The Valtegan reeled, stunned by the unexpectedness of her blow.
Moments later Kusac erupted into the clearing, his face a snarling mask of fury.
One hand, claws fully extended, lashed out at the nearest Valtegan, raking deep furrows across his chest and flinging him to the other side of the clearing. With a sickening thud, the body caromed off the trunk of a nearby tree to fall in an untidy heap at its base. The others released Carrie, who slid bonelessly to the ground, and began backing away, reaching for their guns.
With a deep-throated growl, Kusac rose to his feet and lunged at the first, hitting him a massive blow on the head. There was a sharp crack and the soldier collapsed.
Pain seared across Kusac’s forearm as one of the energy weapons went off. A killing rage took hold of him and, leaping forward, he landed between them.
When reason returned, he stood alone in the center of a devastated clearing. At his feet lay two bodies. Carefully he nudged one with his foot but when he saw the head lolling at an impossible angle, he let it roll back into place.
Leaving Carrie where she had fallen, he checked the other three Valtegans. They were all dead. Good. When he had seen to her, he would drag them off into the forest and bury them somewhere.
His body began to tremble as reaction set in and he sat down hurriedly before his legs gave way beneath him. He had never killed a person before; animals, yes, but neither that nor his training had prepared him for the reality of taking a sentient’s life. His anger had helped but, Vartra knew, it had been justified. They had killed Elise and dared to lay their filthy hands on his Leska!
He stopped, taken aback by his use of the term. It happened sometimes among his kind that a male and a female were linked through their Talent by an indissoluble bond, but that this bond could exist between two Alien races was just not possible! They were too different, surely. Yet there must be more similarities between them than he had guessed to make him even think that she was his Leska. No, it was just not possible.
The smell of hot coffee brought Carrie back to consciousness again. Remembering the Valtegans, she remained perfectly still. Hardly daring to breathe, she opened her eyes fractionally and, peering through her eyelashes, discovered she was lying beside a small camp fire. On the other side, not quite obscured by the flames, sat Kusac.
“Very sensible,” he said, reaching for the mug and pouring some coffee into it. “But your caution is not necessary. I have dealt with the soldiers. Come, have some coffee. I’ve already drunk some and it doesn’t taste too bad. It has a pleasantly euphoric effect, in fact.”
Carrie sat up and reached for the mug that Kusac was holding out to her. Cupping her hands around it, she took a careful drink, keeping her gaze warily on him all the time.
“I should have guessed,” she said quietly.
“I think you did on a subconscious level,” he replied, raking in the fire with a long stick until he had pulled out two largish brown objects.
“I managed to catch some food as you suggested.” His amber eyes narrowed slightly in amusement as he glanced up at her.
Carrie shifted uncomfortably, acutely aware of the amused overtones of Kusac’s thoughts.
His mouth widened in his equivalent of a grin, and pulling the plate out of the rucksack beside him, he began to break open one of the objects before him. The outer casing of baked mud broke away easily, filling the air with the aroma of roast meat. Kusac dropped the meat onto the plate and began chipping away at the second rabbit’s casing.
“You only brought one plate,” he said, his tone slightly wistful, “so I am afraid we will have to share.”
Images of Kusac tearing into the camp and laying into the Valtegans with massive and deadly paws drifted through Carrie’s mind, to be firmly banished as she got to her feet and moved round the fire to sit beside him. A friend could not be rejected because of fears over the way he had protected your life.
Kusac felt an easing of the tension within him. She was not afraid! Their relationship must change, he was aware of that, but, thank Vartra, the girl did not fear him. He needed her help and cooperation, and for that she must also trust him.
“Be careful,” he warned, seeing her about to reach for the meat. “It’s hot, even for me.”
Carrie nodded and lifted a piece of meat gingerly, blowing on it before popping it into her mouth. It tasted wonderful, the best she had ever eaten. With all the upsets and alarms she had been through today, she was ravenous. She reached for another piece, accidentally touching Kusac as she did so. Starting slightly, she stared at his paw, recognizing for the first time that it was a hand not unlike her own.
She looked at his face, realizing that it was not the cat’s face she had always seen before, but one more nearly resembling her own people’s.
Feeling her surprise, Kusac turned his hand over so she could see the palm and held it out to her.
“Fingers make life a lot easier, don’t they?” he said, his voice almost purring with amusement.
Carrie looked down again and reached out to turn Kusac’s hand back over. At the end of each finger, almost buried in the thick black fur, was a sharp, horny nail.
“We still use the natural weapons that Vartra gave us,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to read the emotions which fluttered, half-formed, through her mind and across her face.
Her people appeared to be peaceful apart from the guerrillas, and the thought of allying themselves to a race with powerful natural weapons such as those of the Sholans might well be distasteful to them.
“Vartra?” she asked, letting go of his hand and smiling quizzically up at him.
“Our Creator and Protector,” he replied, remembering his relief when he had discovered the Terrans were not a Godless race.
