Alien, Mine (20 page)

She shoved forward through woody resistance. Twigs snapped and tugged at her body then suddenly fresh air surrounded her. Dexter coughed a couple of quiet barks. She halted, gazed around at the sunlit rocks and drew in a deep breath. Her desperation eased. The hum of insects shimmered in the air. She scrambled into the lee of a boulder, crouched, then leaned her back into its solid warmth.

Dexter scampered up her arm and rubbed his face against her cheek.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

To her right, young trees framed a sheer drop and a spectacular view of precipitous mountains. A prickling sensation slithered over her scalp. She rose to her feet and hugged the rock. The smell of Bluthen churned her stomach. Dexter’s thrum travelled down her spine to legs desperate to beat the urgent tattoo of flight.

“Don’t move.” The order came from the direction of the track.

Her heart lurched.

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

Fear and revulsion crawled down her back. She curled her fingers into hard stone.

Was he talking to her, or was Kendril there?

Dexter wound into a tight, tense ball against her neck. Booted footsteps trod toward her. The muzzle of a rifle edged around the rock. Dread iced her veins. Overwhelming Bluthen odour speared fear through her heart. White noise filled her ears. He cleared the rock and stood before her, a shaft of sunlight glinted from metal. She stared in petrified horror. Recollections of brutal violation bloomed like suffocating spores.

A ferocious storm of wrath blazed through her victim’s paralysis. Adrenaline-ignited fury surged through her veins and she became aware of nothing but the powerful need to dispense fierce, crushing revenge.

Sandrea blinked and focused on Kendril’s worried face. Her friend knelt beside her, eyes filled with concern.

Cramps struck Sandrea’s legs, urging her to unwind from a tight huddle. Beneath her vest and over-shirt, Dexter’s warm body hugged her ribs. “What happened?” she asked.

Kendril gazed at her with steady consideration then eased her grip on her upper arms. “Did he kill your dog, too?”

What?
“No.”

“Well you ‘happened’ to him as you did the Bluthen who killed your dog.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“Did they rape you?” Kendril asked quietly.

Sandrea shook her head. “No. Violate, yes.” She hauled in a deep, shaky breath, gathered herself, and rose. “Where is he?”

Kendril pointed with a jerk of her chin. “Over there—mostly.”

Sandrea moved to the cliff edge and peered down. Early afternoon sunlight revealed a sheer tumble of boulders in shades of grey with a gruesome embellishment of stark, dark-red gore.

After a few moments of silent observation, she pursed her lips in contemplation.

“He is all over here, Shrenk’.”

“Well, technically, I suppose, yes,” Kendril admitted, coming to her side. “It’s just that he’s spread out over a few square meters. Sandrea?”

“Mmm?”

“Is that little lizard one of those things we’re not telling the General about?”

She turned her gaze to Kendril’s calm face.

“Lizard?”

“I don’t think all the Bluthen’s bones were broken by a fall onto rocks.”

“Really?”

“He wrapped his body around an arm, constricted and—” Kendril clicked her thumb and middle finger, “—snap. He also seems to have some sort of bone blade on his tail. That’s what severed the Bluthen’s neck.”

He does?

Sandrea opened the over-shirt and encouraged Dexter forth. Dainty feet plucked against her stretch-shirt as he nosed upward between her breasts. He perched with supreme confidence on her shoulder and gazed unblinkingly at Kendril.

“He’s claimed me. I’ve claimed him.”

“And the reason for subterfuge?”

“I won’t tolerate anyone trying to take him from me.”

“I see. Does this have something to do with the death of your dog?”

Surprise flitted through her at Kendril’s insight.

“Not so much the death of my dog, but the manner in which he was taken from me, yes.”

Kendril’s eye-ridges rose. “Well, you’ll have a devil of a time trying to get him unnoticed through a ship’s bio-isolation unit.”

Sandrea shook her head. “I have no intention of hiding him forever, Shrenk’. Nor of avoiding any health procedures. I just . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know, I just wanted to avoid a confrontation with anyone—at least until it’s absolutely necessary.”

