Cyberevolution aftermath.., p.8
Cyberevolution Aftermath II, page 8
There was intelligence in his eyes that she didn’t believe for one moment anybody could fail to notice.
It wasn’t a miscalculation, a misunderstanding, or a lack of interaction with them that had inadvertently led the company to mislead people. It was an out and out lie.
Thankfully, he seemed to decide she didn’t have much to contribute. He moved on to Trinity and then Caleb.
When he had finished, he sat down and another member of the tribe stood up and questioned them. Hours passed. Amanda was beginning to feel the strain—both physically and emotionally. She’d also begun to lean more and more heavily against Kameron. He glanced at her a couple of times and finally put an arm around her shoulders.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long after that that they were urged to get up and led to a hut close by.
There were pallets around the perimeter of the structure. Kameron carried her to the closest and settled her on it.
“How much trouble are we in?” she asked in a low voice before he released her and pulled away.
“I am not certain,” Kameron responded grimly. “It depends upon whether we convinced them we were telling them the truth or not, I suppose.”
Amanda watched him unhappily, wondering why he was distancing himself from her, now, when she was really in the mood for a cuddle.
Even Trinity and Caleb seemed inclined to keep her at arm’s length and she was damned if she knew why.
Ok, so she had bellowed at Trinity for shredding her clothes, but he’d damned well had it coming. Of course she hadn’t really cared at the moment when it happened, but she’d been too hot and bothered to realize she wasn’t going to be wearing the clothing again without some serious repairs, if at all.
It would have pissed her off if she’d had an extensive wardrobe at hand. Being down to so few possibilities had definitely magnified the problem.
And then, of course, the fire fight and the actual fire had eliminated any possibility of repairing it. In point of fact, she’d only come away with one of the three changes of clothing she’d started with.
She was alive, though, because of them.
No telling how much longer she’d be able to say that, but for now ….
She was completely ready to forgive and forget, especially since she’d thoroughly enjoyed their tango.
Well, all three.
She hadn’t even had a fight with Caleb or Kameron and she couldn’t figure out why they were shunning her.
Maybe it was her that had set off the gun fight, she thought guiltily?
She supposed she absolutely had whether it was because they’d seen her or just because they’d been looking for her.
And the guys lost absolutely everything.
Their place hadn’t been new. There was no telling how long they’d been working on building it and adding improvements and collecting the things they had—had had, past tense.
But she was a victim, damn it!
Sure, she could’ve turned down the job or died bailing out, but aside from just breathing she didn’t see that it was her fault.
It seemed so unreasonable of them to blame her that it took an effort to resist the urge to pick a fight with them over it.
Instead, she put her back to them and lay down on the pallet, upset enough that it took her a few moments to even consider whether it was a place she should have lain down or not. It didn’t stink bad enough for her to smell it over the stench of the beast they’d ridden, though. And she didn’t see or feel anything crawling around on it.
She was so intent on her feelings of abuse that she didn’t realize one of the natives had entered the hut until she heard the guys get up. She rolled over then and struggled to get up.
“Yu stay,” the native said imperiously.
Her lips tightened at the order, but she looked away.
It wasn’t until all of the guys trooped out that it occurred to her that she didn’t know what the natives were planning on doing with them. Execution leapt to mind. She had no idea why except the natives hadn’t been friendly, but the moment it did she was terrorized—petrified with indecision.
Should she try to help?
Or would she just end up getting herself and them killed?
She got up after a few moments and crept toward the opening and peered out. She couldn’t actually see the guys and she moved a little closer and leaned a little further. Finally, she got a glimpse of them seated around the campfire where they had been earlier.
She couldn’t decide what that meant.
The natives had discussed it and were pronouncing judgment?
It looked like that could be it, but then she was judging by her own experiences and that was how she generally handled any sort of infraction. She listened to all of the witnesses and the people who’d committed the offense and then she sent them away to review everything and decide what should be done.
But if she was right, why would she have been left in the hut?
She moved away from the opening after a few moments, settling on the pallet to try to think.
Unfortunately, the company had provided almost zero information about the natives and the little information they’d passed along seemed inaccurate at best and outright lies at worst.
It didn’t necessarily follow that they were hostile or aggressive just because they were carrying weapons. There were plenty of dangerous animals from what she’d seen for them to have to concern themselves with. And then, too, they would have to hunt their food, she supposed, even if they had domesticated some beasts. She hadn’t seen anything that indicated they had, but she couldn’t rule it out when she’d seen so little.
And even if they weren’t prone to be hostile or aggressive, it didn’t follow that they were passive to the point that they wouldn’t react with hostility to trespassers.
So maybe the question was, how serious a threat did they consider encroachment?
And was there anything she could do about a hostile act if they decided upon one?