“Why have I never noticed your hands before?” she asked, picking up another piece of meat. “Or your face? Have you been disguising them with your Talent, the way I do when Valtegans are about?”
“It seems I have picked up a few ideas from you, but I have never needed to disguise myself much,” replied Kusac. “Since I came to this planet, for one reason or another I have been restricted to moving about on all fours. I usually only travel that way when I need the extra speed. To do this, I have to retract my fingers like so,” he demonstrated, and, like a cat sheathing its claws, his fingers disappeared within the thick fur. “That way I only run on the palms of my hands, which are fairly insensitive. Normally I walk upright like you.
“When my leg began to heal enough for me to move without too much pain, one of the first things I did was to hunt down one of the forest cats. I soon discovered why you thought I was one of them.”
Carrie nodded thoughtfully, taking a drink from her mug of coffee.
“You looked similar to a forest cat, but your behavior, especially that first day, was more like that of a pet cat I once had on Earth. In fact, almost identical to his.” She stared accusingly at him over the rim of the mug.
Kusac shrugged. “I have to admit that when you found me, I read your thoughts and quite shamelessly behaved according to what you expected of me. It wasn’t until much later that I realized I was committed to playing the part of a domesticated pet!” He laughed, the sound a low almost crooning purr.
He reached behind him. “I thought you might like this back,” he said, handing her the leather collar he had worn.
“Don’t embarrass me,” she said, flushing as she remembered how unconcerned she had been at his presence in her room. She threw it in the fire.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner who you were?” she demanded.
“For several reasons,” he replied, shifting uncomfortably under her accusing glare. “At first I was too ill, then I had to learn your language.”
“We’ve been communicating without words for several weeks.”
“If I had told you before now, our relationship would have changed and others would have noticed.”
Carrie shook her head. “Not good enough, Kusac. I kn
ow when you’re holding out on me. I want the truth this time. And while we’re at it, what brought you here in the first place? We weren’t aware that Keiss had any neighbors, let alone two such different species.”
Kusac’s tail stopped moving as he looked back at her.
“My home planet, Shola, is not a neighbor of yours, but we did have three colonies in this sector, until the Valtegans attacked and destroyed two of them.
“We knew the nature of these Others from the few dead bodies we found. You call them Valtegans.”
Kusac fell silent for a few moments before continuing.
“As soon as reports of the devastation came in from the Captains running the freighter lines, we sent a battleship and escort to investigate. Not one of our people was left alive on either of the two colonies attacked. They had slaughtered every man, woman, and child.”
Carrie, her mind strangely open to every nuance of his, knew he was steeling himself as if to receive some rebuttal.
“We are primarily Traders,” he continued, “and though we trade with several other species we have never come across the Valtegans before. Not only are they unknown to us, but to our allies also. You are lucky indeed that they did not see fit to exterminate your people as they did us. We desperately need to find out what we can about them as they are a threat to us all.”
“You will have to organize some kind of planetary defense fleets for both Shola and your last colony,” Carrie said. “So will the other people you trade with. That will take some doing. Meanwhile, you’ll need an excellent intelligence service to know exactly where and when the Valtegans show up.”
Kusac inclined his head toward her. “We have such a service. I was part of it until our craft was shot down.”
“What brought you to Keiss itself?” she asked, setting down her mug.
“Keiss was surveyed some twenty years ago, and when it proved to be capable of supporting our species, a life pod was automatically dropped on the surface. It was to conduct experiments on the biosphere over a period of several years, sending the information to an orbiting satellite which in turn would transmit it to Shola.
“When it suddenly stopped transmitting, nothing was done. We had no reason to suspect anything but a system failure. After the Valtegans struck, a possible relationship was noticed and we were dispatched to find out what had happened.
“Our Mothership, the Khalossa, dropped several light scouters in various sectors of space, each on a three-month reconnaissance mission. We had several planets to check in this area, Keiss being our last. Perhaps the boredom of finding nothing made us less observant. Whatever the cause, we failed to notice the presence of the Others until too late.” He fell silent.
Carrie stirred slightly, pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them.
“How many of you are left on Keiss?”
“Five of us survived. I have no way of knowing where the others are, but we located the life pod before we crashed, so I presume they have made their way there.”
He raised his head, looking her squarely in the face.
“I must go to the pod. Even without my colleagues I can send a message to the Khalossa about the Valtegans’ presence here.”
“I can see that you must,” she replied, aware as she did so of a decrease in the stress she had been sensing emanating from him. They had obviously touched upon something Kusac feared, but since he was barricading the thought, and she was respecting his privacy, she had no idea what it was.
“Have you tried to locate your crew mentally?” she asked.
“Yes, but I can’t touch their minds. Not all my people are Talented. It is mainly confined to the members of certain families, of which I am one. The rest of the crew were unTalented.”
“What about that Valtegan? We read his mind. Perhaps together we could locate your friends.”
“It’s possible,” Kusac replied slowly. “Though with my people the problem is different. The unTalented seem to have a strong natural barrier which prevents contact unless both parties are willing. With the Valtegan, there was no such barrier.”
