That made for an easy escape if her cooking fire brought intruders. She’d killed a fat rat she needed to cook. Ajha didn’t stop running until she was inside. She moved the old piece of ragged plywood over the doorway. She went to her simple stacked brick fireplace under the open window in the back.
Good. There were still embers enough to revive the fire. She squatted down in front of it and quickly added some twigs from the pile beside the fireplace. Soon a flame rose from the embers as they caught fire. Gradually adding bigger sticks, she put the old metal grate on the top.
She opened her cloth shoulder bag and took out the dressed-out rat carcass and put it on the grate to cook. It was big enough, she could probably make two meals out of it. While she waited for it to roast, she munched on wild strawberries from a small pouch and intermittently fed the fire.
It was times like this Ajha really missed Mikki. They used to do this together---stoke up the fire and cook whatever small animal they’d killed. Mikki was gone now. The memory of when the gangers took her played in her mind every day, haunting her.
Mikki sacrificed herself so Ajha could get away. She knew Ajha had begun to hear the voices. It always seemed worse when they were around a lot of people. They were almost overwhelming while they were in Starport City. When the voices started, she thought she was going crazy, but then she realized that the voices were other people’s thoughts. Ajha figured that out while talking to someone when she would hear the words in her head before they said them.
It started with a sixth sense where she knew when people were watching her or looking for her. She wasn’t all that good at controlling her ability. Ajha could catch stray thoughts, or sense when someone was after her, but she couldn’t often concentrate her efforts to deliberately read people.
A few months before, she’d met an old woman who had the psionic ability. She told Ajha she had the power as well, but it would take time to learn to use it.
Ajha wished she could find the old woman to learn more, but she never saw her again. Then the dreams had started to recur a few weeks ago. There was a man, but she couldn’t quite see his face. He was a presence that came into her mind when she slept. She couldn’t seem to reach him while she was awake even if she closed her eyes and concentrated.
She could sense he was out there a vague yet living apparition that never entirely left her consciousness. It was frustrating. Didn’t he feel her too? Didn’t he know she was trying to reach out to him? Why didn’t he reach back?
Ajha shook her head as though that would get him out of her awareness. The old woman said it would take great patience to learn to use her gift on her own. Ajha wanted to stay and learn more from the woman, but it wasn’t safe. She couldn’t protect Ajha from the ruthless males in the gangs who preyed on women---raped and killed them or held them captive and sold them as sex slaves.
Ajha turned the meat that had begun to sizzle on the fire and sighed. Maybe the time had come to leave Farringay---to realize that Mikki was probably gone for good. The gang that caught her didn’t know the location of their hideout. Ajha stayed, hoping Mikki would escape and come back.
Apparently, she was either dead or unable to escape. There was a chance she could still be alive. Mikki had always told her to give them what they wanted to stay alive. Offer them pleasure, let them fuck you if that’s what they want. Do whatever it takes to stay alive.
So far Ajha had been lucky. She wasn’t much of a fighter, but she could run fast and knew the best places to hide so they would run right by and never spot her. There had been a boy once, and she had loved him. They had learned about sex together. She and Fenn and his friend Vick and Mikki had been a foursome for several months.
Then one day the guys went out to hunt for food and never came back. Mikki and Ajha never found their bodies and they never came back. Mikki tearfully told Ajha they must be dead, or they would have come back after over a week had passed if they could. She couldn’t believe their lovers would have abandoned them.
Ajha and Mikki were like a family. They loved each other.
Mikki would have come back by now if she could. Tears welled in Ajha’s eyes. She couldn’t wait any longer. It was getting harder and harder to forage for food because she wasn’t safe anywhere. Even dirty, wearing ragged clothes and wild hair tangled and matted, her feminine curves drew male attention. She had come to hate her solitary life.
It was at least a three-day walk once she got to the outskirts of the city. She needed to start at dusk so she could stay in the shadows yet see well enough to make her way out.
Tomorrow. Ajha would pack up and head out tomorrow.
Chapter Two
Calan Narcaza stood in the landing bay at Farringay Starport watching the tow-bot pull his hover tram from the hold of the passenger freighterCelestra. The ship belonged to his brother Jamerin and Jamerin’s wife, Parei. Following a circuitous route from Oltarin, the journey had taken over six months.
The two brothers were about 6’2” but barely resembled each other. Calan was medium build with well-defined musculature, dark brown hair and green eyes. Jamerin was more powerfully built with flame red hair like their mother and green eyes like their father. Jamerin was eight years older, and Calan wasn’t a baby anymore. But it was hard for Jamerin and Parei to think of him other than Jamerin’s little brother even though he was now twenty-eight.
“Are you sure about this, Calan?” Jamerin asked skeptically. “This place is barely civilized even now---hardly any better than when I got Lara and Xaver out of here five years ago.”
“It’s never going to get any better if nobody tries to make it better,” Calan said. “All they ever did was rebuild little pockets of civilization here. They never went any farther in Farringay after they finished the starport and residential compound.”
“What do you think you’re going to do by yourself?”
“First I’m going to set up the clinic in that industrial complex I bought and see what develops.”
“The gangs in Farringay are just as bad as when Dad came here to get Mom before they ever dreamed of us.”
“I can deal with them. I’m not hindered by any stupid psi laws like they used to have on Aledus. I’m strong enough to protect myself with psi.”
“Except against Tregans,” Jamerin reminded.
“Telepathy doesn’t work, but telekinesis will work.”
“Calan, I know you’ve got skills. I just hate leaving you here on your own. Most of these people are barely civilized.”
