When I heard a gasp from the other side of the curtain, I excused myself with a promise to return soon.I hurried back to Amy and found her standing in front of the chair and staring at a large wet spot where she’d been sitting.
“You can get Kes now,” she said shakily.“My water just broke.”
28 Jessa
Icradled Sal to mychest and followed Taz through the crowded parking lot.There were so many turochs.Males sat on the ground, sharpening weapons, working on animal hides, and eating huge chunks of meat with their bare hands.
The camp felt like an entirely different world with small, jarring reminders that this wasmyworld, just changed.Like the two alien men rifling through a flatbed trailer stacked with boxes and trash bags.There was a large rope net laying in front of the trailer, and I stared at it as we passed, wondering how they moved it without a truck.
“It’s a harness,” Taz said, slowing when she realized I'd fallen behind.“A bunch of the guys go out about once a month, to get all this big stuff we find on supply runs.It takes six of them to pull it.”
“They pull it?”I gaped.“How strong are they?”
She laughed, “They’re ridiculously strong.I still don’t understand how the sytos thought they could control them forever.”
It had taken nearly a dozen sytos to restrain Tovis and I knew he could have escaped if he hadn’t been worried about me.
“They were really slaves?Why would the sytos even need them if they had all this advanced tech?Shouldn’t they be using robots or something?”
Taz shrugged.“Don’t ask me to explain, I don’t understand anything about how the sytos operate.The only good ones I’ve met are here with us and they started as hostages.”
“Taz!”A woman shouted.“Get over here, they brought mattresses!”
My guide veered off to the side and I spotted the blonde woman I’d seen before standing next to a towering pile of supplies.
“Hope, this is Tovis’ mate, Jessa.Jessa, Hope.”Taz gestured between us and eyed the pile.“Point me at the beds.”
Hope pointed at a large box near the top of the pile.
“There’s two so far, I’m hoping they grabbed more.I told them to bring a bunch of folding chairs, I didn’t even think about foam beds.”
The two women started digging through the mountain of stuff until the huge box fell to the ground between them.I stared at the dusty image text advertising a queen-sized, ten-inch memory foam mattress with ‘cooling technology’.
“If you see something you want, take it,” Hope said over her shoulder.
“I’m good,” I said.“Tovis’ tent isn’t big enough for a bunch of stuff.”
