I Was An Alien Cat Toy (15 page)

stupid monkey not to work out that things hadn’t gone as well as Gredar hoped. Were they going to kill him

later? What had all that arguing been about? And why did they need to see his scars?

Gredar wrapped himself comfortingly around Temin. If Jeng could see him now, he’d probably laugh

himself sick. Temin wouldn’t even mind if he
could
just see Jeng now. Shefting shit, he wanted to go home.

Gredar was talking to him...no, not talking, just shhhing him, like a child. “Not a
kid
,” Temin said,

jabbing him in the ribs. “Temin no dacal. I’m not a kitling.”

“T’meen good,” Gredar said softly, his hot breath on the back of Temin’s neck. “Shhhh.”

“Shhh yourself, you big pussy.” Then he started to laugh at his own joke, laughed until his eyes were

watering, and his gut was cramping up, until he was hiccupping and crying and.... “I’m going crazy, just so

you know.”

Something rough and warm touched the back of his neck. “Are you licking me?” A low purr was his

only answer. “Gredar, I’m not a kitten.”

Gredar didn’t answer, which only went to show he was a lot more sensible and sane than Temin was.

The licking went on, against his neck, up into his hacked off hair, down along his shoulders. It should have

felt creepy, but it was just...nice. Gentle, like almost everything Gredar did, unless he was pissed off with

rapist ex-boyfriends.
No, don’t think about him. Think about....

Ahhhh.

It was like when he had an itch he couldn’t reach and Jeng managed to hit the spot, only Gredar was

hitting about a dozen all at once. All the tension coiled in Temin’s gut, slowly unwound. The deep, loud

purring vibrated through him, through his backbone and into his hips. Into his groin too. As he felt himself

getting a little hard, he began to panic—what if, what if Gredar...?

“Shhhh.” Gredar’s rumbly voice was a sibilant rush of air against his ear, his cheek.

Temin forced himself to just...enjoy. Gredar’s big tongue was licking all the stress out of him, over

and over and over...it was so hot, and just this side of too rough, like a towel that had been used for too long.

A massage with a thousand tiny fingers.

“Pay big money for you to do this on Nixal,” he mumbled. “You and your tail.” The tail was wrapped

around him again, the tip against his chest, so he had soft, luscious fur in front, hot, damp, rough muscle

behind. Gredar’s licks pushed him against the fur, the tail pushed him back against the firmness of the

tongue, rolling him between the two in a gentle rocking motion, seducing him into sleep. “Not tir’d,” he tried

to say, but his mouth was strangely uncooperative.

Sheft it.
He’d be a manly man later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the end, he didn’t doze for long. He woke calmer, with a headache and a renewed determination to

get out of this place. Gredar seemed to want to do whatever Temin wanted to do, which annoyed Temin a bit

—Gredar had a life and work to get on with. Still, Temin was heartily sick of being kept cooped up in this

room like the damn pet they still thought he was, and he still needed Gredar’s help, however humiliating it

was to admit that.

“Temin go
out
,” he said, sitting up and looking directly up at Gredar.

“‘Out’”?

He grabbed the slate and drew a house in the best representation of their curiously curved roof style,

and a street, and pointed to the exterior. “Out.”

“T’meen...no tir-ed?”

“Temin
good
,” he said, though he still felt off-balance, weak. Too much conspiring against his

recovery, but he just couldn’t sit around and wait for things to happen any more. He didn’t know what had

happened in that surat but something was up—his position was too vulnerable. “Temin go
home
.” Gredar

flicked an ear at him. Temin pointed at the house picture, waved his arms at the room. “What? Name?”

“Najil?”

“Gredar najil? Gredar’s home?”

“Kadit najil. Mozzer najil.”

Right—it was his mother’s house. “Temin go Temin najil. I want to go to my home.”

Gredar pointed at the picture. “Weet? T’meen najil weet?”

“Weet? Where?” That was tricky. “Out,” was all he could say. He hunted for the pack and grabbed

the scanner. “Temin najil. My home,” he said, pointing at the dot. Not strictly true, but it would do for a start.

“Out.”

