by C. Y. Croc
A breath catches in my throat as I remember what my mother had said to me that doon—I suddenly comprehend what she meant. They were asking me how I would feel about having another sibling. They had some exciting news to tell me after the fayre.
My mother was pregnant!
My chest aches twice as badly as before. Coming back was supposed to be about thinking happy thoughts.
I sigh and look down at Bupple as I draw up in front of my dwelling. He looks too warm and cosy to move so I stretch across to reach for the tarpaulin. I flinch with the pain, remembering my injury, then I pull the tarpaulin from the back over the seat where Bupple is lying and secure it to the dray to keep the elements off him. I don’t want to disturb him while he’s in such a deep sleep, so I decide I’m going to leave him here for a while.
Unharnessing Piff I lead him to the back of the dwelling and put him back inside his byre. I pat him before I go. “Thanks Piff, you settle down. There’s plenty of hydration and sustenance for you.”
I feel so alone. Has it always felt like this? Have I always talked to the creatures I live with—my only companions?
Another heavy sigh escapes my mouth. They seem to be coming out thick and fast at the moment. With feet that feel like I’m wearing Tex’s heavy boots, I head into my dwelling. I close the door behind me and stop dead in my tracks when I see who’s sitting around my table.
Boraf and his two minion friends look up to me with eyes full of danger. Boraf sniffs the air, his nostril expanding to their full width.
“Our sweet smelling prize has returned at last!”
My whole body turns cold. “Get the fuck out!”
“Oh, we will. But you are coming with us. You owe us after getting us banned from socialising with females for the next yana. So you female, are going to be our substitute. We are going to keep you hidden in a secret byre, close enough to our dwelling so we can pay you numerous visits throughout the winds.” His lewd grin turns my stomach.
One of the minions unleashes an even uglier grin. “Yes, we’re going to take it in turns to keep you warm at night.” He too sniffs the air.
My heart is going into overdrive. What do I do? I can’t fight all three of them. My only option is to run.
I spin around, fling the door open, and sprint as fast as I can, heading for the township. Our species may not have many attributes but we were built for running, and female Kimanks sprint decidedly faster than the males.
But as I head for the edge of my property that leads onto the track to the township, I hear footsteps behind me. That’s when it dawns on me I‘m not like other Kimankas, I’m a halfbreed, and right now my Human genes are making up the negative difference between escaping and getting caught.
One of them lands on my back and the wind rushes from my lungs through my clenched teeth.
Boraf’s voice is full of victory. “Not so fucking fast halfbreed! Do you think we didn’t know about your dirty little secret?”
I try to roll onto my back to fight but the other two males join Boraf and pin each of my arms to the ground.
One of them speaks through ragged breaths. “I’ll go and get our dray out of hiding!”
Boraf coughs and spits on the ground. “Be quick about it! Quicker than you were on this chase.”
The other male growls at his sarcasm and I hear his footsteps behind me as he runs away.
The other male squats down by my side and sniffs by my armpit. “Fuck she smells good. So much riper than the full blooded Kimanka females.”
Boraf laughs. “Maybe she’ll be a better fuck too, with her half Human heritage. I’ve heard that halfbreed females have different cooches to full-bloodied ones.”
They both laugh and I feel vomit come up in my throat. I swallow it down. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing I’m repulsed by them. My mind is flooded with thoughts of how to get out of this dilemma. Kerty and Mimette will eventually realise I’m missing but by then it could be too late. I’d be deflowered and mated and the sinno season would have begun, keeping everyone imprisoned in their dwellings for cycs.
My thoughts go to Bupple and my heart stops. He was still under the tarpaulin sheet in the dray outside my dwelling. I try to think if the males had pulled the front door to my dwelling all the way shut. I don’t remember hearing the familiar click. Best case scenario they’d left it open and Bupple would be able to get into the dwelling. There might just be enough hydration fluid and sustenance to keep him going until Mimette and Kerty came over to check up on me.
