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I CAN’T BE SURE, BUT that scream sounds like Rashi. I start to run. More screams. Yes, it is Rashi! I should have stayed with her. That predator must have caught her scent. I flick my knives out of their wrist-sheaths. They feel horribly inadequate.
Something’s off. I approach the clearing cautiously. Even with the resonance out of synch, I should have some sense of predator now I’m so close. I can only feel the grating presence of the bulky guard with his heavy automatic weapon. And Rashi’s wispy, half-wild, terrified struggling wave-form.
Stealth and silence, weaving between twigs and leaves without brushing them...
I stop, horrified. Bann has Rashi tied to the tree by one wrist and is carefully drawing his bush knife across her arm, dripping red onto the leaf-litter under her feet. She struggles and screams but he doesn’t try to silence her.
He backs off with a satisfied grin and leans against a nearby tree, gun couched on his arm, eyes darting around the clearing. Red-hot anger flashes through me. It’s evil. Crazy! The predator will smell fresh blood...
That’s what he’s waiting for. He’s got Rashi staked out as live-bait––
I have to move fast, before I’ve a giant jungle cat to deal with as well as Bann. No time to think beyond working out the only weak spot in his body-shield for my short blade. I circle round and run forward, out of sight behind the tree, dodge swiftly round it and stab upwards, hard through exactly the right spot on his throat.
He clutches my wrist, clawing at the knife. I manage to twist and drag before he wrenches it out of my hand.
For a long terrifying moment it seems like I haven’t managed to sever the artery until I feel the warm gush of his blood spurting into my face and down my right side. Slowly, he sinks to his knees and sprawls motionless on the ground.
I run over to Rashi, cut her hand free and grip her arm.
‘We have to get clear before the predator smells the blood.’
‘Wait.’ Surprisingly in control for someone who has just been cut and tethered as live-bait, she pushes me aside and runs to the dead guard. She picks up the gun, fingers slippery with her own blood, struggling to hold it. The recoil jerks it out of her hands as she fires at the ground. I stare at her.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Noise scares ‘em off for a bit.’ She points to the corpse. ‘Guards might get to him before scavengers. Make it look like fangs.’
I scrabble in the fallen leaves for the knife I dropped, try to estimate the size of an Eden tiger jaw and make another puncture wound in Bann’s neck. The wild rush of adrenaline is wearing off. I’m shaky and cold. Rashi pulls me in the direction of the stream.
‘Get cleaned up or they’ll know.’ She keeps up the pace, ignoring the open cut on her arm. We reach the stream and she pushes me into the water. Dazed, I wash off the blood then sit on the bank, shivering in the afternoon heat. Rashi peers at me, puzzled.
‘What’s up?’
‘I’ve hunted for food... but I’ve never killed anyone before.’
She gives a disparaging grunt. ‘Out here ya gets used to people dying. Usually us not them.’
If that’s what a year in this place does to you...
She’s still bleeding. Combat training takes over, mercifully blotting out hideous memories of a human life fading to nothing under my blade. I tear a strip of wet silk from the crumpled sash and bind neemin leaves over her cuts. Rashi looks at my clothes. The bloodstains haven’t fully washed out in the stream.
‘That’s no good. They’ll see when ya gets back.’
‘I can fix it.’ I backtrack to some clumps of viriden-weed I’d seen earlier. Rashi helps rub leaves on my clothes until the bloodstains vanish under dark green juice. And it’s better camouflage if I decide to escape to Ocean through the forest.
I pick up my sack and head cautiously back to the clearing, dreading what we’ll find there.
‘Why did he want a carnivore? They’re not good to eat.’
‘They think eating it makes them strong. Some weird homeworld belief. Animals gets scared off by the first shooting. Sometimes meat’s all been carted away before tiger’s ready to come back.’
‘So he used you as fresh blood? That’s disgusting.’
She shrugs despondently. ‘It’s what they do. Usually shoot the cat before us live-baits gets eaten. They don’t bother much either way.’
‘There should be raffin-stem around here, near the stream. It works unless you sweat it off or predators get too close. Everyone should scrub before foraging trips.’
Rashi gives a snort of black sarcasm. ‘You think they care? Anyhow, you’ll have trouble raffin-scrubbing that.’ She prods my seaweed-covered arm.
Predator issues with coljen hadn’t occurred to me. Merkaan actors probably don’t take trips out here.
‘Do you really eat this stuff?’
She wrinkles her nose. ‘Not in that synth. Don’t plan using it for emergency rations. Stomach pains for a week.’
‘I wasn’t planning on it––’
The sound of jackals fighting over Bann’s corpse tells us we’re almost at the clearing. I glance at Rashi. ‘I think we go straight back to camp.’
She scuttles off to collect her own sack and we head back. The perimeter gate clangs shut behind us as I dump my sack at the drop-off point. Rashi peers at my arm.
‘It’s torn.’
I look. Coljen isn’t designed for slave-work or fighting armed guards. The tear isn’t bleeding as real injuries should. Rashi pulls me behind a pile of brushwood.
‘Gimme some more.’ She points to my sash. I tear a strip from the end of it and she binds the tear. ‘It won’t last much longer, ya know.’
Thorns and twigs have already unwound my pink braids. Even with Rashi’s promised secrecy, this disguise is doomed.
I’ll think of something tomorrow. Too tired now––
The tracker blocks our way. Two armed guards stand behind him.
‘Where’s Bann? He’s not back.’
A tight band of fear clamps round my head. I try to scan him but can’t find enough quiet focus to sense more than his fear of the guards.
Which probably means he’s looking for someone to blame. Rashi fills the awkward silence with an evasive reply.
‘Dunno. We heard jackals at meeting point and we was scared. Ran back here.’
One of the guards jabs the tracker with his gun. ‘Take us back there.’ They wait for the gate to open and head back into the trees. I turn to Rashi.
‘What now?’
She glances nervously over her shoulder. ‘Not sure. They have to go back for the weapons. Just hope they don’t find much left of him––’
The heavy-lift machine in front of us bursts into flames with a deafening crash and fragments of shattered glass snag in all directions.