by Bethany Aan
Visits to the falls and lake became a frequent occurrence. Unless the weather was stormy, a few groups at a time went to cool off and relax in the darkness of the waterfall’s cave once or twice a week. Some of the girls who hadn’t signed up for the duty roster wanted to go every day, but their men wouldn’t allow it, simply because it would take too much time from the necessary chores and construction that needed to happen before winter set in, especially with a refugee ship coming in. Though it was hard to imagine the epic snowfalls and bitter cold that the men spoke of when she was sweating through two or three outfits a day, Arianna acknowledged that the men would know best, in this case, what needed to be done. She encouraged the idle women to sew more summer-like clothing, which they did, but it wasn’t enough. When some of the girls threatened to simply go without an escort, Arianna snapped and called a meeting.
“Look,” she snarled once all the women were gathered in the courtyard. “It’s hot, yes. And some of you don’t seem to have anything better to do than sit around and moan about it. But we’ve been here for almost three months now, most of us are settling in nicely, and while it’s wonderful that the guys are taking care of us, some of you need to get serious about our circumstances. We are marooned here, though ‘here’’ is turning out to be a damn sight better than Earth, in my opinion.”
She threw a helpless grin at Hunter and Jace, who’d joined her to lend support to her meeting, though they had promised not to speak up unless it looked like they needed to. Arianna was a bit peeved that even alien men held more sway in some of these young women’s minds than she did, but whatever. At her grin, Hunter’s eyes warmed and the lines at their corners deepened ever so slightly. Jace rolled his eyes at their exchange, but grinned as well. The dimples at the corners of his smile made her heart speed up a bit, as always. Between the two of them, she was melting, but not from the heat. She was such a sucker for laugh lines and dimples.
“The bottom line,” she said, turning back to the ladies, “Is that those who aren’t already doing something need to start helping out a bit more. If we do that, perhaps the guys will see that they don’t have to do all the work all the time, and will be more willing to take time off when we want them to go swimming or just to relax a little.”
“But what can we do?” Amy asked with a sneer, shaking off Rian’s cautioning hand. “I was in college for hotel management and entertainment. Not a lot of call for that here. I’m certainly not going to dig in the garden like some Mexican immigrant.”
Arianna sucked in her breath at the racial slur, even as one of the other girls smacked Amy none too gently upside the head. She would have retaliated, but two of her men were with her and each grabbed an arm to keep her from flying at Christy. One word from Rian and Amy’s face paled and she quieted.
“I happen to like gardening,” Chelsea snapped at Amy. “And those Mexicans make it possible for us to afford to eat healthy back home. So shut your hole.”
“One,” Ri bit out, “We are the immigrants here, so maybe you ought to think about who is doing the gardening and hunting and be thankful. Two… maybe we should institute rules addressing folks who don’t do the work. Perhaps they shouldn’t share in the spoils.”
The girls who constantly contributed to the compound murmured assent to that and Arianna felt Hunter’s warm approval bolstering her. Straightening her spine, she nodded once. “Yes, I think that’s fair. Hunter? What would you suggest as a way of keeping track?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, stepping to her side. “In our society, only the very young, the very old, or the injured or infirm are excused from the work that benefits the community. We never had to keep track, because our children are raised knowing what they need to do, and that they need to help out if everyone is to be taken care of. Also, with everyone helping, there is less work to do, so we tend to share the work, get it done, and then enjoy our rest time without worry.”
“Many hands make light work,” Ri said softly, nodding at him. He thought about it, then grinned and nodded. “Right. So, unless you have a good reason not to be helping, I suggest you all learn a skill or three.”
“I can’t really bend a lot to work in the gardens,” Kim said, reminding Ri of the issues she’d had with her back since early childhood. Arianna cocked her head to the side, then shrugged.
“You’re already a vital part of the medical team, so you don’t need to do much else beyond that. But if you want to do something else… you like spinning and weaving, don’t you?” she asked. Kim nodded eagerly. “Those are necessary tasks, as well. I think what we should do is sit down with the men, find out exactly what it was that the women did in their society, how they contributed if they didn’t have kids to look after, and then come up with a plan based on their needs and expectations and our own abilities. Does that sound fair? And this measure is just for those who haven’t found a ‘job’ already. If you’re helping out, none of this applies to you.”
The women nodded, murmuring among themselves and Arianna sighed and released them from the meeting. She then turned to Hunter and Jace, relaxing when it was just the three of them once more. Not too far away, Bev, Trey, and Rom were talking. Arianna knew she had no worries there. Bev had already proved invaluable to the entire group, helping to expand the database and interpret items that the men’s computers couldn’t translate. Most of the women had begun helping out more around the compound, just out of sheer boredom, but there were still enough girls that were at loose ends and capable of making trouble for everyone else if they weren’t given a job to occupy them.
“Your ladies are adapting rather well, to be honest,” Hunter observed, watching the various family groups gathering together to discuss what had happened at the women’s meeting.
