by Cara Bristol
I expected him to take me to his camp, but as the ride dragged on and on, I deduced he wasn’t returning to his tribe. We would have been there already, and it wouldn’t make sense to go there. He couldn’t present me to his clan because, at the least, there would be questions. Like, who is she? Where did you find her? Why is she all tied up and covered in snow?
The skimmer slowed and then stopped. Snow crunched as Romando approached the sled. With a grunt, he swiped the snow off me. It had stopped storming during the getaway, and diamond stars twinkled in the night sky. What a perfect evening for an abduction. Unable to speak through the gag, I put all my animosity into my glare. It didn’t faze him. He tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of grain and stomped into a hut.
He set me on my feet and lit an illuvian lamp and heater before removing the gag. Kel stew is delicious; a kel hide strip soaked in a slurry of water and ash and then tanned with the animal’s own brains, not so much. “What is the meaning of this?” I spat in outrage and to remove the yucky taste from my mouth.
“You are not what I would have chosen, but you are my mate, and I’m claiming what belongs to me.”
Insulted on a couple of levels, I gaped while considering my options. Should I attempt to reason with him? Negotiate? Ransom myself? I could offer kel for my release or hot ticket items from Terra. Then again, maybe I should play along until I could make a break for it? What I wanted to do was point out the obvious flaws in his scheme. He couldn’t possibly keep me long term.
“Where are we?” He might have piloted in circles to confuse me and make me think we’d gone far away. Maybe we were right outside the meeting place or his camp.
“I doubt you know this area.”
I doubted it, too, but I couldn’t take his word on it.
I glanced around the hut, one of those pre-fabs, constructed of composite panels that snapped together like Legos. You could quickly build anything with those panels—a hospital, a skimmer garage, a kidnapper’s lair. Strips of smoked kel hung from a rack over sacks and sacks of dried foodstuffs and dozens of water jugs.
Either he was a doomsday prepper, or my abduction had been premeditated.
I exhaled. “How about untying me? The bands are cutting off my circulation.” He’d wound a rope of braided kel hide around me like he was wrapping a bale of hay. I didn’t think he’d untie me on request, but, hey, it doesn’t hurt to ask, right?
“You will try to escape.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Sit.” He pointed across the room to a utilitarian Terran-issued table with two matching chairs.
“That would be easier if my feet weren’t tied.”
He moved the chair closer. I glared and remained standing. He shrugged then exited the hut. I dropped into the chair and tested the restraints. Not so tight as to cut off my circulation, but hopping my way to freedom was looking like my only option.
Letting in a blast of frigid air, Romando hauled in a couple of bags and rolls of kel. As if my night couldn’t get any worse, the two remaining cambots flew in before he kicked the door shut.
One camera appeared to be on its last wing. It could barely fly, couldn’t navigate, and its speed waxed and waned. It was amazing it had gotten here at all. The other chugged sluggishly, but it seemed to be in better condition.
I glowered at the red light on the more operational camera and said in Terran English, “Well, this ought to boost your ratings, right?”
The malfunctioning one careened out of control, almost frying itself on the illuvian heater then spun and flew at Romando’s face. “What is that?” He snatched it out of the air like a baseball and then crushed it under his foot.
And then there was one.
It roosted out of reach on a dried kel swag.
When that last cambot expired, I would have one less annoyance to deal with. However, Apogee was the least of my concerns right now. Topping the list was a seven-foot-tall, long-haired alien named Romando. You might think his name sounded charming, but trust me, his face and personality did not match the moniker.
“What do you intend to do with me?” I asked.
He folded his arms and stared down at me, his lip curling with dislike. His snooty nose had a hump in the middle like somebody had broken it, an indication he did not play well with others and hadn’t for a long time.
“I am not your mate. I’m Darq’s mate,” I said.
“The chit was rightfully mine.”
“Maybe the chit was, but I am not. I wouldn’t have accepted your offer.”
“You will grow to like me.”
The man was delusional. I liked him less now than ever. “If you want me to like you, you’re going to have to untie me. The bindings are too tight, and I’m too hot in this kel.” The latter part was true. The illuvian heater had kicked up the temp, and perspiration trickled down my ribs and dampened the back of my neck.
“I’ll release the bindings, but I don’t trust you. I’ll be watching you. Don’t think you can get away.” He moved behind me to work on the knots in the kel braid.
“Why don’t you cut it off?” I suggested.
“Because I wouldn’t be able to reuse it. We are not like Terrans. We do not have the wealth you do to enable us to use and discard material goods on a whim.”
“Oh, ouch,” I said sarcastically.
“Did I hurt you? I’m sorry. It was not my intention.”
His surprising apology offered the first inkling that he wasn’t all bad, and suggested maybe I could negotiate with him.
“So, why am I here? Kel rope is hard to braid, and you were offered five kel plus Darq’s labor.”
“Kel are valuable, this is true, but we need mates more. Polonio accepted reparation on my behalf, but I was not in agreement. He believed I couldn’t win, so I should accept what I could get.”
