He was about to cut through it when he realized how good of quality of cordage it was. He wasn’t sure what kind of plant it was from, but it was soft and thick, with a tight weave that nearly looked machine-made.
Instead of cutting it, he searched for the knot.
There were several, and they were more loops than knots.
He undid them, then freed her.
He was left with about fifty feet of high-quality cordage. Less than he’d like, but anything helped.
Now that she was untied, he gave her a more thorough inspection while Rufus sat observing, letting out quiet little low whines.
“I know buddy,” Cal told him, “I’m anxious for them to get back too.”
Imogen looked uninjured. She had indents in her skin from the rope, but that was all.
He tried waking her, but this time her eyes didn’t even briefly open.
So he sat, now with nothing but worry to occupy his mind as he waited.
He tried petting Rufus, but the alien dog was too agitated and kept moving away, listening to the forest.
He drummed his fingers on the ground as he sat with Imogen’s head in his lap, his nerves fraying as he waited for Mirabelle and Eliza to arrive.
If Eliza couldn’t make it back here, the plan was to run back to the base, lose the natives over the longer distance.
But Mirabelle should have been here by now.
How long should he wait?
Cal sat, joining Rufus in listening for the sound of anyone approaching.
A couple minutes later Rufus lifted his head and started sniffing the air.
Half a minute after that Cal heard the sounds of feet approaching, and a quiet rattle.
Rufus increased his sniffing of the air, but didn’t seem alarmed, which put Cal at ease. Somewhat.
Then his heart rose as he saw Mirabelle running up through the trees toward them, drenched in sweat and pulling in shallow, ragged breaths.
The rattling sound he’d heard had been her arrows clattering together in her quiver. It was a quiet sound, but one they should do something about.
“You okay?” he asked, carefully sliding Imogen’s head out of his lap and to the ground and quickly getting to his feet.
She was too out of breath to answer, but managed to nod.
She closed the ten remaining feet between them, dropped her bow, and collapsed against him.
He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her burning, slick body to him, lifting his head so her arrows didn’t poke him in the face.
He chuckled as she nearly slid out of his arms.
“You really worked up a sweat. Eliza?”
She was still too out of breath to answer, so instead shook her head against his chest.
“What happened?”
She pulled away, held up her hand, took several deep gasps of air.
Rufus came up and nuzzled her hand, pushing his head under it and whining softly.
She smiled and scratched his head, used her other hand to fan herself, took a few more breaths, then said, “Started throwing spears at her. Trees too dense though, so they stopped. She—” Mirabelle stopped to take several shallow breaths before continuing. “She was pulling away though, last I saw.”
“Good,” Cal said, though he was still nervous, still worried about her. She was fast, but was she fast enough? She might have tripped, lost her lead. They might have caught up to her. “We wait then.”
Mirabelle shook her head. “I don’t think she’s going to be able to make it back here. I saw her cutting around the other way toward the stream.”
He cursed. “All right. Let’s get back to base. I’ll carry Imogen.” He gestured at the alien talon. “You grab that spear.”
She nodded, still breathing heavily, then looked at Imogen. “She’s still out? Is she okay?”
“I didn’t see any wounds or feel any bumps on her head.” Cal bent to pick up the coil of rope, slung it over his shoulder, then easily lifted Imogen into his arms. With his strength enhancement, she felt like she weighed nothing at all. “Maybe they have interfaces too. ID’d something to drug her with.”
“That what they tied her with?” she asked, motioning at the rope.
“Yeah. Nice, huh?”
She nodded.
They waited another minute to give Mirabelle a chance to catch her breath, then she picked up her bow and Cal’s spear and they headed back toward the stream, and their camp it would lead them to.
“I was thinking—while I was watching and waiting for Eliza to lead them away—what if they weren’t put here?”
Cal glanced over at her as they carefully picked their way through the forest. “Not put here? You mean by the aliens?”
She nodded. “I mean, they do look kinda like him.” She motioned at Rufus with the bow she held in one hand, the talon-spear occupying her other. “And if they’re from here, there have to be more, don’t there? Like a lot more?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean… what if there’s more than that camp, and they’re going to go back and tell the others.” She looked at him, fear and exhaustion plainly on her face. “And then what if they come for us?”
37
Without Eliza, they weren’t exactly sure where they were, and without either consciously realizing it, they had defaulted to following Rufus.
“Wow,” Mirabelle said as they came out of the forest and saw the stream in the distance. “I think Rufus led us here.”
Cal nodded, wondering if dogs could smell water. Wondering if this specific alien dog could.
They followed the stream back towards their base and Cal felt a surge of dread and anticipation as the rear path came into view.
The gate was closed, but that didn’t tell him anything. They had shut it when they’d left.
He wanted to call out to see if Eliza was here, but didn’t dare risk it for fear something else would hear them coming.
