by Megan Hart
Lush, verdant, luxurious. She'd never imagined a plant could be so amazingly green...or so big. Linna rested for a moment on the transport, then set her feet on the thick branch in front of her. Now she could see the pod had become wedged into a fork in the tree's branches. The leaves and smaller sticks had been smashed all around it. It rocked a little under her as she moved to grab the tree's massive center trunk, and she cried out, "Del, hurry!"
His head appeared in the window and he pulled himself hand over hand to stand next to her. He looked down at the broken pod, then touched it with the toe of his boot.
"This won't last long here."
Standing on the tree branch felt as solid as standing on the ground, it was so broad and flat. Linna peered over the edge, but could see nothing but more leaves and branches.
"How high up are we?"
Del looked upward. "We can still see the sky. That means we're close to the top."
"How tall are these trees?"
He gave her a grin, teeth glowing in the light she realized came from the silver disk of a moon shining overhead. "You know the tallest building in Newcity?"
"Yes."
"This tree is probably eight times higher than that."
"God-of-Choice."
He laughed. "We've got a long way to climb down. We'd better get started."
A wave of dizziness made her grab hold of the tree's trunk for a minute. "I think I need to sit down."
He gave her a concerned look. "You all right?"
She nodded, even though waves of hazy gray were covering her vision. "Yes. I just need to sit."
Her legs gave out beneath her and she sank onto the thick wood. Her cheek rested against the tree. It smelled...it smelled alive. Fresh. She took in deep gulps of it and it revived her.
Beside her, Del grabbed hold of the tree trunk with both hands and set his foot against the transport's side. He pushed. The transport rocked. He pushed again, straining. His cheek muscles flexed in concentration. His thighs bulged.
Linna knew Del was strong, but this amazed her. He was actually pushing the ship. Del set his back to the tree trunk and put both feet on the ship. It rocked again, but remained wedged in the branches.
"What are you doing?"
He gave her a quick glance. "I'd rather have this fall the rest of the way now, with us up here, than come down on top of our heads. Besides, it'll clear a path for us."
"But...what about what's below us?"
He pushed again, his entire body tense with the effort. "Nothing below us," he said between panting breaths. "Nothing worth worrying about."
Since Linna figured Del knew his own homeworld better than she did, she didn't bother asking him if he was sure. She just got up, pressed her back to the trunk, and put her feet next to his on the pod.
He didn't try to refuse her help, something many Newcitizen men would have done. Together, they pushed. The vehicle rocked more. They pushed harder. Something popped in her hip and she let out a cry, but kept pushing.
In another moment, the ship let go with a groan of metal. It teetered briefly, then fell with a spectacular crashing that rocked the entire tree. It seemed to go on forever, the pounding and crashing, and when it finally stopped, Linna realized she'd been clutching the tree trunk so tightly her fingers ached.
Her hip hurt, too, but she pressed it gently and didn't think she'd caused any permanent damage. "Wow."
Del took a seat on the thick branch, his back against the trunk, and swiped at his forehead. "It's a long way down. Two days from now, all that cleared space will be almost overgrown again. We'd better get started."
Sitting beside him, she looked down into the empty darkness below. Just beyond their branch, the moonlight could no longer reach. The branches of this tree were regularly spaced, but the distance between each one was greater than her height. Even if she hung from her hands, it didn't seem likely her feet would reach.
"I lived in the city my entire life," she said self-consciously. "You're going to have to lead me."
He rolled his head on his neck to look at her. "You can do this."
She leaned over to kiss him, but the flicker in his eyes stopped her. She pulled back, stung, but trying not to let him see. "I know I can. But you're going to have to tell me what to do."
"I can't tell you what to do." Del stood, his long fingers splayed on the tree trunk. She noticed a bloody scratch on the back of his hand and wanted to kiss it, make it feel better, but she didn't move toward him.
Standing over her like that, Del seemed even larger than he normally did. She was discovering he could make her feel very small, and not just physically. She recalled his statement just before the ship crashed and anger flashed through her again.
"I don't own you," Del continued. "You can do whatever you want."
Linna got up, careful to keep close to the tree trunk. "That's not what I meant and you know it."
"I don't know anything."
Linna put her hands on her hips. "Don't be an asshole, Del."
That got a reaction from him. Maybe not the one she wanted, but it was marginally better than not getting one at all. He sneered at her, then reached up and pulled on one of the thinner, springy branches sprouting off the bough above their heads. He yanked it hard, broke it free from its attachment, then tied it with swift, hand-over-hand movements to a similar branch growing from the limb on which they stood.
He wrapped the vine around his waist and tied it tight. Then, before she could prepare herself, he pulled her against him, put one hand on the vine around his waist, and stepped off the branch.
Linna couldn't find the breath to scream as they dropped. The vine caught them at the last minute, and in another, she felt the next branch under her boots. Del didn't let go of her. He calmly reached up, grabbed for another of the thin boughs, pulled it down and began to repeat the process.
This time, when he tried to pull he toward him, Linna broke his grip. "No, thanks."
