In Silence Waiting

In Silence Waiting

by Nikki McCormack

Published by:

Nikki McCormack

Copyright © 2014

https://nikkimccormack.com/

Written by Nikki McCormack

Cover Design by Victoria Davies

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

In Silence Waiting

Holding the carcass down with strong paws, the kirak rips away a strip of red flesh. Flavor and texture go unnoticed. It listens and sniffs the air, vigilant to the threat of superior predators. It freezes, sensing another presence, becoming still as any rock in the desert. No sound or smell accompanies the sensation. Lean muscles twitch. It resumes tearing at the fresh kill.

I draw back from the kirak’s mind, relinquishing the exhilarating wildness of the predator. It startles again at my departure, aware of my presence, yet unable to understand what I am. It will go back to feasting soon.

I spread my area sense, like water spreading over the surface of a stone, as far as I can in all directions, searching for something more threatening than a well-fed kirak. The actions of every living thing in that expanse are mine to observe, an illusion of power crushed by the collar I wear.

Satisfied there are no pressing dangers, I draw back into my physical self. I am crouched, palms pressed down on either side of bare feet, claws sunk into the familiar red dust that blankets the New Gobi. A soft breeze stirs the powdery dust into small funnel clouds. The dust is silky smooth, a texture that would be welcome in different circumstances. Here, it is a nuisance. It permeates everything.

I look up at the muscle-bound brute holding the end of my chain and nod once, parting my lips to show the tips of pointed incisors in subtle threat. The crude mutant grunts satisfaction and tosses a scrap of dried fish my way. I lunge and catch the savory bit before it’s lost in the thick dust.

I crouch as I eat, reaching out with my area sense again. I see myself through the eyes of a watching woman as I chew the dried fish. My pointed incisors show in quick flashes as my jaws move, my bronze eyes unfocused. Short mottled fur runs along my wiry shoulders and tapers down my arms and mid-back. Her reaction is unusual, not quite disgust, something more than mere curiosity.

I withdraw and watch the woman through my eyes. She emerges from the group of apprehensive humans gathered to gawk at me as they always do while we prepare for the desert crossing. A mane of dark red hair emphasizes her fierce green eyes. She stops when the second brute swings his battered rifle up to block her. One slender hand rises, her fingertips coming to rest on the barrel. She gazes at me over it.

“It’s almost human.”

She speaks under her breath to no one in particular, but the brute guffaws and my hackles rise. I twist my lip in a snarl. I am not human. They are frail creatures with soft flesh, slow reflexes, and limited awareness. I may share some of their genetic makeup, but I am not them.

“Move on!” The brute shifts the gun away from her hand.

The first brute places manacles on my slender wrists. The woman regards me with galling pity before turning away.

Like my kind, the cynta, brutes were developed using human genes. Whatever other genetic material is used, it is enough removed from the cynta mix that we can’t sense their emotions. Brutes are bodyguards and cynta handlers, their inhuman genes apparent in the bulge of extraordinary muscles and the gray cast of their skin. The only organ in their bodies that isn’t overdeveloped is the one between their ears.

With the manacles fastened, the brute’s stony scowl becomes a condescending smirk. I bare tapered canines at his back when he leads me to the front of the caravan. Thirteen wagons and nearly fifty humans wanting to cross the New Gobi are lined up and waiting. Laurin, their hired guide, my owner, clucks at our draft beasts. The caravan starts up groggily like a great, fat serpent waking from sleep.

We must plan camp early so a new location can be found if I sense danger. With the sun dipping towards the horizon, the wagon train stops within a half circle of red rock protruding jagged from the earth like the spine of some massive beast. The formation is natural, though passing caravans have reinforced it over the years. In my crossings, I’ve watched humans pile some of those stones, taking false comfort from the fortification. The wall will not hinder dust storms or lir, the true perils of the New Gobi.

One brute checks my collar before removing the manacles. The other assists Laurin in arranging wagons for the night. The brute leads me away from the activity then shoves me to the ground. Swallowing sour rage, I right myself and shake, covering him with a fine spray of red dust. His irritated scowl does nothing to slake my fury. I crouch, press my palms into the dust, and wait.

It is one thing to be treated thus by humans. They have the prestige of being the creators of my kind. The brute is an engineered mutant.

When anger fades to a dull throb in my veins, I stretch out my sense and encounter something west of the rocks, no more than five kilometers away. A chill moves through me as I make careful contact. It is lir. The presence seethes with malevolence. Turning all of my ability toward it, I separate its pack mind into nine individual creatures.