Given how long Cal had waited for Mirabelle, and then the extra few minutes they had talked and waited for her to catch her breath, it was conceivable someone—or something—had beaten them back here.
Cal hoped it was Eliza, but wasn’t going to be careless and assume it was.
As they reached the bottom of the path he saw movement near the gate and tensed, then there was a grunt and the gate swung open and his heart filled with relief as he saw Eliza standing there—naked once more—grinning at him.
38
Eliza laughed as Rufus wagged his two tails furiously, whining and licking her face.
Cal set Imogen down in the shade of the tree on her bed of moss, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. What he wouldn’t give to join her. But there’d be no sleeping right now. Not for a long while yet, likely.
He tossed the rope down with their other cordage, then grinned as he watched Mirabelle drop his spear, her bow, then carelessly remove her quiver, letting it too drop, before finally herself dropping against the tree, eyes drooping closed.
He had to stay up and alert, but he could let her get some rest.
She was so tired he didn’t think she even noticed that Eliza was once again nude.
Cal shut and braced the gate, then turned to Eliza, who had gotten Rufus somewhat calmed down and was now petting him and kissing his head.
“So?” Cal asked her. “What happened?”
She looked up at him.
“With the natives.”
“Oh!” She smiled proudly. “I outran them. It was hard. They are really fast. But being chased by alien wolf-cat-people throwing spears at me was quite motivating.”
“And they didn’t follow you back here?”
She shook her head, Rufus rolling onto his back so she could rub his belly. “Once I was sure I lost them, I stopped for several minutes, waiting and listening. They weren’t there. Then once I’d made it back to the stream I went into the water just in case they could somehow track me.” She nodded. “We’re good.”
He nodded too. “Good.” Then
he frowned as his eyes drifted over her body. “Are those new?” He gestured at her legs, which were full of scrapes. He was pretty sure they were.
“Yeah. Running through the forest barefoot and without any leg covering can be quite painful. I don’t have fur to protect me like this guy here.” She leaned down and kissed Rufus’s head again, ruffing his jowls.
Cal nodded, looking around. He saw her clothes laid out on a banana-leaf in the sun. She’d barely just got back and was already naked again.
“Not that I mind, but, why’d you take those off?”
“I was too warm and covered in sweat.”
“You? Sweat? No.”
“Hey, even someone as amazing as I am sweats when it’s like ninety degrees and a hundred-percent humid and on the run from aliens trying to kill you.”
“Yet you still got back here with enough time to take a bath.”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I am amazing.”
“Those cuts need to be cleaned?”
She grinned at him. “You volunteering?”
“I’ll do what needs to be done.”
She snorted.
“Really though,” he said seriously, “we need to make some clothes for protection if not modesty. At least some kind of shoes and shin and arm guards.”
“Add it to the list of things we need to get done.”
“That reminds me,” Cal said. “We also need something to write with.”
39
While the others slept, Cal and Eliza kept watch, looking out for any natives coming their way, but didn’t see them.
Eventually Imogen awoke, as soon as she did another dot appearing in Cal’s interface. She was part of their group now.
At least it all hadn’t been for nothing.
Getting the attention of a group of nine—or possibly a whole hell of a lot more if Mirabelle’s theory were true—strong and fast alien natives was a high price to pay if all they’d gotten out of it was a loincloth, a shoddy cloth top, and a few extra feet of—admittedly really good—rope.
“Do you remember what happened?” Cal asked her. “How they took you?”
She shook her head, frowning, looking mad. Mad at herself for getting captured. “I remember waking up in a clearing and then them coming for me.” She shook her head again. “I don’t remember how though. They must’ve drugged me. Or knocked me out.” She reached up and touched her head.
“You’re not injured that I could see.”
“I don’t feel hurt.” She looked down at herself. “Did you change me?” Her tone suggested she wouldn’t be bothered if he had.
“No. You probably appeared like that.”
“What happened? I was standing here, then waking up somewhere else.”
“We got knocked out too.”
“Do you have a display now?” Eliza asked her. “I see four dots, so I think that means you should.”
“Um, how would I know?”
Eliza explained to her how to use it.
“Yeah. I see it.” She frowned. “Those things, the ones that took me…”
Cal nodded. “Yeah. Aliens or something.”
“So we’re not alone here.” She looked around the base, life coming back into her eyes. “Where are they?”
“We created a distraction,” Eliza explained. “Got you out, then I led them away before coming back here.”
“We should assume there are more, that they can track you.”
Eliza shook her head. “I made sure they didn’t. Walked back in the stream so I didn’t leave any tracks.”
Imogen didn’t look convinced. “Where’s Mirabelle? Is she—”
“No,” Cal interrupted, allaying her fear. “She’s sleeping.” He motioned behind Imogen.
She turned, saw Mirabelle passed out against the tree.
She rubbed her eyes. “Still out of it I guess. I’m usually more observant.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”
“You know you’re quite often overconfident about things you can’t know.”
