Woman's Work: Shikari Book Four

by Alma T. C. Boykin

  He blinked at her and had a second cup before answering. “No. We should be leaving within the next three weeks. The settlement has everything it needs and well underway with building permanent structures and lacks two more days before having a high-energy shield established.” He pointed to himself with the mug. “We are not planning to go any farther west than we did on that last scout, nor go out for as long. It should not get that cold before we leave.”

  Rigi decided to take his word as raede.

  The tips of a pair of ears poked out of the flap leading to Makana’s semi-detached shelter-tent. He must have decided to wait until Tomás was fully functional before officially making his presence known, Rigi guessed. Wise Makana. The rest of Makana followed the ears and he bowed. “Good morning, Makana,” Rigi acknowledged.

  “Good morning Sir, Mistress. Do you wish to eat here?”

  Tomás shook his head. “No. We will go to the human canteen, thank you.” Rigi put on proper boots and a heavy shawl as Tomás found his uniform jacket. Martinus paced beside her as they walked. They did not see many other humans about and only a handful of Staré. The Staré moved quickly, and Rigi realized that bare feet on the cold ground probably hurt. No wonder Tomás didn’t want Makana going out. Forgive me, please, for not thinking about Makana and Andat on the frozen ground, she prayed. I won’t do it again.

  One other couple sat at a table in the canteen. They looked at Tomás and Rigi as they came in, then seemed to draw away without actually doing so or saying anything. Rigi set her jaw and ignored them. She could be just as rude as anyone. She heard her mother’s voice gently scolding her from her memory, and squirmed a little inside, but did not change her demeanor. Instead she selected eggs, hot grain cereal, hot buns, and something orange and fruity-looking. The Staré serving the eggs added two sausages without her saying anything.

  Tomás selected a seat. She put her tray down, got them more tea, and sat as well. They said a quiet grace, then ate. The sausage tasted like the meat from the night before. She held up a slice on her fork, caught her husband’s eye, and winked. He studied the meat strips on his plate, smiled a little and winked back. They’d be eating from the beast-of-bones for a while, it seemed.

  They took their time. Only after a second full pot of tea did Tomás stand, offering Rigi his hand to stand as well. “You and Martinus go ahead. I need to speak with someone.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  To her surprise she found Makana and Andat both waiting for her. “Is there a difficulty?”

  “No, Mistress, and there will not be.” Andat puffed //agreement/determination,// and Rigi suddenly wondered what the Staré meeting had been about, and if it involved her and Tomás.

  She ought to check on Frisker, Rigi realized, and turned to go that direction. They’d gotten half-way to pen three when Andat hissed, his ears going sideways. Rigi looked to the right and saw a human staggering as if he’d tripped. He caught himself and continued on his way, parallel to her track. Rigi stayed alert, looking for trouble. Cold weather could make wombows excited, and she had no desire to be run over either by a run-away wombow or by a human in a vehicle trying to dodge a run-away wombow. Tomás would never let her forget such an undignified accident.

  She left Martinus with Andat while she and Makana checked on Slowth and Frisker. Slowth muttered, grumbled, and acted his usual self. Frisker seemed sluggish, and Rigi felt his flank, then took a deep breath. While Makana twisted Frisker's ear a little to distract him, she gently but firmly pulled open the wombow's lower jaw and peered at his teeth and tongue, then sniffed. She let his mouth close and stepped well clear for fresh air. “He needs a fiber feed, then a drench.” He’d eaten too much high-fat food and it was not passing as it should.

  “I’ll see to that, Mrs. Bernardi-Prananda,” Mr. Jonko said from the other side of the gate. “I’d prefer you did not drench him yourself, ma’am. Not when we have animal medics and wombow handlers here.” He reached into the food bin and picked up a handful of what was left, running it through his fingers, then sniffing the crumbly yellow and white mixture. “That’s strange.” He sniffed it again, touched his finger with his tongue, then spat. “Pardon, ma’am.”

  “Of course, sir. Is something wrong?”

  “It might be. If not, this boy still does not need so rich a feed blend yet. I’m going to have a word with someone. If you will excuse me?”

  “Certainly, sir. Thank you for checking his feed.” She made certain that Frisker’s water was fresh, then she and Makana checked out of the enclosure.