“By ‘anyone’ you mean anyone attempting to take him from you.”

“Correct.”

Kendril studied Dexter for a long moment. “You realize that if the General asks me outright if you’ve picked up any stray animals, I’ll be required to answer truthfully.”

A crooked smile twitched Sandrea’s lips. “Is that a question he often asks?”

“No.”

“What if he wants to know if anything untoward happened?”

“Hells, since meeting you I’ve experienced nothing but ‘untoward’.”

Sandrea’s grin widened, then she frowned. “You’re not putting your career in jeopardy by keeping quiet about Dexter, are you?”

Kendril shrugged. “I’ve done worse,” she admitted, “and gotten away with it. Come on, let’s keep moving.”

They returned to the dirt path and followed it downhill through tall trees. Sunlight dappled the ground and Dexter warbled a soft, hushed tune then tucked his head under Sandrea’s earlobe.

“I’ve heard that before,” Kendril said. “Around some big mother beasts . . .”

“Long fangs, blood-shot eyes?”

“That’s the ones.”

“Met one. Dexter saved me with his singing.” She stroked his throat and he gurgled a low response.

“Well I’m glad you didn’t fire on it,” Kendril murmured. “Apparently their skin absorbs most of the force from weapons fire. Shooting at them only enrages them.”

“Shrenk’, I was too busy running away from the damn thing to fire on it, not that I’ve got a weapon any way. I did wonder why T’Hargen didn’t shoot.”

Kendril’s gaze ran over Dexter.

“He’s a pretty little creature. Do you think the frill serves a purpose?”

“Could do. Back home our frilled-neck lizards use it to alarm and frighten off predators.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I think Dexter uses his like a radar or enhanced listening device.”

“Hmmp.”

Sandrea lifted her forearm and tapped her wrist. “Come down here, Dexter, I want to have a look at your tail.”

“He understands you?”

Dexter slithered down from her shoulder and wrapped his legs around her forearm.

“He seems to. I don’t know how, but he seems to know what I’m feeling and what I’m trying to communicate. I can usually sense what he wants too.”

She gently touched her forefinger and thumb to the triangular, hard skin at the base of his tail. Dexter peered up at her and cocked his head to one side.

“May I?” Kendril asked.

Dexter’s sapphire lids lowered, stayed closed for a moment, then opened on his emerald eyes. Beneath Sandrea’s fingers his skin retracted to reveal a flat, dagger-like bone.

“Wow.”

Kendril leaned close and examined the natural weapon. “Impressive. Remind me never to insult you while Dexter’s around. He’s, um, he’s not likely to turn feral for no reason, is he?”

“Honestly, Shrenk’, I have no idea. But then I didn’t know if Graegen would turn feral when I released him in that cavern. Sometimes you just have to take a chance. I don’t think he will. He sends me such strong devotional emotions.”

“Sends? How?”

She shrugged. “Kind of like empathy, I suppose. I get a warm fuzzy or a sense of alarm, something I know is not me.”

“Interesting.”

“Mmm.”

A long, reflective silence fell over both women as they strode down the path.

“Shrenk’?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t let them take me. I can’t go through that again.”

Understanding layered the air between them.

“I won’t.”

A shudder rippled through Sandrea.

“I’ve been remembering things . . .”

Kendril’s concerned regard eased her like the soft feather stroke of a guardian angel. Then her friend clasped her shoulder.

“You have my word that if it’s in my power to prevent, I’ll do it. If not, they won’t get you back alive.”

Sandrea nodded. That was all she could ask, and a great deal for Kendril to give.

“Hey look, drop bears.”

Sandrea crouched behind a thick shrub and gazed through the late afternoon light into the mountain meadow sloping away before them.

“What?”

Sandrea shook her head and tried not to breathe too loudly. A herd of vampire Bunyip/cows, some seeming to radiate expectant hope like kids in front of a candy store, stood knee-deep in grass before a number of tall yucca-like growths.

