Exodus: Extinction Event

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  A huge horribly ugly dog.

  Monica would like to have said she viewed it in an entirely different way, but the thing reminded her more of a bear than a dog and even that was stretching it because the head was nothing like either Earth animal.

  She supposed it would be accurate enough to say it reminded her of both because of the size, the fur, and the behavior, but simply seeing it wasn’t enough to draw a comparison with either animal.

  Scooting more tightly against Kael, she finally managed to drop into a doze again. She was roused sometime later when Dar took his place. Since he immediately dragged her close and dropped to sleep, though, she was able to transition fairly smoothly once more from awake to deep sleep.

  * * * *

  “Where did she come from? Are there others like her here?”

  They had all gathered around the fire to warm themselves from the hunt that had taken up a good portion of their day, waiting for their food to cook.

  In the week since Torin had joined them it was something they had grown accustomed to doing in the evenings. It was a time to relax and socialize with one another, to share tales of times before the great dying and adventures since—and, with that familiarity, they had begun to let their guard down and accept Torin as one of them.

  Dar supposed it was inevitable that Torin’s curiosity about Meeka would get the best of him eventually, and that it was more a marvel that he had contained himself this long than not.

  Unfortunately, he had been too preoccupied with working through his doubts about Torin and trying to feed everyone regularly to consider what would be safe to tell and what would not, what might have the potential to pose a threat for Meeka at some point.

  And, truthfully, he did not like Torin’s interest in her for any reason so he supposed anything Torin had said or done to indicate an interest in her would have fouled his mood.

  Up until that moment, he had, in fact, been in a good mood and very much in charity with Torin.

  With the food they had managed to stock and the food Torin had contributed, they had managed several days without a hunt and Dar had felt more comfortable leaving Kael to watch over Meeka and having Torin at his back when the day had come that there was no choice but to hunt.

  Torin and his beast had proven to be extremely helpful in finding food. With no more than a low voiced command and a whistle, Torin had sent the beast to surround their prey and chase it back to them, insuring a successful hunt and cutting the time it generally took to track and kill by hours.

  They had also been able to use the beast to carry their kill back to home base—which had shortened the time it took to return and spared them a good deal of labor.

  Dar was envious of the hunting animal, although he would not have admitted it for the world. “Amazing,” he had commented. “I would never have believed it possible to tame one of these beasts. How did you manage it?”

  Torin grimaced. “We—me and the group that I was with before—tracked the mother kunga and killed it. It was only afterwards that we discovered the cub. The others argued that we should kill it, as well, that it would be cruel to leave it to die slowly—but it would die. It was too young and too small to survive without its mother.”

  He shrugged. “I found that I did not have the stomach for that, nor to stand back and allow one of the others to kill it. As tiny as it was, it displayed a strong determination to live. It bowed up at us as if it was ready to fight. And yet, when I chased it into a corner and captured it, it did not fight me or try to bite. It was almost as if it sensed that I did not mean it any harm. It seemed to accept that I would help. It searched me for food.

  “I thought it was worth a try to see if it had the strength of spirit to live.

  “I think the others thought we would eat it when it had grown enough to be more than a mouthful, but it showed signs of being useful very early.

  “He would alert us whenever there was anything close by that might be a danger or might be dinner. And by doing that, he was finally accepted as a useful member of our group.”

  Dar frowned thoughtfully. “You had some experience in training beasts?”

  Torin shrugged again and then chuckled. “Actually, no. Kunga is smart. I did very little beyond help him to survive.”

  Reluctantly, Dar admired his disinclination to brag. And yet there were inconsistencies to the story that teased at him, that he could not quite place, and that made him a little uneasy. He spoke of the beast’s capabilities, and yet he had lost his group—or at least implied that he had when he had said that he needed someone to watch his back.

  He seemed … attached to the beast. And yet he had not given it a name.

  Then again, it was an animal and not one that had been kept as a companion before the fall of their civilization. Perhaps he simply looked upon it as a favored tool?

  Or maybe he simply did not want to be attached in any way and that was his way of keeping his distance?

  Of course, there was always the possibility that he was giving Torin his own motivations. He knew that it would have been almost impossible for him to raise the beast from a babe and not grow attached and assumed that would be true of most anyone.

  And he had been reluctant to open himself to more loss, more pain, when he had felt like he already had more than he could bear … until they had found Meeka.

  He had fought his attraction to her from the start for fear that it was more than sexual. Or at least that allowing intimacy might prevent him from remaining detached about her and would open him to far more pain and suffering than he felt like he could handle.

  For all the good it had done him to fight it!

  He had desired her to the point that he had managed to convince himself that he could assuage his needs with her and not become attached, that she was alien and he would not feel the mating bond.

  He could remain detached beyond sympathy for her plight.

  He would do right by her but keep his distance emotionally so that she could not destroy him as his other losses nearly had.

