Chapter 9 Venom
Venom
I was lucky. The platform dropped me in an area I knew from watching the Trials. It wasn't far from where my portal had transported my mate.
I knew it wasn't luck. It was the game makers providing their viewers with the best entertainment.
They wanted me to find her. And then they wanted to see us die, in some terrible, painful way.
They loved it when one of the lovers died first while the other had to watch.
If the female died, the male would often go into a frenzy, able to kill monsters he wouldn't have otherwise been able to best. Not that the couples were always males and females.
I had seen various pairings over the years, but the game makers seemed to prefer putting alpha males and weaker females together.
I grimaced. My female wasn't weak. She had survived an encounter with Jarra, walked almost the entire length of the space station, travelled through a barely stable portal, and was now running from a prondu. If she was still alive.
No. She was. She had to be.
I stretched my arms, rolling my shoulders.
The stasis prison had made me somewhat sore, but I knew that was nothing compared to what most contestants endured before they were dropped onto the planet's surface.
The game makers loved to keep them without food or water for days, weakening them on purpose.
I was in a small clearing, just about enough space for the platform to land.
Around me was nothing but jungle, ancient and foreboding.
The trees here had grown for millennia, their roots growing deeper than I could imagine.
They blocked out most of the sunlight, but it was still warm enough for me to be at prime strength.
In this part of Kalumbu, it cooled down once the sun was replaced by the light of the planet's two moons, but not enough to majorly impact me.
I would be slightly slower, my reflexes dulled somewhat – but I didn't plan on spending the night out in the open.
I knew the chii had a den in these woods, although I didn't know where exactly.
My communication with them had always been on their terms, ever since my predecessor had introduced me to them through her secret portal.
She had been the first undercover agent on the Kalumbu space station but had to retire after she'd killed an amorous guard.
It had brought too much attention on her.
I would always be grateful to her for giving me access to that portal.
It was how my mate had escaped the station.
Not that she was in any less danger here on the surface, but at least it had got her out of reach of Jarra.
I shivered at the thought of what he may have done to her if I hadn't stopped him.
I was aching to slither after my mate, but I had no idea in what direction to turn.
I knew she was in this area because of the distinct colour of the trees which could only be found on this latitude, but it was still a vast distance from one end of the jungle to the other.
It could take weeks to find her. Yet I knew that wasn't in the interest of the game makers.
They must have deposited me within a cycle or two of my mate. If only I chose the right path.
There was no sign of any monsters, let alone a raging prondu.
You couldn't miss a prondu – but you'd always hope that it missed you.
I extended my forked tongue, tasting the air, searching for any trace of my mate's scent.
I could sense small animals in the bushes and vines creating the thick undergrowth around the trees, but nothing larger or more dangerous than a quindibi.
Lucky. Again.
And wait, yes, underneath the layers of scents was a faint smell of a male chii.
In the absence of anything better, I could follow that and see where it led.
The chii had dens and burrows all over the place and they were able to communicate with each other.
I still didn't know much about this mysterious species – only what they had allowed me to learn – but I was sure that they had abilities far beyond their innocent looks and demeanour.
The game makers were aware of the chii in the way that predators are aware of prey too small to bother to hunt or eat.
They ignored them for the most part, only ever showing them on screen by accident.
That had all changed when Fay had bonded with a two-tailed chii.
I'd been too slow to change the footage, and the game makers had seen their first encounter.
Questions had been asked. Nobody knew what these little beasties were up to.
In the end, luckily, they had decided to ignore the incident – and I had made sure to write an AI bot that would automatically remove any chii from future footage.
It was a good thing I did, or the location of one of their dens would have been revealed by a camera drone.
Vruhag had destroyed the drone, but not quickly enough.
Other people would have wanted some recognition for their work, but I had been undercover for long enough not to care.
I'd been the Peritan females' secret guardian, and in extension, that of their mates.
Now I wished I had my own secret guardian. Would the game makers allow me a sponsor? I had been provided with no weapon, which was unusual for the Trials.
A familiar caw-caw sound ripped me from my musings. A large pink bird settled in a branch high above, watching me with interest. As was a universe of people desperate for entertainment.
I tasted the air one more time, then slithered through the waist-high grass, following the chii's scent. With every powerful undulation of my coils, I prayed that this trace would lead me to my mate.
The scent was getting stronger. I was close to the male chii. It had made sure not to leave traces on the ground, but it couldn't hide its own distinct smell. Luckily for the chii, I was not a predator wanting to harm it. All I wanted was my mate.
I couldn't stop thinking about her. I knew she was still alive – she had to be – but had she escaped the prondu unharmed?
Had she fallen prey to some other monster?
And even if she had somehow evaded their notice, I knew that she was weak from lack of hydration.
I'd seen the first signs while watching her in the tunnels.
By now, if what I'd read about Peritan constitution was correct, she was in desperate need of sustenance.
Once I found her, I would make sure to provide everything she needed.
