Forbidden World: Ambrax

by Bernadette Gardner

  "Here." Tak held the food out to her, his movements slow and deliberate as if she were some wild animal he wanted to coax into eating from his hand.

  She took the container.

  "It's all right to speak to me. I won't tell Captain Cantor."

  She eyed him. He was the younger of the two guards. She liked his bulging pecs and ridged abdominals visible beneath a tight white shirt. He wasn't bad to look at, though he possessed none of Damen's commanding presence.

  He had a look about him that told Lea he probably didn't have a woman of his own, and she was a test subject of sorts. He clearly wanted to impress her. She could work with that.

  Allowing herself a shy smile, she mumbled, "Thank you."

  Now, with the door closed behind him, the compartment had become impossibly small. The testosterone charged scent of his skin reached her and in response, she stepped back, feigning nervousness.

  "It's all right. I just wanted to find out about you. I don't think it was right for Captain Cantor to lock you in here."

  She shrugged. "He could have done worse, I suppose."

  "What's your name?"

  "Lea."

  "Lea. You're not used to this kind of treatment, are you?"

  She shrugged, letting him draw his own conclusions. While he eyed her, she fished a protein cube out of the container and nibbled. Tak moved closer and one of his large hands came up, cupping her breast. She stilled.

  "It's not so bad here, you know. Most Braxan men take very good care of their women. Our population is small. We keep it that way deliberately so we don't outgrow the Citadel and the protected zone, but that means there aren't many females available for people like me."

  Poor baby, she thought, but kept her expression neutral. A few flicks of his thumb had her nipple erect beneath her shirt. He noticed, and she smiled in response. She held her breath while he lifted the neckline of her shirt and slid his other hand inside.

  "Edmun is eager to get his hands on you and he's not known for his gentleness. If you like, I can challenge him and then you would only have to deal with me, and Mojar and Captain Cantor, of course."

  Lea let her head drop back, pretending she was enjoying the contact. Tak's hand slid down, opening her shirt to the waist, revealing her upper body to his inspection.

  "Do you have permission for this?" She made her voice a breathless whisper as he drew her hips against his and the bulge of an impressive erection nudged her mound.

  "Where you come from, it's the woman who gives permission, correct? Why don't you tell me what you'd like me to do? If you're willing, then I will gladly challenge Edmun to keep him away from you."

  He wanted her to pay for his protection. Clever boy, making it seem like it would be her idea. Would she really need Tak to protect her from Edmun? If she told Damen to deny the other guard access to her...

  The door burst open then and Damen filled the space. Tak's hands dropped from Lea's breasts, but he didn't move away from her until Damen laid a hand on his shoulders and pulled the younger man out of the compartment.

  "You're finished here," he said, his tone dangerous. Tak retreated quickly, without comment and Lea closed her shirt, wishing her nipples weren't standing out in hard peaks against the fabric.

  Damen glared, as though the little tryst had been her doing. "Having fun?"

  She allowed herself a smirk. "He was just sampling the merchandise, trying to make friends." She lowered her voice. "It doesn't hurt to have an ally."

  "He wants to fuck you, not be your friend. Don't get comfortable with him and don't forget where you are."

  "I won't. And by the way, where are we? The view from here sucks, Captain."

  Damen leaned back and glanced over his shoulder. "We've located a band of converts, several dozen moving together. Mojar is outside scanning them now."

  "I want to see them. Maybe I can recognize Troy."

  "I doubt you'd know him even if he were standing right in front of you."

  "I know my brother-in-law. He can't have changed that much in two months."

  Damen moved out of the doorway and gestured for her to pass. "You have no idea."

  * * * *

  Damen leveled a hard look at Tak on his way out of the transport with Lea in tow. No formal agreement had been made giving Mojar's guards access to Lea, and Tak had apparently lied his way into the storage compartment. Not a good sign. This one was going to be trouble. He looked at Lea like a lovestruck teenager and that meant he'd probably do something stupid to try to win rights to her.