Worst case scenario, if the door was shut, he’d have to find a way into one of the byres through a weakened repair that I hadn’t gotten around to doing yet. A surge of hope races through my blood. Bupple had alerted me to a loose panel on Piff’s door last wid, I hadn’t fixed it yet and it was wide enough for him to squeeze through.
Mids later I’m hauled to my feet as a dray pulls up beside us. They lift me onto the back of it and one of the minions who I remember being called Drety gets in with me.
As we drive along I’m scanning all the time for places I can jump off and try to make my escape, but there’s nowhere. I just need to have faith that Mimette and Kerty will decide to come and visit me sooner rather than later, and don’t leave a stone unturned in their search for me, from my dwelling, all the way to the township.
The township comes into view and I get the usual sinking feeling I always get, but this time it’s not related to historical events, this time my sinking feeling is for the unknown.
Boraf throws a tarpaulin sheet over to the Drety, the male holding me in a vice grip. “Put that over her and make sure she keeps quiet. But as he’s opening it out the winds suddenly pick up and the tarpaulin flies off into the air with no indication that it will be dropped back down to the ground again.
Drety growls.“Fuck! The winds have started early. How are we going to hide her now riding through the township?”
Boraf pulls the dray to a stop and spins around with his face twisted in anger. “You stupid fuck, I don’t know. Let me think. We’ll have maybe a hinc before all the clan will to be inside, we’ll just have to keep her low as we travel in.”
They continue in silence until we pull off the trail onto the first stretch of dwellings that lead into the township. I spot two figures just about to go into a dwelling and see a chance of alerting them to my predicament. I suck in a huge breath. “Heeelp!” But my voice it carried away on the strong wind blowing in the opposite direction.
Boraf spins around and draws back his fist. Then there is blackness.
Tex
MY DWELLING IS JUST as it was the day my father and I left for the neighbouring township—the day which was to change the course of my future for the next fifteen yanas.
Once I stop my three-hundred and sixty degree turn inspection I come back to face my parents, also standing and scrutinising me as if I were a precious gem.
It’s my mother who talks first. “I’m sorry we never told you about your heritage. We just hoped we’d be able to track down your biological parents before you got to an age where we knew it would be harder to come clean about us. Unfortunately, each one of our leads turned out to be unsuccessful. Then before we knew it, you were already a nipseak.”
I shake my head. “I understand. You did everything you could to find them. I’m really appreciative that you brought me from the Taraquets, I had an amazing niphood.” She smiles in relief. “Did I never show any signs of trying to change into a different species’s form other than a Kimanka?”
My father shakes his head. “Never, not even when you saw other species at the sooqs we visited, so by the time you did hit your nipseak years, I thought you would stay in the Kimanka form forever.”
My mother sinks into a chair. “When you disappeared at the other township on the day our clan went after that poor Human woman, we thought you’d changed and were too scared to come home. We had to lie to the clan and say we’d had word that a family member was ill and you’d gone to stay with
him to help him tend his lands. After a few yanas, the clan members just stopped asking when you’d be back.”
My father steps forward and lays his hands on my shoulders. “What happened to you Son?”
I shake my head. “It’s a long story father, one that involved me going to the Milky Way and living on a planet named Earth for half of my life. But time is of the essence and I need to go.”
“Go! Go where? The winds are coming!”
“The Kimanka female. I need to go and explain to her that I didn’t know I was a shapeshifter. She saved my life when I got back here. I almost died on the Taraquet ship from dehydration and malnutrition. She means a great deal to me and I need to make it right between us. I’m not sure she’d give me a second chance if I wait until the wind season passes.”
My mother gets up and hugs me. “We understand. We’ve waited for fifteen yanas to see you again, I’m sure we can wait for another few cycs to get you to ourselves again.”
I kiss her cheek and pat my father’s back and then I leave, walking out into the increasingly blustery day.
