Slave (20 page)

No, at the moment, the quest for my sister didn’t seem like such a pressing matter. I reminded myself once again that I had yet to see a single female here that seemed even moderately discontented. Perhaps Ranata was happy—just as happy as all of the other women seemed to be. It could be that there was a good side to this slavery thing after all. Bondage had been a turn-on for many people throughout recorded history, and though this particular society may have carried it a bit further than most, I had to admit that it seemed to work
for them. Maybe Ranata’s owner wasn’t too much of an asshole, and maybe she actually liked him—or even loved him. Of course, I seriously doubted that she had a man with a cock like Cat’s, but maybe she liked sucking on him just the same.

After breakfast we headed for Ranata’s house. As we walked along, I found that I truly liked having Cat no more than a chain’s length away from me—although we were usually even closer than that. Cat either held my hand or had his arm around me for most of the journey that day, and I didn’t even get annoyed by the pack-droid’s singing. It was then that I decided that whoever designed the damn thing must have been in love—who else could stand it?

We seemed to be coming out of the depths of the jungle at last, though with the rain of the night before, the humidity had dropped considerably and, as a result, the heat was more tolerable. The road was a little muddy, though, and I converted my slippers to something a bit sturdier. By midday, the trees along the road had thinned out quite a bit, and we stopped for lunch alongside a meandering stream bordered with cool, grassy banks that even the jungle didn’t seem to encroach upon. We built a fire and feasted on grilled tiger-pig as though we hadn’t a care in the world. It was peaceful and idyllic, and I was beginning to understand what Cat meant by feeling laetralant, for I seemed to be experiencing it myself for perhaps the first time. We were no longer two virtual strangers on a rescue mission; we were two newlyweds on our honeymoon, or on a journey to visit my sister whom my new husband had never met. The
idea that such a journey might be fraught with danger was the farthest thing from my mind, so when a pack of Nedwuts came down the road, I was completely unprepared for their attack.

I had brought Tex and his companion, Slim, the pulse rifle, with me, but the rifle was on the pack-droid and Cat still had Tex in his pocket. I had no idea how good he might be with a pulse pistol, but as good as he was with a sword—and he
had
been a soldier at one time—I had to assume that he was at least somewhat familiar with a variety of weapons.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Cat had the pistol in his hand before the Nedwuts even saw us, warned by all the racket they made coming down the road. We could have tried to disappear into the jungle, but by the time I thought of it, it was too late; they were riding hard and came upon us pretty quickly. Unfortunately, they had their own weapons in hand as well.

There were six of them, all mounted, all armed to the teeth, and all snarling at us. I hadn’t seen any of them in the town, nor had I seen any other signs of trouble except for the occasional crabby native male, and it seemed out of place for such ugly, hateful creatures even to be present on such a beautiful planet. Then I remembered that those tiger-pigs had been pretty nasty, and it made me wonder if the Nedwuts liked them as pets. If that was so, then they were bound to be unhappy, since the roasted carcass of one of them was still hanging on the spit above our campfire. They were already breaking at least two laws, for they were all males and not one of them was chained to a female, nor did their clothing
meet with the planetary regulations. And that they were pissed off was quite evident, though I don’t know which of us provoked them more, an Earth woman, whom they must have known was very valuable on this particular planet, or Cat, who belonged to a race that the Nedwuts believed to have been exterminated—by some of their own kind, no less.

“Well, what have we here?” the leader snarled, reining in. “A Terran and a Zetithian! Both very rare and very valuable. I think we should take them. Don’t you agree, boys?”

All of the others nodded and snarled. Of course, if the little bastards thought they could get the two of us without a fight, they had another thing coming! Then I remembered something which might prove to be highly significant, for the last time I’d changed the setting on my pistol was when I’d been threatening Cat with it, and had set it to the lowest possible stun. Nedwuts, on the other hand, were pretty tough and required the highest stun setting, and even that didn’t always stop them. If Cat fired and didn’t slow them down enough and then had to change the setting, they’d have time to get off a few pulses of their own. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have made a run for the rifle on the pack-droid, but since I was chained to Cat, there wasn’t much hope that I’d get there without messing up his aim at the very least.

