Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  If Latvik can do it with a broken arm, I can do it. Andi nodded firmly to herself, walking after the men toward her assigned boat.

  Getting the first raft into the river and holding it steady was a tricky chore. She stayed at a safe distance, biting her tongue against offering unnecessary advice. The current, even this close to shore, sucked at the boat. Mitch came close to falling into the river without the raft at one point, Tom jerking him to safety.

  Abukawal took Sadu and, working with the sergeant, managed to lash the toddler in his carrier in the center of the heaving raft. Popping his thumb in his mouth, Sadu gazed around with wide-eyed interest, seeming undismayed by this new experience. Lysanda was next. She entered the raft without much protest, Abukawal addressing her in the sweetest of tones, coaxing her to sit next to Sadu as if this was some special treat arranged just for her today.

  As soon as the first raft was loaded, Latvik slashed the sturdy tether keeping the boat snubbed to the beach. Eyes narrowed, holding her breath, hands clenched on the straps of her backpack, Andi observed the process, trying to figure out how to ride safely in her boat, when it was launched into the wild river.

  To her surprise, watching Mitch’s raft, the ride was deceptively slow at first, until the current grabbed hold and jerked the boat toward the main channel, bobbing and bouncing in the swirling waters. From her vantage point still safely on the beach, Andi saw Mitch straining to remain in control of his craft. Then the boat was gone, swept out of sight around the next bend in the river.

  This is going to be a wild ride. Andi took deep, calming breaths. Her stomach churned as she thought about being whirled helplessly in the midst of the turbulent river.

  She jumped as Tom touched her shoulder, saying, “No help for it—let’s get our boat launched. Don’t want to get too far behind the others.” He had his eyes focused on the center of the torrent.

  It was a struggle for Tom and Rahuna to maneuver the raft into the water. Andi helped as best she could, holding onto one of the ropes and struggling not to let the current rip the hawser away from her. The ground still trembled, with occasional violent spasms. Andi and Tom exchanged glances after one loud rumble. Unnerved by the bobbing of the raft, she clutched at him when he helped her step over the side. He kept his grip on her arm but pointed to the seat he wanted her to occupy. “Take the middle position. It’ll be safer.”

  She looked over at Latvik, still on shore. “He’s got the broken arm. Let him have the center.”

  “Now is not the time to argue with me. Get in the center seat.” Tom’s voice was low and sharp, his face set in grim lines.

  She sat where ordered, clutching at the sides of the narrow raft for dear life. Latvik clambered aboard, followed by Rahuna. Working as a team, Andi and the cleric lashed gear Tom had decided was essential into place. When he’d seen the last item securely stowed, the captain stepped into the boat, slicing his combat knife through the tether in one smooth motion. He half fell into place in the stern, against the propulsion unit, as the current grabbed the raft and sent it twirling on its way.

  Stark terror assaulted Andi as their boat left the beach. Despite Tom’s best efforts with the motor to keep the boat pointing ahead in the center of the river, the raft kept spinning like a top. Vertigo swept over Andi.

  The river pushed the boat into crazy detours, catching it in rip currents and eddies before throwing it back to the main channel. Tom had to make split-second judgments about which side of the river to take and where to attack each set of rapids. During several stretches, their speed increased dramatically, and the boat flew above the river, before crashing into the water, drenching them. Each time, the jolt of cold water across Andi’s body came as a shock, like a slap.

  Once in a while she caught a glimpse of the other boat, way ahead of them on the Chikeeri. Gut twisting with worry, Andi tried to count the heads in the bobbing, plunging raft.

  For the most part, she concentrated on hanging onto the boat and shaking the water out of her eyes after each wave.

  The sound of the river was immense, deafening. Fifteen-foot waves reared up in spots, crashing against boulders too massive for the river to tear loose. Then came another of those terrifying, out of control slides down a chute, the raft turning sideways despite Tom’s frantic efforts to steer.

  “Rocks, watch out!” Latvik yelled from his vantage point more toward the bow.