Gredar looked at him for a good few moments. “Ye-ess,” he said, but he sounded less than

enthusiastic. He laid his big paw on Temin’s back and rubbed in a kindly way. “T’meen good?”

“I’m fine, big guy.”

He snuck part of an energy bar while Gredar went downstairs to do something or other. His stomach

was still queasy and the idea of day-neh food revolted him, but he needed to eat something in this climate.

When Gredar returned, Temin was fully dressed and wearing his pack, into which he had also put the

dictionary lists they had started to make. “Temin go out,” he insisted.

He was surprised all over again at how big the village was, but he guessed he shouldn’t have been—it

was all on day-neh scale. Huge stone houses with the distinctive curved roof tops, all heavily caked with

snow, stood separate, without front gardens. There were a couple of day-neh walking slowly along the snowy

street, but the sensible ones were inside, he presumed. A fat few snow flakes fell from the leaden sky as he

looked up. The cold was brutal, the air dry and breath-stealing, and the snow, while trivial to a creature of

Gredar’s height, came up to mid thigh on Temin.

Gredar, who was of course unbothered by either the cold or the snow, looked down at him. “Gredar

bezir Temin?”

“Bezir? Oh, lift. Yes.”
Sheft it.
Gredar hoisted him up onto his shoulders, and Temin tried to pretend

this was a perfectly normal way to travel. “That way,” he said, using the scanner to guide him.

Gredar chirruped and then began to lope down the long main street. The few day-neh out and about

stared at the unusual sight of a human riding one of their own. Gredar was apparently unconcerned at their

frank curiosity, though Temin felt like a complete idiot. It was still liberating to get out of Gredar’s room,

even if it only proved the difficulties he faced in getting back to the podpod and off this planet.

Suddenly, he yelped and clutched at Gredar’s head. “What the
sheft
is that?” he yelled, pointing at the

gigantic...thing...bird...that was coming straight at them down the middle of the road. “Gredar, run!”

He struggled with his pack to get the pulse pistol out, but then felt Gredar squeezing his calf painfully

hard. “T’meen good,” Gredar said urgently, then a string of words, the only one of which Temin could pick

out was ‘keriv’.

“Keriv?” Temin warily eyed the shefting thing. He had to hope it was flightless. The red and yellow

beak on it was larger than Temin’s leg, but now he looked closer...was that some kind of harness among the

black feathers? Then a day-neh rushed out from beside one of the houses, shouting. He grabbed what were

clearly reins, yelled at the keriv, and then swung up onto its back. Temin blinked—their pack animals were

birds?

Keriv and rider passed them, the rider giving Gredar a friendly wave and Temin an unreadable stare.

Gredar patted Temin’s leg. “T’meen good?”

“Yeah. Yes.” This was weirder than finding out from Gredar’s picture books that the day-neh laid

eggs.

Within minutes they were out of the settled area, and out into open countryside. Gredar’s furry feet

were adapted perfectly for the snow, and even with carrying Temin on his back, he moved easily through the

bleak landscape. Temin was starting to wish he’d grabbed a couple of the sleeping furs before they’d left—he

hadn’t been thinking all that clearly—but at least he could huddle against Gredar and shelter behind his

massive head. Gredar’s long legs were eating up the distance, and he seemed unconcerned that he was

walking out into the wilderness at the direction of a creature who barely spoke his language, and without any

idea of how far they were travelling. Maybe this was just a quiet stroll for him—Temin had no way of

asking.

They had travelled for just over an hour when the scanner told Temin the podpod was close. “Stop!”

he yelled, and Gredar understood the tone if not the word. Now the moment of truth—Temin hit the uncloak

command...and there it was.

And then he was flying through the air, before hitting the ground in a slushy thud. “Hey!” Temin

spluttered, from his sudden new position sprawled in the snow. “What the sheft did you...Gredar! It’s okay,

you’re safe!”

Sheft it, he should have realised...Gredar crouched in the snow, ears flat, lips peeled back in a snarl,

hissing at the podpod. “Gredar! Good, it’s good!”

Growling menacingly, Gredar glanced at him but his posture didn’t change, his mane erect and his

claws fully extended. Temin struggled to his feet and ploughed over to him through the snow.

