The Stars Like Ice (The Star Sojourner Series Book 8) Read online

  Spirit, my love, Syl 'via sent to him, the Jules Terran needs our support, not a critique.

  The skiff approached the shelf of a glacier. I clung to the wheel as though it meant life itself. Our boat was gone, lost in night. Did the dire Druids intend to dine out of water?

  They were huge, I realized as they hauled themselves onto the shelf. The largest one was perhaps forty feet long and silvery white in the darkness, with a blue back. Twelve. I counted twelve. The small glacier rocked with their weight. Waves splashed over it. These were air breathers, I realized as they spouted water from whale-like blow holes on top of their heads.

  I was shaking badly and couldn't stop. Spirit…

  We are here.

  Stay with me.

  We will stay, Jules, Syl 'Via sent.

  The largest Druid pulled himself closer to the skiff, raised up on his pectorals, and studied me with eyes much like a human's. Water ran off his body. His smell was salty and bitter.

  Was he deciding which parts of me were the most tender? I gasped in cold breaths of air, perhaps my last, and shivered as I clung to the wheel.

  “You are Terran?” a deep voice announced in stelspeak.

  “Terran?” I looked around.

  “I asked if you are Terran,” the deep voice repeated and I realized it came from the large Druid.

  I nodded. “Yes. Terran.”

  “Why are you here on Kresthaven?”

  “Why?” I stuttered.

  “Do you always repeat what you are asked?”

  “No! But you're speaking, and in stelspeak.”

  He looked back at the others. “Perhaps we caught a retarded member of his species. We should have captured the female. Among many species, they are the smarter.”

  “Ask me whatever you want to,” I said between shuddering teeth. “I…I thought you were going to eat me.”

  “Considering your responses, that might have been the better choice.”

  “What do you want from me? From us?”

  “There is a movement among the Slatties, whom you call Vegans, that has been devastating to my race and our world.”

  I relaxed my death grip on the wheel. “I've seen the carved tusks and the bones and furs in a Vegan's…a Slattie's ice cave. Is that what you mean?” The Druids were fur-bearing, I realized as their backs began to dry. The furs in the cave…

  “Savages who eat my kin!” the large Druid said. “Yes, that is what I mean.”

  “But don't you also eat them?” I blurted. “They're afraid to come out at night when you hunt.”

  “Fools who found the remains of their kind, ravaged by lesser beings of the sea.”

  “Why don't you just tell them that?”

  “Their high priest has convinced the Slatties that we were sent up from their religious Pit, and we are here to destroy them.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You're demons, and that makes it OK to kill your people and use the body parts to, uh, well, to carve into trinkets, and furs for off-world illegal markets.”

  The Druid swung his head to look back at his companions, and I realized that he had a flexible neck, like Earth's Beluga whales.

  “Perhaps he is not retarded after all, just slow.”

  The others nodded. Some trumpeted.

  “So what do you want me to do?” I asked, a bit annoyed at his evaluation of me. “The Vegans…Slatties, don't like Terrans either. We're just here for our good friend Huff, who sent a plea for help.”

  "There are many more like your friend. Slatties who know the high priest and his ministers for what they are, a nest of greedy ice cavers who hold their people, and force them to do the priest's bidding, by fear of the Pit.

  “My friend opposed him?”

  “Your friend Huff has seen many worlds and is more sophisticated than the majority of Slatties.”

  “Huff? Sophisticated?”

  “There you go again, repeating my words.”

  “A Slattie told me,” I said, “that they would sacrifice Huff on an altar if they caught him.”

  The Druid lowered his head. “And so they would, as they have sacrificed so many of my people on their altar, and then proceeded to make trinkets, as you say, of their bodies.” He raised his head. “Now, it is open warfare between us.”

  “Open warfare? And you want me and my friends to take your side against the Slatties. There are only six of us, including Huff.”

  “Not all the Slatties, Terran. Just the Cultists. Your weapons are like the addition of many more warriors than six. Brugrish, bring the Terran his weapon.”

  A smaller Druid advanced with my lost stingler in his mouth, dropped it to clatter near the skiff, and rubbed his lips with a fin. “That metal hurts my teeth, Granbor.”

