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  “Probably an elk or mule deer knocked some rocks loose,” he mumbled, blowing out a breath to again clear that wayward strand of hair from his eyes.

  The vapor of his breath in front of his face reminded him he was freezing. He turned and crouched to reach inside his shelter of gray ripstop nylon. The sweatshirt and down-filled vest he’d been using as a pillow were right there, still warm from his body heat. He slid them on over his T-shirt, grateful for the hug of warmth.

  There. Another sound, like falling bricks. His gaze swerved toward the outcrop of rock leading onto the cinder butte on his left. More rocks fell, and a thin but definite squeal, a soft grunt. Animal or human? He couldn’t tell, but he was very sure whatever was up there on the cinder butte was in trouble.

  * * * * *

  POVRESLE TRIED TO CONTROL her panic. She was stuck, the rocks that enclosed her leg and foot unyielding. Her pack and equipment lay just beyond her reach. She’d been foolish. Impulsive and foolish to venture into unknown territory alone.

  She had begged to come along on the cargo run, so much that the expedition leader had agreed. Retu H’renzek gave in, but only after making her promise a thousand times that she would stay in the protected area until he came back with the rest of the science team.

  But the natural beauty surrounding Povre had lured her with the force of a black hole sucking in all visible light. It was supposed to have only been a short walk. Something to work the kinks out of her legs. This was her first long trip with Exploration and she felt like she’d spent half her life in hypersleep aboard the starcruiser. First, in a dreamless semi-death and at the mercy of the automated systems. Then, once revived, confined by the dimensions of the ship for several months as they approached this solar system and this intriguing blue-green world.

  Her intentions to be the good Exploration scientist and follow orders had vanished as quickly as the small shuttle had disappeared, leaving her alone. Maybe it was the fresh, natural air, which filled her with tingling resonance from toes to hair and made her want to jump and run. All she remembered, exactly, was that prowling the limitations of the shield emitters wasn’t enough. And that she had stopped long enough to think that taking a light pack and a few tools in order to collect a few rock, soil, and plant samples would be a good idea. She would stay close, within sight of the landing spot. Surely that wouldn’t hurt. She would be back inside the protective circle in a few minutes with no one the wiser.

  So, holding her breath, she took the first few, tentative steps outside the barrier. No alarms went off. She didn’t vaporize. At first, she was careful, but soon she was so enraptured that she stopped paying attention. Oh, how cool and sweet and natural the air! How brilliant this planet’s little dead moon.

  This wasn’t the first time her people visited had visited this world, but this was Povre’s first time. Having lived in space most of her life, she had never before seen stars twinkle through atmosphere. The brilliant display and unusual patterns continually demanded her appreciative attention skyward. Nor could she stop admiring the rich and varied plant forms, although she understood this was the winter season and many plant, insect, and animal forms were dormant until the warmer days.

  How she regretted her impulsive action now. She couldn’t even use the short-range comm-unit on her belt, not unless she wanted to ensure being in even more trouble than she was already. It was forbidden to activate comm devices outside the protection of a shield emitter. Besides, no one was in range to hear her immediately, and the signal would take forever to reach the ship without any sort of boosting.

  She wanted nothing better than to curl around her injured limb and wail her frustration. Shivers rattled her so hard that more small rocks tumbled away, making her squeal in fear that the entire slope would collapse. She longed to see a friendly face. Even Retu H’renzek’s constant scowl—and the severe scolding he would be sure to give her—would be a comfort. But there was no one else to rely on. If she wanted to survive, she had to get her leg free and reach her pack. Once she managed that, she’d soon be out of this mess.

  “I was careless. I was impulsive. I wasn’t paying attention. Oh Goddess, get me out of this, and back to camp, before they come back and find me gone!” She hoped the Goddess would hear, even though she was far from home. She knew what would happen if she did not make it back before the others returned. But knowing what would happen if she didn’t make it back to camp at all far outweighed her desire to avoid a reprimand.

