He was watching her as if he could read the thoughts scurrying through her mind. She hurriedly checked the telepathic link, but there was no connection to his mind, no way to send him a message.
Finally, he nodded and stood as straight as he could. “Nice bunch you hang out with, if they’d leave an injured man to die so callously. All right then, let’s go.”
“We have rules,” she said, annoyed at his implied criticism as he took his first faltering steps, braced against her shoulder. “The directives are designed for the safety of all who dwell at the Retreat.”
“I declare a truce with you,” he said, breath labored. “I don’t have the energy to argue any more today.”
As she’d feared, Gabe was so debilitated by his two unresolved internal injuries that they made extremely slow progress. After about two hours, he sank onto a tree stump and shook his head. Hand pressed to his side, he spoke as if every breath was an effort. “I can’t go on. I’m sorry, and I appreciate what you’ve tried to do for me, but you have to leave me here. Send help if you can.”
Frustrated, Keshara shook her head. “Don’t declare defeat too easily. Sit and regain your strength as best you can. I’ll make a litter.” She trudged into a nearby grove of small trees and spent the next hour making a crude conveyance from branches and vines. Then she took a break to check on her companion’s condition.
Now slumped on the stump, barely conscious, Gabe chuckled as he checked out her ingenious creation and gave her a thumbs up, which she assumed was a sign of approval. “A long way from antigrav. You’re a stubborn woman, Second Daughter.”
Pleased he’d remembered her title, she sat next to him and continued her labors, weaving a few more vines and branches into the central portion of her contraption, to better support his weight. “You’ve no idea.”
When she was done, she assisted Gabe in lying down on the woven surface then placed herself between the two poles and set off, dragging the litter in the direction they needed to go, trying to find the smoothest path possible. She wasn’t going to be able to maintain this effort for long either. Frequent rest stops were required, and she was alarmed how much weaker he seemed each time. She tried to summon the healing power and was frustrated, if not too surprised, to find she had no reserves left to use.
About three hours later, she heard a shout from the forest ahead of her and knew she’d been found.
Be warned. The First Daughter is very angry. The message whispered in her head, sent by Palinna, her closest friend among the sisterhood.
Stomach in knots, Keshara set the front end of the litter down and squatted to check Gabe’s pulse. Thinking he’d lost consciousness, she brushed his hair off his forehead and sighed. “Hang on.”
His eyes flickered open for a heartbeat. “You’re too stubborn to let me die.”
She squeezed his hand and rose to greet the newcomers.
First Daughter Ashla walked up to her and slapped her across the face with so much force Keshara fell to her knees. No resistance, she told herself, touching her bleeding lip gingerly. Ashla was addicted to beating others into submission but, if no resistance to her blows was offered by the victim, she was less likely to fall into a frenzy. Ashla was much older than Keshara, with threads of silver in her tightly wound braids, and smaller in stature, but had lost none of her physical strength as the years passed. For the first time, Keshara found herself seriously considering what the outcome would be if she challenged the First Daughter to a fight, instead of meekly accepting whatever discipline the other woman meted out. The concept was so novel, she caught her breath and dodged Ashla’s next blow.
Gabe was cursing and struggling to rise from the litter. “What the seven hells—”
The five Badari women with Ashla surrounded him, hunting knives at the ready, and he subsided, glaring at them.
Reminding herself the whole point of her return to the Retreat was to obtain help for the human, Keshara forced herself not to rise. “I know I’m in the wrong and will take whatever punishment is declared, but I ask help for my companion.”
Eyes glowing golden, shot through with angry red, Ashla pointed at her, “You risked the safety of us all. If you’d been taken by the others who dwell outside the Retreat, the Director herself could have been imperiled. You know this, we reiterate the risks endlessly in training.”
“The Great Mother called me to leave the Retreat and be in the right place to assist Gabe,” Keshara said. Not only did she believe this in the core of her own being, she knew Ashla was a devout believer in the goddess and her commands, although if Keshara was pressed on the point, she feared Ashla placed the Director above the Great Mother.
“Gabe?” Ashla stalked to the litter and stood staring at him. “Who is he? What is he?”
“Human,” he said with difficulty, obviously uncomfortable at facing a threat from a prone position but unable to rise.
“He was being chased by the Khagrish in a flyer,” Keshara added when it was plain Gabe struggled to form further words because of his worsening injuries.
“You bring them down on our heads as well?” Ashla stood over him, balancing her knife. “Immediate execution for you both should be the penalty. And I’m happy to act as executioner of those who threaten our peace and safety.”
Keshara’s blood ran cold but the threat was idle, at least for now. The Director wouldn’t forgive Ashla killing another Badari woman without a direct command to do so, and she held the First Daughter’s figurative leash tight.
Gabe choked out what he obviously hoped were extenuating details. “Wait a minute. Lost them in the storm. No sign of them since.”
