by Brandon Hill
A dry, rasping cough soon began as he tried to dry off and change his bandages. With shaking arms he removed them from his injured leg … and then wailed in combined dismay and anguish at the sight of the redness of swelling and foul whiteness of pus that lined his now much inflamed wounds. It all came back to him after that: something he needed to have known, something he should have very well known about pseudobaryonyxes. Hadn’t another, more aged and mindful hunter taught him once that after eating carrion, a pseudobaryonyx’s mouth became more septic than a toilet seat from the toxic ruins on Zynj? Had he not shot that creature, it would have let him go, waited, and then stalked him the next day, when the infection from his wounds would have made him too sick to move, let alone fight back.
“I’m a dead man,” he whispered through a throat that was becoming sore. He had treated his leg with antibiotics, but these were only field medicines. He needed a wider battery of treatments than this; had he remembered this vital piece of information, he might have doubled his efforts to find his land rover and get back to Solace. There was an Imperial medical center there; he could have gotten much-needed help. But no; he wandered aimlessly for over a day, hoping beyond hope to rediscover the trail to his targets, who were perhaps off-planet by now. Miserable and hopeless, he sunk down to the ground, extending his wounded, poisoned leg, and let out a cry of anguish that rivaled the creature’s battle cry from yesterday’s canopy chase. He did not care what beasts it attracted; even if he did know the way out of the forest, he knew he would never make it back to Solace in time.
He had never underestimated or disrespected the fauna of Blair before, but now, because of one girl … one impossibly beautiful, kind, and sympathetic girl, he rushed the mission, his desire no longer for the prize, but for her. And now he was dying here, in the middle of nowhere on the Knives of Blair, light-years away from the comfort of a suite in Xiao’s Tiāntáng City, where the warmth of a striped pelt, auburn hair, amber eyes, and a half-smiling muzzle awaited him.
***
“I wish you didn’t have to do this,” Ni’linya said. Her hands caressed his back as he pulled on his socks and shoes, and then ran over the dossiers one last time from his wrist phone. Her tail tapped his thigh, and then slid off lazily in a slow, languid rhythm.
“I go where the money is, Tiger,” Cole answered. “Hey, I don’t ask you about your other clients.”
“But this hunting …”
As he stood, Cole turned and saw Ni’linya looking away. It was a sight that made his heart nearly break. He had never seen her this way. And then he realized that he had never before told her exactly what he was going to do. She never overheard him speaking with his middle man, to plan the mission … had never seen him plan the execution of another human being, except once before, three years ago.
And then at last, he was able to put two and two together.
“My god … Tiger, this is why you stopped accepting payment from me!” he said, and knelt to her side. “My job; it’s … You believe it’s blood money.”
“Isn’t it?” Ni’linya asked.
“Not always,” he said. “Most of the jobs I take involve criminals.”
“And some aren’t.”
“No,” Cole confessed. “I won’t lie to you.”
“So I err on the side of caution.”
“A wistful ghost of a smile played on Cole’s mouth as he made something that was somewhere between an imperceptibly soft snort and an exhale. “Well, here I was, thinking that it was just because you liked me, or something,” he said.
“Silly hunter …” Ni’linya rose from the bed and slid with fluid grace to his side, wrapping her arms around his neck as her voice softened to that silken timbre he loved. “By the Creator … you silly, silly hunter …”
He kissed her as if he would never see her again, and Cole realized in that kiss that his Tiger was, rather than merely reciprocating, returning his affection with the same ardent passion. And so he made it last, not knowing what drove her in this, but not complaining either.
“How could you ever think that I don’t like you?” She asked breathily, once they could speak.
“I say really dumb things, don’t I?” Cole asked.
“Sometimes, my amusing hunter,” his patron replied, purring with delight as he nuzzled her neck and pressed her to him, wishing that there was enough time to slip out of his clothes and take her again, despite how they had overtaxed themselves the previous night.
“I’m sorry for being so dense.” He pressed her gently against him and relished her closeness, her softness, the powdery aroma of her fur, and the soothing sound of her purring. “Did you know that I have no other friends but you?”
Ni’linya gasped, and then gently pushed away but only far enough to fix her golden gaze on him. “Only me?” She said with clear disbelief. “Just me?”
“Just you.” He nodded somberly. “For a very long time. Few people stick around me, knowing what I do. And they always find out somehow. I’ve had drinking buddies, business partners, coworkers … girls for my entertainment before you, but no friends. I let you know about me after a year. I let you see me make a contract on purpose, so you’d know what I did. I thought you wouldn’t have wanted to have anything to do with me afterwards, but you still accepted me. You have no idea what that meant to me. You listen to my stories; we talk to each other; we connect. And I miss you every time I’m away. I look forward to seeing you again, and I miss you more and more each time I leave. It’s become about more than the sex; it’s become about you. I just want to see you happy.”
“My hunter …” Her arms held him as tightly to her as his own held her, and Cole could feel the wetness of her tears and tickle of her auburn hair as she rested her soft cheek on his shoulder.