  She strained toward her pack, her every effort concentrated on making her arm longer than it was. Her position was bad, precarious at best. Even her slightest motions caused the loose rocks beneath her to shift, the larger ones to squeeze her leg harder and tighter than before. Another sound of pain escaped and she bit her lip.

  Then a different noise made her motions freeze. She yanked her vision upward just as a shadow fell over her. An ominous, tall figure in black, outlined by the light reflected from the luminous satellite overhead. One of the figure’s appendages moved closer, reaching toward her. Povre screamed.

  The shadow let out a startled bellow of its own and quickly disappeared.

  * * * * *

  KENT SHOOK HIS HEAD AND pushed himself onto his hands and knees. He winced. Damned rocks, some were sharp. And what was that? He thought he glimpsed huge tilted eyes, dark and terrified in the moonlight; a delicate face. Something wasn’t quite right with the picture but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. The scream had scared the heck out of him, coming so unexpectedly he’d lost his precarious balance. Instead of making a silent, Indian-like approach, he made an ass-backward landing of supreme ungrace. Not to mention the parts of his anatomy which were sure to be bruised and possibly torn open.

  “L’enza?” a soft husky whisper came from the direction of his apparition. “Ar’enza? Etu zraken!”

  The words were foreign, but the tones behind them clear enough. No animal. Some person needed help.

  “Hello?” Kent cautiously got to his feet and started retracing his steps along the steep slope.

  Something like a sob answered him. “Etu zraken,” whispered the husky voice. “Etu.”

  Great. Sounded like someone was hurt. He hadn’t planned for his solitary foray into the Deschutes wilderness to turn into a rescue operation. He hadn’t seen or heard another person for a solid week. Good thing, too. After that horrendous split with that mercenary con artist he’d nearly married—

  Just thinking about Lynn brought a searing pain to his brain and guts. Things were complicated enough in his life before her betrayal. He’d applied for a rare opening in his department. A tenured position. He’d be called Professor Xavier. Still banished to a moldering office on the fourth floor of Onyx Hall, where all the programs without funding struggled for survival—but a tenured position nonetheless. And he was in the final round for consideration.

  After his blowout with Lynn, Kent canceled his last lecture before the start of Spring Break. He didn’t even wait for his departmental review. He gave an excuse of a family emergency and fled the University of Oregon and Eugene for his beloved forest. He hurt too badly to handle the friendly faces of the students eager to earn a few extra points to help their grades, or the politely distant attitudes of his colleagues as if they worried that their normal camaraderie might give him the wrong impression about his future position.

  And just being in town, seeing the places that he and Lynn had gone together: the hippie grocery store, Chen’s Chinese, 5th Street Market, everywhere he went, every place he saw, hurt. He’d even attempted to run up the steep trail at Mount Pisgah, hoping to release his turmoil with extreme exercise. All that gave him was shin splints, since he was so emotionally blinded he’d run the course in hiking boots instead of running shoes. No, staying around town was not an option. He needed out; needed a place where he felt safe and alone to get his head back together.

  The season was too early and cold for normal campers, and the location, accessible only by boat,
mountain bike, horse, or foot, was far removed from the river hotspots. No fishing or hunting season was open at the moment. So, Kent had the forest to himself. He made his notes and observations with the sarcastic self-excuse of another possible field manual: Extremely Early Spring in the Deschutes High Desert. His solitude was broken only by animals and birds—well, okay, the occasional airplane or helicopter.

  Until now.

  He spied the body huddled on the slope, half in, half out of a puddle of silver moonlight. Small puffs of vapor from warm breath rose in wraithlike spirals from the spot he guessed the person’s head to be.

  “Hello,” he called again, making himself sound quiet and calm, wanting to reassure the casualty. “Hey, there.”

  A shaggy head rose and the puffs of steam stopped for a few seconds.

