Blood of Denebria (Star Sojourner Book 4)

by Jean Kilczer

  I stared at the artless painting of the oasis. It was such a simplistic plan, with no understanding of Older Brother's tel, or the ominous power of Bountiful's probes, that could overwhelm my mind and make me her puppet. Odysseus, designer of the Trojan Horse? Or a Judas goat leading the Denebs into yet another slaughter of beam weapons against wooden spears? Just more fodder for Bountiful's stomach. I sighed. “When do you intend to leave, General?”

  “We will travel northwest tomorrow night. The next day we will begin the passage to the compound, and arrive at nightfall.”

  “What if…what if I don't agree with your plan and prefer not to be a part of it?”

  His nose slits flared as he stared at me. “You would consider not to act and help save my people?”

  “I would consider a light probe of their officers and information on the location of the SPS, without alerting them.” I nodded. “And then continuing on to wherever the SPS is being kept.”

  He slammed a fist on the table. Huff jumped and I realized he'd fallen asleep. “After all I've told you about the slaughter of my people?”

  I knew there was no use trying to explain the compound ties that went beyond his plan. He was motivated by need, not good judgment.

  I stood up. “I'm truly sorry for your enslaved people. But there's a greater picture I think you may be missing. Huff?”

  “Yes, Huff I am,” he said groggily. He stood up and shook himself off. “I fell asleep.”

  I smiled at him. You're not the only one who's sleeping, I thought. “I'm sorry this didn't work out, General Roothe. “I wish you all the luck in freeing your people.” You're going to need it, I thought. “C'mon, Huff.” I walked to the door and opened it, with Huff's squeaky wheels rolling behind me.

  Two guards, leaning against the outer stone wall, came to attention.

  “Excuse us,” I said and tried to walk by. They blocked our path. Something told me this was not going to be a walk in the park. I turned to the general.

  “You disappoint me,” he said. “I expected more compassion from you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “There is another Terran saying I like. 'Better safe than sorry'.” He waved a hand at the guards. “I never asked if you agreed with our plan, Jules. Sorry or not, you will be part of it.”

  Goddammit, Joe, I thought as a guard gripped my arm. Where are you?

  Huff growled.

  “I anticipated this,” General Roothe said. “You will find that the room is warm. The bed is Terran soft.” He sighed wearily. “If you require food, a guard will bring it to you. You will be safe.”

  “All the comforts of home,” I said. “Except one.”

  “What else do you require?”

  “Our freedom.”

  “There is a Terran poem that I often quote to my callow young soldiers.”

  “I can't wait to hear it.”

  “'Real freedom is going easy in the harness.' Take them away.”

  Chapter Six

  I laid down on the “Terran soft” mattress, as General Roothe had described it, and realized that my body wanted sleep. Huff stretched out on a woven mat on the floor. Within minutes he was snoring. The poor tag was exhausted from all that had happened and from dragging his left leg around in that splint. I was keeping track for him. In four days, the splint should come off. But even then, he wasn't supposed to put all his weight on it. Doc's pills kept away the pain for both of us, but there was the danger of hurting my ankle and his leg again. Maybe I should make him wait longer to take off the cast. My Vegan friend was not good about little details, like damaging the healing bone with too much weight too soon.

  Our room was the living quarters behind a bakery. The faint smell of bread still wafted from the cooling ovens. There is nothing like the aroma of baking bread to make the wanderer yearn to turn homeward bound.

  The soft, sad chanting of Denebrians came through a high wide window which probably let out the heat of the day. A night vigil, I thought and felt a pang of guilt that I had refused to help free the slaves. Collateral damage, Wolfie had called them. But what was the worth of a life sacrificed to save others? I had no answers. More than once I had put my life on the line for the sake of others, and I know Joe had too in his long career as a W-CIA Counter-Terrorist captain. Probably Wolfie too, from how Bat alluded to Wolfie's willingness to take risks for his comrades. And Bat… I pictured him running low through a firefight to rescue and treat wounded soldiers. Huff was forever there for me, like a rock. And beneath all the bantering, Reika and Chancey would risk all for their comrades. So how ethical was it to allow the relatively few Deneb slaves to be eaten alive in our pursuit to save the many? Questions. All questions without answers.