  His voice was the last thing she heard before Andi flew through the air. Gasping reflexively at the shock as she landed in the frigid river, she took an inadvertent, choking gulp of water. Going all the way under, Andi panicked, thrashing, unable to tell which way was up in the churning water, unable to move her arms, her feet. I can’t breathe. Everything she tried was useless. Like any other piece of flotsam, the current controlled her.

  As she was pulled through the calmer waters after the end of the slide, Andi managed to surface for one huge breath of air, before she was shunted into some rocks. The painful collision stunned her, knocking most of the air out of her lungs. Grasping at the boulders with enough desperation to tear her nails, Andi could only win a moment’s freedom from the river’s plans for her. Rocks covered with a slimy funguslike growth defeated her attempts to find handholds. The pain in her hands was a distant thing, not important as she fought to live. Can’t hang on, nothing to grab.

  Slipping down the side of the boulders, she was on her way again, bobbing in the freezing water for a minute or two, then spinning around, dragged under, held, released to grab a precious breath, pummeled by branches and other debris caught in the river’s inexorable grip. Andi heard shouts behind her. But there’s nothing anyone can do to help. He’d said so.

  Smoother water over a sandbar gave her hope for a second, but her legs were too weak to hold against the current. She spun violently into an eddy, and a submerged brush dragged her under, wrapping itself around her body. Andi fought to kick her way clear, holding her breath as long as she could.

  At the last second, as her lungs were ready to burst from her chest, the patch of brush tore loose from its roots. Andi shot to the surface. Air, thank the Lords.

  Her arms were slabs of stone, impossible to lift. So cold. So freezing cold. Her vision in the brief seconds above the waves dimmed. She’d swallowed a lot of the icy water, trying to breathe in the few chances she’d gotten. But the cruel currents always dragged her under again. Damn it. The river isn’t giving me a fair chance—not any chance—to fight back and survive. Blinding pain burst in her head as she struck something submerged in the river. Tom, I love you. I wish we’d had more time—

  Chapter Seven

  Sand, gritty, cold, damp under her left cheek. Voices saying angry things above her head. Hands pulling and poking at her.

  Leave me alone, she tried to say, but her voice was a husky rasp with no power to communicate.

  As she was sinking back into unconsciousness, a cascade of cold water crashed over her. Am I still in the river? Panicking, struggling to rise, she screamed, a hoarse croaking voice all she had. Coarse, male laughter sounded all around her. Am I hallucinating?

  Hands grabbed at her arms, bringing her to her feet, holding her upright as her legs buckled. She leaned over and vomited up a great gush of river water. Cursing, disgusted, the men let her fall to the sand while she retched. When there was no more water left in her stomach, Andi curled into a fetal position, protecting her aching guts. “Please, just leave me alone. Let me die in peace.”

  “The river spirits dropped you on our beach alive, outworlder bitch. Therefore, you’re to be used for our purposes.” The harshly exulting stranger spoke the Naranti dialect. “Get her up. Keep her on her feet this time.”

  Rough hands seized her elbows and shoulders, hauling Andi to a standing position as she swayed, weak in the knees. She realized she was barefoot, sandals lost in the river.

  Exerting supreme effort, she opened her eyes to find a Naranti man standing right in front of her. Two other men held her, and a gro
up of six more surrounded her on a strip of silvery beach at a bend in the river.

  “Let me go, please.” Andi blinked, shook her head to clear the fog. Her vision was going dark again at the periphery. “I need help…”

  “You need help all right.” The Naranti rebel facing her spat into the sand by her feet. “You and all your outworlder kind. We’ll take Zulaire back and throw you and the Obati into the fires of the sacrificial cauldrons. We’ll enslave the Shenti and force them to do what we command.”

  I was better off drowning in the damn river than being captured by the rebels. The realization sent fear knifing through her body, dispelling the faintness.

  “Enough conversation, bitch.” The man walked away, calling over his shoulder, “Bring her. Our leader will be pleased at what the river has given us today.”

