She didn’t know him. She’d only been with him a matter of days, less than a couple of weeks based on Earth calendars, she was sure, and probably almost half of that time she’d been senseless, too out of it to notice much of anything.
But of course, he had saved her. Whatever his motives he had risked his life to save her. She didn’t doubt that, because despite his ability to fly, she was sure he wasn’t accustomed to carrying passengers and catching her mid-air must have been as dangerous for him as it was for her. She thought it might be rather like a good swimmer trying to save someone that was drowning—that it was risky because a hysterical person could drown the would-be rescuer.
He’d fed her and kept her safe.
She’d felt like a prisoner in some ways, but then again she couldn’t say for sure that that had been his intention. Clearly there were dangerous primitives around and that would be reason enough to keep the door bolted.
All in all, she thought she could acquit him of evil intentions—or being evil, period.
There was the little matter of the sex thing, but, unfortunately, she couldn’t blame that on him. She had actually been the first one to make a move—no point in arguing that, in the heat of the moment, she had lost her mind and had desperately wanted comforting in the only form it might be offered.
Still, it wasn’t a conscious decision on her part—well, she didn’t suppose it was on his either. But, in point of fact, it wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind until he got going good and convinced her itwasa good idea.
She supposed she must be drawn to him at least on some level—well, physically, certainly not intellectually!—or she would have fought him off—or tried—regardless of the fact that she’d instigated the whole thing.
Must be his animal magnetism, she thought wryly. It certainly wasn’t his clever repartee—although she was beginning to think she’d sold him short and he was a good bit more intelligent than she’d believed.
Could she take his seeming honesty at face value, though?
She could think of several motives that might inspire him to mislead her and there could be more she would have no way of thinking of since she didn’t know his mind or customs.
Frowning, she moved away from Zhor and examined the scarred areas of the ‘umbrella’ more closely. Upon closer examination, shedidfind some materials embedded in the canopy that could have come from their ship—nothing to get excited about but maybe something to support his claim.
He played stupid when she began trying to convince him to take her down to the ground so she could look for more clues. It took her a little while to figure out that that was what he was up to, but she was sure of it the minute she got down on all fours and started moving cautiously to the edge. He caught her ankle and dragged her back the moment she went down on her belly in an attempt to get close enough to look over the edge.
His lips were tight with anger, but he scooped her up and leapt from the tree top, spiraling downward on the air currents.
He seemed to dismiss her the moment he lit and set her on her feet.
Shrugging inwardly, deciding to ignore his foul mood, she focused on searching the ground for anything dropped or any sign of something heavy being dragged.
If thezorphhad taken the debris, as Zhor suggested, she reasoned, there should be sign of it. They didn’t have wings. They would have had to climb the tree and used something to lower the pieces to the ground or shoved them off to crash on the ground.
And the latter scenario seemed very unlikely if they’d been risking their necks to collect things of potential value.
She didn’t find anything to suggest primitive tools or beasts had been used to remove the debris, not directly anyway. She found quite a few tracks—some of them large enough they might have belonged to a beast of burden rather than a very largezorph,but she still didn’t see that that completely ruled out the possibility that Zhor and or some of his cohorts might have removed the wreckage and possibly taken Phillips and Stoddard.
What made her very uneasy was not being able to come up with a motive for whoever had taken Phillips and Stoddard.
Someone either had, though, or they’d walked away. She didn’t find any remains, not even dried blood.
Or the company had sent someone to collect them and they’d simply abandoned her to her fate.
Unless thezorphwere cannibals?
She didn’t suppose that term could technically be applied when they weren’t the same species, but she didn’t feel like splitting hairs. Thezorphweren’t animals as far as she could see. They had to be intelligent enough to know that the makers of the crashed ship weren’t animals either, so taking them for food would have been a form of cannibalism.
Particularly since, as far as she could see, this world was pretty abundant with all sorts of life—which would make it a choice not a necessity.
Weather could account for the dearth of evidence to an extent, she knew. Rain and wind and sun could have scoured away blood in this time. Wild creatures could have fed … very likely would have.
It occurred to her after some thought that, if the ship had been destroyed to the extent that it wasn’t useful even for temporary shelter, the two men might have decided they would be better off to wait for help near the buoy she’d dropped.
Zhor flatly refused to cooperate with every attempt to convince him to take her to that location, however. Instead, he returned to the habitat with her and, after what she perceived as a lengthy lecture forbidding her to attempt the climb to the plateau, he left her again.
This time, he closed the door.
And locked it, she thought, from the other side.
