WIFE-STEALING TIME

by R. Garcia y Robertson

Rod Garcia tells us that his twenty-year-old daughter Erin has just returned from spending four months in Panama studying tropical birds and cathching poison arrow frogs with her bare hands. His own life is not so adventurous. He is completing a historical fiction novel about Mary Magdalene’s Daughter, currently titled Magdalene’s Daughter, which combines the gospels with Roman and Jewish historians. He’s also working on a new series of science fiction stories set in modern America.

PRETTY BOTTOM

SinBad sat in the lee of his stalled sand sail, feeding a thornbrush fire, listening as ba’aths called to each other over the dark sward. They had smelled his fire on the night wind, a whole hunting pride from the well spaced cries, out looking for a late snack.

Too bad. Tonight’s wind was dead against him. He had a cargo for Kaol, a couple of hundred haads to the east, a legal cargo even, offworld nanoelectronics, but a fitful easterly breeze kept him from making any headway.

Ba’ath calls got louder, closer. Reaching over his shoulder, into the sand sail’s cargo bay, SinBad unshipped his repeating crossbow, cranking back the bow. Claw marks on the tough skeel-wood stock were unpleasant reminders of his last close encounter with a ba’ath. He slid in a clip of six explosive bolts, hearing the satisfying click.

SinBad had nothing against ba’aths. Even hungry ones. Leo barsoom, the big black-maned Barsoomian lion, was a dozen sofads long, a bio-engineered carnivore twice the size of Numa on Old Earth, ending in twin sets of sabertooth canines. Megafauna require mega-predators.

Aiming to be at best a mini-meal, SinBad settled in between the sand sail’s tricycle tires, his cocked crossbow pointed at the night. Half a haad behind him glowed the fires of a nomad camp. Red men. Crows, from their tall hourglass shaped tipis. Being a Huron outcast, SinBad had not hurried to introduce himself. Now it was too late. Thuria was up, and the Slaver Moon made the usually friendly Crow wary of strangers.

As the fire sank down to embers, SinBad pulled his sleeping furs tighter, then flicked his sand goggles to night vision, peering into the infrared, seeing by Thuria light. Slavers had made Barsoom’s inner moon highly reflective, so they could scan the planet’s surface more closely at night.

Nothing moved. Aside from some ghostly acacia trees, swaying in the wind.

Ba’ath calls slackened, replaced by mounting boredom, while the strange stars of Carthoris system wheeled overhead. Thuria set, and the Crow camp stirred behind him. Fear alone kept SinBad from drifting off.

Then he saw a silver form slither out from beneath a wait-a-bit thorn tree, barely thirty sofads away. Too small to be a full-grown ba’ath, the lithe shape stayed low to the ground, creeping toward him. Juvenile ba’ath? Dire wolf ? Jackal? At full charge a ba’ath covered thirty sofads faster than you can say it—if this was a ba’ath.

He shifted his crossbow to cover the approaching shape with the cold sight. Dark metal formed a sharp black V, blotting out the infrared glow. His finger found the curved trigger.

Even in the dark, he was a decent shot at this range. Explosive bolts made any hit hurt. By holding down the trigger, while working the cocking lever, he could empty his clip in a quarter xat.

Whatever was coming froze, as if it could feel his intent through the darkness.

Predators and prey had a psychic relationship. At a sward waterhole south of Ptarth, he once saw steppe gazelle grazing beside some sleeping ba’aths. Suddenly, the grazers bolted, disappearing into dawn fog. Presently the ba’aths perked up, starting to yawn, stretch, and sniff the wind. The gazelles had sensed the carnivore’s hunger, before the ba’aths themselves.

Without warning, the shape in the dark hissed at him, “Sush. Outcast. Do not shoot.”

Hastily, he lowered his bow. It was a woman’s voice, a young woman. Pretty, too, from the sound of her. Sex offenders also had psychic links to their prey. “Who are you?”

“Pretty Bottom,” the woman replied, confirming his instincts. Lest he get any ideas, she added, “Third wife to Alligator Stands Up.”

SinBad had heard of him, an aging Crow war chief, with a famously young harem. “Kaor, Pretty Bottom.”

Standing up, a buxom black-braided teenager in beaded buckskins strolled into the firelight. SinBad could not see her bottom, but the rest of her was enticing, from her dark smiling eyes, to the bone-handled skinning knife tucked into her calf-length boot. Old Alligator Stands Up had notoriously sweet taste in wives. “Kaor, outcast.”

SinBad set aside his crossbow, still cocked. “How do you know I am an outcast?”

“Why else would you be sitting alone in the dark?” Pretty Bottom wrinkled her pert nose. “I can smell it on you, along with the fear. Sex offenses, right?”

He nodded. Too true.

“Is that why you are shaking?”

“I nearly shot you.” That still had him rattled. “What are you doing, sneaking about at night?”

She laughed. “Silly, it is Wife Stealing Time.”

“Already?” He would be late getting to Kaol.

Setting her namesake down by the fire, Pretty Bottom asked, “Isn’t that why you are here?”

Hardly. “I was headed for Kaol, when the wind failed.” Right at Wife Stealing Time, half a haad from a Crow camp. Why did these things always happen to him? His parole specified that he could not come within a thousand sofads of a commercial sex operation, fertility festival, or communal orgy. Technically, Wife Stealing Time was none of these, but try telling that to a judge. Especially a married one.

Ba’aths called in the blackness. SinBad reached for his crossbow, but a slim hand stopped him. Her brown fingers felt firm and exciting.

“Just ba’aths.” Pretty Bottom seemed totally unconcerned by a pride of sabertoothed killers. “Afraid they want to eat you?”

“Maybe.” Not him personally perhaps, but they were out flesh shopping.

His visitor smirked. “They are not that hungry.”

“Let’s hope so.” He kept the cocked crossbow within reach.

“Here, this will help.” Pretty Bottom got up, dusted off her buckskinned butt, then wiggled into his sleeping furs, totally taking his mind off the prowling ba’aths. Pretty Bottom was barely into her teens, Barsoom years, twice as long as those on Old Earth. Ten years younger than him. But that did not stop her. She whispered, “You are scared. I am cold. This will please us both.”

“I’m not that scared,” he protested, unlacing her buckskins.

Pretty Bottom slyly stroked his crotch. “See, it’s working already.”

It was. How weird that young women like her had such power over men, especially men like him. He had been running late on a trip to Kaol, risking his on-time bonus, beset by starved ba’aths, afraid for his life. Suddenly none of that mattered. Not a bit. He reminded Pretty Bottom, “I am twice your age.”

“And half my husband’s.” Pretty Bottom was aching to feel younger flesh. His even, absurd as that seemed. Who was he to complain?

