Slave (32 page)

I got close enough to deliver a wide-range stun that would stop him—for a while, at least—and I fired again.

This time I heard him fall, and I went straight for Cat.

When I saw what they’d done to him, I didn’t hesitate for one second. I reset the rifle and went around to each of the Nedwuts and I killed every single, solitary one of them, for Cat was either dead or dying, bleeding profusely from a gaping wound at the base of his neck, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do for him.

But, of course, I tried anyway. I cut him down from the tree to which he’d been bound and tried to staunch the bleeding with my bare hands, but I was in despair of ever saving him, for he was extremely pale and was
barely breathing. I had nothing in my overall pockets but an Orknal first-aid kit and the Derivian ointment, which, as you know, was pretty good stuff, but it wasn’t
that
good. I was too late. I should have just gone in shooting and taken my chances. I’d been too slow and, as a result, I was going to lose my darling Cat forever.

I pulled what medicines I had with me out of my pockets and applied them to his wounds anyway. I knew it wasn’t much—and wasn’t nearly enough either—but at least I was doing
something
for him. I pulled him into my arms and held him, sobbing into his mane as he died. I’d already died once that day because I’d lost him.

Now it appeared that I was simply going to have to die all over again.

I had been sitting there with him for several minutes, leaning against the tree, holding him in my arms, when, suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t alone anymore. The little primate had come down from the canopy and was crouching there beside me, holding out a tentative hand.

It reached out and touched Cat’s hair, and then looked up at me with big, round, gleaming eyes that seemed to reflect my despair.

“He’s dying,” I whispered sadly, “I can’t save him.” I doubted that it understood a word I was saying, but in a situation such as that, I probably would have been talking to the trees if I’d thought they might be listening; this furry little creature with its monkey-like body and big, lemur eyes could at least hear me. It raised a hand to touch the tears on my face with its tiny little fingers, tasting them briefly before scampering off once more into the brush.
I’d never felt so alone in my life. I could hear sounds of birds and insects and other animals all around me, but the smell of death was so strong, it overpowered any others that I might have noted. I wondered if I would die when Cat did—if the bond we had was that strong. Delamar had told us only that I would be able to track him, not that I could save him or outlive him, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t really care. I was losing the only man I’d ever loved in my entire life, and it made my own life seem utterly worthless.

Somewhere, through the scent of blood and death, I became aware of my furry little friend as it returned once more. It appeared to have been eating something, for its cheeks were bulging, and it was still chewing as it approached. Life goes on, I thought. Cat and I would die here and become part of the cycle of life in the jungle, for our deaths meant nothing in the overall fate of the stars. Cat was the last of his kind, the memory of which would pass into legend, then myth, and then be forgotten in the mists of time. What a waste, I thought as I watched him die. What a goddamned, useless waste….

The little monkey sat at Cat’s feet, regarding us both with its big, dark eyes for a long moment before it came closer, climbing up onto Cat. With a quiet chirping sound, it pulled my hand away from Cat’s neck with its nimble little fingers, removed a wad of chewed leaves from its mouth, and then applied it to the wound. Placing my hand over Cat’s wound again, it gazed up at me with those deep, brown eyes, pressed its hand on top of mine, and began to sing.

At least, that’s what it sounded like to me. It was a rhythmic, whirring sound that rose and fell with each
breath, but it also had a melody that was repeated at least five times before it stopped. Giving me a nod and touching my tear-stained cheek once more, the tiny creature moved away and disappeared into the jungle.

I watched it until it was lost to my sight, only to be replaced in my line of vision by a well-armed squadron of the biggest, toughest-looking Amazons I’d ever beheld in my long and varied experience. If these were members of the local army, then they were definitely of a different breed from anyone else I’d seen thus far—and they were all female. Dressed in swerg skins and armed to the teeth, with long, dark hair and glowing blue eyes, they looked like a jungle-dwelling SWAT team.

They might have appeared to be unrelated to any Statzeelian I’d seen so far, but they did speak an understandable dialect of Stantongue with only a mild accent.

“He is dead?” the leader asked.

