Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) (20 page)

She stared at me with a touch of awe in her eyes.

“I was just lucky.” I smiled.

She shook her head. “It was more than luck.”

“He's a Superstar,” Huff said as I gave him back his beamers and he sleeved them into the ankle holsters.

“We'll have to hurry.” Sophia nodded toward the blackened ruins of the burning craft. Smoke swirled above the trees. “Their friends will be on their way.”

“Yeah, let's go.” I scanned the empty woods.

“Wish we had Stormy,” she added.

“Or a swift current of the South Sea,” Huff said sadly as we walked in the direction of the rendezvous point.

“A current, Huff?” I asked. I wanted to keep the conversation light, but I was sick with worry about Joe, Chancey, and Bat. We had a long walk ahead of us, with no guarantee of finding water, and a hot, cloudless day looming. We could be in real trouble if we didn't find water.

“The Ten Gods of Kresthaven send the currents, my Terran cub, to help us hunt the squatdabblers during their migration paths.”

“Oh.” I stepped over a rotted log. “A good current of fresh water would be a welcome thing, buddy.”

Sophia patted Huff's arm. “I'll bet you're a fine hunter, Huff. I'll bet you catch many squatdabblers.”

“I do, Sofa. But how did you know that?”

“Because you're strong and courageous,” she said.

“But what could you bet? You have only the clothes that cover your furless skin. Do you have blue checkers?”

She glanced at me.

I shrugged. “Well, do you?”

“Not on me, Huff.”

“Then,” he said, “do you bet your thin clothes on you?”

I smiled at her and raised my brows. “Hope you lose.”

“No, Huff, not my clothes.” She slid me a look. “Pervert.”

The day grew hot as we walked. The morning air was already sultry and sweat dripped down my sides. My mouth was dry and I smelled.

The sudden sound of a hovair engine roared on the other side of a hill. There were no trees. We scraped our arms and legs crawling under thick briar bushes. Sand got into my mouth as Huff and I unholstered our weapons.

I squinted into the bright pink sky and watched a compact craft, painted with gaudy symbols, sail by and disappear.

“That's a private Wydemont coach,” Sophia told us.

“Damn,” I said, “we should've waved it down.”

We brushed ourselves off and continued toward the old lithium mine.

“Huff,” I said, “suppose you lope up that hill and see if you can locate a stream or a pond from up there?”

“Should I suppose it?” he said. “I could really do it.”

I rubbed my sandy forehead. “Huff. Why don't you just do it, OK?”

“OK.” He turned and loped up the hill.

“How much further do you think it is to the old mine?” Sophia licked her dry lips.

“It's a pretty good hike. We're in the mountains, Soph. There's got to be runoff streams.”

She nodded and watched Huff wend his way through trees. “There's something you have to understand about him.”

“Oh?”

“He takes everything literally.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Maybe you should keep that in mind when you talk to him.”

“OK, oh great, wise one. I'll remember that.”

“Good.”

Huff reached the crest of the hill, rose up to his hind legs and made a circle as he scanned the terrain below.

“Huff!” I called. “Do you see a stream or a pond?”

He shook his head.

“Damn.” I wiped sweat from my forehead. “We'd better rest awhile in the shade.”

Sophia sighed and leaned her head against my chest.

The sun was directly overhead and there was no shade. I embraced her and pressed her to me, kissing her dark curls.

Huff came down and sat on his haunches.

“Thanks for trying, buddy,” I told him. My throat was becoming parched.

“I tried to find a stream,” he said, “and I looked in every way for a pond.”

“I know.” I patted his shoulder.

“But all I could find was a lake.”

The water was clear and fresh and cool. Sophia and I stripped off our clothes and plunged in. We drank our fill, scrubbed off the sweat and grit and sand, and washed our clothes while Huff paddled around and ducked his head in an instinctive urge to hunt.

“Huff!” I called. “You can't eat the fish. We don't have digestall pills.”

He nodded and dived and stayed down until Sophia and I stopped and waited for him to surface. When he did, he was probably a quarter of a mile away, out in the center of the lake. He was safe. If a Mine hovair flew overhead, he could just stay under. Sophia and I were more vulnerable. But we were both skilled divers and could hold our breath until a craft passed over.

“Wish I had my mask and fins,” she said. “There might be freshwater crusties.”

