She stopped at the threshold, frozen. She couldn’t look back.
“I thought I’d help with morning chores,” she said to the door frame. “Earn my keep. I saw those feed supplies that need moving, and?—”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” She cut him off, hand already on the door handle. “Fresh air. Physical activity. Good for... everything.”
Silence. She felt his gaze on her back but then the door closed behind her with a soft click and she was free.
The cold air was sharp in her lungs as she stepped away from the house. Sharp enough to steal her breath. Standing on the porch for a moment, she gulped down air that tasted of frost and just… alienness. This place didn’t smell like Earth, not one bit. It was fresher, no pollution in the air. She could see why the Lathar had put a colony here.
She grabbed work gloves from the pile by the door in the barn, the leather worn soft from use. Goraath’s gloves. They were way too big for her but she pulled them on anyway.
The ranch spread out before her in the growing light. The krulaati were visible in the distance, massive shapes moving slowly through the purple grass that grew in the lower pastures. Pausing for a moment, she nibbled at her lower lip for a moment.
She’d said she’d help with the chores, but she had no idea what they actually were. Her gaze fell on a dark shape at this end of the pasture. Okay… animals needed water, so she could check the water troughs. And she’d seen Goraath feeding them. Okay, water and food for hairy beasties. She could do that. It was simple work, physical work, and exactly what she needed to burn off this restless energy that made her skin feel electric.
The feed bags were stacked in the storage shed fifty yards from the main house. She’d seen Goraath haul them like they weighed nothing. The first one she grabbed almost took her to her knees. Oh shit, that was heavy.
She hefted it onto her shoulder, with a grunt and set off. The walk to the edge of the field where the feeders were seemed a marathon, but she managed it, emptying one sack into each feeder.
By the third trip, sweat rolled down her spine despite the cold, her shoulders burned, and her legs had started to shake. But it was good. Clean pain that had nothing to do with desire or embarrassment or the way her body went liquid every time she thought about Goraath’s eyes.
By the fifth trip, her shirt was soaked through. She stripped off her outer jacket, letting the cold air hit her damp skin. It should have cooled her down. Should have helped. But all she could think about was how Goraath would smell the sweat on her. Would human sweat gross him out? He didn’t seem to like much about her, so it probably would.
She was so focused that she’d crossed the low fence without thinking, was maybe fifty yards into the field heading for the last feeder when the ground started to vibrate under her feet. It was subtle at first, just a tremor, but then it grew stronger. Rhythmic. Like thunder in the distance.
She looked up from the bag she’d been dragging, and her blood turned to ice.
Something had spooked the krulaati and now the herd of a hundred, each massive body the size of a small flyer, was charging.
Toward her.
Stood in the middle of an open field with nowhere to go.
Dust rose, a cloud that obscured the morning light and turned the world into a haze. She dropped the feed bag, spinning to gauge the distance to the fence line. The fence was a hundred yards, maybe more away.
Shit. She’d never make it.
She ran anyway. The instant was desperate, and primal. But her boots skittered on a patch of loose gravel. She went down hard, knees and palms scraping against stone.
The impact knocked the wind out of her, and for a precious second, she couldn’t move… couldn’t breathe. Could only lie there as the thunder got louder, closer.
She pushed up. Her hands slipped, wouldn’t hold her weight. Blood made the gravel slick under her palms. When she looked up, the lead krulaati was close enough that she could see its eyes, wide and white-rimmed with panic as it foamed at the mouth… massive muscles bunching under its hide.
Time didn’t slow. That was something that only happened in holo-movies. In fact, time did the opposite. It shattered and sped up, into fragments of sound and images that her brain couldn’t process quickly enough.
There was dust in her eyes, in her mouth, coating her throat like paste. The ground shook so hard her vision blurred, turned the approaching wall of flesh and hooves into something out of a nightmare.
She couldn’t move.
The lead krulaati was almost on her. Close enough that she could see individual hairs on its legs, and the mud caked between its hooves. Hooves that were the size of dinner plates and would crush her skull like paper… would turn her ribs to powder, and her spine to fragments.
She was going to die alone on an alien ranch a thousand light-years from home.
The lead krulaati reared up, hooves slashing through the air above her. A scream tore from her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut.
Hopefully it would be quick…