My father calls after me. “I know you are a shifter but be careful, and take my ewit. He would have been taken to the communal byre!”
I smile to myself as I head to the byre. That was the first time I’d ever used my mental ability. If I’d known about during the war on Earth I would have been able to save so many lives. I know it’s useless dwelling on that now but it’s something that crossed my mind as soon as I was able to take the dagger from Ulsis’s hand by just using my mind.
Leading my father’s ewit out of the byre I’m mindful of the winds. They are getting stronger by the minute. I need to be quick. It’s a thirty minute fast-paced ride from here to Saaxx’s dwelling and almost an hour to Mimette and Kerty’s dwelling.
It’s more than likely Saaxx stayed at their dwelling when I left but knowing what little I know of Saaxx already, I know she’s fiercely independent and would want to get back home as soon as she could. Saaxx’s dwelling will be the first I will come across anyway so it makes sense to stop by there first.
My stomach turns over with the prospect of coming face to face again with her in the form of a Kimanka. Should I change back to Tex? What was my true form anyway? I had no idea what I looked like. I’d learned about shapeshifters in the culture pod. In fact, I’d learned about every species. Where they originated from, what their home planets were like, what abilities or gifts they had been blessed with. Shapeshifters were one of the species that every nip in the school wished they were. With the ability to speak and understand any dialect without an implant, and the ability to be able to move anything with their minds, they were the superheroes of the Perinqual Galaxy.
My confidence and smile are growing the closer I get to Saaxx’s house as I realise what I am.
I’m a fucking alien superhero!
Then my smile is wiped from my face in a second flat. I might be the superhero species that all nips want to be, but would Saaxx want me?
The winds whip at me, trying to pull me from my father’s ewit but the strong squalls don’t faze the ewit. Evolved to withstand the winds over the eons, they have wide-set feet that grip into the ground and long skin stems that come out from inside their feet that act like roots when the winds get really bad.
My anxiety rises as I near Saaxx’s home. If she refuses me now just as I’ve discovered who I really am and what my circumstances are with the adoptive parents, I don’t think I could cope. I might be a fucking alien superhero physically but my mind is as fragile as the next man's.
Her house comes into view and my heart randomly speeds up when I see her dray parked out front.
She’s back.
I dismount the ewit and walk up to the front door then I inhale deeply and knock.
There’s no answer but the door is slightly ajar. I hesitantly push it open. I’m a stranger to her now and I feel like I’m invading her private space. Still, I step inside.
“Saaxxatee! It’s Tex! We need to talk!”
I look across to the bedding set out on the floor for me and then up to Saaxx’s bed and I’m flooded with emotion. In just days, so much has happened here. It was the magical place where all barriers were dropped. A place where we’d ignored our outer shells and accepted the essence of the other, what was inside and what made the other what they were.
“Saaxx! Are you here?”
She’d most probably be up at the byres tending to the last remaining jobs that needed doing. I glance once more at the beds and then leave. But as I click the door shut I hear familiar purring tones coming from underneath a stretched-out piece of tarpaulin on the dray. I untie it and pull it back to see Bupple snuggled up in a blanket bed.
“Bupple! Oh Boy, I’m so glad you are okay!”
His spine spikes begin to ripple which I’ve come to the conclusion that if he were a dog, it would be his way of wagging his tail. The missing spines that were ripped out are starting to heal, held together nicely by the immaculate criss-cross translucent thread.
He gets up onto his numerous legs and tries to lick my face but I can see he is still weak. “Did Saaxx leave you out here to sleep while she did her work? Let’s get you inside and make sure you have something to eat and drink.”
I lift him carefully and stroke his spines. He clicks happily in my arms, then I open the door and enter again, checking his bowls to make sure they are full as I lay him on the bedding that was once mine. “Saaxx shouldn’t be long and hopefully when she returns, I’ll be with her.”