  Edmun, on the other hand, seemed disinterested. He'd given her a curious glance when they'd first boarded, but nothing more after that. Apparently she wasn't his type, which suited Damen just fine.

  He and Lea walked down the ship's landing ramp and onto the springy moss of the jungle floor.

  It was dark here. The thick canopy of leaves blocked almost all of the coppery orange sunlight of midday, leaving very little visible beyond the transport's faint landing lights. Mojar stood in shadow, pointing his scanner at the seemingly empty jungle.

  "There are twenty-four individuals nearby. They're curious about us but still cautious," he said. "We can't stay long enough for them to overcome their fear or they may attack. You should put the woman back inside. Her scent will draw them closer."

  Damen glanced at Lea, but the set of her jaw told him he'd have to drag her back inside to get her to budge. "What does your scan tell you?" he asked on her behalf.

  "They're mostly males. A few females, all non-Braxan. Alor is not among them, and Troy is not among the ones I've managed to scan so far."

  "There..." Lea breathed the word and her hand came up to wrap around Damen's forearm.

  Naked and crouched in a feral stance, a creature hovered at the edge of the pool of illumination cast by the transport's inner lights. A male, with dark claws and deep-set brown eyes. A tawny pelt covered its body leaving only the face and genitals bare.

  "That was a man once?" Lea seemed to choke on the words.

  "Probably not that long ago." Damen recalled his former crew mates. Two dozen sturdy men, many of them Sparthans but a few from Earth, had fallen victim one by one. Would they all still be alive four years after he'd watched each one run screaming into the untamed Braxan jungle? If not for his own stubborn determination to survive, that might have been him at the perimeter of the foliage, grunting incomprehensible things, drooling at Lea and palming a growing erection in his dirty hand.

  "He sees you. Go back inside now." He pushed her behind him and, gratefully, she obeyed. Her footsteps retreated up the ramp and Damen moved to flank Mojar, opening the sheath of his dagger with one hand and priming his shock stick with the other. He could have disbursed the whole band with a well-aimed shot from his blast rifle, but then they'd lose any chance of locating Troy.

  "I've got a perfect reading on that one. He's not Troy," Mojar said. "There are four individuals I can't pinpoint, but this tribe all seem to match DNA samples from quite a while back. We should forget the others and move on farther southeast."

  "Fine," Damen agreed, eager to get back inside the ship. The sounds they made, and the smell of them made him uneasy and reminded him of the moment he'd nearly succumbed himself. The fact that such a transformation could happen to formerly civilized men was one of the few things in the universe that made Damen Cantor afraid. "Just remember, two days is all we can spare out here," he said before following Lea inside.

  * * * *

  Lea paced inside the transport until Damen returned. "I had no idea," she said when he settled in one of the seats along the bulkhead. "How does this happen? Is it a virus?"

  Mojar came up behind her and dropped a hand onto her hip in a familiar gesture that drew a disapproving glance from Damen. "It's not viral. That much, we know. In fact, the DNA of the coverts remains intact, which is why we're still able to identify them. Only those of us actually born on Ambrax seem to be immune, and we have yet to figure out why. We estimate the pop
ulation of converts to be in the hundred thousands only, and their life spans are short. Where they live, the growth rate in the jungle doubles as if the planet itself takes sustenance from them."

  "It can't be cured?" Lea asked. She didn't care if Damen shoved her in the storage compartment again. She needed to understand this.

  "It's against our beliefs to try."

  Lea moved out of his reach. "But you keep letting people land here, knowing what will happen to them?"

  "It is not our place to stop them. Many feel those who undergo the evolution are blessed."

  "How can you call what happens out there an evolution? People turn into animals. You ban them for your society and allow them to run wild, killing each other--"

  The healer addressed his comments to Damen, though Lea refused to lower her eyes and glared at him while he spoke. "Ambrax feeds on the souls of those who land here. We have taken steps to prevent too many from being lost, allowing our world to be designated forbidden among the galactic community, even though that leaves our society terribly isolated.

