Chapter Twenty-Three

Sunny

 

Romando gagged me, trussed me up like a phea prepared for the spit, and loaded me onto a sled-like travois he’d rigged behind a skimmer. Then my moron kidnapper shot through the woods with no concern the machine threw the displaced snow on top of me. He would have hell to pay when he let me loose. He would rue the night he abducted Sunny Weathers!

I expected him to take me to his camp, but as the ride dragged on and on, I deduced he wasn’t returning to his tribe. We would have been there already, and it wouldn’t make sense to go there. He couldn’t present me to his clan because, at the least, there would be questions. Like, who is she? Where did you find her? Why is she all tied up and covered in snow?

The skimmer slowed and then stopped. Snow crunched as Romando approached the sled. With a grunt, he swiped the snow off me. It had stopped storming during the getaway, and diamond stars twinkled in the night sky. What a perfect evening for an abduction. Unable to speak through the gag, I put all my animosity into my glare. It didn’t faze him. He tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of grain and stomped into a hut.

He set me on my feet and lit an illuvian lamp and heater before removing the gag. Kel stew is delicious; a kel hide strip soaked in a slurry of water and ash and then tanned with the animal’s own brains, not so much. “What is the meaning of this?” I spat in outrage and to remove the yucky taste from my mouth.

“You are not what I would have chosen, but you are my mate, and I’m claiming what belongs to me.”

Insulted on a couple of levels, I gaped while considering my options. Should I attempt to reason with him? Negotiate? Ransom myself? I could offer kel for my release or hot ticket items from Terra. Then again, maybe I should play along until I could make a break for it? What I wanted to do was point out the obvious flaws in his scheme. He couldn’t possibly keep me long term.

“Where are we?” He might have piloted in circles to confuse me and make me think we’d gone far away. Maybe we were right outside the meeting place or his camp.

“I doubt you know this area.”

I doubted it, too, but I couldn’t take his word on it.

I glanced around the hut, one of those pre-fabs, constructed of composite panels that snapped together like Legos. You could quickly build anything with those panels—a hospital, a skimmer garage, a kidnapper’s lair. Strips of smoked kel hung from a rack over sacks and sacks of dried foodstuffs and dozens of water jugs.

Either he was a doomsday prepper, or my abduction had been premeditated.

I exhaled. “How about untying me? The bands are cutting off my circulation.” He’d wound a rope of braided kel hide around me like he was wrapping a bale of hay. I didn’t think he’d untie me on request, but, hey, it doesn’t hurt to ask, right?

“You will try to escape.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Sit.” He pointed across the room to a utilitarian Terran-issued table with two matching chairs.

“That would be easier if my feet weren’t tied.”

He moved the chair closer. I glared and remained standing. He shrugged then exited the hut. I dropped into the chair and tested the restraints. Not so tight as to cut off my circulation, but hopping my way to freedom was looking like my only option.

Letting in a blast of frigid air, Romando hauled in a couple of bags and rolls of kel. As if my night couldn’t get any worse, the two remaining cambots flew in before he kicked the door shut.

One camera appeared to be on its last wing. It could barely fly, couldn’t navigate, and its speed waxed and waned. It was amazing it had gotten here at all. The other chugged sluggishly, but it seemed to be in better condition.

I glowered at the red light on the more operational camera and said in Terran English, “Well, this ought to boost your ratings, right?”

The malfunctioning one careened out of control, almost frying itself on the illuvian heater then spun and flew at Romando’s face. “What is that?” He snatched it out of the air like a baseball and then crushed it under his foot.

And then there was one.

It roosted out of reach on a dried kel swag.

When that last cambot expired, I would have one less annoyance to deal with. However, Apogee was the least of my concerns right now. Topping the list was a seven-foot-tall, long-haired alien named Romando. You might think his name sounded charming, but trust me, his face and personality did not match the moniker.

“What do you intend to do with me?” I asked.

He folded his arms and stared down at me, his lip curling with dislike. His snooty nose had a hump in the middle like somebody had broken it, an indication he did not play well with others and hadn’t for a long time.