  God, she was beautiful. The moonlight silvered her dark hair and face. It was a delicate face, wider at the forehead and tapering into a little pointed chin. Her nose, short and sweetly tilted, made her appear very young. Her huddled body, even clad in a loose-fitting dark jumpsuit of sorts, looked tall, yet somehow fragile.

  “Women,” he muttered under his breath. “More women to bother me.”

  “En’mak,” she said, gesturing, and Kent followed the motion to the spot where one slender leg disappeared from the knee down beneath several large yellow rocks and a pile of smaller ones. The other appeared folded beneath her.

  “Your leg?” Kent inched closer, careful not to send more of the loose scree moving. The rock, formed of compressed ash, didn’t have the heavy density of granite, but it was rock all the same, and her position wasn’t one from which she could get good leverage. “I hope it’s not broken.” He didn’t bring a phone, not that there was much chance of a signal in this spot, or a radio, and it was a good ten miles back to the spot he’d left his motorcycle. He doubted she had a phone, either. If she had, she would have certainly used it by now.

  “Do you speak English?” He felt a trace of her body heat through the unusual material covering her leg as he traced a path along the limb to the rocks holding it captive.

  She remained silent. He glanced to her face and saw the fear and trepidation growing though the apparent pain.

  He tried something different. “Français? Español? Uh, German, Greek?” Her body shivered steadily and he could feel her trembling under his hand. “Latin? Well, scientific names aren’t going to do much by way of introduction.”

  He carefully lifted a rock, set it aside, reached for another. She said nothing. He glanced up. “You’re not deaf, are you?” He wondered how in the world they’d communicate if that were the problem. He only knew a little sign, and having watched interpreters in his lectures a couple of times, knew how sensitive deaf people could be about being treated like they were stupid. Like who could blame them?

  One of the rocks he’d shifted aside toppled and slid, making that familiar sharp, falling-brick clattering sound as it tumbled down the slope. The girl flinched.

  No, she wasn’t deaf. She just didn’t speak English.

  “You can breathe, you know,” remarked Kent, realizing the grumpy expression he felt on his face wasn’t presenting the reassurance he tried to project. He forced a smile. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  A small but definite curve trembled on her lips.

  A chilling gust of wind whipped around them. “Damn all amateurs to Holiday Inns,” he muttered. “What are you doing out here by yourself—in the middle of the night yet?” He glanced around. “You are by yourself, aren’t you?”

  He dislodged the rocks with care and revealed a narrow, booted foot. Kent frowned at the smooth bottoms. Not exactly what he would recommend for hiking. No wonder she slipped. And what was up with the blue glowing strips along the outer edges? “Good grief!” he muttered. “Fashions! What next? You’ll fit right in back on campus. But you’d better be able to tell people where you bought your boots.”

  His fingers probed and squeezed gently through the material covering her lower leg and foot. He murmured apologies for the tiny whimpers of pain that escaped her. “I have to make sure your bones aren’t seriously damaged. I don’t think anything is broken.” He demonstrated with his hand. “So I’m going to guess a bad bruise or a sprain. Let’s hope so.”

  “Jasr’re ene,” whispered the girl.

  Kent liked the husky lilt of her voice and wished he understood the exotic-sounding words. “She could be telling you to take a flying leap for all you know,” he mumbled. Don’t fall for another female schemer, he thought. Get her off this butte and she could take a flying leap herself. Her and the rest of her sex. Manipulating, conniving, take a guy for a ride with fluttering eyelashes and sweet talk.

  She shrank back just a bit from the glare he turned her way, making Kent feel a bit guilty. “Jasre’ene,” she said again, with a curious half-nod and downward sweep of her dark fluttering lashes.

  After considering her tone and action, he decided she was thanking him. He listened closer to her soft syllables. Didn’t sound like any Japanese or Asian language he’d ever heard, although that little head action resembled a nod of respectful politeness.