It is easy to touch lir with my sense, perhaps because they communicate with a form of telepathy themselves. This ability makes them sensitive to my presence and the pack mind becomes alert, aware of me. I maintain contact, waiting for the pack to lose interest in my presence. If I pull away too fast, I risk drawing their attention to the camp.

At the edge of my awareness, I hear the high-pitched laughter and squeals of children playing among the onlookers. Someone reprimands them gently. The brute snarls a warning. I must focus on the lir until they settle enough for me to withdraw. A shriek of laughter assaults my ears and I flinch, but my focus remains. Then something slams into my side and my sense snaps back to my physical self. In the last seconds of contact, there is a change in the lir. The pack mind is going hunting.

Molten, animal rage severs the last tendrils of my self-control. I lash out at the careless child, needing to defend my space and punish someone for the danger they have put us all in. My claws slash instead into the leg of a man who has grabbed the child. Through the fresh tears in his pants, I see four deep gashes open in his upper thigh. For a second, the flesh is stunned, then blood gushes forth, thick and red. The heady aroma stirs buried instincts and confusion mixes with my anger and fear.

I have committed a terrible offense. I struggle against the chain, terrified of the punishment this will bring. The brute holds on tight while the wounded man scrambles back, howling in pain. Someone grabs the screaming child. Laurin appears with a gun in hand.

There is a frozen instant in which I meet his eyes. He doesn’t know about the lir yet. He levels the gun and fires once. I jump at the impact and sedative begins to race through me. There isn’t time to react to the pain before I sink to the ground. The world spins and nausea twists my stomach in knots. The initial assault of the sedative eases then and unnatural sleep pulls at me.

“You simpleminded idiots!”

Laurin yells at the crowd, the sound coming from across a great distance. The drug sends me into a mental stupor. With obsessive interest, I notice a stream of drool running from my mouth is creating a dark spot, like blood, in the red dust.

Laurin stops his magnificent tirade to stare down at me, eyes full of disgust. I know the look well. Through it, I have come to understand hate.

If I wanted to…

My gaze slides listlessly to the others, those we shepherd across this waste like herd beasts. They also stare. Their eyes hold fear and hatred. They are him. Different faces and names mean nothing. I hate them all.

If I wanted to, I could still warn him.

I close my eyes.

He curses and kicks dust in my face.

It lessens my guilt.

Even with the sedative pulsing through me like a fever, I smell the blood of the wounded man. The lir will smell it too. They may be close now, surveying the caravan camp with their dead black eyes. They are native to this planet. Humanity drove them into the New Gobi, assuming they would die in the harsh climate. Lir are a hardy species. They adapted. Scarce water and food makes them savage. Intelligent and efficient predators to begin with, now they are cruel as well.

With the New Gobi splitting the land, people needed to cross to access necessary resources. A society of warriors might have devised a different solution. The settlers of this planet know medicine and genetics. In order to cross the New Gobi by avoiding the lir they made cynta and created brutes to control us. I am the best at this crossing. With me, Laurin hasn’t had an incident in twelve years. How ironic that a mere child should destroy that illustrious record.

Darkness falls. My awareness drifts in and out. The brutes left me beside Laurin’s wagon, my chains staked into the dry soil. My mind wanders, flowing through the ground and riding my sense to a nearby presence. My consciousness becomes a passenger to the creatures hidden in the darkness. They stalk, ever-cautious, through the night.

The drug keeps my fear of them at a distance, allowing me to ride along with the lir objectively. I see the camp through their eyes in monochromatic flashes, their vision responding to the heat of living flesh. The pack moves in perfect synchronicity, each creature a distinct physical being, but also an integral part of a single mind.

The pack lurks outside the firelight, downwind from the nervous draft animals. They wait for the perfect moment then, in a single fluid movement, they surge forward.

I narrow my sense to the lead male. It uses one exaggerated claw on its leathery foreleg to sever the hamstring of an unsuspecting man near the edge of the camp. The man falls with a shriek of fear and agony. His cry rises in concert with others from that side of the camp. The lir slashes open his abdomen, further crippling him, and drags him into the dark.

They do not kill their victims yet. The wounded are left in the dark, too injured to save themselves. Panicked cries rise around the camp while the lir regroup for a second attack. I return to myself, drawn by the sound of Laurin’s voice calling orders, trying to establish organized defense.

“Pull together. Form a tight circle. Put anyone with a weapon on the outside.”

Laurin’s commands cut off with an agonized wail. Despairing emptiness fills me. Without the wagon master, whose livelihood depends upon me, I will be forgotten. Being eaten alive doesn’t appeal to me. I try struggling against my chains, but drugged muscles won’t respond to my need. I give up and wait for slow death to find me.

