Starport: Zeta Prime (Alt) (5 page)

BOOK: Starport: Zeta Prime (Alt)
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She fought back tears of
misery. Tears that threatened to spill for her ruined life.
For her current hopeless situation. For the loss of the gateway–the
only possible way she would have ever seen Earth again.

In a split second before reality had smacked her awake, she
had convinced herself that she was lying in her own bed, that
everything was as it always had been.
But she was still a prisoner. In both this village and
if she ever managed to return to the colony, too. It was a bleak
thought.

Jillian
finally
noticed the absence of the alien who had put her in those chains,
who last night had slept just feet away from her. His fur bed had
been discarded to one side of the hut–all signs of him having ever
been there gone.

Also, her bowl of cold food had been removed, and in its
place a terracotta clay jug.
Jillian bit her lip, the stab in her full bladder becoming
ever more painful as she uncomfortably held her urine. Scraping the
jug across the dirt, she soon felt that it was full of some sort of
liquid. Picking up the heavy object awkwardly, she sniffed its
contents. It smelt faintly of clay but other than that was
odorless, and from shaking it slightly she deduced that it must be
water. This wasn’t the good news it should have been. Of course,
she was more thirsty than she had ever been, but the need to pee
overrode the thirst for the time being–the fullness inside causing
her physical discomfort.

Now it was
daylight, she shunted across the floor on the backside so that she
could have a proper look at the area she had been taken to so
unwillingly, grateful that the length of the chain allowed her this
movement. Rocking with the need to go, she attempted to distract
herself by assessing her surroundings. None of the other huts
looked the same shape or size as hers–she saw just over a dozen in
total, most circular in shape and much larger than the small one
she sat inside, constructed with more care than it looked as though
hers had been. All were larger than the one she was dwelling in and
a respectable distance away–the others were positioned in a
semi-circle, with a big, rectangular structure at the top. If she
had been in any doubt about it before—given the distance and the
comparable shabbiness of the dwelling she was in–she was definitely
in some sort of prison.

The who
le clearing
was empty and quiet–almost eerily so.

The large
rectangular hut Jillian had just been observing, unknown to her,
contained the entire village. Faron had called his tribe to a
meeting to inform them of his intentions for the human. He could
sense that they were anxious and he was eager to allay their
fears.

Gracefully sitting in ro
ws on either side of the tables carved out of scarlet
trees, inside walls decorated with terracotta pictures, the yellow
eyes of the cat-people looked to their leader hopefully. Their
young played and tumbled with each other underneath these tables
and in the aisles, uninterested in the concerns of their
elders.


I h
ave rescued one of
the invaders,” he said at last, causing some gasps to ripple across
the room.


She is a female and was about to be attacked by her own
kind–they bound her by the wrists and kidnapped her. When she
escaped, they chased her with their death weapons. I have been
watching this being for a long time now, and could not see any
reason for their actions towards her.”

Around the hall, no one spoke. Even
the children had stopped their play.


As a people, you know we don’t condone unprovoked violence.
We should not be prepared to condone it on other species either. I
have rescued the female, and plan to keep her here with us. Safe
from her persecutors.”


They might think you have taken her hostage, Faron. We
should send her back. Let them deal with her,” a lithe young woman
said, a hint of bitterness in her tone.


I will not send her back
. She is in danger from her own kind. We are not cruel,
Misha.” Faron answered her directly. Misha narrowed her enormous
eyes once he had turned his attention elsewhere, unhappy with the
reply, but not daring to question Faron’s authority.


Myself and the men will be on lookout for the next few
days. I am sure that they won’t look for her, but my priority will
be to keep you safe. You do not need to fear. I will keep her in
chains until she becomes more familiar with her new surroundings.
The risk of her fleeing is high at present, and she doesn’t know of
the creatures that lurk in our wilderness.”

Besides Misha, all the other villagers seemed satisfied
with
Faron’s assurances. They
trusted his leadership and his sharp instincts enough to know that
if he said he believed something–it was so. Misha, on the other
hand, felt resentful towards the new addition to their clan. She
saw a light in Faron’s eyes when he spoke of her that she severely
disapproved of.

Being clever, she realized that disapproval
was no way to win him
over.


Do you need us to assist
you with her care, while you’re out patrolling?” She offered,
sugary sweet.

Faron
was not a fool,
and could spot Misha’s falseness immediately.


Yes, if you could help with the preparation of and then
take her the morning meal, I would be appreciative, Misha.” He told
her. His plan was to put the human up against the most resistant of
his tribe straight away. Misha may be difficult with her, and his
decision was to use it as a test. If she could stand up to it
without flowing her anger onto others that tended to her, he
would
know she was ready for
release–seeing them as individuals would be a sign of understanding
from her. He also considered the possibility that pushing her
buttons may reveal her knowledge of the language.

Misha dashed off to do his bidding,
glad to be on good terms with him again. Many others made offers to
help her, all eager to please their leader, but she batted them
away, wanting to have his praise to herself.

Jillian
winced and
jiggled at yet another pang in her bladder. It was vaguely
ridiculous. Here she was scared out of her wits at first, having
been kidnapped by an alien after being on the run from her own
kind, to having barely any fear–her biggest problem being the most
basic of human needs. She also felt desperately isolated. There was
no movement over the clearing, and the only sounds she could here
was the soft whipping of the tendrils hanging from the trees. She
stared at their bizarre color–all of them the same, just variations
of red from dark pink to deep maroon.