I grabbed her naked body around the waist and drew her to me. “You're my little freshwater crusty.” I nibbled her neck. “Suppose I eat you up?” My body was responding to her. “I'll start from here.” I licked her nipple.

She put her hands on my buttocks and pulled me close. “Did you ever make love in the water?”

“Not yet.” I lifted her over me and floated on my back. “This is how dolphins do it,” I said.

“That's some fin!” She straddled my hips and wrapped her arms and legs around me.

I was pushed down. “I might drown,” I said, “but it's worth it!”

We clung to each other, but she rolled off me and we both went under, and came up laughing.

“Babe, we're not dolphins.” She pointed to an overhanging thick-boled tree with trailing vines that threw shade in the shallows. “Race you!” She plunged ahead. I caught up and outpaced her to the tree.

She grabbed my foot and held me back.

“That's cheating,” I said. “Let go.”

“All's fair in love, and I'll never let go.”

“You're a ball and chain, woman!” I pulled her along until we scraped the sandy bottom.

“Watch out for your keel, Babe.” She laughed as we approached the shallows.

“OK. I'm saving it for you,” I told her.

And there, in the embrace of the water, like silk veils across our bodies, with hanging vines caressing our skin, we made love like two animals in the wild.

Afterwards, I held her and pretended that all was well, and we could live here under this great tree without fear, and without miles to go.

“Uh oh,” I said as Huff swam closer and saw us embraced.

He shook himself off. “You know, on Kresthaven we do that thing in private.” He plodded to the shore, sat on his haunches, and waited under the tree, staring off into the distance as we got dressed.

“Look, Jules.” Sophia picked up a large nut, bigger than a coconut. “If we could make a hole in this, we could fill it with water and carry it with us.”

“I knew I picked the right lady.” I scooped up a rock with a sharp edge and pounded on the nut to make a hole, but it just kept slipping out from under the rock. I tried breaking it under my foot, but it didn't break. I sighed. “It was a nice thought, Soph. Let's go.”

Huff picked up the nut and dug a canine tooth into it. He turned it over and gray liquid poured out.

We braided vine carriers for six nuts, filled them with water, and slung them across our shoulders. It would give me and Sophia about a gallon of water each, and two gallons for Huff. Enough for a day's walk in the heat.

The sun, in a cloudless pink sky, scorched my neck and back. High humidity kept sweat dripping down my temples and sides. I tied my jacket around my waist. My shirt was drenched with sweat. Water from the large nuts had a bitter taste, and a smell like sour milk. I hoped there was nothing so alien it could harm us. But we had no choice. Winged creatures with bare red heads wheeled and cawed above us. I hoped they weren't vulture-like cleaners of dead meat, just waiting, and following the feast.

As the day wore on, we rested more often. I worried about Huff, with his thick undercoat, but his glistening white fur reflected a lot of heat. Sophia was tiring even faster than me. Huff offered to let her ride on his back. By late afternoon, she accepted and fell asleep sprawled across his back.

I was exhausted by the time dusk cooled the air. I hadn't eaten in a day, and slept little the night before. But we were close to the old mine. What would we find there? I wondered. Could Mack and the guards have followed our people? If we were forced to skirt the mine, there'd be no place left to go except Bolton Springs, a thirty-mile hike. Huff might make it, with Sophia on his back. He had the strength of a tribal race where the weak still died young. But I knew I would never make it.

* * *

“I don't see anybody.” I peered at three dark shacks in the diffuse light of dusk. The closest was large, probably a storehouse. “Do either of you see anybody?”

We stood on high ground and looked down at the mine.

“I see no bodies.” Huff sat on his haunches.

Sophia wiped curls off her sweaty forehead. “If they're here, they're probably hiding inside those buildings.”

I nodded. “And they probably left the vehicles in there.” I pointed to a rotted barn with broken sides, where mine ponies must have been housed.
If they're here,
I thought and bit my lip. “Wait for me. I'll go check it out.”

“I will checker too.” Huff unholstered a beamer and stood up.

“I'll check three.” Sophia put out a hand. “Huff, can I borrow one of those things?”

Huff looked at me.

“There's no use arguing,” I told him.

“Then I will use no arguing.” He handed her the other beamer. “Now here is the trigger that makes the beam come out through here, Sofa.” He stuck a claw into the short barrel.