“Tiger, I …” Cole stopped himself as they at long last, slipped out of their embrace. It would have been foolish to speak one more word. It was something that he had not yet mustered the courage to do. Swallowing at the expectant look in her eyes, he chose his words carefully.
“I’ll complete this mission quickly, and then I’ll see you again. We’ll have a lot more to talk about, I think.”
“How long will you be gone?” she asked.
“Probably no more than a week. Maybe two, an that’s stretching it, I think. It’s a simple job. And I’ll be back with bells on. I promise. I could never quit you even if you wanted me to.”
“Do hurry back,” she said, touching her tongue to his lips, and then her velvet nose to his own. “Strong hunter …”
“Beautiful Tiger.”
***
It was appropriate that tigers would haunt his hallucinations. Sinewy tigers, all shaped like his Tiger on Xiao, danced before his bleary eye as he convulsed and his breathing became labored. Cole was no longer Cole. He had lost track of his moments of lucidity and deliriousness.
And then, the end did come: the only other moment he knew was reality. The first was the thought of his unsaid confession: the three words he could not dare speak to Ni’linya over foolish and irrational fear. Other humans had taken Re’Kya Felyans as lifemates before. Sure, they didn’t look as human as An’Kya Felyans, with their striped skin and wild hair; they were still Felyans; people would have stared anyway. He had only hoped that his final arrangements with the android would be some small comfort for her.
The second moment found him, in the midst of half-heard voices, which faded at the sound of those that approached.
“Something stinks.” The voice was flat, almost inflectionless, as if a robot had said it.
“Yeah, smells like disease and … Well, would you look at that?”
Cole squinted, and could barely make them out: his targets, the two Tanks. Both matched the photos completely: both with paper-white skin and hair banded with falls of both silvery white and ebony. Maria was an Amazon: almost abnormally tall, looking as much the Tank as the name of her origin, with a tight-fitting Siberna G1 t-shirt. The other, Miranda, was short and
more slight, and with an utterly unreadable face, and a simple black tank top and cargo pants over her much leaner frame.
His gun, though still in its holster, was forever out of reach. He was too little, too late, too sick, and too much a dead man, now, with the inclusion of these two in the equation, either by bite or bullet. But the second option was quicker: more honorable than this slow ebbing of life by a mindless beast.
“Ah, so here’s our little noisemaker,” Maria said, unholstering the assault rifle from her back. “See, hon? I told you we just lay low here, and the assassins would come to us … probably get finished off by the wildlife before even finding us.”
“Pseudobaryonyx bite,” Miranda said, gazing into space, as if counting the molecules in the air. “Septic. Total organ failure.”
“I guess we should just let him die here, then, to be honest,” Maria said to her partner. “Thing did a number on him. He looks done for.”
“Fifteen percent chance of recovery in some cases,” Miranda murmured.
“Can’t have that, now can we?” Maria said, and without a moment’s hesitation took aim.
“Th … thank you …” were Cole’s final words, whispered from a parched throat as he sank back into the last of his pleasant hallucinations.
I love you, Tiger, was his final thought.
The shot disturbed the flying creatures, who soared en masse from the canopy into the heavens, as if to carry a wayward soul home.
One month later was when I came to accept two things.
The first thing was the easier one to accept, and was obvious to all. I realized it only a week after I last saw my hunter. My scent began to change, and the medics confirmed it. I was with child. Only my hunter could have been the father, as he was the only one of my clients who chose not to indulge themselves without riss, which coupled as a contraceptive in addition to its powers as an aphrodisiac. Though I had no intention to deceive, I never did tell my hunter that the incense was a necessary element to our line of work, as what counted as “protection” among human males did not survive the conditions of our body chemistries.
At first I was nervous. I could choose to not tell my hunter, but that would mean leaving him for a time. Many humans did not know that my kya could produce children with them. It was rare, and I was one of the few who had that ability. My pregnancy would have raised too many questions, and I was worried that I might have frightened him away. Also, I was conflicted. He was a kind person by nature, as the house mother had told me, and only was a hunter out of necessity. He would most likely have supported me and the child. Otherwise, I would have to give him up to the Vlissians. I had little of my own money; my clientele was sparse, and I subsisted on the stipend our Vlissian master provided for us. The rest of our income was dictated by our success at work, which in part, paid off our indenturment. But I had eschewed my hunter’s money: a choice that a part of me was coming to regret.
After a month had passed, I accepted that he was dead. This was the second, and most devastating, realization. I withdrew from everyone: company, clients, and coworkers alike, living in my sorrow and memories for I know not how long. For a time, I cared not whether I or the baby lived or died. But the house mother made the decision of life for us, using her authority to have the medics force nutrients into me for the sake of the baby. After a time –two months, by my house mother’s account, I recovered, but I never stopped burning incense in my hunter’s name at our shrine of vigil. I made preparations to go to Lhirevlis, where I would give birth, and then be returned to Xiao. Like the house mother, the child would be a hybrid, and would need the mental training of the Vlissians on their homeworld. There were, of course, special schools for this on An’Re’Hara, where we would not need to be separated, but I was not yet relieved of my indenturement, and so my homeworld was denied me. The child would perhaps never know its mother, and would call Lhirevlis its home. The Vlissians would care for it.