I shook my head. “Not quite, but nearly there,” I replied wearily. “I was too late. The Nedwuts have killed him.” I gestured at the bodies lying in and around the clearing. “And I killed them.” Which had been pointless because Cat was going to die anyway; it had merely been my revenge. I might have told myself that I’d killed them just so they could cause us no further harm, but the truth was, it had been purely out of vengeance; I wanted them dead for what they had done to my Cat.

“You have saved us the trouble then,” the leader said gravely. “Their lives were forfeit once they set foot on our soil and they knew this to be true. Killing a Nedwut is not a crime on this world, but killing someone else is,
and we take great pains to prevent it. We have a healer with us, would you let her see him?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Whatever.” I was fairly certain that they couldn’t possibly do him any harm, but I cherished little hope that there was anything that could be done to save him. Not now, not after he’d been abused for so many years in the past and had lost so much blood in such a short period of time. I could console myself with the fact that he’d at least had a few days with me that hadn’t been torture for him. Poor Cat. I’d wanted to keep him forever, but forever hadn’t turned out to be very long, had it?

Their ranks parted and a small, pale creature came forward, which, to my surprise, looked very much like Delamar, except that this one had blue, as opposed to red, eyes. She noted my surprise and seemed equally surprised to see me—and especially my own red eyes.

“You have been treated by one of our males and bonded with this man, have you not?” Her voice was the same breathy whisper as Delamar’s had been, but was much more musical, and lighter in tone.

I nodded in response to her query. So, I had been bonded to him. I’d thought as much.

“It is a process that is only effective if you already love the one with whom you are to be bonded,” she said.

“To be bonded as you have been, you must love him very much indeed.”

“I love him more than anything,” I murmured. “My sweet Cat.”

“You will not live if he dies,” she said softly. “Therefore, we must save him in order to save you.” She
directed her glowing blue gaze into my red one. “You would not wish to live if he dies, would you?”

I shook my head. “No,” I replied. “I would not.” In fact, I would welcome death, and I was beginning to fade already, losing my will, and not caring that it was slipping away from me, just as Cat was.

The blue-eyed female came closer, taking Cat’s face in her hands. “A Zetithian male,” she murmured. “So rare and so beautiful—so much so that they were destroyed because of it. It would be a great pity to lose this one, for he is very precious, is he not?”

“Oh, yeah,” I sighed. “He’s precious to me, all right.

More than anything else in the universe.”

She nodded. “I am called Tudrock,” she said. “And I will do my best to save you both, but you must let me have him for few moments. I assure you that he will come to no harm.”

It sounded like what the male had said to me before filling me up with his aquamarine slime. I wondered briefly what strange thing she would have to do to Cat to help him, but relinquished him to her anyway, realizing that I really didn’t care anymore.

A collective gasp could be heard from all of the women, including Tudrock, as my hand slipped away from Cat’s wound, revealing the mass of chewed leaves that had been applied to it. The leaves had apparently stopped the bleeding—either that or Cat was simply out of blood altogether.

“What is this?” Tudrock exclaimed as she examined the poultice that the monkey had pressed into the wound.

“The Guardians have helped you?”
I looked up at her, realizing that my vision was beginning to fade and I had less than perfect control of the muscles in my neck. “Guardians?”

“The creatures of the jungle,” she replied. “They did this for you?”

I nodded weakly. “A little monkey with big eyes put it there and then left, just before you came. I’ve seen several of them while we were traveling on the road through the jungle. Are you telling me that there is something…special about them?”

The tall woman who had spoken before replied.

“The Guardians live in the canopy of the jungle, but they are timid creatures and rarely seen. To see one is considered good luck, for they have powers that heal the body, the mind, and the spirit. You are very fortunate, indeed.”

Yeah, right! I thought. So fortunate that Cat is lying here dying in my arms! No, scratch that, because he was dying in Tudrock’s arms now, for she had taken his inert body into her grasp, holding him closely as she opened his eyes with her long, tapered fingers.

“My work will be made easier because of the Guardian’s help,” Tudrock said. “I will bring his body back from death, but it is the Guardians who will return his spirit.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled, with a wave that never truly materialized into a full gesture. With Cat out of my arms, I felt myself growing weaker by the second. “Please save my Cat, if you can,” I sighed. “I’m dying anyway.”

