21

- Sophia -

I'm getting tired, and that's probably why everything happens so sudden – I'm not on my guard like I should be.

When Jax'zan suddenly stiffens and whips around, it's too late. Strong hands grab both my hands from behind, and before I can squeal I have someone's hand in front of my mouth. And partly in it. I bite down hard and hear a pained grunt close to my ear, but it's an uneven struggle.

I'm surrounded by men with spears. They're warriors like Jax'zan, and they have separated me from him. I see the backs of several men between us with their spears lifted, clearly threatening Jax'zan. He has his sword in his hand, but even I can see that he's outnumbered by at least ten to one.

The attackers drag me away from him while keeping him at bay with their sharp spears. He picks up a rock and throws it hard at the man holding my right arm, and it hits him in the neck. His grip on my arm weakens, and in my desperation, that's all I need to grab my gun. I feel the warm plastic in my hand, and then someone else takes hold of my arm again. It makes it awkward to aim. But before the gun is twisted from my grip, I manage to pull the trigger once.

The bang resonates among the trees, but my attackers aren't surprised enough to let me go.

The gun falls to the ground, I get someone's hand over my eyes and then I'm carried away fast by running men.

I struggle as much as I can, but they're too strong and they easily hold me still while they run through the woods.

Shit. This probably isn't Jax'zan's tribe. I should have known that there can't be just one tribe on this whole planet.

I've been afraid for pretty much all my time here on Xren, but dinos and centipedes give me a purer fright than this. They just wanted me dead. Humans can be so unpredictable. I have no idea what these guys want with me, but I highly doubt it can be something good.

Still, I'm totally helpless in their hands, and tiring myself out struggling is probably not the best idea.

I don't know how long they run, but it has to be well over an hour before they slow down and then stop in a small clearing.

It's clear that I'm the center of attention. There are some boulders here, and they place me on one of them on my back. They waste no time in strippng off the garments Jax'zan made for me.

Then they all go quiet and just stare at me with huge eyes, whispering in what sounds a lot like awe.

They look me up and down, and I look at them, too. These guys have yellow stripes instead of Jax'zan's red, and where he is muscular and tall, these are shorter and thinner. They're wearing outrageous black and white war paint in their faces and they have some weird hats on.

And they're clearly aroused. They're all pitching tents in their loincloths, and I'm starting to realize what they have in mind.

One of them is bleeding from a hole in his shoulder, and I'm not sure what to think of that. Because he's got a pretty elaborate hat on, and I do feel that he's the leader of this gang. And I'm pretty sure he's the one I shot.

He looks at me and says something. I sense that it causes some dismay among the others, but they grudgingly pull away from me and he comes closer. Ah. He must have said something like 'I'll go first' or something. Because it's obvious that I'm about to be raped. Gang-raped, probably.

Tears of panic are burning in my eyes and I writhe like a worm on the ground to get out of the strong grips that are holding me down. But they don't yield at all.

The leader stands beside me and looks down at me, holding his shoulder. Yeah, he's not happy.

He barks an order, and I can see that his men glancing at each other, clearly not too eager to follow that command, whatever it was.

The leader barks the same thing again, very angrily, and pulls a long knife from his belt. The men that are not holding me back away and the leader approaches me slowly.

He reaches out a hand and traces a cold finger along a breast, down my stomach and stops right above my slit. I twist and turn and writhe and scream, hoping to take some of his enjoyment out of this.

He looks at me with red eyes that somehow manage to seem cold, then wets the knife's blade with the blood from his shoulder and lifts it, saying something repetitive.

The others start chanting in response and my fear reaches unknown heights.

Oh fuck. He's going to sacrifice me.

He comes closer and lifts the knife over my chest, holding it in both hands with the point down. That thing will pierce my heart and kill me in a half second.

“I'm not a virgiiiin!” I scream as a last resort, because I know that some ancient peoples on Earth practiced virgin sacrifice. But of course the translator is turned off. And I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have worked anyway. I shot this guy. He's angry and he wants revenge.

I scream at the top of my lungs.

The leader lifts the knife higher.