  “Not nearly as hurtful,” Granbor, the large Druid, said, “as what the weapon was carved to do.”

  I jumped onto the shelf and picked up my stingler. “I can't speak for my friends, but I'll help your cause if I can. Do you know where Huff is hiding?”

  “Somewhere on the land that is not born of the sea.”

  “The land not born of the sea?”

  He shook his head and muttered something, probably in his native tongue.

  “Oh. You mean the mainland,” I said. “Somewhere on the continent.”

  “Give it whatever name appeals to you, Terran.”

  I realized that I was shaking badly with cold that had gotten through my jacket, hood and gloves. “I have to go back to the boat. The cold is getting down to my bones.”

  “While our bones roast in such heat,” Granbor said. “Know this, Terran Jules, you and your friends will help us with your weapons in our fight for survival, or you will all be given to the high priest as sacrifices on his altar.”

  I bit my lip.

  “Know that if your kin refuse to help us, you will wish you were ripped apart and eaten rather than face death on the altar.” He pulled himself closer to me and squinted. “Do you see well with blue eyeballs? I think the high priest will relish them for dessert.” He slid into the water and the others followed.

  The anchor line went taut. I jumped into the skiff and it was driven back to where our boat searched for me.

  I tied a line to the ladder and climbed aboard, shivering badly.

  “Jules!” Sophia cried. She ran to me from where she'd been looking over the stern and threw her arms around me. “Are you all right?” She took my face between her gloved hands. “Oh my God! We've been searching all over for you. Joe, Chancey, Bat, it's Jules!”

  They came running.

  Chancey grabbed my arm and squeezed it. “We thought you were dead meat.”

  “Are you all right?” Bat pulled off his glove and pressed his hand to my cheek. “Get into the cabin.”

  I nodded. “I'm OK. Just freezing my derriere off. That's all.”

  “Oh my God, Babe,” Sophia pulled me toward the cabin, “don't do that!”

  Joe breathed out a long sigh and put a hand to his chest as he opened the door. “What happened, son?”

  “You're not going to believe what happened,” I told him, and stepped into the warm cabin.

  Chapter Two

  Deep within the ravaged continent, carved by ancient volcanic eruptions, entwined in lava tubes, stood a vast cavern. Multitudes of frosted electric stars like pointed chips of ice, dotted walls and the domed ceiling, with a golden orb, like a full moon.

  In the center, a black slab of rock, streaked with dried blood, held a naked, dark-haired Terran man shackled by wrists and ankles as he lay spread-eagled on the altar, moaning, his body slashed and seeping blood from chest and stomach wounds. Knives set between his legs still dripped blood beneath the cold light of a hanging white moon.

  A shuffling of bare feet sounded on rock as a row of Slatties with blue armbands, filed into the cavern. Each member was given a drink from a cauldron by a Slattie with a black band tied to his left forearm.

  “Drink deeply, my brothers, of the Sacred Pool,” the
Slattie instructed, “and you will know the bliss of Obedience to the Ten Gods.”

  Those who had drunk reeled into the cavern, and swayed as they sat around the altar.

  When the last Slattie was seated, the vast room grew quiet.

  A tall, silver-furred Slattie in a red cape, with a silver star clasped at his throat, emerged from a door in the wall and moved majestically along a gold-painted path with religious symbols that led to the altar. Behind him strode six tall male Slatties, with black armbands.

  When the caped Slattie reached the altar, the shackled Terran cried out and fought his binds. “Please, Lord Aburra! Please don't kill me. I am your servant!”

  Lord Aburra turned to the assembly. “Hear how the demon conspires with the Dark Lord of the Pit to be saved, so that he can continue to weave his web of evil among our people.” He lowered his snout and gazed at the rows of swaying Slatties. “Shall we be taken in by his treachery, my brothers?”

  Shouts of “No! No” filled the cavern. “Be not deceived, Lord Aburra.”

  “Then let us open his body and drive out the demon who conjures within.”