“They are,” Arianna said proudly, “But believe me. I know girls this age back on Earth. They have become rather demanding and expectant of certain freedoms. Some of these girls just don’t understand what we need to do here, and I’m afraid that they are going to have to learn the hard way that they’re not on Earth anymore.”
“Their men will help them,” Jace pointed out. “We have waited so long for companions, our men will be much more patient than I think they would back on Thorsan. Your people are still exotic enough to us that the men are somewhat dazzled by you.”
Arianna made a rude noise, scoffing at the thought of being dazzling to anyone. Hunter, sensing her self-doubt, captured her around the waist and, before she realized what he was doing, had her backed up against a nearby tree, pinned there by his body. His mouth crashed down on hers with the passion that never seemed to ebb. She made a startled sound deep in her throat. It changed to a happy moan as he deepened the kiss and pressed his hips to her belly, showing her just how much he wanted her.
When he stopped kissing her, he had to hold her up for a minute, since her bones had liquefied and didn’t want to support her. Jace was chuckling beside them, leaning easily against the tree, caging her on the left as Hunter pressed in from the right. Instead of feeling trapped by them, she felt safe and loved. She grinned up at them, happiness shining in her eyes.
“Okay, so I’m dazzling,” she laughed, letting her head fall forward until her cheek rested against Hunter’s chest. Beside her, Jace reached up to trace a path down her cheek and the side of her neck with the backs of his fingers. She shivered in delight as his touch whispered over her collarbone, lingering just long enough to make her want more.
Shaking herself, recalling that they were in the middle of the courtyard, in the middle of the day, she chuckled and shook her head.
“You guys spoil me,” she said, kissing first Hunter’s chest, then Jace’s hand. “I hope you never stop.”
“We don’t intend to,” Jace assured her softly, leaning down to steal a kiss from her lips before straightening back up. “But, I need to go check on a few things in medical. I hate to leave, but we’ll talk more about the tasks the bored women could be doing when I get home tonight.”
“I found some plants that I thought you might want to test for your fiber experiments,” he told her, smiling down at her. “A few of the specialty teams will accompany us to the areas I’ve found, and will help us gather and retrieve any specimens you decide you’d like to try.”
“Oh, Hunter!” she breathed, hugging his waist and bouncing excitedly. “That’s wonderful! Where?”
He laughed at her eagerness as they joined the small group of men and women that Hunter had asked to accompany their leaders on the expedition. With very little fuss, they were soon on their way. The men were, as usual, walking on the outskirts of the group, with one warrior beside his woman and her other team members nearby, on the perimeter of the line. Three men protected Hunter… one on either side, one behind, since he was in the lead.
Arianna’s feminist side knew that she should be affronted because the men saw the need to protect the women, but on the other hand, she felt safe and protected, more than she had at any point back on Earth, where it seemed women were expected to take care of themselves at all times. She admitted once more that Hunter’s society seemed so much more inclusive. They took care of one another, were ready at any point to step in and help where needed, and they cross-trained in a number of areas, always willing to learn something new, so that they would be prepared for nearly anything.
The group walked for awhile, following Hunter’s lead, the women quietly talking among themselves but not bothering the men who were guarding them. After about half an hour of strolling through the woods, the group broke through an area of underbrush and onto the banks of a river. The water was wild and rushing, boiling over the rocks in its path, and Arianna heard a few squeals of delight from girls who had been drawn to her mountain college town as much for the recreational options as for education. She grinned as those women surged forward to inspect the river, listened to them talking about kayaking or rafting, but tuned them out as they began going into detail about these sports to their men, who seemed genuinely interested in their excitement.
“These are the plants I was referring to, in this location,” Hunter said, taking Ri’s hand and drawing her to the right, along the marshy ground leading to the water’s edge. This was no lapping lake with beaches on either side, but a river that moved swiftly enough to cut the banks as it went. Here, the water was at least two feet deep right off the edge of the bank, but in the marsh grew tall, stringy plants. Before she touched them, though, she looked at Hunter pointedly, then at his scanner. He grinned lopsidedly at her. “I have already tested them, little one. These should not harm you.”
But he took out his ever-present epi-shot, holding it at the ready… just in case. Her laughter mixed with the sounds of the river, charming Hunter to his marrow. Grinning, he put the shot away. She knelt by his side as he cut one of the stalks and passed it to her. She detected a sweet smell and brought the cut end to her nose, sniffing deeply.
“Wow! It smells so sweet… almost like honey or something.” Before Hunter could warn her, she darted her tongue out and captured a bit of the sap from the plant’s stalk. She grinned hugely at him, her eyes widening in delight. “It’s like sugar cane, almost!”
Of course, she had to explain that to him, then, but her discovery was communicated to the girls, and before long, they were all happily sucking on the sweet stalks. A few of the men were watching their ladies rather avidly as the girls licked and sucked the sweet juices. Hunter was one of them, and when Arianna picked up on his sudden amorous vibe, she grinned up at him around the thick stalk in her mouth. He sucked in a harsh breath and sent her an image of her mouth around his stalk, looking at him exactly the way she was now. Her breath caught at the erotic image and she grinned wider, her eyes narrowing as she trailed her tongue up the stalk, circled the cut end delicately with her little pink tongue, then lapped at the sweet liquid as it continued to well up through the straw-like channels of the plant.