“I know.”
She snorted.
He was glad she was coming around, becoming a part of their group. Officially, now that she had an interface.
“We need to get our defenses up here more,” she said.
“I agree.” Cal looked around at the base, the partially completed palisade, the still too-short gates, their meager weapon and food stores. It wasn’t just monsters that they had to face off against now, it was other humans. Or something like them, something more intelligent than the monsters they’d so far faced.
He didn’t know for certain that these natives were enemies, but taking Imogen and tying her up didn’t bode well for them being friendly.
“No more taking it easy. We need to work hard from now on until we’ve got the palisade completed and a roof to shield us from the flying ones.”
Surprising them all—except Rufus, who was passed out in the shade of the front palisade, snoring—Mirabelle muttered something.
Cal turned to see her waking up, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
“Hey sleepy,” he said. “Feel better?”
She nodded, smiled at him. “How are you?” she asked Imogen.
“I’ll be fine.”
“What were you saying?” Cal asked. “Didn’t quite catch it.”
“I said it’s too bad we don’t have nets. For the flying ones.”
“That’s actually a really good idea. We could build nets instead of a roof. It would be much quicker, and they wouldn’t even have to be particularly strong, just enough to get the flying ones tangled up in.”
He looked at the gate. “And if we ran them up from the gate to the tree, that would stop or at least slow down ones trying to climb over, while still allowing us to shoot out at them.” He smiled at her. “You’re a genius.”
She grinned, her cheeks flushing slightly.
He moved over to her, lifting her up and giving her a big hug and kiss as she giggled and squealed.
She kicked her legs. “Put me down!” she howled, still giggling.
Cal finally did and she punched his chest. “Asshole.”
But she was smiling.
Then she did a double-take at Eliza.
“Um,” she said skeptically, as she uncomfortably—though not without a bit of prurient interest—looked the naked redhead up and down, “why are you naked again?”
40
They didn’t have enough cordage left to make nets as large as they’d need, and Cal didn’t want to go looking for nettle plants with their huge root systems—not with four monsters unaccounted for and at least nine but possibly an unknown number more of alien natives—so instead he went out and scavenged around the front path for all the types of plants they’d found so far that made acceptable cordage, while the others worked on weaving what they did have into a net.
Right now he didn’t care about it being strong in the longterm. They just needed to get something up temporarily. They could worry later about figuring out a permanent solution for when the cordage dried out and became brittle.
With the humidity, that would take at least a week in any case.
As he gathered, identifying plants as he went to make sure they weren’t going to give him a rash—or worse—he wondered why they hadn’t identified more.
They’d basically not strayed from around a dozen plants, things that they’d identified in their first few days here.
Can’t let ourselves get stuck in a rut, he thought to himself. It was too easy to stick with what you knew.
He remembered he’d wanted to look for antibacterial plants, but had never gotten around to it, so did this now, making a point of identifying every plant he came across.
He had plenty of points, and they weren’t good for anything else he’d found so far.
And besides that, most things cost less than a full point to identify.
With the amount of points he had, he could identify hundreds of plants.
>
When the basket was overflowing, and not having found any interesting new plants—probably have to range farther out from their base for that—he headed back up to base.
The women had constructed a fourish-foot section of net with what they had, but they were already running low on cordage. The gaps had to be large with as big of a net as they’d need, but they weren’t large enough that any of the monsters could fit through.
And it was better to have them wide so Mirabelle could shoot her arrows, and Eliza could throw her spears.
Cal got to work stripping what he’d gathered to turn it into usable cordage.
They worked all throughout the day and into the night, Imogen briefly pausing her weaving to light another fire with which to work by.
By the time the air started to cool in the full dark of night, and by the time their hands were sore and calloused from the day’s work, Cal finally looked up to take a break, and realized how long they’d been going for.
He looked around at the others, dutifully working, and smiled. They were all hard workers. Even Mirabelle, despite her softness.
“I think that’s good for tonight.”
They all stopped to look at him.
“We’ve made good progress,” he explained. “And I’m starving.”
“Oh God,” Mirabelle said. “Now that you mention it, so am I.”
“That’s because we haven’t stopped to take a break to eat,” Imogen said, looking not quite lucid, though he thought that was probably from exhaustion rather than any lingering effects of however the alien natives had knocked her out.
“Not only that,” Eliza said, moving her tongue around her mouth, “I don’t think we’ve drank anything either.”
Cal realized she was right, and with this realization an intense thirst struck him, the likes of which he’d only felt after a rare few hangovers.
He got up and went to the trough, glancing over at Rufus, who was passed out as usual, on his back, legs kicking at the air as he dreamt.
Cal shook his head. That dog didn’t do much other than sleep.
He wondered again if he really was just a puppy. Something about his manner and his look, the way his head and ears were oversized for his body, made Cal think he was.
Survivor- World of Monsters 2 Page 11
