Chapter Fourteen
Zhor settled on the canopy of a giant Motave tree, ignoring the urge to move closer, and released Annika from her harness. “I think we are safe enough here. I have been this close many times and have not gotten ill.”
Annika glanced at him questioningly when he spoke.
Zhor lifted one arm and pointed out the building that had once been the center of government for their realm. “That is where our Sovereign and the lawmakers met ... in the time before. They are all dead now, of course, and the laws they made gone ... just like most everything else is gone.
“Not that I saw any of this or know about it firsthand. It was already gone and fading from memory when I was born. But that was in the days when they thought that they could rebuild and pick up where they left off.
“My parents used to talk about it--my mother especially. She would tell me I had to do my lessons because when everything got back to normal I would have no place if I was ignorant, no job—no assets to earn a mate.”
He grimaced at the memory with a mixture of wry amusement and pain. “As you see, that prediction came to fruition! I had no interest in the lessons she was trying to teach and now I have no mate and nothing to offer one ... beyond the skills I learned at hunting and the strength I could offer at fighting off rogues and such.”
He turned to study her assessingly, feeling a hard knot of misery form in his belly as the veil of fantasy was peeled away and reality set in. “But I have nothing to interest you at all, do I? Mayhap a woman of Qintara—for in these times having a protector and provider are the only thing of any true value since they mean the difference between life and death—but not one from the world you left behind.”
He moved closer to her, lightly stroking her upturned face. “What do you say, my pretty Ah-na? Will you give up all that you left for this strange alien man? This being who is called Zhor and who is from a crippled world that has very little to offer—perhaps a little more than he does?
Annika stared up at him with an overwhelming sense that he was asking her something very important. Frustration flooded her. Everything about his body language seemed to say he was asking her the one question she had always wanted to hear. She thought, from the few words she understood that that supported her ‘feeling’ that he was saying he wanted her to stay with him, but she wasn’t sure. She needed to be sure!
How embarrassing would it be to jump up and down and scream ‘yes’ if he wasn’t saying what she thought, asking her to be his?
And did she feel like jumping up and down with joy if it was a declaration?
She frowned when he dropped his hand and turned away, felt a nearly overwhelming urge to weep.
Had she lost her chance?
Saying she was right and he was asking her to stay with him, did she want to say yes?
Stupid question!
She knew she wouldn’t have instantly leapt to the conclusion that he was asking her to be his woman if it wasn’t something she wanted—at least on an emotional level.
On a practical level?
Could she honestly see herself living like the people on this world lived?
Truthfully, that was a damned scary and sobering proposition ... despite the nearly overwhelming urge she felt to scream ‘yes’ at the top of her lungs.
On the other hand, it was beginning to look like she might not have a choice.
That thought jolted her unpleasantly, filling her with a sense of guilt.
Zhor deserved better than to be chosen because there wasn’t another option, she thought, upset that that thought had even crossed her mind. He wasn’t just ‘better than nothing’. He was a prize!
He was handsome and sweet and thoughtful and he took care of her and protected her!
She shook the thought after a moment as something more compelling occurred to her. She didn’t even know that that was what he was trying to say and she couldn’t take him up on it anyway—not now. This city was proof that this world/his people were advanced enough to decide whether to allow the company to claim the land they wanted. It belonged to Zhor and his people—and the others that had fought and died and worked so hard to tame this world and build a civilization.
This wasn’t about her anymore.
It wasn’t even just about Zhor!
It went beyond both of them!
She had to get back and make sure the company knew they couldn’t just claim this world for themselves!
God! She hadn’t even thought about it that way before! All she’d been thinking about was her job! She’d thought about it being a political nightmare if she’d guessed right, but even at that she hadn’t realized just how advanced Zhor’s people had been—what it meant to them! My god! Looking at the city, she could see they couldn’t have been more than a few hundred years, at most, behind Earth people in their advancement and technology!
This was a modern city ... had been! It wouldn’t have been out of place on any of the colonies where Earth people had settled.
Ok, so the general architecture was totally alien! It looked ... well, it almost looked like the forest. Or maybe a patch of mushrooms, because all of the buildings were stalk-like and capped with roof tops that had clearly been inspired by the giant trees like the one they were standing on. There were all different heights, some barely yards above the ground and all the way up to the tallest, the one Zhor had pointed out to her, which looked to be hundreds of feet tall.
But it certainly wasn’t a sign of insignificant progress and development. These were people who’d earned the right to be treated as equals.
“What happened here?”
Zhor looked down at her, struggled to think of the word in her language and realized it was not a word that he had learned. Instead, he mimed illness.
“Sick?” she guessed and then acted out symptoms.
He nodded. “Kill most all.”
The smallpox, Annika realized abruptly, horrified! The probes had detected the disease in high concentrations in a number of pockets around the planet. She had been vaccinated against the particular strain that was detected even though it was considered very doubtful that she would be exposed.
That was standard procedure—inoculating against potentially deadly diseases that were detected.
