Page 19 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gregar

“ W e should bury the human,” Vantos says to me as the other humans get settled in their tents, my Liv with them. “There are vyka bird nests in the cliffs further down. Those carrion feeders are bold enough to chance our spears for a meal.”

They pose no real threat to us. We might receive a nasty peck or scratch for chasing them off, but they cannot seriously harm a grown raskarran male. Vantos thinks of the humans and their heartspaces. He does not wish them more distress.

“I do not know what their customs are for their dead,” I say. “I would not wish to offend them.”

“They live here now, in our jungle,” Vantos says. “We can honour their customs as much as we can, but they must also adapt.”

He is right, of course, and I grip his shoulder. “Whoever takes the first watch can pass the time fashioning tools to dig. I will speak to my Liv on this, see what she thinks.”

Vantos nods. He turns to leave, but turns back to me, an unfamiliar set to his features. It is yearning, I think. He glances at the tents before looking back to me.

“Do you think when they are less frightened, better fed, that there might be mates for all of us among them?”

“It is my dearest hope, brother,” I say. “My linasha has brought me joy I never thought I would be so lucky to feel. I wish that for all of you.”

“They are strange to look at,” he says, his eyes lingering on one with hair like a sunset. “So colourful. And no tails.”

I sweep my eyes over to where my Liv is with her warrior and another of her tribe. I think perhaps I have not earned the right to stare at her body just yet, but I cannot help myself. I know from the dreamspace that she has no tail, but it is still strange to see it in the waking world.

“They are soft,” I say, “not made for climbing.”

“Then we shall have to take care of them,” Vantos says, his usually stern countenance returning. I know him well enough to know it is determination, not disapproval, behind it. “I will take first watch.”

“Thank you, brother,” I say.

Maldek has kept a couple of pelts back, enough to cover an area of the sands for us to sleep. It will not be comfortable, but it will be enough. We cannot afford to stay here long. Tomorrow. Perhaps another night. And then we will leave the great salt waters behind us. Hopefully with the females.

The dreamspace draws me in quickly, but it is not a nice comfortable tent, and my linasha is not dressed in beguiling clothes. Instead, it is a small space with solid walls, perfectly flat and straight, a low ceiling overhead. It is like being trapped in a cave, but without the natural variation.

“What is this place?” I ask, and my voice rings with my unease.

“I was thinking about home,” my Liv says. She is perched on a bed, staring out of a tiny little slot in the wall. Light trickles through it, barely enough to illuminate the shape of her face.

“This… is your home?” I say, looking round it.

“Yes,” she says. “In as much as it’s possible for a bottom tier worker to have a home.”

She gestures me to her side, and I go, though I am wary. This space is only small and I am big. I do not wish to crowd her. But she pats the bed and then resumes looking through the little slot. The tiny window.

“Can you see anything out there?” she asks.

“I don’t know how this dreamspace stuff works.

It must be drawing from our memories, right?

You said you were thinking about our future home when the space changed before.

And those tents you put up for us today - we were in one of those tents at first, weren’t we? ”

“We were,” I say, taking a seat beside her. “I think you are right. I think it is memories that shape this place.”

I bend my head to the small slot and peer out.

It is a world of horrors. Grey and unending, smoke rising from shapes that at first I take for trees, but soon realise are buildings.

Like ten or twenty huts stacked one on top of the other.

They cut a similar shape into the sky as the trees, but with none of the jungle’s softness.

Lights flash everywhere, big boards with shapes on that are constantly changing.

Creatures I would guess are the size of ensoukas, have light up eyes and fly around the buildings, shining those eye lights down on little shapes scurrying around below.

“Those animals are hunting your people?” I ask.

“That’s Enforcement,” my Liv says. “It’s not an animal. It’s a ship. Like the escape pod, but smaller. It has another human inside it, controlling it.”

“You hunt each other?” I am aghast at the very idea. Are my linasha’s people really so savage?

“It’s not really hunting,” she says, shaking her head.