She wasn’t armed, sad to say. They’d relieved her of her personal protection when they’d taken the guys guns.
And she hadn’t seen what had become of them because she’d been too unnerved by the entire situation—especially coming on the heels of their desperate flight to escape the wildfire—to make any reliable observations. Truthfully, she’d been too unsettled to bring any order to her thoughts to consider what she might need to discover.
She supposed she’d made the potentially deadly mistake of thinking it was all just a misunderstanding that they would get worked out.
And now that she was less sure, she realized she couldn’t even jar a little information loose that she’d unconsciously observed.
The hut had one way in and out and it looked pretty substantial even if it was just made out of sticks and mud and what looked to be animal hides. She didn’t think she could break through it without a good bit of effort and she had no idea what was on the other side—probably more natives and more huts.
Because they seemed to be in the center of the village.
So running to save her own ass and leaving the guys to fend for themselves also didn’t seem like something with good odds.
On the other hand ‘wait and see’ seemed like something that could be very hazardous to her health.
She finally decided she had no real options that even might save her life now that she’d walked into the middle of the threat without a whimper of protest. She had an entire village to contend with instead of just being outnumbered many times over by the hunting party.
She crossed the hut again on that thought and searched the area that she could see for any route of escape that seemed to have any potential at all. Seeing nothing within view, she shifted from one side to the other to search further.
It looked like the entire village had gathered around the fire pit. She didn’t see any movement at all beyond the circle and most of them were seated. Unfortunately, since it was a circle, only a portion of them had their backs to her. Three quarters or at least half would have her in a direct line of sight if she tried to leave.
They would also have the other portion of the villagers between themselves and her, though, she thought and she might have time to make some progress before they leapt up and gave chase … and caught her because all she could do was hobble. If both legs were in good shape, she might have had a chance of outrunning them—doubtful, but maybe.
She was going to have to try to slip out and put something between her and the villagers to block their view as quickly as possible, she decided.
She at least remembered which direction the river was from the village. If she could clear it she would have to get to the river and get across.
Having come up with a working plan—however painfully inadequate it was—she settled to watching what was going on in the circle, tense, waiting for an eruption of violence that would mean she had to do her best to escape if she wanted to survive.
Chapter Nine
They were in serious trouble and Trinity knew it.
He also knew he should be reconnoitering and calculating odds for each vulnerability he noted of the ‘enemy’.
He found, though, that he was far more preoccupied with Amanda, or more specifically with the dilemma they now found themselves in.
Not the capture by the natives.
The fact that they had nothing to offer a mate.
He was not certain, now, how he could have been so complacent about their situation when he knew from painful experience that it could change on a dime. In the many years since they had escaped extermination they had done very little beyond struggling to stay ahead of the threat that hung over them. Again and again, they had found themselves in a place where they had thought they could settle—at least for a while—but each time they were chased out and often with little more than the clothing they were wearing and their weapons.
Not that that had particularly bothered him before. He had clothing and a weapon and, more importantly, his wits. He could survive and, left in peace for even a short while, he could regain much that he had lost.
If it took longer, or he was forced to keep moving for any length of time—well he was accustomed to minimum subsistence. It was miserable, but he had been miserable many, many times and, eventually, that passed and things were better.
Because he and Kameron and Caleb were a team and had been almost as long as he had memory of. They worked together for themselves and each other and if one could not do a thing alone—well, they did not have to.
This was different—the mating they had thought they would have.
Amanda was … beautiful and, he thought, strong in spirit, but she was very fragile.
She would not survive the things they must endure with no shelter and virtually no supplies. It would be hard even for them to survive because this world was a hostile one on many levels.
They would have to give her up to protect her.
He did not want to. He did not want to even think about it, let alone accept it, but she was already in danger because they had lost their shelter and that was not something they could easily replace.
And because it was not, then they had to accept that they could not protect Amanda.
He knew that that was what Kameron was thinking … and even Caleb who was prone to ignore things he did not like to acknowledge.
They did not have to talk about it.
They all knew it.
All that was left to do was to see her to a place of safety and then escape—if they could—and start over somewhere else.
He was almost inclined to think she might be better off if they left her with the natives—even though their lives were primitive and harsh, as well. Because the bounty on her would continue to be a threat until she was returned in a public way to the company … or at least her people.
He dismissed it after a few moments when he heard some word that pierced his self-absorption. Kameron, he discovered, had managed to convince the leader of the tribe to allow them to stay until the trader returned … so that they could send Amanda away with her.
Hopefully.
Possibly.
The trader was not going to be happy to be exposed. She might take off if she discovered Amanda had a connection to the company.
And she might not.
One could never tell about the woman.
In the meanwhile, they were ‘guests’ of the l’okins people.
