by Kal Spriggs
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Friends?” the Civet in the net asked.
I started, almost forgetting about the creature. “Yeah,” I told it, “friends.” I looked around and spotted the metal lever arm that held the net suspended over the void. It took me a bit of work but I managed to tilt it upright and bring the net in over the ledge. I held it there while Jonna lowered the cable holding it in place. It took a few more seconds to open the net, then the Civet scrambled free.
The first thing that hit me was the sharp musk. The pungent smell struck me full in the face, a wet, hot spray that struck me just as the net opened.
“Sorry,” the creature said as I stumbled back, nearly falling off the ledge. “Let go, couldn't stop it.”
“Oh my God,” I gagged at the smell. “Oh...” I gagged again, and this time I did throw up. I leaned over the edge, retching out the contents of my stomach, but the smell didn't ease up.
My eyes burned. The smell was in my mouth, in my nose. I could feel droplets on my skin, in my clothing.
Through blurry eyes, I could see Jonna standing a few meters back along the ledge. “Oh, I think that's just perfect,” she growled.
“Help me,” I gasped, struggling to breathe.
“Help you?” She shook her head, “Help yourself. You're the idiot who ran off to save the thing. Civets aren't people. That's about the full bit of gratitude you'll get, and better than you deserve. I should have left you to them, except it would have looked bad if a Ragabond got killed by a group of Crooked Daggers.” She backed away on the ledge. “You didn't do as I said, that's strike two, fos. Go clean yourself up and don't come back to the lair until you don't smell anymore. If you keep up with the stupid, it might be better if you don't come back at all.”
She turned and left. Besides the four unconscious Crooked Daggers, I was alone. The stink of the civet's noxious spray clung to me. I could barely see, barely breathe. I had to swallow against the urge to vomit again. I'd messed up. If I did it again, Ted and I would be on our own.
One thing at a time, I told myself. I had to clean myself up. Then I could worry about what to do next.
***
Chapter 14: I’ve Seen Things You Wouldn’t Believe
I hadn’t gone very far when I heard a soft voice, “Friend.”
I turned. It was the civet I’d helped. It was perched on the side of the building wall above me, barely visible, with just a pair of glittering blue eyes standing out. The rest of it’s gray-striped body blended in well to the wall behind it.
I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly just then. “What do you want?” I demanded.
“Sorry,” it said. “You help?”
“I already helped you,” I scowled.
“Lokka help,” he said. “This way.”
I guessed that was his name. He scuttled along the wall for a distance and then dropped down on a ledge. The civet beckoned at me. My eyes were still watering and I was worried they were going to swell shut. I hadn’t really gotten used to the smell, either, but at this point, I didn’t have anything left in my stomach to throw up.
I looked the way I’d been going, more or less back towards the lair. There was nothing there for me, though. No way they’d let me in with how bad I smelled and it wasn’t like they had running water down there to rinse myself off. For that matter, I didn’t know if this stuff would rinse off.
“Come,” the civet hissed at me.
I followed it. It led me across a few rooftops and into an area of wide, flat-topped buildings.
I hadn’t gone far along the roof when the civet circled around a patch of shadow, weaving through them and staying in the light of the gas giant above us. I followed in confusion, not sure why it didn’t take the most-direct route.
I’d fallen a bit behind, so I started to step through the shadows it had avoided… and my foot found nothing beneath it. I flailed, windmilling my arms desperately and trying to find something to grab. I fell backwards, landing on my backside. I sat there, gasping for air. I had no idea how deep the hole in the roof was. It could be six centimeters or six meters for all I knew. I reached out a trembling hand and found a pebble or bit of debris on the roof. I tossed it forward into the hole, half expecting it to rattle as it struck a surface just below the rest of the roof.
It didn’t. It was several long, terrifying seconds until I heard a faint clatter as it struck something far, far below.
The civet had paused and looked back at me, “Hurry, yes?”
“You nearly killed me!” I snapped at it, absurdly angry.
“What?” Lokka looked around. I guessed he had better vision at night than me, because he didn’t seem to understand. “This way. Hurry.” It turned away and scurried a few meters onward.
I got to my feet, my knees shaking a bit. I shuffled along after the civet, trying to follow his steps exactly in the shadow-spotted roof. The sounds of the Barrens around us was still muffled, the Phog drowning most of the noise, leaving me with a weird, almost floating sensation.
The civet paused outside an open door, which looked to open into a stairwell. He looked back at me, his blue eyes glittering in the light from above. “You friend? No hurt?”
“I won’t hurt you,” I shook my head. At this point, I had no idea what was going on, but if I even had some place safe where I could curl up and be miserable, it would be an improvement.
It cocked its head and its cat-like ears angled forward as it considered me. “Come.” I led the way through the doorway and down the stairwell. I followed at a more moderate pace, feeling out each stair. It felt like we went a long way down until we emerged into a wide-open room, with light coming in from the holes in the ceiling above.
The civet clambered over to a ledge and waved at me, “Come.” I picked my way across the floor, avoiding debris as best as I could. The ledge, I saw, was the wall of a pool or tank of water. “Bath,” the Civet gestured. Then it dove in, swimming smoothly around in a circle to show it was safe, before coming back to the side.