I took my eyes off of the Nedwuts for one second to get a look at Tex, but as it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Good ol’ Cat didn’t mess around, it seemed, for he had Tex set to kill.
I studied the group carefully as the first Nedwut dismounted and started toward us, while the others followed his lead. He and the one coming up on his left appeared to be the two dominant gang members. I was standing there, trying desperately to think of a peaceable way out of this situation, when Cat methodically began picking them off. He wasn’t hiding the fact that he had a pistol aimed at them, so I guess the Nedwuts hadn’t reckoned on my Cat being the type to shoot first and ask questions later. After the two in the forefront were down, the remaining four didn’t hang around to discuss their future plans in committee, for they all made a hasty retreat back to their horses and took off at a gallop, kicking up the proverbial cloud of dust as they rode away.

“Well, gee whiz, Cat!” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you just kill all of them? They’re bound to come after us, you know. Once they regroup and have time to think about how mad they are and choose a new leader, they’ll come back. Not that I blame you for killing a few of them, you understand, but this could make the rest of our journey a little dicey.”

Cat gave me a sidelong glance with his glittering eyes. “I could have killed more of them, but we only needed two horses.”

“Oh…yeah,” I said, considerably taken aback. Cat was pretty good at plotting strategy, it seemed. I was beginning to wonder if he’d been more than just a foot soldier. “Good point! So, what, are you saying you’re willing to ride, now?”

“If our enemies are mounted, then we should be as well,” he said reasonably.
While this sounded perfectly logical to me, it had also been just as logical for us to have been riding horses to begin with! “Now, wait just a doggone minute here!” I said. “You were pretty damned adamant about not riding before. Mind telling me why?”

Cat didn’t answer right away, and it appeared that he was going to be every bit as stubborn about telling me why he wouldn’t ride as he had been in refusing to do so at all.

“Come on, Kittycat!” I cajoled. “What’s the matter?

Afraid of the big, bad, horsies?”

Cat’s eyes narrowed as he directed a rather scathing look at me. “I am not afraid of them.”

“Well then what was the big deal about riding one?”

Cat must have been pretty well irritated at my line of questioning because he actually growled at me! “I did not wish to ride while wearing these…clothes.”

“Well, why not? Everybody else does!” Then it hit me. “You didn’t want to ride with your nuts hanging out, did you?”

“No,” he said, biting off the word. “I did not.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, Cat!” I exclaimed. “How the hell do you think it’s gonna feel for me to ride without wearing any underwear? I mean, my bare butt is gonna be in the saddle! At least you have pants on!”

Cat appeared to consider this. “I had not thought of that,” he admitted. “Perhaps it would be permissible for you to wear other clothing when you ride.”

“I didn’t notice any of the natives wearing anything different, although they may have had on a divided skirt.

I’ll admit, I was a little too overwhelmed at the sight of
horses at all to pay any attention to what the riders themselves were wearing. Anyway, I’m willing to try it. I can always put on my overalls or a pair of shorts and hope no one sees me. But you, well, I think you’ll just have to get over it.”

While we were talking, the pack-droid proved its worth once more. The robotic section detached itself and went off to catch the two horses that were straying near the camp, taking advantage of the opportunity to graze on the tender green grass growing along the banks of the stream. It was surprising that it didn’t frighten them, making me wonder if the droid had worked with horses before and knew how to approach one without scaring it.

Of course, knowing how to catch a horse was one thing, keeping up with one was another. I’d never done anything more than walk with the droid before, myself, so I had no idea if it could keep up with a galloping horse—or even one moving no faster than a trot.

Cat and I dragged the two dead Nedwuts off into the underbrush and packed up what gear we had out and then went to mount up, which required taking our chain off. I hoped we didn’t meet anyone else on the way, though the best I could tell, we were more than halfway there, and we could probably get off the road if we saw anyone else coming. The trouble was that a road through the jungle isn’t exactly what you’d call a wide open and highly visible space; other people might come upon us before we realized we weren’t alone anymore. We would have to keep our eyes peeled.

