Lovers in the Woods

by Ann Raina

“To your hut?”

  “Yes.” Doyakis tried to flatten his back against the trunk to get more air, but Sajitar expected the move. “Don’t kill me! I beg you!”

  “How many men?”

  “Three. I don’t know if there were more!” he added fearfully when Sajitar cocked his head, disbelieving.

  “What did they promise you?”

  “Credits.”

  “Lots of credits?”

  “More than I’d ever see now.”

  “Are there more like you? What did you hear?”

  The old man shook his head. Sweat poured down his temples.

  “You can’t outrun them for long. They’ll look for you everywhere.”

  “Bounty hunters, ey?”

  There was a twitch in his brows and his voice even weaker than before.

  “Who knows? I’m just one and I swear I didn’t want this to happen.”

  “Do they have tattoos?”

  “How shall I know? Doesn’t everyone have one today?”

  Sajitar pulled back the knife and used the haft to hit on his head. Doyakis slumped against the tree, unconscious.

  “He won’t betray us again.” He got up again and put the knife away in a practiced movement.

  “How did you know?”

  Sajitar checked the surroundings, then mounted the B-horse again. He panted and shivered at the same time. Looking at Rayenne, he realized that his sudden action had surprised her, to say the least.

  “You wear a uniform.” His voice was rough. The happenings, starting with this morning’s death of a police officer, got to him and he wanted out—just call it quits and leave. He shook his head, running a hand through his sweaty hair. Pain made him shiver. “There’s no man in this corner of the world who wouldn’t comment on a woman in a police uniform, believe me. Or they’d want to stay out of your path. And he came right at us. So very friendly. Didn’t you think he was suspicious?”

  Rayenne glanced at him, raising her brows while a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

  Sajitar nodded. “You knew.”

  “I did. I would’ve preferred him to take us to his hut.” She turned her mount as she put away her gun. “So no one is nice to a police woman, hmm?”

  “No, not around here. No one.”

  “Are there wild animals around?”

  Sajitar snorted.

  “He’ll be up and about in a short while and tell those men that we got away once more. Don’t worry, he’ll be his old grumpy self.”

  “Who’s worried?”

  He huffed, his glance wild and angry. “Have you ever thought of changing clothes while we are fleeing?”

  “No.”

  “Do it.”

  Chapter Three

  “Where did you get the knife?” Rayenne asked when they had crossed another three miles deeper into Emerald Green. The branches hung low and she had to duck down onto Bunty’s withers frequently. “I had you searched.”

  “I have special places.”

  “Show me.” She waited for him to produce the knife with a sly grin. “That’s my knife!”

  He shrugged.

  “You took mine away, and I needed one, as you see.”

  “You stole it!”

  “I borrowed it. Gimme back mine and I’ll trade it for this one. Mine’s much better balanced.”

  “When?”

  “Earlier. Your B-horse was close to mine and your knife…” He let the sentence trail off while the knife danced over his fingers.

  Rayenne blushed. How she hated that he had duped her!

  “What else did you take?”

  “What do you want to get back?”

  “What?”

  He sighed and put away the knife, ignoring her demanding stare. “Unless you shoot me, Ray, which I’m quite sure you won’t do, we are partners. You can try and treat me as a prisoner, but that’ll do you no good. I know some things about Emerald Green. I know about life here. You don’t. And we know now that you can’t run back to the street to contact HQ unless you want to have a meet-and-greet with Sanjongy’s gunslingers. What’s your decision?”

  Rayenne looked away, embarrassed. She had been proud of her independence, of her abilities. Out here, the sum of her knowledge was less than what Sajitar had collected through the years of just being a small criminal on this planet. It was frustrating.

  She took a deep breath, composing her wits. It was fruitless to be angry.

  “I’m not into ridiculous games, Saji. We both want to get through the woods alive. I agree, you know more than I do, and I promise it will be to your benefit that you helped me. But that’s all I can do.”

