Aftermath - Ann Aguirre [100]
She makes an angry, negative sound. “Only Close Broken.”
Shit. None of the return gates work? We are so fragged.
She leaves then, but a short while later, a packet of food is shoved in through a slot at the bottom of the door. The roots have worn off by this point, so I unwrap it to look at what they’ve given us. Some kind of meat, it looks like, so these creatures are not herbivores like the ones on Marakeq. There are also tubers, greens, and some gray pasty stuff, along with simple water.
“It seems unlikely they intend to kill us,” Vel says. “Or they would not bother feeding us.”
He takes up some of the meat and downs it without visible difficulty. I haven’t eaten real meat often—only that time on Venice Minor—and I don’t know the nutritional value of these others foods. A protein deficit at this point could be disastrous, so I hold my nose and force the flesh down. It sits uneasily in my stomach, and I whimper, trying not to picture what I’ve just eaten.
Time passes. I’d lose track, except they give us a new packet of food each morning, and I note the arrival on the wall beside me. On the fourth day, a small alt-Mareq male steps into the hut with us. He bears some interesting implements, which look like a knife, a scanner, and something I’ve never seen before.
He explains, “Fix smelly female,” before setting to work.
That’s more sense than I’ve gotten from any of them yet. He uses all three tools on me, and I scream while he burns the infection out. It requires Vel holding me for the Mareq healer to finish the job, and I’m weeping by the time the wound seals. Afterward, Vel pets my hair with his claws until the shaking stops.
We wait more. Ten meals. And marks. If my poor count holds true, we’ve been stranded here six weeks. Dina and Hit must be petrified. Now I bear a nasty, puckered scar in the shape of the creature’s teeth, and since the Mareq worked on me, I’ve shaken the fever that’s plagued me since the attack in the jungle.
“How’s your hand?” I ask Vel.
He peels off the dirty Nu-Skin to show me the blunt tip, where his claw once grew. But the gouge where it ripped free has sealed over cleanly.
“On Ithiss-Tor, I would be cut in caste for such a disfigurement,” he says quietly.
“Even with a prosthesis?”
He nods, but before he can say more, I hear footsteps, and it’s not mealtime. Hopefully, this means they’ve come to some decision about what to do with us. If they haven’t, Mary help them.
Because I’m Sirantha Jax, and I have had enough.
CHAPTER 32
We’re escorted to the town hall, though it’s just a large mound. The alt-Mareq eye us as we enter, but I can’t interpret their expressions. I wasn’t among the regular Mareq long enough to learn their body language, as I can read Vel’s, and these aren’t the same peaceable creatures we left on Marakeq.
There are too many of them talking at once for my chip to distinguish any words. Consequently, I hear only croaking en masse, no distinct meanings. This appears to be a judgment of some kind, though, as I’m brought to stand before a committee of seven: three males, four females. Their colors are all lighter than the others, which makes me think they’re older—that and the baggy skin around the throat. Some signs of aging are universal.
They motion the others to silence with wide, sweeping gestures from their webbed hands. Soon it’s quiet enough in here that I can hear my own breathing. That’s not a good sign, especially the way I’m laboring; I sound nervous even to my own ears. Not surprising, that, given they hold our lives in their hands.
The female who visited us has laid her eggs since we last saw her. She’s leaner now, and more vicious-looking. In one hand, she bears a weapon similar to the one they trained on us before. She comes to a halt before Vel and me, surveying us from head to toe. I know we’re filthy, and we smell disgusting. Mary, we did before they locked us up.
“Talk,” she says. Or at least, that’s what my translation chip claims. “Not killing,