  After Andi had gone about three steps, wobbling like a drunken trooper, one of her captors scooped her up with a curse and carried her, slung over his shoulder like a sack of zinbital leaves. He trudged up a small hill from the tiny beach. Andi checked as best she could from her awkward vantage point, but there was no sign of anyone else from her party having washed up on the sand with her. I’m on my own, but at least no one else is going to be a prisoner.

  After crossing the hill’s summit, her captors made good time on a dusty trail, soon reaching a small village. The man set Andi on her feet at the edge of the dwellings, telling her to walk now or else. Exerting all her willpower, Andi managed to keep up with the men on either side of her.

  The village lay deserted except for a sizable throng of armed Naranti. The fighters crowded around, bumping into her, calling out lewd suggestions, asking questions of the patrol that had captured her. The leader of her little procession ignored all distractions, heading straight for a house at the far edge of the town.

  Taking quick glances, Andi realized this settlement had suffered something similar to the fate of the one she’d been in on their first day after the massacre. A number of the houses were burned. There were no bodies, so she hoped the residents of this place had received warning in time to escape.

  Leading her to the porch of the most imposing house, the squad leader grabbed Andi’s wrist to pull her after him. “Wait here,” he instructed his companions over his shoulder. The other rebels stayed in the street, amusing themselves with more ribald suggestions for Andi’s eventual fate. Don’t listen to them, don’t hear the words, can’t let it affect me the way the men want it to. I’ve got to stay calm. If I’m going to get out of this alive, I have to be able to think.

  Dragging Andi across the porch, stumbling as she went, he flung open the door so he could make a grand entrance with his prisoner. “See what the spirits have cast up from the river, my leader.”

  A crowd of men turned to stare at her with varying degrees of annoyance, surprise, and disdain. She stood as straight and tall as she could, but her knees were still rubbery. Breathe, just concentrate on breathing right now.

  “See what I’ve brought.” Perhaps unsatisfied with his comrades’ lukewarm reaction, her captor yanked her forward another few steps, toward the heavy wooden table dominating the center of the room.

  The crowd shuffled apart. His back to them, a man was studying a sheaf of papers and maps laid out on the table. After a long minute, he directed his attention to her in a disinterested fashion.

  Iraku.

  Trying not to throw up again, Andi swayed and closed her eyes for a moment.

  Taking a moment to stack his files neatly, the Naranti elder left the table and swaggered over to her. He still had the insolent manner she remembered so well from her days at the Tonkiln estate.

  “Miss Markriss.” Iraku drew the syllables of her name out, obviously savoring the fact that she was his captive. “You survived the fire.”

  Anger burned through her dazed wits. “Too bad you found a way out, Iraku. You deserved to roast in the four hells for what you did to those poor, defenseless people.”

  Betraying absolutely no emotion, Iraku slapped Andi across the face, rocking her head back. She sank to her knees on the uneven wooden floor, cheek numb, eye socket aching from the force of the blow. Eyes watering, she tasted blood on her lips.

  Iraku seized her by the shoulders, leaning down to put his face level with hers as he shouted, “You know nothing of what I did, of what I am doing, for the good of Zulaire, for the honor of the Naranti Clan. Do not speak your ignorant outworlder thoughts to me, do you understand?” His long fingers dug into her upper arms so hard his nails broke her skin.

  Straightening as best she could, Andi kept her eyes lowered and nodded even as her skin crawled at his repulsive touch. Arguing with him right now isn’t going to keep me alive to fight another day.

  Releasing her, Iraku threw his arms out wide, inviting the others to share his good mood. He laughed and spun around in an impromptu dance. The crowd joined in his mirth, probably not comprehending what pleased their leader so much about a bedraggled outworlder female. “This, this is excellent. The prisoner will provide another key piece in the puzzle we weave for the stupid Shenti, arrogant Obati and their outworlder allies. You’ve done well, men. Tie her up and put her on the couch in the next room. Post a guard.” Iraku walked back to the table. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Gag her. Outworlders can be most persuasive, and this one talks entirely too much.”

