Chapter 42 Jean
We’ve been running for hours.
Okay, that’s not strictly true. I haven’t been doing any running of my own. Only the aliens have been doing that. I’ve been getting carried.
At the moment, Ghorak is the one carrying me.
He’s got me slung across his shoulder like a viking carrying a captive woman back to his ship.
We tried a few other less embarrassing configurations, but none of them worked out.
Piggy-back was semi-comfortable, but it was hard for me to hold on to Gerber that way, and groom-carrying-bride-across-the-threshold really messed with Ghorak’s ability to run.
So, I’m traveling like this, bent over one of Ghorak’s massive green shoulders, with my butt facing forward, my eyes facing back the way we came, and Gerber’s limp, baby-doll body dangling from my arms.
Scythro is jogging along behind us, not even breaking a sweat.
The bouncing motion of his strides makes his blue muscles stand out even more sharply than they already do on their own.
I’m trying my level best not to stare, but it’s kind of hard, especially when there’s nothing else back there to look at besides a sprawling desert of gray.
As for Venim, he’s ahead of all three of us, running in the lead.
Yeah, I voted to keep him alive. Even after everything that cruel bastard did to me, I couldn’t bring myself to end his life.
Not that I would have had to do it personally, of course.
Ghorak would have taken care of that with his rifle.
Still, I would be the one giving the order, and that would be just as bad.
Besides, as Scythro pointed out, Venim is dangerous as hell, and that makes him a valuable ally.
Assuming he really is our ally now.
That’s the reason Venim is running at the front of our little gang. It’s not any kind of hierarchical thing. It’s because he’s dangerous, and the other two guys aren’t willing to turn their backs on him.
So far, the three males haven’t been able to agree on much, but they did agree on one thing: we need to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and the “Crater of Death,” as I’ve mentally dubbed it.
One of the bad guys managed to fly away with Venim’s sword sticking through his middle, and while it seems unlikely that he’ll survive that wound, there’s a chance he might live long enough to make it back to Pharod’s mountain, in which case more bad guys will be sent out after us.
We need to be long gone when that happens.
Hence the running.
And hence the carrying. My short human legs and out-of-shape lungs aren’t capable of keeping pace with three hardened alien males. I feel a bit like dead weight at the moment, but honestly, I’m okay with being carried if it means we’ll get to our destination faster.
We are once more heading for the Weedians’ camp, but now our path is going to take us right through a place called “the Vents.” According to Ghorak, it’s a region of constant geological activity where glowing plasma erupts from holes in the ground both day and night.
I’m hoping we can reach it before sundown.
With a little luck, the lights there will be bright enough to stifle my nocturnal urges.
I twist awkwardly on Ghorak’s shoulder to see how much closer we have gotten.
And my heart instantly sinks.
The so-called Vents still look like nothing more than a cluster of dull, pinkish flickers on the horizon, no larger or closer than they were a few hours ago.
“How is that possible?”
It’s only when Ghorak replies that I realize I voiced my question out loud.
“How is what possible?” he asks.
“We’ve been running for hours,” I tell him. “At least, you guys have. But it feels like we haven’t moved an inch.”
“It’s the ore that does that,” Ghorak explains.
“The whole core of the planet is full of the stuff. On spaceships, they burn it like fuel to travel through the hypercosm. But even in its unrefined form, the ore has special properties. When you have enough of it gathered together in one place—the center of this planet, for example—it messes with space-time. Leastways, it messes with how we perceive it. Ul ain’t all that big, far as planets go, but the ore makes it seem a whole lot bigger. ”
Crap.
“We’re not going to make it to the Vents tonight, are we?”
“Nope,” Ghorak says, seemingly oblivious to why I might be concerned about such a thing. “Probably won’t get there till sometime to—”
He stumbles.
Leave it to Ghorak to trip over the only stone for miles around. His body pitches forward, and for a moment, I think we’re both going to take a tumble, but somehow the green giant recovers.
“All right,” Scythro calls from behind us. “Time to switch.”
“I’m fine,” Ghorak insists, his low voice rumbling up through the meat of his shoulder and into the softer flesh of my belly.
It’s not even dark yet, but those deep vibrations stir something within me.
It isn’t just the sound, it’s the intent behind them.
The possessive note in his voice. The unwillingness to remove my body from his shoulder, or his hand from my thigh. “I can keep going till nightfall.”
But he comes to a stop, and I know without looking it’s because Venim has stopped ahead of us. Scythro strides up beside Ghorak and gives him a friendly punch on the arm.
“I’m sure you can, big boy. You’re the strongest of us, no doubt about that.”
“No use in strength,” Venim mutters. “If it’s got no coordination to direct it.”
Ghorak growls, and once again the sound waves ripple deep into my core, but this time there’s a protective edge to his voice, and God help me, but it excites me even more.
“Easy, big guy,” Scythro says, purring slightly.
The purr is directed at Ghorak, but some of it hits me too. Between that sound and the giant’s growling, I’m just about ready to melt. Forget Ghorak, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it to nightfall.
