As the door slammed shut behind Bedemnos's loathsome chuckle, Doyaal held his breath. The solid clunk of the lock falling into place sounded like a death-knell.
The chamber into which he'd been thrown had a barbed floor, the tangs half as long as his thumb and needle-sharp. Upright, and without standard ILEA footwear, they'd have punctured his hooves within minutes, crippling him. But he'd fallen onto his side, hardly feeling the barbs sliding into his flesh in the overwhelming pain of the last five day's 'treatment'.
Breathing was agony. He knew he had cracked ribs, both upper and lower, but didn't think anything was broken. Yet, anyway. His upper heart was racing: the lower had slowed slightly to compensate, making him feel light-headed and heavy-limbed. The welts across his body were raw and painful, but were negligible compared to the gashes on his back and shoulders. So far they hadn't actively tried to break any of his limbs - but remembering the state Beauday had been in when they'd found him...
It had all started off so normally. Beauday had gone off-duty early for once, and arranged to meet his partner at a local hostelry as soon as Doyaal had finished interrogation duty. Nothing too unusual there. He'd been out of uniform and weaponless, which was also fairly normal for Beauday. Koorlee wasn't too keen on his 'taurs going unarmed, but accepted that Beauday, at least, could take care of himself. And, having nowhere to stow a weapon when out of uniform, his not carrying was certainly more reassuring for the general populace.
When Doyaal had arrived at The Humping Hinny, his partner was nowhere to be seen. The servitors behind the 'bar' (an innovation newly imported from Terra, and proving quite popular on Czy Prime) hadn't seen him.
"You sure, petel?" He gave the petite Hafnan one of his famous smiles, and it blushed charmingly.
"Oo, noo. Boodee, he noo coom inn toodee."
Doyaal had nodded and thanked it, not seriously worried. Knowing Beauday, he'd been distracted by something - or someone - and forgotten the time. The hunter ordered himself a drink and settled himself to wait.
Three nokyoklin®s later he was still waiting, and anxiety was setting in. Distracted or not, it was definitely not like Beauday to miss out on his drinking time. Nor to worry his partner like this. The hunter gestured to the servitor.
"Can I borrow your vidcom for a mo?"
The Hafnan handed it over, and Doyaal tried their home. No answer. Beauday hadn't dropped in to HQ - no-one there had seen him. On the remote offchance the heavy had actually remembered to take his communicator with him, Doyaal even tried their personal frequency. Nothing.
Frowning, he handed the vidcom back with a nod of thanks, and headed back to HQ.
Lookuss raised his aciniform head from the computer he was planted in and frowned.
"Nothing...." His voice sounded like the wind through grass. Doyaal peered over his shoulder, but the hieroglyphics on the Grubbitian's monitor made no sense to him.
"The herk's got to be somewhere." he muttered under his breath.
They'd been trying to track down the heavy for the last three hours, to no avail. He seemed to have disappeared from the face of the planet. Finally, reluctantly, Doyaal reported to Koorlee...
Who instigated a full scale alert...
After three days' fruitless searching they'd finally struck lucky: a vagrant Hgnos had seen a 'taur answering Beauday's description in conversation with a filly not far from the shuttle port. The vagrant had obviously been struck by the filly's looks and was able to describe her well enough for them to track her down - and under interrogation she finally admitted she'd been paid to lure 'taurs for Bedemnos.
Doyaal and Koorlee had stared at each other for an instant, horrified, then sprung into action, fully aware that it could easily be too late...
When they'd finally caught up with Bedemnos, he had, effectively, laughed in their faces. The Ostlacchin was huge, very rich, very successful, and believed himself untouchable. He'd made his first fortune in those (fortunately few) quadrants where slavery was still legal, later moving into other and marginally more respectable spheres in other parts of the galaxy. He allowed Doyaal, Banson, Fcloi and Chibri free access to search his luxurious cruiser - but of course there was no sign of Beauday.
The cruiser's captain had sneered as he handed over the cruiser's itinerary, obviously not worried in the least - which was understandable if the rumours about Bedemnos's treatment of his personal slaves were true. The lucky ones died. The others might as well have...
Growing ever more frantic, Doyaal had backtracked along the cruiser's route, going on instinct as much as logic. Heavily populated planets he dismissed, which left seven wilderness worlds to check. From orbit around the second of these, the biotech picked up the faint but unmistakable signal of Beauday's subcutaneous tracer.
By the time they'd found him, Beauday had been missing and in Bedemnos's tender care for one entire orbital period, and it was a miracle he was still alive. His first sight of his partner's broken and abused body would stay with Doyaal forever, and had given him nightmares for a year.
