by Leslie Chase
The next days followed the same general pattern. I unpacked the portable solar panel I’d taken from the pod, plugged it into my wristband, and we set off. The sunlight kept Kitty Fantastic charged, thank goodness — without her help our conversation would be even more limited.
Even with her help, it didn’t go well. The Eskel of the books she carried in her datastore was limited, fragmented, speculative. The best that archeologists put together from millennia-old ruins wasn’t very good.
We practiced on the journey, me trying to teach him Galtrade, him showing me how to speak in Eskel, and slowly we got better at communicating. Enough for basic concepts, but not enough for him to explain what was wrong.
It was something to do with this ‘taru-ma’ word, but getting across what that meant was frustratingly hard.
Just like Zarkav. I groaned at the thought, sneaking a glance at his bulge and wondering for the thousandth time what it would be like. Stop it, stop it right now. I’ll only make myself feel worse.
Kitty Fantastic did her best to translate, but all she could offer was that taru-ma might derive from the word for mirror. Or water. Or ghost.
Or ‘unidentified sweet fruit used in poetry to symbolize the urge to return home.’
“Fat lot of good you are,” I said, scratching the hologram behind her ears. At least linguistic puzzles kept me from losing my mind, which seemed a genuine threat when I slept curled up against the gorgeous, powerful, muscular body of this tremendously sexy man. A man I wished would fuck me senseless, and who I knew wanted to do just that.
But refused, no matter how hard he got, to do anything about it.
After six nights of camping, I still woke with the sunrise. Crashland’s sun shone with harsher light than Earth’s, and I’d yet to manage sleeping while it was in the sky. Zarkav and I lay curled up together, his arms and tail wrapped around me protectively and possessively.
My dreams evaporated like dew, leaving only shadows. Frustrating shadows, flashes of Zarkav holding me, kissing me, caressing me.
I turned to find him awake, watching me with a look of amusement.
“Up,” he said, swatting me lightly on the behind. Grumbling, I rolled out from under the covers and stood, grabbing my bag and rummaging for something to eat. We were nearly out, but Zarkav didn’t seem perturbed.
“Today, we arrive,” he said, skin patterns shifting as he spoke. I’d begun to learn the emotional signals hidden in those, but the details escaped me. Was Zarkav worried? Happy? Something else? I hadn’t worked out what that blue pattern meant.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I replied, checking my words with Kitty first.
“Yes. Also,” he paused, and the amber color tinging his patterns now was one I recognized: frustration. “Also, danger? For you, taru-ma.”
There was that word again. How I wished I knew what it meant. Perhaps now that we’d be seeing other Zrin I’d find out. Zarkav kept talking, but used too many words I didn’t know. I put my hand on his chest, stopping him.
For a moment he looked stunned, as though instead of my hand I’d hit him with a taser. Then he remembered where we were and tried again, keeping his language simple and sticking to words I knew.
“We, quiet. We…” He trailed off, snarled something. Meeting my gaze, he mimed creeping along while repeating a new word. I repeated it until he pronounced himself satisfied. “We sneak.”
And so we did. Today there were no language lessons, no pauses for frantic, frustrating kisses. Today Zarkav moved with a fixed, inexorable purpose while I followed behind him, making as little noise as possible.
I was quiet, but Zarkav moved silently. Despite how close we were, a fear crept into my mind. Fear that he’d vanished in the grasses and I’d never see him again.
We reached the edge of the long grass around noon and moved into the shadow of a boulder. Down the slope I saw a path through the grass leading up to the mountains.
Up to a cleft in the rock, like a giant cave-mouth. Impressive, even if it wasn’t for the colorful banners hanging from poles around it. Giving the whole thing scale were the guards. Four of them, wearing much heavier clothes than Zarkav — armor perhaps?
I ducked back, awed and nervous. Zarkav’s strong arms slid around my waist, holding me against the broad expanse of his chest. Tension left my shoulders instantly, tension I hadn’t even noticed I was carrying.
In a whisper, he spoke a single word. “Safe.”