Pushing up Pretty Bottom’s buckskins, SinBad saw she deserved her name. No rawhide nomad underwear, just bare enticing flesh.

“So tell me about your sex crimes,” she suggested, sliding her hand inside his loincloth.

He shrugged. “Unnatural copulation, aiding in adultery, cohabiting with lesbians, that sort of thing.”

Pretty Bottom sniffed. “I hoped for something spicy.”

“You can learn a lot from lesbians,” SinBad protested.

“Or from living in a crowded tipi.” She snuggled closer. “You are already aiding in adultery.”

“I am?”

“It is Wife Stealing Time. Anyone who hides me is committing that crime.”

Wife Stealing time was two weeks in the spring when Crow romeos were free to kidnap wives they had seduced during the year. Then their own wives and girlfriends would dress the victims up, so their paramours could parade them around camp, showing off their success with other men’s wives. Unmarried women and faithful wives were immune. Husbands could do nothing to interfere. Guilty wives had to flee the village, bedding down with the ba’aths and jackals. There was no embarrassment in being eaten. “Alligator Stands Up is smoking in his lodge. He will lose his standing if he comes after me.”

“How many wives does old Alligator have?” SinBad asked.

“Eight.” Enough Panthans to play Jetan. “Half of them are hiding out. Leaving just old wives, and young favorites to pound his meat and flatten his sleeping furs.”

Since poor neglected Pretty Bottom had already done the crime, and made him her accomplice, SinBad saw no sense being shy. Slipping off his loincloth, he prepared to put her most famous asset to use. But his partner in crime preferred natural copulation. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I am pregnant.”

Nature’s best birth control, already knocked up. He ran a hand over the smooth curve of her belly, which was just starting to swell. “Did Old Alligator stand up?”

“Not for me,” she sighed. “My baby is from the scout, Goes Ahead.”

Who got in ahead of her husband. Old Alligator’s loss. Pretty Bottom was full of youthful, guilt-free enthusiasm, which was plainly going to waste. SinBad had never had so much fun breaking parole.

Afterward they slept, wrapped in his sleeping furs. Near to dawn, she nudged him. “Listen?”

He heard nothing. “What?”

“Do you hear the ba’aths?”

“No.” He had totally forgotten about the toothy cats.

“They have made their kill.” Pretty Bottom kicked off the furs, pulling on her beaded boots. Then she stood up, drawing her skinning knife, looking incredibly fetching in just the calf-length boots.

He hated to see her leave. “Where are you going?”

“To get breakfast.”

“By driving ba’aths from their kill?”

“No,” she replied coyly, “by convincing them to share.”

He grabbed his crossbow, starting to get up. “Let me come with you.”

She shook her head. “They would not like that.”

“Probably not,” he admitted.

“Then get the fire going again, and leave the ba’aths to me.” With that she walked off into the chill of first light, without looking back. He hoped she returned in one pretty piece. On less than a day’s acquaintance, SinBad could already tell what Alligator Stands Up saw in her. Goes Ahead, too.

Blood-red day broke over the slowly terraforming landscape, sand and sward, dotted with acacias, and wait-a-bit thorn trees. SinBad relit his fire, listening for ba’ath calls, but hearing only birdsong. Dawn wind blew in the wrong direction. He was worried and hungry, and Thuria would be up soon, adding to his troubles. If Pretty Bottom survived her breakfast with ba’aths, he would have to hide her from the Slaver Moon.

Before he could fret himself completely into a stupor, Pretty Bottom sauntered back into camp, carrying a fresh hunk of moropus haunch, saying, “This is all they would part with.”

He took the bloody meat, handing her a washcloth. “I feared for you.”

“Needlessly,” she noted, wiping moropus blood off her body.

SinBad cooked the meat on thorn bush skewers, while Pretty Bottom wriggled back into her fringed buckskins. When the meat was done, he told her, “Thuria is rising. We need to find a safe place to eat.”

Pretty Bottom agreed, “First I must get my possible sack. I left it in a tree.”

Burying his precious cargo, he made a place for Pretty Bottom on the back of his sand sail. She returned with her beaded possible sack, the Red woman’s leather purse. Settling in behind him, she asked, “What do they call you?”

“SinBad.”

She grinned at him. “That’s a lie. You sin very well.”

Unfurling the sail, he headed off downwind, looking for a hiding place. Not easy to find on the flat mossy sward that covered most of Barsoom. But he had to do it soon, ahead of the Slaver Moon. Pretty Bottom faced kidnapping and worse, while Slavers would kill him out of hand.

Finally, he found a spot, a stretch of grassy steppe, cut by a dry wadi, with a high bank on the Thuria side. There was no way to hide the sand sail, so SinBad parked it at the head of the wadi, telling Pretty Bottom, “I’ll carry you from here.”

“Really?” She looked shocked. Nomad women regularly carried men’s things, but were never carried about by men.

“We cannot leave a line of women’s bootprints for Slavers to follow.”

She agreed with a giggle, more embarrassed by being picked up than by serial adultery. Barsoom’s light gravity made it easy, but by the time they reached the wadi, Thuria was breaking the horizon. Slaver macroscopes were already sweeping the landscape for victims, able to see anything, even the eye color of any woman silly enough to gaze at Barsoom’s nearer moon.

Sure enough. Huddled against the high bank, he heard the boom of an orbital shuttle breaking atmosphere, followed by the whoosh of the ship settling down next to his abandoned sand sail. But there was no woman, no cargo, nothing to tempt the Slavers to follow his heat trail into the wadi. Instead they took off again. Slavers knew it was Wife Stealing Time, and had their hands full, combing the area around the Crow camp for errant wives in hiding.

SinBad settled back, chewing on roast moropus. Pretty Bottom asked, “Are they gone?”

“Hope so.” He was not about to look. Macroscopes would be trained on the wadi bank, searching for human prey. Thanks to the Greenies, offworld weapons were banned on Barsoom, forcing the natives to make do with bows and swords. Slavers had line-of-sight lasers and orbit-to-surface missiles. They could pick you off without ever leaving Thuria.

Sighing, Pretty Bottom relaxed against him. “You have been nice to me.”

“You too.” More than nice.

“It is not easy, being third wife to Alligator Stands Up.”

“Or Goes Ahead’s girlfriend,” he reminded her.

“Even worse.” She grimaced. “Goes Ahead just wants to parade me through camp, to embarrass my chieftain, and bolster his pride.”

Everyone had plans for her, including him. Though his would have to wait until Thuria set. Making love in a wadi was not very practical, especially with Slavers watching.