  "Our science has yet to explain it fully, but those who convert provide a form of energy that contributes to the ecology. It's our belief that over time, they become one with that energy, thus evolving into a higher form despite appearances to the contrary."

  "I apologize for Lea, she's--"

  Mojar raised a hand. "No need. I have no illusions that your society on Spartha mirrors ours. Nevertheless, you are fortunate her outbursts were not public."

  Lea closed her eyes. It seemed hopeless to think she could rescue Troy now. She couldn't bring a beast back to Darya. She would have given up then, except her heart went out to Alor, taken from her sheltered world to God knew what kind of torture in the lawless jungle.

  "We have other places to search before dark. We should go now," Mojar said.

  Damen agreed and turned to Lea. "If you're done asking questions, you should lie down and get some rest. It's going to be a long evening."

  She obeyed though she had no intention of sleeping. Her mind was a kaleidoscope of images that she would never be able to erase.

  * * * *

  Mojar had them follow two more bands of converts, dozens of individuals who seemed to be moving in parallel lines through the jungle along the meandering path of a deep gully. Their movements had purpose, which left Damen confused. The creatures he'd seen in the jungle before seemed only slightly more evolved than early primates. The tribes they followed now moved like pilgrims, slow and plodding along the jungle floor as if they were participating in some type of ritual journey.

  "Where are they going?" he asked over the healer's shoulder.

  "Nowhere. We believe they retain some memories of having lived in ordered societies. They form groups and mimic some types of structured behavior, but it never lasts for long," Mojar explained as he directed Edmun to a landing site at the wide mouth of the gully.

  Whoops of fear and perhaps anger greeted their landing, and a dozen converts rushed from the deep cover of the foliage when the transport set down. These were braver than the first group, newer and more aggressive, apparently. Some threw stones and sticks, but the ones that merely stared while the ship intruded on their world drew Damen's wary attention and held it. When he exited the transport on Mojar's heels, flanked by Edmun, he kept those individuals in his line of sight.

  He didn't like the fact that Tak remained inside with Lea, but at least this time she hadn't insisted on coming out.

  "These two are armed." Damen kept his tone even and conversational, tilting his head toward two males who stood erect only a few meters from the transport. Unlike the male they'd seen earlier, these still wore scraps of clothing and each carried a club that appeared to have been fashioned from a mammalian leg bone.

  "I'll work quickly," Mojar's response was tinged with worry, but he continued scanning the converts as they gathered in greater numbers to ogle the visitors.

  These creatures moved slowly, warily, and there was no mistaking the spark of intelligence in their eyes. They remembered--perhaps not much, but enough to bring them dangerously close to the transport and its occupants.

  "Hurry up, Mojar. The leaders are restless. They don't like us here."

  Edmun backed up a bit, flanking Damen and drawing his own shock stick. "Healer Mojar, they're massing in the gully. I think they're planning an attack."

  "I've got an eighty-five percent match to Troy, in that direction." Mojar pointed toward the eastern slope of the gully. He's in the tree. No sign of Alor."

  "How are we supposed to get to him?" Damen asked. He could just make out a silhouette where Mojar pointed. A leg, still clad in black flight pants, dangled from a thick branch.

  Mojar nodded toward Damen. "He's your kin. Speak to him. He may recognize your voice."

  Fuck. What was Damen supposed to do now? Troy didn't know him. At this point, so close to gaining his revenge, would Mojar really take him to task for having lied?

  "Lea!" His sharp yell brought a phalanx of converts closer, and beside Damen, Edmun began to shake. Some guard. The man had no balls.

  "Lea!"

  "I'm here." Her soft voice seemed to fill the dark glade and a dozen pairs of feral eyes turned to her.

  "Tree." Damen pointed. "Say hello to Troy for me."

  Mojar stared and Lea licked her lips. "Troy? Can you hear me? It's Lea."

  The nearest convert flinched, preparing for battle. Damen raised his shock stick, brandishing it in the same manner as the beastly thing held its bone club. A tense silence settled over the jungle and in the tree, the creature clinging there began to stir.

  Lea stepped closer and Damen moved to her side.

