Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [46]
Gavare wandered in dragging a branch almost as thick around as he was and dropped it beside the newly sorted wood, immediately sitting down beside it. His mind seemed to have cleared—or, at least, he was no longer apt to wander off on his own—though the actual process of serious thinking remained beyond him. “Wood,” he said. “That’s good.”
“It’ll help keep us alive,” Riker agreed, selecting a heavy green wood stick as thick as his arm and just as long, and thinking it would be even better if he could
lash a stone of some sort to the end. Or a stone with random spikes, each tipped with poison Definitely spending too much time in Worf’s holodeck calisthenics. Or rather, in the toned-down version for humans. Worf Lite.
In any event, this would do nicely for a club. Riker set it aside, and looked over to see Gavare poking through the sorted wood in a desultory way—though he soon ceased, as though he’d forgotten what he might have been looking for. Unlike the rest of them, he didn’t seem tense or worried; he looked content, as Riker would define “content” in a Tsoran, and he hummed to himself, a gentle under-purr.
“Why is it,” Riker said, considering that getting knocked on the head might in fact be a good strategy for making it through the next few days, “that all of you are willing to go to such extraordinary lengths to continue this kaphoora?”
“Everything must be just right,” Gavare said, answering in distraction as he found a potential spear that delighted him; he took out his small knife and carved away at the tip.
“Just right for the kaphoora? It’s too late for that.”
“Kaphoora,” Gavare said, and made a short snuffly noise, an odd flapping of his lips. “For the Federation. That’s what this whole kaphoora is about… more than just prime kaphoora to Akarr. He’s got Takarr to worry about.”
“Takarr?” Riker stopped arranging the fire circle he’d started and gave Gavare a hard look. Idle and wandering words from a concussed Tsoran, and he had the feeling they held the first truly crucial information the Tsorans had revealed.
But the sharp edge to his voice must have cut through Gavare’s fog, made way for some sense in the guard’s
head. He said, “Better get that fire started. This time of day, the sculpers come out in gangs—” He cut himself short, tilting his head, listening.
Riker heard it, too, just as the others drifted to the heart of their camp area, cautious and hunting out the source of the noise.
Overhead.
Not as powerful as usual, but no less the sweet for that. A shuttle, flying low and steady, from the direction of the portal right along the flight path the Rahjah had taken.
Worf. The Collins. No doubt he was heading for the Rahjah’s planned landing site; with any luck the light was not yet so dim that he couldn’t see the crash path.
Not that there was anywhere near the Rahjah to land except in that crash path, and a tricky bit of flying that would be.
It didn’t matter. Worf was in the air, come to look for them in response to the broadband cry for help. He’d find the Rahjah, all right.
“And we’ll be nowhere near it,” Riker muttered out loud.
“What?” Akarr switched his attention from the now fading engine noise to glare at Riker; surely he’d guessed the source of the noise, for he wasn’t asking. “What did you say?”
It was a dare, Riker thought. A dare to say told you so. But not a dare he had any intention of taking. Not when he still had to get through the night, and that wouldn’t happen if the Tsorans decided to take serious exception to him.p>
“Come morning,” Riker said, his voice carefully neutral, “we’ll have a way out of here.”
“How long,” Gavare said, squinting out into what was definitely growing darkness, “will it take you to light that fire?”
“Depends on just how wet this wood is,” Riker told him, slinging his backpack off to pull out the incendiary tablets. “Why do you ask?”
Gavare didn’t answer right away; as his companions glanced warily about themselves and Riker shaved