He had no other choice.
Chapter Four
Juno was a large-vehicle restricted world, which meant they had to land at the spaceport and walk from there. Before they left the ship, Shad handed her a large, pink pill and a squeeze-bulb of flat-tasting water to wash it down with.
“Translation bacteria,” he explained when Harper looked at it dubiously. “So you can understand what people are saying, even when they’re talking in a foreign language.”
“What about you?” she demanded. “Are you going to take one too?”
He shook his head. “Don’t need it.”
“You can speak all languages in the galaxy with no help?”
“Most of them.” He shrugged. “I’m Kindred.”
As though that explained everything.
He also gave her an oversized black t-shirt—obviously one of his.
“Put it on,” he said gruffly. “You’ll attract too much attention in that.”
Harper looked down at the thin red dress, the silky material molding itself to her full, braless breasts, and blushed a little. Then again, why should she feel ashamed? He had given her this to wear himself, after forcing her to strip off the perfectly modest sundress and cardigan she’d been wearing at the beach. It wasn’t her fault the clothes he’d picked were too sexy.
Still, she pulled on the t-shirt without comment. It was far too big, of course. She knotted it on one side, trying to make herself look less like a rag-bag.
Shad pulled on a t-shirt also, as well as a battered leather jacket. Then he reconsidered and took off the jacket, handing it to her instead.
“Here—it’s supposed to be cold out there.”
“How cold?” Harper asked. “Because that is way too big for me.”
“Just put it on,” he said roughly. “Don’t want you getting sick on me.”
It didn’t seem worth fighting about. Harper put on the jacket and tried her best to roll up the sleeves. It weighed about a ton and smelled like him—the same dark, masculine spice she’d been surrounded by in the strange flash she’d had. Harper tried to ignore it—the scent seemed to do…funny things to her insides.
“How far are we from the, uh, forger’s shop?” she asked. She didn’t mind walking—it was her favorite form of exercise and the little black ballet flats he’d given her to wear were reasonably comfortable. But she hoped it wasn’t going to be miles and miles of trudging through a big, dirty alien city.
Then again, what did she know? The city might be beautifully clean and gorgeous. But considering the impossibly tall smokestacks which belched both orange smoke and pink and purple sparks and the dense smog they’d flown through during the landing, she doubted it.
“It won’t be far if we can get a ride on a v-copter,” Shad said, frowning. “That shouldn’t be hard—I’ve got plenty of credit—all that was left in the Mother Ship’s interstellar account after it blew. It’s getting out of the space-port without paying the tax to the Controller that’s going to be tricky.”
“But if you have plenty of, uh, credit, why do you want to avoid paying the tax?” Harper protested.
“Let’s hope you don’t have to find out,” Shad said darkly and refused to say more. Instead, he opened the door to the small ship and motioned for her to step out. “Just stay close to me,” he told her sternly when they were both standing on the smooth, indigo platform where they were parked. “Remember, Harper—the past resists change. I’ll protect you with my life but if there’s a way for you to die, the forces of inertia will find it.”
Harper nodded and swallowed.
“I understand.” She might have taken offense at his man-splaining, but she had no wish to die again, even though she couldn’t remember all the other deaths he’d described.
Their landing platform was located high off the ground—as were the others Harper could see around them. They radiated out from a central hub, like spokes on a giant wheel. Spaced evenly around the round inner platform Harper could see space craft of all kinds, from tiny ships that looked no bigger than a smart car back home to vast behemoths as big as mountains.
Their own platform, a single spoke in the giant wheel, stretched out over an endless void and there appeared to be some kind of elevator located at the end of it, beyond their ship. Harper expected they would head for it but instead, Shad led her further down the center strut of the landing platform, toward the middle of the vast wheel.
“Come on. The taxation officers will be waiting at the bottom of our transport lift. So we’re going to work our way around the central hub and try to come out with the crowd. That way we have less chance of getting taxed.”
Harper still didn’t understand why he wanted so badly to avoid paying the parking tax. If he really had unlimited credit, what difference would it make, no matter how expensive it was? But there didn’t seem to be any use in arguing. Silently, she followed him down the long spoke, which narrowed to only two feet wide, as they got closer and closer to the center.
She tried not to look down because they were extremely high up. She normally had very good balance—she’d had four years of gymnastics at her mother’s insistence before she’d given it up in high school to do drama instead—but she didn’t like looking down and seeing how far away the crowded space port was. She couldn’t even see what kind of people were down there—it was all just a colorful blur.
Shad kept a strong grip on her wrist which she supposed was probably a safety precaution, although it made her feel more like a naughty toddler who might run out into traffic than Harper liked to admit. She wanted to shake off his hand and tell him she was a grown-ass woman and could take care of herself. But the dizzying height they were at kept her from it.
They were almost to the hub of the wheel, which had a much larger elevator-looking thing in the center and was crowded with strange looking people and aliens, when Harper’s foot slipped, seemingly for no reason. It almost felt as though someone had tripped her or yanked at her ankle but there was nothing there.
That didn’t matter, though—whether she had a reason for it or not, she was still falling.