He closed his eyes, reliving the moment he'd floundered into the stagnant mud of that hideous swamp. His partner was, somehow, still conscious, and had looked up at him with glazed eyes, whimpering. That sound, more than anything else, terrified him. Beauday always suffered in silence... As he cradled the heavy's head, stroking his mane and murmuring nonsense to try and soothe him, the human medics had checked him over briefly, their faces grim, then called in a couple of m'taurs to help lift and carry him to the shuttle.
Beauday had lapsed into unconsciousness, the pain of being moved simply too much to bear. Doyaal had stayed with him, one hand buried in his mane as the medics scanned him more thoroughly.
It was very bad. His arms and legs had each been methodically broken in two places. A shoulder and a hind hip had been dislocated, and a lower lung punctured by broken ribs. And he'd been partially flayed, skin and pelt hanging in strips from his back and flanks. He'd never been able to tell them how long he'd been in the swamp, hanging onto life by the slenderest of threads, but it must have been for several days at least. Or so the medic had said, his face blank and shocked at the extent of Beauday's injuries as he struggled to remove the mud-dwelling, blood-gorged parasites that had infested the open wounds on the heavy's emaciated body. There were internal injuries too, but the medics wouldn't talk about them - at least not to Doyaal...
Fury and grief warring in him, Doyaal hadn't moved from his partner's side in the anti-gravity recovery unit, first on the shuttle and later in the medical centre, until he knew the heavy was out of immediate danger - and even then only to report briefly back to Koorlee. A full debriefing would have to wait until Beauday was conscious again. The hunter had arrived back at the medical centre a couple of hours later to find Beauday semi-conscious, delirious and struggling with the medics, who were trying to restrain him without causing more injury - a hopeless task, even in anti-grav and with the heavy so appallingly injured... Doyaal had raced into the unit and caught his partner's burningly hot face (the only part of him not hurt - Bedemnos seemed to have a strange reluctance to marring faces he found attractive) between his hands.
"Beauday. Beauday - listen to me, mate. You're safe. You're OK."
The heavy stopped thrashing and half-opened fever-bright eyes.
"D - Doyaal?"
"I'm here, mate. You're safe."
Beauday slumped, his eyes closing. Doyaal glanced at the medics, who were examining the heavy's hindquarters with worried expressions. The hunter frowned apprehensively.
"What's wrong?"
One of the medics shook his head, face grim.
"Infection."
"What infection?"
The medic beckoned him closer. Doyaal took one look at the suppurating mess where Bedemnos's brand had seared deeply into his partner's flesh and quickly closed his eyes, retching silently, trying to control his horror.
"Can you..." He swallowed and tried again. "Will you have to...?"
The medic hesitated.
"We'll do everything in our power to avoid it, of course. But it doesn't look good."
Doyaal glanced at his partner, quiescent now, if shifting uneasily, in pain. Beauday didn't respond well to analgesics and the medics were wary of giving him too much. The hunter bit his lip. Beauday, gelded? It was too sickening to think about. He tried to imagine the heavy's reaction, but it was beyond him. He resumed his place at his partner's side, sleepless with worry, watching over him...
Doyaal shuddered against the chill floor, the barbs working deeper into his flesh. Beauday had survived, and whole - but the heavy had been bred for strength, stamina and endurance. Doyaal, at only half his size and less than half his weight, was a hunter, light, fast and agile. And a lot more delicate. He knew he wouldn't survive the treatment Bedemnos had inflicted upon his partner. But so far he hadn't found the Aethan...
And he was damned if he was going to give up! A surge of icily passionate hatred - for Beauday's suffering, for the deaths of colleagues on Bedemnos's orders, for the whole sickening organisation the slaver had built on other people's misery - overcame his fears for himself. He ran his tongue over the emergency transmitter temporarily implanted in the roof of his mouth. He'd be OK. Beauday was near. Two sharp presses and the special services ship would appear from the Shadows, disgorge its cargo of armed and deadly officers, and take over the cruiser. Bedemnos would be finished. The Jalingl Emperor would see to that.
As long as he was able to activate the transmitter...
© 2000 (June) Joules Taylor
© 2000-2005 WaveWrights.
The name is a rough transliteration of the original. Hinny is pirenan slang for a female/neuter Falaladalididdle (more details here) And humping Hinny? Och, use your imagination...! Back
A flagon of plafberry-flavoured nokyoklin(r). His preferred tipple, in case you ever want to buy him a drink. But be warned - it doesn't have the same effect on 'taurs as it does on humans.... More details here. Back
Not the same Lookuss as the Lookuss at CI5 (more details here). All males from Grubbit 4 are called Lookuss. It causes confusion, sometimes... Back