I shrugged. “I guess I was in better shape than you guys? I have no idea.”
Carol giggled. “Or maybe we’re still here because the big guy over there, who’s guarding Beth, won’t let them discharge her yet, and if we go, she has to as well.” I glanced back over at Beth, to the large male hovering by the side of her bed.
“Hush,” Beth chided, blushing. “Hoe-rash has been nothing but a sweetie pie, and you know it.” She giggled as he moved closer, hearing his name.
“Be-thuh?” he asked, his tone gentle. She patted his arm gently. “I’m okay, big guy.” She glared at her friend. “See? A total pussy cat.”
Sam snorted. “A pussy cat with a hard on for you.”
Patrick frowned. “Do you know if they’re going to let us go? Do they have ships so they can take us back home?”
“Um. Didn’t you see the cave entrance?” I asked, feeling awkward.”They all live in a giant cave. Well, a set of them really.”
“CAVE?!” they all chorused loudly. I winced, and Hoe-rash, the doc, and a couple of nurses or junior docs or whatever, all hurried to find out what was the matter.
“Not so loud!” I chided them. “And yes, cave. Um, this is a pretty good sized village, but it’s inside a cave, which…well, fuck…how is it lit so brightly? Inside, they use lanterns, but I didn’t see anything like that anywhere.”
“So, probably some means of artificial light, and they live inside the mountain for protection against all that snow,” Gary suggested.
“We were kinda knocked out,” Sam explained. “One of our kidnappers survived, found us right after you left, and zapped us. We woke up here with raging headaches.”
”And Carol barfed,” Beth added.
”Yeah, boy did I ever. That’s probably why they kept us here, in case I had a bug or something.”
Patrick looked at me challengingly. “And what about you?”
“Okay, well, I picked a direction and started walking, and then this big guy here was there and wrapped me up in his fur cloak and brought me here. The uh, doc, looked me over and sent me home with him, and after some charades, I got him to understand you guys were back there, and he told someone else, and then after some more charades, he let me know he told his friend and a bunch of their guys were going out to look for you. I had no idea until now that they’d found you and brought you back already. I am so happy to see they did!” I teared up, feeling overcome with emotion. We’d only known each other for a very short time, but that sort of situation bonds you together pretty quickly, imprinting itself on you.
Carol began crying. “I’m so glad you did! They must have got the bastard after he knocked us out, and this is so much better than another cell, being taken gods knows where!”
“So, you’re really free?” Fred asked, glancing at Gree-Gree’s hand on my back as he listened to me speak with my former shipmates. ”Yup, though, um, don’t be grossed out, okay? But I think he’s into me and I’m, um, really into him too.”
“Whatever, man,” Fred sighed, leaning back onto his bed.
I felt a pang of guilt, remembering what he’d gone through. “He’s not forced me to have sex with him or anything,” I burst out, wanting Fred to feel as safe as I did. Fred sat bolt upright. “Is that what you think they did to me?” he demanded. ”God, no! But they, um, made me walk around naked and eat off the floor and dance while they swung those shock sticks at me. And caged my cock. They thought that was the funniest thing, and I’m pretty sure they were feeding me something like Viagra because I kept needing to get hard and couldn’t. Oh, and this one guy insisted I lick his boots.” We all stared at him, stunned.
“That’s terrible,” I said.
”Yeah, well, they were bullies, but we’re here safe and warm, and they aren’t. “
“They’re probably all dead,” Gary agreed. “I thought I was dreaming about us being pulled on a sled, and another one with bits of the ship and some of their bodies on it. I must have woken up for a few minutes before passing out again.”
“Be-thuh,” Hoe-rash said again, his hand coming up to her face to gently wipe a tear from her cheek. “Pugrahga no lemesh.”
She covered his hand with hers and sniffled. ”I’m okay. Just hurts to hear what they did to Pat. I hope they are all dead. They deserved to die for hurting him and stealing us and whatever else bad stuff they’d been doing.”
Gree-Gree gave my hand a tug and tilted his head to indicate it was time for us to go. “Um, guess visiting hours are over. I’ll try to come back and see you guys again tomorrow, okay?”
“If they haven’t found somewhere else to put us,” Gary smiled back.
“If they do, it’ll be somewhere nice. They aren’t bad people,” I reassured him, waving good-bye and turning to follow Gree-Gree out the door.
18
GHRIGRI
Chief Grishk had taken the news much better than I had hoped, though what I had feared had indeed come to pass. I had three days’ grace before I was to provision up and take Rah-bee and the others to the Great Speaking Chamber. I’d been twice as a kit, once with my age mates when our teacher took us on the journey for us to be added to the records the Sky Gods kept, as we were awarded our formal names. The second time was as a newly apprenticed hunter, and I accompanied the more experienced hunters to help load a shipment of books and the glow water that kept the caverns well lit once we coated the stones with it. It had to be reapplied every so many years as the effect wore off over time, and my back ached just remembering helping haul the goods back on the sledges.