“They are looking for people who are breaking the law. If they spot someone doing something they’re not supposed to do, they take them and lock them away in prison.

They say it’s to keep the rest of us safe, but…

” she shakes her head, great sadness filling her eyes.

“Most of the people in my tribe didn’t have enough.

Not enough food, not enough things - medicines, clothes, whatever.

And when you get desperate, you steal it.

The people being taken away weren’t bad people.

Just people with no other choice. The Enforcers weren’t keeping us safe, they were keeping us afraid. ”

“Why?” I ask.

“So we would do our jobs. Not cause any trouble. It’s like this.

” She touches her two forefingers and thumbs together to make a triangle shape.

“The people at the top have all the power.” She wiggles her forefingers so the top of the triangle moves.

“They have good lives, lots of things to make them happy, plenty of food. Family. The people at the bottom…” She wiggles her thumbs.

“They have nothing. I was one of those people. But the thing is, there aren’t very many people at the top.

There are a lot of people at the bottom.

The power that the people at the top have - it’s fragile, and they know it.

So they keep us down, keep us scared. Promise us a better life on Alpha Colony if we work hard enough to earn it. All to stop us rising up against them.”

“They do not sound like wise and fair chiefs,” I say.

She almost smiles. “They are definitely not.”

“I do not like the thought of you living in this place,” I say, looking up at the ceiling, so close above my head.

“It wasn’t nice,” my Liv says, sitting back from the window and turning her eyes on me.

My heartspace stutters. She is so beautiful. So fierce and strong. Knowing that she comes from such a place only makes me wish to make her life here even better.

“Alpha Colony, the place we were heading to, was supposed to be a lot better. I know it wasn’t going to be, but some of the others still believe it meant a bright future for them. They don’t want to give that future up by coming with you. They still hope that our old chiefs will come for them.”

“But they won’t?”

She shakes her head. “Take another look at my world. Do you think the chiefs of such a place would rescue twe... eleven women? Dammit.”

She swipes the back of her hand across her cheek, catching the tears that have started falling.

“You are sad for your fallen tribe sister,” I say.

“Yeah, I am,” she says. “I don’t deserve to be.”

Her words confuse me. “I do not wish to misunderstand you again, linasha. Can you explain what you mean more simply?”

My Liv gives me a pained look. “I barely even knew her. I barely spoke to her the entire journey here, the entire time we’ve been stranded here. And now she’s dead and I will never have the chance to make that right.”

I am cautious as I raise my hand out towards her.

I do not want her to be startled, to back away.

But she does not. To my selfish delight, she shuffles forwards, allows my arm to go around her.

I pull her to me, cradling her against my chest as she lets out her anguish.

And though I hate her pain and sorrow, I am glad that I can do this for her.

That she trusts me to hold her through it.

“I think I’ve not been a very good person,” she says after a moment.

I run my fingers over her soft, shiny hair.

“I think you have not had much chance to be anything but a survivor,” I say. “I know how that is. Many in my tribe have felt the same. Since the sickness took all our females, we have had no future to live for.”

“There are no women in your tribe?” she says, drawing back from me a little.

I shake my head. “It was seventeen rainy seasons ago. A strange plague we have never seen before swept through the tribes. My tribe lost many elders, a few younglings, and all our females. Our future as a tribe died with them. For many seasons afterwards, our lot was not so much living as surviving. We found a way to make some peace with it, but now Lina has brought us your tribe. You are hope to us, my Liv. Hope for a better future. Perhaps this is something we can be for your tribe, also?”

She chews on her lip a little, her eyes soft as she considers me. Then she gives a small nod.

“Can you take us back to your memories?” she says.

I close my eyes, think hard about the tents where she is sleeping now. When I open them again, one has formed around us, the light soft, giving my Liv back her glow. Her clothes are still the plain grey she was wearing before, but her expression has shifted to something closer to happiness.

“That’s better,” she says, then draws me down in to the pelts beside her.

There is no mating. She just lies in my arms, her head resting over my heartspace. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we just lie in silence together. And all the time my heartspace grows a little more full.