Blood of Denebria (Star Sojourner Book 4)

by Jean Kilczer

  “Unless the BEMs meet up with the Villagers and tell them we're the enemy.”

  I rubbed my eyes. They stung from the smoke. “Yeah. There's that.”

  “I guess we'd better keep our powder dry.”

  “Powder?”

  “Oh, it's an old saying.”

  “You know, Bat, it bothers me. I…”

  He glanced at me and waited.

  I ran a thumb over the rough branch. “I never killed so easily. First the BEMs in the field, and now this turncoat leader.” I stared at the hot, snapping flames. “I wanted them dead.”

  “Well, they were the bad guys.”

  “Thing is, does that make it all right to enjoy killing?”

  He thought for a while. “I don't know, Bubba. Ya'll could think of it like stompin' on roaches.”

  “I don't do that, either.”

  “Oh.” He put his hand on my knee and stood up. “The questions you're asking don't have answers that I know of. Think I'll turn in. The way things're goin', who knows what tomorrow will bring.”

  “Sleep well.”

  He nodded and shuffled to his bedroll. Within minutes, he was snoring.

  I sighed. Now I was the only one still awake. I stared at the flames. Questions without answers. What did the life of any living being mean if we just reincarnated somewhere else? Did that give us the right to take a life? I'd seen so many die these last few days. The good and the bad. That child back at the death camp… And then Reika and I coupling in nature's coercion to make a new life. And Bountiful, killing hundreds of Denebs and pumping out thousands of eggs at a time. I threw the branch into the dying fire and stared at twisting flames that ate the wood in a rage to live.

  * * *

  “Oh my God,” I murmured as I topped a ridge and brushed back the towel I'd made into a headdress. Windblown sand wailed between dunes like a premonition as the desert gave way to high plains terrain of up-thrust pink granite cliffs, scrub brush and stunted trees. Beyond the plains, a range of ragged blue peaks milked clouds and left nothing for the baking land below.

  “You know,” I told Reika, who rode beside me, “Denebria's as close to Earth as any planet I've ever been on, but damn, those could be the San Juan Mountains of my home state.”

  “Colorado?”

  I nodded, tapped Asil's sides and we started forward. Huff trotted beside me, dragging his wheeled left leg.

  “You doing OK, Huff?” I asked him.

  “I would do better without the whatchamacallit on my leg. I think I lost my fur.”

  “The whatchamacallit?”

  “I asked Chancey what do you call it.”

  “And he said a whatchamacallit, right?”

  “I would be in joy to take off the whatchamacallit, Jules.”

  One of these days, Chancey and I were going to have it out.

  “Now, Huff,” I said, “We agreed. A few more days.”

  “I will have no fur in more days. It is behind me as I walk.”

  I reached down and patted his back. “You'll grow new fur, even whiter.”

  He mumbled something.

  My ankle had healed with doc's pain-healing pills and the scrapes on my palms were almost gone.”

  I watched cloud shadows undulate like dark mats across lime-green meadows dotted with horses, or maybe those were native wild animals. Forests of conifers clung to the mountains' rocky flanks. Below, a silver stream splashed over rocks as it meandered across the plain, a gift from the peaks, with crowds of yellow flowers hugging its banks. Ponds and lakes appeared as we rode, like Cyclops's eyes that stared at an indigo sky.

  All this, I thought, and the Denebs of the Northwestern Village still made a pact with the devils for whatever trinkets they offered. Blood for trinkets!

  “Jules?”

  “Yeah, Ree?”

  “What're you thinking, babes? You look troubled.”

  I shook my head. “Wherever you go in the known worlds, Greed still kicks butt.”

  “Maybe the average villager doesn't know what's going on. It wouldn't be the first time.”

  “Or doesn't want to know, as long as the trinkets keep flowing.”

  She smiled, wrinkling the olive skin around her full lips. “If we're successful in our mission, the flowing trinkets will come to a sudden stop. And so will the slave trade.”

  “Let's hope, Ree. Let's hope.”