There would be a great feast in their honor.
Which was actually the meal they had already been preparing.
But Trinity was certain all of them would be as happy to have it as he was.
At Kameron’s nod, he got up and went to get Amanda.
Amanda startled him by attacking him the moment he entered the hut. Before he could gather his wits about him, she’d flung her arms around his neck and squeezed until he felt like she might be trying to choke him.
“You’re ok?” she asked, pulling away to search his face after a moment.
“I am fine,” he responded.
Then it occurred to him that, mayhap, she wanted kisses, so he grasped her hair and tipped her head back to cover her mouth with his own.
It was a mistake.
The feel of her mouth, her taste, so enthralled him it set a fire inside of him, made him fevered, needy.
Fortunately, when he broke the connection the synapses in his brain began to fire again and make logical connections. “I would like to fuck you, but I was sent to collect you for the feast,” he said apologetically.
The comment acted upon Amanda like a douche of ice water. “Feast?” she asked, wondering when they had ceased to be enemies and become guests, struggling with the urge to brain him for making her think it was time to kiss their asses goodbye—and each other. “You mean to say you didn’t come to tell me they were going to kill us all?”
He stared at her blankly. “I would not be thinking of fucking if we were all going to die,” he said a little testily.
“Well! How the hell was I supposed to guess you were just thinking about fucking? That was a hello? Not a goodbye?”
Trinity frowned, but a very little thought produced the reflection that he had not thought about fucking himself until he had kissed her. But he had not intended to kiss her and he could not recall whether he had kissed her or merely responded to her. He shook his head. “Did I kiss you …? Never mind. Kameron will be here to kick my ass if we are in here very long because he will think we are fucking even if we are not.”
Uttering an irritated huff, Amanda led the way out. She was relieved enough to see that the gathering had drastically changed to dismiss her irritation with Trinity. When all was said and done, she supposed any man would have jumped instantly to the same conclusion as he had.
And, truth be told, she wouldn’t have been against a ‘comfort fuck’ if she hadn’t been quite as tense and fearful.
Or a celebration fuck, for that matter, upon learning they weren’t going to be executed.
She didn’t try to talk, however, even when they reached the rest of their group and settled to enjoy the feast that had been offered. The leader knew at least some English—and it might be more than he’d indicated. If she kept her mouth shut, she reasoned, she wasn’t likely to let something slip that would be better left unsaid.
The feasting and celebration went on much of the day—which Amanda wasn’t really thrilled with. She would’ve preferred to eat and run. Just being around the aliens was enough to keep her on edge even if they weren’t being overtly threatening …or even covertly. They’d been open about their displeasure in the beginning, after all, and she wasn’t convinced they wouldn’t turn again.
She discovered when they were finally allowed to escape to the relative peace and comfort of the hut that they were now officially guests of the l’okins.
She wasn’t happy about it, but she absolutely appreciated Kameron’s efforts on their behalf. And it had to be said that, in at least one sense, it was safer than camping with nothing but a flimsy tent between themselves and the wild beasts.
If it wasn’t for the l’okins themselves and the fact that the hut had no door or even a semblance of one, it would almost have been nice.
* * * *
Amanda was less enchanted with her accommodations the following day when she discovered their status as ‘guests’ only meant they were allowed to sleep in the hut in the middle of the village. It didn’t extend to special privileges. She was expected to work like everyone else if she wanted to eat and she definitely did.
The guys had to do ‘manly’ things, like play with their weapons and chase animals to kill and eat them.
Ok, so they also butchered and cleaned them—but then they got to sit around and relax and rehash the hunt. And past hunts.
She had to help with food preparation since she wasn’t able to get around well enough to do the more ‘strenuous’ chores.
Not that she couldn’t see their point and she would never have refused to help out anywhere she was a guest. But this went well above loading the dishwasher, picking up after herself, and not making a mess, or making her bed/putting up bedding from a sleepover on the couch.
She spent most of the day processing grain for the l’okins rendition of ‘bread’, the starch that was the mainstay, it seemed, of most every civilization in one form or another. They brought her grain to thresh until it was piled higher than her head.
She couldn’t speak their language, so she had to learn the process by watching while the woman who instructed her kept yelling—as if she—Amanda—was deaf or hard of hearing instead of just unable to speak or understand the language.
Granted the woman appeared to be fairly elderly, but still ….
A younger woman—who actually looked like she was barely more than a child—joined them around mid-morning, frowned at the progress Amanda had made and then set up another ‘work station’ for herself and added her efforts to the threshing. Amanda resolutely refused to rise to the challenge. She wasn’t used to the task and she was comfortable with the speed she’d achieved.
The little bitch finished all of the grain and they moved her down to the next step—which was even worse—grinding the grain seed into a semi-powder.