Instead they waited, while Thuria hurtled overhead. SinBad noticed several pugmarks in the sandy wadi, one quite large. He pointed them out to the young nomad. “Ba’ath?”

“Two ba’aths,” she replied. “Mother and cub.”

“You can tell that from these tracks?”

“Yes.” Pretty Bottom read the spoor as if it were a sensor readout. “The mother was teaching the cub to hunt. She trapped a young gazelle against the bank of the wadi, where they played with it for awhile. Then they killed it, and went off that way, carrying the dead gazelle.”

Looking closer, SinBad saw the smaller prints among the pugmarks, jumbled and frantic, as the terrified gazelle bounded about before being killed and eaten. Like the moropus they had for breakfast.

Thuria set. By now the east wind had fallen, leaving him totally becalmed. Too bad. He would not start for Kaol today. Luckily, he had someone to occupy his time. Loosening his loincloth, he ran a hand up under her fringed buckskins.

Pretty Bottom arched a dark eyebrow. “What? You want more?”

“Oh, yes.” Who would not?

She feigned surprise. “Last night you were so wary.”

“You are even more beautiful by day.”

“I am?” Pretty Bottom purred.

“You know you are.” SinBad never lied to women, especially one so handy with a skinning knife.

Pleased to have found a man who appreciated the obvious, Pretty Bottom let him lift her buckskins. This was Wife Stealing Time. Next week, it would be back to neglect and adultery.

Before he even got started there was the boom of a shuttle breaking atmosphere. SinBad froze in mid-ravish, looking up at a silver streak falling out of the cloudless sky. This was an old Slaver trick, to leave a ship trailing in orbit, to see who broke cover when Thuria went down. And he had fallen for it.

“What was that?” his paramour asked.

“Nothing nice.” Rolling off her, he pushed Pretty Bottom back up against the bank. Too little, too late. He heard the whoosh of a lander settling in the long grass. What now?

Pretty Bottom whispered, “Slavers?”

“Probably.” Certainly not Goes Ahead, looking for a lost girlfriend to decorate. He cocked his crossbow, for all that would do against lasers and sleep gas grenades. Pretty Bottom drew her skinning knife. They waited.

Nothing happened, at first. He sat there, clinging to his crossbow, mentally counting tals. If they were coming for him, it would be quick. Slavers did not like to linger, once Thuria had set.

Expecting Slavers, he was shocked to have an angel flitter into view; a silver-wigged beauty, wearing glitter paint, white solar-powered wings, and a shining jeweled G-string. Silver-plated nipples shone in the sun.

Neither he nor Pretty Bottom knew what to say. Landing in an ivory flutter of artificial flight feathers, the silver-skinned woman said, “Kaor. We come in peace.”

Tourist. And unarmed. That much was obvious. “Kaor,” SinBad replied, setting aside his crossbow. He had to stop pointing it at pretty women. “We were going to come in peace. Then you arrived.”

“I did not mean to interrupt,” the silver woman protested. “Please continue your copulation. I hear it is spring on this planet. What you locals call Wife Stealing Time.”

Only if you are Crow. “Is that why you came here?”

“Oh no.” The offworlder shook her head. “We are here to hunt.”

“What?” asked Pretty Bottom suspiciously, still holding her knife.

“Ba’aths.”

SinBad grimaced. “This is the place.”

“These are Crow hunting grounds,” Pretty Bottom pointed out. “You need to pay my people.”

“Oh, I am not hunting.” Silver-lashed eyes rolled. “My husband is.”

“Then he must pay.”

“Well, I am sure he will,” the offworlder promised.

“Now.” Pretty Bottom stood up, brushing off her buckskins, looking about. “Where is he?”

SinBad broke cover as well, looking up over the bank, seeing a squat, shining orbital yacht, surrounded by a flickering energy fence. Their offworld guest seemed suddenly sorry to disturb their tryst. Spying on the locals was not so fun when natives started making demands.

“Let us go.” Pretty Bottom still held the skinning knife. “I am Pretty Bottom. My husband is Alligator Stands Up, war chieftain of the Kick Belly Crow.”

Silver-wig turned to SinBad. “Is that you?”

Pretty Bottom laughed at the notion. “He is a Huron outcast, a sex criminal.”

“Oh.”

“It is Wife Stealing Time.”

“So he stole you?” Silver-wig meant him.

Pretty Bottom snorted. “No one stole me.”

“And that is good?” Silver-wig did not want to make another silly mistake.

“Of course.” There seemed to be no end to offworld foolishness. “Would you want to be stolen?”

“No,” Silver-wig admitted.

“Then beware,” SinBad warned. “Thuria rise is only a zode away.”

“Thuria?”

“Slavers,” he explained.

“Oh. We have missiles,” she replied brightly.

Both Red Barsoomians rolled their eyes. Pretty Bottom tucked the knife back in her boot, and went wading through the long grass toward the yacht, stopping at the sand sail to pick up her possible sack. SinBad followed, eyeing the grass tops, his crossbow out and cocked. This was ba’ath country, where your only sure warning was a twitch in the tall grass.

Silver-wig took off behind them, landing alongside the energy fence.

Even when he got to the fence, SinBad instinctively kept his back to the offworld camp, watching the grass. Ba’aths knew us, better than we knew them. Where we were, where we had been, where we slept, and where we relaxed. He would sooner turn his back on trigger-happy tourists, armed with lasers and Issus missiles.

Inviting them in, Silver-wig opened a fence section, but SinBad did not turn about until it resealed behind them. He found himself facing a typical Tourist hunting party preparing to go out, topping off canteens with home-brewed gin, and sighting in their lasers on distant objects. White apes squatted patiently, waiting to shoulder their loads. Their leaders were an expensive-looking gent in tiger-stripe body paint, with a heavy duty laser rifle, and his SuperCat guide.

This SuperCat, Homo smilodon, was a cross between humans and big cats, walking erect, with tawny fur, clawed hands, a stubby tail, tufted ears, bulging forehead, and sabertoothed canines—not as big as a ba’ath’s, but sufficiently scary. SinBad knew he was a local, since the SuperCat carried just a short stabbing spear.

Sliver-wig introduced them, saying, “This is Pretty Bottom, and her friend Huron. Meet my husband, Laird Islay of Islay.”

Laird Islay had to come from Paradise system at least, since no one closer than that would take light years out of their lives to stalk exotic predators. He stuck out a huge tiger-striped hand, saying, “Thanks for returning my wife. I hear they are in season.”

“Only for Crows,” SinBad corrected him. “I am Huron.”

“Outcast Huron,” Pretty Bottom added.

Islay winked at him, “Well, Huron, looks like you caught one anyway.”

Silver-wig giggled, “They were just going to mate, when I flew by.”