  “Nihon ga wakarimasu ka?” tried Kent. “Do you understand Japanese? Apparently not. Well, good thing for me, because my pronunciation is awful, or so I was told, and that’s all I know. Besides those words I need to know for ordering sushi, of course. I’ll take you to my camp, since you can’t tell me where yours is. Then again maybe you’re so disorganized you don’t even have one.”

  He offered his hands to help her rise. “No, no, don’t thank me. You can’t walk on this anyway. Come daylight we’ll try to figure this out. Right now, we’re both tired. You’re hurt. My camp is close and better yet—I know where it is. Neither of us will do any more stumbling around over moon shadows.” He plastered a friendly and helpful look on his face.

  “Aken’or ene, etu?” A gesture from a long, slender arm had Kent search for the object or place in question. He spied the inky bulk of what, at first, looked like another rock. Shifting his angle, he made out a backpack of some sort, just out of her reach. He grabbed it, surprised how heavy it was. He slung it across his shoulder and wondered if he was to carry both pack and girl.

  “Come on,” he said. “Just move slow and steady, no sudden moves, or we’ll both go sliding.” Again, he held his hands toward her.

  She stared at them for a moment, as if she’d never seen hands before. Kent wondered if his fingers might be the problem. Maybe they were dirty or something. Maybe one of his fingers got mashed into a pulp moving the rocks around and he just hadn’t noticed yet. Before he could pull back to look for himself, her arms lifted, rustling the odd cloth with the sifting sound of granular snow, and her hands, palms up and open-fingered, reached for him.

  It was his turn to stare at her hands and her long, graceful fingers. They were thin. There seemed to be something wrong with her nails. But that wasn’t what suddenly stopped the breath in his throat.

  There were fingers, yes. Six of them on each hand. Twelve all together.

  “What the—?”

  The girl’s hands were deceptively strong and closed over his before he could pull back, and instead of his retreat, his instinctive motion caused her long slim body to come upright. The rocks below gave a bit and both nearly fell—she trying to balance on one leg, and he scrambling to recover his wits.

  * * * * *

  'POVRE'S GONE," SAID JENN when she reported to the landing team’s commander.

  “Gone?”

  She pushed a hand through her hair, dislodging the decorative band she always wore. “Her gear is missing.”

  “That’s it, then,” said Commander H’renzek. “We leave right now. Break camp.”

  “We just got here,” protested another.

  “Pack it up!”

  She stood firm as the others scrambled to obey. When H’renzek took that tone of voice, no one dared to question him. Except Jenn. Povre was her best friend. She kn
ew Povre would stand up for her. “Commander, shouldn’t we try to contact her?”

  “They can pick up our transmissions made outside the shield,” said the commander, cutting Jenn short.

  She bit her lip at the bitter harshness of his tone. “Commander—”

  “Pack it up, Technician Jennsle.” He loomed over her in the moonlit clearing. “Or I’ll pack for you when we get back aboard ship.”

  Jenn swallowed. “Yes, Commander.”

  He stomped away, grabbing up a heavy case even as he continued his tirade. “Three hundred orbital revolutions of this planet around its primary and not one of us has ever been lost or discovered. We can’t afford to have one person ruin things for us all. Dr. Povresle knew the rules. She knows the consequences. For now she’s on her own. Now hurry, I’ve just been informed there are native lifesigns nearby. Move!”

  “Jennsle’s right,” one of the younger technicians dared to say.

  “We can’t leave her for the natives to find, Commander,” protested one of the older scientists. “You’ve heard what they do, what they’ve done to others. We’ve seen it in the files. It’s always on their communication networks.”

  “Povre is crew, like any of us, and subject to the same rules. I can’t jeopardize the rest of us and our mission for anyone. She knows the consequences. Anyone else want to be left behind with her?” H’renzek glared around at his small company.

  Without another word, they continued packing.

  Only Jenn stood for two more breaths, her throat aching and eyes dry with emotion. Surely he couldn’t mean it.

  But there was no quarter in the commander’s flat stare.

  Finally, she obeyed.