I was surprised to find that whatever material the saddles were made of was actually quite comfortable to
my essentially bare behind, and we set off at a brisk trot—fortunately in the opposite direction from the one that the Nedwuts had taken. The pack-droid kept right on singing, but it also kept up with us without any apparent difficulty. I was starting to feel downright kindly toward the damn thing, although if it picked up another rock, I would have considered junking it now that we had horses to ride.

Cat rode a horse like he’d been on one (or something like it) before, and let me tell you, the vision of Puss in Boots on a big, black horse was nothing short of breathtaking. Aside from that, I was tickled to death just to get the opportunity to ride a horse again myself. The Nedwuts had each had a pulse rifle in a scabbard attached to their saddles, so we were now much better armed than we’d been before. I must say, it felt pretty good to be riding toward the place where my sister was being kept with Cat and horses and that much firepower.

It made me feel as though we were nearly invincible.

Ranata was as good as rescued, and could ride double with me on the way back—or maybe I should ride with Cat so we could wear our chain again. Either way, we would be on our way home and it would be very good to get back to Earth. My ship could make the trip almost nonstop if we didn’t push it too hard. The fuel cell was good for another twenty years, but we might make a few stops along the way, just for fun. I laughed to myself as I tried to remember the last time I’d been anywhere just for the fun of it, because I couldn’t come up with one— not in recent memory, anyway. I’d had plenty of money before Ranata was taken, but I realized now that I’d
never enjoyed any of it. Aside from my ship, I didn’t have much to show for it and had never simply taken a vacation. There had always been deals to make and things to sell, and taking a vacation all alone didn’t hold much appeal for me.

But now, I would have my sister back and I would have Cat, who had promised to stay with me forever. Life would be better now: it certainly couldn’t be much worse, and certainly no more lonely. And I
had
been lonely and alone for most of my life. Ranata had gone with me on a few trading runs from time to time—the most noteworthy of which being the time she was taken—but mostly, I’d been on my own. There was another factor to be considered, though, for being alone had at least one advantage, which was that I’d seldom had to worry about anyone’s safety but my own, and one of the few times I had, I’d managed to lose my little sister.

In this particular episode, I have to admit that I had been far more concerned about Cat being taken by the Nedwuts than I would have been for myself. At least on this planet, I might have been a valuable commodity, but only if I were alive and well, and they would have taken care to keep me all in one piece in order to sell me. Cat, on the other hand, belonged to a race that the Nedwuts obviously wanted eliminated entirely, so I had no hopes that they would merely sell him into slavery on another world. Like he said before, if any Nedwuts had known of his existence, he probably would have been hunted down and killed long ago—a thought which made it that much more imperative to get him back to a region of space where Nedwuts weren’t welcome. Earth, for example,
wouldn’t allow any of them to land, and with good reason.

Of course, once it became known that they were responsible for the destruction of Cat’s planet, they might not be welcomed anywhere. I say welcomed, though if the truth be told, they were barely tolerated on most planets. This information could possibly get them banned from setting foot on any decent planet in the galaxy. Or so I hoped.

We made good time on horseback and reached the outskirts of a small village before nightfall. I tossed Cat the end of my leash as we approached and we slowed to a much more sober pace, riding closely beside one another, something which got my blood singing just a bit. His, too, because the closer I got to him, the more aroused he became.

We found a stable for the horses and a hotel for ourselves, which was nice since I didn’t exactly relish the notion of camping out again with those damned bugs dive-bombing the tent all night long, even though they had thinned out a bit as we left the jungle behind and approached the town. Besides, I really wanted a nice, quiet, comfortable place to spend the night with my Cat, especially now that I knew how fabulous sex with him could be. In fact, I was considering getting started right away, but Cat thought we should hang out with the locals for a bit to see if we could get more information about Ranata. This close to where she lived, he reasoned, at least some of the people might have seen her out and about and be able to tell us something.