“Try not to hold it against us.” Islay of Islay slapped his wife’s silver rump. She smiled, lowering long gleaming lashes.

Her laird introduced the silent SuperCat, “This is Simba. We came to kill a few ba’aths, keep some of you from being eaten.”

Unimpressed, Pretty Bottom told them, “I am Crow. Pretty Bottom, wife to Alligator Stands Up, war chieftain of the Kick Bellys. You may not hunt without my permission.”

Islay must have offworld permits. Greenies did not care how many ba’aths humans killed. But his lairdship was sharp enough not to anger the locals, especially pretty promiscuous ones. “What can I give to get permission?”

“You may start by feeding us,” she suggested primly.

Snapping striped fingers, Islay of Islay ordered up a vegan feast of fresh fruit, roast tofu, curried rice and vegetables in peanut sauce, raisins, almond butter, apples, celery, and black bean burgers. Washed down with fruit juice. Pretty Bottom stared at a black bean burger, asking, “Where’s the meat?”

“Killing to eat is wrong,” Laird Islay informed her, while almond buttering a celery stalk.

Pretty Bottom shrugged, pulling out a strip of roast moropus to spice up her burger. Her hosts were aghast. The Crow thought they were crazy. “You came here to hunt.”

“Ba’aths. They are carnivores. Killing them saves countless sentient beings,” Silver-wig explained.

“You are not going to eat them?” Pretty Bottom looked scandalized. “Not even the heart?”

Tourists looked down at their tofu, saying nothing.

“Do you have a see-through sack?” Pretty Bottom asked. Given a seal-a-meal, she filled it with raisins and apples. “How about some silver cloth?”

They produced that too. “And a See-Me-Too.”

“She means a mirror,” SinBad explained, filling his canteen with fruit juice. He was Huron, so no one needed his permission to do anything. Not in Crow country.

Silver-wig produced a self-illuminating digital looking glass. Admiring her 3V reflection, Pretty Bottom told them, “Kill all the ba’aths you can.”

Sliver-wig saw them back through the energy fence, asking the Crow, “How did you get your name?”

“Pretty Bottom is a famous name in my family,” the Crow explained, shouldering her possible sack, now stuffed with loot. “My great-great-grandmother lured a Lakota war party into an ambush, and was given the name, ‘Bares her Pretty Bottom to the Enemy.’ Before that she was called Weasel.”

Made sense. SinBad asked her, “What was your baby name?”

“Beast.”

He believed it. Silver-wig felt sorry that lunch was less than a success, but Pretty Bottom spurned her apology, holding up the seal-a-meal. “These raisins are delightful. I can always get meat.”

All the vegan huntress could say was, “Good luck.”

As they waded back to the dry wadi, with SinBad’s crossbow cocked and aimed at the grass tops, Pretty Bottom told him, “I like her.”

“Who? Islay’s wife? Me too,” SinBad admitted, picturing pert silver nipples.

“I like her silver hair.” His Crow companion could be equally superficial.

“It’s a wig,” SinBad warned her, before she got too carried away.

“Really?” Pretty Bottom seemed even more intrigued.

When they got back to the wadi, SinBad was ready to resume what the offworlders interrupted, but Pretty Bottom would not have it, handing him the possible sack. “I have business in the brush.”

Without saying what it was, she strode off into the long grass. He called after her, “Be back before Thuria rise.”

She did not answer. Any woman who had breakfast with ba’aths was impossible to sway. He sat down by his sand sail, eating raisins, and keeping watch on the Tourist camp, hoping to catch sight of Silver-wig.

Sure enough, after a dozen xats, the energy fence opened, and Laird Islay of Islay strode out, his SuperCat guide at his side, followed by two more tiger-striped tourists, then a trio of White ape gunbearers. Silver-wig soared ahead, surveying the grass from buzzard height. Bon appetit, ba’aths.

When he could no longer see Silver-wig, SinBad sank back down to wait. Wind had shifted around to the southwest, fair for Kaol, but he was not going anywhere.

Thuria rise drew near, and Pretty Bottom came strolling up the wadi, asking, “Any raisins left?”

“Of course.” Time, though, was running low.

Grabbing a handful of raisins, she told him, “They’re back.”

He turned to see the hunters returning empty handed. Just as well. Silver-wig did a wingover, turning their way to land in the wadi, saying, “We did not see any ba’aths.”

“Good.” Pretty Bottom downed a handful of raisins.

Silver-wig looked hurt. “If you do not want us hunting, why did you give permission?”

“For raisins, shining cloth, apples, and a See-Me-Too.” Offworlders often missed the obvious. Giving them the right to hunt did not preclude rooting for the ba’aths.

“Have an apple,” SinBad suggested, to make Silver-wig more welcome. Rudeness to semi-nude women was against his religion.

Shaking her head, she spread her white primaries, saying, “That Slaver Moon will be up soon.”

Thuria rise was a couple of xats away. Which meant back to hiding behind the bank. Silver-wig took off, and SinBad asked his Crow companion, “I thought you liked her?”

“I like her wig.”

That too. He watched the offworlder wing her way over the grass, landing at the edge of the energy fence. As the fence opened, a tawny blur with a wild black halo burst out of the tall grass, landing on Silver-wig’s back, seizing her in great fanged jaws. Thuria topped the horizon. Silver-wig shrieked, then vanished into the long grass, carried away by a ba’ath.

HUNTING PARTY

Seizing his crossbow, SinBad shouted over his shoulder to Pretty Bottom, “Hide.”

Unable to see any sign of Silver-wig, he could still hear her screams. That was good. Screams and shrieks meant she was alive. Cocking the bow, he dashed back into the tall grass, hoping it was just one ba’ath, not a whole pride. At any moment, another ba’ath might leap out of the shag lawn to make a midday meal of him. Leo barsoom was like that, waste not want not.

When he got to the gap in the energy fence, the screams had stopped. Bad sign. He looked about, finding Pretty Bottom right behind him. “I told you to hide.”

“Thuria is up.” Pretty Bottom nodded at the horizon. Slavers had already seen her, so hiding was worse than useless. Now he had two women to worry about, one seized by a ba’ath, the other menaced by Slavers.

“Stick close.” Slavers had to wait, since a ba’ath would not. If he did not find Silver-wig in a xat or two, he never would.

There was a trail in the grass, strewn with solar cells and silver feathers. He bounded down it, to get to the ba’ath while it still had its jaws full. Hopefully, an explosive bolt up the butt would make it open up.

After a dozen ads, he came on a huge dent in the grass that looked like a kill site. Silver feathers lay all about. Laird Islay and his SuperCat were already there, staring into the grass, Islay cradling a laser rifle, Simba hefting his assegai. Seeing him, Islay asked, “Huron. Have you seen her?”