  The men hauled her to her feet and tied her hands behind her back before taking her to the designated couch jammed into an alcove at the rear of the room. Forcing her to lie down, the guard made a mocking ceremony of adjusting a pillow under her head while Andi glared at him, cursing him and his descendants for the next ten generations in fluent Zulairian. The rebel—whom she recognized now as one of the servants from the Tonkiln household—took his belt off to bind her ankles tight before forcing his rolled-up bandanna into her mouth to serve as the gag. The taste and feel of the cloth made her retch. She struggled not to throw up, afraid of choking.

  Taking a position at the end of the couch, the former servant ignored her while he strained to hear the conversation going on at the big table.

  Andi lay on the stinking couch, trembling, ignoring her aches and pains. I have to figure out how to escape. Iraku obviously had some kind of plan for her. And I doubt I’m going to like it. To test the restraints, she flexed her arms. No slack, no chance she could get her hands free.

  The house filled with still more Naranti warriors. Weapons lay everywhere. Some men puffed on thin, rolled zinbital leaves. The intoxicating smoke filled the poorly ventilated room. Iraku remained the center of attention. Bits and pieces of the planning reached Andi, all about attacking more villages. From what she heard, the crowd seemed to be waiting expectantly for something or someone.

  Overcome by the zinbital smoke and exhausted from her ordeal in the river, she dozed off.

  When she jerked back to wakefulness, her chest was tight, every breath a challenge. Behind the gag her mouth had gone bone dry, and she’d lost the feeling in her hands. Her efforts to get more comfortable attracted the lax guard’s attention. Cursing, he checked her bonds, no doubt adding to her bruises in the process.

  Satisfied, he rolled her over onto her back again and returned to his post.

  At the roar of arriving vehicles, all the rebels in the room went quiet, glancing toward the door, shuffling their feet. The crowd moved back from the table at the center of the room. Only Iraku appeared unaffected by whatever was about to happen. The door crashed open and three or four new rebels swaggered in, followed by an offworld being. The latter glided across the floor in a sinuous series of moves. The upper half of its body was some hard, chitinous substance, adorned with inlaid symbols in gleaming gold. Protruding from its body at intervals, skinny brownish-red tentacles waved constantly in the air, expanding and contracting, turning this way and that. Sampling the scents? Listening, maybe? As a Loxton agent, Andi was used to working with nonhuman sentients and comfortable doing so, but this being was repellent. A
s she watched the newcomer move, she realized her visceral reaction was as if she faced a venomous snake.

  Closing her eyes, Andi turned her head for a minute before deciding she’d be better off observing the situation. Lords of Space, that thing’s ugly. I’ve never seen anything like that, certainly not on Zulaire. Not even when I was offplanet at Loxton Academy. But if it’s not from the Sectors, can it be a Mawreg ally? Her heart skipped a beat. Or even a Mawreg itself?

  Andi stared in amazement as all the armed Naranti rebels in the room knelt, heads bowed, chanting something in a Clan dialect she didn’t recognize. She kept catching a muttered name—Kuzura. She’d seen representations of the ancestral spirits known as Kuzura on the ancient tablets in the capital city museum. But this thing was not Kuzura. I don’t think it can be a Mawreg, though. Humans aren’t supposed to be able to look directly at them without going into seizures.

  Short, wriggling red stalks grew like hair from the top of the creature’s body. All of the head tentacles turned as the being greeted Iraku in fluent Naranti. “You’ve done well, my son, succeeded beyond measure. The foolish ones went to ground in their capital city, afraid to venture out. The Obati and Shenti no longer trust each other. The strength of both Clans is sapped by mourning for those your forces killed.”

  Iraku didn’t kneel to the newcomer but stood with bowed head. “They beg my Clan to come and mediate, as we’ve always done before. A few more such raids, a few more mysterious slaughters, and the Naranti Clan will be given the powers over all, to solve their problems as we see fit.” Iraku’s excitement was so intense he actually spit as he gloated. “And this time we’ll never hand back the Tablets of Authority.”

  Moving independently, like a nest of baby snakes, the stubby, red tentacles leaned toward Iraku.

  Maybe that’s what it’s using to project its voice? Hard on the heels of Andi’s speculation, the being asked another question. “What of Rahuna?”