Alien Keeper, page 4
Or she was somewhere else entirely.
Somehow I knew, I knew, it was the latter. The new women here seemed social and appeared to enjoy their time together. Though I could not understand what they said, they clearly seemed to get value out of being together. It did not seem as if they would keep one female isolated and alone somewhere.
By the afternoon of the second day, as I stalked through the cliffs, killing any foul beast that came upon me in my irritation (including the winged things the desert men called krixel) I knew I could not stay here much longer, even on orders.
My first duty had always been to my Hakah and my people.
Until now.
I exited the cliffs, stepping into the beating sun of the settlement and straightening to stand on my two legs. I rolled my head on my shoulders, aching to drench myself in water. There was water here, a hot spring below the stone. I had not yet visited it, too preoccupied with the search. My Hakah thought I was a diligent warrior searching so endlessly, not resting until I found the interlopers.
Little did he know...
Little did anyone know. I’d hoarded the secret of my mate, kept her locked in my maw. But I might have to tell my Hakah, and soon.
Because I would need leave to search for her.
And if he does not grant such leave?
I’d never considered defying my Hakah before.
I considered it now.
More than considered it. If it came down to it, I’d turn my tail on my people for this. To find her. She was my destiny. My only fate and future.
I stared at the bustling settlement, my eyes sweeping over desert men and women, their children, and the new women, two of whom were with child. I could not help myself from searching for her, even now. Even though I’d already looked a hundred, a thousand times. Even though I’d already memorized the face of every other new woman, searching for her features among them.
She is not here...
“Grim!”
A voice speaking my own language beside me made me turn. It was Tok, the Hakah’s closest advisor and one of our best warriors. I stiffened, narrowing my gaze, almost as if I were suspicious that he had heard my thoughts. That he could smell my defiance. As if he knew, somehow, that I had other priorities than serving Hakah Gog now.
If he could sense such defiance, he did not show it.
“The Hakah has ordered all warriors to visit the caves of the desert Kell. The Kell here is called the Lavrika. Dipping in the pools imparts the language of the desert people.”
I cocked my head, my tail swishing behind me. If our own Kell could not show a man’s future, I almost would have doubted such a claim. But I’d heard the new women speaking the desert tongue with fluent ease, and though I knew they were intelligent, it seemed unlikely they had all learned the language so quickly.
But my mate was not even among them...
“What use have I for such things?” I scoffed. I knew I was acting the fool. And yet I could not seem to stop myself. I was frustrated – angry, even – that I had not yet found her. That she could be out there, somewhere, needing me. And I was not with her.
Tok looked surprised, his rich brown forehead ridges tensing. His yellow eye discs regarded me closely as the sun poured over his golden scales.
“Though you are a young warrior, I have always known you to have sense. Surely you must see what a boon communicating with our allies is. Relying on translators, even one as close as Hakah Gog’s nephew, is not sustainable. We must be able to hear and speak openly, with our own minds.”
He was right. Of course he was.
“You are the last warrior to do it. You have been searching the longest and without reprieve. It has been hard to track you down. Go and do it now.”
He saw me hesitate. Now that I’d decided my mate wasn’t here, I didn’t want to waste one more second in this settlement. The desert pulsed around me, beyond the cliffs, beckoning to me.
But then it hit me.
Even if she is not here now, she may still speak the language of the desert.
Just because she was not here now did not mean she had not been here in the past.
Doing this may be the only way I can understand her.
“I am going now,” I said quickly. I put my spear’s handle in my mouth, clutching my blade and taking off at full speed on all fours.
I knew where the caves of the desert Kell, the Lavrika, were. I’d seen the female warrior stationed outside the entrance, dressed in her odd white clothing. Then again, all clothing was odd to me. My people wore no garments. None were needed. The desert men and Kor wore brown hide loincloths. I did not. My cock was sheathed behind a hard, muscled slit, protected by scales. From what I understood, the desert men had cocks that hung outside of their bodies all the time. Even when soft, they were fully emerged and visible. It was yet another sign that the Bitter Sea men were the stronger warriors. We did not let our most important parts dangle for any man’s blade.
And thus we did not need loincloths.
The warrior woman at the entrance to the dark tunnel into the cliffs did not wear a loincloth like a man, but rather a long white tunic. The other desert women at the settlement wore the same, though theirs were green and grey, the colour of desert grass called peet grass. The new women, when out in the sun, were covered from head to toe, their skin vulnerable to everything from the day’s sun to the night’s cold.
As I did not yet speak the desert language, I could not communicate why I was there. But obviously, she knew, as she’d likely seen a whole parade of Bitter Sea men coming past her in recent days.
She did say something, though, then motioned to my spear and my blade with the tip of her own spear.
She wants me to leave my weapons.
I restrained my spikes from rising. If the Lavrika was anything like our Kell, weapons would be pointless in its caves. And this warrior woman, strong though she looked, would be no match for me alone, even if she had weapons and I did not.