“Oh!” Her excellent balance deserted her and she felt herself tilting over the edge of the narrow indigo platform. A breathless scream left her lips and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
“Harper, no!” Shad’s grip on her arm tightened until she felt the small bones in her wrist grinding together and then there was a jolt and she was hanging over the void, suspended by one arm. Her shoulder ached fiercely but that was the least of her problems right now.
The big Kindred was flat on his stomach, splayed out over the length of the long strut, holding her up with one hand.
“Shad?” She looked up at him, her heart racing with fear. Panic choked her like someone had shoved sawdust down her throat and she couldn’t seem to get a deep enough breath.
“It’s all right. I’ve got you. This is why I wanted to keep hold of you in the first place.” His deep voice was steady and reassuring. “Just stay still—I’ll pull you up.”
Harper wanted to ask if he could actually do that. After all, she owned her curves but there was no doubt she was a Big Beautiful Woman. Most of the men she’d dated wouldn’t have been able to lift her at all—let alone pull her out of the abyss with only one arm while balancing on a narrow platform over an endless void.
But Shad began lifting her easily enough, the biceps and triceps of his right arm flexing impressively as he raised her back up to the indigo spoke. Harper was just scrambling back onto solid ground when a thick, burbling voice that sounded like someone blowing bubbles through a straw spoke behind her.
“Sooo…I thought I felt a trip alarm go off.”
Harper turned so quickly she almost fell again. Only Shad’s hands on her waist steadied her.
Standing behind them—or rather floating—was a…something. It looked like an amorphous blue blob to Harper. It hovered in mid-air and bulged and twitched, its sides in constant motion.
“Trying to avoid paying the pain or pleasure tax, were you?” Little bubbles of red strobed through the dark blue blob as it spoke, as though they were a visual representation of its words. “My, my…I’m afraid the Controller won’t like that. Not a bit.”
“We weren’t avoiding the tax,” Shad said, sounding completely sincere. “The transport-lift at the end of our landing platform is malfunctioning. We were headed to the central hub to go down that way.”
“Well now you’ll go down this way,” the blob-being said.
Suddenly parts of its blue, blobby body broke off and two large blue bubbles floated towards them.
Harper gasped as the cold, slimy bubble enveloped her. She wanted to run but where to? The blob-guy (was he some kind of a customs agent?) was blocking their way to the middle part of the hub. And she certainly didn’t want to run on this damn slippery metal spoke. Not after almost plunging to her death just moments before.
“Shad?” she asked tightly as the bubble finished surrounding her and she felt herself lifted off the ground, her feet leaving the solid surface of the spoke for the second time in as many minutes.
“It’s all right,” he growled. “We’re just being transported, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Harper exclaimed as the blue bubble surrounding her floated to one side and then began to drift slowly between the long spokes of the landing wheel and down into the colorful void below.
“Just don’t struggle. I’ll deal with the situation when we reach the bottom,” she heard him say and then their bubbles floated apart and she was completely alone.
The sides of the bubble were thin enough to see though—though Harper wished they weren’t. She didn’t like the feeling of floating downwards, supported only by the bubble. It was like falling in slow motion. Also, what if it popped? She didn’t like that idea one bit. She closed her eyes tightly, trying not to look.
Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I’m actually back at the beach and I just fell asleep for a minute. In a little bit I’ll wake up and shake the sand off my skirt and go back to my car. I have to get back to work tomorrow. That Stevens account isn’t going to fix itself…
But deep down she knew it wasn’t a dream. It was too real—too vivid. When had she ever had a dream this crazy? And what about Shad? In her wildest imaginings, she couldn’t have made the big Kindred up. She wished they were in a bubble together. Even though he didn’t want her touching him, she felt sure he’d be willing to let her at least hold his arm through this frightening experience.
This last thought made Harper mad at herself.
Stop being such a damsel in distress, she lectured herself angrily. You’re an adult—you can take care of yourself. So act like it.
She forced herself to open her eyes again and look out the transparent blue side of the bubble as it floated gently downward. They were passing over a huge crowd of people all moving in more or less the same direction—maybe the space port exit? But “people” was definitely a relative term
There were plenty of humanoids—people who didn’t look that different from herself and Shad. But there were others too—other creatures? Beings? Harper wasn’t sure what to call them. Aliens maybe. Anyway, they were all shapes and sizes and colors. She saw several who looked like massive walking trees, their branches swaying as they moved with long, ponderous strides. Chattering and scampering from bough to bough, like lice living in a person’s hair, were tiny pink creatures that looked like a cross between a monkey and a raccoon.
At first she thought the tree people were in charge, but then she saw all the pink monkey-creatures hop on one particular branch and chatter in unison. Ponderously, the tree-creature they were on turned in that direction. This caused Harper to re-evaluate the situation.
Hmm—so the monkeys are in the driver’s seat. Interesting.
But there was much more of interest to see.
There were also people who seemed to be made of yellowish mud. They left a dirty trail behind them as they walked but small creatures with five legs and wide mouths filled with long wispy bristles followed at their heels, sucking up every last crumb of dirt and smear of mud as they scampered by.
Wow—vacuum cleaner dogs, Harper thought. Vacu-dogs. Weird.