  I began to drift off.

  “Jules!”

  “What, Huff?” I sat up. But he was still snoring.

  “Jules!”

  I looked around, then up at the window. “Chancey?”

  “They're in there,” I heard him tell someone.

  I jumped off the bed. “Yeah. Now get us out! Where the hell were you?”

  “Quiet, tag.” I heard him chuckle. “You'll have the whole village wondering where we were.”

  “Just get us the hell out of here!”

  Huff woke up and looked around. “Where is the hell?”

  “We're working on it,” Chancey called. “There's two guards posted at your front door with those sticks they call weapons. Easy enough to whack them on the side of the head with their own weapons, but the street's full of singing Denebs.”

  “Yeah. I think it's a night vigil for the slaves.”

  “I'm sending down a rope. Make a harness for the fur ball and we'll lift him through.”

  “He's pretty heavy.”

  “We got horsepower, tag. While you kept them busy being captured, Joe and your chick picked out seven of the best horseflesh and one of those travoises for your friend.”

  That's a travois, and she's not a chick.”

  “You gonna give me a grammar lesson right now?”

  “Just send down the damn rope.”

  He did, and I made Huff a harness.

  He was not thrilled with being hoisted up the wall, but Huff's a trouper and he kept the whining down. I wrapped my end of the rope around the bedpost and let it out slowly to ease Huff to the outside ground.

  When they threw the rope back through the window, I tied one end to the bedpost and did some reverse repelling, climbing up the stone wall. I heard a horse snort and paw the ground as I eased myself down on the outside.

  The air was desert cold, with a smell of bitter root. The stars, and two bright moons, were a tapestry woven into night. Out here, the chanting was louder, the sadness in the notes stung deeper.

  Reika trotted up on a sorrel gelding, seen by moonlight. She held the reins of a stallion, as black as the desert night and twice as beautiful. I thought of a Bedouin saying about their horses. If God made anything more beautiful, He kept it for Himself. The black stallion snorted when I stroked his arched neck. His mane flowed as he tossed that proud dished head and flared his wide nostrils.

  “I'll call you Asil,” I said.

  He swished his high tail and fixed me with an almond eye.

  “Why Asil?” Reika asked.

  “It means noble in Arabic. 'And Allah took a handful of southerly wind,' I quoted, 'blew His breath over it, and created the horse. Thou shall fly without wings'.”

  Reika smiled. “We had a proverb at the girls' boarding school. 'A girl needs two animals. The horse of her dreams and a jackass to pay for it'.”

  “Nice,” I said and swung into the saddle.

  “All the saddles were Western,” she said. “Is that OK with you, babes?”

  “Sure. I'd probably fall off an English saddle.” My backpack, bedroll, and a portion of the sous chef ingredients were tied behind the saddle. All the horses carried portions of the ingredients to spread the heavy weight. The chef was secured to the foot of the travois, with room for
Huff, if he needed a lift, and harnessed to a small white mare.

  “”I took up Asil's reins. “I think you and Joe picked out the best of the breed.”

  Chancey sat hunched on a bay gelding, clutching the saddle horn, his feet dangling out of the stirrups. I shook my head. He'd never sit the horse at a gallop.

  Bat trotted up astride a roan mare. “Ya'll doing OK, Jules.”

  “I'm fine, Bat. They're a gentle people, once they remember their manners.”

  Joe came up astride a rangy chestnut. “We turned the rest of the horses loose outside the gate,” he told me. “The Denebs will be a long time rounding them up.”

  A rider cantered toward us from the village on a sorrel mount. “Is that Wolfie?” I asked.

  Bat nodded. “The tag had a little bit of shoppin' to do.”

  “Did you get them?” Joe asked Wolfie as he reined in hard.

  “I got them.” Wolfie glanced at me.

  “Good.” Joe turned his horse north. “Let's go.”