When something does find me, it isn’t teeth, but hands that take hold, wrapping under my arms. Someone dislodges the stake and takes hold of my legs. Fear pulsates off the two humans like stifling waves of heat. After a short, uncomfortable trip, they drop me unceremoniously amidst a circle of people radiating the same suffocating fear.

On the ground again, I can sense lir approaching the circle of human flesh. One darts in and a desperately wielded hunting knife drives it back. A gun fires. The lir retreat. They have food and are intelligent enough to know that they needn’t risk the pack for more. They disappear into the dark and the howling of their victims fills the night for some time. In the circle, a fog of sorrow and terror thickens the air.

A woman’s sharp voice cuts the stillness. “We should do something.”

She is older, with fine wrinkled skin and dark eyes that have lost their reason. When no one moves, she starts to push her way out. Several men force her back.

“We cannot, Imara.” A young man wraps his arms around her, trying to calm her. “The lir will pick us off if we leave the circle. We stand no chance in the dark.”

Imara struggles free and turns on him. “You’re evil.”

Spittle showers the man and he flinches away, disgust and pity in his eyes.

Her gaze pans over the group. “You’re all evil.”

Though free of the man’s arms now, she doesn’t try to leave again. Instead, she sits amongst her evil brethren, glaring at them each in turn.

Silence comes in time. The lir, gorged on human flesh, have gone off to sleep and digest. It was a successful hunt. They killed seventeen in all, including Laurin and both brutes.

The harsh light of dawn falls upon the survivors. Their misery is painful to my receptive area sense. A man pushes my stake deep into the ground and leaves me.

Do they know what I am worth to them if they reach the other side? A cynta of my skill will bring a high price on the auction block. More importantly, they realize they need me if they hope to get that far alive. No one left knows the way across the New Gobi. Deep despair colors their sorrow as they cast furtive glances my way. They know nothing of working with cynta, yet without me, they will die. It is almost humorous in its irony. If my future weren’t so uncertain, I would offer up a toothy smile for them.

Another woman strides past the man who set my stake, heading away from the camp. I recognize her scent and her green eyes. She is the woman who dared call me “almost human.”

“Where are you going?” The man demands.

My hackles rise in response to her spike of irritation, unintentionally reflecting her mood, but her tone is calm. “This way, Merk. Care to join me?”

The flare of anger from Merk is searing. He is a man of great temper, accustomed to getting his way.

Before he can respond, the old woman, Imara, seated the shadow of a wagon, cries out, “It’s too late, Bitch. They’re all dead. All dead.”

The woman doesn’t look at her. I can feel the twinge of anguish where the sharp blade of Imara’s words penetrates. This woman already knows they are dead. She isn’t looking for survivors. Determination drives to the forefront of her jumbled thoughts and emotions as she follows the trail of blood. Merk turns his back on her.

I watch the woman until the hot morning sun melds her form with the blur of the horizon. I reach out with my sense, checking for danger. There is nothing to fear. I sense a sleeping kirak somewhere far away and rodents out scavenging in the early light. Of the lir, there is no trace.

“Start hitching the teams,” Merk hollers. “Consolidate supplies into fewer wagons. I want at least two adults and one weapon per wagon. Pair up with someone. From this point on, you and your partner will be responsible for each other. Everyone is responsible for the wagon teams and the children.”

His voice demands attention. He gets the survivors grouped and sets them to moving supplies. The sorrow lifts a little now that they have a job to do. The influence of leadership and quick direction joins them in the task of moving on. Everyone is suddenly busy, except Imara who still sulks by the wagon.

Merk scowls down at her impressively. “Old woman, if you don’t do your part you can stay here.”

“We should all stay here.”

He sneers and kicks dust at her before moving away. The red powder sprays into her face and her eyes fill with tears from the dust. I know how it feels. A seed of loathing takes root within me for this man. There is also fear. I am at his mercy. Whatever Merk chooses to do with me, I can’t imagine anyone will interfere.

A man, short and thickly muscled, joins Merk. His voice is low and rasping, as though he has suffered injury to his throat. “What now? How do we find our way?”

Merk glances at me in response.

“Can we trust it?”

“Given the right incentive, it will do whatever we want.” Venom seeps from Merk’s cruel smile.

I bare my teeth to mask a rising fear. He turns away. The rasping man follows as he walks among the wagons, offering advice and encouragement like some benign ruler.

Imara is watching me. We are now on the same level, a significant demotion for the old woman. Sanity seeps into her eyes and her head sags under a wash of misery so heavy it nearly bears me to the ground. I draw my area sense in close and curl around my stake to rest.