  Tomás waited with Andat and Martinus. “…Really? How interesting.”

  “Yes, sir.” Andat bowed as Rigi approached.

  “And how is, are, our beasts?” Tomás’s eyes were half-closed, making him look a bit like a Staré.

  Rigi petted Martinus’s head and fell in beside her husband. “Slowth grumbled. Frisker needs a fiber-feed and a drench, and Mr. Jonko was concerned about the food in his trough, but did not give any details. He agreed that Frisker should not be on such high-fat feed until he’s been conditioned for it.”

  Rigi heard hop-running and stopped, as did Tomás. They turned and saw Kor going somewhere at a high rate of speed. Her heart sank. Tomás went still for an instant, a predator’s stillness, then said, “Excuse me.” He hurried off after the hunter, and Rigi closed her eyes, offering a quick silent prayer. Then she and Makana and Andat continued on their way. The sun had melted the frost, so she did not feel as bad about taking her time.

  “Are the bones still in place?” she inquired as they came between a few shelter-tents and around a vehicle.

  “No, ma’am. The last have been removed.”

  “No bones about it, eh?” The last voice Rigi wanted to hear reached her ears. She kept walking.

  “Well, that was interesting,” she heard Tomás saying, a bit out of breath as he approached from the other direction.

  “What? Your wife’s failure to do her part as a proper officer’s wife and to put proper behavior before her little hobbies?”

  “Go away, please, Major LeFeu,” Rigi managed before Tomás could respond.

  Instead the square-faced officer planted himself in front of her, arms folded. His eyes appeared dilated and again she wondered why, or if she were imagining things. “No. Major Chang has spoken to you about your improper behavior before, Mrs. Prananda, but you seem to have not taken his words to heart. Consider this a second, and final, warning. Your actions can advance your husband’s career, or terminate it.”

  Did he not see Tomás coming up beside him? “I have heard your words, Major LeFeu. You have heard mine. Please leave me alone.”

  “No. You owe me an apology, two apologies. You tried to blame me for your clumsiness at the dance, and you accused me of improprieties in front of Lowen when I have gone out of my way attempting to assist you in helping improve Capt. Prananda’s future.” He glared at her, righteous indignation practically radiating from him, as if she were solely to blame for everything he’d done.

  “Please get out of my way, sir.” The less she said, the safer for all of them.

  LeFeu glanced toward Tomás, then back at her, licking his lips in a way that made her skin crawl. “You will repay the—services—you owe me.” His eyes narrowed and one eyebrow rose a centimeter. “Especially since you are not married. Perhaps I should have this man brought up on charges of fornication and general immorality.”

  Beside her, Tomás went pale. Then he moved, fast as thought, placing himself between the major and Rigi. Makana and Andat grabbed her arms, pulling her backwards and out of the way, shielding her. Rigi wanted to fight, to go to Tomás. But she was no longer just Rigi—she carried their child, had to protect the child. “You heard my lady, sir. She does not welcome your attentions nor does she care to be burdened with your presence.” The words seemed to creak, they sounded so taut and strained.

  LeFeu smiled, a slow shifting of his lips as he bared his teeth. Beside her, Rigi sensed Andat and
Makana rising onto their toes, ears back, ready to attack. The major leaned forward as well. “She prefers to remain with a coward, an incompetent who leaves his men in the wilds to die? Or is it something else?” His words cut through the cold, still air, carrying to all in the camp, or so it seemed to her. “Are you the only one she hasn’t spread her—”

  “Enough!” Tomás’s voice drowned out the horrible words. “You insult my wife’s honor. She has been nothing but faithful and upright in her conduct. Take back your calumnies, sir.”

  “Not calumnies, but the truth. After all, there has to be a reason why those hairy males spend so much time with her.”

  Rigi’s hand started moving to Martinus’s back. She opened her mouth to command him to bluff-charge and knock the major flat. How dare he insult Makana and Kor and Andat! A strong forefoot grabbed her arm once more, holding her still, stopping her.

  “You grossly insult one of the three Staré Elders on this continent,” Makana snarled from her left, in Staré. The pure //killing rage// wafting around Rigi threatened to choke her. “How dare you claim she would break mate-oath and Stamm, pouch-bearing limp-tailed lizard dung?”