“I believed it was best to bring this matter—and him—to the Director,” Keshara said truthfully. “These humans are unknown to us but, as you hear, he speaks our secret language, he knows some of our customs. We need to understand this new development. Where he fits in. If he could be useful to the Director and her research.” She ignored the startled glance Gabe gave her. He probably took her comment as a betrayal, but Keshara was desperate to obtain help for him. Worry about the consequences later.
Ashla frowned, looking from her to the man on the litter. “Perhaps you’re right on this count. Certainly the Director will want to know of these humans, to question him if he survives. But you’re very much guilty of breaking the rules and must pay the price.” She gestured to the other Badari. “Bind her wrists and let us return to the Retreat.”
One of her fellow Daughters put Keshara into force restraints, with her hands behind her back. She offered no resistance, only said from her kneeling position, “You will give him medical care? He has broken ribs, a punctured lung, and perhaps a ruptured spleen. His leg was broken, but I applied healing power to it.”
“You wasted your goddess-given power on this human?” Ashla kicked at one of the litter poles. “Foolish, girl.”
“I can’t refuse to use my gifts when there’s need.” In her heart, Keshara had no regrets at all, even though her power had yet to reach its normal levels. Even if she never regained her ability, keeping Gabe alive would have been worth the total exhaustion of the gift, to her mind.
Ashla grunted and pointed at Raeblin, who was a trained medic. “Do a diagnostic. Give him whatever we have in the medical kit that will keep him alive for now. Be quick about it.”
Raeblin pulled equipment from her pack and hastened to Gabe, doing a cursory scan. “The situation is as she reports. Much internal bleeding.” While she was extracting an inject from a different pouch strapped to her waist, she said, “He may not be able to tolerate our drugs.”
“Too bad for him then.” Ashla was her usual gruff and unsympathetic self. “Dose him and let’s be on the move. I don’t like being so far from the Retreat.”
Gabe’s recollections of the rest of the trip to the Retreat, as Keshara and her people called their home, were vague and splintered. He kept a general idea of what directional heading his rescuers took, in case he ever needed to run for it. As
The party finally entered what he immediately recognized as a Khagrish-designed installation. Blocky construction, no windows, fairly low to the ground, several wings stretching away from the central hub. The aliens definitely had a signature style to their architecture, at least for labs.
Keshara was taken away under guard when his crude litter was carried through long corridors to a medlab. As the litter was placed on a raised surface, the door opened across the room, and a Khagrish scientist walked in, unmistakable in her lab coat, red-and-yellow crest of hair spiking from her head. Two lab techs and a security guard came into the room on her heels.
“What the fuck—?” Powered by adrenaline and rage because he’d trusted Keshara and she’d obviously betrayed him, he fought off the women holding his arms, grabbed a knife from the belt of the Badari nearest him and lurched away from the advancing enemy. The chances of escape were nil, but his pride forced him to make the attempt. There were shouts, and he actually had his hand on the door when he was hit with multiple stun blasts from behind.
Unable to move so much as a finger, he fell heavily to the floor and felt further internal damage to his battered body happening as he was unable to break his fall in any way. The weapon skittered away across the floor.
“Roll him over—I want to see his face,” said a voice in Khagrish.
None too gently, Ashla and another woman shifted him onto his back. The scientist leaned over to study him. Gabe wished he could spit in her face, but issuing even the petty insult was denied him by the effect of the weapon blasts. He was having a hard time breathing, and his vision flickered in and out.
“Interesting. So they’re experimenting on a new species these days. I wonder why?” The scientist straightened. “Make sure he’s properly healed. I’m going to want to know all his secrets before we’re done, and I need him strong.”
“Yes, Director.” Ashla’s response was enthusiastic, and she eyed Gabe up and down before asking suggestively, “Might he serve other purposes as well?”
“Perhaps, we’ll see.” The Khagrishi crossed her arms and stared at him. “Put him under and begin the treatment.”
Gabe’s memories were fragmented, flashes of himself lying on the cold metal lab table, bursts of pain so intolerable he screamed despite his best efforts to remain stoic, lab techs manhandling him in and out of bed and baths, tubes entering and leaving his body, voices murmuring...he had no idea how long he endured the suffering, but he regained full consciousness with a snap, as some drug wore off perhaps. He was sitting in bed, being spoon-fed the Khagrish version of lumpy stew by one of the Badari women.
He tried to grab her hand and discovered he was chained to the rails at the wrists and ankles. Worse than that, he wore a black neurocontroller bracelet on his right wrist. The irony of his situation hit hard: he’d been freed from a stasis envelope by Jill Garrison early in his captivity on this planet, and he had never been braceletted or experimented on by the Khagrish. Now here he was, a prisoner of some demented Khagrish scientist in a facility way off the charts, surrounded by Badari women of all things, and no help in sight.
“Good. You’ve awakened,” the girl said, pausing in her efforts to feed him. “This is an improvement over the passive state you were in while the healing cycle completed.”