Tudrock nodded, directing her blue gaze into Cat’s glittering eyes. I could see that the golden glow was
fading from his cat-like pupils, but the black irises still gleamed like obsidian. I watched, not caring, merely observing, as her eyes changed colors similar to the way Delamar’s had done, fading first from blue to purple before turning red. Gradually the red became more yellow, and when her eyes reached a deep shade of orange, her tongue protruded just as the male’s had, and then slid past Cat’s parted lips. I could see his throat expanding as it passed down and he seemed to swallow it in the only movement I’d seen him make since I’d found him. Then, just as before with Delamar, a ball formed in her mouth and passed through her tongue, down Cat’s throat and into his stomach.

The bolus having been delivered, Tudrock’s tongue whipped back into her mouth and she laid Cat back down so that his head rested on my chest. I was leaning back against the trunk of the tree he’d been tied to and I had no strength left to move, not even to raise my arms to hold him.

And I
did
want to hold him! I knew that Tudrock had done her best, but I still felt so weak, so helpless. I wanted so much to hold my sweet Cat, but I hadn’t the strength.

Then my vision faded to black and I felt no more.

Slave 221107.qxd 1/30/08 4:36 PM Page 297

I GUESS ALANNA MUST HAVE ALERTED THE RIGHT

people, for they seemed to know precisely where Cat and I belonged. I have a vague recollection of being hauled up the mountain road behind Buckaroo on a makeshift travois of sorts, nestled closely to Cat as I regained some of my senses. My smeller still seemed to work fairly well, for, as before, I could identify and place the people around us from their scent alone. The Amazonian SWAT team and Tudrock escorted us to Ranata and Dantonio’s house, and I felt some of my strength returning—though slowly—as we traveled.

Cat, however, never stirred throughout the entire journey, and I’ll admit to being somewhat doubtful that he would ever make a full recovery. Of course, the fact that I, myself, was improving was a good sign—that is, if these people were to be believed. He did feel warm and seemed to be breathing normally, so I told myself not to worry. Between the Guardian and Tudrock he
had
to get better—he had to!—if for no other reason than to spread the word that the Nedwuts had been responsible for the destruction of Zetith.

Something had to be done about those snarling little shits, and I would see to it that they got what was coming to them if it took me the rest of my natural life to do it.

Of course, the prosecution of the Nedwuts would
undoubtedly involve whoever had paid them to destroy Zetith, since I still felt that it was a given that they couldn’t do something like that on their own. The network of drug smugglers and other perpetrators of organized crime would be gunning for us, which made me sort of want to keep my mouth shut, but the word was undoubtedly already spreading, for the old man we’d met had said that he would see to it. Word of mouth moved pretty quickly despite the distances between planets, for—the theories of star movement and the expansion of the universe notwithstanding—our galaxy, at least, seemed to be getting smaller with each passing year. Soon, I hoped, the Nedwuts and others of their ilk would be banned from every planet in the galaxy but their own. It might even get a sort of peacekeeping force going, though things like that had a way of getting out of control, as well. No, just the knowledge that they were capable of such a heinous crime would be enough to get them shunned by the people of probably every planet I’d ever been on—and I’d been on quite a few.

We were growing up as a galaxy, and we hoped things would become more peaceful and prosperous as time went on.

I, of course, could go on with my life, trading in legal commodities and traveling the galaxy with my Cat, perhaps, or maybe we’d just go home—though first I had to get him well. The trouble was, I wasn’t worth a whole lot at the time, myself, and for once in my life, I had to depend on my little sister to take care of me!

I’ll have to admit that for a recuperative period, it certainly had its advantages. Cat and I were cleaned up
and tucked into that lovely soft, cozy bed in our room at Ranata’s house, and fed well and often. I could have stayed there forever, except that for the first day and a half, Cat was still unconscious. I told Tudrock I wanted a second opinion if he didn’t wake up soon, but she just laughed in that odd, wheezy little chuckle that her kind all seemed to possess, and told me to be a patient patient.