For now, I didn't want to think about what came after our first meeting. We'd still be trapped on Kalumbu. I didn't dare hope of a quick rescue.
A camera drone whizzed past me, not even trying to stay out of sight. I glared at it. I bet Briarra was watching me, waiting for her revenge. I would make her wait. I wasn't sure how, but I would get my mate off this planet and to safety. This was not the end.
The chii's scent mixed with that of another. Then another. Was I approaching one of their dens. That felt too easy.
Chirp, chirp!
A sound from high above made me tense my coils before I realised it was a chii.
Not the one I'd been tracking, but another male.
It climbed down the tree it had been sitting on, faster than my eyes could follow.
From the lowest branch, still far above me, it jumped, flying gracefully through the air, before landing expertly on my shoulder.
A silver chii with two bushy tails. I'd only ever seen one or two silver chii before but hadn't spent much thought on why that was.
"You are late," he chittered without greetings or introductions. Thanks to my predecessor, my translator implant had a fairly reliable knowledge of the chii language.
"Do you know where my mate is?" I asked just as brusquely.
"Yes. She needs you. We cannot communicate with her, and my Chosen has not yet arrived. She is scared, sickly and alone."
My hearts contracted painfully. "She won't be alone for much longer. Lead me to her."
The chii male didn't waste more time on talking.
He simply pointed west, and I slithered as fast as I could, ignoring the scratch of the branches and stones against my scales.
I hadn't been out in nature for... I didn't even know.
Too long. My scales had grown soft and vulnerable.
Back in the old days, on my home planet, it would not be unusual for me to spend days in the wild, hunting like my ancestors and sleeping beneath the stars.
Life undercover had made me soft, at least when it came to my body.
When another camera drone buzzed closer, I told the chii, just in case his hearing wasn't as sensitive as mine.
"Follow this track," he said curtly and jumped off my shoulder, disappearing into the undergrowth.
I hoped that my AI algorithms were still running, automatically erasing any traces of the chii from the footage, but I couldn't be sure.
I didn't want to lead the game makers to them if I could avoid it.
I could hear the chii moving ahead of me.
He hadn't mentioned how much further I had to travel.
For a chii, he was especially taciturn. The chii I'd met in the past had always been chatty, full of tales and stories they desired to share.
They had a rich heritage that I had only heard glimpses of, yet it had been enough to convince me that they were an ancient civilisation with a history, culture and belief system.
Their small size only meant that other species underestimated them, not that they were inferior.
The first moon was already travelling across the sky by the time the chii emerged from the thicket again.
"We are here," he announced.
I surveyed the area, both for a den and yet more camera drones.
"Where are we?" I asked when I couldn't find anything that remotely resembled an entrance or burrow.
"The portal. You will have to climb this tree. We don't want witnesses, so we brought the female to our most secret den. You will be the first outsider to be granted access. If you betray us, you will die."
I had to suppress a smirk. Join the queue.
"I will not betray you as long as you don't betray me. I promise on my ancestors."
The chii sniffed, its tiny nose wrinkling. It was utterly adorable, but I made sure not to show my feelings. He was clearly a proud male.
"Do you have a name?" I asked.
"Yes. And you have not yet proven worthy to hear it."
Ouch.
I shrugged and started wrapping myself around the tree he'd pointed out, climbing as fast as I could.
It was a long time since I'd last climbed a tree.
I pulled myself up as far as I could reach with my arms, then curled my tail around the tree as tightly as I could, before reaching up again.
It was a slow process, made harder by the sticky sap clinging to the purple bark.
I resisted the urge to ask the chii how high in the tree the portal was located.
I didn't want to hear him say that I'd spend another hour rubbing my scales sore and straining muscles that hadn't seen any actions in rotations.
He'd climbed past me at the very start and was waiting somewhere high above me.
When I reached the first branch stretching away from the main trunk, the chii chirped disapprovingly.
"You took your time."
I bit back a grumpy reply and simply waited for him to continue.
"You are getting close to the portal. You might want to roll up that tail of yours. I don't know what will happen if only half of you is sent through the portal."
I didn't want to find out either. I carefully made my way along the thick branch that was almost broad enough to allow for three nagas side by side.
Even after watching Kalumbu on the vidscreens for so many rotations, I was not prepared for the sheer scale of this planet.
Everything was oversized. The trees, the monsters, the deadliness. The chii were the only exception.
A telltale shimmer above a bend in the branch signalled the portal's location. For some reason, the game makers' drones could neither sense nor navigate the chii portals. Considering I could hear at least two of them buzzing in the distance, I was glad that we'd be rid of them in just a moment.
The chii male didn't wait. He jumped through the portal, his feathered silhouette glittering in silver light for a moment before he disappeared in a cloud of sparks.
I stopped at the edge of the shimmering air and followed the chii's advice, wrapping most of my coils closely around my upper body.
Moving like this was slow and difficult, but I did not want to be cut in half by the portal.
With one last deep breath, I pushed myself forward and through the gateway. I was about to meet my mate.