“Look,” Scythro goes on, once the giant has calmed a little. “I have no doubt you could carry the human all night if necessary. But it’s better to rotate.” He gives Ghorak another love tap. “We want those muscles of yours nice and fresh in case we run into trouble.”
Ghorak mutters under his breath.
“That orange fucker’s the only trouble I’m worried about…”
But he still slides me off his shoulder and sets me on the ground in front of him as easily as if I were a small child or a pet.
“Here you go,” he says.
He’s talking to Scythro, but it’s Venim who steps forward and places a possessive hand atop my shoulder.
“It’s my turn to carry the human,” he says.
His turn?
I’m starting to wonder if this arrangement is really about division of labor and conservation of energy. If anything, these guys remind me of three oversized boys fighting over a favorite plaything.
Of course, these boys come with fangs and horns.
More growling ensues, and it would probably turn into a full-blown fight were it not for Scythro, who skillfully injects himself between the two larger aliens, purring softly to calm them. I don’t know where we would be without Scythro.
“Venim’s right,” he says. “It’s his turn to carry the human.”
Ghorak grumbles and sticks a weedstalk between his lips. He lights the end of it with his torch lighter, which he recovered from one of the corpses back there at the Crater of Death, and takes a long drag.
“Don’t worry,” Scythro reassures him. “It’s not like he’s going to try to abscond with her.”
“If he tries,” I add, “you have my permission to blast him with your gun.”
Venim sneers.
“You sure about that?” he asks. “As stoned as he is, he’s as likely to shoot you as me.”
I fix Venim with a defiant stare.
“That’s fine,” I tell him. “I’d rather be vaporized than end up alone with the likes of you.”
Venim’s face remains impassive, but I can detect some flicker of emotion behind his solid blue eyes.
“So be it,” he says.
Then he hefts me by the waist and tosses me over his shoulder like a sack. A few seconds later, he’s running again, heading for the horizon, and the other two aliens are jogging along behind us.
“You don’t trust me,” he says, his voice low so only I can hear it.
“Why would I?” I ask, pitching my voice to the same level.
“No reason. I’m just wondering why you trust those other two so much.”
“Well for one thing, neither of them ever spanked me with a sword. And for another, they never glued my—”
I catch myself, and cut the sentence short.
Venim chuckles coldly. I don’t hear it so much as I feel it vibrating through the muscles of his shoulder.
“They’re still criminals,” he says.
“I don’t care.”
“You’re not afraid to be in the company of violent criminals.”
“Who says they’re violent?”
“The brands on their chests.”
I gasp softly. With everything that’s happened today, I had pretty much forgotten all about those strange symbols emblazoned on the aliens’ bodies. Scythro, Ghorak, and Venim all have one, though each is a different shape.
“You mean…?”
“That’s right,” Venim says. “Every inmate on Ul is branded with a glyph that represents his crime. Would you like to know what brands your two friends back there are wearing?”
I don’t even have to think about my answer.
“No.”
“Scythro wears the brand of Murder.”
“I said I don’t—”
“And Ghorak, Mass Murder.”
For a few seconds, my heart seems to go still inside me. Then the anger comes, and it starts beating even harder and faster than before.
“What is it with you?” I snap.
Venim emits a sound that is the sonic equivalent of a frown.
“What is what, human? I do not comprehend your question.”
“I mean, what the fuck is your problem? I said I didn’t want to know, but you told me anyway. Don’t you have the tiniest bit of empathy or respect for anybody else in the universe?”
I don’t know why I’m asking such a pointless question. The answer is obvious: No.
Venim falls silent. I can’t see his face, but it doesn’t matter.
I already know his stern expression and solid blue eyes would not give anything away.
Instead, all I can do is look back at the two aliens trotting along behind us, one slender and blue, the other huge and green.
And this time, I can’t help staring at the symbols burned into their upper chests.
Murder and mass murder.
Jeez…
“I am… sorry,” Venim says. “I should have respected your wishes in the matter.”
All of a sudden, I’m actually grateful to be slung over the alien’s shoulder the way I am. If I were standing on my own two feet right now, I’m pretty sure I would be bowled over.
Did Venim just freaking apologize to me?
That was… unexpected.
For a second, I actually consider accepting his apology. I’ve always been a little too quick to forgive, probably because I hate having friction of any kind, even with a cold-blooded bastard like Venim.
Then I look at the little android baby I’m holding in my arms, and a different idea pops into my head.
“Want to make it up to me?” I ask.
Venim takes a beat before answering, “How?”
“Just tell me something, that’s all. The other women you picked up and sent back to Mount Bogus… was one of them named Mel? She would have been taller and slimmer than me, with dark brown hair. And she probably would have had a furry, four-legged android with her. His name is Clarence.”
“No,” Venim answers. “I did not encounter this woman.”
I’m not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it’s reassuring to hear that Mel was not captured by Venim’s men. On the other hand, there’s a good chance someone even worse has got her now… assuming she even survived the crash at all.
“Treason,” Venim says suddenly, startling me out of my dark thoughts.
“What?”
“My brand,” he says. “It’s for the crime of treason. I figured I should tell you, just to even the score.”
“Oh,” I answer.
We run on.