  We continued across the open plains toward a cliff with tumbled boulders at the base. The late afternoon sun grew hot on my neck. My sweater stuck to me and I felt sweat trickle down my back. Asil was lathered. But the team had agreed to rest where the boulders would provide shade and protection from air surveillance. Once, in the early morning light, the sun had glinted off the silver hull of a BEM ship heading northwest. But it was too high to see us and before we could react, it was gone over a butte.

  I wiped an arm across my face. I wouldn't be sorry to leave the desert behind and start the climb into cool mountain air, where we could wash off the blowing sand and the sweat. I patted Asil's shoulder and wondered if he also looked forward to a good washing down. Reika patted her sorrel's neck.

  “What was it like where you grew up, Ree?”

  “Mostly I grew up in a boarding school. My parents were too busy partying to pay much attention to me.” She shrugged. “They never wanted kids. During weekends, I'd watch the other kids run to their parents and get into ground cars and leave for the weekend.”

  “They didn't visit you?”

  “On holidays, when the casinos were closed and their friends were with families.”

  “I'm sorry, Ree.”

  “Oh, don't be, babes. I have more family in the military than I ever had at home. And I get to see the worlds.” She turned in the saddle. “Joe told me that you were an orphan.”

  I bit my lip and stared at the peaks. Some of them could have been The Three Sisters, where Ginny died. “Yeah, me and my sister. We got shuffled around a lot, from one foster home to another.”

  “You mean nobody wanted to adopt you? You should've smiled.”

  “Ginny…Ginny was a good kid. She never asked for much. But I was pretty wild. A real pain in the ass.”

  “Ah, you wild, babes? Now I can't believe that.”

  I thought of the hornet cub I'd been flying as a teenager over the Three Sisters Peaks with Ginny beside me, when I went to heights I shouldn't have, got flipped by a thermal and crashed the cub. I wish I'd died instead of Ginny.

  “I can see you don't want to talk about your nondescript youth,” Reika said.

  “I try to forget it, but it doesn't work.”

  * * *

  The next morning, we washed, shaved, except for Reika and Huff, scrubbed our hair clean, shook our clothes free of sand, rubbed down our horses and, well rested, we faced the day, and the outskirts of Northwestern Village, where ranch houses of stone and wood had ground and air craft parked in driveways, and farm machinery on wheels. The BEMs paid handsomely for slaves, delivered washed and fattened for the great meat grinder they called Bountiful.

  “I wonder why they didn't use carts with wheels to cross the desert,” I said to Joe as we rode by a farm.

  “I'd say to keep up the disguise that they weren't the BEMs' puppets. Good for raiding nomadic groups and gathering slaves.”

  Three Deneb field workers paused in the fields as we rode by and waved. We waved back. “I wonder if they think we're with the BEMs?” Ree said.

  “By now,” Joe told her, “the whole village probably figures we're with the BEMs. Unless…”

  “Unless,” I said, “that craft we saw go by landed at the village and told them we're the enemy.”

  Joe nodded. “Unless that.”

  “Joe,” I said, “the message I sent you on the link from the BEM field about the SPS was in Terran. The BEMs couldn't have translated it.”

  “They're not stupid, kid. They know you're a telepath. They might work on the assumption that we already know the SPS is at the village.�
�

  “Then why didn't they try to stop us in the desert?” Reika asked.

  “It's a big desert,” Joe said. “They're only an advance unit. They just might be waiting for us to find them.

  * * *

  “We'll leave the horses with Huff at the edge of the village,” Joe said as we sat under pine trees and ate supper.

  Huff whined.

  “You can't come in with us,” Joe told him. “Your fur is a dead giveaway. Jules?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You say it's easier to mind and get info when the subject's asleep. Is that right?”

  “Much easier.” I nodded. “Their defenses are down.”

  “OK. Then we go in at night. If we're separated, we meet with Huff.” He studied Huff, who was eating his dinner of lard and eyeball cakes. “Can I trust you to just stay with the horses and not go off to search for insects?”

  Huff looked up. “I would rather stay with my Terran Jules friend.”

  Joe glanced at me.

  “Huff,” I said, “you can help me a lot more if you just stay with the horses and keep them ready for a quick getaway.”

  He stopped chewing and whined again.