His jaw set, Del glared. "You said--"
"I said you'd have to tell me what I needed to do. I didn't tell you to do it for me."
His hands finished tying the two vines together. "Whatever."
She reached up, pulled down her own vine, and did the same thing he'd done. Without waiting for him, she took a deep breath and jumped. She'd estimated well. Her feet touched the branch just as the vine at her waist pulled her tight. Del landed next to her.
Faster this time, he tore another of the vine-branches. Linna followed, matching his pace. Del's fingers moved more quickly. So did hers.
If he wants a challenge, the jerk, he'll get one. She focused on jumping harder, moving faster, landing straighter. Even with her enhancements, matching him was a struggle. He was in his element, and she was way, way out of hers.
Still, they'd both been through the same recent trauma. Linna didn't like to admit Del's exhaustion and wounds gave her an edge she was willing to use against him. Then she remembered his smug comments about her sleeping with Erystus to get her way, and her anger flared anew.
For hours, they descended the tree, branch to branch. Most of the time they swung down on their makeshift ropes, but the closer they got to the ground, the narrower the distance between branches. Some they leaped, some they climbed.
The path left behind by the transport's fall had left enough clear space for them to move downward. Linna couldn't imagine what they'd have done if they'd had to push their way through the dense foliage like what was still left on the rest of the tree. She was tired enough just doing what they were.
She knew he was pushing himself the same as she was pushing herself, but if they kept on this way, they'd both get hurt.
"I need to rest," she said, the first words she'd spoken in hours.
Del stopped. "All right."
His answer pissed her off. "You need to rest, too."
He shrugged in casual dismissal that made her even angrier. She put her hand on her hips, then forced herself to relax. It wouldn't do any g
ood to get into an argument.
"I'm hungry. And thirsty." She hadn't meant to complain, just to state facts, but the way he shook his head made her grit her teeth.
"Sorry," Del said in a patronizing tone that set her blood aboil. "I didn't pack us a picnic basket."
Something was eating him, and Linna guessed she knew what it was. He thought she'd slept with Erystus. He was only half-right, but the half he was right about was still not a good reason for him to be mad at her. She could just tell him the truth, that the pirate had tried to make love to her, and been unable to rouse a response.
This somehow didn't seem to be the time or the place. What really made her angry was that for a long time, she and Del had been friends. He knew what she did for a living. He'd even seen her with clients. Now, just because he'd made love to her, that easy friendship had changed.
She sighed, no longer so angry. She guessed she couldn't blame him. She couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like to know you were bound to someone like he was to her, especially when that level of commitment wasn't reciprocated.
Except that it was...he just didn't realize it. And he wouldn't realize it if she didn't tell him. Linna looked over at the man she'd taken as her lover.
The moonlight didn't shine down this far, but the trees of Xanderra apparently compensated for that with a phosphorescent glow of their own. It outlined his silhouette in lines of bluish-silver, highlighting his profile. She stopped herself from reaching for him.
"We're closer to the ground than you think," Del told her. His tone turned grudgingly admiring. "You did real good."
"Don't sound so surprised," Linna said.
Del got up, pulled one of the smaller leaves, still the size of his torso, from the trunk, and handed it to her. "Hold both ends of this, tight, and jump."
"Are you crazy?"
His eyes flickered. "Do you trust me?"
The real question, Linna thought, is does he trust me? But she guessed she already knew the answer to that one. In reply, she took the huge leaf and grabbed each end.
"Now, jump."
She'd followed him before, without thought, and he'd never led her astray. Linna looked into Del's eyes, trying to show him all the love in her heart and knowing he was refusing to see it.
Then, she looked over the edge, took a breath, and leaped.
Using the buulla leaves as parachutes to drop the last distance to the ground had cut a lot off their descent time. Now, on the soft ground below the canopy created by the buulla trees, Del piled a stack of deadwood, brush and old leaves. As dawn came closer, the trees' natural light dimmed, making it hard to find the reshephgat, the sparkstones. He found one anyway by searching for the distinctive color and foliage of the sparkfern, the only plant in the jungle that thrived on the minerals in the stone.
He found two good-sized stones and struck them together in a motion he'd practiced so many times as a youth it had become second nature. The spark, blue-white like the buulla light, flew off the stone and started a blaze crackling in the brush pile.
Linna scooted closer to the blaze and held out her hands. "It's so hot here, I wouldn't think I'd need this."
"The fire isn't for warmth, it's to keep the tannanim away."
"Animals?"
There weren't many real animals left on Earth. Del bet Linna had never seen a live beast in her life, much less one like a tannan. He put more brush on the fire.
"Tannanim are like Earth lizards," he told her. "Only bigger. Much bigger. More like...dragons."
"You're joking."
Del put another load of twigs and brush on the fire, then swiped his sweating forehead. "I'm not. They breathe a flammable gas known to catch stuff on fire, they have scales, and the bastards can fly. The little ones can, anyway, before their bodies get too bulky for their wings. The only good thing about that is that if you meet a flying tannan, chances are its teeth are still too soft to tear you apart."
