“Are you planning to keep pointing that thing at me?”
He kept his eyes fixed on her, not sparing a glance for the pistol. “For now, anyway. I’m starting to feel like I can trust you—a little. Dunno how I’ll feel about the rest of your gang.”
“They’re a decent bunch,” she insisted. “You won’t have any trouble with them.”
Moe couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, right. They’re gonna have to prove it.”
With a roll of her eyes and a sharp exhale, she strode to the door. “Shouldn’t be too hard. Temfilk already seems to like you.”
“That’s because I’m a likable guy. As long as I’m not being shot at, lied to, tied up, or jerked around.” He left out the part about being hissed at. She’d already done it twice. Whether she knew what that meant remained to be seen.
Asking—or telling—her about it now seemed like a really bad idea.
Chapter 5
Klara fully expected Moe to gather up his belongings and walk out. No one had ever been straight with her before. Anyone she’d ever dealt with had always had a self-serving and often hidden agenda. However, when all he did after she introduced him as a new member of the gang was wave at the guys and take a seat, she began to wonder if she hadn’t been wrong about him. Then again, he had chosen the chair closest to the exit.
Quite honestly, his offer was such a godsend, she had a hard time believing any of it could possibly be real.
I’m so damn tired…of everything.
Strength came naturally to her, but she had nearly reached the limits of her tolerance and endurance. Having a pack of Nedwuts venture into the Barrens to find her was the last straw. Temfilk would undoubtedly tell her she’d be bored to tears on a farm, but boredom was actually starting to sound good. Too bad she didn’t know the first thing about raising crops or livestock. She could learn, though. There were bound to be plenty of frustrations associated with being a farmer—if she’d had to guess, there were more than most people might imagine—but at least nobody would come gunning for her.
The lack of sleep had finally begun to wear her down. She awoke at the slightest sound and anxious hours would pass before she slept again, if indeed she ever did.
What would it be like to sleep through the night? To close her eyes at bedtime and keep them shut until dawn?
Perhaps when constant alertness wasn’t required to keep her and her cohorts safe, she might actually find out.
If Moe’s pilot hadn’t absconded with his ship, they could have been on their way to Terra Minor right now, sound asleep while flying endlessly through space. The journey might take weeks or even months. No doubt she would grow restless, but at some point, she would adjust. She could almost see the stars whipping past the viewscreen as they flew through space at unimaginable speeds.
But Moe didn’t have a ship anymore. At least, he didn’t think he did. Their first move should be to check out the spaceport to be sure. He hadn’t been out of touch with his ship for all that long. Certainly not to the point that anyone waiting for him would assume he was never coming back.
She remained lost in thought until a loud, rumbling noise made her sit up and listen.
“Only the wind,” Temfilk said as he peered through a slit in the shuttered window. “Looks like the Timavals are coming early this year.”
Klara groaned. “Even more good news.” The windy season was her least favorite of all that Haedus Nine had to offer. In the wake of the dry season, strong winds howled through the Barrens, stirring up toxic dust until even the Rackenspries had to wear rags tied over their pointed noses. Then the rains came, turning everything to mud that dragged at the feet as well as the spirit.
“What? You think teaming up with Moe is bad news?” Temfilk slapped the floor with a flippered foot. “If you ask me, which you didn’t, he’s the best thing to happen to this team since you and I first met.” The broad stretch of his fishlike lips heralded his next statement. “Told you we should recruit him instead of trying to sell him. But no-o-o, you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I heard you,” Klara said wearily. “I just didn’t agree with you.”
“Changed your mind, though. Didn’t you?” he prodded.
“You might say I had it changed for me.” She let her gaze linger on Moe for a long moment. “He’s got some amazing moves.”
“I know. I saw.”
She shook her head. “No, you didn’t. You haven’t seen everything he’s capable of.” She doubted she had, either.
“If you all are through talking about me like I’m not here,” Moe said briskly, “maybe we can plan our strategy for getting out of here.”
