London Wild (88 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ the voice replied, ‘due to current events in London we do not operate during the hours of darkness.’

‘But,’ Starlight commented, ‘this is an emergency. I need to get home quickly.’

‘Our hours of business are between seven in morning and…’ the voice started.

‘Oh
, forget it!’ Starlight yelled angrily, and she threw the link to the ground, or at least partway, its descent halted by the chain that held it to its station.

It was clear she wasn’t going to be able to get back to the hotel. She couldn’t even remember what the hotel looked like, let alone how to get there. Perhaps instead she should try to find the hospital. Hospitals were big obvious buildings
, and she knew Jhosatl had gone to one in order to find a doctor. How hard could it be for her to find the hospital?

She began to run, her makeup bag flailing wildly until she threw it over her shoulder. She didn’t know how long she could run. She didn’t know where the hospital was. But she knew she had to find it. She had to warn Jhosatl. He would be able to call his friends
, and they would get out before the police arrived. If only the hospital could be located just around the next corner.

Two miles, three miles she ran
, walking for short periods when her legs started to stiffen, but always she would goad herself back into running. She had to get to that hospital quickly. She couldn’t afford the luxury of walking. Had anyone told her she could run for so long at one go she would probably have laughed at them, but it can sometimes be amazing to discover what the body was capable of in times of stress, and she was feeling desperate to reach Jhosatl before it was too late. It didn’t help when she allowed her mind to wander and she started to think that if someone of her own race saw her running like this, they might easily mistake her for a human trying to get out of the potentially dangerous dark as quickly as they could.

Then
, just after the third mile, she saw a sign that directed her towards the hospital. She ran, and she ran, and she ran.

The two security guards both looked at her
, ready for anything as she burst through the doors leading into the emergency area. They relaxed again after a moment, probably because she wasn’t obviously armed, but kept their eyes on her nevertheless as she walked towards the seats in the middle of the area.

‘Can I help you?’ a nurse asked
. She had come out from behind the reception desk and intercepted Starlight.

‘No
, thanks,’ Starlight replied. She was very out of breath with all the running, and found it hard to get the words out between pants. ‘I’m looking for someone.’

‘You’re a bit late for visiting…’ the nurse started, but Starlight ignored her and stepped past. Joseph had to be here somewhere. She wanted to call out his name to attract his attention
, but she didn’t want to attract anyone else’s attention. She would have to search for him row by row and line by line, and all the time the police were getting closer to the hotel.

Joseph sat on the outer ring of seats, at the far side from the entry doors. When she saw him
, she almost ran to him but contained herself, not wanting to make a scene. She walked up to where he was sitting.

‘Hello,’ she said. She was feeling exhausted and wanted to sit down, but she was scared that if she did take a seat she wouldn’t want to move for a while after.

Joseph looked around at the voice and was more than a little bit surprised to see her standing there. ‘What are you doing here, mate? I thought you had plans of your own!’

‘I do,’ she replied
, catching her breath and coughing a few times before continuing, ‘but then I overheard something that I thought I should warn you about.’ She paused briefly, trying to gulp down air. ‘A couple of women were discussing something of personal interest.’ She looked around, scared of being overheard, especially considering how close others in the waiting room were. ‘You need to call your friends quickly and tell them to get out of the room while they still can.’

‘Get out of the…’ Joseph started parroting.

‘I heard s-sirens,’ Starlight added, still panting and stuttering a little. ‘Police sirens. They were heading in large numbers towards the hotel. It’s possible I’m wrong, but we can’t take that chance. I think someone saw your pictures on the newspaper and sold you out.’

Joseph didn’t need to be told twice
. He pulled the portable link from his coat pocket and dialed the number of the room in which he had been staying. Then he waited and waited. Soon he found himself hissing, ‘Come on, pick up,’ into the mouthpiece.

‘No luck?’ Starlight asked
. She was beginning to recover her breath, though her feet had started to complain to her. If there was ever a time in her life she might have desired the amputation of parts of her body, it was now.

Joseph put the link away and stood up
. ‘They’re not answering. Come on, we’ll have to go in person and pray we aren’t too late.’

‘Or that I’m wrong,’ Starlight offered hopefully.

He strode quickly towards the door, but at no time did he break into a run until he was beyond the doors and the gazes of the others waiting there. 

Starlight nodded and followed close on his heels. She found it hard to keep up
, but somehow she managed. Fortunately he hadn’t parked too far from the emergency room doors, and Starlight took to the passenger seat of Joseph’s car with more than a little relief.

Day Nine

Eschiff

The Martian Colony was finished in the year 2822 A.D. Even now some of the vehicles used in the construction of the place can still be found on the planet’s surface
, although they have been strategically placed away from any external windows.

The Martian Colony isn’t the only structure on the surface of the planet, but most of the others are either government or business owned and are not open to the general public.

A Death In The Family

Starlight hadn’t been wrong. The police were all over the forecourt of the hotel, and most likely there were others around the rear to prevent any possible escape that way. The hotel itself was illuminated with large floodlights that the police had brought with them. The curtains of virtually every room twitched as the occupants watched the proceedings with interest. To many this was probably the most exciting thing to ever happen to them. There was even a camera team from Triple ‘N’ filming the whole thing. Occasionally they even got in the way of the police in order to get the shots they wanted. Two suspects had been brought out and were even now being questioned by the side of a large van with their hands held behind their backs with manacles.