Linna moved closer to the fire. "Wow."
"Xanderra isn't a civilized place, Linna."
She looked around at the jungle. "I can see that."
"We're not a civilized people."
Her eyes flickered in the firelight. "I can see that, too."
He watched her gaze follow the dark lines of his tattoos. She got to her feet and traced one from his elbow to his wrist with the tip of her finger. Her touch made his chest feel tight, like his heart was suddenly too big.
"What do these mean?"
He looked down at the inkings, done so long ago they seemed to be part of another life. Or at least, they had, until the moment he'd smelled the Xanderran jungle again.
He pointed to the interlocking, jagged edges that wound around his lower right arm. "Thorns."
Linna's fingers drifted over the marks, which had been done with ink made from the plant they represented. "Why thorns?"
"Because on Xanderra, there isn't anything that's beautiful that isn't probably also deadly."
Linna nodded and touched the smoother, rolling circles inscribed below. "And these?"
"Waves."
She looked around at the jungle pressing in on them. "You have oceans?"
He let a smile twist his lips. "One mighty ocean as fierce and unpredictable as this jungle. We call it Yammeh al Maarxet. The Sea of Sleep."
"I thought you said it was fierce," Linna replied. "That name makes it sound peaceful."
"In Xanderran, sleep and death are the same word."
"Ah." She tilted her head to look up at him. "Then how do you know which is which?"
"We know."
Her hand caressed the bulge of his muscle, then moved over to tighten on his other forearm where bands of alternating black and red striped his skin. "And what about this?"
"My family unit."
She raised a brow at him. "You mean to have me believe you didn't just spring forth fully grown from a sheep's horn or something? Or from the mouth of a--what did you call it? Tannan."
She stood so close to him he could easily have rested his chin on top of her head and pulled her into his arms. He remembered all too well how she fit there. Del took in a deep breath to focus his mind, but all he got was a lungful of her scent.
"I have a family."
Linna sighed and chewed at her lip. "Del, something is bothering you. Is it Erystus? Because--"
He turned from her, not wanting to hear her explanation. "Forget about it."
He'd forgotten how strong she was. Her hand on his elbow easily made him turn. His feet rustled in the leaves and vines on the jungle floor. She squared off, hands on her hips and eyes fiercely alight.
"Like it or not," she said, "you have to talk to me about this."
That sent him back a step. "I don't."
"You do, Del." Linna moved up closer to him. "We're more than just friends now. Like it or not."
That was the problem. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. "I like some parts of it just fine."
He watched her face carefully for signs he'd hurt her feelings, but Linna kept her expression carefully neutral. "It didn't happen the way I'd have chosen either, but it happened. It's done. We can't go back, we can't change it, and we have to just move on with our lives."
"Is that what you want to do? Move on with your life?" The shout was too loud, even for the immense jungle surrounding them. "Go on, then! Move on with your life, Linna. Consider this whole thing just another part of your adventure!"
"Adventure?" she cried. "Do you really think that's all this is to me? I didn't have to get off that ship with you, Del! I didn't have to catapult myself into this God-of-Choice-forsaken jungle with you! I sure as hell did not have to risk life and limb to stay by your side! When I said we needed to move on with our lives, you gigantic lummox, I meant together!"
"You don't have to."
"No shit," Linna retorted. "Did it ever occur to you that I might want to?"
Del scrubbed at his head, not liking the way his hair scruffed at his palm. "For now."
He gave in to her, just a little. "Fine."
She sighed again and tossed up her hands. "Are you all so stubborn?"
"What do you care?" he shot back. "Planning on starting a harem of your own?"
Her fist shot out so fast he barely had time to jerk his head out of the way. She barely clipped him on the jaw, but the blow was still strong enough to send him staggering. He whirled, hands up, and she came at him again.
"I am going to kick your ass from here to the Sea of Sleep," Linna announced grimly. "And then back again."
Del didn't move, though his entire body had tensed into fight mode. The warrior in him was always ready, but in Newcity he had found it easier to push aside. Here, back home, the smell of Linna's anger made his hands and feet itch to strike.
"I don't want to hurt you," he told her through gritted teeth.
Linna spat to the side and raised her fists at him again. "Too late."
"I mean I don't want to fight you."
"Then what?" she challenged. "Isn't this how it works on Xanderra? Mated couples--"
"Behsherim."
"Behsherim. Don't you battle it out to decide who's the dominant one or something?"
"Not between men and women, no. Women are subordinate."
"Ha!" Linna put her fists on her hips. "Not this one. And since you are mated to me, since you are my behsherim--"
"Behsherat," he corrected. "If you're going to live here, you'd better start learning the language."
She stared at him silently for a moment. "Am I going to live here?"
He thought of the familiar voice on the com speaker. A challenge had been thrown at his feet--one he hadn't ever planned to face--but now that he had, Del couldn't back away from it.
"I plan to stay."
"Then I guess I'd better learn the language."