Nexbit rubbed his belly. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry,” Temfilk said with a roll of his eyes.
“Contrary to popular belief, shape-shifting requires considerable energy,” said Nexbit. “And I only got one piece of the pizza.”
“Sorry,” Moe said. “But I only took one piece, myself.”
“I’m not blaming you,” Nexbit insisted. “The Racks always eat more than their share.”
Bik, Jal, and Lis all began chattering at once.
Klara pinched the bridge of her nose. “Quiet down, guys.”
“Uh-oh. The boss has one of her headaches.” Temfilk hurried toward her, his manner positively dripping with solicitude. “Want one of those pills or will a song take care of it?”
“All I need is a little peace and quiet.”
“Seriously?” Temfilk’s bulbous eyes widened to what should have been a painful degree. “You’re sure about that?” He glanced at Moe. “I usually have to sing to get her to feel better.”
“Temfilk,” she began in ominous tones. “Drop it, will you? I’m just…tired.”
“You? You’re never tired.” The Norludian rounded on her former captive. “What did you do to her?”
Moe shrugged. “Nothing that would make her tired or give her a headache. Didn’t have to stun her this time. I, on the other hand, have been stunned twice today. At least, I think it’s still today.” He aimed a questioning look at Klara.
“Yes,” Klara replied. “It’s still today, which is probably why I’m not feeling so great. The onset of the Timavals always makes me feel weird.”
“Allergic to the dust, huh?” Moe said with a knowing nod. “I’m not surprised. The air around here is enough to make anyone sick even without the wind. You’ll probably feel a whole lot better on Terra Minor.”
“If we ever get there.” She hesitated, weighing the options. “Look, nobody is going to venture out in this wind tonight. We’re probably safe for now, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to be careless. Can I have a volunteer for first watch?”
“I’m still hungry,” Nexbit grumbled. “Might as well be me.”
“If you’re hungry, eat something,” Klara snapped. Not surprisingly, Nexbit recoiled slightly and the Racks scurried off to their cubby holes. Temfilk, on the other hand, folded his arms and began popping his suckered fingertips on the greenish skin of his upper arms in a display of frank disapproval. He was right of course. Her irritation level was inordinately high, even taking the Timavals into account.
Probably because Moe got the better of me.
Twice.
Telling herself that his speed was what had given him the advantage didn’t help much, despite its being a perfectly logical explanation. Something about him made logic less important than usual, and the way he’d tapped into her emotions was disturbing. She’d often been told she lacked emotion, although that wasn’t true and never had been. The emotions she normally displayed were anger or resentment. Those Moe aroused were different.
Perhaps it was simply because he was Zetithian. Until today, she’d never met anyone remotely like herself. That alone should’ve at least made her happy, but it didn’t. His presence reminded her of everything she didn’t have and everything she’d lost. He had family, a ship of his own, and a respectable business. Nothing about her was respectable, and she�
�d lost her own family long ago. The idea that she might own a starship was as laughable as it was unlikely.
“Where would you like for me to sleep?” Moe asked. A smile that wasn’t quite a smirk lifted the corner of his mouth. “Or should I keep watch along with Nexbit?”
“You can have the second watch,” she replied, her tone no less curt than when she’d spoken to the Sympaticon. “We don’t have any extra beds. I suggest—”
Temfilk popped all of his fingertips at once. “Better come with me, Moe. I’ll show you where to bed down since the boss isn’t feeling very hospitable this evening.” With a withering glance at Klara, he added, “And don’t worry, boss. I’ll shut the power down before I call it a night.”
All she could do was glare at the two of them, openmouthed with indignation, as they left the room.
She’d already been outnumbered by the males in her gang by five to one. Now there were six of them.
What was I thinking?
“That was the common room,” Temfilk said as they cleared the threshold. “Or, as I like to call it, the command center.”
Moe saw no need to stifle his amusement, although the look the Norludian shot at him almost made him wish he had. “What do you call that other room? The prison?”