“Where’s Keshara?” he said, ignoring her remarks because the woman who’d saved his life and then betrayed him was at the forefront of his mind. He was surprisingly prepared to forgive her turning him over to the Khagrish, now he was in his right mind and apparently recovered. She must have believed there was no other way to save his life. But the realization only went so far. He wasn’t prepared to extend trust to her automatically again. I need to talk to her, find out what’s what. “What’s been done to her?”
He thought the girl wasn’t going to answer him. She took the bowl and spoon and moved away from the bed and stood staring at him. “She awaits the Director’s judgment for breaking the edict about not leaving the Retreat. She’s confined to a cell. Everything has been waiting on hold until the Director has a chance to evaluate you, or so First Daughter Ashla says. Why do you care?”
“Keshara helped me, and she didn’t have to. She could have gotten away with no problem, but she made the decision to save my sorry ass. She’s a standup lady.” If only he could be sure she hadn’t handed him over as a way to improve her own position. But, during the long night in the furbana den and on the hike the next day, Keshara hadn’t seemed like she was a ruthless, out for herself person.
“You—you like her?” The inquiry was whispered, shy.
The question wasn’t anything he was expecting so he parried automatically, even while part of his brain was reminding him he did like Keshara very much, based on their time in the furbana den. He wasn’t about to give voice to those private emotions. “I barely know her, but she’s already higher in my books than anyone else here.” He was playing for time, assessing his physical condition. No more pain from the ribs, spleen or lungs. Breathing was no longer an ordeal, and he flicked a glance at his big toe, sticking out from under the covers. His color was good so his lung must have been healed. Gabe relaxed against the pillows. The woman next to his bed was unmistakably a Badari, taller than most human women, well built and seeming quite athletic, judging from the muscles in her biceps. Similar to Keshara’s physique. “I don’t suppose you’d like to let me out of these?” He rattled the chains.
His attendant sat back in her chair uneasily and glanced at the door as if expecting to be interrupted any moment. “I don’t have the key.”
Which was not exactly a refusal. Interesting. Time to get his brain in gear and figure out the lay of the land in this odd situation. “I’m still hungry, if you don’t mind. And thirsty.”
She startled, sweeping her long brown hair off her shoulder . “Oh, yes, of course.”
As she resumed spooning the glop into him, interspersed with sips of nutrient drink, Gabe debated which question to ask first. Introductions were fairly safe. “I’m Gabe Carter,” he said. “I’d offer to shake hands but, as you can see, that’s not possible.”
A frown furrowing her brow, she swirled the spoon aimlessly in the bowl, staring at the mush with her pale amber colored eyes. “I’m Raeblin. I’m sorry we have to keep you restrained but, until we know you better, the Director says we must be cautious.”
“I get it, can’t ever be too careful when strangers drop in.” He made himself grin as if he and the woman were sharing a grand joke. “You treated me out there on the trail, right? Thanks for the help.”
“Your physiology is close to ours, but there are differences, of course. I’m glad I could be of assistance. We’re all eager to learn more about the world beyond the Retreat.” She gave him a swallow of the drink.
He hated being fed like a baby but pushed his anger away. It wasn’t this woman’s decision how he was to be treated, and she seemed sympathetic to him. Gazing around the medlab, he asked artlessly, “So what’s the deal here? Is it just you ladies and the Khagrish scientist and her staff? Are there Badari men too? Or more Khagrish?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never seen a male Badari, only male Khagrish. The Director and her two lab techs, plus the guard captain are the only Khagrish here. All the other Khagrish are our enemies. She saved us from them.” This last was said as if learned by rote.
I’ll bet she did. The Khagrish don’t do anything out of the goodness of their hearts. “Can I talk to the Director? Does she have a name?”
Eyes wide, Raeblin recoiled. “We’re not allowed to use her name. But yes, she does want to meet with you. I’ll go and report your improved condition as soon as we’ve completed your feeding.”
“How long have I been here?” he asked after the next mouthful of rations.
She wiped mush from his chin with a careful swipe of the napkin. “Five days. It was touch and go whether we could save you. You’d sustained a lot of internal damage, worsened by the effort you made to escape us when you saw the Director.” She frowned. “The Director didn’t like your behavior.”
I don’t give a damn what the Khagrish like or don’t like. “I was disoriented, in pain. I’ll have to apologize when I see her.” Yeah, when it snows in hell. He wondered why these Badari were so deferential to the Khagrish scientist at every turn. Didn’t they understand what the Khagrish were capable of? He couldn’t believe these Badari women had been spared entirely from the types of horror the male packs had been subjected to for centuries.
“Good idea, get on her good side.” Raeblin nodded enthusiastically, although her eyes held a wary expression, as if even being on the good side of a Khagrish wasn’t the most ideal state of existence. He was frankly heartened to see at least a small sign of reserve on the part of the Badari. “Life can be hard and scary here when she’s upset, although Ashla can usually calm her down.” Raeblin held the straw to his mouth. The concoction was sludgy, as if bits of fruit had been mushed into it and the pinkish-beige color was a bit stomach turning but he needed to rebuild his strength and at least the taste was inoffensive. “We’re done.” She shook the container to check. “I’ll go and report in now.”
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