Scattered throughout the strange crowd were more of the blobby entities. Were they security guards? Customs agents? Harper still wasn’t sure exactly what they were, but they drifted here and there, occasionally singling people out and bubbling them up, as she and Shad had been bubbled. The bubbles drifted away, apparently directed by the blobbies—which were all the same dark blue as the one who had caught them.
Harper wanted to stop the bubble and stare at the strange people and creatures—she could swear she saw someone with a man’s body and the head of a gorgeous moonlight-colored unicorn—but her bubble drifted up again, over a tall wall which separated her from the seething crowds, cutting off her view.
She was in darkness now, which made her nervous. Darkness lit only by occasional beams of light, like spotlights, although Harper couldn’t make out what they were fixed on. From the corner of her eye she saw one of the lights flicker over a blue shape—Shad’s bubble was moving in tandem with her own. Good—at least wherever she was going, she wasn’t going there alone. But when and where would this weird bubble ride end?
Her question was answered when the bubble around her burst abruptly, spilling her onto a hard, slick floor that felt like it might be made of glass.
“Oof!” She landed on her side, on the shoulder where Shad had cut out her Hive tracker and licked her afterwards. It had been nearly healed—perhaps by some agent in his saliva? Could Kindred heal like that? But now it opened again and Harper felt the warm trickle of blood running down her arm under the black t-shirt and heavy leather jacket Shad had given her to wear.
Great—just what I needed. Where am I anyway? And where’s Shad?
“Harper?” His deep voice calling out of the darkness was a welcome sound.
“Here!” She groped for him and found his muscular arm under her hand.
“Stay with me and don’t move.” He took her by the wrist again but Harper shook free.
“Stop that! Can’t you at least hold my hand this time? I’m not some naughty child you can drag around by the wrist or the arm,” she exclaimed.
“Fine.” Shad took her hand in his but he didn’t entwine their fingers, only firmly gripped her palm in his much larger one. Harper couldn’t help feeling like he was holding her hand in the most impersonal way possible—as though he could barely stand to touch her. What was wrong with him? Why did he dislike her so much? And how did his attitude fit with the strange flashes she kept having where he was entirely different?
There was no time to answer any of her questions because the floating blue blob who had captured them in the first place suddenly came into view as a spotlight from above was trained on it.
“Well now, Verlex number nine-seventeen,” a deep, somehow muddy voice spoke from out of the darkness. “What have you brought me today? It had better be good.”
“Fugitives trying to escape the pleasure/pain tax, oh Controller,” burbled the blob and Harper thought his voice sounded like someone blowing bubbles in milk with a straw.
“My, my…let’s just see what we have.”
Suddenly a brilliant white spotlight was trained on Harper and Shad, blinding them. At least Harper felt blinded. She gasped and shaded her eyes, which had almost gotten used to the dim lighting, wincing against the painful brilliance.
“Well, well…interesting. Very interesting,” the thick, muddy voice mused. “A Kindred and a female of undetermined origin.”
“I thought they would be to your taste, my Controller,” the blob burbled. “And thus should pay the tax.”
“Indeed they are. Kindred, I thought most of your kind were dead,” the voice said.
“Some of us yet live,” Shad growled. He was standing half in front of Harper, shielding her protecti
vely while keeping her hand firmly in his.
“And this female…she is quite lovely. So…exotic,” the thick voice went on. “Where are you from, my dear?” he asked Harper.
“A planet called Earth,” Harper answered, not knowing what else to say. “Uh, you’ve probably never heard of it.”
“No, but if it produces beauties like yourself I may need to learn more about it,” the voice of the Controller said. “So—which one of you will pay the tax?”
“Well, I don’t have any money,” Harper began. “But—”
“Oh, credit is not what I require,” interrupted the voice of the Controller. “No, what I want is to taste you—to taste your pain or pleasure. In your case, my dear, I assure you it would be pleasure.”
Something came out of the darkness then. Something long and slimy and horribly agile. Before Harper could duck out of the way, it slid up the side of her face, leaving a light coating of slime on her cheek before sliding away into the darkness.
“Ugh!” she gasped and scrubbed reflexively at her cheek. She felt the same way she would have if a big, hairy spider had just walked over her flesh. Disgusting!
“Delicious,” the Controller murmured. “I cannot wait to taste you more…deeply, my dear.”
“Do that again and you die.” Shad pushed her behind him and stood with his legs braced, glaring into the darkness. “Harper is mine—I will not allow anyone to molest her.”
“If you refuse me the pleasure of tasting your female then I fear I must taste you instead, Kindred.” The muddy voice of the Controller had grown hard. “And I promise you will not enjoy that.”
“Show yourself!” Shad demanded. “You make threats while cloaked in darkness like a coward!”
There was an angry hissing sound from the darkness and suddenly all the lights came on at once.
Harper gasped and blinked. Looking around her, she found she was in a huge, square room with ceilings that were cathedral-high. She and Shad were standing on a glossy black floor about ten feet by ten feet which was surrounded by deep channels that formed a kind of square moat around them. Flowing through these channels, on all four sides was something bright green that shimmered and pulsed. It looked to Harper like living Jell-O.