SinBad shook his head, not taking his gaze off the surrounding grass.

“No blood,” said Islay hopefully.

Simba nodded. “She has not begun to feed.”

“She?” Islay arched an eyebrow.

“From the tracks I would say an adult female, three years old or so.” Simba meant Barsoom years.

Tals ticked away, taking with them any hope of finding Silver-wig alive. Islay gave SinBad a haggard glance. “Got some experience with ba’aths?”

SinBad showed him the claw marks on his crossbow stock.

Islay nodded grimly. “Let’s go.”

“What about her?” SinBad nodded at Pretty Bottom, who had not bothered to draw her knife. “Thuria is up.”

Islay dismissed his concern. “That Issus battery is line-of-sight, good for fifty haads in any direction in flat country.”

They thrashed off through the grass, with Simba in the lead and Pretty Bottom bringing up the rear. Three locals with home-forged weapons, surrounding a tourist with a laser rifle. None of the other offworld “ba’ath hunters” would be much help, never having seen their prey outside of a game park.

SinBad let Islay lead, covering the laird’s back. Attack could come from any direction, and if something mean leaped out at them, he wanted that laser rifle safely ahead of him. The only weapon he could comfortably turn his back on was Pretty Bottom’s skinning knife. If she stabbed you, it would not be by mistake. SinBad had hoped to have the young Crow sitting safe behind the energy fence, with the White apes and hangers-on. Surface-to-space missiles would have to do.

Steppe Hyenas yipped at each other out on the sward, excited by the commotion. Scavengers of all sorts liked to hang around tourist camps, hoping offworlders would do something stupid.

After a couple of haads the trail dipped down into one of the steep lush valleys found in equatorial Barsoom, deep slashes in the sward where water and vegetation collected. Canyon walls looked down on thick brush and thornwood, full of hiding places perfect for lying up and eating your kill. Wild moropus just like he’d had for breakfast stared suspiciously up at them. First a she-ba’ath with pretty prey in her teeth, then two species of humans. Enough to make any thinking herbivore uneasy.

Simba sniffed the breeze, then whispered, “She is in there.”

“My wife or the ba’ath?” Islay whispered back.

“Both.”

SinBad reached behind him, feeling Pretty Bottom’s knee. He could hear her breathing, just behind his ear. “How you doing?”

“Thirsty,” she hissed back.

He gave her a long swig of fruit juice from his canteen. Handing it back, she nuzzled his ear, whispering, “Watch out for the cat.”

“Sure. You too. Watch my back.” He felt silly, telling a Crow how to stalk.

“Not the ba’ath, the other cat.” She meant Simba.

“Why?”

“Just beware.” She squeezed his hand for silence. SuperCats heard better than both of them.

Shit, Simba was the one he half-trusted. Not good. He faced a silent stalk into deep cover, trailing a ba’ath with a taste for people. Putting a lot on the line, just to view bloody remnants of someone he had liked. Or at least lusted after.

Islay gave him a communicator to clip to his ear, then they entered the brush. Tickbird sentinels sounded out, warning the moropus herd that armed humans were tromping through their feeding grounds. Which made SinBad step even more lightly, creeping along pigeon-toed, his weight on the sides of his leather boots. At least Thuria was not looking over his shoulder. Dense double-canopy cover beat Issus interceptors for shutting out Slavers.

Visibility shrank to sofads. He could hear Islay just ahead, sliding invisibly through the underbrush. Behind him, Pretty Bottom was both silent and unseen. Comforting. No ba’ath would get him from behind.

Half a haad into the tangle, they came on Silver-wig’s communicator, lying on the trail.

Flipping his sand goggles to night vision, he searched for a heat source in the tightly woven tapestry of branches, vines, and thorn twigs, a dense living wall as opaque as radiation armor. No luck. With two humanoids ahead of him, and the moropus herd munching the greenery, there were way too many heat sources. Thermal overkill.

With her hyper-keen nose and hair-trigger hearing, the ba’ath would know they were coming long before they arrived. Totally unfair. He was a sand sailor, for Issus’ sake, hoping to see open sward again. SinBad jacked up the magnification on his glasses, though he could not see beyond arm’s reach. Veins on the leaves leaped out as he peered into the spaces between them, looking for anything that might belong to a ba’ath.

Nothing. Not even the odd moropus, though these retrobred rhinoceros-hide quadrupeds were all about, head high at the shoulder, weighing up to a ton. Crow warriors rode them instead of horses, which would never survive on Barsoom. These wild ones were twice as mean, and just as big, with wicked white tusks and a terrible temper—totally hidden by the bush.

Eventually they left the moropus herd behind as the spoor wound farther into the tangled morass, which just got darker and deeper. Light from above faded. Dusk was coming on. Which would give the ba’ath every advantage. If the cat had heard them, the beast would not lay up until nightfall. Simba saw it too, calling a halt.

Islay wanted to go on. “My wife might still be alive.”

Simba shrugged. “Pugmarks say the ba’ath has dropped her load. We are tracking her so close, she stashed her kill. She will come back around to feed.”

Laird Islay did not like hearing his wife discussed so clinically by a bio-engineered being. “Sure it’s the same ba’ath?”

Simba smirked, hissing between saber-teeth, “She is.”

“How can you tell?”

“By her smell. She’s in heat.” Hot and hungry. Simba acted like he used to date her.

“My wife could still be alive,” Islay insisted.

“If she is, she is back behind us,” Simba reminded him. “this cat is no longer carrying her.”

SinBad looked at Pretty Bottom, who nodded in agreement. At least Simba was not lying.

Islay put in a call to camp, telling the ship to meet them at the edge of the tangle. Hefting his laser rifle, he told SinBad, “Thanks for watching my back. Want them to bring you something with punch? These are line-of-sight, self correcting, and can burn through battle armor.”

“No thanks.” SinBad had his crossbow. Offworld weapons were wonderful, but he did want to kill a ba’ath five haads away—it was the ones up close and angry that worried him. And none of them wore battle armor.

Simba stuck to his spear. They turned about, backtracking, looking for the spot where the cat had dropped her prey. There had been very little blood spoor, just a few drops on the grass tops. Which gave Islay hope, though the ba’ath could have broken Silver-wig’s neck, then stashed her body high in the crotch of a tree, to snack on later.

SinBad looked up this time as well as down, searching for blood streaks on branches. He was no longer looking for a ba’ath, but a body. That made him sad. Going from fear to grief, without a good moment in between.