“I am not your mate. I’m Darq’s mate,” I said.

“The chit was rightfully mine.”

“Maybe the chit was, but I am not. I wouldn’t have accepted your offer.”

“You will grow to like me.”

The man was delusional. I liked him less now than ever. “If you want me to like you, you’re going to have to untie me. The bindings are too tight, and I’m too hot in this kel.” The latter part was true. The illuvian heater had kicked up the temp, and perspiration trickled down my ribs and dampened the back of my neck.

“I’ll release the bindings, but I don’t trust you. I’ll be watching you. Don’t think you can get away.” He moved behind me to work on the knots in the kel braid.

“Why don’t you cut it off?” I suggested.

“Because I wouldn’t be able to reuse it. We are not like Terrans. We do not have the wealth you do to enable us to use and discard material goods on a whim.”

“Oh, ouch,” I said sarcastically.

“Did I hurt you? I’m sorry. It was not my intention.”

His surprising apology offered the first inkling that he wasn’t all bad, and suggested maybe I could negotiate with him.

“So, why am I here? Kel rope is hard to braid, and you were offered five kel plus Darq’s labor.”

“Kel are valuable, this is true, but we need mates more. Polonio accepted reparation on my behalf, but I was not in agreement. He believed I couldn’t win, so I should accept what I could get.”

The rope dropped away, and he coiled it and set it aside. He eyed me warily as I stood up. The kidnapper and the hostage in a face-off. Yeah, we had trust issues. Go figure. “I need to use the restroom,” I said.

“Restroom?”

“Latrine.” I didn’t have to go, but I wanted to get the lay of the land. Maybe make a run for it.

“Come.” He opened the door and motioned.

The camera zipped from its perch and flew outside, disappearing into the woods along the skimmer route. So, kidnapping doesn’t play well on the ’net? I glowered at the path the cambot had followed—and then my eyes widened as epiphany struck. I could follow the trail to freedom! I just had to slip away from Romando.

He eyed me with suspicion. “Don’t try anything.”

“I wouldn’t think of it.”

“You’re a fool if you expect me to believe that.”

I whipped around. “Are you naturally bad mannered and rude, or do I bring out the worst in you?”

He slammed the door and pointed to a small outhouse a little way from the hut. “It’s you. You are not the female I would have chosen.”

“If you don’t like me, then why did you abduct me?”

“I did not abduct you. I claimed you because you’re my only choice. I want Darq to experience the loss, for him to know what it feels like to be robbed.”

“So, it was for revenge.”

“For justice.”

“People will find out you took me. They’ll look for me.” But not until morning, at the earliest, when Torg figured out I was missing. Would he tell Darq? If he did, nothing, not warding, not banishment, would stop Darq from searching for me.

“They can look, but they won’t find you.” His confidence rattled my morale.

Where exactly was I? How far from the camps were we? How fast had we traveled? Twenty kilometers per hour? Twenty five? And for how long? Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? I wasn’t sure. When you’ve been kidnapped, tied up, and then pelted with snow, it hinders your ability to judge time or speed.

My situation reminded me of those hated math problems they wouldn’t even let you use a calculator to figure out. If an abductor with a hostage leaves camp travelling at 20 kph or maybe 20+x for 30 minutes or maybe 30+y, what does that mean for the hostage?

I didn’t need a calculator for this one, after all. I knew the answer: the hostage is screwed. A+ for me.

I couldn’t count on a rescue. I had to get out of here on my own. Romando had to sleep sometime, right? I’d noticed some jugs of ale among the foodstuffs. Maybe I could get him to toast our “honeymoon” and fall asleep.

He waited outside the latrine while I used it, and then marched me back to the hut. I removed my kel and set it on the table within reach so I could grab it and run when an opportunity presented itself.

Unfortunately, Romando refused my offer to celebrate our new life together with a drink. He piled up kels for a bed and then, using a short length of braid, tied my hands and feet, and told me to get some sleep. He spent the night on a separate kel in front of the door.

In the morning, when he escorted me outside for another latrine stop, all the tracks had been buried by fresh snowfall.