  “I guess I can live with that for now.”

  Rayenne looked back at the withers of her B-horse, not knowing if she wanted to interpret his reaction. Her job was to bring him safely to Belson Park, no matter whether he was a criminal or just a witness.

  On one hand, and much to her surprise, she enjoyed the ride through Emerald Green. There was no such wood where she came from. The landscape of her home planet consisted of forests, swamps and dense vegetation that changed with the temperatures. Sometimes reading tracks was hard work, sometimes you could follow a man over hundreds of miles without stopping.

  Her whole family—more than forty people—had long specialized in tracking criminals on planets throughout the quadrant. They had made a brand name out of Whiteclaw. Now her father, uncles and brothers were known for their excellent work in finding escapees where the police had failed.

  On the other hand, she wanted the danger to be over. Unlike one of her brothers, who thrived on dangerous situations every day and boasted with his heroic deeds, Rayenne had become a police officer to bring a little bit more justice to worlds that were sunken in crime. So far she had not had much impact, and it nagged her that the simple transport of a prisoner to Belson Park had developed into an adventure with an unknown outcome. If she told her father and brothers, she’d be laughed at. She could already hear all the comments and the mocking laughter. We told you before. Stick to tracking only. There’s nothing more criminal than the police of a retarded planet.

  Finally Sajitar broke their mutual silence. The first drops of rain hit their faces. “We need shelter for the night.”

  “I know. Just another hour. There’s still enough light.”

  He looked up, his expression worried. “I’ll feel much better if we got a roof over our heads sooner than later. The old man was right, it will rain.”

  “The old man’s a miserable snitch. Under different circumstances, he would have been shot.”

  “But we got away unharmed. Isn’t that what counts?”

  She gave him a wry smile, hardly keeping back that she did not like to be escorted and helped by a criminal. However, Sajitar was a polite and obviously capable man. She could have had worse company.

  “Sanjongy’s people expected us to leave the woods again.” They exchanged a glance of mutual anxiety, extinguishing the smile at once. “I’m sure they paid more lumberjacks to bushwhack us.”

  “You’re right.” Sajitar frowned and added after a moment of hesitation, “Are you sure these were Sanjongy’s people waiting for us?”

  Rayenne looked back over her shoulder, realized it was absurd to expect to see anything but trees, and turned back again.

  “No policeman would force a lumberjack to lure us into his hut. They would’ve come in person. After all, this is a police operation.”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  Rayenne sighed.

  “Sanjongy might not be everywhere, but their net is widespread. They hire poor men like this lumberjack to do their dirty work for them. Believe me,” she added with more vigor than she felt when Sajitar still frowned, “they have more helpers on their list than the police do. And that’s a real pity.”

  The forest was dark as night and empty as the old man’s purse.

  Who else waits for us? She sat back in the saddle, easing her butt, wishing she could ease her mind
. How is it possible they found us so fast? She had seen the frightened face of the old man and assumed he had had no choice but to lead them into the trap. Still, the circumstances were weird. There had to be a logical explanation why Sanjongy had been able to wait for them.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She realized his worry was real and shook her head. “I’m okay.”

  “Good. Let’s see if we find a fitting place to pitch a tent.”

  “I have something better than that.”

  “You do?”

  Instead of an explanation she dismounted and took off the saddlebags. Her hands shook when she opened them. He came to her side, taking the reins of their horses.

  “Let me do it,” he offered, putting his big hand over hers. She shook it off.

  “I do it. You didn’t know about this technology before, so how would you know how to use it?” Without waiting for a reply, she unpacked a sleeping bag and a silvery package. While Sajitar watched, she pushed four oblong sticks, each the length of her forearm, in the ground to form a square, then hit a switch. The tops of the sticks glowed in soft yellow.

  “Tent pitched.” Under different circumstances she would have made an inviting gesture, yet the shock of having escaped the third attack in one day dimmed her mood. “Do you want to enter? You can bring your sleeping bag, too.”

