thefiremargins

by Lisanne Norman

  Noni spread her hands expressively. "Did I say anything?" she asked. "Your reasons are good. Most people choose lovers for less sound reasons."

  "I didn't say I was choosing him as a lover!" Carrie exclaimed.

  "What do you think the third in a Triad is, if not a lover to one of you? It isn't a one-time tumble just so you can walk the Fire Margins! Think Sholan, girl, not Human!" said Noni, her voice sharp. "If you don't, you'll hurt them both."

  "But ... Surely Kusac doesn't want me to ..."

  "He's Sholan, girl, just remember that. For all his understanding of your Human side, if you confuse the Human and Sholan ideals, you'll cause your mate more hurt. Tallinu needn't mean to you what Kusac does, but treat him as less than a lover and you'll hurt him too. Just enjoy the pairing when it happens. It's a pleasure the Gods gifted to us, to be enjoyed for what it is, no more. Your loyalty to your life-mate isn't affected by that, is it?"

  "No," said Carrie dubiously.

  "Ha! I'd heard you Humans didn't pair for pleasure but did it for duty and cubs. I didn't believe it till now!"

  "I'm not Human," said Carrie, stung by her words.

  Noni leaned forward, taking hold of her chin. "Then show it! Trust your Sholan side, girl, and enjoy what the God gives you!"

  "My Sholan side is male, Noni," said Carrie, pulling herself away. "I only have Kusac's view of his world, not a female's."

  "So what? There's no difference between male and female Sholans when it comes to that!"

  "There is with Humans. What's acceptable for males, isn't for females."

  "Think Sholan!" repeated Noni. "When it comes time for you and Tallinu to pair, what will you do? Run from him? How d'you think he'll feel? Or your Leska? You'll shame Kusac in Tallinu's eyes if you do! Another Sholan male would assume your mate was an uncaring lover. Is that how Tallinu should see Kusac?"

  "Of course not! He's nothing of the kind," she said angrily.

  Noni sat back again, mouth opening in a small grin. "Then make sure Tallinu doesn't think so. Kusac wouldn't want the pairing to be unpleasant for you, so if he knows you've enjoyed it, he'll be pleased."

  "Yes, but ... Our Link!"

  Noni shrugged. "If he's sensible, he'll be with your friend Vanna. You don't mind them pairing now and then, do you?"

  "It's not like that!"

  "Like what? You don't want them to enjoy?" Noni raised an eye ridge in her direction.

  "Of course I do, but ..." She knew then she'd been trapped in her own logic.

  "So, why shouldn't it be the same for you?" asked Noni quietly. "Think Sholan, child. There should be no guilt over this, only sharing pleasure. In time, Tallinu will find his own female. Trust the Gods, child. They know what They are doing."

  "Kusac's said that," Carrie said quietly.

  CHAPTER 11

  Jo, Davies, and Kris had been lucky enough to find employment as guards for a small caravan heading north toward a town called Forestgate. Only a few kilometers off their route, traveling in company afforded them protection not only from the armed bands of raiders, but from the starving wolfish creatures similar to the one at the spaceport, who'd come down to the plains looking for food.

  The journey was slow and uneventful. Once away from the shelter afforded by the port and the shanty houses, there was nothing to break the bitter winds as they swept across the barren snow-covered plain that stretched for miles around them. For once, Jo appreciated the fact that the women lacked any parity with the men on this world. As a female, she wasn't expected to stand sentry duty and was allowed the luxury of sleeping in the back of one of the goods wagons. Helping the camp cook also meant she had plenty to eat.

  The first night, sitting round the camp fire and using the Jalnians' equivalent of playing cards, Davies introduced the other two off duty guards to the concept of a poker school and promptly proceeded to divest them of their hard earned coins. When Jo heard about it, she was livid.

  "Our instructions were clear: nothing above the cultural level of Jalna was to be brought with us. That includes gambling!"

  "I wouldn't worry about it," said Kris, testing the edge of the axe he'd bought at the shantytown before continuing to hone it with his stone. "I don't know of a species that doesn't gamble. All he introduced was a new game."

  "That's not the point! We can't afford to draw attention to ourselves, or earn the dislike of these people! Taking their money from them in a card game is really calculated to make us friends, isn't it? Tonight, Davies, you're going to have the worst run of luck imaginable, d'you hear me? You're going to lose all the money you took from them! And don't try to justify keeping it," she continued as he opened his mouth to speak. "As far as I'm concerned, there is no justification for what you did!"

  "Okay, Okay, I get the point," he said, getting to his feet. "D'you know, you're getting to sound like one of the Jalnian women as well as look like one?" Turning his back on her, he stalked off to the campfire.

  Jo, arms still akimbo on her hips, stared after him.

  "Though I agree with you, you might have been more subtle about it," said Kris.

  Jo turned to look at him. "What d'you mean?"

  Kris put the stone aside and bent down to pick up his oily rag. "Just that it might have been less degrading for Davies to not have had me here, Jo. He'd have still got the point without feeling humiliated by it. Little things like that matter you know. Give respect and you get it back."