Seeing Bupple again confirms my feelings. If I felt such a surge of love for her pet, and my emotions racing through my body were so much more powerful for her, what would I feel when I saw Saaxxatee again. The need to find her reignites with a passion.
I climb up onto the ewit and head for the byres, noticing the wind has grown even stronger now in the five minutes since I was inside the house.
Scanning the property as I ride, I can’t see her anywhere. That makes me even more convinced she is working on the byres. But when I reach them each door is securely closed and out of all the repairs that needed to be done, none have been touched.
Jumping from the ewit I walk up to each door, open it and check inside. But each one offers no answer to where she is. When I finally reach the last byre, I am so exasperated as to her whereabouts, that I begin to scour everywhere, even behind the byres.
That’s when I spot the sunken dray tracks in some sodden ground behind the last byre, located under a huge tree with tiny baby-pink leaves.
Were these tracks from the other day when the three men and their strange-looking creatures attacked Saaxx, Bupple and me?
Normally I run my fingers through my hair but in this form, I hold onto the long skin tubes on either side of my head in uncertainty. Saaxx clearly isn’t home or anywhere on the property and she wouldn’t intentionally leave Bupple alone out on the dray. She had to have been taken against her will. There was no other explanation.
I decide to follow the dray’s trail on the property before I make up my mind what to do.
Running back over to the ewit I hold onto one of its neck horns and swing my leg up and over onto its back, looking almost as cool as the North American Indians I’d seen mounting horses on western movies back on Earth.
The trail leads to the edge of Saaxx’s property to an opening that links onto the trail back to her clan’s township. I decide the trail must be from the other day until I see a patch of disturbed churned-up ground. Just as if a struggle had taken place.
Then without thinking, I hear the same static crackling and see a burst of light, with less intensity this time than before. Am I starting to get the hang of this shapeshifting and I’m using less energy when shifting forms? I touch my face. I’ve changed again and without looking at my reflection I know exactly who I’ve changed into—Boraf.
I head for the township that only a few days ago I had been held captive in, malnourished and close to death. The place
where I’d been purchased by a female who would unbeknown to me would become someone very special.
What is my plan? I don’t have one, I just need to get my woman back—my owner—my female—my mate.
Digging my heels into the ewit’s flank he knows I want to speed up and he doesn’t disappoint me, which is just as well because I’m guessing there is only an hour or so spare before the full-blown wind season commences.
We race towards the town and all my experience from riding ewits from my youth kicks in, which is just as well because the ewit runs at his quickest speed yet and must have made it to town in less than fifteen minutes. Just outside, I climb off and tie it up just behind some bushes, then I run into the main section of the town which is a huge square area, lined with houses and a larger building which looks similar to the communal building in the village where I grew up.
There are few people dotted about and those who are still out braving the increasing winds, keep their heads down and their focus on themselves, obviously mithered and unprepared, getting their last-minute affairs in order and completed now the start of the wind season has begun prematurely.
I almost jump when a male voice calls out the name of the form I’m taking.
“Boraf, I thought you were meeting me by the byre with the supplies. Where are they?” It’s one of the sidekicks who attacked me on Saaxx’s property. I have to clench my fists by my sides to stop me from ripping his crescent bone from out of his head. “How did you get changed so quickly too? Couldn’t it have waited? The female didn’t get you that dirty on the ground when you caught up with her!”
There is a high percentage that the female in question is my female. I look like Boraf but now I need to sound like him too. I concentrate on how his voice had sounded when he’d attacked me.
“No, it couldn’t. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Plus I couldn’t get to the supplies yet. I’ll try again in another ten mids or so.”
The other man grimaces. “You’re cutting it fine. We don’t want her starving while we’ve got her hidden, she’ll be good for nothing otherwise and then we’ll have the messy job of disposing of her body when the wind wafts her decomposing corpse in through every nook and cranny of the dwellings here, alerting all residents to something that needs immediate attention. They certainly wouldn’t be able to live with the smell of death invading their abodes throughout the whole of the wind season.”