And then suddenly he has no head and his body collapses on the ground. It's hard for me to see what exactly is happening, but there seems to be some kind of whirlwind passing through the kidnappers, and there's blood and screams and grunts and clangs.

I'm suddenly not restrained, and I get down from the boulder and crouch down.

Then I hear the sound of many fast feet running away through the jungle, and only one man is left.

“Jax'zan!” Relief washes over me and makes me collapse to the ground in a shivering heap.

He walks over to me and picks me up in strong hands. “Sophia.”

He passes his eyes over my front, then turns me around to check my back.

Then he takes me into his strong arms, hugs me hard and kisses my hair like he often does. He says something in his language that sounds tender, and I don't need to activate the translator to know that he's just as relieved as I am.

Two of the kidnappers are lying dead on the ground, and the leader is one of them. I don't like seeing dead people, but after what they were about to do to me, I'm not going to call the cops on Jax'zan.

We don't talk for a moment, just stand there and hold on to each other. Then I notice my hand is wet.

I gasp. “Oh my god, Jax'zan, you're injured!”

He turns his back and I see that he has a long gouge stretching from his shoulder and down to his waist.  He's bleeding pretty bad, and I immediately start to worry. He can probably handle the blood loss, but the spears those guys had didn't seem all that clean, and I have to guess that these people don't have a whole lot of penicillin, even at his village.

But I remember the herb I found, the acidic one that Delyah agreed might well be seriously antiseptic.

I sit him down and look around the clearing. If I can find some of that and put on him, it might not get infected.

“Sit still, don't move,” I say, knowing he can't understand me but trusting that he gets the meaning. I draw my gun again, just in case those kidnappers didn't get the message. It's got four more shots in it, and even though it might not be too effective against dinosaurs, it should work fine against aliens as human as these ones.

It doesn't take me long to find all I need. Those herbs and plants are everywhere, pretty much.

I rinse the long cut along Jax'zan's back with the water from the sack, then crush the herbs into a paste and apply them to the wound. It has to sting terribly, but Jax'zan makes no sound and keeps breathing evenly.

I have no bandages or sticky tape, so I can't do much more. But I'm hoping that his village isn't too far away. And the herbs seem to help stop the bleeding, too. I keep some of the paste to apply to his wound when needed.

And now I want to get away from this place where I was almost sacrificed. Jax'zan puts his sword back into his belt and I take his bag. I don't want him to carry it on that injured back of his. It's pretty heavy, but I can handle it.

We walk on. I'm pretty shaky still, but I can handle that, too. And before I know it, we've walked out of the jungle and we're standing in the middle of his village. I can't help but gasp.

The village is a whole bunch of caves in a rock face, like an old piece of wood full of wormholes. And it's a huge, tall cliff with hundreds of caves all over it. They all look natural, but some of them seem to have been widened and smoothed. Somehow I'm not too surprised. I did meet Jax'zan in a cave, and I always thought about him as a caveman. And that's what he is.

We're standing in what has to be the city square. It's a worn patch of rocky ground by the face of the cliff. We're attracting a lot of attention, and soon we're surrounded by curious warriors who are asking many questions of Jax'zan. He answers calmly, and the others stay at a respectful distance.

Now that I see them, it's clear that Jax'zan is a pretty typical member of the tribe. Perhaps he's a little taller and wider than most of them, but they all have that straight spine and the calm movements of men who know who they are and who are okay with that.

Emphasis on men. Because I can't see a single woman anywhere. 

I can see boys and adolescent males and grown men and old men. But not a single girl or woman or even a crone.

We sit down in a shady place and people bring us food and juice. It's weird being the center of attention like this, like I'm a circus act and these people are just watching. But as an alien, I suppose I should expect nothing else. They're cute, though. Whenever I make eye contact with one of them, whether it's a kid or a man, he smiles shyly and gives me a little wave or friendly gesture. My hope rises. If they're as cool as they seem to me right now, I'm sure they'll want to take in the girls or at least give them the help they need.

Two of them exchange a few words with Jax'zan, and then someone brings a basket of jars and various fluids, and they begin treating his wounds. They don't seem too concerned, and I notice that his injuries appear to be healing already. I guess it makes sense. On this planet, it's probably a good idea to heal fast.