  “He is less than lizard dung, for lizard dung serves a purpose and nourishes the ground,” Andat growled.

  LeFeu may not have known just how gross of an insult Makana’s words were, but he understood enough of their meaning, or so Rigi guessed. She saw his hand move back, to something beneath a fold of his uniform jacket. Shooter or blade? “Tomás, weapon, left hand,” Rigi hissed in Common.

  “Protect the Wise Eye,” Tomás called in Staré. Before Rigi could protest, half a dozen more Staré swarmed around her, forming a wall of claws and anger between her and LeFeu, Andat among them. She couldn’t see! She needed to see, to help her husband, she’d sworn to help him in all things! Rigi tried to push through but Makana held her back, forefeet so tight-clamped her arm went numb. She heard Tomás command, “Leave, sir. Now.”

  “I want her and I will have her. Any woman I want is mine, you raargh!” Behind the fur-covered wall, Rigi heard men fighting, Tomás breathing hard, LeFeu making strange sounds, a blade on fabric, feet on the ground, grunts and human snarls. “Yaah!”

  “Aie!” Tomás was hurt! Rigi’s knees started to buckle. She needed to be with him, to help him, and she couldn’t. She had to protect their child. She had a shooter and Martinus and Makana wouldn’t let her use either of them, the Staré blocked her way. Tears filled her eyes, tears of anger and fear both.

  “Yeag—” thud. Silence. Silence but for Staré breathing.

  Tomás’s voice, strained. “I need the Wise Eye, the healer, please.” The wall of Staré parted and Makana let go. Rigi leapt forward, reaching Tomás as he went onto one knee. LeFeu lay on the ground, a bloody knife in his hand. “My side.”

  Rigi lifted away the hem of the jacket on his right side, then untucked his uniform blouse. “A long cut, sir, but shallow.” She touched around it, pushing just the slightest bit to get the edges of the slash to move. “Shallow. Some muscle damage but no deep internal injuries.”

  “And the arm?”

  Rigi eased the blood-stained jacket off his arm, undid the cuff of his blouse and rolled up the sleeve. “Something’s severed. You need a surgeon.” As she watched he tried to close his hand. “Stop, please.” She held pressure on the arm, slowing the blood loss as best she could. She needed her med-kit. She focused on the injuries, trying to push out of her mind that it was Tomás who was bleeding, Tomás who needed someone more skilled to see to his injury. She did not look at LeFeu, did not want to deal with his injuries. She wanted for him to go away, far away.

  “You there, what are you doing? Get away from that man.”

  Ice cold anger chilled her first response. Instead she replied, “I am a medic, certified for humans as well as Staré. I am holding pressure on a wound until someone with proper supplies can get here, or until we are able to clear the scene and relocate to a medical facility.” She sounded professional and calm, as if someone else controlled her voice.

  “Oh, it’s you.” She vaguely recognized the lieutenant, then remembered. He was the one she’d cut at the dance. “What happened here?”

  “Major LeFeu insulted Captain Prananda and his wife, then attacked the captain while some of the men protected her, sir,” a different voice reported. Rigi glanced over her shoulder and saw one of the sergeants, and behind him two medics. One stopped beside her and she yielded her place. The other continued on and crouched beside LeFeu. “I saw it, those Salnars and the Kortala saw it, and those men over there were also witnesses.”

  “Mrs. Prananda, I need you, please ma’am,” the medic beside LeFeu called. How dare he ask her to help the bastard who’d insulted her, the pile of wombeast-dung who’d hurt her husband? Because she was a medic and had duties to humans and Staré and to all created beings. Rigi forced herself to set her feelings aside and go to kneel beside the major. It was hard. Very hard. The hardest thing she’d done in her life thus far. The medic pointed with his head to the small monitor-box propped up beside LeFeu’s shoulder. “Monitor his breathing and pulse, please. Something’s not right.”

  Rigi blinked as she watched the little display screen. LeFeu’s heartrate was too fast, breathing too shallow, blood pressure too high. No wonder he was bleeding all over everything! Scalp wounds always bled, but this was too much. As the medic applied clot spray and tried to evaluate LeFeu’s head injury, Rigi leaned close and sniffed LeFeu’s breath. Something bitter, chemical bitter not herbal bitter or one of the smells she associated with disease. “Bitter smell on the patient’s breath, his eyes were dilated when I first encountered him, and his gait appeared unsteady.”

