Hidden in Predator Planet, page 38
“Hivelt must be very proud of his mate,” Naraxthel said with a nod.
Our women sat around the fire pit laughing and talking, and my heart swelled to see beautiful CeCe among her friends, whole and very much alive. When she saw me, she leaped to her feet and ran into my outstretched arms, and I spun her until she was breathless.
“Take off your helmet,” she demanded.
We kissed, and my love refreshed anew; every day she drew breath was precious to me.
“The new Ikthekama Scabmal sends her love,” I said as we joined the group. Movement caught my eye and I spied Raxkarax and Natheka arriving from the north forest. A still, pale face glowed from behind them, and I broke away from CeCe to peer closer at it.
“Ah,” I said. “Fine work on that one.”
“Thanks,” said Joan, blushing as Raxkarax wrapped an arm about her shoulder. “I wanted to get the point just right so it would punch through bone and penetrate the tree.”
“I am sorry we missed your exploits,” Natheka said, drawing Amity into his hug. “The former Queen was cast down, the BoKama was appointed her temporary title, we relinquished the ore and the Waters, and then ran for our lives under threat of attack. It was a dull gathering with speeches that ran far too long,” he said and stared pointedly at Naraxthel.
“Wait, running for your life?” Amity said. “What happened?”
As Natheka told his tale, a scrabbling noise emitted from the other side of the fire. Startled, I realized another human and another alien sat back-to-back, bound by rope around their chests, wrists, and ankles.
Diablo lay nearby with a long bone held between his front paws as he tongued and gnawed on it, his ferocious teeth leaving long drag marks with a high-pitched screeching sound.
While the prisoners’ mouths were not gagged, they made no sound, their eyes fixated on Diablo.
“What bone is that one?” I asked, and Pattee spoke up.
“That’s a human femur from an adult male, I believe,” she said.
The human prisoner retched and moaned, and the alien prisoner eked out a chain of clicking noises.
“We’re not sure what to do with them,” Esra said. “Judging by their uniform insignia, they came by IGMC’s orders, but no one has tried to contact them. VELMA found their ship and hacked its comms. IGMC must have cut them loose because VELMA couldn’t trace it back to the Lucidity or any of the others.”
“They were just as expendable as the rest of us,” Joan said with a frown. “Do you suppose the entire upper echelons of IGMC feel that way, or is it just the co-directors and their select cadre?”
“An interesting question, but I’m not sure how much I care,” CeCe said. She grabbed my hand and looked at me. “I found my place in the world, and IGMC is no longer a part of it.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the human male said.
“It speaks!” Natheka said.
“The name’s Frank,” he said and spat on the ground next to him. “If I wasn’t seeing this with my own fucking eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. Have you women lost your god damn minds? Are you fucking these green aliens?”
Cocking my head, I waited to see what would ensue.
“Diablo, come here, baby,” Amity said and made kissy noises while patting her leg. Diablo had grown while we were in the undermountain passage. When he trotted up to her, his head came up to her waist. She scratched his head, and he closed his four eyes in bliss.
“You were saying, Frank?” she asked, her voice as sweet as fruit nectar.
“Nothing,” he said and looked away.
“Who’s a good puppy?” Amity asked and used both hands to scratch his snout and chin, and he shivered and trembled at her touch as she showered, mostly undeserved, praise on the senseless animal. “You are. You’re a precious angel, aren’t you? And you smell like roses! And you’re so cute! Mami loves you! Da me besos!” At her command, the pazathel-nax licked her face, and the rest of us averted our eyes in disgust.
“Pattee, I believe Hivelt will arrive shortly,” Naraxthel said. “He said he had an errand.”
“He wanted to bring Afarax a gift,” Pattee said with a smile. “He caught a little snake near the creek before you all left this morning.”
A whipping zing shattered bark from the tree nearby, and Diablo yelped and collapsed.
Amity screamed, and the rest of us drew our weapons and spun, edging together to form a barrier between ourselves and the unarmored others. Amity hefted Diablo with superhuman strength and ran to the pod, disappearing into it where I knew VELMA could treat the animal. The second sun had set, and the tricky dusk made it difficult to discern the shadows.