I laid my spear and blade down. For a moment, I stared at them on the sand. They looked so out of place. Ocean weapons, glinting in shades of moon-white and sea-washed pink on the deeply-coloured desert sand. Of course, we had sand on our island’s beaches. But it was lighter in colour and hemmed in by the glistening waves. A different world.
Leaving the weapons of my home behind, I passed the guardian and pressed into the darkness.
And press, I had to. At points, the tunnel seemed almost impassable for someone of my size. At the tightest points, even in the darkness, I could see gouges where my brethren’s spikes and scales had scraped the stone in their passage. But I was larger than many warriors even among my own kind. For a moment, I was tossed right back to visiting the Kell. To the moments I thought I’d drown.
But I hadn’t drowned.
And I would get through this, too.
Growling, I shoved forward, using the strength of my tail and legs to push me forward on all fours. I would conquer this tunnel and this darkness as I would conquer anything and everything that stood between my mate and me. If this was a test, I would be victorious against it. A battle, I’d win it. There was no other way.
I grunted as I popped forward out of a particularly tight stretch of tunnel. The space widened, and ahead I could see the telltale glow of milk of the Kell, or, as the others called it, Lavrika’s blood.
Hurry. Get this done then get back to your search.
I powered forward quickly, coming to the end of the tunnel.
The humidity in the air made my throat clench, my tongues lashing. Pools of Kell’s milk – Lavrika’s blood – dotted the huge cave. Though I knew they would not feel wet like water would, I longed to plunge myself into them.
And isn’t that what I was meant to be doing here, anyway?
I saw no sign of the Lavrika, but I decided to go forth anyway.
I dove powerfully into the closest pool without waiting for sign nor signal.
I was finished waiting.
It was time to take what was mine and find my mate.
CHAPTER SIX
Valeria
I spent the next day huddled in the ship, trying to figure out just what, exactly, I wanted to do. I already knew I wasn’t going to follow orders as they’d been given. Fuck taking a hostage. These were our fucking people! OK, maybe the aliens weren’t. But I’d seen the way that first guy had lunged to take a bullet for the human woman. I’d seen the way the lizardman and the other kangaroo-looking guy had worked together to help him, directed by the human women. The humans and aliens were clearly enmeshed now, relationships forged between the different species. And frankly, I had no interest in whatever bullshit colonialist violence my superiors were dreaming up right now.
I probably should have thought of that earlier, but...
But I was here, now, and I could still change things.
I just had to figure out how.
I didn’t think I could walk into the camp at the cliffs nearby and turn myself in. Even though there were humans there, I wasn’t exactly one of the group. The guy I’d come here with had shot one of their own, maybe even killing him. I didn’t envision myself getting a warm welcome if I strolled in, tossed down my gun, and said, “Howdy.”
No, it was more likely they’d do something like what my superiors probably wanted to do with a hostage – capture and interrogation.
However I chose to proceed, I needed to stall my superiors by appearing to do what I was supposed to be doing.
Which meant that after a day and a night camped out in the ship, I finally emerged the next day to do recon. Not that I planned to feed much of what I learned back to my superiors now – just the bare minimum to string them along. But I knew I’d have to give them something.
So at dawn, off I went.
After everything that had happened with Cole, it made me wrinkle my nose in disgust to bring my gun along. Frankly, it made me feel like an asshole, barging around a world that wasn’t mine with my shiny US army firepower. But the reality was that any number of things out there could kill me, from giant cockroach crab things to demonic-looking bat pterodactyls. As shitty as this situation was becoming, I wasn’t ready for my own death to be on the table quite yet.
I spent most of the day familiarizing myself with the two klicks of distance between my ship and the big busted-up one, as well as some of the surrounding area. Towards dusk, I found myself approaching the large ship in the sand. Compared to the little vessel I now called home, this one was a behemoth, a massive domed structure rising out of the sand like some kind of techno-tortoise. No, actually, not really rising up. If anything, the desert itself was rising up, sand sweeping up along the ship’s sides as if to swallow it. This land was wild and ravenous and unforgiving. I wondered how long it would be before there was no sign of that ship at all.
Or no sign of me.
I shivered in the rapidly cooling air. The sun dipped further, the asteroid ring rising.
I didn’t get too close to the ship. It had become a hive of activity since the thing with Cole. A hive that somebody had just kicked. That somebody being us. Huge aliens, both of the kangaroo and lizard sort, lurched in and out of the ship, searching and circling with spears and knives that made my guts curl. When a terrifyingly-large lizard alien swung his great head towards me, I frantically checked that my light-scatter tech was engaged. At night, the tech was even more effective, rendering me almost perfectly invisible.
Almost...
I really fucking felt the “almost” in that moment. That moment when the huge lizard appeared to lock his eyes on me, even from a distance of at least 200 metres. I realized with a start that this was the same giant lizard I’d seen leading the charge the other day when the whole army of them had arrived. The massive red one. The one whose scales spoke of raw beauty and blood.
He can’t see me. He can’t.
I assured myself of that, over and over again, as I turned to run.
But no matter how many times I assured myself, no matter how many times I told myself it was impossible...
