Captured (7 page)

“Oh my God, yes.
 
Oh yes…”
 
Mari pushed her way past Ekkatt.
 
She ran to the edge of the hot spring and stuck in a toe to check the temperature.
 
It was perfect.
 
Perfect.
 
Ecstatic, Mari rushed back towards him and threw herself into his arms.
 
She knew it was foolish and she knew she could knock them over the side of the trail, but she didn’t care.
 
Ekkatt had brought her to a hot spring, and she could bathe like a human being.
 
“Thank you,” she murmured against his chest.
 
“Thank you, Ekkatt.”

He set her back on her feet and shoved her in the direction of the pool.
 
“I will stand watch,” he said, his voice rough, “to see that you are not eaten by anything.”

Mari looked at him.
 
“Eaten?”

“Yes, we have large…” he seemed to search for a word, “carnivores in my wilderness.”
 
He leaned against the rock wall, crossed his arms, and stared at her, waiting for her to get into the pool.

“Um..Ekkatt?”

He grunted.

“Could you turn around while I remove the shirt?”

“I have seen you without garments.”

“Yes, but that was when I didn’t have any say in the matter.
 
Now I do.
 
Could you please not watch me?
 
You can look the other way and I’ll…I’ll scream if I see a large carnivore.
 
I promise.”
 
Ekkatt raised his eyebrows, but he did as she asked.

* * * *

Her touch did not offend me
.
 
Ekkatt could hear the female splashing in the pool behind him.
 
She made noises, crooning noises.
 
Perhaps they were the sounds of satisfaction.
 
It certainly took very little to please her,
 
lehem, a pool of hot water, a bar of soap, and a tooth brush.
 
He was amused at her sudden modesty, but he respected her words.
 
That was when I didn’t have any say in the matter.
 
Now I do.
 
Yes, he had to respect her words.
 

But he found himself oddly curious, and he stole a glance over his shoulder.
 
Mari stood in the pool with her back to him, and the water was almost to her waist.
 
She held the cake of soap in her hand. He watched as she ran it up over her side and down around her hips.
 
The muscles of her back and arms contracted with her movements making the dragon mark appear almost animated.
 
He turned slightly, so he could watch, fascinated.
 
He could just see the slope of her breast as she lifted her arm and washed beneath it.
 
He was stirred by the sight, and he felt shame again. But he did not know if the shame was because of his own behavior towards her species or because he looked at her as a woman, as a man would look at a woman.
 

There was not so much difference, when he thought about it, between this female and a female of his race.
 
The women of Attun-Ra were bigger boned, taller, heavier breasted, and their hair was blue-black like his own, but this human was not unattractive once one understood that she was a sentient being.
 
Mari was no more a beast than his own beloved mother. Ekkatt realized he had committed a grave sin.
 

He was one of those who earned coin by sending sentient beings to their deaths, to the slaughter house.
 
In twenty years time he’d sent hundreds of females just like this one to market.
 
No.
 
Not like this one.
 
This one had opened his eyes.
 
He watched as Mari submerged herself and rose, her head thrown back, water streaming down her body, and he felt himself grow larger.
 

Ekkatt had never seen a naked male of her species, but she said when explaining how she’d taken down Tril that their
vulnerable body parts
were in the same place. He knew his own scientists had confirmed that humans and the Attun-Ra had DNA in common and were sexually compatible.
 
At one point in time his government had considered using human females as breeding stock after the plague had decimated their own women.
 
Ekkatt’s band of harvesters had been asked to bring back two hundred of the most robust females they could find.
 
As soon as the government agent had taken possession of those women, they’d vanished from his thoughts. Ekkatt felt the blood rush to his face, and he turned around.
 
It was a sin to feel lust for a beast or for a subspecies.
 
That’s what the religious leaders of his world taught. That’s what they’d told the government.
 
After two years of heated discussion, the government informed the public that the plan for interbreeding had been abandoned.
 
The official spokesman said sexual intercourse with humans was a sin against nature, and the courts immediately made the act a crime punishable by death.
 

Yet there had been quiet rumors over the years.
 
Ekkatt had heard them even though he spent so much time off world. The rumors hinted at the existence of a settlement of hybrid offspring and their Earth mothers, along with their Attun-Ra fathers, remnants of the state-run experiments.
 
He’d even heard stories of harvesters who’d had relations with their cargo.
 
He’d always dismissed them as rumors because the very idea of an Attun-Ra having sexual intercourse with a helpless animal, especially one in stasis, disgusted him.
 

The idea that a real man would do such a thing…but Ekkatt was not so naïve as to believe that all men were equal in their hearts.
 
Here he was, standing on a ledge, imagining the very same thing.
 
Except Mari was awake, and she was not an animal.
 
She was as much a woman as any of his own race.

“You can turn around now,” he heard her say.
 
“Would you like to bathe?
 
I can stand guard for you.”
 
Ekkatt snorted.
 
That would be something to see, Mari facing the claws of a giant durra.

“No, I bathed early this morning,” he replied in his own language.
 
He saw that she’d wrapped the towel around her and rinsed out his old shirt.
 
She’d slung it over her bare shoulder. Water dripped from the wet shirt onto her feet.
 