  “You have your generous moments, don’t you?” After unsaddling and hobbling the horses, he brought his sleeping bag and stepped between the four sticks that framed the basic size of a tent for two. There was a soft humming around him as he breached the barrier, then nothing. “That’s your tent?” He looked up. “Quite the rustic version. It’s not warm in here.”

  Rayenne hesitated. For a moment, there had been a flicker in Sajitar’s eyes, something worth interpreting. She licked her lips and thrust her sleeping bag into the makeshift tent, determined to stop thinking about anything tonight.

  “Drop your shirt and let me see what hit you.”

  “What hit me? Oh, you mean…” He laughed, but it had a nervous ring to it. “Before then…before we met that old man.”

  “Right.” Rayenne stepped into the tent when he had already nestled down in the sleeping bag. “Does it still hurt?”

  “In a way, yes, but I almost forgot about it.”

  She held the shirt and carefully touched the rim of the wound.

  “Looks like a bullet.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry. That’s odd. The shell’s embedded in the skin.”

  “Pull it out.”

  “Not without a tool. The heat sealed the wound around it. It’s like it’s molded to the skin. I could use forceps to get it out, but it’ll hurt like hell.”

  Sajitar strained to see the wound. “Damn it! How could they get such a bullet? I thought all of this stuff is forbidden!”

  “The weapons must be the latest in technology. Their operating distance exceeds those I know by a mile. And the bullet…” She shook her head, grimacing. “I’m sorry, Sajitar, but there’s been much more trouble in Belson Park since you were there the last time. The bad guys have obviously upgraded without telling us.”

  Sajitar pressed his forehead against the warm cloth of the bag. He looked wrung out and in pain.

  “What’s the damage?” he asked, his voice muffled against the ground.

  “If the bullet stays in one place and you don’t move too much, you’ll make it through the woods, no doubt.”

  “You sure?”

  “I can’t claim huge experience with bullet wounds, but the way it looks it won’t go anywhere. You’ll be fine.” She opened the zipper of her jacket and pulled her arms out.

  “You want me to be fine.”

  “Sure, yes.”

  He turned his head. “To get my testimony against this woman.”

  Rayenne swallowed and tried to keep her voice even.

  “Her name’s Sananda Wang and I’m still convinced you know her well enough to remember that.”

  Sajitar closed his eyes, sighing.

  “I guess there’s nothing I can say that would change your mind, right?”

  She started inspecting the jacket and found a shell that looked similar to the one in Sajitar’s side.

  “I won’t leave you before we reach HQ.”

  “Will you protect me, then, if more bullets start a march through my body?”

  “That’s my task, so, yes.” Irritated, she looked up.

  “Good to know.”

  “Look here.” She pulled out a small light from her jacket pocket and showed Sajitar where the bullet had ruined her jacket. “Someone shot me, too.”

  “The jacket’s a fine protection. I should get one of these.”

  “Standard police equipment. Extra thick padding.” She fingered for the rest of the bullet that was stuck in the material. “It’s…quite unusual.” She dropped the jacket to inspect the separated bullet more closely in her hand. “I thought the shell would be left behind, but it had a second one, obviously. That’s odd.” When he frowned, she showed him the two parts she had found. “When a bullet is fired, the shell falls off and the bullet hits the target, right? In this case, there is a second shell that enclosed the real bullet until it hit the target, then parted with it and moved on.”

  “You mean…” He stopped to touch his side. “This here is just one part of two?”

  Rayenne bit her lower lip.

  “Unfortunately, yes. But there’s more.”

  “Unfortunately?”

  “The bullet’s a transmitter. As long as it stays intact, someone will be able to follow and find us, no matter where we go. That’s how they got to us so quickly.” She inspected the tiny object then crushed it with the butt of her weapon.

  “Then you have to take it out.”

  “How? I can try to pull out the shell if you want me to, but the bullet is another story. If it already parted with the shell, there’s no telling where it went.”