  “Huff,” I said, “are you OK for walking? You can ride on the travois.”

  “My muscles need to be stretched, Jules friend.”

  “OK.” I watched Bat take the reins of the white mare, with the travois, throw them over her head and tie the ends to the cantle of his saddle.

  “Wait a minute!” Chancey called. “How do you make this thing go?”

  “Tap his sides, Chancey, lightly,” I called and trotted up beside Joe. “The general and I had a talk, Joe. He knows I'm a telepath.”

  Joe shrugged. “That shouldn't affect our plans now. What did he want from you?”

  “He intends to get into the compound with his men, disguised as merchants in a caravan from the Northwestern Village. Roothe wanted me to probe the BEMs and find out how to get into the soldiers' quarters so they could attack.”

  “Attack!” Joe's horse swiveled his ears back to listen. “Spears against beam weapons? They'll be cut to pieces, the idiots.” He shook his head. “They're cutting their own throats.”

  “Literally,” I said. “Roothe told me that the Northwestern Village is capturing Denebs from other villages and selling them to the BEMs as slaves.”

  “Nice people.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If we can locate the SPS before Roothe and his men gather the horses and approach the compound from the northwest, maybe Alpha can act fast enough to prevent the slaughter.”

  “Depends on how successful you are at probing for the location of the SPS. Without being found out, kid.”

  I bit my lip.

  “And where they're hiding the damn thing.” He shifted in the saddle. “I don't want you to rush through this mission just to save the slaves or Roothe and his men. You understand me, Jules? If you get caught before you relay the location of the unit, our chances of finding it are zero. Maybe less. Once you infiltrate the slave camp, there's nothing we can do to help you.”

  “I want to keep my stingler, hidden.”

  “Can't do it, kid. If Bountiful takes over your mind, you'll be the weapon.”

  “Joe, if that happens, take me down.”

  He turned to stare at me.

  “I mean it. Either that, or I'll use the stingler to kill myself. I won't be thrown to Bountiful alive. That's beyond what I'm willing to do to save the Denebrians or the whole damn planet.”

  “Understood,” he said softly. “I'll unpack your stingler at our next rest stop.”

  “What about the coveralls and the straw hat for the disguise?”

  “Wolfie's got them. That's why he went into town.”

  “Hey, wait up,” Chancey called and bounced up at a trot, with Reika at a slow canter beside him.

  “He doesn't believe me about geldings,” Reika told me and grinned.

  “The chick's trying to tell me they cut off the horse's balls.”

  “A gelding has no gonads, Chancey,” I said. “They castrate him if he's not good breeding stock.”

  “Say what, my man?”

  “Your horse is a gelding,” I told him.

  Reika, riding between us, chuckled.

  “Jesus and Christ!” Chancey patted the bay's neck. “You poor bastard! That's what I'll call you. Poor Bastard.

  “Whatever,” I said wearily.

  * * *

  We rested the night away from the village in a hollow with a slow wide stream over rocks, and good grass. Reika slept cuddled against me with my arm under her head. Huff was on my other side. I was bone weary, but I couldn't sleep. Tomorrow night, at this time, I'd be inside the slaughter camp. Just another Deneb being fattened up like so many cattle in a feedlot.

  Dawn came and spread her flat apron of light across the great sweep of vermilion and ochre dunes, in preparation for the rising sun.

  I rubbed my eyes and stood up. My body ached for sleep, but it hadn't come through the long night. I walked quietly past my sleeping friends and went to Asil. The Denebs did not have metal bits. They used braided halters and I had tied the reins around his foreleg so he was free to walk, but not to run. I stroked his sleek shoulder, untied the reins and led him to the shallow stream. I closed my eyes and swayed while he sipped water. A few early insects buzzed around his head.

  “Did you sleep, babes?” Reika strolled over and put an arm around my waist.

  I shook my head.

  “I didn't think so.” She laid her head against my chest. “Joe woke us all up. He wants an early start. What would you like for breakfast?”

  “I can't eat just now. Ask the others what they want.”