  “I mean,” I said, “if we need it.”

  He put down a lard cake. “I think I have eaten enough.”

  I got up and went to sit beside him. “This is what we came to do, buddy.” I scratched his shoulder.

  He nodded. “You will not be reckless?”

  “I'll be careful, Huff.”

  Joe slid me a look.

  Chancey laughed harshly and picked up a piece of cornbread. “Hey, Reika, baby, how about next time you hold the maple syrup in these things?”

  “I got the recipe from Bat,” she said. “It's a southern dish.”

  “Man,” Chancey said to Bat, “you don't put no maple syrup on no bread!”

  Bat grinned and pushed back his cap. “You do if you grew up in my neck of the woods.”

  Chancey broke open the cornbread. “An' what's this green shit!”

  “It's chili.” Reika chuckled. “Chock full of vitamin C.”

  Wolfie shifted on the log he sat on. “If we have to get out fast, we meet here, Captain?”

  Joe nodded. “If we're overrun here, meet at the boulders on the bottom of the cliff. Jules, if we're separated and you locate the SPS, do your damnedest to get a message off to Alpha about the BEM invasion and their home planet.”

  I nodded. “And if we link up, we talk in Terran?”

  “Absolutely,” Joe said. “Huff? You speak Terran?”

  “I speak Terran and the five languages of Kresthaven.” He popped an eyeball into his mouth. “And Stelspeak and Altairian.”

  Reika grimaced and looked away.

  “All right.” Joe lifted his brows.

  I smiled and rubbed Huff's back.

  * * *

  Night came, turning green conifers into black hulks against wind-driven clouds that played like silver-lined capes across the two moons.

  Asil threw back his head and neighed at a throaty growl from deep within the heavy woods. Night hunters. I patted his neck.

  We broke into a clearing. Ahead lay the pool of glimmering lights that was the Northwestern Village.

  Chancey rode on my right side, having nudged Huff out of the way. Joe asked Reika to ride behind with Wolfie, Bat, and Huff, and flanked me on the left. The wind carried a babble of voices up to us, and the whine of air and ground vehicles.

  “Enjoying the hell outta what the BEMs gave them,” Chancey commented. “Mardi Gras time.”

  “Just the distraction we need to sneak into town,” Joe said.

  Asil slipped on the rocky, downward slope and caught himself as we moved ahead.

  “We'll dismount here and leave the horses,” Joe told us when we reached the dark outskirts of town.

  The main street was lit up like a Las Vegas strip, ablaze with lights that shone from street lamps, and from flood lamps that ripped away the darkness as they swung in swathes of garish light. Buildings seemed to exude their own light. Ground and air vehicles swooped along the road and whined into the night sky. Cacophonous music of nails rattling inside metal drums blasted the night. The village was a den carved out of mute forest where no night bird dared to linger with a gentle song. No hunter prowled for his meal among the milling crowds, dressed in outlandish furs and colored feathers. A few Denebs lay sprawled in the street, empty bottles beside them. All this, the BEMs had brought to Northwestern Village, and taken away their souls.

  We left the horses with Huff.

  Bat untied his backpack and slipped into it. “My med kit,” he said.

  The team moved cautiously through a narrow dark alley of stone walls. We slipped into an unlit warehouse and watched the street from behind dusty windows. The BEMs had even brought them glass.

  “I wonder if it's like this every night?” Reika mused.

  I shook my head. “They've got to sleep some time.” It's what I waited for before attempting a mindlink.

  “But maybe not tonight,” Joe said. “Looks like some kind of a celebration.”

  Suddenly, the crowd grew hushed and moved to the sidewalks, leaving a path in the road. A tall male grabbed a drunken woman and dragged her with him to the sidewalk.

  “Now what the fuck are they up to?” Chancey said.

  “Watch out!” Wolfie stepped back from the window.

  The rest of us moved away as three BEMs, dressed in high black hats, came down the middle of the road. The one in front was mounted. He kept a tentacle crossed on his furry chest in a gesture like a salute. Another tentacle rested on a beam weapon holstered at his side. The two BEMs behind him half dragged a naked Denebrian with bowed head and cuts on his back that still dripped blood.