  “Shall I wait until it peeps out and tells you?” Rayenne took a deep breath to answer, but he was faster. “Ray, please, you have to try. I don’t want to run around like a signal tower.”

  “It’s not sure if it’s transmitting across this great distance and…”

  He held her wrist, looking intently at her.

  “That’s the answer to Sanjongy’s killers being ahead of us! We have to become invisible or we’ll be trapped like Dikis in a sling. Please, it’s worth a try. I have a first aid kit in my saddlebags. With some painkillers. You just have to do it. I can’t do it alone.”

  “I’m no nurse.”

  “And I’m no criminal. Which means, I’m worth saving. So, will you get out now and shuffle your nerves together?”

  Rayenne wanted to contradict, but the prospect of cutting out a bullet silenced her. She nodded and left the tent.

  Upon her return, Sajitar had resumed a position that allowed her best access to the small gleaming object. She sighed and put down the first aid kit and a bigger lamp. Eying him skeptically, she handed him his flagon.

  “You got something against the pain, you said. This looks like a bottle of—”

  “Medicine, Ray, pure medicine.”

  He reached out, but she pulled back her hand with the flagon.

  “What is it?”

  “Kiliak, a strong drink I know. Now give it to me.”

  “Where did you get it? I heard it’s forbidden.”

  “You heard wrong.” He snatched the flagon from her hand, unscrewed it and took a long swallow. “Here, you need something, too.”

  “If I drink…”

  “Do it. You truly look as if you’d break down any minute.” Her hands trembled when she took it. “Hey, it’s just a hot shell in my skin. You don’t have to perform heart surgery, okay?”

  “Why are you so damned sure I can do this?”

  “Because I can’t. Even if I could reach the spot, I would faint the moment I cut myself. There’s a clear reason for self-
protection built into mankind’s genes. I could fall into a knife by accident, but I wouldn’t cut myself up willingly.” He held a stick in his hand, thicker than his finger. “See? I’ll bite on this and you get that shell out nice and quick.”

  “I still feel like I could faint any minute.”

  “You can look at blood, can’t you?”

  “I’m a police officer.”

  “Now that explains everything.”

  “Shut up.”

  “As you wish.” He waved the stick before his face, but she could not smile through the strain. She put down the flagon and closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for the alcohol to kick in and lend her some strength.

  Rayenne took her time assorting the instruments she needed. She disinfected the area around the shell, placed the scalpel and forceps beside her, and wished that she could call someone to take over the task.

  Finally she nodded, taking a deep breath. “Now you’ll learn if I can help or harm you.”

  “Just go ahead.” He put the stick between his teeth and turned his gaze toward the scalpel in her hand.

  She wished he’d make a joke, but now the stress got to both of them. The area was reddened by the disinfectant and the shell gleamed like a hot spot in its center. She put the blade close to the rim of the shell. To cut the skin was much easier than she had thought. Blood welled up and ran down on the small towel she had placed beneath. Carefully she widened the cut and set the forceps to work. Sajitar moaned and breathed hard as the pain hit him. He balled his hands into tight fists, pressing his eyes shut to ride out the pain. She tried to divert her thoughts by thinking of how hot the metal must have been to scorch the skin and get stuck. She let her mind travel to all the different kinds of weapons she knew and listed their names and bullet velocity. Still, she wanted to touch Sajitar’s skin, caress him and tell him that it would be all right soon, but she couldn’t utter a single word.

  Stubbornly, she only looked at the wound. Now her hands were calm and worked efficiently. Her breathing slowed down and she ignored the drops of sweat that ran down her temples. Within two minutes she had loosened the shell and pulled it out carefully. Some skin was still attached to it, but she could see that the shell was empty. She held back a curse and very carefully probed whether the bullet was in reach. She had no luck and did not dare to stick the forceps any deeper. She thanked the gods that the hole was small and would heal within a week once properly closed.