“OK, Huff.” She took the weapon.

I smiled. “Try not to shoot yourself,” I told her.

“Keep it up, Superstar,” she said, “and I might shoot you, by mistake of course.”

The shadows thrown by two rising moons crossed in grids that made it difficult to define movement within the trees. Was that an animal standing beside a boulder, or a merging of shadows from surrounding bushes? Our minds automatically make order out of chaos.

I paused and hunkered down behind a mound of crusted salt about twenty feet from the storehouse. “I'm going to try for a probe.” I rubbed my eyes. God, I was tired.

I put a hand to my forehead and imaged the red coil of my tel power forming. It didn't need much strength for a simple probe. I threw it toward the storehouse and felt it enter a large dark room. I probed the minds I found there, touching lightly, in case any of them were sensitives. Some were asleep. Some talked quietly. But it was impossible to know if these were Big Sarge's warriors or Mack's Terran renegades. “There are people in there,” I said.

“Ours or theirs?” Sophia whispered.

“I don't know yet.”

She sighed and sat back against Huff.

I pictured the flower that is the image of my essence, encircled by shields, and moved down to its base. With my eyes closed, I opened my mind to the dark room and imagined myself drifting into it. A loud, humming sound began inside my head as I felt that strange, uneasy break between mind and body. I moaned with the strangeness of my kwaii drifting free, as though caught on a current of space. Huff folded his forearm around my shoulders and pressed me against him.

With Huff as anchor in this reality, I slipped inside the building. A shaft of moonlight struck a sleeping figure through a broken window and I recognized squat, mustached Rico. One of our men! And there was Attila, asleep on the floor. And Joe! Joe, stretched out on a cot. Beside him on the floor, Chancey and Bat slept on bedrolls.

I heard myself moan.

“What is it?” Sophia asked in a hushed voice. “What do you see?”

But her voice came as though from another room of space/time that I couldn't enter. I retreated from the storehouse and felt my kwaii seek out my body, drawn to it like a child to his mother. I opened my eyes and looked around.

“Are you all right?” Sophia asked anxiously.

I nodded. “They're ours,” I said. “They're our people!”

I called out to them before we walked to the door, just in case they were on edge and too ready to shoot first.

Sarge threw open the door and spread his arms. “Pretty boy!” he shouted. “I thought Mack got your ass. Come here to daddy, baby.”

“Uh oh.” I nudged Huff ahead of me.

Joe came out rubbing his eyes, with Chancey and Bat behind him.

“Joe!” I went to him, threw my arms around his back, and buried my face in his shoulder. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I couldn't stop them.

“It's all right, son.” Joe patted my back, but I felt him sob too.

“Chancey!” I smiled.

He gave me his wide, toothy grin and smacked my face lightly in his New York style. “Superstar.” He hugged me.

“Bat,” I said. “Bat!”

He grabbed my face between his hands and stared at me. “No new wounds?”

I tried to shake my head. “No new wounds.”

“What about me?” Sarge boomed. “Don't I get a kiss?”

“Let go, Bat.” I shook my head and backed away. The men laughed as they gathered around me and Sophia and Huff.

Sarge reached out and grabbed me around the neck in a headlock.

“No!” I squealed as he planted a wet kiss on my mouth. “You mother fucker!” I wiped my lips.

He held me there and looked around while I struggled. “I've been wanting to do that since we met!” he told the men and rubbed his knuckles into my hair.

“You friggin', perverted slimetroll!” I tried to kick him. “Let go of me!”

I heard Huff's deep-throated growl.
Uh oh.
“No, Huff!”

“Oh, let me, Huff.” Sophia drew back a fist and hit Big Sarge in his stomach.

“Ooofff,” I heard, and he let me go.

“He's
mine
.” Sophia's eyes were narrowed, her jaw thrust forward, her fist still raised as she moved close to Sarge and stared him in the eyes.

I staggered back. “You ever do that again,” I told Sarge, “I swear to God, I'll kick off your balls!”

Sarge rubbed his stomach and backed a step with a shocked look stuck on his face. “I guess you won him fair an' square, woman,” he told Sophia.

I heard something fall and looked around. Chancey was on the floor, laughing so hard he was curled into a ball. Bat watched him with a pained expression. Joe shook his head and returned to his cot.