  But then again it was hard to think with someone else’s mind, to see with their eyes, to feel what they felt.

  Torin was an enigma, a collection of inconsistencies and contradictions.

  He should just be grateful that he had questioned him about Meeka and brought his guard up once more when he had been in danger of letting it down completely.

  “Not so far as we are aware,” Kael responded to the second question as to whether or not there were others of Meeka’s people on the planet.

  “Why do you ask?” Dar asked at almost the same moment.

  Torin’s brows rose. “I am merely curious.” He hesitated. “So you have no idea why her people might have been here or how she came to be lost here? She would not have come alone, surely?”

  He had known he should be leery.

  It seemed obvious Torin saw her—or her people—either as a potential threat—maybe for resources—or a useful tool for bartering.

  At least, those possibilities occurred to him when they had not before.

  Dar wrestled with his suspicions, struggling to decide what would be safe to say that would assuage Torin’s curiosity without endangering Meeka in any way. He flicked a look at Kael.

  “Her ship crashed. She was the only survivor. We rescued her,” Kael said flatly, hoping that covered everything and would not encourage Torin to probe further.

  It was easy enough to see that Torin was not satisfied, but he didn’t pursue the subject.

  Actually, changed it fairly abruptly, which increased Dar’s uneasiness rather than diminished it.

  “You have done well for yourselves here. I have not had the time to study the work closely, but I know it cannot have been easy to rig up conveniences with the little you had to work with.”

  Dar was taken aback and suspicious that the comment, while clearly intended to flatter, was actually a backhanded compliment. They had done all they could to make the space as comfortable as possib
le, but there was no getting away from the fact that it was still a hellhole.

  “We have made some improvements for comfort, but, as you pointed out, we had little to work with and no tools except for our hands. We have Meeka to thank for much of it. It was she who made the container lights and she who made the soap.” He paused and smiled wryly. “And she who demanded that we make an effort to bring a bit of civilization into our lives by setting up the bath and waste facilities. I know it is not much, but it is certainly an improvement. It is better than the camps we have made before. I thought, mayhap, in spring—if spring comes—we would try to do better.

  “Mayhap we will try to repurpose the rubble and use it build a more comfortable dwelling. This place seems as good a place to start as any. We are close to the water. It is an area that was well populated and there should be much that we could make use of to make our lives more comfortable.”

  “It does not take long doing without to appreciate any small improvement,” Torin remarked slowly, thoughtfully. “Why is it that you believe that spring will not come?”

  Dar gave him a disbelieving look. “This is mid-season—of the hot season. Does that not seem strange—and ominous—to you? Or have you lost track of the seasons?”

  “You think we have begun an ice age?”

  “It seemed like a very good possibility—particularly given the speculation before the collision.”

  Torin nodded. “I suppose it is a very good possibility—but it is not a foregone conclusion. This world has taken a mighty blow and it will clearly take a good deal of time to recover … even a little. But we can only guess at the time it will take to resume its normal cycles.”

  “Not to be a pessimist,” Dar said dryly, “but we can only assume that it will worsen before it gets better … and plan what to do if it does not recover. It may, as you say, be only that the natural cycle was interrupted. But that crash might also have shifted this world significantly enough to prevent any possibility that it will resume its natural rhythm. We have to consider that it may have a new norm that will not support life at all.”

  Torin did not look unduly disturbed by that observation—which proved, in his book, that the man had no imagination and/or little intellect.

  “I am familiar with the arguments … pre-cataclysm. I believe it is still too early to tell how and if the world will recover.”

  “You are very calm about the whole business,” Kael observed tightly. “Do you know something we do not?”

  Amusement flickered in Torin’s eyes. “What if I was to say that, yes, I do know something you do not?”

  Dar felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck prickle as uneasiness threaded his veins. The first thought that leapt into his mind was that he and Kael had fallen into a trap and not only lost their own bid for survival, but Meeka’s.

  Kael obviously also felt the threat implicit in the amusement.

  Torin shook his head, lifting his hands palm out in a gesture of surrender. “Not what you have apparently leapt to. I have told you that I came looking for allies. That was no lie—not per se. I was sent to search for survivors who would be an asset to our little colony.

  “One cannot be too careful these days, but I have seen that you two are of good heart, sound mind, and excellent principles. You are welcome to join us.”

  Dar’s mind did not get past the ‘you two’ comment before it closed to everything except the emotions engendered by such a callous dismissal of Meeka.

  Kael’s anger outstripped his. He was on his feet in a moment. “Two? We are three here,” he growled.

  Torin shrugged. “She is not one of us—not of this world at all. Resources are thin for our own people. And we can have no guarantee that her people would not come to find her and attack us.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I think we must decline your generous offer,” Dar said tightly. “As Kael has pointed out, we are three. We could not in good conscience stretch your resources further.”