  As she stared speechlessly at him, she simultaneously heard a chittering sound and felt the presence of something alien in her mind. Frozen in shock, she watched as from the neck opening of Kris' jacket, a small white head appeared. It turned toward her, eyes bright and nose twitching as it very obviously began to scold her.

  "There's a ... creature in your coat," she said, taking a step backward and trying to keep her voice low and controlled so as not to startle it.

  With a sigh, Kris laid his ax aside and reached for the animal, pulling it free. It sat upright in his hand, holding onto his fingers while it continued to chatter angrily.

  "I know," he said. "It was only a matter of time till you found out. I'm surprised Scamp managed to stay hidden for so long."

  "He's a pet? You're keeping an alien creature as a pet?"

  "Calm down, Jo. He's only a jegget, he's not alien. I've had him virtually since I arrived on Shola."

  Jo took another step backward and fell over the small pile of logs, landing with a thump. She remained where she was, just staring as the jegget, its scolding over, turned away from her and wound its long sinuous body around Kris' hand till it was looking up at him. With a flick of its long bushy tail, it leaped to his shoulder and settled there, curling itself around his neck.

  "You brought an animal all the way from Shola to here?" She couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Am I the only one here who has any idea of the importance of not drawing attention to ourselves?"

  "No, Jo, you're not," Kris said, reaching in his pocket for a piece of dried fruit which he held up for his pet. "Scamp fits the niche of an animal that's a cross between a ferret and a squirrel back on Earth. I'd bet if he's common to both Earth and Shola, there's something like him here. It's one thing to not draw attention to ourselves, and another to be so unremarkable that we also stand out. A little idiosyncrasy like him makes us more, not less, normal."

  "I felt him in my mind!"

  Kris grinned. "You would. He's telepathic, like all jeggets. They're the only other species on Shola that are."

  Jo watched the jegget accept the piece of fruit and sit up, daintily holding it between both paws to eat it.

  The cold dampness of the snow she was sitting on finally penetrated enough to remind her to get up. Keeping her eyes on the jegget, she scrambled to her feet and moved closer.

  "Are you going to give me earache for bringing him?"

  "What for?" Jo sighed. "It's too late now, isn't it?"

  "As it was with Davies," he said, reaching up to take Scamp down from his s
houlders. "A word or two and his own conscience would have told him to lose the money tonight. It didn't need the dressing-down. Would you like to hold Scamp?" he asked, nodding to his pet. "He's very friendly, unless he thinks I'm being threatened!"

  Jo moved closer. Reaching out a tentative finger, she touched the small head gently. "He's tipped like a Siamese," she said, seeing the pale brown markings on his ears for the first time.

  "Not quite, but close."

  Scamp leaned forward to sniff her hand as she grew more confident and began to stroke the side of his face and shoulder.

  "He's cute. I didn't know Sholans kept pets."

  "They don't. He's a wild one. I discovered I've got this thing with the animals on Shola. They seem to like me. Scamp I saved from a tree-rhudda that was raiding his nest. He was the only surviving baby. When he was old enough to let loose in the wild, he refused to go. I'm glad."

  Jo sighed. "Do me a favor and try to keep him out of sight," she said, straightening up.

  Kris laughed quietly as Scamp turned and, running up his arm, disappeared down the neck of his jacket. "Don't worry, he doesn't like crowds. He only came out because he recognized another telepath."

  "Hmm," was all she said as she walked slowly off to her wagon. Kris had been right. She hadn't needed to talk to Davies like that in front of him. Sometimes she felt the weight of the responsibility of her position as leader. Now was one of them.

  As she climbed on the tailgate, in the distance she heard the howling of the wolves. An involuntary shudder passed through her. In another couple of days they would reach Forestgate. After that, they were on their own in the forests where these beasts lived. She sent a prayer to any God that was listening that the wolves were all out here on the plains. According to the map they reckoned there was a good eight kilometers from the town to the end of the tree line. From there, it was all uphill till they reached the crash site.

  * * *

  Kaid awoke with a start, wondering why his alarm hadn't roused him. Then, as the fog of sleep cleared from his brain, he remembered. Blinking, he rubbed his eyes before undoing his sleeping bag and reaching forward for a drink of water from the dispenser.

  His hand was steady; the fever was gone. A second drink and he was ready to check his arm. Removing the bandage, he could see a scab had formed on top of the wound. The flesh around it, when probed, was tender and still slightly swollen. Flexing it, he found his arm was usable. The Fastheal had worked well enough for his purposes. He reached for the ultrasound scanner and played it over his injury, checking to see it was healing from the bottom up. It was. He kept the scanner on it for several minutes before switching it off. A few days more treatment and he'd be fine.

  He stood up, stretching every muscle group in turn from his ears to his tail. Gods, but he was stiff! Turning back to his seat, he began to gather up the rubbish his four days of healing had accumulated.

  Sitting down, he returned his seat to the forward position and switched on the main comm, listening for the next news broadcast. It was at that point he realized he was hungry. Getting up again, he clambered back to the rear of the craft. Examining the options on the menu, he opted for a light meal of eggs and meat, surprising himself by wolfing it down ravenously.