Jhosatl and Starlight had been too late. They had probably been too late when Jhosatl had tried to warn them with the link, which would explain why they hadn’t been answering.

They sat in the car at the edge of the hotel grounds, trying to keep in the shadows so they wouldn’t be noticed while they watched what was going on. As he sat in the driver’s seat, Jhosatl shook both with rage and fear, rage for his friends and fear for his wife.

‘I don’t see her,’ he commented. He knew it was unlikely they would bother to care for her once they found her
; what was another dead cat to them? But perhaps they wouldn’t find her. Maybe he could go in and retrieve her after the police had left the area.

But then two men came out of the hotel, a stretcher between them and the figure on the stretcher covered from head to foot by a large white sheet. Jhosatl didn’t have to lift the sheet to know his wors
t fears had been realized.

Neither Judith nor Sult had been carrying a weapon. They would have given up without a fight. When the police had found Amba
, they wouldn’t have cared that she was ill and unable to defend herself. They may not even have bothered to check if she was ill. She was a cat on the run, and that was all that mattered to them.

‘I’ve failed her,’ he cried.

Starlight did her best to comfort him. ‘What will you do now?’

‘What is there to do?’
he asked her. ‘She was my world, and now that she is gone there is nothing else.’

‘Life must go on
,’ Starlight insisted, still trying to comfort him. ‘She wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life in mourning.’

Jhosatl ignored her
. There were tears in his eyes as he started the car and drove them away from the area. Perhaps he ought to be thinking about finding a way to rescue Sult and Judith from the clutches of the police and the soldiers, but all he could think about was how much he loved his wife and how life was meaningless now that she was gone. 

Strangers In The Cellar

The cellar was dark and damp. From somewhere towards his left and behind him he could hear the sound of a tap as it dripped into a nearby sink. There was a strong smell of alcohol mixed in with something he couldn’t think of the name of. There
were also the unmistakable scents of three people he recognized and trusted like no others and yet couldn’t put a name to any of them.

Occasionally he could hear a buzz in the back of his mind
; it was like a voice and even spoke complete coherent sentences, and yet anything it said seemed to make no sense at all. Myajes decided to ignore it as best he could.

‘Can he hear us?’
the buzz asked in a vaguely male voice.

‘Yes,’ the buzz replied to itself
, this time using a female voice, ‘His world will make total sense regardless of what we tell him. If we want to change a detail, we simply tell him how the world is and his perceptions will accept it as if it had always been that way. He currently thinks he’s in the cellar of a house in Sou’nd. He thinks he’s tied to a chair and about to be questioned by three cats he knows well. I’ve no doubt that his mind perceives some sort of cliché interrogation setup, such as a bright light in his face.’  

Myajes noticed that he was tied to a small wooden chair
, his arms and legs bound by thick tight ropes. He tried the ropes experimentally, but there was no give in them. A bright light had been situated a few feet in front of him and aimed directly at his face, making the rest of the cellar virtually invisible to him even with his superior night vision. He wondered why they would bother to do that. After all, his sense of smell was more than enough to identify the three, if only he could put a name to them.

‘Are you sure this will work
?’ the male part of the buzz commented in its nonsensical way.

The female buzz replied
, spewing other nonsense, ‘If you would prefer, we can put him back in his cell, and when he’s recovered you can use the truth drug on him. A least this way we know he’ll stay alive.’

Whoever these people were, they hadn’t bothered to dress him. He was wearing no more than the rags that he had been dressed in when he had been a prisoner of the Elite Guard.

He remembered himself as a prisoner in the Cattery. They had been scared of him and had kept him drugged for virtually his entire time there. It was no wonder he couldn’t remember his escape. It was a bit of a miracle that with all the drugs they had pumped into his system while he had been a guest of the government that he’d managed to even stay alive.

‘What exactly is the drug you’re using?’
the male buzz inquired.

‘It’s a hallucinogen,’ the female buzz replied
, still making no sense, ‘with about a ten percent dose of a truth drug, just enough to give his mind a bit of a nudge in the direction we want him to go. It might cause him to hallucinate in the future, but since his days are numbered anyway…’

‘We’ll try it your way first,’ the male buzz commented, ‘but if we don’t get the information we want then I’ll have to use the truth drug anyway.’

‘The drug should be working enough by now,’ the female buzz explained. ‘Myajes, the next time you hear my voice you will understand it as clearly as if someone in the room with you had just spoken to you.’

Myajes was a little irritated by the buzzing voices in his head. He hoped it didn’t mean he was going to have to seek psychiatric help. At least they hadn’t claimed to be voices from the Goddess, but that could easily come next.

‘Myajes Conjah, isn’t it?’ It was a woman’s voice. It came from somewhere behind the bright light, making it impossible for him to see who had spoken, but there was something very familiar about the voice, as if he had heard it recently.

‘Yes,’ Myajes replied unhesitatingly. The sooner this questioning was over
, the sooner he could get back to the Matriarch and his duties, assuming the Lesser Matriarch would have him back after his failure to rescue Lara. He hoped Lara was all right, but he feared the worst. It was unlikely she could survive stuck in that tiny cell in the Cattery.

‘The little wires that are attached to various parts of your body lead to a lie detector
,’ the voice told him simply.