Approaching footsteps rouse me sometime later. I rise to a crouch and press my hands to the ground to spread my sense around me. Before I even see the green-eyed woman, I recognize her mental presence and her smell. She comes within reach of my chain and glances around cautiously, her emotions a confusing tangle of excitement and fear.

I back away, stopping at the end of my chain, and watch her warily. She crouches in a stance mirroring my own. She carries several weapons, among them the brutes’ rifles and the dart gun. These she sets aside. She digs a piece of dried fish from the scavenged pouch and tosses it to me. I ignore the treat, though the thought of it makes my mouth water.

She radiates frustration, but her expression is forced patience. “You don’t belong to us, cynta, but we need your help.”

I glance over to where Merk is managing the movement of cargo from one wagon into two others. He knows they need me and has hinted at using other means.

She follows my gaze and frowns. “I can see to it that he doesn’t hurt you.”

She draws something else from the pouch and my pulse quickens. The key to my collar and manacles shimmers in the ruthless desert sunlight. My muscles tremble. It takes great self-restraint not to lunge for it. Wary of a trap, I wait and watch. Her gaze turns inward. Her face pales.

“I saw what was left of them.” She doesn’t have to say who they are. I feel her revulsion. I know the gruesome remains the lir would have left behind. I’ve seen it before. “I don’t want to die like that and I believe that you can prevent it, but not Merk’s way. If I release you and you abandon us, he will leave me to die out here.” The hand holding the key starts to sink back toward the pouch.

I move closer and lower a finger into the dust. With one long nail, I start to make letters. I can write a few words in the trade language. An observant cynta can learn much. We’re treated as mindless possessions so few bother to hide things from us.

She shifts close, eyes widening. Yes, is all I write, but it is enough.

“You can write?” An awed whisper. “You are almost human.”

I suppress a snarl. I can suffer the insult if it will earn me freedom. She smiles and places a hand on my forearm. I start in surprise at the unexpected contact. She jerks her hand away. I try for a soothing expression and curse the silence that makes a simple exchange so complicated. Careful genetic manipulation denied my kind the ability to speak. The best slaves are those that cannot speak their minds or commiserate with their fellows.

“I’m Mariss.” She introduces, smiling slowly, and holds the key up.

Nearly deafened by the pounding of my own heart I hold out my shackled wrists. My pulse pounds like that of a kirak cub on its first hunt. The shackles fall to the ground. She inches closer to reach the collar, her hands trembling.

The collar comes away and I surge to my feet. I run, giving in to an incoherent wildness coursing through me.

It isn’t my intent to flee, only to stretch my legs without a collar pulling me along or holding me back. As my mind soars with elation, a sound behind me wrenches it back to reality. It is a howl of rage from Merk. Mariss calls after me in desperation. Though I disdain humankind, I can only hate her so much. She has given me something no one else ever considered. There is only one thing she asks in return. I will not leave her to the lir, but if I keep running Merk might prove to be as deadly.

With strong misgivings, I acknowledge this new obligation and spin around. Mariss is running after me, eyes wide with panic. Merk is gaining on her, his face a red mask of rage.

She darts around behind me and I sink into an aggressive stance. Merk slows to a cautious walk. The uncertainty coming from him boosts my confidence. I meet his searing gaze and flex my claws, snarling a warning.

He hesitates. Slowly, he starts to circle around me, keeping his body turned to me. His gaze, full of hatred, drifts to Mariss. Trembling with the thrill of unfettered conflict, I shift to stay between them and bare my teeth.

“Idiot woman.” His voice is low, tight with anger. “This
thing
will desert us. We’re as good as dead.”

Indignation flares at the way he says
thing
, as though spitting out something vile. I can kill him. I am faster and sufficiently armed. I flex my claws again, burning with the untamed need for conflict. My sense feeds me information, bringing me the fear and dismay of the audience gathering around us. Fear doesn’t move me. What I feel from Mariss gives me pause. Though her confidence is unprecedented, she believes in me.

I turn to her, closing my sense in on Merk while my back is to him and gesture with one padded palm to the camp. A burst of pride and pleasure pour from her. She nods and follows my direction. Hovering protectively alongside her, I walk past Merk, insultingly close, daring him to try something. The ring parts almost reverently for us and stands in overwhelmed silence until Merk barks at them to resume their work.

A smaller, more wary wagon train is soon on the move. I move about without the insulting tug of a collar holding me back, but I do not wander far. It seems wise to keep an eye on Merk. Every time he looks at Mariss, I sense the malice in him. It is the same when he looks at me. All he accomplishes is a strengthening of the unanticipated solidarity I have with this woman. I won’t allow him to act on his anger.