“You have something on Earth called a drop bear?” Kendril prompted.

She smiled and glanced at her friend. “No, not really, they’re a useful imaginary creature we have in Australia.”

Perplexed astonishment skated across Kendril’s features.

“You lived in a society where an imaginary creature that has the appearance of a rasque is useful?”

Sandrea nodded, fondly remembering the few times she’d scared the hell out of unsuspecting, overseas visitors with horrific tales of drop bears, then invited them for a stroll in the nearby nature reserve.

Ah dear, those were the days.

“They’re just for fun,” she clarified and turned back to the creatures in the meadow.

Many of them utilized the length of their elongated teeth to dislodge oblong, yellow fruit from between the fat, sword-shaped, spiky leaves of huge succulent-looking plants. A flash of bronze caught her gaze. A caped lizard pecked at a fruit where it joined to the stem. For some minutes the reptile gobbled bites of food until most of the fruit, deprived of support, fell from the stem to the leaf. With quick, darting movements, the lizard then rolled the leftovers to where it was snatched up by a long, rasque tongue.

“They appear to have something of a symbiotic relationship,” Kendril said.

“Looks like it.” Sandrea turned to Dexter. “Want to eat?”

He emitted a soft
chuck-chuck
, sprang from her shoulder, and raced away through the tall, green grass of the field. A moment later, he reappeared, scrambling into a spiky plant, then greeted a number of his fellows with a nose-to-nose bunt and then attacked the food.

Surprise flickered through Sandrea that even amongst the confusion of multiple look-a-like lizards, she could differentiate Dexter’s shape and markings from the rest. Not long later, having fed himself and a rasque, Dexter took a flying leap from a high leaf and vanished into the grass. An instant or two later he reappeared by her side.

She eyed the bulge of his fruit-laden abdomen.

“Look at your fat little tummy!”

Dexter offered up a burp that sent both women into muffled chuckles. He leapt onto Sandrea’s bended knee then scrambled up to her shoulder. Prodding her chin gently, he plunked his distended tummy along her collarbone, looped his tail around her nape, and trilled a jaunty warble. Wry amusement twisted Sandrea’s lips.

“I think that means we can go now.”

They skirted the clearing and headed towards the sun. Golden sunlight edging toward dusk gave depth to the atmosphere and created the illusion of being in a snow globe, sans the snow. The tall, well-spaced conifers lent a woodsy, almost parkland feel to the countryside, and for a short while tension eased from Sandrea’s body. After winding their way through the woods for about half a mile, Kendril’s pace slowed. She turned her head and scanned the woods.

“What’s wrong?” Sandrea whispered.

“Dovzshak isn’t in the agreed position nor is he answering my hails.”

Sandrea frowned. “You called him?”

“Yes. Encoded signal. Would have sounded like static to anyone at the other end who didn’t know what to listen for.”

“You think the Bluthen have him?”

“I think I’m going to have to investigate that possibility.” Kendril eyed her with a speculative gleam. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in me asking you to remain here?”

Sandrea dropped her head to one side and gave her friend a ‘What-do-you-think?’ stare.

“No, I thought not.” Kendril grinned. “Stay close.”

Wish Eugen would say that.
“Right behind you.”

For a few hundred yards they flitted between the trees toward the bald crest of a rise. As they neared, Dexter rumbled a deep, continuous, rolling-click like the initiating trill of a kookaburra’s laugh. He sprang upright, suctioned toe pads onto Sandrea’s ear, and flicked out his frill. His head swung in a slow arc like a radar, then he chittered.

Angry menace buzzed through Sandrea’s mind.

Kendril furled into a crouch, measured her length in the grass, and snaked up the embankment that rose in a steep gradient before them. Sandrea dropped to her belly and followed suit. Dexter’s feet tugged on her hair as he climbed onto the back of her head. When he rapped her skull in repeated agitation, she halted and hissed at Kendril. Her friend waved her under the cover of the nearest tree.