“We could try,” she persisted, warming to her theme. “Aren’t barriers weakest when one is sleeping? What if we look for the barrier rather than for them? If we tried now, we might succeed.”
“It might be possible. With our combined strength we may be able to pick up some faint echo from them.”
“So what do we do?”
“Sit comfortably and relax,” he said, twisting himself round until he was facing her. He flinched as he moved his left forearm onto his knee.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just a graze. One of the Valtegan energy weapons clipped my arm.”
“Let me see,” she said, leaning forward to look. The effects of culture shock hit her briefly, scrambling her thoughts for a moment as she saw first an animal’s foreleg then an arm almost the same as hers except for the fur.
She gave a short laugh. “We see what we expect, don’t we?” she said. “I don’t know how I ever thought you were a feline.”
“But I am,” he said gently. “I’m a feline person.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. The wound was reasonably deep, but it had been cauterized by the beam of energy from the weapon. It had already begun to scab over.
“It really should have a dressing over it to protect it,” she said.
“Later.”
Carrie released his arm and moved into a cross-legged posture, letting her hands lie slackly along her thighs.
“Link with me,” he said.
Carrie’s view of Kusac started to mist, and gradually her field of vision shrank until all she could see were his eyes. She felt light-headed as she sank deeper and deeper into those amber depths. Almost against her will, she felt herself being pulled into a warm, dark whirlpool.
Fear was beyond her, and for what could have been an aeon, she watched the faint flickers of light that pulsed around her.
Carrie? The thought surrounded her. I cannot reach you.
She hesitated, momentarily unwilling to venture farther.
Carrie. His tone was gentle, urging.
She reached out for him, letting the final barriers snick open. A tide of Kusac’s thoughts and memories flowed over her, threatening to sweep her away. Panicking, she reached out for something to hold on to, but all she touched were images of Kusac’s past—his pain and terror when his Talent first manifested itself, the gradual growth of understanding as his father started to train him in its use.
Her terror began to grow as she swirled among these scenes, feeling her control of her own identity begin to slip. She tried to retreat, to retain her individuality, but she had already gone too far. Inexorably she was swept toward him, propelled by instincts and emotions she had not known she possessed.
Carrie.
It was as if a hand had clamped onto her arm, preventing her from being swept to destruction. Now they joined, each experiencing the other in a meshing deeper and more intimate than anything either of them had experienced before. She felt him draw her closer, enfolding and protecting her. His smell, mingled with that of slightly damp fur, enveloped her. He felt warm and soft against her skin. Between them there was a total understanding, a total commitment that nothing, save death, could dissolve.
Leska, now we must find my companions. Strangely, his tone sounded unsteady.
Kusac gathered their thoughts and channeled them, sending a narrow beam of consciousness throughout the surrounding area, searching for the missing Sholans. At one point there was a faint presence. They stopped, increasing the strength of their probing.
Carrie noticed the barrier first. She led them to the wall, searching for an opening.
There is no way in, Leska, but you are right. That is the barrier of my people. They are west of here.
In a cave, added Carrie. We can find them.
We can. Let us return.
The beam shrank, bringing them back to
the clearing and their own bodies.
Carrie groaned. Her head hurt. There had been too many headaches of late. She lay still, hoping it would go away if she ignored it. Besides, she was comfortable. A hand touched her forehead gently and she opened her eyes, smiling weakly up at Kusac.
“Your head aches? I had these pains when my Talent was developing. Perhaps I can ease it and then you can sleep.”
Carrie, unable to think or speak, lifted her head fractionally. That slight movement sent waves of pain jarring through her head, and even Kusac’s soft voice was almost unbearable.
She felt his mind touch the agony inside her skull and gradually all pain ceased, leaving her limp and exhausted.
Kusac leaned back, reaching for the rucksack. Fumbling one-handedly inside it, he pulled out two emergency blankets. Trying not to disturb her, he spread first one then the other around them.
He looked down at where she lay against his chest. So different from his own women. Her face smooth skin, her hair blonde and long, cut shorter above her eyes. The eyes, a brown darker than he had ever seen, the whites almost startlingly blue. Eyes that right now he was drowning in.
A thought drifted up to him from her.
What is a Leska?
It has to do with our merging, replied Kusac, trying to steady his thoughts. Their joining had been so complete that their rapport needed no strengthening for mind talk.
We are as one—Leskas to each other. Now sleep. I have overtaxed both of us. I had no idea our search would take this course. He faltered, trying to suppress some of the half-formed thoughts that demanded attention.
Carrie closed her eyes obediently.
“Good night, Leska,” she murmured. “In some matters events happen as they will.”
Kusac sat for some time looking down at the sleeping Terran girl. What in Vartra’s name had he done to them? His was the responsibility, the blame, as the girl’s tutor. This bonding with her was irreversible for them both. He knew with every atom of his being that she was his true Leska, his life-mate.
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