Page 3 of Yasmin and the Yeti
Kra’caow shrugged, then rubbed his thumb across his fingers several times in an apparently universal gesture.
“Money?” she guessed. “He didn’t want to do it because the translator costs money?”
He nodded, and a bitter laugh escaped her. “So they’re not only cruel, but cheap as well.”
The bright white light suddenly faded, replaced by a dim, reddish glow. Kra’caow retreated to the bunk at the back of his cell and pulled a feathered arm over his head.
“Must be night time,” she muttered and followed suit, wrapping her arms around her legs as she huddled in one corner of the metal bunk. The cold metal leached the heat from her body, the thin shift providing no warmth, no comfort.
How could this have happened to her? She was just an ordinary person with an ordinary life. Working as an accountant paid well, but it was simply a routine job. How long would it be before her boss missed her? Or would they just assume she quit?
What would happen to her cozy little apartment with her jewelry making table in front of the big window? Would someone discard her neatly arranged collection of wires and beads? How long before her plants died? And why was she even worrying about things like that?
Because it’s better than thinking about what’s going to happen to me.
The horror of the situation kept creeping over her. This was real. This was actually happening to her. She was on an alien spaceship, being taken somewhere to have sex against her will.
She shuddered at the thought, her mind filled with a horrifying array of possible scenarios. Would it be one of the Neanderthal guards? Or some other unknown alien? What were theyplanning to do with her? The thought of the unknown future terrified her. A tear slipped down her cheek, and then another, and she finally buried her face in her arms and gave in to despair.
CHAPTER TWO
The days—the periods with the harsh white lighting—passed in an odd mixture of fear and monotony. The thought of her inevitable fate terrified Yasmin, but a person could only spend so much time being afraid before a strange numbness set in.
The days were all the same. The guards came by twice a day to fill her eating bowl, sometimes with a gray, tasteless gruel, and other times with dry pellets. On the whole, she preferred the pellets. At some point the lights would dim to the reddish glow and then the cycle would begin all over again.
She discovered a toilet hidden under her bunk. Using it always embarrassed her, even though Kra’caow courteously turned his back each time. Once a day, water would stream from the ceiling to a drain on the floor for a brief shower. The guards frequently chose that time to make their rounds. If they were there before the water started, she refused to use it. If they caught her in the act, she was painfully aware that the thin, white shift she wore became nearly transparent when wet.
One guard was especially persistent in his leering, and she was sure he was one of the guards she had seen on the firstday. While the other guards tended to talk to each other, he frequently addressed her directly, asking questions she couldn’t answer or making what she was sure were obscene comments. She continued to follow Kra’caow’s advice and didn’t respond to anything the guard said, even though it clearly frustrated him.
Kra’caow was the only bright spot in her captivity. She tried to learn his language, but with little success. Her throat simply wasn’t capable of making the right sounds. He, on the other hand, did a much better job of picking up her words. Not only did he have the advantage of knowing what she was actually saying, but he could also mimic human speech with remarkable accuracy.
She learned he came from a jungle-like planet with a warm climate, that he and his brother shared a mate, and that their wife had been expecting a clutch of eggs. He had gone to the spaceport to get her a special present for the occasion, and he’d been taken from there. At least the knowledge that his brother hadn’t been taken seemed to comfort him.
She also learned that he didn’t expect to last long as a fighter. Despite his formidable natural defenses, his bones were thin and easily broken. One break, and it would be over. Dead if he were lucky. A bait slave if he was not.
Sometimes the knowledge of what the future held would be too much, and they would retreat into silence. But even then, his presence made the situation easier to bear.
Then one day the guards came for him.
She thought it was about ten days since she’d been taken, although it was hard to keep track of time when every day was exactly the same and she had no way of recording time. Theguards stopped in front of his cell and barked out an order. Kra’caow had managed to teach her to recognize a few words in their language and she heard the word obey.
He complied meekly enough, bowing his head and holding out his wrists to be cuffed as the guards entered his cell. But as they left he raised his head and looked at her.
“Goodbye, Yasmin. This is my choice. I hope you find another.”
A horrible premonition washed over her just before he struck, slicing that vicious beak across one guard’s neck. A fountain of purple blood erupted from the wound and she watched in slow motion horror as the other guard raised a heavy baton and struck Kra’caow. A sharp crack echoed through the corridor before his limp body collapsed to the ground.
“No,” she whispered, clinging to the bars as tears streamed down her face.
More guards appeared, yelling at each other and gesturing at Kra’caow’s body, until a sharp command had them all snapping to attention. A heavyset male stalked down the corridor, authority in every line of his body.
She recognized the word for captain as the original guard tried to explain. The captain cut him off, issuing more commands. One guard carried Kra’caow’s body away, slinging it easily over his shoulder. Two others cleaned away the blood then disappeared, leaving only the captain and the original guard.
The captain barked an order and the guard extended a trembling arm. The captain took it, then twisted until another crack sounded and the guard collapsed to his knees.
A broken bone for a broken neck, she thought hysterically as the captain gestured the guard away. He turned to follow him and saw her still clinging to the bars. The coldest eyes she’d ever seen raked slowly over her body. He said something she didn’t understand, then gave her a terrifying smile and walked away.
The tears she had been holding back finally came. She cried not just for Kra’caow, but for herself and the utter hopelessness of her situation. She was trapped, alone, and marked by the ship’s captain. If she had the means to end her own life, she realized with a sickening certainty that she would do it.