She’d thought it was odd—to discover a disease on this world that was so similar genetically to the strains to be found on Earth and also the fact that it seemed to be confined to specific areas on this world.
Now she knew why—the last part anyway. The cities! The highest concentrations of the disease—still—was in the cities.
Why, she wondered, had no one thought that was odd? Investigated it?
She wasn’t a virologist and she’d thought it was weird—almost like there was something in some areas that was breeding the disease.
She frowned, trying to think of an explanation. “War? Was the disease used to make war and got out of hand?”
Zhor stared at her blankly for several moments. She saw when he understood the question. He looked horrified and disbelieving that she would suggest it. “No make war with ... sick. All die. Children too an’ old.” He shook his head. “Say it come from sky ... out dere.”
It was Annika’s turn to gape at him. She blinked rapidly, trying to assimilate it.
Of course, it had been proven that microscopic life could and did travel through space on meteors, sometimes raining down on unsuspecting worlds. It was almost a certainty, but never had been completely proven, that the Spanish Flu of the early 1900s that had killed nearly 100 million people globally had arrived from space. It had happened in a time before global transportation and hit spots all over the world at the same time and there seemed no other explanation for that.
But as horrible as that pandemic had been, and despite the fact that it had infected half a billion people, it had only succeeded in killing around five percent of the population.
If what he was saying was true, this epidemic had almost completely wiped his people out, had killed enough to cause their civilization to collapse.
It had actually had a kill rate similar to the one on Earth when the Spanish had infected the Mayans, she thought.
And that was smallpox!
It just didn’t seem possible that it could’ve infected and killed that fast ... not without killing itself off.
Of course, modern civilizations were vulnerable to pandemics because of their global commerce, but they were also usually able to come up with vaccines and treatments to fight back. Unlike primitive societies that didn’t understand disease let alone know how to prevent it or treat it.
Maybe she had misunderstood?
On the other hand, it seemed doubtful that Zhor knew what had happened. She was certainly no expert and even if she had been she would have had to investigate to determine the time that had passed since the disaster, but this city seemed to have been lying in decay longer than he had been around. He was clearly a young man—even if he was also clearly fully mature.
Even if he’d been alive when it happened, he would have to have been very young.
And beyond that, it was unlikely his parents would have known what happened and told him unless one or both had been in positions of power at the time of the fall and even then the chances were against them knowing. It looked to be something that had happened very quickly and that would’ve caused widespread panic which would muddy the waters so to speak.
They might never really know what had happened here, but the important thing was to make sure that they (Earth people in general and the company in particular) didn’t make matters worse. They should be helping these people recover not coming in like vultures and trying to scoop up the best of what there was left to be had!
It was up to her, she realized, and no one else, to make sure these people of this world were treated fairly and that their interests were protected—not because she was somebody important but because she was the only person who knew and could stop it.
She turned to Zhor. “I have to get back! This ... this disaster here is nothing beside what’s about to happen if I don’t go back and make sure it doesn’t!” she said, gesturing toward the crumbling city.
Zhor gave her that blank stare she found so frustrating and irritating—because she was almost sure he actually did understand—mostly—and was just pretending he didn’t.
She stamped her foot. “This is serious! Don’t play games now! I heard machines when we left! Those are just the start ... if I don’t get back and tell them they have to stop. We’ll have to get people in here to figure out what happened and what the current situation is for the people here and if there’s anything we can or should do. Then there’ll be negotiations for treaties and arrangements to buy land if that’s agreeable.
“But none of what should happen is going to if I don’t get back!”
She turned to study the city again. “I really need to get down there. I should have some hard evidence with me to back me up when I go to talk to them—something that can’t be disputed or discounted.
“Not that I think they’d be stupid enough to just ignore it. They’d be in a world of shit if they just forged on without checking it out, but it could make things a lot easier—maybe move things along more quickly.”
“No.”
Annika whipped a shocked look at him.
“Bad ting dere. Make Ah-na sick, die.”
She blinked at him. “But, I’ve been vaccinated ... never mind,” she added when it abruptly occurred to her that he hadn’t been vaccinated and he could be vulnerable. He might not be. He’d survived this long and that seemed to point to at least some resistance to the disease, but she didn’t want to bet his life on it—especially when it wasn’t at all necessary. “I don’t see any point in arguing about it. I don’t really need it. It would have been helpful to have some physical proof ....” She shrugged. “I do have to go back, though. Really.”
Zhor frowned, studied her for a long moment and then motioned for her to get back into her safety harness.
She wasn’t convinced that he’d understood her or was willing to take her back, but she complied. She sure as hell didn’t want to get left!
She was more convinced after he took flight that he either hadn’t understood or he’d decided to ignore her demand to be taken back, but she hadn’t expected it to be easy or simple. She was going to have to work to convince him—and/or make him understand.
It wasn’t just about her anymore. It was about him—everyone he knew—any life he hoped for.
If no one stopped the company, they would completely take over and do any damned thing they wanted to do!
And the natives were just going to get majorly screwed!