I had resigned myself to this fate, until I was visited by a most unusual human. He wore a crisp, white uniform with the Imperium insignia and motes of rank that were unfamiliar to me. His skin was blue: a color I had never seen on any human before, and he had no scent at all.
The strange human introduced himself by an even stranger name, as “Seven” seemed more a rank than a name to me. He said that he was an assigned executor of my hunter’s estate as he presented me with an envelope, and a rather lengthy explanation of technicalities involving money that I had never heard before. But what I understood was that he was offering a “compensational provision” as provided in a contract from my hunter’s most recent mission … which he had failed at the cost of his life. The strange human offered his sympathies, but with disingenuous words, and then took his leave.
Despite my renewed pain at learning the confirmation of my fears, coupled with the circumstances of my hunter’s death, I opened the envelope, which contained three items: a credstick with an imprint of the flag of King’s Knight, one of the human “Pirate Worlds,” a letter addressed to me … and something that completely stunned me. The house mother, who had been with me at the time, helping me to pack for my trip, came to my side, and gasped at the sight of it, filling the void of my silence.
“Na-li,” she whispered as we stared at the object in my palm: a delicate tiger quartz, mounted on swirls of gold connected to a sparkling golden chain. Its style indeed made it unmistakably a Na-li pendant: the gift that is given when a male chooses you as his lifemate. I could barely read the letter through my tears, and my voice choked as I spoke the words aloud for my house mother to hear.
My dear Tiger,
If you are reading this, then I have failed in my mission, and I am now dead. I know I cannot tell you not to grieve, as I know you will, and rightly so. I would do the same for you. If my preparations were made according to my wishes, then you will have received this exactly three months after my mission was written off. This is, in part, a matter of money, and a matter of safekeeping what would have been yours by right. The money is a compensational arrangement I made for this mission after much discussion with my brokers, and your house mother, and one rather disconcerting exchange with Xengal. In case of failure, an insurance payment was set up for a certain beneficiary, which, I have decided, is to be you. The money is not blood money; it is insurance paid in full, and deposited into a private account on King’s Knight for your use with the credstick that has been provided. The money is considerable, and should be more than enough to cover your indenturement, and set up a comfortable life for yourself wherever you choose.
I find it somewhat amusing, and even poetic that the daughter of a fallen vassal house will regain her wealth and status. Ever since you told me that painful story of how you ended up in that pleasure house, how your family was lost to the accident on their orbital habitat … and even though you said that this was honorable work among your people, all I ever saw was that sadness in your eyes: a sadness that diminished somewhat when we were together. I wanted to see you happy always, and free, even though I knew that you would reject my money. And ever more, I found myself wanting you.
Remember that night we parted, how I said that you were the only friend I had? I now must admit, even though it may grieve you in our parting, that there was so much more I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid. I had no qualms about what you were; your kya was meaningless to me. You would be beautiful if you were An’Kya, or even human. Even though you began as a diversion, as one would perhaps expect from a pleasure girl, our conversations, our stories, both yours and those I shared with you, brought us closer than I ever thought possible. And even though our world never went beyond that suite on Xiao, our relationship forged a world between us, and I found myself wanting to share the greater universe with you. My connection with you became more than just about the sex. It had grown beyond that well over three years ago. And though I was afraid to admit it only because of preconceived notions that you had long dispelled when you told me the differences of your pleasur
e houses as compared to human brothels, I now find it easy, now on my way to my mission, to tell you that I loved you. And I wanted you with me always. And thus, I have kept the Na-li … your people’s rite of mating … in safekeeping until I return. And if I do not return, I ask that you consider it a gift to hold in my memory.
I hope that I return. I hope that I can hold you to me once again, take you for hours as we did that last night, cast off all apprehension, and then beg you to become my lifemate. My only fear is that you would reject me, perhaps out of the nature of my occupation. But I would dispose of it and become a hunter of only beast and live the life I had before my current occupation for you, if you asked this of me, only to have you with me always.
But perhaps I am being the silly hunter again, am I, my Li-ah? ( I was told that this is what mates call each other; I hope that I can call you that). And I cannot help but wonder what your answer would be.
My beautiful Tiger … my Li-ah … be free, and be happy. And remember me kindly.
With all my love,
Your hunter
(Cole)
I fell to my knees and wept in grief that I had not felt even after I had accepted his passing, hearing the words he would have spoken to me, had the Great Creator spared his life, echoing from the shadows of a world of what might have been:
“Li-ah, Na-li an yi’ha ... Na-li rio’ri an laiyuu kai.”