  “There’s a chem-check in the second pocket. Run it.”

  Doing so required her to touch him. She didn’t want to touch him unless it was to grind his face into the dirt for hurting her husband. Rigi’s skin crawled and she felt her gorge rising, choking her. Hands shaking, she obeyed the senior medic’s order. Creatrix, healer, help me to do my duty. “Yes, sir.” Rigi found the palm-sized diagnostic computer, cleaned one of LeFeu’s fingertips and touched the test-probe to the finger. It took a small sample of blood, then applied clot-spray to the fingertip. “Blood pressure down one percent, pulse and respiration still elevated,” she reported, glancing at the numbers on the monitor’s screen. Men’s voices rose as someone yelled at the group, huffing and puffing a little. When she glanced back at the screen, Rigi’s eyes flashed open. “Blood pressure and pulse rate dropping rapidly, respiration still shallow and rapid.”

  “Prepare to administer—” The diagnostic analyzer chirped and they both leaned over to see four possibilities on the screen, two of them flashing as most likely. “Blast. He’s coming off a oomla’wrdi high. Prepare to do chest compressions.”

  She did not want to save his life. But she did not want him to die, either. Rigi swallowed hard and prayed for strength and wisdom, then shifted over so she would be in position if she had to start chest compressions.

  Running feet and panting. “Damn it. Numbnuts didn’t have a vehic— Sorry ma’am.”

  “Patient turn over,” Rigi replied, pretending she’d not heard his first words. “Patient in crash phase following possible oomla’wrdi overdose. Respiration steady, other vitals dropping rapidly.”

  “I have the patient.”

  Rigi moved over, giving him room to kneel, then eased to her feet. “You have the patient.” She needed to go write her report. She needed to hug Tomás and cry on his shoulder. She needed to wash her hands, and to thank the Staré, and she wanted to hitch Slowth and Frisker and take Makana and Andat and her husband and go hide from the commotion and noise and Major Chang’s blustering and spluttering.

  The other medic had Tomás’s arm bandaged and was walking beside him, guiding him toward a medical transport vehicle. Rigi started walking toward them, when Major Chang stepped in front of her while pointing to a Kortala and almost knocked her over.
“You, get that woman out of here. You and you,” Chang pointed, “take these men’s statements. You over there, secure the major’s and captain’s quarters so security can search them.”

  “Captain Lowen saw to that, sir,” Sergeant Patel said.

  “What?” Chang blinked and realized where Rigi now stood. He pointed at her. “Oh, well, get this woman out of here.” He sounded harried, and Rigi decided not to wait for any assistance. She couldn’t see Makana or Andat, but Martinus was there, beside a third Stamm Subala. She walked carefully, waiting until all the blood got back into her toes. “Come, Martinus,” she ordered.

  The men ignored her and her m-dog. She started toward the shelter-tent, then remembered that security was supposed to search it. She did not want to be there. She wanted to see Tomás, so she changed directions, walking north and east.

  “Auriga?” Mrs. Stellare-Lowen bustled up. “Oh good. Have you seen Lt. De LaMere? Lydia says he heard a rumor that LeFeu had importuned her and he’s trying to find LeFeu to challenge him.”

  Rigi glanced back to see a stretcher being loaded onto the transport, one of the medics watching a monitor as the other one administered something via air-injector. “Major LeFeu is en route to the medical center with a head injury and possibly for treatment of cardiac difficulties. I have not seen Lt. De LaMere, ma’am.”

  “Scout and Huntress have mercy.” She stopped, looking at Rigi. She blinked, leaned forward, and studied Rigi more closely. “What happened?”

  Rigi opened her mouth but no sound came out. She closed it again, shook her head a little, and felt her knees starting to buckle. She sat firmly on the cool, dry dirt, put one arm around Martinus, and covered her eyes with her other hand. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Just a little tired.”

  “She’s here! The Wise Eye is here,” a female Staré called.

  I am not wise. I am just tired, and pregnant, and I want my husband. She hugged Martinus and felt tears leaking. I don’t want to be the grown-up, not right now. I want to rest, and cry, and hold my husband.