From behind me I heard Pattee growling. “Who else was here from your party?”
A strangled whimper. “No one else. All dead.” Another, shorter cry. “None!”
“Expect a director,” Pattee said. “Maybe both, but I think only one.”
“It’s Chris,” Esra said on a breath. “I can feel him.”
“We’ve got you,” CeCe said from my side. “You never have to fear him again.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Esra said, her voice steely in the dying light. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Do it, Esra,” Amity said from inside the hatch. “I’ve stanched the bleeding but if Diablo dies ….”
“VELMA,” Esra said. “Notify whoever is in the trees that your repeating rotator weapon is locked, cocked, and ready to rock.”
“Fuck yeah.” I heard Joan whisper from just behind Raxkarax.
“ESRA!” A male bellow rang from the trees. “Come out! I’m dropping my gun!”
Squinting in the low light, I saw a human male step into the glade. I judged him to be a head and a half taller than Esra, and some three or four stones heavier. He wore a helmet and flight suit that matched all of the women’s, and he walked several steps into the field, holding his gun aloft. When he reached a spot five veltiks from us, he tossed his gun to the side and held his hands up.
“Esra, come out and talk to me,” he said. “On my word, I won’t hurt you.”
Esra shoved between me and Raxkarax and walked three strides toward the male.
“You son of a bitch,” she said. “You shot my friend’s dog.”
97
Esra
I couldn’t believe how calm my voice sounded when my heart was racing a hundred miles an hour. I could feel my pulse in my throat and my ears, and my legs felt like melting gelatin. But he didn’t have to know that.
“You’ve always had that sarcastic bite, haven’t you? That’s not a dog.” Chris said, employing the boyish grin that had won me over so long ago. Studying his features through the clear visor, I scanned his face dispassionately. Once upon a time I found his chiseled jaw and straight nose appealing. But years of his angry grimace had etched themselves into his face, and I could see past the charm and straight into the soul of the beast that would take a kitchen knife and carve a straight line up my belly and chest, pretending like it was nothing.
“Trust me, Chris,” I said. “My bite is a lot worse now.”
His brows drew together, but then he chuckled and peered at the hunters at my back. “Who are your new friends? Theraxl, aren’t they? Big, tough guys.”
“They are,” I said with a nod. “One of them is mine.”
Chris choked. “What? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m as serious as a fractionated quark bomb, Chris,” I said. “You and Hackney have a lot of nerve. Setting all of us miners up for the biggest surprise of our lives. All I have to say is, fuck you.”
Chris gave me a condescending smile. “I’d be happy to. What can the incredible hulk over there give to you that I can’t?”
Smiling, I thought of everything Red gave me and refused to rise to the bait. “I’m finished here. Turn around and go back to your skimmer. And since you can see that both planets are inhabited, take IGMC with you.”
I spun on my heel but before I could take a single step, Chris had me around the throat with another gun pointed at my head.
“No one moves, or Esra gets another little brain implant,” he said.
“What about us?” Frank shouted. “Come on, Clemmins, you still owe us for that other thing!”
Chris shifted, and I saw his gun point at the HRC troops. He fired off two quick rounds, and they slumped over, dead.
Shocked, I gripped his forearm with both hands, and remembered what seemed like years ago when Hivelt had me in a similar grip. Back then I was a terrified visitor to Predator Planet. Looking at Red, he gave me a small nod, showing me his vote of confidence, and heart in my throat, I winked at him.
Dropping into dead weight, I forced Chris to lurch forward with a stumble, and I wrenched his gun arm down with a shout. Wrenching the gun out of his hand, I spun and kneed him in the groin then kicked his knee with the full force of my booted leg. I heard a distinctive crack followed by his scream. He slammed forward with a pained yell, and I threw my elbow into his back. He collapsed, and I held his gun to the axial ring at his neck while straddling him.
“I’ve spilled more blood on this planet than you ever got from me,” I said, my voice a low growl. “And every drop of it was worth more than your pathetic life.”