“Good! Good! Gredar, it’s safe...shhh, safe. It’s okay.” He reached out a tentative hand to touch

Gredar’s shoulder but Gredar hissed at him angrily. Temin stepped back, heart thumping. “Gredar. It’s okay.

Safe. Good. Good. Meni good.”

Now what should he do? He didn’t dare get in front of Gredar, and he was terrified to move until the

day-neh calmed down. He could only use his voice and he hadn’t had a lot of practice at calming crazy

animals before. “Shhh, shhh. Gredar. Gredar good. Temin good.”

Slowly, all too slowly, Gredar relaxed, his mane flattening, his ears going up. He straightened up, and

Temin swore he was embarrassed as he swiped at one ear. “Gredar sorry.”

Temin came closer and patted his huge bicep. “It’s okay. I know it’s scary. Temin sorry.” He bowed

to show his regret, then he pointed at the podpod. “Good.”

“T’meen...najil?”

“Uh....” He pointed up at the sky. “Temin najil. My home.” Then to the podpod. “Temin go najil. I go

home.”

Well, that was interesting. He didn’t know Gredar could look that sceptical without hardly moving a

muscle. It was probably just as well he didn’t know the day-neh word for ‘liar’. He mimed ‘wait’, and then

he trudged over the podpod, hitting the entry code. Gredar growled as the hatch opened.

“Good,” Temin said, wishing he knew how to say ‘safe’. ‘Wait’, he signalled again.

From the handheld, he’d worked out he’d been a captive for nearly three standard months. The

podpod looked exactly as it had when he’d left—the signal beacon was still operating, so was the charger. He

did a quick systems check—nothing had got worse in the interim, which was fortunate. He checked the

systems logs and nearly had a heart attack as he realised there were incoming communications logged. He

turned on the message bank, fast forwarded through to the last calls, and sat, heart in his mouth, as Jeng’s

voice came clearly through the speaker. “Pyr Temin, please respond. We are in geosynchronous orbit and

ready to come to your position. Please respond.”

But it was three weeks old—and the final message was simply, ‘Farewell’. Frantically, Temin

replayed the messages, hoping they had given some instructions, something to give him hope...but nothing.

He slammed his fist against the console and screamed. “Jeng! I’m here, I’m here, you could have....”

Three weeks.
It had been that close, and now....

“T’meen?”

Gredar. He’d forgotten. The big guy was looming at the hatch, too tall to come in, of course.

“Um...I’m....” He held up his hand—‘wait, go outside’. Gredar backed away and disappeared from his sight.

Temin stared at the list of messages. He’d had a chance he’d never in a million years expected, but it

was gone, and now he was.... “Never going home,” he whispered, and though he’d promised himself not to

cry any more over any of this, tears filled his eyes. “Jeng...I miss you. I.... I miss you.”

He stared into nothing for...a while. Then he scrubbed his face and blew his nose, snapping into pilot

mode. He rerouted all power from the heating and life-support systems to the beacon’s signal, boosting it

some more, and then he recorded a message on loop to be sent with the signal, dispassionately recording that

he was alive, well, and taking shelter some ten kilometres from the podpod, which was likely beyond repair,

but which he would attempt to fix when the weather improved. “I’ll take the remote receiver with me, and

monitor incoming calls. If...if this is received too late, then I want to send the following messages to Pilot

Misan Jeng, to my mother and family, and my commander.”

He recorded what he wanted to say—no, what they would want to hear—added the date and time, and

then started the broadcast. Then he scavenged what he could from the podpod, disconnected the remote radio

receiver and two of the battery packs, and then closed everything up again.

He found Gredar sitting in the snow, waiting patiently. “T’meen good?” he asked.

Temin shook his head, chest too tight and painful to speak. He cloaked the podpod, startling Gredar

again, but without provoking the aggressive reaction of before. “Go?” he asked as he hoisted the two packs

onto his shoulders, and came over to his friend.

Gredar peered at him anxiously. “T’meen go najil?”

Temin bit his lip. “Temin no go najil. No najil. I can’t go home.” His eyes started to fill up again.