  "Troy? I've come to help you. Darya needs you. It's time to come home."

  A stark face appeared in the foliage, dominated by intelligent green eyes. Dirt smeared the man's features and wild hair hung down to his naked shoulders. Patches of brown pelt covered his chest, but he still wore regulation miner's boots.

  "Come down." Lea held out her hand. "Come home to Darya."

  Mojar took aim with his scanner and nodded. "It's him. Where is Alor?" she whispered as the creature approached her.

  "The others are moving closer. They're getting used to us." Edmun retreated a few more steps up the ramp. "I'm going to prep the engine."

  "No noise," Mojar warned in a sharp whisper. "Not until we have him." Holstered on his hip, the healer wore a tranquilizer pistol. He reached for it now with the patient skill of a gunfighter.

  "Put him down before he touches Lea," Damen warned, but she was already advancing toward the creature as he lowered himself from the tree branch. Strangely, the other nearby converts backed away, as if making room for the reunion. They watched in silent fascination as Lea held out her hand to Troy.

  "It's time to help Darya and Alor. Where is Alor?"

  Troy's gaze flicked to the jungle. He knew where Mojar's woman was, but he couldn't say. He'd lost the ability to speak.

  Mojar aimed the tranq gun and stepped back. If he fired now, he'd probably cause a panic, but Damen didn't dare turn around to stop him. "Mojar, hold your--"

  The last thing Damen heard was the rapid fire--phut, phut, phut--three shots from the tranq gun. Troy went down and so did Lea. Numbness trailed down Damen's arm from a point of sharp pain in the back of his neck.

  He dropped the shock stick, dazed, and sank to his knees in the spongy moss.

  After that, there was only blackness.

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  Damen woke with the taste of moss on his lips and the gamey scent of a convert in his nostrils. Troy's upper body lay beneath him. They'd toppled together after Mojar hit them both with tranq darts. Disgusted, he rolled to one side and pushed himself up with one arm. All of this body parts seemed to be intact and working, though every limb felt sluggish and heavy as lead. It took him several tries to coordinate the necessary movements to pull the small projectile from the aching flesh beneath his should
er blade.

  Damn the Braxan. Damen would enjoy killing him.

  At least they'd left his daggers and the shock stick, but his blast rifle was gone from the holster slung across his back.

  Lea lay a few feet away, a dart protruding from her thigh.

  With deliberate effort, Damen forced his body to move toward her. Her lips were colorless and her breathing terribly shallow, but she moaned when he placed two fingers over her carotid pulse. Something in his chest clenched in relief that the massive dose of tranquilizer hadn't killed her.

  She winced when he yanked the dart from her skin and her eyes fluttered as if she were fighting to return to consciousness. Damen resisted the urge to pull her into his arms. Instead he drew the shorter of his two blades and turned toward Troy.

  Months of living in the jungle had taken an obvious toll on the man. Beneath his patchy beard, his cheeks were gaunt and his eyes were sunken. The elongated fingernails that Damen had seen as claws were jagged and caked with dirt. His breathing was quick, shallow and spoke of physical hardships. He slept like an animal that was unused to peaceful rest.

  And he'd probably wake like one as well. Quickly and without emotion, Damen cut away the tattered legs of Troy's flight pants beneath each knee and tore the dirt encrusted fabric into strips. When the convert woke, he'd find himself securely bound.

  By the time Damen finished his task, Lea had begun to stir. He sheathed his dagger and turned to her, careful to keep his expression neutral.

  "What happened?" She croaked the words through dry lips and Damen wondered if they dared look for water. Consuming anything native to Ambrax would only hasten their own transformation, but they needed to keep hydrated or they wouldn't live long enough for him to take his revenge on Mojar.

  "Mojar dumped us out here. I'm guessing the only reason he didn't just kill us is because he expected the converts would take care of that for him."

  Lea blinked as if trying to get her eyes to work properly. "Why didn't they?"

  "I think the transport engines scared them off, but they'll probably be back if things stay quiet for a while. We're going to need to move."