her, and then where would we be? I could hardly keep her tied up for the rest of the journey, however long that took.
But if I let her run off on her own, she’d be dead in a day. That was intolerable, and if I had to keep her prisoner to save her life, I would.
Where did that thought come from? I asked myself, tearing my eyes away from the human female. Her safety meant more to me than my own, and I couldn’t think straight when I thought that she was in danger.
If this was the vaunted mating instinct of my people, then I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with it.
Leaving Tamara to make the fire, I took to the woods to hunt. My mood darkened as I moved away from her and I thought about our situation. While I was with the human I kept my mood light to encourage her.
Now, in the darkness of the forest, I could feel the rage and pain in my soul. I refused to let it distract me from my task. We needed something to eat, and there was no safe way to test the local plants for poison. The animals were more likely to be safe to eat, and the forest was slowly returning to life around us. On the one hand that meant that hunting was easier than it had been, but on the other I worried that there might be predators loose in the woods now.
I didn’t dare stray far from Tamara, which limited my hunt. But some of the local animals were easy prey, and it wasn’t too long before I had caught four small mammal-like creatures. Enough for a meal.
Returning to the cliff where we’d camped, I saw Tamara waiting for me beside a small fire. She’d been careful to keep it away from the trees, which was good — we had no need to risk a forest fire.
I hoped that the other fire wouldn’t spread. The last thing we needed was to walk into an inferno, but there was nothing we could do about it. At least the trees didn’t seem dry enough to catch all that easily, but what did I know of that? I’d hunted on planets often enough — I’d never lived on one.
Tamara looked up as I stepped into the circle of firelight, her eyes shining. The ruddy glow of the flames flicked over her and despite my mood I couldn’t help smiling at the sight of her.
Muddy, exhausted, scratched by the undergrowth we’d pushed our way through — still she looked beautiful, desirable, wonderful. A low, hungry growl escaped my throat before I got control of myself.
Do not presume, I told myself. She is not yours to take. That’s exactly the crime that you broke with the Silver Band over.
Tamara deserved to make her own choices, and right now she had none. But I couldn’t help thinking back to how good it had felt to wake that morning, with her pressed against me in the bed of leaves.
With an effort, I turned my back on her and sat down to clean my kills. She deserved better than me anyway. I was a traitor to my Band, and even in that I’d failed.
I would make sure she got to her people safe and sound, if I could. And then she’d be free of me. Hopefully the Wandering Star or some of its colony pods had made it down to the planet safely and in walking distance.
If not, I’d have to find a Silver Band ship and work out how to get its hyperdrive working again. Once I’d defeated whatever the taveshi used to discharge our batteries, I would take Tamara to a human world. I twitched at the thought of that journey, weeks or months of traveling with her at my side. The temptation would be unbearable.
Don’t think about that now. We need to survive the night and the next few days. Then I can worry about what comes next.
When I turned back to the fire she waited, watching me. I tried to smile at her, to look reassuringly confident, but I saw from her eyes that it didn’t work.
We cooked the mammals in silence, the soft crackle of the fire filling our small camp. They tasted good, delicious even, and it was a joy to share such a meal with the human.
Afterward we looked out over the forest in silence. The stars had come out, constellations alien to both of us filling the sky, and two moons rose over the horizon. One large, slow, half-full. The other small and fast, crossing the sky quickly.
Tamara moved closer, sitting against me, and I felt her shiver. Instinctively I put my arm around her, pulling her in to shelter her from the cold.
For a moment she tensed and then she relaxed against me, an arm going around my waist and holding tight. Now it was my turn to tense. Her warm body against mine was enough to drive my instincts crazy, and she filled my senses. She smelled so good, like flowers I couldn’t name, and I wanted more than anything to grab her and take her.
But I would not give in to that temptation. Tamara belonged with her own kind, and I refused to take advantage of her. No matter how much my body craved the touch of her skin.
“Will we live?” she asked quietly, resting her head against my shoulder, oblivious to the fight going on inside me.
“Yes.” I let none of my doubts show in my voice. “You will return home safe, I swear by the Eternal Flame.”
How much that oath was worth I couldn’t say. It was a sacred oath of my people, but it was also the one I’d broken when I turned against the Silver Band. Still, I intended to keep this one and to make sure that she went back to her people unharmed.
Tamara muttered something under her breath in that strange language I knew nothing of. Sad and lonely. I could sympathize. We were both alone here, each potentially the last of our people alive on this planet.
I squeezed her shoulder, intending to comfort her. She let out a hushed breath and turned to me, her breath warm on my skin…
Standing abruptly, I stepped away
from her. No more. I couldn’t face it. If I spent another second touching her, my self-control might snap.
13
Tamara
Auric turned his back and stalked out into the darkness of the forest, leaving me staring after him. My insides knotted from pain and confusion as I watched him go. What had I done to annoy him?
The tension in his shoulders as he vanished into the shadows made me want to throw something at him. I’d thought, just for a second, that we were having a moment. But no, now he was storming off again, cold and distant.
Why do I have such bad taste in men? I’d asked myself that question a million times over the years, but today it bit deep. Leaving Earth, I’d hoped that my string of bad luck would end.
Now here I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere with the sexiest man I’d ever met, and he stormed off rather than holding me. Fucking great.
“It’s probably for the best,” I told myself out loud, pushing a few more sticks into the fire and watching sparks fly. “Do I even want him? He’s a space pirate. And a dick.”
But my body didn’t agree. And he had saved my life. Along with anyone else who’d survived the attack on the Wandering Star — I tried not to think about the possibility that the crash had killed them all.
“What do you think, Mr. Mews?” I asked my wristband, and the holographic cat appeared. He wore a quizzical expression and had no answer for me.
Still, somehow it cheered me up to see the little fake kitten. He purred and mimed a headbutt at my hand. It was enough to make me smile. Maybe whoever had decided to give us these damned virtual pets had been onto something?
“You’re right,” I told the cat. “No point in worrying about it.”
“Mrr,” the cat agreed. I sat back and watched the stars going past. Was one of them Earth’s sun? I had no idea. Maybe McKenzie would know, if he was still alive. It was strange to think of him stranded somewhere on this planet.