  “Shrive him!” a Slattie by Lord Aburra's side with a black armband shouted, and waved a fist. “Cleanse his captive soul with the Knives of Fire.”

  “Yes! Cleanse him,” others shouted.

  “Oh God!” the Terran sobbed. “I'm not a demon. I'm just a man. Please. Have mercy. I'm just a human.”

  A dead human, Lord Aburra thought, and no longer competition for the trading business. The Lord dug into a pouch tied around his waist, drew out a handful of powder and threw it into an urn beside the altar. Fire burst out of the urn. Smoke swirled around the altar.

  The people gasped. One shouted, “Shrive him, before we are consumed by his evil.”

  “Oh God!” the Terran cried. “I'm not evil. Help me. Somebody help me!” He tugged at the shackles that bound him.

  Lord Aburra smiled down at the man. You should have considered the consequences,he thought,when you and your brother muscled in on my export business.

  A computer, hidden in rock at the rear of the cavern, projected wall images of Slatties being eaten by red demons.

  Some in the assembly jumped to their feet and stumbled.

  “Shrive him now,” one bawled.

  An old Slattie keeled over in a faint.

  “Free his soul and save us, Lord Aburra,” another called.

  The Terran screamed as Lord Aburra dipped a stiletto into the flames from the urn until it was red with heat, and plunged the knife down the Terran's chest, laying open his flesh.

  The man's screams rose to shrieks of agony. Smoke swirled from his chest. His body bucked against the shackles. Lord Aburra dug deep into the man's body, probing with the stiletto. The shrieks died to gurgles. Blood poured from the Terran's mouth. His body twitched.

  Lord Aburra laid down the knife, raised his right paw, then thrust it into the dying man's chest. With one twist of his bloodied wrist, he lifted out the dead man's liver and held it up for all to see.

  “Here is the seat of evil.” And the wages of greed! he thought, which is death.

  The crowd moaned and swayed as Lord Aburra threw the liver into the urn. The fire sputtered and died. “Here,” lord Aburra exclaimed, “is the devil that drowns the Sacred Fire.”

  The computer projected Slatties having sex. “Our kin,” Lord Aburra pointed to the scene, “the good Slatties producing more children for the Ten Gods to love.” And more good slaves, he thought, and held back a smirk.

  A young female crawled to Lord Aburra's feet and kissed them. “I am a virgin, my Lord Father and Brother.”

  She turned and lifted herself to all fours. “Shrive me with the Fire Knife of Purity.”

  Lord Aburra mounted the young virgin, gripped her hips with claws that stimulated her two rows of tight breasts, and entered her.

  The female screamed when he suddenly thrust hard. A trickle of blood matted the silky fur between her hind legs. “You're hurting me, my Lord!” The young girl struggled to get free. “Please stop.”

  Lord Aburra panted, his lust rising with the absolute power of taking a virgin by force.

  He clamped down on her neck skin and fur with teeth, held her in place and thrust deeper and harder as her screams stirred him to greater passion. “Take it, young female,” he said through clamped teeth. “This is the Knife of Purity that will shrive your soul.” So tight, he thought with a smile. Virgin tight! and thrust harder.

  Ecstasy coursed through his body, born by the sure knowledge of his will over the struggling young girl's. The explosion of orgasm pulsed through him. This one will be a concubine, he thought and clawed her breasts. I'll not mate with her for another turn of the moon to keep her tight and screaming.

  He pulled out, his penis smeared with blood, and stood on hind legs so his people could see his success. “You are no longer a useless virgin,” he told the sobbing girl at his feet. In the pain of Obedience to your Lord, you will bear children and fulfill the mandate of the gods you serve. I have gifted her with my seed," he told the people. “May she bear many cubs for her Lord and the Ten Gods.”

  “May she bear cubs,” the people chanted.

  “Yes, Lord Aburra,” the crying girl whimpered, “in Obedience to my Lord and the Ten Gods, I pray your seed will produce cubs within my womb.” The girl crawled to her mother, sobbing. The mother embraced and soothed her with comforting words and strokes to her shoulder. “Now you are a child of the Gods, my daughter.”