Hunter’s growl warned her that she needed to pay more attention to the task at hand, but she noticed that many of the men were cutting extra stalks of the stuff and wrapping bits of cloth around the cut ends to keep the liquid from being lost.
“Woman, you would tempt one of your priests with such suggestive behavior,” Hunter murmured to her, sending a wonderful little shiver over her. Then he smacked her butt, startling an indignant yelp out of her. “But we are here for a reason. Back to work, woman!”
She chuckled at him and moved back toward dry ground, sitting down for a few moments to study the fibrous plant.
“Well, it’s certainly sweet,” she pointed out, “Which might mean having another natural sweetener for our foods. We’re used to being able to make cakes and cookies and other desserts, but you guys don’t seem to have stuff like that.”
“We did not know of these plants,” Hunter shrugged. “We had such delicacies back on our world, of course, but since landing here, we have become used to not having sweets unless they were fruit. Without being able to create leavened bread suitable for such delicacies, we weren’t motivated to try. This is, indeed, a find, though I would like to caution you not to take such chances again as tasting something like that without extensive testing first!”
She grinned unrepentantly at him.
“You wouldn’t have let me touch it at all if you thought it would hurt me,” she pointed out softly. “So relax. At most, it might have made me a little ill or something, but I wasn’t afraid it would actually do much damage. Now sit down and chill.”
He sat down to ‘chill’.
“Okay, so it’s a sweetener, which rocks. It also seems really fibrous, so we need to take some back to the compound, allow it to dry and see what happens. We might need to process it somehow, if it dries out too much, but I think that it has possibilities.”
“So it is a good find?” Hunter asked. She sensed that he was unsure about whether or not it pleased her, as far as the fiber aspect was concerned. She dropped the stalk, took his face between her hands, and swung herself over him so that she was sitting astride his thighs, her arms locked around his neck. He looked startled, but she felt his pleasure as she leaned down and kissed him with all the enthusiasm that the double-find had raised in her.
For the rest of the afternoon, Hunter led them to various parts of the forest, moving further from the compound until they were at the last patch of vegetation he had found. He was bent down, cutting some samples for her to inspect, and the rest of the group was chattering happily, some still sucking on the ‘sugar cane’ stems, when Arianna sensed something close by. Her head came up, her mind casting about for the source of the energy.
Hunter also felt it. He sprang to his feet and as one, he and Ri turned to the west, their Reader senses on high alert as they sought the source of the new thoughts and emotions. Arianna was barely aware that the group had gone silent the moment she and Hunter had stiffened and turned, and that several of the men were now surrounding them as she and Hunter mentally probed the forest in search of the new threat. The men had their weapons drawn and she sensed that the women were grouped once more in the center of a circle of warriors. Secure in the knowledge of being protected, Ri closed her eyes, took Hunter’s hand, and reached out with her mind, taking Hunter with her.
Between them, power swelled and expanded out past the group, through the trees and underbrush. Their minds passed the various non-sentient creatures that were native to this world, seeking the source of the tumultuous thoughts that had alerted them to begin with.
When they found the creatures, it was a shock. The creature was furred, tall, but hunched slightly. Spines bristled from the long backs, and tails tipped with more of the spines swished in agitation. They had four eyes each, almost like spiders, and long, very long front arms or legs. As Ri watc
hed, one of the females used a long forearm to sweep up four of her young and scurry away from Arianna’s probing mind.
Another of the creatures stood before the cave’s entrance, its head up as it reached out to meet Ri’s mental touch. The brain power of the beast was incredible. Ri felt it but did not intrude into the thing’s psyche. The thoughts were alien, but Ri and Hunter were able to pick up on ideas and images. The creatures had a complex hierarchy, were already forming rudimentary written language, had discovered music, and the one Ri was contacting seemed to be the historian. The creature did not automatically attack, but kept its mind open, though Arianna sensed that the moment she made any sort of aggressive move, the thing would shut down or attack.
Beside her, Hunter was having a similar experience, though with the alpha of the pack. She could barely sense what he was feeling, but they quickly learned that the humanoid group was very close to the hunting area of the creature and its ‘pack’. There were many young, as well, and the mothers of the pack were, understandably, irritated and bristling at the intrusion into their area. It seemed to be the same mind-touch that she had felt back at the lake. The creatures were sentient…… just alien.
Beside her, Arianna sensed Hunter gesturing to his men. He kept hold of her hand, kept them connected, as she reassured the creature gently that they meant no harm, and that they would leave the area immediately. She even added a thought that if one of their ‘people’ would escort the Thorsani/human contingent to the edge of the creatures’ territory, they would mark the spot so that future hunting parties didn’t accidentally wander too close.