It almost made me giggle. Safe? The lengths to which my alien warrior had gone in order to not run into any more Zrin made me doubt it.
“Safe with me,” he expanded. That made more sense, though it wasn’t as comforting. I risked another peek around the rock — there was no way past the guards without being spotted.
Zarkav pulled me back. He seemed confident enough for the both of us as he gestured up the mountain.
“We go now,” he growled quietly, setting off and leaving me to follow. Rather than heading for the cave as I’d expected, he led me up the rocky slopes, careful to stay out of the guards’ sight. Despite that, I felt exposed. Anyone coming up the path towards the cave mouth would have no trouble seeing us.
Zarkav knows what he’s doing. I tried to trust that, but it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like I had an option, though, so I scrambled up the rocky surfaces after him. My arms soon ached, the stone cut into my hands, and several times Zarkav had to turn back to help me up a particularly difficult climb.
To be honest, I might have pretended to get stuck once or twice. Being carried by Zarkav wasn’t just easier than climbing on my own, I also felt safer in his arms.
If he minded, he gave no sign. I had the impression that Zarkav would have carried me the whole way if he’d been able, but even he needed both hands free sometimes.
At last he led me into a cave, narrow enough to be invisible from below. Getting through the opening was awkward enough for me. Zarkav had to scrape past the tightest spaces, and twice I thought he’d gotten stuck. It was an awful thought — in that tight space I’d have no chance of pulling him free. In the end he forced his way through and out into a larger space.
Kitty cast enough light to see by, if only just. Enough to see that this wasn’t a natural cave. Patterns carved into the stone walls told a story I couldn’t read, the floor was level, and on the far wall was a door.
“A way in?” I asked, Kitty curling up in front of me and displaying helpful word advice.
“Hidden,” he said, the patterns of his scales shifting incomprehensibly. “No one knows. Quiet now, no light.”
He gestured for me to follow and pushed the door open. It swung silently, revealing a steep spiral staircase into the dark. Kitty Fantastic let out a quiet mreowl of protest as I set off after him.
“Oh hush,” I said to her, hands on hips. “You’re holo-projection, your legs don’t get tired.”
The white cat looked at me with aloof disdain before padding after me. I couldn’t help smiling, and wondered if amusing me had been Kitty’s plan. She was a sneaky little cat sometimes.
Together, we followed Zarkav into the dark stairwell. Kitty turned off her light as we spiraled downward, and the stone wall on my right vanished into the gloom.
It seemed to go down forever, and the stairs were the wrong height for my human legs. Each step, I felt like I was about to fall into the dark. If not for Zarkav walking ahead of me, I’d have been in terror of breaking my neck.
As we descended, though, doubt snuck into my mind. Was he still there? Had he run ahead? No sound, no footstep, nothing gave away his position.
Remember how silently he moves, I told myself fiercely. It didn’t help against my growing certainty that he’d abandoned me in this dark shaft. Or had I missed a doorway off the stairs? He might think I was following right behind him, while I carried on into the bowels of the planet.
My urge to speak grew almost unbearable. Just a quick word, one call of his name. It wouldn’t hurt, would it? That, or dialing up Kitt
y’s light enough to see if Zarkav was still there. Something, anything, to know I wasn’t alone on these stairs.
I fought down the temptation. Quiet, Zarkav had said, and no light. He ought to know how much danger waited for us below, and I should trust that. I should.
But I didn’t.
The urge grew and grew with each near-tumble down the uneven, too-high stairs. The blank emptiness ahead of me waited to swallow me, and surely I’d see Zarkav if he was down there.
My foot came down on a loose stone, tipping me forward and down, my arms flailing wildly. I had just enough time to suck in a breath when powerful arms snatched me out of the air and held me tight.
Clinging to Zarkav I awarded myself a medal for not screaming or crying. Instead, I let out my breath in a slow hiss. Zarkav squeezed me silently, and rather than put me down he carried me onward. I don’t know how long it took him to get us the rest of the way, but eventually dim lights showed ahead, growing brighter with each turn of the stairs.