  Chapter Three

  It was midnight and I couldn't sleep. Something cried against my mind, like a pressure felt with a foreboding thought. A kwaii, I realized, that had plunged into geth state screaming out his last agony.

  I threw off the blanket and sat up, my head in my hands. Huff? I caught my breath. No. Not Huff. A Terran. Male. I glanced around quickly. To my relief, my friends were sleeping peacefully in the boat's cabin bunks. Who was this human calling from the other side of life?

  I didn't want to lower my tel shields and let him in, but he was a soul fleeing an agonizing death, disoriented in the geth state between lifebinds. Too terrified to reach out to Great Mind for comfort and direction.

  I rubbed my forehead and blinked at the black windows, running rain. Rain pattered on the roof. Moisture had gotten into the cabin and touched the air with cold, and a smell of the inflatable's hypalon fabric.

  I turned and gently drew Sophia's blanket around her shoulders. She mumbled in her sleep and reached out for me.

  “Shhh, baby,” I murmured and covered her arm. “Go back to sleep.” I smiled at her mop of dark hair that partly covered her face, and brushed it off her bladed cheekbone. The curve of her hip beneath the blanket as she turned to her side was sexually arousing. “Down, boy,” I whispered.

  The terror came again and I jumped. A cry of utter despair from the realms of geth state.

  Who are you, brother? I sent.

  I…I am lost! Where am I? What happened?

  You died. But don't be afraid. Your pain is over. Our Lord, Great Mind, will guide you to another lifebind and comfort your soul. You have nothing to fear.

  I died? So far from my homeworld? So far from Earth?

  That doesn't matter. What happened to you?

  He…Lord Aburra of the Slatties…he killed me. Oh God! The pain. It was beyond horrible.

  It's over now, brother. There is no pain where you are now. Why did he kill you?

  I was…me and my brother had a boat. We were trading Druid furs and carvings for credits with the offworld merchant vessels.

  Aburra killed you for that?

  My brother… Where is he?

  I don't know.

  If he lives, please warn him. Aburra killed me to get rid of the competition.

  If I find him, I'll warn him. Do you know where a Slattie named Huff is hiding? I'm his friend.

  Yes! Huff. He hides with the Rebel movement on the island.

  The main
land? Nearby?

  Nearby.

  Thank you, brother. Go now to Great Mind.

  I…I feel a warmth…a loving hand is reaching out to me. Should I take it?

  Take it. That is Great Mind. Go to Him and fear not. All is well.

  Thank you, brother. I have to go now. He is calling me.

  Go in peace.

  His kwaii receded and was gone, absorbed into Great Mind's love.

  I lifted my head from my hands.

  That was a nice thing you did, Jules, Spirit sent.

  Do I score points for being my brother's keeper?

  He chuckled in my mind.

  I think, I sent, Syl 'Via is having a humanizing effect on you, Spirit.

  Let us hope, Terran Jules, he sent, that your mate Sophia manages a more prudent turn of your impulsive nature.

  I smiled. Let's hope. I broke the link, laid back down, and fell sleep.

  * * *

  It was morning as we sat around the cabin table, lost in our own thoughts, eating a breakfast of mock eggs, bacon, English muffins, and earthbrew, from the sous chef's Terran ingredients. I had told my friends about last night's visitation.

  “You sure, Superstar,” Chancey asked, “that it wasn't just a dream?”

  “Chance,” I said, “I think by now I know the difference between a dream and a tel send.” I dipped my English muffin into a sunnyside egg. When I looked up, I realized they were all staring at me.

  “I have a feeling,” I said as I chewed, “that with a thousand miles of continent to search, I think it's more likely–”

  “That he finds us,” Joe finished my thought and speared a piece of bacon with his fork. He studied the bacon while we waited for his next words. “Jules.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why don't you try to tel connect with Huff? You thought you reached him when we first arrived on Kresthaven. I think you're right. The candy wrapper was a message to tell us that he was in the vicinity. And your link last night told you that he's on the mainland, close by.”

  “What if we find him?” Bat looked around. “Are we going to stay and help the Rebellion, or do we fly the hovair to our ship and head back to Earth?”

  They all looked at me.