The rope dropped away, and he coiled it and set it aside. He eyed me warily as I stood up. The kidnapper and the hostage in a face-off. Yeah, we had trust issues. Go figure. “I need to use the restroom,” I said.
“Restroom?”
“Latrine.” I didn’t have to go, but I wanted to get the lay of the land. Maybe make a run for it.
“Come.” He opened the door and motioned.
The camera zipped from its perch and flew outside, disappearing into the woods along the skimmer route. So, kidnapping doesn’t play well on the ’net? I glowered at the path the cambot had followed—and then my eyes widened as epiphany struck. I could follow the trail to freedom! I just had to slip away from Romando.
He eyed me with suspicion. “Don’t try anything.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
“You’re a fool if you expect me to believe that.”
I whipped around. “Are you naturally bad mannered and rude, or do I bring out the worst in you?”
He slammed the door and pointed to a small outhouse a little way from the hut. “It’s you. You are not the female I would have chosen.”
“If you don’t like me, then why did you abduct me?”
“I did not abduct you. I claimed you because you’re my only choice. I want Darq to experience the loss, for him to know what it feels like to be robbed.”
“So, it was for revenge.”
“For justice.”
“People will find out you took me. They’ll look for me.” But not until morning, at the earliest, when Torg figured out I was missing. Would he tell Darq? If he did, nothing, not warding, not banishment, would stop Darq from searching for me.
“They can look, but they won’t find you.” His confidence rattled my morale.
Where exactly was I? How far from the camps were we? How fast had we traveled? Twenty kilometers per hour? Twenty five? And for how long? Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? I wasn’t sure. When you’ve been kidnapped, tied up, and then pelted with snow, it hinders your ability to judge time or speed.
My situation reminded me of those hated math
problems they wouldn’t even let you use a calculator to figure out. If an abductor with a hostage leaves camp travelling at 20 kph or maybe 20+x for 30 minutes or maybe 30+y, what does that mean for the hostage?
I didn’t need a calculator for this one, after all. I knew the answer: the hostage is screwed. A+ for me.
I couldn’t count on a rescue. I had to get out of here on my own. Romando had to sleep sometime, right? I’d noticed some jugs of ale among the foodstuffs. Maybe I could get him to toast our “honeymoon” and fall asleep.
He waited outside the latrine while I used it, and then marched me back to the hut. I removed my kel and set it on the table within reach so I could grab it and run when an opportunity presented itself.
Unfortunately, Romando refused my offer to celebrate our new life together with a drink. He piled up kels for a bed and then, using a short length of braid, tied my hands and feet, and told me to get some sleep. He spent the night on a separate kel in front of the door.
In the morning, when he escorted me outside for another latrine stop, all the tracks had been buried by fresh snowfall.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Darq
After a fitful sleep, morning came. The bed had never felt so empty as it did without Sunny. Grief and despair gnawed at hope. Nobody could survive an entire night in the wilderness without shelter. She was Terran. Did she know how to pack the snow into a tunnel? How to light a fire and find dead wood that would burn? When I got her back, I would be sure to teach her survival skills. When I get her back, I will take care she never needs to use them.
I will find her. I will. She’d gotten lost once before, and I’d located her. Of course, she hadn’t gone far. She’d still been at the meeting place. Our camp and the others nearby had been scoured repeatedly by many people. Today, I would venture farther out.
I flung the kel back and yanked on my clothes. Hurriedly, I shoved some supplies into a pack. I would not come back until I had found Sunny.
“Darq!”
At the sound of my name spoken in a Terran accent, I spun around. A camera bobbed in the air. Ice coated the orb-like body and wings. Its eye flickered from red to black, and it started to fall. Before it hit the ground, the light came back on and it rose, but the wings labored. The camera had trouble staying aloft; it lifted and fell, lifted and fell. “Ro…ook…nee.” The producer’s voice broke up.
The garbled words made no sense, and I had no time to chat. “I can’t talk now. Sunny is missing. I have to find her.”
“Rom…nee.”
I strapped a sheath onto my thigh and slipped a knife into it. I tugged on my kel coat.
“Romando took…nee.”
The sound broke up, but my brain pieced it together. “Romando has Sunny?”
“Yes!” the producer said.
She was alive! Relief and joy rolled through me—and anger—at Romando for stealing my mate, and at myself for not figuring it out.
“He took her to—” The red light went out, the wings froze, and the camera hit the stone floor.
No! I grabbed it and shook it. I held it to my ear but couldn’t detect so much as a faint hum. The camera was dead. I threw it and dashed into the passage.
Torg, fully dressed and ready to go, entered from his private room.
“Romando took Sunny!” I said.
“How do you know?”
“The camera told me.”
“What is a camera?”
“One of the flying insects.”
“An insect told you?” He peered at me as if I’d lost my grip on sanity.
“It’s not an insect. It’s a long story. I can’t explain now. I’m going to Romando’s camp.”
“I’ll get Enoki and meet you there.”
