Chapter Thirteen
Disorientation swept over Annika the moment she woke and opened her eyes.
She was instantly aware, for instance, that she was stark naked because she could feel the hair of the animal skin she was wrapped in prickling her bare skin and making her itch.
And sleeping naked wasn’t a habit.
Beyond that the walls, floor, and ceiling of the place where she found herself bore no resemblance to a cave—any cave that she had ever seen—certainly not the one she’d grown used to in the past weeks since Zhor had rescued her.
Very little light reached to the place where she lay on the floor and she lay wondering for a few moments if that was because it was way too early to consider getting up or if the light simply couldn’t make its way inside because of the narrowness of the opening—or if the weather was inclement.
Her mind discarded that speculation fairly quickly, though, and gathered the memories from the night before.
Which she discovered she wasn’t entirely ready to examine.
And then the memories that preceded those flooded her mind and went into a replay loop.
It was as she was reliving the horror of their flight for perhaps the dozenth time that she recalled something that had been teasing her but that hadn’t managed to form completely until that moment.
She’d heard the sound of machines as Zhor dove from the mouth of the cave with her!
She tried her best to dismiss it—because by her best guess nothing should have arrived yet—unless maybe they’d sent a rescue party to search for the downed ship—but the longer she puzzled over the sounds she hadn’t even attempted to identify at the time the more certain she was that that was exactly what she’d heard!
It made complete sense from the standpoint of motivation for Zhor’s sudden desire to leave the area even if it made no sense at all from the standpoint of company procedure!
Hard upon that certainty was the realization that she now strongly suspected this was not a righteous find—that it was going to become a political nightmare—and she was going to end up losing her job because the company was going to lose their ass!
Which meant the circumstances of dismissal would destroy any chance of getting another position like it.
It wasn’t as if Mertz Inc. was the only company actively and aggressively searching for new resources, but they damned sure weren’t going to give her a good recommendation if this enterprise was a bust—which meant she had just shit-canned her entire career, not just this job!
They weren’t going to care that she hadn’t been able to contact them and give them a heads up before they invested millions! The bottom line was all that mattered to them.
Oh my god she was so screwed if she couldn’t figure out some way to fix things!
* * * *
Zhor did not know what he had expected of their lovemaking the previous night but having Ah-na give him suspicious, speculative looks as if she was accusing him of something was certainly not it!
He had not touched her since that first time, gods damn it! He had waited for her to come to him, to show him that she was willing to accept him!
And it had been no easy task, gods damn it!
Granted they had been chased by a conkerrie who had spotted them almost the moment he had left the rooke and he supposed that she was somewhat shaken up by that narrow escape. But he had lain with her until she had recovered from that fright! He had kept her warm, soothed her, and done his best to convey that he would protect her to the best of his ability. There had been no sexual overtures on his part until she had begun to move against him sensuously, until she had lifted her face in offering.
She could not claim that she was too distraught to trust her judgment!
But then, of course, it occurred to him that his dim memories of females did not lead him to expect reasonable behavior from females!
And his Ah-na was a female even if she was an alien female!
* * * *
It was barely dawn when they left what Annika discovered was a hollow in one of the giant trees that dominated the forests on this world—or at least what she’d seen of the forests—a people sized woodpecker hole, she thought, and then hoped like hell that wasn’t what it actually was.
There was the possibility of giant animals—and/or insects, though, she realized. There had been giants more than once in Earth history and she had no idea what stage of development this world was in or how the environment might affect developing species. The focus of the probes that had been sent was to search for valuable resources—this was a commercial enterprise not a scientific expedition.
But unless Zhor was unique among his people, he was significantly larger than the average human male—which pointed to larger ‘things’ in general, particularly since, from what she could tell of the other dominate race on the planet, the zorph were also a larger species than humans.
She could easily be wrong about that since she had only seen them from a distance, but they had seemed very large and there must be some reason Zhor was anxious to avoid a confrontation with them.
Of course, that could just be a matter of the zorph having the tendency to hunt and attack in packs. One against many was never good in a survival scenario, not even if the many were pint sized.
But she couldn’t rule out the possibility of giant things and that made her uneasy.
If that wasn’t enough to spoil any possibility of actually enjoying her ‘tour’ of the alien world—beyond being strapped to the back of a being to whom flight was his nature and who wasn’t the least bit shy about doing loop-de-loops, nose-diving, or flying almost straight up—the fact that he ‘lit’ every couple of hours certainly didn’t help. The uncomfortable suspicion began to form in Annika that she was wearing Zhor out.
And worse, that he was well aware that it was her additional weight that made it necessary to stop to catch his breath.
Embarrassed but also resentful, she began to anticipate some sort of snide comment about it.
Of course, she didn’t know if she’d be able to understand if he did insult her, but she watched him for any sign that he was thinking insulting things.