She thought of the woodlands on Earth.
Rare and sparse now of course, but those that remained had been a
delightful palette of autumnal oranges, greens and browns. She felt
an ache of sorrow realizing that this picture would only ever exist
in her head from now on.

She had been thrilled at the opportunity to start a life on
this new planet.
Gateways had
proven efficient and safe space travel, and those who had travelled
for many years by ship and built successful colonies on other
worlds were now able to welcome old friends and loved ones from
Earth, and visit them, too, thanks to the gateway technology. Zeta
Prime was one of the last human inhabited planets without a star
port. The long journey had been very much worth it, as far as
Jillian was concerned. The planet’s gateway was nearing completion
when she took the post–the old head of security taking a
comfortable retirement and by the time she retired herself, the
gate would have been long since complete, visits to Earth mere
seconds away.

Now, she wished she’d stayed where she was. She had liked
wo
rking for the military on
Earth–had been a really good soldier in fact. But she was lured by
the money, the opportunity, the free life extension. Risky as that
procedure was, who could honestly turn down an extra one hundred
years added onto their expected life span, really? Living to a
hundred was so limited. But compared to being a hostage for a
potentially unfriendly race, a life of a hundred years suddenly
seemed preferable to this, now extended, alternative.

Where was the man who had bought her here? Last night, she
had gone through such a range of emotions with him. Terror, at
first, but then a weird
calm
and, she had assumed—a connection. Did he mean to harm her? It made
no sense, if so, that he would see to it to provide food and water.
His strength and power meant he could tear her to shreds easily if
he wanted but so far, she had to admit, she had been reasonably
treated.

It was the not knowing that made things worse, and the
isolation. All alone, the darkest parts of her mind crept into the
foreground, and she found that she w
anted to see her capturer again–for comfort. It was all so
confusing, the mixture of dread and fear with a strange security.
In this time, had she planned carefully, she probably could have
formed an escape plot. The chain was sturdy, but surely not
impossible to break from. The materials they had at their disposal
seemed a far cry from the technologically enhanced ones they
possessed on Earth.

There had
been no signs of life since she had awakened. She knew that she
could have figured a way to break free from the metal and she
certainly had a clear path to the forest.

The question she had to ask herself, was if an
escape could have been possible–why
hadn’t she? Her eyes watered as the answer dawned on her. Jillian
had nowhere to go. Unless she wanted to hide out and camp in the
planets as yet, unexplored forest–which she didn’t unless she had
absolutely no choice, her options were to either stay where she
was, or go back to the military run bunker, a prisoner still, but
this time alongside her own kind.

Not daring
to question the reasons, and despite no knowledge of what awaited
her in the near future–she decided that for the time being, she
would rather stay put.

 

Chapter
Six

A
female of the
species emerged from the largest of the buildings, carrying a
familiar looking bowl. Her eyes were glossy and as she got closer,
Jillian noticed less green in the amber of those big eyes than the
male had. They were still beautiful. Like all the other natives of
Zeta Prime that she had experienced, lithe muscles undulated as she
moved–and headed straight for her hut.

Instead of being frightened,
Jillian felt almost glad to see her. Definitely less
threatened by a female carrying food, at any rate, but also because
she had started to wonder if she had simply been chained here and
abandoned. And that scared her more than any of the worries she had
previously experienced–being left, all alone.

As she entered,
Jillian waved at her. It was an instinctive human response,
but the cat-like woman looked startled and taken aback at the manic
arm movements of the prisoner. Realizing her mistake, she dropped
her arm and started trying to mime her most pressing need. She
stood, pretending to glug a drink and then pointed to her belly,
expanding her hands outwards in effort to draw attention to her
full bladder.

She frowned as the female, still clutching the bowl, leaned
against the wall of the hut. It was almost a cocky stance and at
first
Jillian felt a stab of
irritation. Squashing it as quickly as it had risen, she told
herself that the body language may be different, and scolded
herself for making assumptions.

She tried again with the mime and was met with an
unblinking stare.
Jillian
rubbed her forehead, trying to think of a way to get her needs
across without revealing her secret. The woman waved the food under
her nose.

Jillian
pushed it
away–no. Cringing inwardly, she mimed going to the toilet as best
she could, frantically pointing to the jug of water and hopping
from foot to foot. All that happened was that the food bowl was
placed on the floor then the native stood back and watched. It was
exasperating, but what made it worse was the suspicion that there
was a level of understanding. There was just something about the
way the female was behaving—like she was enjoying Jillian’s
discomfort. There was an unmistakable air of resentment.

She puffed out a long, calming st
ream of air before trying again–trying to dismiss the
hint of a smile on the female’s face. Fixing a serene expression,
she tried yet again, this time making out like she was undoing her
trousers. Feeling like she had gone far enough, she lifted her
head, just in time to see her kidnapper enter the hut.

Faron
had been
watching the whole time, wanting to see if she would break under
Misha’s arrogance. Still unsure as to her knowledge, he admired her
cunning if she did know more than she was letting on. She was
obviously in a dire situation, so to pretend to this extent was
nothing short of impressive. Misha had behaved in exactly the way
he’d predicted, and he could see the frustration of it in his
human. He liked that. He liked how she was so…vital, and how well
she read others, even though they were not of the same species.
Faron had not misjudged her intelligence.

BOOK: Starport: Zeta Prime (Alt)
2.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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