  His gear stowed away, he returned to his seat and dug the map of the desert region out from the chart drawer. If he crossed the mountains at the Nyacko Pass, he could fly in low and land the vehicle in the arroyo near Rhijudu. It was the perfect place not only to conceal the craft, but also to use as a base. From the foothills he could observe the village and try to locate Khemu.

  * * *

  Activating the craft's motor, he taxied out into the clearing for takeoff. Idly, he wondered what the situation was back at the estate. They'd have called off the search by now, he was sure. Garras would have persuaded them of the futility of looking for him when he didn't want to be found. His conscience pricked him over deserting his post as Carrie's bodyguard, but he forced it into silence by reminding himself that the rest of the team had been handpicked by himself. If they weren't capable of covering for him, then he shouldn't have chosen them in the first place.

  As the craft rose vertically above the trees, he also recognized for the first time that this was a fool's errand. He was risking death or capture not only at the hands of the desert folk, but also at Ghezu's. Dzaka was yet another threat. He was out there somewhere, looking for him. His conscience might bother him over not personally guarding Carrie, but he couldn't live with himself if he hadn't made the effort to see Khemu and set things straight with her before she died, especially now he knew where she was. He hadn't been lying when he told Noni that he couldn't go before Vartra with that stain on his soul.

  Kaid cursed when he heard the broadcast concerning the Laasoi Guildhouse and the deployment of troops at the Nyacko Pass. It mean detouring and flying in at night, low and from the northwest. Not just that, it was a bad time to be away. The Brotherhood should have anticipated this move by Fyak, the God knew he had! Still, it would keep, he supposed. They'd all managed before he was involved, and he knew they could manage now. There were enough people around the estate to give Kusac and the Clan Lord the information they might need. He checked the position of the sun. If he took it easy, he would reach his destination just as dusk was falling.

  He was shaking with exhaustion by the time he finally let his vehicle slowly descend to the surface. A few meters away was the cave he planned to use to conceal the scouter. Turning the craft carefully, he eased it backward into the cave. A scraping, ripping noise signaled that he'd managed to catch the side of the vehicle's body work. He was too tired to care: he needed sleep and food. The engine turned off, he slumped forward across the console.

  With a jerk, he came awake. Looking bleary-eyed at his wrist comm, he realized he'd slept for upward of an hour. Not good, especially when he hadn't concealed the entrance yet. Tiredly, he stirred himself. Opening the hatch, he got up from his seat and reaching back for the bush knife set in the tool section, he climbed down to the cave floor.

  Outside, he chose branches from within the centers of bushes where the cut edges wouldn't be easily noticed. Some fifteen minutes later, he was back in his craft looking out through a screen of greenery.

  Once more he turned his seat around, setting up the cabin as a living area. This time he wouldn't be so helpless, thank Vartra! Digging out the bedding, he set it up, then turned his attention to his grumbling stomach. He was too tired to eat by now and settled for a couple of protein rich drinks before succumbing to sleep.

  * * *

  Shift change time had just passed. L'Seuli and Rrurto had been newly assigned to duty outside the temple area of the cavern complex. The Prophet liked his personal guard to be made up of faces he knew. After of his last fit of ungovernable rage, Rrurto and L'Seuli had been promoted to fill the places vacated only hours previously by his latest victims— those who had been responsible for the losses incurred during the assault on Laasoi Guildhouse.

  Lighting units were strung up against the sandstone walls of the corridor, their glow brightening the gloom as the two males headed deeper into the hillside. The remains of decorative carvings still lined the walls but their extreme age had rendered them almost invisible even to Sholan eyes.

  As they rounded the last bend, a servant heading the way they'd just come, collided with them.

  "Your pardon," the youth said, staggering to regain his balance.

  Rrurto's hand grabbed him before he could run off.

  "Where d'you think you're going in such a rush?" the older male demanded.

  The youngling's eyes were wide with fear. "The female," he said, looking fearfully over his shoulder, then back to them. "The telepath. She's hurt. He wants Anirra to see her. Please, let me go," he said, trying to pull away.

  "What'd he do to her?"

  "She hurt herself when he paired with her. I must go! I've to tell Vraiyou to bring the Sun God's plant! The Prophet wants to talk to K
ezule. He'll kill me if I don't hurry!" With a last squirm, the youth pulled himself free and raced down the corridor.

  "Dammit! You don't use female captives like that!" snarled Rrurto. "As for what he did to Nyanga and Raylma ..." He left the sentence unfinished.

  L'Seuli flinched, feeling the skin on his back crawl at the memory of it. The two would-be tacticians had been allowed the opportunity to lead the assault on Laasoi. Their losses of forty fighters were totally unacceptable and Fyak had ordered them flogged— with a difference. They had been stunned on full power first. Nyanga had died in agony after only nine lashes; Raylma had lasted a little longer.

  The punishment had been ordained by Kezule himself, Fyak had claimed, and was to be used in future on anyone who transgressed against the God's wishes. It would act as a deterrent. He was right.