In response to the strike, tentacles flares from the creature’s throat and twine around my ankle. I slam to the ground because, despite their slenderness, these tendril- vine things possess a terrible, tensile strength. I wish I had blades like Vel’s, but I don’t, so I roll, trying to twist them. If these things can move, then they have nerve endings, and I can hurt them.

Vel vaults me, twin blades gleaming, and slices the cords binding me. His monsters follow in unnatural bounds. They don’t move like anything I’ve ever seen; they have too many legs, for one thing, and they leap, not run.

Now free, I flip to my feet. I have some sense now of what these creatures are trying to do. Once they get us bound and helpless on the ground, they will devour us while we’re still alive. Like the Morgut, they prefer fresh prey; maybe they savor a screaming-terror taste in their meat.

They time another leap, and this time, the lead plant- thing succeeds in biting me. It hurts like a bitch, and the teeth lock on like certain carnivorous fish, so that when I knock it away, it takes a chunk out of my side. Blood streams freely, driving them to greater excitement. I guess I’m tasty.

Vel’s not fighting at my back anymore since he broke to cut me loose, but they hunt in pairs, so his flora-beasts take no notice of me. But I still have mine to contend with, and though I’ve injured the first one, it doesn’t show signs of slowing down. But more blood drizzles from its mouth from where Vel severed its tendrils, and it moans as it moves to try to pin me.

Once more, they coordinate a leap; I knock the second one back with a swing of the shockstick. It is not sinking those long, curved teeth into my flesh again. Frag that. Focus, Jax. I concentrate on the wounded one, aiming a powerful roundhouse kick at what would be its ribs in a normal mammalian creature. Surely this thing has inner organs I can damage. It shrieks then, so high-pitched that I can’t hear all the notes, but I can tell by Vel’s reaction that it’s a horrendous noise.

The scream distracts his opponents, and he disembowels one with a scissor-sweep of his blades. Gray entrails spill out onto the foliage, but it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before—and I’ve killed some monsters in my day. Instead, it looks like coils of lichens, swimming in that awful black blood, and it stinks of rotting vegetation. His remaining enemy goes mad then, flinging itself at him in a fury and rendering it vulnerable to the grace of his knives.

Mine don’t cut and run, though. It’s as though these creatures form a family, and they will stand and fall together. I find that oddly touching even as I crush one’s throat with a final, lethal kick. That leaves only one, and it becomes quiescent, acknowledging its fate. I almost feel bad as I break its skull wide open with a two-handed swing of the shockstick. More mossy guts splatter everywhere.

“What the hell do you make of that?” I ask, palm to my side.

Red trickles between my fingers. Mary, I need medical attention. I hope Vel has some Nu-Skin. I don’t think that has any circuits to be fried in transit, so it should work, even here. My excitement at the adventure dims a bit; when I set out to chart new beacons with Kai, I was generally more prepared than this, and we have precious few resources.

“Cohesive unit, hunting as one. We merely had skills and weapons unfamiliar to them. Our next encounters may not go so smoothly.”

“Smoothly?” I show him my wound, and he moves at once for his pack, hurdling the corpses.

You wouldn’t expect Vel to be gentle, but his claws are remarkably dexterous as he cleans the wound and then seals it with a fresh pack of Nu-Skin. It bonds at once, relieving my fear. Hopefully, our antiseptic will kill the foreign microbes. The idea of growing that gray moss inside my body nearly makes me throw up—and the smell isn’t helping.

“We need to make you some knives.”

There’s no question cutting worked better on these creatures than blunt-force trauma. I’m not experienced with knives, but I don’t want to be eaten, either. I’ll work it out, somehow, no matter how steep the learning curve. And the really fun part? We don’t know this jungle at all, so those creatures might be the nicest things here.

“Do you know how?”

He inclines his head. “Trapper taught me.”

Ah, part of his bounty-hunter training.

“We need to move before their friends come looking for them.”

“I will look for usable supplies and a defensible place to spend the night.”

Now that he’s mentioned it, I can see the light is going. This definitely is not Marakeq, with its dreamy twilight. No, this world offers black velvet darkness unbroken by artificial light.

The long night is coming, and only Mary knows whether we’ll survive it.

[Vid-mail from Dina, sent on the four-day bounce]

Nola forwarded your message to the ship as soon as she got it, but we’d already put down on Marakeq by then. It sucks like hell to be the one to tell you this, but Jax isn’t here. Twelve hours after our arrival, her comm went dark. Hit and I hiked out to the settlement to investigate, but neither of us can understand the natives. They aren’t hostile, but Jax and Vel have vanished. No sign of them so far.

I’m so sorry. But we’re not giving up hope yet. We’re scanning and searching the surrounding swamp. I promise we’ll find her if it’s humanly possible.

[message ends]

[Vid-mail from March, emergency channel, priority reply]

I’ll hop a ship and be there ASAP to help you search.