“Thanks.” By myself, a lone tribe member of a different clan, I would have no sway over Polonio, who would side with Romando.
Starr, wrapped in her robe, appeared next to Torg. “What’s going on? Any news on Sunny?”
I bounced impatiently. “Yes…”
“I’ll fill her in. Go!” Torg ordered.
As I bounded to the snow skimmer shed, the sun peeked over the horizon, painting the sky with a rosy glow, the color of optimism. I would find my mate, and Romando would pay.
* * * *
I peeled into the camp in a spray of powder. “Romando!” I shouted. “Romando, show yourself!”
Polonio emerged from a hut with a kel slung over his shoulders. “What do you want? Why are you here? Why aren’t you in the ward as Torg promised?”
“Where is Romando? He stole my mate!”
I started to draw a crowd. More people came out of their huts.
“That’s a serious accusation. What proof do you have?”
“Which hut is his?”
The tribe leader didn’t answer, but men glanced at a small deserted-looking Terran prefab. Snow piled in front of the entrance. I stalked to it and pushed open the door. Vacant. “Where is he?”
Polonio shrugged. “Perhaps he is hunting, or he has gone to the meeting place on business or is visiting another tribe.”
“Or he left to hide Sunny after abducting her.”
“Sunny? You mean Sunny Weathers? She’s your mate?” said a Terran female I recognized from the selection at the meeting place.
“Yes. I want her back,” I replied.
“You are not required to tell him anything.” Polonio scowled, revealing if he hadn’t colluded with the kidnapping, he would abet Romando after the fact.
“Sunny and I were friends on the SS Deception,” the female said. “I want to help, if I can. I don’t know where Romando is, but for a week he has been moving supplies out of camp on a skimmer.”
“What kind of supplies?”
“Illuvian heaters and lamps, rolls of kel hide, food. Housing construction panels.”
“What direction did he go?”
“He came and went that way.” She pointed into the trees opposite the sunrise.
“Thank you,” I said, and then addressed Polonio. “Obviously, Romando has been planning to abduct Sunny for a while.”
“The mate who should have been his in the first place? It hasn’t been proven he has taken her,” Polonio said. “All we know is he left with supplies. He could have been trading with another camp.” He folded his arms, and his tribesmen nodded, their loyalty and sympathy with Romando. If they had any information, they wouldn’t tell me.
I turned to my only ally, the Terran woman. “Do you have any idea how long he was gone each time he left?” From the time lapse, I could gauge distance and figure out how much area to search.
She shook her head. “I didn’t pay that much attention. If I had to guess, I’d say once he departed and returned in half an hour?”
He’d had to unload supplies during that time, too. So, he wasn’t far away. “Are there any clearings near water?” It would be the best place to set up a camp.
I got shrugs and blank stares.
The Terran female jabbed an elbow into her mate’s side. “Do you know of such a place, Calian?” she asked.
“Romando is my tribesman,” Calian fidgeted. “We are brothers in spirit.”
She straightened and jutted out her chin. “On Terra, we have a saying: when the mate is happy, everybody is happy,” she said. “Do you understand what that means?”
He glanced at his mate then at me. He sighed. “Follow the natural break in the trees for about three tripta. When you get to a tree growing out of a large boulder, veer to the right. When you get to the creek, go upstream for another tripta. A fire burned many trees, leaving a clearing.”
“Thank you for that,” I said, and then looked at the woman. “My brother Torg, chief of my tribe, and Enoki will arrive shortly. Will you relay to them what you told me and point them in the right direction?” I didn’t trust Polonio or his tribe.
“Of course! Good luck. When you find her, tell her Gretchen said hello
.”
“I will.”
Morning was almost in full glow as I rode away from Romando’s camp.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sunny
“Ow, that’s too tight!” I faked a wince as Romando wound braid around my wrists and ankles, tying me to the chair.
He didn’t loosen the bonds or grace me with a reply. He treated words like they were kel, and the man was a cheapskate. He’d spoken very little, begrudgingly grunting when he had no other choice. He wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t like me. But I intended to work with that. I’d planned to make myself as unlikable as I could be. Given his aversion to conversation, I’d kept up an unrelenting, steady filibuster.
Before long, he’d beg Darq to take me back.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
He finished knotting the braid around my ankles and then moved to one of the cabinets to pull out a kel bag. I spotted a couple of knives before he snapped the lid closed.
“Can I go?” Maybe in the open, I might have a better chance to escape. Thus far, my prospects while tied up inside hadn’t been favorable.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You talk too much. You’ll scare away the animals.”
“What animals?”
He didn’t reply.
“Are you hunting? Are you trapping?”
“Both.”
“I promise I’ll be very quiet,” I said with an ultra-straight face.
“No.”
“How long will you be gone?” How much time would I have to try to work these knots loose?
He didn’t answer.
“You never take me anywhere,” I whined. “It’s work, work, work. We never talk anymore. You’re not seeing anybody else, are you?”
He looked at me like I was insane.
“If you consider me to be your mate, then you should desire my company,” I said.
“I do not desire your company.”