All he saw on infrared was moropus-sized heat sources. The herd was munching its way deeper into the brush pile. These giant browsers had thorn-proof hide, and clawed limbs able to strip off leafy branches and succulent bark. They were retrobred to turn thorn trees into fertilizer and provide surface transport for anyone crazy enough to tame them. Like the Kick Belly Crow.

Without warning, a cry rang out, a ba’ath screaming bloody murder only twenty paces away. Maybe their ba’ath, keening like crazy.

Brush exploded around him. SinBad saw branches fly, and heard bushes erupt with the menacing grunt of an angry moropus. Just in time, he was jerked backward, out of the way of the huge beast that thundered past him, headed for the tall grass.

Ahead of him, Islay just had time to turn and shoot, pegging the charging moropus with a perfect laser beam brain shot.

Clutching his useless crossbow, SinBad watched the galloping behemoth collapse in a heap at the visiting laird’s feet. No explosive bolt could have done that—not one fired by him. Pretty Bottom had heard the moropus coming, and she’d pulled him out of the monster’s way. Leaves rained down on both of them.

Before SinBad could take a breath, another moropus burst bellowing from the brush, following in the steps of the first monster. Seeing its mate lying prone in the trail, the enraged moropus spun like a prize quarterhorse, charging at Islay.

Again the laird took aim at the animal’s hideous head. Moropus barsoom had two tusk-shaped canines rising from its lower jaw, to add to their great clawed feet and murderous temper—which was why Crow warriors liked to ride them whooping into battle.

This time Laird Islay of Islay just stood there, staring into his rifle sights, until the charging moropus was on him. Swinging its gleaming tusks, the beast hooked him in the ribs, throwing Islay high in the air.

When he landed, the moropus was there, raking his remains with those tremendous razor claws. Just as the moropus was warming to its work, SinBad squeezed off a shot, aiming at the base of the neck.

Without waiting to see what happened, he cranked another round into the crossbow, then took aim again. Jackpot. His first shot had spined the moropus, dropping the thrashing herbivore next to Laird Islay.

He fired anyway, blowing out the back of the dead beast’s head, just to be safe. Always kick an enemy when he’s down. SinBad had done nothing to disturb this four-legged ogre, even going out of the way to avoid him and his friends. Blame the ba’ath if you liked.

Cranking in another round, he went to check on Islay. Miraculously, the laird was still alive, though not by much. Shooting that mad moropus had given Islay half a chance.

Simba appeared, spear in hand, calling for med-evac on his communicator.

Night continued to fall, and the ba’ath was still out there, after taking out a wife and husband who had come a dozen light years just to shoot her. Unless this was another ba’ath, toying with them—which SinBad doubted. A ba’ath had way better things to do, unless it had a bug up its butt. This was the cat they had trailed, hounded, keeping her hungry and horny, getting some of her own back. Crossbow cocked and ready, SinBad loosened his loincloth, which had been sopping wet ever since that first moropus burst out of the brush.

The orbital yacht landed, and he helped hustle Islay into an autodoc, tossed and trampled by a beast that is casually ridden by Crow children, several at a time. Small wonder. Barsoom had dozens of ways of taking you down, none of them nice and easy.

Simba insisted on setting up an overnight camp, so they could go looking for Silver-wig at first light. “She is now my employer.”

With Islay in a coma, his wife was in charge of the hunting party. Unless she was already eaten.

Thuria was down, and Pretty Bottom meant to make the most of that opportunity, throwing her arms around him, whispering, “My wonderful hero.”

“Who wet his loincloth,” he informed her.

“So did I,” giggled Pretty Bottom, who was not wearing one.

“Come, my chieftain.” She dragged him into the thicket, aiming to celebrate their brush with fate. He went, eager to get out of the wet loincloth, and he owed her for saving him from being trampled. In the midst of snatching life, she licked his ear playfully, whispering, “Simba is a Slaver.”

So that was it. SinBad nearly missed a stroke. It fit. The leaderless hunting party had been dragged from behind its energy fence, into a tangled valley that stretched out of Issus range. And in half a zode, Thuria would be up. “Don’t worry,” Pretty Bottom brought him back to business with a kiss, “he’s just a cat.”

SuperCat actually. Bred to be better than SinBad, or at least more dangerous—faster, stronger, smarter, with big teeth and claws. Ba’aths called back and forth in the darkness. Maybe even their ba’ath, looking for a boyfriend.

When they were done, SinBad asked, “How do you know Simba’s a Slaver?”

Snuggling against him, Pretty Bottom replied sleepily, “Who else would hunt ba’aths at Wife Stealing Time?”

Good point, SinBad admitted. He was not here for the ba’aths. Simba must be at least as smart.

“Last year, this same cat was lurking about, when Arapaho Woman disappeared, along with her little sister. Only then he was a smuggler, trading offworld jewelry for civet skins.”

“So you bought some?” SinBad saw where this was going.

“For five skins. It is pinned to my possible sack.”

Which was aboard his sand sail, thank Issus. Haads away from here. Passing out radio-tagged trinkets to winsome young nomads was an old Slaver trick. No wonder they had checked out his sand sail. Her possible sack had drawn them straight to it.

“Killed the civets myself,” she murmured. “Strangled them to save the skins.”

She was soon asleep, happy, fed, and pregnant, safe from Slavers and ex-boyfriends, turning Wife Stealing Time into time away from the tipi. Ba’aths called in the darkness, mating cries, from close at hand, having their own tryst in the thicket. She-ba’aths in heat kept finding mates, even after becoming pregnant, to keep the males guessing.

Simba came on the communicator, sounding a general recall.

Not trusting the communicator, which doubled as a tracking device, SinBad reported in person, leaving Pretty Bottom asleep under the thorn bushes. She did not fear ba’aths, and strangled wildcats barehanded, so she should be safe until Thuria rise.

He found the SuperCat waiting at the yacht’s airlock. “With no energy fence here, we should all sleep on the yacht,” the bioconstruct explained. “There are ba’aths about.”

No shit, Simba. More all the time. “I am wondering about that laser rifle.”

“Want one?” Simba grinned. “Paint the target and pull the trigger, rifle does the rest.”

Not always. “Islay’s rifle did not fire.”

Simba shrugged. “Transient malfunction. I retired that one.”

Another ba’ath call sounded, even closer.

“Better get your mate,” Simba suggested.

Pretty Bottom was hardly his mate. Goes Ahead had gotten in ahead of him. Along with Alligator Stands Up. But he was not about to argue personal relations with a bioconstruct and suspected Slaver. Nor was he likely to spend the night aboard ship. SinBad left, pretending to obey.

He made his way back through the thorns to where he’d left Pretty Bottom. But there was nothing there. Sleeping booty was gone.