“You won’t shoot me,” he ground out. “You don’t have the balls.”
Popping the latches on his helmet, I ripped it off his head and tossed it. Pushing the gun’s muzzle into his neck, I leaned down and whispered in his ear. “You’re right. The blade is my weapon of choice.”
Slapping his gun onto my thigh with the Surface Adaptor, I then gripped his hair and tilted his head back, resting the knife above his Adam’s apple.
“I never took you for a cold-blooded bitch, Esra,” he said. “Not like their crazy-ass Queen when she was gutting CeCe.”
CeCe gasped, and I remembered the moment we heard BoKama reciting words from “the covenant”. “And the love of the Ikma Scabmal Kama is written upon the blade of rule.”
“You son of a bitch,” I said. He was responsible for so much pain. And somehow had been part of CeCe’s torture, as well. He’d watched the torture and done nothing. Another question came to me. On two big planets, how had he found us? Another little brain implant. My God. They implanted us with tracking devices.
Yanking his head back farther, I sneered and flared my nostrils. “What’s that smell, Chris? Did you piss yourself?”
“Esra. Honey,” he said, but his voice didn’t sound cocksure like before. It wavered.
“I’m not your honey, motherfucker,” I said. “I’m just your payback bitch.”
“No,” he whimpered.
“That cut on your neck is for CeCe,” I growled.
Sheathing my knife, I palmed his handgun and twisted my body so I could aim.
“This is for the dog.” I shot his other knee.
He screamed and flailed under me.
“You’re stronger than before,” he said between pants. “I’ll give you that.”
“I warned you about my bite,” I said. Working fast, I tied his wrists behind him with rope and then rolled him while he cussed me out and yelped in pain. I tore the front of his suit open and grabbing my trusty multi-tool, I chose the sharpest implement to draw a bead of red down his chest while he groaned. “That’s for me.”
“You deserved it, you fucking b—”
Powerful arms grabbed me, and the next thing I knew, Naraxthel had set me aside. He picked up Chris by the fabric of his flight suit and threw him several meters.
“That was for VELMA,” he said.
“How do you mean?” I asked, tilting my head.
“She likes to scan kathe,” he said. He gestured to where Chris lay moaning in the grass. “Now she may scan kathe.”
Movement caught my eye.
Chris tried to stagger to his feet.
But he never made it.
A lone rokhura had breached the tree line and walked a few paces into the glade, tracking movement. When she spied a lone figure crawling toward the creek, she inflated her throat sac in silent warning and darted forward, lunging at a stunned Chris and snapping up his body in one bite.
Chomping twice, she choked him down and nosed her way toward the creek, hot on the trail of something dead.
“Ikthe has spoken,” Raxkarax said.
Speechless, I nodded and watched until the rokhura’s tail disappeared into the trees.
98
Amity
“I am eighty-eight percent certain that the pazathel-nax will make a full recovery, Amity,” VELMA said. “You may remember I twice told you that the bullet exited his body without damaging major organs.”
“I do remember, thank you,” I told the AI. “I just need the reassurance right now.”
“My machine learning neural network does not get impatient, so you may ask as often as you wish,” VELMA said, and I could have kissed her.
With my hand buried in Diablo’s fur, I felt the steady beat of his huge heart. Esra entered the pod and stood next to me. “May I?” she asked before petting his flank. “You saw what happened?” she asked and nodded at the monitor where it showed hunters and women milling about in the glade.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was so mad when Diablo went down but watching that … You’re even more badass than I realized. But the rokhura? That was sobering. Karma is a bloodthirsty bitch, no?”
“Raxkarax said, “Ikthe has spoken.”,” Esra said, adopting a deeper tone.
“Hell yeah, Ikthe has spoken,” I said with a laugh. “And she didn’t stutter!”
“So, he’s going to be okay?” Esra asked with a smile, stroking his leg.
“VELMA tells me she’s eighty-eight percent certain he’ll recover,” I said.
