El-Frankin
I jump back into my vehz and speed off toward the barn. Anxiety and torment are twisting my guts. Guilt weighs heavy and it’s put a sour taste in my mouth.
Where is my Earth female? My pretty little mate? The one soul I should be spending time with, getting to know…breeding with?
I have lost her.
So utterly careless of me.
If something has happened to her I’ll never forgive myself. Exile, the death penalty, it will be too good for me.
Because I have messed up big time.
While Tammy was upset enough to walk a long distance in the heat to visit me, I was letting In-Sar tongue my cock tips until I released. He’d said it was stress relief and I deserved to feel good.
It was actually disloyalty and bad behavior on my part.
And I couldn’t forgive myself.
At least not until I have Tammy back at my side, and I’ve confessed, and apologized, and begged for her forgiveness.
Then I can turn over a new leaf, become a new El-Frankin and the mate she traveled light years to be with.
We will start the breeding program and I’ll see to it that she has female pleasure, female orgasms and that when she carries a child in her womb she is pampered and adored and fussed over with no limits.
The barn comes into sight. I’ve been scanning the track but seen nothing.
I screech to a halt and rush inside.
In-Sar is fixing the side of a robotic sowing arm that’s attached to a huge bit of equipment.
He looks up. “Have you found her?”
“No.”
His brow creases and he stands. “She wasn’t at the farmstead?”
“No.” I run my hands over my horns, they tingle so much they are prickling, as if tiny ants are stinging them. “She’s not there. And her twin sister is frantic, as you can imagine and her friend says that she was walking here and—”
“Hey. Hey.” He steps up to me and presses his hands on my shoulders. “Calm down. She can’t have gone far. She doesn’t have a vehicle.”
As his body heat spreads into my flesh, I stare into his eyes. They don’t have the same panic in them Mel’s had and that’s somehow reassuring.
“We will find her. I’ll get the drone,” he says.
“Yes.” I nod. “That’s a good idea.”
His tail lifts and flicks. “You don’t think…”
“What?”
“The Jakarty?”
“We can’t think that way?” I say harsher than I’d intended. “They haven’t got her.”
“No…no of course not.” He steps away, a crease marring his brow. “There will be a simple explanation for this.”
I hope he’s right.
After gathering binoculars, the drone, and some food and water, we head off on foot. The plan is to trace the track toward the foothills, just in case she overshot the turning to the barn and became lost.
“Listen out for her voice,” I say as we stomp along on the dry ground. “She might hear us and call out.”
In-Sar nods and launches the drone into the air. His attention goes to the control panel. “What is she wearing?”
I frown and try and remember. “The last time I saw her she had a silvery gown on, it seems to be a favorite. So I’m guessing that.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“I didn’t see her this morning.”
“So she could have been wearing something else?”
“I guess, but like I said, that’s her favorite and my best answer.” I put the binoculars to my face and scan the foothills. Where the land rises from our crop field and become a hard rocky domain of nature.
“There are hirion to our west,” In-Sar says, “Grazing.”
“On crop?”
“No, they are by a riverbank.”
“Good.” A twist in my guts. “What if she came across one of them? What if it attacked her. Some of them like the taste of blood and she’s so small and delicate and wouldn’t stand a chance.”
I swallow to beat down the nausea that thought has brought with it.
“What if she’s being eaten or is lying there mauled.”
“El-Frankin,” In-Sar says abruptly. “Will you calm down. You are presuming the worst with each scenario that comes to mind.”
“Well we haven’t found her.”
“We have only just started looking.” He goes back to his drone control. “And this is giving me an eye in the sky.”
The suns are getting lower, Andri touching the mountain peaks and Gorthin close behind. They are so connected our suns, never far apart, as though they too are mates.
Mates who wouldn’t lose each other, the way I have lost mine.
I grip the binoculars as our track begins to rise and I keep looking out for a flash of silvery material or a dash of pink hair.
Nothing.
The shadows begin to lengthen, each step we take is getting us closer to dusk.
I check my thread in case Ar-Hagan has called to say they have found her.
It’s silent.
“Where is she?” I mutter.
“There has been a rock fall,” In-Sar says suddenly. “Toward the pass.”
“There has?”
“It’s in a bad way. If it’s of any comfort it would be a miracle for anyone to get through it. It’s a death trap.”
It was vaguely comforting to know the Jakarty were blocked into the Uncivilized Tundra. The only other entrance to it was well guarded by the military and no one had breached it there for years.
“I can see why the king says the pass isn’t a danger,” In-Sar goes on. “Even slithering creatures would struggle to get through it.”
“Good.” I turn to him. “What if a snake or a stone spider has bitten her? Their toxin will likely be poison to her. She’s small, not able to withstand the poison.”
“She is clever, you told me that. She won’t have gotten herself bitten.”
I think that even clever people get bitten by snakes and spiders. The cruel things are sneaky and camouflaged.
We keep looking, my anxiety increasing by the second. Not for myself, I couldn’t care less what happens to me, but for sweet little Tammy who I definitely don’t deserve.
Maybe that’s why she’s gone. Perhaps she isn’t lost.
She’s left me.
Gone in search of another male to mate and breed with.
Because I am such a loser.
We come to the top of a peak. In-Sar is concentrating on the drone screen, his face tipped over it and his thumbs working. He’s trying hard, and I appreciate that.
It wasn’t easy for him to know I was pairing up with an Earth female even though he has never said it. For a long time we have been each other’s emotional and physical comfort.
He has a long wait for what I have so easily lost. As do most other Planet Hade men wanting an Earth female to breed with.
My carelessness beats down on me once again. I shouldn’t have left Tammy’s side.
“What’s this?” he says, jerking his head.
I move closer and take a look. “I’m not sure.”
“It’s silvery, look. A piece of material perhaps.” He shrugs.
“But not a person.” It’s a small blur, barely a pixel or two on the screen.
“It’s also not organic. We should go and take a look. It might be a clue.”
I don’t argue and we head down the track. In-Sar almost topples over when he loses his footing and the drone hisses and whirs to the right.
“Careful,” I say, eyeing the pass again. It’s gone into shadow, a thick black chasm in the mountains that keeps us from danger. I hope for another rock fall to further block it.
I watch my step, pausing every few moments to scan the horizon for any movement, any sign of Tammy.
Eventually we reach the track and In-Sar directs us to the spot he saw something.
When we reach it my heart flips. I rush forward and grab Tammy’s armband. “It’s hers.” I say, my entire body tensing and my tail thrashing the ground with a harsh thud. “It’s Tammy’s, her armband. I gave it to her when she arrived. She rarely took it off.”
“So she’s been here.” In-Sar glances around. “Recently.”
“Yes, we must presume that.” I start stomping left and right. Examining the tall crops for signs of damage or disturbance. There is nothing untoward. No flattening, no breakage, nothing else of hers.
“So what do you think happened?” In-Sar says.
“I have no idea.” I pull out my thread. “I have to tell Ar-Hagan.”