She held the soap and other items out to him.

“Could you repeat that please?”

Ekkatt began to say the words in English, but Mari stopped him.
 
“No, in your language.
 
I think I caught most of it.
 
You bathed already?
 
Correct?”

“Yes,” he grunted, again in his own tongue.

“If you would make a habit of speaking to me in your language first before you say it in English? I might learn faster.
 
Would you mind?”

Ekkatt stared at her, knowing in his heart that this woman should loathe the very sight of him, and yet she did not.
 
She was asking for his help to learn his language.
 
What had she said to him on the ship?
 
If you came to my home, I would treat you with respect and dignity.
 
I would not call you an animal simply because you are not human.
 
She had never once treated him with anything but respect.
 
Her words made him wonder which one of them was the more evolved.

“I need to find you something to cover your feet,” he said, surprised to hear how harsh his own voice sounded.

“What?” he heard her ask in his own tongue.

Ekkatt pointed to her bare feet.
 
“Boots,” he said in both Attun and English.

“Oh, yes,” she replied, and a smile lit up her face.
 
“Thank you.”
 

Now where in his world, was he going to find boots to fit her?

Chapter 5

Three days later Ekkatt flew off in his craft.
 
Before he left he showed Mari where he stored his weapons, and he taught her to shoot one of the smaller guns.
 
To Mari his version of a gun was not all that different from those used by the police and the military.
 
She had no problem learning to aim and fire.
 
She just had to remember that the trigger mechanism was a bit more sensitive.
 

Ekkatt put out the fire in the fireplace and closed and latched the shutters from the inside.
 
He advised her not to use the stove or any of the oil lamps for fear someone might notice smoke drifting up from the small chimney or light shining through the cracks beneath the windows.
 
He said, “If you get cold, climb into my bed.”
He
removed a huge wool blanket from a metal trunk, folded it in half, and wrapped her in it.
 

“Stay inside,” he ordered, “Unless you have to use the b’yat.
 
And if you do, take the weapon with you.
 
Look all ways before you step through the door, and don’t go out at night.
 
I will return by sunset tomorrow.” Then he left, insisting she bolt the door behind him.
 

After Mari watched the craft take off she did as he told her and closed the door and bolted it.
 
She leaned back against the hard surface almost overcome by a moment of pure, soul-searing, blind panic. She was alone. God-only-knew how many light years away from her planet surrounded by Attun-Ra who viewed her as subhuman and would gladly sell her for food or kill her on sight.
 
What about those carnivorous beasts in Ekkatt’s wilderness?
 
How would she manage if Ekkatt never returned?
 
What if his solution to their situation was to leave her here to starve to death?
 
Or freeze to death?
 
He could come back later, burn her body, and nobody would ever know.
 
Mari felt tears well up in her eyes.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, shut up,” Mari said aloud.
 
“He’s not going to do that.
 
He said we need supplies, so he’s going to get supplies.
 
Boots…remember?
 
Boots.”
 
She got a firm grip on her emotions.
 

The nights were cold in the mountains, and the mornings were frosty despite the sun.
 
Mari hadn’t complained because it was enough to be alive, but she knew she wouldn’t survive long without warm clothing.
 
If she had scissors, a needle, and thread, she could rip up a couple of the woven blankets and make some clothes for herself, or she could remake some of Ekkatt’s trousers and shirts.
 
Mari searched through his kitchen.
 
She found plenty of sharp knives but no thread and no needle.
 
Surely he had to repair his clothing on occasion.
 
He didn’t have a wife around to do it for him.

Mari wondered why.
 
Not that she could judge the Attun-Ra, but Ekkatt seemed attractive. Mari considered him far better looking than Pana and certainly way more handsome than that insulting idiot, Leader Tril.
 
Mari doubted that man could lead his way out of a paper bag.
 

 
Ekkatt hadn’t mentioned anything about his family, but then he didn’t volunteer much.
 
He spoke when spoken to.
 
The word taciturn described him to a tee.
 
Mari didn’t even know why he’d saved her life.
 
She preferred to think he’d come to see her as a person, but who knew?
 
Maybe he viewed her more like a dog, and he’d become attached to her the same way a human might feel some affection for a stray animal.
 
Well, life as a dog beat dead any day.
 
 
It was way better than being subjected to experiments and then dissected.

Mari tip-toed into Ekkatt’s bedroom, and she worried that the mere sound of her footsteps could attract unwanted attention.
 
He told her if she got cold she could sleep in his bed.
 
His room faced the sun, and his bed was larger than the bed in the room where she slept.
 
Big man, big bed
.
 
No surprise there.
 
She realized she felt a little chilled and fatigued despite two nights of solid sleep.
 
Besides, a day on this planet was about thirty-six hours long.
 
She had yet to adjust to the time difference.
 
Big man…big bed…big planet
.
 
Mari wrapped the blanket tighter around her and climbed into Ekkatt’s bed.
 
She pulled his quilts up to her chin and curled onto her side.
 
Mari closed her eyes and inhaled.
 
She could smell him.
 
She could smell Ekkatt, and his scent comforted her.
 
It made her feel safe enough to set aside any worries about scientists and carnivores and dealers in human flesh.