She was fully prepared to let him know in no uncertain terms that it was his own damned fault! She had done her best to talk him out of it! She had tried to convince him to take her to the buoy where she might have been able to figure out how to communicate with the home office.
She didn’t know that she could’ve, but she didn’t even get the chance to try, damn it!
And she had a bad feeling she was going to lose her job over this incident. Employers could be so damned unreasonable in their expectations of employees!
Especially when it cost them ten credits!
And this was liable to cost way, way more than that!
Maybe it still wasn’t too late, though? Maybe there was a silver lining to the fact that she was such a lard ass Zhor was having trouble going very far?
Deciding to ignore provocation, Annika dismissed her focus on looking for insult and instead fell to pondering what she could make of the trip thus far.
The first part had been truly terrifying, but she knew the cave entrance faced almost due south and they’d certainly taken off in that direction. She couldn’t actually recall anything after that point, though, because she’d been too terrified to make any mental notes. She’d had her eyes squeezed tightly together most of that time. When she looked around, though, she saw after a little bit that they seemed to be traveling somewhat southwest.
Of course, that was based on the assumption that the planet was actually revolving in the same direction that Earth did and the sun ‘rose’ in the east. If the planet rotated in the other direction they were moving east not west.
She struggled to recall that bit of information from her reports and finally gave up. It didn’t matter. She could see the position of the sun. To get back—assuming she could get away from Zhor at some point—she just needed to keep the sun at the opposite shoulder.
She spent hours trying to dream up a workable scenario for escape. This was basically a fruitless pastime—partly because she knew she couldn’t actually figure anything out that would be useable until she was actually presented with an opportunity.
Mostly, though, it was because she realized that she simply couldn’t bring herself to do anything that involved bashing him over the head or feeding him possibly poisonous berries to incapacitate him.
It made her so unhappy, in point of fact, that she realized she was way more fond of Zhor than it would ever have occurred to her was possible.
How could she feel like that about an alien?
How could she form an attachment to anyone that she couldn’t even really communicate with?
It actually didn’t take a lot of soul searching to conclude that her dependence upon him for survival was the primary thread of her attachment. And it was a very strong one formed very quickly because she needed him to survive—and because he willingly helped her to survive.
She thought she probably would have felt a bond even if he’d spent most of the time trying to peel her loose and abandon her.
Unfortunately, she realized that wasn’t the entire reason she’d grown fond even if it was the main one.
She found him physically attractive—chemically, clearly, or she wouldn’t have been so very willing to have sex.
She wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much.
As long as he was the only one that had enjoyed the sex, she could lie to herself and tell herself that she’d only done it to barter for her safety and it was perfectly reasonable for her to do that since it was all she had to pay with.
It wasn’t actually payment, though, if she’d done it because she wanted him every bit as much as he’d wanted her.
She owed him for saving her life, but she didn’t think she was trying to pay with affection and/or sex.
She didn’t think his well-being mattered to her only because she might do very badly if he did.
He was a good man.
He’d treated her very well when he could easily have simply used her for his own ends and been cruel and abusive on top of that. There was no one to stop him from doing just as he pleased.
None of those things actually took words to communicate.
In point of fact, actions spoke louder than words, and clearer.
Could they share a joke and laugh together without being able to fully understand each other’s language?
They had. When she’d ruined the dinner she’d been sure was going to be fabulous. He’d teased her.
There was no getting around the fact that their communications were spotty because neither of them knew the other’s language at all well, but she’d had almost as much trouble communicating with her boyfriend, Jared, and they spoke the same language!
She struggled to shrug it off. Undoubtedly it was something psychological! She’d just convinced herself she was fond because she needed him and that soothed her conscience and also made her feel safer.
Because a bond of affection meant he would try harder to protect her.
It didn’t feel like that to her, but, then again, she was in the moment. When she’d had time to distance herself from him she was sure she would discover that she didn’t really have a bond or feel any empathy or affection for him.
She’d almost managed to convince herself that she couldn’t trust anything she thought she was feeling when she made a discovery that almost literally knocked the breath out of her.
The sun was setting on their second day of travel when she first caught sight of it, the brilliant light dazzling her so that for many moments she had no clue of what she was actually seeing. Slowly, as they drew closer, though, she began to realize that this was no part of the jungle despite the vegetation that was running rampant, trying to take over.
Or at least, it hadn’t been born as one.
Before them lay the remains of what had once been a vast city and, even at a distance, she could make out details that suggested it was no ancient effort at civilization.
There were causeways linking elevated transportation of some sort.
There were high-rises.
“Oh my god,” Annika gasped as it finally sank in that she was looking at a city that had died only recently, a modern city built by an advanced civilization. “This is a disaster!”