  “I did. They said to ask you what you'd prefer.”

  Sounds like the condemned man's last meal, I thought but didn't say.

  Asil lifted his head. Water dripped from his muzzle.

  “Just a cup of coffee,” I said.

  Reika walked with me as I led Asil back to the grassy patch and tied his foreleg again. The camp grew quiet as Reika and I strolled there. I took out one of doc's pain and healing pills and swallowed it. “Huff, time for your pill.”

  “Oh.” He fished around in his pouch, found the container, opened it and took a pill.

  “Remember, Huff,” I told him, “you take one every morning until they're gone.”

  He nodded silently and stared at the ground. “And the cast comes off in…in ten days.” That last part was for the team to remember. By then his pills would be gone and the pain would force him to keep weight off the healing bone.

  I saw Reika wipe her eyes as she went to the sous chef and poured ingredients and water for coffee.

  Joe opened his backpack, laid before him where he sat, took out my stingler and holster, and lifted them up to me. I saw Wolfie throw him a shocked look. Joe didn't even bother to meet his eyes. I strapped on the holster, sleeved in the stingler, and then covered it with my drooping black sweater, under the jacket “Thanks, boss.” I sat down between Joe and Chancey. Chancey patted my shoulder.

  Reika poured a cup of steaming coffee and brought it to me.

  “Thanks, woman,” I said and grinned as I took it

  “Anything that makes you smile, babes.” She returned to the chef to start breakfast.

  After breakfast we broke camp and headed north. The sun had risen above the eastern dunes and painted them with brushes of light. Desert birds cawed as they flitted against an indigo sky. Sunlight spread out across our path and warmed my face. Asil shook flies off his head. I helped with waves of my hand. This is how our nomadic Earth ancestors must have traveled. So much beauty above us, around us, even beneath us in the shift of blowing sand. Sand paintings, I thought dreamily. And here we were on a march that would end in death, one way or the other.

  The rocking of Asil's springy gait did what night couldn't do. I fell asleep in the saddle and almost slid off.

  Bat caught my arm. “C'mon, tag. You can ride in the travois. Huff doesn't need it just yet.”

  I nodded and dismounted.

  Reika grabbed Asil's reins to hold him steady.
<
br />   Bat led me to the travois and I almost fell into it. He took off my shoes. I jumped when he unstrapped my holster. “They'll be in your backpack,” he said and left. I watched that blue envelope above that hung like a blessing between us and the cold, indifferent reaches of black space.

  Bat returned with a cup and a blanket. “Here, drink this.” He lifted me from under my shoulders. The thick white liquid smelled sweet.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It's some kind of concoction I got from the local medical center. They make it from plants. It'll relax you so you can get some sleep. Drink it.” He brought it to my lips. “You'll feel better.”

  “I'd better take a digestall first.”

  “I already crushed one into the cup.”

  I drank the thick, sweet liquid. The taste was neutral except for the sweetener. “They always put too much sweetener for Terrans.”

  “They're just tryin' to help.”

  “Yeah.” I laid back.

  Bat covered me with the blanket and smiled as he tucked me in against the morning chill. He tapped my right cheek with an open palm. “Sleep tight, Bubba. Gotta go.”

  I nodded as he left to mount his horse and closed my eyes.

  Whenever I consider the penchant for murderous acts among Terrans and other world races, I weigh it against Bat's crooked smile and kind eyes.

  The travois lurched forward. That drink must've been stronger than Bat let on, because within minutes, I was asleep.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon when I awoke, feeling refreshed and ready to eat one of the horses. The camp was set up for supper. I brought Asil to the shallow stream and we both drank. I washed my face, and brushed the sand out of my hair, then used my hands to cup water and rinse the lather off him. I like the smell of horses and the sound of their swishing tails. I brought him back to the grass, hobbled him and entered the camp.

  Reika looked up from pouring packets into the sous chef and smiled. “We're out of your favorite, babes. How's chicken and rice sound?” She smoothed back her hair and tucked her shirt, trying to look attractive for me, I think.