He followed me anyway.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Grim
When I emerged from the Lavrika’s caves, night was falling.
“Here. You may retrieve your weapons now.”
I jerked with a start, turning to stare at the desert woman guarding the entrance to the caves. Where earlier her words had been a clash of unknowable sounds in my brain, now they formed into words I understood as easily as those of my native tongue. It jarred me.
She stepped aside, gesturing to my weapons against the cliff. Clearly, she’d moved them. A hot prick of angry pride at the thought of someone else touching my weapons dissipated as I realized she had done it to keep them safe – safer than where I’d dropped them further out on the open sands.
“Thank you,” I said slowly, testing the new language in my mouth. It was odd, hearing such foreign words come from between my teeth and yet completely understanding them. Some of the sounds and words my brain now knew to make were not easy for the shape of my mouth, though. My snout made the softer sounds difficult. But the guardian seemed to understand me just fine.
I picked up my weapons, and just as I turned to go the woman spoke.
“They tell me you have a Lavrika, too. One of the sea instead of the sand.”
“Yes,” I said slowly, turning back to face her and wondering why she’d asked. But then again, it seemed her whole purpose here was to guard the desert spirit of the Lavrika. It made sense she might be curious about our own such creature, our Kell. The Kell required no guardians, being so protected by the deep and dark water as it was.
The shattered shards of her eyes, which I now knew to be called sight stars, pulsed then tightened as she looked at me.
“Has it summoned you?”
I was already standing straight up on two legs, but my spin went even straighter. Tenser.
I had no reason to tell this guardian woman my truth. I had not even informed my own king. And yet, something told me that she would know instantly if I tried to conceal it. My jaw worked as I recalled that morning. The Kell and its vision. The face of a mate I’d simultaneously found and lost.
No. She is not lost. I will find her yet.
“Yes,” I finally growled. My spikes emerged as I gripped my weapons harder. “It called me and granted me a mate. A strange and precious one.”
“A new woman?” she inquired.
“Yes.”
“And yet you have not claimed her?”
My spikes emerged to their full size. It was an instinctive reaction to the woman’s prodding. It made me feel... Vulnerable.
I did not like it.
And clearly, neither did my spikes.
Despite the sharp power of my body, the guardian did not seem afraid. Realization dawned on her face.
“She is not at the settlement.”
I said nothing as she turned and cast her gaze out over the sand, her long silvered braid shifting against her shoulder.
“Fear not, water warrior. From the stories I have heard, your kind has travelled over the sands to find a foreign mate before. Kor and his father before him have done so. They travelled perhaps even further than you will have to. If your Lavrika is anything like ours, its choice for you will not be in vain.” She turned to look at me once more, her sight stars like blades cutting me. “Your fate is out there, warrior. Even now, I can practically see it shimmering around you, threads waiting to be pulled apart and followed.”
“Are you saying the Lavrika will guide me?” I pressed, suddenly desperate for any information she could give me.
But she responded with a flat, “No.”
I was about to ask her to clarify when she continued.
“No, I am not saying the Lavrika will guide you, nor will your Kell. You must now guide yourself.”
It was as I’d thought, then. It was solely up to me now. A hard claw of determination curled in my chest.
“I will do it,” I hissed. Even if I had to split apart every minuscule grain of sand in this desert. Even if I had to travel the hok-infested waves of the wide sea. Even if I had to cleave the cliffs down to their very core, I would find her.
“Good,” said the guardian. “Let instinct drive you forward. Follow the dark beats of your body, warrior. The unseen paths.”
I grunted at her, a wordless acknowledgement of what she’d said. It did not matter if my paths were seen or unseen. I would forge my own path if I had to. Carve it right down into the desert. I’d remake the whole world until every stone and step and swipe of my claws led right to my mate.
I refused to live in any other world but that:
The one with her at its centre.
I did as the guardian said. I let my body, my instinct, pull me forward. This way, I found myself further out in the desert, away from the settlement. I approached the huge skeleton of the structure out there. The one we’d seen the other day, where that warrior had almost died, killed by the puny pale man. I said almost because I had learned that he had survived.
I watched men, both mine and the foreign desert ones, surging back and forth, monitoring this structure, this ship, as well as searching the area around it. In the distance, I could see desert men roaming on their brutish steeds, the irkdu.
But this was not what I needed. This was not what I came looking for.
I swung my head, turning away from the heaving activity, looking out towards the open sand. The rolling dunes were stained in equal turn by night shadows and starlight.
I relaxed, breathing out slowly, trying to feel something, see something. Anything. Anything that might provide my next steps.
And see something, I did.
It was like what I’d seen before, the first day I’d been here. But it was fainter this time. A mere wisp of existence in the air. Some distance away, the air seemed to shimmer and curl inward on itself, reminding me of the tiny whirlpools that sometimes appeared back in the salt pools of my island. As soon as it appeared, it was gone – a disappearing web of wind. My muscles thrummed as I recalled the Lavrikala’s words. Even now I can see your fate shimmering around you, like threads waiting to be pulled and followed.