“Actually, we refer to it as the holding cell. We don’t keep our captives for very long,” he confided. “Only until we find a buyer.”
“I see,” said Moe. “And how do you find buyers? Advertise in the local newspaper?”
Temfilk shook his round head. “Word of mouth. We rendezvous with the buyers on neutral ground.”
“Where’s that?”
“The old plaza just west of here. It’s more defensible.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“About two solar cycles,” Temfilk replied. “The boss thought this would be a good way to harass Pelarus.”
“Who’s that?”
“Branethan Pelarus. I suppose you could call him her nemesis, or at least the villain in her story. He’s been making her life hell ever since she was a kid and her mother refused him.”
“One of the locals?” The idea of a Haedusian with the hots for a Davordian was a little ridiculous, but stranger things had happened.
Temfilk shook his head. “Vessonian. Ugly bastard. Not nice at all.”
“Gotcha.” Moe had seen enough Vessonians to know that any Davordian woman hung up on a Zetithian probably wouldn’t be interested. Granted, Vessonians weren’t all bad, but they didn’t cross well with other species because their forehead ridges had been known to cause problems during the birthing process, aside from being rather unattractive. “So, she’s his nemesis now, huh?”
“Maybe. I mean, I think she’d like to be that much of a thorn in his side, but to be honest, I don’t believe he cares what she does. He wanted her mother as his concubine, and now he wants her. That’s my theory, anyway.”
Moe wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of merely harassing someone like that. He’d have gotten as far away as he possibly could. Although if she couldn’t move to another continent—or better yet, another planet—harassment was probably her best option.
“Hey, no need to growl,” Temfilk said, waving his bony arms.
“Was I growling? Didn’t mean to. Automatic response.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
“What are you implying?” Moe demanded.
“The boss is a damned attractive woman. You do the math.”
Moe threw up his hands in protest. “Oh, puh-lease. Don’t make me laugh.”
“You offered to team up with her,” Temfilk said with a shrug. “Might as well go all the way.” The Norludian stared at Moe for as long as it took to draw a breath before he burst out laughing. “You should see the look on your face! Nah. No point in even trying with her. Hasn’t got a single drop of sexual desire in her body. Apparently Zetithian blood cancels out the usual Davordian tendency toward promiscuity. She’s about as asexual as they come, and trust me, I would know.” He waggled his fingers. “I’ve sampled her essence lots of times. Nothing there whatsoever. My tongue didn’t swell up at all.”
Moe knew exactly what he meant by that. Not only was Norludian sex exclusively oral, members of that species were affected sexually by nearly anything they touched—or tasted. And they talked about it. Incessantly. He was a little surprised Temfilk had taken as long as he had to broach the subject.
He also knew enough about Zetithian women to know that Klara’s lack of interest was perfectly normal. Only the right man could entice her, and if the way she’d hissed at him meant what he thought it did, well, nothing would come of it as long as he didn’t purr—something he had no intention of doing. Being mated to Klara was guaranteed to cause trouble. She didn’t strike him as the comfortable wife type, nor could he envision her as a farmer on Terra Minor. In all honesty, her current lifestyle seemed to be a perfect fit for her personality.
She did say she was tired, though, and she wasn’t exactly getting on in years. Moe wasn’t tired, and, at twenty-eight, he had to be at least two years older than she was, maybe even three.
Still, there were huge differences between his background and hers. Differences that would either kill a person or make them stronger. Klara was strong, all right. But the challenges she’d faced on a daily basis were enough to make anyone feel old. He’d seen the way her expression changed when he’d talked about leaving Haedus Nine forever. She wanted to leave. Badly.
Temfilk motioned toward an open door at the end of the hall. “You can sleep in there. Nexbit will wake you when it’s time for your watch.”
Moe nodded. He was looking forward to getting some sleep that wasn’t stun-induced, but he deemed it best to take advantage of some time spent with a garrulous Norludian. He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms. “So, Temfilk… Are you as anxious to leave this place as your boss?”