The stairs ended in a passage, still sloping down. I couldn’t guess how deep underground we were, but it had to be a long way. Zarkav’s people lived down here?
I understood better when the tunnel opened out onto a ledge and I saw our destination. My mouth opened in a silent gasp and I stared out into Zarkav’s cavernous home.
It was massive, so big that at first I couldn’t grasp the scale of it. Zarkav’s tribe had filled the space with buildings, lit by a strange dim light. For a moment I thought they were tiny, but then I saw a Zrin moving through the streets and the perspective snapped into place.
There had to be space for hundreds, thousands, of Zrin down there. With a few caves like this, they might have an entire underground city. Soft light came from glowing patches of fungus on the walls, distant enough from our ledge to leave us in deep shadow. Many of the buildings sported the same green-white glow, dim enough to give the whole settlement a surreal twilight look.
A river flowed through the cave-city, broad and still, crossed by several bridges. A small channel, so straight that it had to be artificial, connected it to a lake. And from the center of that lake rose a huge stepped pyramid, reaching nearly to the cave’s roof. Dizzyingly tall, images carved into the walls, it was by far the grandest structure here.
Zarkav’s hand covered my mouth as soon as I opened it to ask a question, and he gave me a warning look. I nodded understanding: we weren’t safe here. Looking down into the settlement, I realized that there weren’t many aliens abroad. Perhaps it was the middle of the night to them, if they cared about such things? Down here, the position of the sun meant nothing.
Apparently satisfied with what he saw, Zarkav swung over the side of the ledge, dropping down to another and then another. I held tight, fighting another urge to scream; it was like being on a rollercoaster, complete with hanging onto my boyfriend for comfort.
Boyfriend? The thought startled me. When did I start to think of him that way?
It wasn’t easy to argue with it, not while he carried me in his arms. I closed my eyes and concentrated on powerful muscles under the strange, alien texture of his skin. That distracted me from his leaps, and I felt disappointed when he set me down.
The room was tall by human standards, and poorly kept by anyone’s. Stone walls covered in worn tapestries surrounded us, and a trap door led lower. Above, a hole in the roof showed how Zarkav had brought me inside, and a shuttered window let in a little light.
“Where are we?” I asked in a whisper.
“Home,” Zarkav replied, opening his mouth to say more and then closing it. Frowning, he crouched by Kitty Fantastic, scratching behind her ears and muttering. Holograms flickered over her head as he worked on what to say.
Cool blue patterns faded in on his scales and I tried to work out what that meant. Nothing about this was easy.
“Old home,” he corrected himself. “Abandoned after the plague.”
The blues lightened and became more prominent. Sadness, I guessed, putting some things he hadn’t said together. No mention of his family, a plague, and his reluctance to speak about it.
“Your parents?” I said gently, not wanting to open any old wounds. It was too late for that, though. Zarkav took a deep breath and sighed.
“Yes. Plague took them. Siblings too. House is cursed, along with others like it. No one…”
Quick, sharp gestures, orange-red adding to the blue patterns as he sought the right words. Kitty Fantastic mrewed up at him, glyphs glowing over her head and prompting him.
“No one dares enter,” he finished. “Safe here.”
I nodded, looking dubiously around. Hopefully he was right, and no traces of the plague lingered. As an alien to this planet I shouldn’t be in much danger from local diseases, but he would be vulnerable. The thought of losing him was too much.
I took in more details. This had been his room, I realized. Something about it held his energy in an indefinable way, permeating everything. Carved wooden toys lay scattered around the room, animals and hunters, simple Zrin figures with spears poised.
My gaze stopped on a bed, cheeks heating at the sight. It didn’t look very comfortable, but nor did it look like it had succumbed to time. And any bed would be inviting right now.
Not to sleep. Well, maybe for sleep too, but with Zarkav around my body had higher priorities than catching some shut eye. Memories of what he’d done to me with just that amazing tongue filled me.