A clearly important person comes striding through the crowd, bows for Jax'zan and looks at me with no expression on his face. He's an old man, and he gives me a vibe that says he's either the chief or some kind of priest. Probably a priest, I decide from the large, bronze-like pendant that he's got hanging around his neck and the furry cape over his shoulders. Maybe Jax'zan is higher up than I'd thought, if the priest bows to him.

They talk for a while, and this seems to me to be a good time to activate the translator.

“... the Mother,” Jax'zan says, and the translator chirpily interprets.

Everyone looks at me.

“Yeah, it's my translator?” I hold it up and Jax'zan explains what it is.

The crowd talks and whispers among themselves, but the priest doesn't seem too impressed.

They get back to business.

“As foretold by the Prophecy,” the priest states, scrutinizing all of me. “Most interesting. Sensational, even. Yet I don't doubt it. This is clearly a woman.” He smiles and turns around to face the crowd. “Who will become the Mother of Xren and give us the Treasure!” he yells.

The crowd erupts in cheers and celebration, and I smile, but of course all this means little to me. Except it might increase my chances of getting help for the girls.

“There is more,” Jax'zan says. “There are more women. Five more.”

A hush descends on the crowd. “Five more?” the priest asks and frowns more than I thought any living being could. “That is not in the Prophecy.”

“And yet, they are there,” Jax'zan continues. “They are on Bune. Five women, just like the Mother. And they need our assistance. The Plood dropped them there.”

The translator has no suggestion for the word 'plood' and just gives the word on to me. I would have liked to know what it means. My guess is 'creepy little alien kidnappers whom I hate with a passion'.

The priest frowns even harder. “Just like the Mother? Surely not. The Mother is as much a part of Xren as you or I or Bune or the holy cavern underneath it. Surely the five others have nothing to do with the Mother and are simply aliens desecrating the forbidden land.”

I'm not sure whether to smile or to punch the priest. On one hand, my little device seems to have adjusted itself to interpreting their speech with proper grammar, which is a major victory for my project and makes me wish I could tell Professor Wilkins. On the other hand, it doesn't sound like this guy will support helping the girls.

Jax'zan straightens and looks downright majestic, with a calm fire in his red eyes. “The Mother has herself stated that they are her friends and that she arrived on our planet along with them. They need our help to survive. Would you deny them this? Would you deny the Mother this reasonable request?”

The priest is just one big frown. “Aliens desecrating Bune, our forbidden land, have no claim on any support. The jungle and the Bigs and the Smalls will take them to their alien Ancestors before long. Indeed, that has probably already happened.”

I don't like what I'm hearing. “No, it hasn't,” I state, and that damn chirpy translator says it in what I hope is decent Xrennish. Everyone is staring at me, but I'm pretty angry now. “They are still alive and thriving as a colony. They have all kinds of vital skills that would make this tribe both more respected and more powerful. Without my friends, this tribe will perish.”

I'm maybe coming on a little strong. This tribe looks vital enough to me. But these guys seem to put a lot of importance on respect. I'll use my female cunning if I have to. Not that I have any cunning, to my knowledge. But this is probably a good time to check if maybe I do after all.

“The wishes of the Mother must be respected,” Jax'zan backs me up, “or she will withdraw the Treasure and Xren will be without a Mother for eternity. What will the Ancestors say about that? Their Prophecy and their sacred Mother discarded by a stubborn tribe?”

The priest is thinking hard. “Anyone who treads on forbidden Bune has the death sentence anyway,” he says. “Except the Mother, who can freely tread anywhere she wants on the planet. Certainly aliens must respect our laws or take the consequences. In this case, the planet and the Bigs will make those consequences as severe as they must be. I am the shaman of the tribe. The Prophecy and the Mother and the Ancestors are my concern. I want what is best for the tribe. The Ancestors have, in their infinite wisdom, seen fit to wrap this wonderful and longed-for occasion in a trap. The Prophecy mentions no other women. Any other women are not holy. Only the Mother is. And aliens on forbidden Bune? Do we need a clearer answer?”