“That’s good. Pattee said you and Natheka can stay, if you need to. She’ll bunk with Hivelt when he gets back.”
“Oh right, he went to give his little girl that snake,” I said with a chuckle. “If she’s anything like I was, she’ll love it.”
“A strange gift if you ask me,” Esra said. “But then again, I’m the one walking around with rocks in my pockets.”
We laughed, and something she said sparked a thought. “A strange gift,” I murmured. Hivelt had traced that sentence in Raxthezana’s book. “The hunter brought gifts from Ikthe to the dam and the new infant.”
“Um, what?” Esra asked, a crease marring her smooth brow.
I gaped and shook my head, running my hands through my hair. “Okay, let me think. VELMA, is it possible for the cyanobacteria to mutate in such a way that it wouldn’t cause respiratory distress, but attack the heart tissue first?”
“Based on simulations, the cyanobacteria could induce an inflammation response in heart tissue causing myocardial infarction before it would manifest in the respiratory system,” VELMA said. “Especially in an organism with an underdeveloped heart.”
“Of course! It’s Occam’s Razor all over again!” I pulled a confused Esra into a hug, patted Diablo’s paw and then grabbed Esra’s hand, leading her outside to join the others.
“Raxthezana.” I called his name. His head shot up, and everyone else stopped what they were doing to watch me. “The infant burial disease is from the cyanobacteria,” I said, breathless. Swiping the side of Pattee’s pod, I held up my gloved finger with a smudge of green goo on it. “Traces of it cling to everything here. When the hunters go back to Ikshe, they’re taking a little bit of cyanobacteria with them each time. And if they bring souvenirs or gifts from Ikthe, then those items will be contaminated. It’s probably harmless in miniscule amounts to your people, but once it reaches a certain threshold, it’s deadly to Theraxl babies.”
“Will Afarax be alright?” Pattee asked, and I was surprised to see vulnerability in her eyes.
“I’m sure she will be,” I said. “The infants are at risk because their hearts can be underdeveloped. But even if she gets sick, we already have the means to manufacture the antidote. In fact, VELMA could extrapolate the data and make a vaccine suitable for newborns, children and adults.”
Meeting everyone’s gaze, I nodded and swallowed. “And there’s something else. I’m wondering if the cyanobacteria may have played a role in minimizing the occurrence of heart mates. The abandonment of certain rigorous practices in dressing the meat killed here coincides with the disappearance of the incidents of heart mate transitions. I hypothesize that once we humans were treated for the infection, our systems were populated with antibodies. Any kind of regular contact with our hunters may have been enough of a shock to Theraxl physiology to allow their hearts to shift.”
Stares and slack jaws met my eyes, and I grabbed the back of my neck. “It’s only a theory.”
“But hold,” Raxthezana said. “VELMA informed me recently that there has been significant DNA transference between our species such that the humans’ lifespans may have been substantially lengthened. Could it not go both ways? It would seem we were meant for each other.”
Smiling, I hugged myself and glanced at Natheka who looked suspiciously emotional.
Raxthezana’s rigid posture collapsed into CeCe’s embrace, and I was astounded to see his shoulders shake. He was crying.
I never could turn away from the hurt or the wounded, so I approached him and patted his back while CeCe smiled at me and held her lover.
We didn’t say anything, but I sensed it was alright. Some healing needed only love and silence.
The other hunters patted me on the back on my way back to the pod, and I smiled at them, ignoring the odd glistening eye here or the watering nose there. What were a few tears among friends? And if my own allergies were starting to act up, well, who’s asking?
99
CeCe
The world tipped on its axis. Was it another earthquake, or was it me trying to process the fact that IGMC’s co-directors were somehow part of the torture that had altered my life forever? Time slowed after Chris had bragged about his involvement with the Ikma Scabmal Kama, and coldness had settled into my bones until I shivered. The rokhura ate Chris; my friends stood around and talked, but I was in a daze until Amity spilled out of the pod with Esra and made her shocking announcement. I was lucid enough to realize this news would affect my mate, and I cherished the opportunity to hold him in my arms.