Damn. No note or token. No sign of a struggle, just gone. How like her. Determined not to spend the night alone, SinBad slid two more explosive bolts into his crossbow to fill the clip. By now the ground was cool enough for her to leave a good heat trail, so he flipped his goggles onto infrared.

Her heat trail appeared at once, headed away from the moropus thicket deeper into the canyon. Great. He had wanted to sit out Thuria rise, curled under a thorn bush with his cute Crow companion; instead he was headed deeper into a canyon that had already swallowed two wealthy offworlders. Ba’aths called back and forth in the blackness, sounding like they had made a kill. Hopefully no one he knew.

With each cautious step, he remembered the scratches on his crossbow stock. A ba’ath with a bad attitude had jumped him at point-blank range, without even a warning growl. He got off one shot before the ba’ath batted the crossbow out of his grip, then bowled him over.

Luckily, when shooting at arm’s length, he rarely missed. Instead of being ripped to shreds, a dead ba’ath landed in his lap. When he heaved the beast off him, he’d found an arrow broken off in the ba’ath’s belly, a festering wound that must have hurt horribly. An Apache arrow, but try telling an angry ba’ath that you are Huron. He did have hard words for some local Apaches, who laughed to hear how he’d found their arrow.

Slowly the heat trail faded. He was not moving fast enough to catch Pretty Bottom, wherever she was going. Crow women were always up to something, which was why they had Wife Stealing Time.

Then, without warning, the glowing trail got stronger. Something close to Pretty Bottom’s size had recently passed through. He picked up the pace, finding the trail getting brighter and fresher. Encouraged, SinBad kept his crossbow in front of him, ready for anything.

Almost. Sitting in a grassy clearing ahead was the source of the heat trail, a barefoot and bedraggled Silver-wig.

Her wings were drooped and broken; her silver body paint was scraped off, revealing large swaths of pink flesh. Clearly happy to see him despite the cocked crossbow aimed at her bare chest, the offworlder smiled wide. “Hi, Huron.”

Why was he always drawing a bead on beautiful women, thinking they were ba’aths? He lowered his bow. “Actually, my name is SinBad.”

“Really?” Silver-wig seemed surprised.

“What is yours?”

“Deirdre. Deirdre Islay.”

Very offworld, and meaningless, but somehow pretty. “We thought you were dead.”

“I thought I was dead,” Deirdre admitted, “when that ba’ath grabbed me. I fought, screamed, and fainted.”

Then the cat carried her off unconscious, dropping her when pursuit got too close. Doubling back on her tracks, the ba’ath led her bungling pursuers into the moropus herd. SinBad asked, “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “Grass burns, a couple of nasty cuts. But not a tooth mark. I think he dragged me by my wings.”

“She dragged you,” he corrected her. “You were grabbed by a female. On Barsoom both sexes have black manes.”

“Oh.” Clearly she knew very little about the beasts they’d come light years to kill.

Yet she had survived the ba’ath attack unbelievably well. In fact, her real troubles were just beginning. He asked, “Are you cold?”

She nodded. He took off his buckskin jacket and gave it to her. He had just a light linen shirt underneath, but this was spring in the tropics, about as mild as Barsoom got.

Shedding broken wings, she pulled on the jacket, not bothering with the bone buttons, asking instead, “Have you seen my husband?”

He had seen parts of Laird Islay his wife never had, but SinBad did not say so. Who wanted an hysterical tourist on their hands? “He’s aboard the yacht.”

She looked about. “Where is that?”

“Close by.” Thuria would be up in a few xats. Who knew what would happen then? Not him. “But we need to hide first.”

“Hide? Why?”

He nodded at the night sky. “The Slaver Moon will be up soon.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s not hard, when you have grown up under these stars.” What nomad boy did not thrill at Thuria rise, watching the girls scurry for cover? Imagining himself saving some beautiful offworld princess from Slavers, and winning a warm reward. Like a lot of boyhood dreams, the ideal totally beat reality.

He hustled the winsome tourist into the underbrush, where she could not be seen by Thuria light. Though there was still their body heat. If Simba told the Slavers where to look, a diligent search would find them.

Clearly, Deirdre Islay did not look forward to spending another zode-and-a-half in the bush, not with some strange Huron. She told him earnestly, “Get me back to my husband, and I will see you well rewarded.”

Not likely. Her husband was in an autodoc. Scratched, bruised, and hiding under a bush in a borrowed leather jacket, Silver-wig was now the outworlder-in-chief. SinBad just did not have the heart, or the need, to tell her. Not yet.

He had way bigger worries. Thuria was rising, spreading enhanced moonshine over the landscape. Then came the boom of an orbital shuttle breaking atmosphere. Slavers were on their way. He unshipped his crossbow, for all the good that would do.

“What’s the matter?” Silver-wig asked.

“Slavers.” Unless it was another boatload of tourists, coming for a wild moropus nightride, or something equally useful.

Tals ticked away. Then without warning a shadow fell over them, blocking out the Thuria light, then moving on. Silver-wig whispered, “What’s that? Slavers?”

Smelling a familiar cat box odor, Sinbad slid over and silenced her with his hand, mouthing a single word, “Ba’ath.”

Silver-wig’s eyes went wide. Another silent shadow passed, then another. One by one, more ba’aths came padding up, an entire pride, settling into the brush around them. Soon they were surrounded by the cat odor, and the soft regular breathing of a dozen sleeping ba’aths.

SinBad set aside his crossbow. He did not have enough bolts to do more than make them mad. Silver-wig whispered, “Can they hear us?”

Sure, if she did not shut up. He whispered back, “They do not need to. They can smell us.”

“So, why don’t they attack?”

“Maybe they’re not hungry. Or just too sleepy. Ba’aths do not kill for the fun of it.” Like offworlders do.

She stroked his cheek. “I am sorry.”

“For what?”

“Everything,” Silver-wig sighed.

He smiled at that thought. “Not your fault.”

Happy to hear that, she relaxed alongside him. Soon she was asleep, putting an end to a harrowing day. He closed his eyes as well, no longer worried by their heat signature. So long as they lay close together no one would spot them amid the ba’aths.

Lying with eyes shut, listening to blond breathing, he suddenly heard the whoosh of a ship taking off. Looking up, he saw a flash in the night sky, half hidden by the thorn brush. Someone was lifting into orbit.

He relaxed again. Thuria set, then first light showed in the east. Slavers had let sleeping ba’aths lie. SinBad decided to do the same, waking Silver-wig, whispering, “Let’s get going before they do.”

She saw the sense in that, getting up and silently following him out of the brush into the long grass, leaving the ba’aths behind. As they neared the mouth of the canyon, SinBad told the offworlder to wait while he wormed his way forward.