A hungry growl told me Zarkav had seen my expression and understood it. His scales rippled, colors shifting and changing, the pale blue overwhelmed by eager red and purple. The mysterious red-pink lines didn’t move, but they did intensify as he stepped closer.
The best way to fight his sad memories of this place is to give him new, better ones. A convenient excuse for what I already wanted to do. I reached out, running a hand down a line of red scales on his torso and watching them brighten behind my fingers. Was it an illusion, or did my fingers tingle at the touch?
The iron self-control he’d been using for our journey finally snapped. One powerful hand grabbed my ass, squeezing tight and lifting me to his eye level. A groan escaped me at his rough touch, a warm glow spreading through my body as he pulled me to him.
The kiss tasted of the wilds, of abandon and fierce need. It sent a thrill through me, and the powerful thump-thump of Zarkav’s heart sped up along with mine. Sharp teeth grazed my lips, a powerful hand pulled at my clothing, and I wrapped myself around him. Now, finally, finally, I would have him.
He laid me down on the bed, pinning me to the firm mattress and kissing me deeper. Trapped between the bed and my alien lover, a delicious feeling of helplessness came over me. I squirmed and struggled, not out of a desire to get away but to prove to myself that I couldn’t.
Zarkav’s rough chuckle shook me. “No escape, taru-ma.”
Whatever that word meant, it sent a shiver through me and I moaned wordlessly. My hands found his belt, fumbling with the fastening as he began unbuttoning my top…
…and then the gong sounded. Loud, echoing in the cavern outside, impossible to ignore. I tried anyway, pulling Zarkav down to me for another kiss. He didn’t need much persuading, kissing eagerly, his lizard tongue pushing into my mouth.
My blouse opened, a rough hand caressed my breasts, claws scratching with the perfect amount of force. I gasped, arching my back, and froze. So did Zarkav.
Outside, a voice rose over the fading echoes of the gong. Not a Zrin voice, a human one. I’d know that smug tone anywhere: Orson Fanwell.
Zarkav cursed and rose to his feet, and I followed, muttering darkly under my breath. Not only had he attacked me, now Fanwell was cockblocking me too? He knew exactly how to get the top position on my shit list.
The old shutters had plenty of cracks wide enough to see out of without revealing myself. I pressed my eye to one to see a square crowded with Zrin. Over their heads, across the artificial lake, rose the pyramid.
Two levels up the pyramid, a pl
atform extended out over the lake, perfect for addressing the crowded square. And on it stood Fanwell, striking a dramatic pose.
A pair of Zrin in colorful feathered robes flanked him and more stood further back on the platform. Despite the guards, he didn’t look like a captive of bloodthirsty alien warriors. Well fed, smug, and rested, he’d never looked better. Trust that dick to land on his feet.
His Eskel was awful, rote-learned, but the statement he recited was clear enough. Mostly meaningless to me, of course, aside from the odd word here or there. Listen, sky, hunt — all words I’d picked up, recited well enough to understand. I tapped my wristband, summoning Kitty who appeared with a quiet mew to start recording, but to my surprise he switched to English.
“Listen, you purple freaks, I’m in charge now,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “I come from the sky above, I bring the blessings of your ancients sky gods, yadayada. You can’t understand a word I’m saying, can you?”
A roar of approval greeted him, hundreds of Zrin shouting, hissing, smacking their tails on the floor. Silence fell as a priest standing beside Fanwell spoke in heavy, ritual tones. Beside me, Zarkav stiffened and hissed, angry red flickering across his scales.
“What are they saying?” I asked, and he frowned, concentrating. It took us some back and forth, but we got there with Kitty’s help.
“They translate: Sky People have come. The Sky Person says that the test is soon to come, the temple must be… grown?”
“Expanded?” I suggested, and he nodded.
“Expanded, yes. More offerings. All peoples must hear this message.” His teeth ground as he glared out through the shutters, and if looks could kill, his laser-like intensity would have cut everyone on that platform in two.
“That’s not at all what Orson said,” I protested. As I spoke, Fanwell began again, and I hardly believed my ears.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition…”