Salene's Secrets (17 page)

“Commander Talus,” he said, reaching up with his good arm to grip Talus’s wrist.  “Did you find Princess Salene yet?”

“No, Captain, but you’re the first one we’ve brought in.  We’ve only identified six signals so far.”

“I sent Salene out first,” he said.  “It’s unlikely she’ll be with the group.”

“The six of you launched together, is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Captain Jake said, relaxing.  “She’s alive, Commander.  You have to find her.”

“We will, Captain Jake.  Don’t worry.  We won’t stop looking until we do.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, then closed his eyes against the pain in his shattered bones when the medics moved him.

Over the course of the next couple of hours the remaining five life pods were found and brought aboard.  One man had a broken arm, and another had a mild concussion, but otherwise they were alive and well.  Each and every one of them asked about Salene, and credited her with saving their lives by prepping all of the life pods ahead of time. 

While Talus, Jon, and Kar were touched by the depth of the crew’s concern for Salene, it didn’t come close to their own fear.  So far, they still hadn’t been able to find any sign of the seventh life pod.

***

The smoke had stopped rising by the time Salene reached a small clearing surrounded by closely spaced trees and thick brush in what appeared to be a manmade barrier.  She worked her way through the brush as silently as she could, then crouched down behind a tree to study the scene before her.

There were four crude huts in the clearing, one of which had been the source of the fire before the snow-wet green branches that made up the exterior walls stifled it.  There were signs that a brief and violent skirmish had taken place.  Several baskets had been overturned and crushed, doors were kicked in, and the circle of stones surrounding a thick layer of gray ash in what had once been a large communal fireplace in the center of the clearing were now scattered everywhere.  What she didn’t see were people. 

“Do you sense evil, Jinjie?”

“Traces what do be fading.”

“Those things certainly do stink,” she said, wrinkling her nose behind the clear face panel of her suit.  She debated whether or not to close her suit vents, and reluctantly decided it would be better to leave them open.  After a long and careful study of the clearing, the huts, and the surrounding trees, she turned her suit camo on and waited for Jinjie to do the same.  Then she drew the hand laser from her pocket, flipped the safety off and stepped out of cover and into the clearing.  She crossed it slowly, spotting blood in several areas, though not as much as she expected.  There were partial footprints on the hard ground here and there, but they meant nothing to her.  She checked the burned hut first and swallowed hard when she saw a human, or at least
humanoid
, body on the floor, too badly burned for her to tell from where she stood whether it had been male or female.  There were three pallets on the floor, scattered and mussed, but just the one body.

She backed out of the doorway and went to the next hut.  She counted four pallets on the floor and, since there were no bodies, she took a closer look.  The pallets were made of branches and needles from the surrounding trees and covered neatly with rough gray blankets.  A rickety table fashioned from still more branches stood to one side of the room, and another, smaller platform against one wall held an odd collection of wooden cups, bowls, plates, and spoons. 

“Why don’t I see any sign of those hybrids?” she asked in a low voice as they left the hut.

“They do be not in clearing,” Jinjie said, pointing up at the trees overhead.

“Can you tell who did all this?”

“No, do be sense evil, but no more.”

Salene nodded and moved to the third hut which wasn’t much different from the second one except that there were clear signs of a struggle.  The table was broken, the pallets scattered so thoroughly that she couldn’t tell how many of them there’d been, and a trail of blood led across the packed dirt floor and out into the clearing.

She turned toward the last and smallest hut, its door hanging by one leather hinge.  Slightly less wary now since they’d seen no sign of life as yet, she approached it more quickly than she had the others.  Stepping around the hanging door and into the doorway, a little preoccupied by the growing intensity of her yearning, she’d already taken one step into the hut before freezing in shock at the sight before her. 

This hut was much the same as the others except that there was a man with long, iron gray hair lying on the floor a couple of feet from the doorway.  He was quite dead, which was obvious considering the massive hole where his chest should have been.  It wasn’t the dead man that shocked her though.  It was the enormous silver wolf lying beside him. 

A thrill of fear raced through her, but she forced herself to breathe through it, refusing to allow herself to react on panic alone.  Once she’d overcome the initial urge to turn and run, she noticed that there was something about the wolf’s position beside the man that spoke of protection, not aggression. 

It was certainly beautiful with its shiny silver coat.  She knew how good the animal’s senses were, and though camo hid her and Jinjie from sight, it did not hide their scent since their vents were open, nor had it hid the noise they’d made while going from hut to hut.  They’d made an effort to be quiet of course, but she had no doubt whatsoever that the wolf had heard them long before they’d even reached the small clearing.  And yet the wolf’s eyes remained closed, his breathing was slow and even, and his ears were cocked forward and straight up.

Since Clan Jasani were shifters, and their alter forms were animals, reading animal body language was second nature to them.  In addition Salene, along with her siblings, had learned to read canine body language before they’d learned to talk.  Acting on the wolf’s silent signals of composure and curiosity along with her own instincts, she reached up to turn off her suit’s camo.  She was surprised to find that she was holding a knife in one hand while her other hand was pointing the hand laser at the wolf.  She returned the laser to her pocket, put the knife back in the sheath on her forearm, then turned off the camo. 

The wolf didn’t so much as twitch and its breathing remained even, so she took another step and crouched down on the near side of the dead man.  After removing one of her gloves, she reached over and gently closed the man’s eyes. 

“May your journey be quick, and your destination filled with the peace and joy you have earned,” she said softly. When she looked back up, the wolf was staring at her, its pale green eyes filled with both intelligence and sadness. 

“I’m not going to hurt him,” she said, surprised at how calm she felt.  Some inner voice was telling her that she had nothing to fear from this particular beast, and she believed it.