  “I think they whipped him,” I said.

  Bat shook his head. “Sure don't like the looks of this.”

  The mounted BEM reined in his horse and gazed at the crowd with those large yellow eyes. The Deneb cried out as the other two threw him to the ground. I realized his hands were tied behind him. He tried to get up and a BEM pushed him back down with a tentacle. He fell into the dirt and I heard his sobs through the glass window.

  “I don't think I want to watch,” Reika said as the mounted BEM unholstered his beam weapon.

  I held her with her back to the window and her face buried against my chest. But I wasn't sure I wanted to see it either.

  “My cousins,” the mounted BEM called while his horse, frightened by the crowd, pranced sideways, “you see before you a miscreant from the South Village. One of the cousins you brought to our compound for re-education. While our instructors endeavored to teach him progressive methods of farming so that he could feed his people, he threw it back in our faces and ran away, uncaring of his obligation to his cousins in the South Village.”

  “It's not true!” the Deneb rasped. “They kill us for food!”

  One of the BEMs lashed him with a tentacle. The Deneb screamed.

  “Do you see how demented he has become?” The mounted Deneb studied the crowd. He lifted his blubbery lips and exposed bone plates. “Are these the teeth of a meat eater? We are gentle vegetarians, my cousins, as are the Denebrian people.”

  “Don't believe him!” the Deneb screeched. “They feed us to –“

  One of the BEMs kicked him in the stomach with a muscular tentacle.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “The Denebs don't know what happens to the people they sell to the BEMs.”

  “Our First Commandment,” the mounted BEM told the crowd, “is to serve our fellow cousins on Denebria.”

  “Mother fucker,” Chancey breathed. “Yeah, with ketchup.”

  “This miscreant is a bad seed in the barrel,” the mounted BEM said loudly. “If we allow him to continue, he will ruin the entire crop!”

  The crowd murmured.

  “Weeds must be destroyed!” the BEM said. “Remember what you see here tonight, cousins, and keep the furrows of you
r minds true to the First Commandment, lest you also be pulled like a weed in the field.”

  “Oh, no,” I whispered as he pointed his weapon at the Deneb.

  A steady blue beam flashed on and struck the Deneb's neck. He screamed the worst scream I've ever heard as a BEM held him down with two tentacles and the hot beam began to bore through his neck. Smoke rose from his burning flesh. The music stopped. The crowd was silent. His screams alone pierced the deep stillness surrounding the village.

  “Oh, God,” I said, my voice shaking. “Kill him quickly.”

  But that was not to be as singed flesh glowed red.

  “Great Mind!” I realized I was squeezing Reika tightly and loosened my grip.

  “Jesus and Mary,” Joe whispered.

  Bat stood hunched, his hands pressed over his ears, his eyes squeezed shut.

  “Those mother fuckers,” Chancey said with his lips drawn back.

  Only Wolfie watched silently, without expression.

  Finally the screams died. The Deneb lay motionless.

  I let go of Reika and slid to the floor with my head in my hands. Reika moved toward me, but Joe grabbed her arm. “Leave him alone, Ree. Let him help the dying man.”

  Cousin, I sent. Your pain is over now. They can't hurt you anymore.

  I felt his kwaii squeeze out of his tormented body with a mental cry.

  It's over, I sent. They can't hurt you here.

  What? Where am I? Great Lord. Help me!

  You are being helped, my friend. Here there is only peace. Great Mind?

  Is it truly over, the Deneb sent. Lord. Is it over?

  Fear not, my cousin, I sent.

  Then I felt His touch. Take him, Great Mind.

  I am being called, the Deneb's kwaii sent. I am being called.

  I felt a sense of peace radiate from his kwaii. Go in peace.

  The all-consuming love I felt from Great Mind touched me and I drifted toward it. He gently nudged me aside and I felt humor in His essence. Not yet, he sent.

  My shock went deep. I had never received a send from Him. All right. I withdrew back into my physical being. All right.

  Tears ran down my face. My hands trembled. There was a ringing in my ears. My shoulders shook with sobs. I realized that my friends were all around me. Joe sat beside me and held me.