“Absolutely,” Temfilk declared. “As far as I know, I’m the only Norludian on this rotten pile of dust. I was a kid when I got stranded here, and I’ve been hiding out in this hellhole ever since.”
“Does this hellhole have a name?”
“You mean this part of the city? Yeah, it has a name. It’s called the Barren Quarter, or just the Barrens.”
Moe didn’t have to ask why. “Yeah. It’s pretty barren all right.” He hesitated. “You said you were stranded here?”
Temfilk nodded, and for several moments, Moe thought that was the only reply he was going to get.
“We were all taken from our families to be sold as slaves,” Temfilk finally said. “The shithead who took us was about to get caught, so he dumped his cargo on the nearest planet, which happened to be this one. Didn’t bother trying to sell us. Just left us here to fend for ourselves. We’ve done okay, I guess. We’re all still alive anyway. I mean, he could’ve spaced us.”
Temfilk’s reason for being on Haedus was similar to Klara’s. As the only habitable planet for a long way in any direction, it was probably home to any number of displaced beings, most of them as anxious to leave as Moe was.
“Klara found me first,” Temfilk went on. “I didn’t tell her about the others right away, but she figured it out eventually because I was sneaking food to the Racks, even though Nexbit was pretty good at stealing. When he was little, he could transform into a dwithan and snatch food right off the vendors’ carts. Nobody ever caught him.”
“What’s a dwithan?”
“Oh, you know… they’re sort of green and scaly with long tails and a row of neck ridges. They’ll eat almost anything. Some of the Haedusians keep them as pets, but mostly they run wild.”
“A kind of lizard, you mean?”
“I guess so. Dunno what you’d call it. Anyway, Nex is too big to be a dwithan now. He could probably look like one, but he’d be too big to be convincing.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Moe nodded toward the rather large, lumpy-looking bed situated by the far wall. “Is this his room?”
“Yeah. He’s the biggest, so he has the biggest bed. The Racks don’t need much more than a pile of rags to curl up on. We salvaged most of this stuff from the other buildings.” He paused, grinning. “We liked this place because we could each have our own room. It’s also one of the few with a decent roof and protection from the wind.”
“Not much in the way of windows, either.” So far, most of the windows he’d seen were high up in the walls and covered with metal grating. The shuttered windows in the common room appeared to be the exception.
“True, but that’s a plus when you’re in hiding,” Temfilk pointed out.
“I can see where it would be. Kinda dark, though. Especially if you shut the power down every night.” Fortunately, Moe had a Darconian glowstone in his pocket—something he wasn’t going to admit to possessing until he was a little more sure of his new cohorts. Glowstones were not only worth a bundle monetarily, they required no power other than thought to make them illuminate.
As he glanced up at the blank wall above the bed, the image of a large open window with billowing curtains appeared. He could even see green, rolling hills in the world outside it. Yet when he took a step toward it, the vision vanished.
Temfilk tapped his arm. “You okay, dude? You look like you’ve seen a sandworm.”
Moe shook his head. “No. I’m not sure what—Wait a sec. There are sandworms on this planet?”
“Oh, yeah. Really big and really nasty. You don’t want to venture out into the desert on foot.”
“You have to walk without rhythm,” Moe said absently, still slightly weirded out over the vision he’d just experienced. Such things weren’t uncommon among Zetithians, but this was Moe’s first. “They don’t respond to random sounds.”
The silence in the wake of his statement was prolonged enough for Moe to glance at Temfilk. Until that moment, he’d never appreciated how big a Norludian’s mouth would look when it was hanging open.
“How in the name of Leon could you possibly know that?”
“Something I read in a book a long time ago.” Moe and his brothers were all fans of ancient science fiction stories, and Dune was his personal favorite. “If there are sandworms on this world, I really need to read that one again. These worms don’t make a spice that enables you to see into the future, do they?”
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