I hesitated. The water smelled strange. Who knew what kind of chemical junk was in it? Besides, I didn’t exactly swim well. There hadn’t been any opportunities for it at Black Mesa, we didn’t get any standing water and it never even rained. Then again, if it will remove the funk…
I didn’t bother to strip down, I climbed up over the side and dropped in. I hissed at the coldness of the water, it seemed to seep right into my body. My hiss turned into a yelp as my feet sought out a bottom that wasn’t there and I went under, arms flailing. I gasped and reached out, grabbing for the edge, but in the dark, cold water, I didn’t have purchase. My sodden clothing dragged me down and the little bit of swimming training I’d had at the Academy Prep School vanished right out of my head.
I lost the surface, my sodden clothing dragging me under, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see… and then a small, powerful hand caught in my hair and pulled.
I wasn’t quite far enough gone in panic to fight that. My head broke the water and my flailing arms found the lip of the pool, my hands latching on.
The civet that had pulled me up chattered with laughter. “You swim bad.”
I coughed and sputtered icy cold water out of my nose. It burned, but it at least seemed to clear some of the stink out of my sinuses. My Ragabond cloak felt like it weighed twenty kilos or more from the water. I coughed and gagged, clearing water out of my lungs, listening to the civet laugh. “Don’t drink water,” it noted, “water not for drink. For bath and swim only.”
“I get that,” I growled.
It only laughed in response. A moment later, I realized it wasn’t the only one laughing. There was a chorus of laughter, a dozen or more civets emerging from the shadows around the pool, a few of them coming up on the ledge and others circling on the floor.
“Human help,” the civet who’d led me here announced. “Human friend.”
They chattered among each other. I realized after only a moment that they were tal
king in a makeshift language, with human words worked into a series of chirps, squeaks, and other noises. The high tones of their conversation and the fast pace of it meant I couldn’t follow more than a word here or there. I did catch “pet” and “stray.” At first I thought that meant they thought I’d adopted Lokka.
“You bring too many pets home, he’s too big, we can’t keep him,” one of the civets rattled at him.
“He saved me, he helped, he needs place to stay,” Lokka answered, clearly speaking so I could understand. The two of them chattered back and forth in their own language, faster than I could follow. “Foolish kit,” the other one shook its head, then drew back and scampered away.
Lokka looked at me, “Sorry.”
I pulled myself out of the water and sat on the ledge. Many of the civets scampered back, the smaller ones eyeing me with big eyes and the adults circling, looking as if they were ready to attack me. They blurred in and out of the shadows, their mottled and striped hides blending into the dark gray of the walls and floor and the faint light from the stars and the gas giant above.
Seeing as I’d been sprayed once already tonight, I wasn’t eager to be attacked. I slowly pulled off my sodden cloak and draped it over the side, feeling about twenty kilos lighter. I pulled off my shoes, next. My poor, battered shoes from back on Century had never been designed for this kind of abuse, the white running shoes were stained gray and the rubber of the soles was torn and battered.
Lokka came up and inspected my shoes. “Foot?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I told him, holding one bare foot up for him, “They protect my feet.”
“No claws,” Lokka nodded. “No musk spray, no claws. Humans weak.”
“Thanks,” I told him, “that makes me feel so much better.”
“No fur,” he nodded. “You get cold, fall down. See it happen to other humans.”
I could believe that. I reflexively shivered, as I realized that while the water had been cold, the air outside was colder still.
I climbed down off the ledge and stripped the rest of my wet clothing off, wringing it out as best as I could. I didn’t really care if the civets saw me naked. It wasn’t like they were my species or anything. Yet as I wrung out my wet clothing, I could feel their eyes on me and it left me feeling oddly as if I were the animal and they were observing me.
The damp cold of the Barrens seeped into my wet skin. I tried squeezing the water out of my soaked clothing, but it didn't seem to help much. The icy water of the pool seemed to sap the strength out of my fingers, leaving them cold and tingling. I couldn't seem to make my hands work right and finally I awkwardly draped them over some rusted pipes and curled up against a wall. The cold concrete floor and wall seemed to further sap the warmth out of me, but I didn't know what else to do.
A warm, furry form pressed up against my side. “Cold,” Lokka noted. “You need warmth.”
I could only nod. My mouth and lips didn't seem to want to work. A moment later, I felt other warm bodies press up against me. A dozen or so of the civets curled up around me or perched on my shoulders. It was oddly like wearing a living blanket, as the civets curled up and went to sleep. My shivering eased off and then, all the day's events and my exhaustion seemed to wash over me and at last, I slept.
***
I woke up to a chitter of laughter. My eyes opened and I found myself staring at the back end of a civet. I started a bit and the laughter echoed around me as a dozen or more of them rolled around on the floor, laughing at my expense. “Wake up, lazy,” Lokka told me. I didn't know how I recognized him. All the civets seemed to look the same, their gray and brown stripes and spots blurring in with the shadows cast on the dark walls and floor. But I knew it was him.