  Torin studied them for a long moment. “You have not even seen our colony. You cannot decide without even checking it out.”

  The comments made Dar feel sick to his stomach in many ways—mostly from the anger that Meeka would be excluded when they did not even know her.

  Of course, he had only Talen’s word that she would not be welcome, but he knew, deep down, that Torin probably did exhibit the sentiments of the group.

  Well, they would be better off in many ways in a larger group, he knew, but he cared mostly on Meeka’s account. He and Kael had done alright on their own, without anyone else. They could still survive on their own.

  It was their little Meeka he worried about.

  She was not helpless, he knew. She was smart and brave and resourceful. But she was ill equipped for their world as it was now and if anything happened to him or Kael or both of them he did not like her odds for survival.

  Maybe, given that scenario, he should swallow his spleen and see if he could work out an agreement that would include Meeka?

  “There is no reason to see it,” Kael sight tightly, “if Meeka would not be welcome there. We are mated.”

  “Well … I am curious,” Dar said after a long moment wrestling with his anger. “Perhaps if you are right and we do not find ourselves in an ice age we might visit when there is less snow to traipse through. It is certainly not the sort of weather I would choose for a long trek.”

  * * * *

  As far as Torin was concerned that clinched the matter, but he knew the others would consider that he had not offered enough incentive to appeal to their bad side.

  And mayhap they would end up being right, but he was inclined to think that Dar and Kael were as upstanding as one could find.

  He did not think there were many males who would argue that Meeka was a desirable woman—he certainly found her to be highly desirable--but that alone was not enough as it once had been, in the days before people had had to focus on survival. And yet Dar and Kael had taken Meeka on to protect her and there was no reason but their good character to induce that. Not that he could not see that she was making every effort to carry her own load, but she was ill equipped to do so and there were far more who would not tolerate that these days than there were who would.

  It was a matter of survival.

  No one could afford to be too empathetic in their situation. That was the sort of thing that would get you dead in a hurry.

  Which was one of the reasons he had had so much difficulty finding candidates for their little colony that would be assets and not a threat to everyone else.

  It took a degree of ruthlessness to make it in these times and there was no fine line for most. They were either all in—all about themselves—or six feet under.

  Of course, a good bit of that was due to the circumstances.

  Far more ‘undesirables’ had been left behind than ‘desirables’.

  The undesirables had slaughtered the desirables that had not turned, had not become just as ruthless.

  He would never have believed, before, that it was possible to revert so swiftly to their primal selves, to cast off all pretenses of civilization, but he knew it for a fact now that he had been out among them.

  Even their group was much harder than they had been.

  He had brought up the subject of Meeka because he thought that that would be the best test of Dar and Kael’s loyalty and integrity, but he would not have thought of it if not for the fact that he believed that to be the case.

  They had sent him to carefully vet candidates for the colony—among their own people. If they were that selective and that ruthless in determining who among them they were willing to help, it seemed indisputable that Meeka would not be welcome.

  He did not like it, but he was not in charge.

  In fact, no one person was.

  Everything was decided by committee.

  He could stand with the little group as an ally, force the colony to allow them a place, but they would have to earn accepta
nce on their own. The kilden men were not likely to encounter much resistance since a majority of the colony members were countrymen of theirs.

  He was actually an outsider himself being haden when there were few of his countrymen among the colonists.

  Meeka did not belong to any of the tribes of Ducran, though. She was clearly alien, was a complete outsider, and the chances were that she would always be shunned as an outsider—as badly as he hated to think it.

  * * * *

  Kael’s mind, and belly, were churning with so much anger that he had difficulty hiding it. He surged to his feet, struggling with the urge to vent, but after his initial outburst Dar sent him a look that silenced him.

  It did not cool his anger, but it gave him pause. He had no idea what Dar might be thinking, but if he wanted him to keep his mouth shut …. “I believe I will take a walk. I need fresh air to clear my head,” he growled.

  Monica surged from her seat, as well, certain there was some sort of argument brewing between the men even though she didn’t know their language well enough to follow the conversation well at all.

  Some of it had been about her, certainly. They’d mentioned her by name—or at least the name they called her.

  Maybe all of it had to do with her.

  She didn’t flatter herself that they were fighting over who would get her.

  Unless it was who had to take her?

  Kael looked briefly annoyed that she was following him out.

  Taken aback by the lack of welcome, Monica paused uncertainly, embarrassed, and trying to think of some way to save face.

  He seemed to wrestle with his temper. “Want walk?”

  Monica considered whether she wanted to or not, under the circumstances, but the atmosphere inside wasn’t a lot more welcoming. Finally, she nodded.

  Kael held out one arm. Instead of merely ushering her out, though, he gathered her into an embrace and kissed the top of her head. “Bad Kael. Sorry.”

  Monica tipped her head back and searched his gaze a little worriedly. “Everything is ok?”