Just as he thought, Islay’s yacht was gone. All that remained was a circular dent in the grass, empty as a crop circle. He slithered back to inform his companion, who told him, “Give me your communicator, and I will call my husband.”

“Let me make the call,” SinBad suggested. “They do not know you are alive.” Yet.

“So? My husband will be happy to know.”

Now he had to give her the bad news. “Your husband is in an autodoc. Trampled by a wild moropus.”

Lady Islay looked aghast. “Will he live?”

“Maybe.” If the Slavers aimed to hold him for ransom. “Just let me make the call.”

He did. A chirpy computer voice informed him the yacht was in low orbit, while the owners were with their “hunting party” on the surface. Call them there.

No need to do that; the Islay still on the surface was crouching next to him in the tall grass, wearing his buckskin jacket and not much else. Hearing what the yacht had to say, she told him, “Give me the communicator. That ship is voice-coded to me and my husband. I can shut down its drive, then trigger a distress call.”

“No, you won’t.” The voice came from behind them, and had that SuperCat lisp caused by talking around sabertooth canines.

SinBad turned to see Simba standing in the grass, with a silver communicator clipped to his ear and a laser rifle leveled at him. The bioconstruct had stayed behind, waiting for them to break cover and open a channel. The only real question was why didn’t Simba pull the trigger? SinBad’s own bow was at his side, cocked and ready, but he dared not raise it. The SuperCat had super reflexes.

Only Deirdre Islay did not get it, saying, “Simba, what are you doing?”

Her hunting guide grinned. “I was looking for that pretty young Crow. But you will do. Please, stand aside.”

Simba wanted a clear shot.

Deirdre stood up, stepping squarely into the line of fire. Flourishing the communicator, she warned the SuperCat, “You shoot, and I will punch MAYDAY, disabling the yacht.”

Simba snorted. “This rifle can shoot right through you, and him.”

Sliver-wig shrugged. “Then you lose everything. You will never get that yacht outsystem, not with me dead and my husband in an autodoc.”

There was a Navy ship insystem, the suburb-class corvette Tarzana. Any attempt to alter the yacht’s registered flight plan would arouse suspicion. If Deirdre punched MAYDAY, Simba could shoot them, but he would lose his prize. And the Slavers aboard the yacht would be prisoners. Stalemate.

For the moment. Simba kept the laser rifle leveled. Thuria would be up soon, then Slavers would swarm over them, jamming the communicator and firing sleep gas, eager to have Deidre Islay and her husband’s starship. Deirdre stood clutching the communicator while Simba cradled the rifle, waiting.

Slowly, a big black-maned ba’ath ambled nonchalantly up, not even looking at them, followed by another, then another. Simba’s grin turned grim, as the pride gathered around them, crouched and waiting. Riding atop the biggest ba’ath, a great sable-headed male, was Pretty Bottom. No wonder her parents called her Beast.

“Kaor,” the young Crow called out, holding tight to the black mane.

“Kaor,” SinBad replied, never happier to see her, or a pride of ba’aths.

“What do you want?” Simba demanded, eyeing the ba’aths warily.

“That Huron,” Pretty Bottom pointed at SinBad. “And the offworld woman.”

Simba shook his head. “Get any closer, and I will kill both of them. Then you.” He still had them, if he could stall until Thuria was up.

“You are the one who will die,” Pretty Bottom warned.

“Maybe.” Simba was counting on his superhuman reflexes and self-correcting sights. He could do a lot of damage before the ba’aths got him.

“Certainly,” Our Lady of the Ba’aths replied, raising her slim hand.

“Don’t!” Simba aimed the rifle at her, a curved claw on the trigger.

Pretty Bottom froze, hand held high. Ba’aths snarled at the SuperCat, but did not spring, waiting to see what the Crow woman would do. This was not their fight. SinBad weighed the odds, trying to decide if he could aim and shoot before Simba fired. Not likely.

He did not have to. An arrow streaked from downwind, hitting Simba in the neck, slicing through the cat’s jugular. The SuperCat fell forward, dead before he hit the ground.

SinBad exhaled softly, barely believing his eyes. Another arrow thudded into the fallen SuperCat, ensuring he was dead. Simba did not twitch.

Deirdre was on the communicator at once, calling the Navy and shutting down her ship.

Looking to see where the arrows had come from, SinBad saw a Crow warrior emerge from the thorn trees, his feathered bow in hand, riding a dark red moropus. He wore a scout’s wolfskin, and hail-spot body paint, making him as deadly as an ice storm on a sunny day.

Pretty Bottom grinned. Ignoring her and the ba’aths, the Crow scout dismounted, keeping a tight hold on his rope reins, saying, “Kaor, Huron.”

SinBad returned the Crow’s greeting, asking, “To whom do I owe my life?”

“Her.” The Crow casually pointed his bow tip at Pretty Bottom. “She is the one I came to get.”

This was Wife Stealing Time. But the Crow was not going to get what he wanted, not amid a pride of ba’aths, who were plainly doing Pretty Bottom’s bidding. Being practical, the scout drew his knife instead, then bent over and deftly skinned the dead SuperCat as if it was a tawny fur coat. He took the head as well, not wanting to leave the great grinning saber-teeth.

Rolling up the bloody hide, the Crow tied it to the back of his white-tusked moropus, then remounted. With a wave to the women, the warrior was gone.

Ba’aths began to feed on the Slaver’s skinned and bloody body. SinBad turned back to the pregnant Crow. “Was that Goes Ahead?”

“Of course.” How many boyfriends could she have? Sliding down off the ba’ath, she gave him a hug. “That is my baby’s daddy. I am glad you met him.”

“Me too.” As SinBad said it, a boom sounded overhead.

Pretty Bottom looked up. “Slavers?” Thuria was still down.

Deirdre Islay shook her head. “No, a Navy gig.”

Sure enough, a small silver ship landed in the long grass, guided down by Deirdre’s MAYDAY call. Navy crewmen in battle armor tumbled out, scattering the snarling ba’aths.

“Don’t hurt them,” Pretty Bottom shouted. She turned anxiously to Deirdre. “Tell them they saved you.”

She did, and the Navy held its fire. Before they hustled her aboard the gig, Deirdre Islay asked, “How can I repay you?”

“Give me your wig,” Pretty Bottom replied.

“My wig?”

Pretty Bottom nodded eagerly, so Deirdre handed it over. Giving a war whoop, the Crow waved her silver trophy, like it was a fresh scalp.

Later, when Thuria had set again, Pretty Bottom insisted on making love in the tall grass, wearing only her new hair. But that just made SinBad think of Silver-wig, and he never saw her again.

Table of Contents

Start