I looked up, noticing that some murky gray light seeped in from the holes in the roof, just enough for me to guess it was daylight. Rain was dribbling down from above, too, most of it splattering into the pool behind me, but some running in dribbles down to drains in the floor.
I stood up, scattering the civets that had been perched on and around me, and went to my clothes. They weren't anything that I would have called dry, not being from Century where the air could suck the moisture right out of a person. But they weren't totally sodden, just a sort of sodden dampness that I figured I could tolerate. I pulled on my pants, wincing at the chill. I felt goosebumps rise on my arms and legs and it made my joints ache, but I was warm enough that as long as I was moving around, I should stay warm.
Lokka watched me as I dressed. Most of the other civets had wandered off. With a bit more light, I took a moment to look around. The group or tribe of civets seemed to have a sort of camp in the abandoned building.
Off to one side, a dozen or so of them were tinkering with what looked like electronics. I recognized the cases of several computers and a dozen or more datapads. My first thought was that they were stripping them down for trinkets, right up until one of them put the cover back on a display and then started it up. My eyes widened as I realized they were fixing them, or at least, stripping some to get others working.
I walked over to look more closely, even as a half dozen of the civet kits moved over and sat down in front of the display. The imagery wasn't great and the speakers didn't seem to be working, but it was clearly an entertainment vid, though I wasn't sure if it was a transmission or recording.
Lokka came over. “Keeps busy,” he waved his tail in the direction of the tiny civet young. “You like?”
I shrugged, not recognizing the show. “How do they know how to fix them?” I asked pointing at where two more civets were hard at work, stripping down several other bits of equipment.
Lokka raised one claw up to his eyes, “I watch,” his hand moved to his ear, “I listen.” He tapped his head, “I learn. I teach.”
“You learned?” I asked in surprise.
Lokka stood on his hind legs, straightening to his full height. He was well under a meter in height, but he put his chest out. “Lokka smart. Lokka learns much.”
I squatted down, so I didn't tower over him and gave him a nod of respect and he seemed satisfied by that. He circled around me, “You know things?”
“I know some things, yeah,” I answered. I pulled my dad's datapad out of my satchel, then winced as water drained out of it. “Oh no...”
He took it out of my hands, “Silly flatface. Water no good.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. Any advantage I might have had in my parents' research and notes was gone now... all because I'd been stupid.
“Fix?” He asked.
“I don't know if that's possible,” I told him. The civet might be able to get the datapad to work, but back on Century, water wasn't seen as much of an issue for electronics. While it had been designed to resist spilled drinks, being fully submerged in water had clearly overcome it.
“We try,” Lokka said. He passed the datapad off to one of the other civets, the two of them chattering at one another.
“There's information on it,” I cautioned him, “that's what's important.” I didn't know if he understood or not.
“Easy,” he waved a paw in my direction. I didn't know if he really understood, but I didn't really know what to do about it. I half started to reach for the datapad anyway, but he bounced back out of reach, cocking his head at me. “No worries,” he gave me a thumbs up gesture. God only knew where it had learned that. Probably some old entertainment vid.
I sighed, “Fine. Be careful with it. Please?”
Lokka chittered with laughter. Somehow, I didn't find that reassuring.
***
A few hours later, I came out of the stairwell and back into the Ragabond's lair.
Simon shone a flashlight in my face. “Ah, the brave hero returns,” he jeered at me.
“Thanks,” I held up a hand in front of my face, squinting at the light. “Jonna around?”
He came up and sniffed suspiciously, “You still stink?”
“I washed up,” I answered.
Simon low
ered the light and I could see him wrinkle his nose. “You didn't get it all. But you'll probably smell for weeks. I'd recommend using industrial soap, there's a good factory I know where you can wash in their outflow. It'll burn your skin a bit, but it'll get the scent out.”
“I don't know if I'm that desperate,” I told him.
“Jonna's not going to like you hanging out here if you still stink,” Simon told me. “Anyway, she's still not happy with you.” He turned around and limped away, leaning on his crutch. “Come on, I could use a hand, anyway.”
I followed him, noticing that most of the lair was empty. Not that the large, echoing parking area had ever really seemed full, but I didn't see anyone around. “Where is everyone?”
“Jonna's got them beating the streets,” Simon answered. “You pushed the Crooked Daggers, after we had a run in with them at Wastrel's Market a few weeks ago. So now we need to prepare. Either we'll have a war or we'll need to make peace.”
“War?” I asked in surprise.
Simon paused and looked over his shoulder. His gaunt, pale face looked serious. His normally sarcastic sneer was gone. “We ran them off from the market, that's one thing. Every gang pushes and probes. But hitting four of their people deep in their territory? That's an attack and Francis will respond in kind. So everyone we have is out on the streets. They're reminding all our friends that we're strong and they're making sure that Francis doesn't have any easy targets.”
“Okay,” I nodded, “What about you?”
Simon snorted. He looked forward again and limped over to his container, not bothering to look back at me as he spoke, “I'm not a sign of strength, I'm a target.”