The wolf raised his head very slowly, giving her the distinct impression that he was trying not to startle her. 
“He is beyond pain, but I thank you for closing his eyes, and for your kind words.  I know these rituals are important for humans, and it troubled me greatly that I could not perform them for my friend.”

Salene stared at the wolf for a long moment, then she reached up, released the seal holding the hood of her suit in place and pushed it off, letting it hang down her back.  “You just spoke into my mind.  How did you do that?”

“It is normal for my kind to communicate in this manner.”

“What’s your name?”

“I am called Tonka.  Might I ask yours?”

“Salene.”  She turned to look at Jinjie who still had the camo turned on in his suit.  When she started to look away, he turned the camo off and lowered his hood as well.  “This is Jinjie,” she added belatedly.  The wolf dipped his head in a slow nod, and Jinjie returned the gesture solemnly.  “Tonka, what happened here?”

“The Nomen came with those things they call hybrids,”
he replied.  Though his voice was calm, his upper lip rose, revealing an impressive array of long, sharp, glistening white fangs. 
“They took everyone except Oberto, his daughter, and myself.”

“Daughter?” Salene asked, her stomach doing a strange little flip of fear that she didn’t understand.

“She’s dead,”
Tonka said, and her breath caught in her throat.
  “In the first hut you entered across the clearing.”

Salene nodded, the fear leaving her as quickly as it had risen as a mental image of the remains flashed in her mind.  Remains that could have been either male or female, but which were too big to belong to a child.  She shook her head at her wayward thoughts.  “Why did they leave you?”

“Because they wish for me to suffer, lying here beside my friend until I too am dead.”

“You’re injured?”

“
Yes, but not serious enough to threaten my life immediately.  They’ve rendered me unable to hunt.  I will starve to death, as the Nomen intended, but it will take quite a long time.  It is my punishment for aiding Oberto and his friends.”

“You will
not
starve to death,” Salene said forcefully, remembering what Rayne had been through.  “Tell me about your injury, please.”

“My forelegs are broken
. 
Your concern is generous, Salene, but there is no method of healing me before I starve, and I don’t believe it would be safe for you to remain here with me until I heal.  The Nomen know this place now and will likely return at some point, if only to take pleasure in my suffering.  My only regret is that I will not be able to take my revenge.”
 

“What is it with males and revenge?” she muttered under her breath.  “I agree that it wouldn’t be wise to stay here, Tonka, but I
can
heal your bones.”

Tonka’s piercing green eyes stared into hers for a long moment. 
“I would be grateful to accept any help you may be able to render me, Salene.  I am curious, though.  Where have you and Jinjie come from?”

“Let’s save that discussion for a few minutes,” Salene said, stepping carefully around Oberto and slipping her pack off.  She set it on the makeshift but surprisingly sturdy table, and opened a large compartment on the front.  She withdrew a med kit, opened it, and took out a white pouch containing a portable bone annealer.  She set it down and took off her other glove, then picked up a rough blanket lying on a bed pallet in the corner and used it to cover Oberto so that Tonka didn’t have to continue staring at him.  “Jinjie?”

“Jinjie do be staying here, if Salene do be not mind.”

“Of course not,” she replied.  She knelt in front of the wolf, on the side away from Oberto, noting that his head was level with her waist in his prone position while she was standing.  Now that she knew he was an intelligent being rather than a wild creature like she’d first thought, his size didn’t disturb her.  All Clan Jasani shifted into animals that were several times the size of Tonka.  In that light, he actually seemed rather small to her.

She examined Tonka’s left foreleg with gentle fingers, finding some swelling though the skin was unbroken and there was no deformation, both good signs.  She picked up the bone annealer and turned it on.

“What is that for?”

“It’ll let me see the bone so that I can make sure it’s aligned correctly, then it will heal the break.”

“How does it work?”

“Not a clue in the cosmos,” Salene replied.  “But I know that it
does
work, and I know how to make it work.  For our purposes, I believe that’s enough.”

“
Yes, I suppose that it is,”
Tonka replied with what sounded to her like a trace of humor. 
“What shall I do?”

“Just don’t move if you can help it,” she said, laying the scanner transducer gently on his leg where the swelling was.  She pressed a button and waited for an image to appear on the device’s tiny display.  “We’re in luck here, Tonka,” she said a few moments later.  “This is a fracture rather than a break.  It would’ve probably broken the first time you put stress on it, but what it means to us is that I don’t have to set the bone.  It’s all nice and straight the way it’s supposed to be.  So, are you up for this?”

“Up for this?”

“Will you agree to my doing this?”

“You are asking my consent?”

“Of course.”

“
Yes, please do what you can.  And I thank you for asking.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, picking the annealer up again.  She adjusted the settings and placed it gently back in the same place.  “You’re a sentient being, and therefore capable of deciding what you do and do not want done to you.”

“
Not everyone would agree with you.”

“Perhaps not, but that doesn’t change the truth,” she said.  “I’m going to start the healing now but don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit.”

“I’m not afraid of pain, Salene.  There are too many things far worse.”

“You won’t get an argument from me on that,” she said without taking her eyes off the view screen. 

“Will you tell me now where you’re from?”
Tonka asked after a long silence. 

“I’m from a world called Jasan,” she began.  She explained that she was on her way to visit her sister, making no mention of the Gryphons.  She told him about the imminent collision, the escape pod, and waking up crashed on the side of the mountain.  She didn’t say anything about Jinjie, either.  It was up to him whether or not he wanted his own story told.  “After we saw the spaceplanes pass overhead, followed a few moments later by four hybrids, we decided to investigate the source of the smoke in case there were people here who needed help.  And here we are.”