[message ends]

CHAPTER 26

As night falls, the temperature drops, and I’m dressed for Marakeq weather. For the first time in ages, Vel grows out his camouflage skin, but this time it’s for insulation, not to pass as human. But in honor of my aesthetic sensibilities, he takes human form instead of just permitting the faux-skin to shape as it will. This is the first time I’ve seen him make the transformation, and I am intrigued by the amount of physical sculpting he does.

He did it one other time in my presence—in the cave on the Teresengi Basin, but he was wearing weatherproof gear, and it was dark, so I couldn’t see what he was doing. There’s just enough light for me to make out the details, and it’s fascinating. When given his preferences, he chooses a height that doesn’t force him to compact his body or his limbs, so he’s tall and slender. Though he can, in order to pass as a specific target, that physical manipulation causes him pain. His features are so average that he’d never draw a second glance. I know for a fact that he’s created this identity out of a composite of a hundred male human faces. When he finishes, he’s warmer, but we still haven’t found anyplace to spend the night.

It’s all jungle, as far as the eye can see. No structures, no signs of sentient life. Well, higher-evolved sentient life, that is. I wonder if Dace sees this as some kind of rite of passage. If we can survive this world and make our way back, then we will prove ourselves worthy. No, that doesn’t ring true. I still believe she wants us to discover something here, mentioned in those Oonan prophecies.

I only want to find the way back.

“What do you think?” I ask Vel.

“I have been attempting to locate signs of passage, but this part of the planet appears to be unsettled wilderness.”

A sigh slips free. “How the hell do you think we got here? You’ve traveled even more than me. Ever had anything like this happen?”

He makes a sound in his throat that I recognize as laughter. “Never. Our adventures own the distinction of uniqueness.”

“That’s small comfort at the moment.”

I don’t know how long we’ve been walking, but I’m stumbling with exhaustion. At last, to my vast relief, Vel spots something in the canopy. It looks like an old tree house, a platform that uses the leaves as a roof and has vines leading down from the height so we can check it out.

“Wait here and remain alert. I will signal if it is safe.”

I whip out my shockstick and stand ready as he ascends. A few moments later, he calls, “Come up, Sirantha. This will suffice for tonight.”

It’s a hard climb, but my time in prison left me with serious biceps, and I haul myself up almost as fast as Vel. From here, I can tell the platform has been built with some measure of expertise, free-fall wood lashed together with vines. An old structure, but it appears stable, and we’ll be safe from ground-dwelling predators. Of course, there are still fliers and climbers to worry about, but I’m so tired I don’t care if a giant bird swoops down to eat me. Besides, its wings wouldn’t clear the canopy.

The ledge is also fairly narrow for sleeping. I can’t imagine its purpose, except as a lookout post. But if we turn on our sides, we can both manage to lie down, and that’s all that matters.

“I will take the outer edge.” Vel twines a vine about his arm so he won’t fall off if he rolls in his sleep, leaving me the relative safety of the side against the trees.

I don’t protest his chivalry. Though I’m by nature a scrapper, I don’t mind someone taking care of me—a little, anyway, as long as it doesn’t cut into my intrinsic freedoms. And this doesn’t. It’s just Vel’s way of showing affection, I think. He doesn’t have the words, so he does practical things instead. Nobody else ever has, not like this. Not Kai. Not March. They both assumed I would reject such gestures because I’m so independent, but Vel doesn’t take away my autonomy; he’s so matter-of-fact that I can’t take umbrage. Maybe because he’s Ithtorian, I can accept it from him. There are no species-specific snares to avoid.

“Wish I’d packed a thermal blanket,” I mutter, trying to get comfortable.

“I have one,” he says. “If you are amenable to sharing it.”

“Hell yes, I am.” It’s fragging cold.

But after he digs it out, and we arrange ourselves front to back, it’s weirder than I thought it would be. Because he feels human behind me, his chitin covered in two centimeters of skin. So the hardness beneath could be construed as muscle and bone, not what it is, and that’s disorienting because he doesn’t feel like my old friend. He feels like a human male spooned up against my back.

“It is a practical decision,” he says quietly. “The faux- skin is an excellent conductor, so we both benefit from proximity.”

I guess he read something of my thoughts, which takes some doing since my back is to him. Then I realize I’ve tensed against him and make a conscious effort to relax. Of course, I’m being ridiculous; this is Vel, whom I trust as much as anyone in the universe. And he just lost the woman he loves. Try not to be an idiot, Jax.

Beneath the blanket, it’s delightfully warm, and he offers additional heat at my back. But my side hurts where the creature bit me; it’s a heated throb, as if the Nu-Skin and our antibacterial isn’t enough to fight the alien microbes.

I shift several times before he says, “Are you in pain?”

“Yeah.” Mary, I hate admitting that.

“I can administer a local painkiller.”

Ordinarily, I’d say, No, I can tough it out. But without it, the only way I’ll sleep is if I roll over, and I don’t know if I can drop off while curled up against his chest. The alternative is no better; I feel strange about spooning my front to his back.