Two
Skan was close to panic, every last scrap of self-control completely gone, having discovered Aalu had vanished…
“We have to find her!” He panted, nipping about with sharp, panicky movements.
Jas, generally accepted as the dominant slig in the pack, caught him on one of his frantic orbits of the village. “Fer Odd’s sake, Skan, yer not goin’ ter do much good flappin’ round like that…!”
“But we have to find her…!” He wailed. “What if she’s hurt, or lost, or or or dyin’, even…!”
Jas sighed, and dealt the other a smart blow round the face. “Snap out of it!” He yelled. “Yer not goin’ ter help by flappin’ round like yer head’s been cut off! Now jus’ calm down fer a minute…!”
Skan subsided to the ground, gulping in great draughts of air, and managed a convulsive nod.
“Where d’yer last see her?” Jas asked, calmly.
Skan gathered his thoughts, tried to sort his runaway emotions back into some semblance of order. “She… was on the hill over the village. Watchin’ the sun. But she usually wanders, about now – says she likes the quiet…”
“Hm.” Jas looked thoughtful. “Well… I’ll fetch the lads. We can each take a section o’ the village… look for clues, scents, anythin’… then report back here. Sound good to yer?”
Skan nodded, mutely.
“Right. Well… you wait ‘ere, I’ll be back soon…”
Skan had no intention of sitting waiting. The second Jas was out of earshot, he was up and off to the hill, where he managed to pick up Aalu’s scent, by this time faint and difficult to discern from the other scents on the hillside. Satisfied, he put his head low to the ground, and loped off along the trail…
Bea was waiting at the meeting point instead of Skan when Jas appeared with the rest of the pack.
“Bea?” Jas frowned. “What you doin’ here…? I was sure I said I’d meet Skan here…”
She frowned. “I saw him heading off towards the outskirts of the village. As he’d waited until you’d gone to decide to leave, I guessed that something was up…”
“Yeah,” Jas groaned. “I know what he’s up to. Did yer know Aalu’s gone missin’? Well, she has, an’ we was goin’ ter go look fer her. I’ll bet yer he’s gone lookin’ fer her on his own…”
Skan loped along, head low, following the faint scent trail; slig eyesight and hearing may be pretty dreadful, but they had phenomenal noses – could trail scents that were often days old. Aalu had been this way, but there were other scents obscuring hers; stronger scents – slig scents. Male, too, one of them worryingly familiar, although he couldn’t remember for the life of him who it belonged to – maybe if he had remembered he’d have gone back for help. And the unmistakable reek of gunpowder. So the sligs were from the factory belt. There were other scents, too – scents he couldn’t identify. One he’d encountered earlier was an oddly chemical smell – it made his nose itch. Following that scent he’d found an old rag, dry by now, but it had the same awful stink of chemicals, and made his senses swim. So he’d guessed it had been soaked in some sort of highly-volatile chemical, which had anaesthetic effects when as a vapour.
Which had immediately made him worry. It all suggested Aalu had been abducted – taken by surprise and knocked out with the drugs, and carried along while she was unconscious. Which suggested Vykkers wanted her back. Which would make it all the harder to rescue her. After all, Skan was a wanted “terrorist” – all he’d actually done was let a lot of lab animals out and stolen a crawler-tank, but that didn’t have as much of a dramatic ring to it. And the only way he and Jas had managed to get Pru out of the lab that time was when they’d had the help of the rest of the pack. Jark fiddled the security systems, and Jas and Skan had got into the labs by posing as engineers. Drek masterminded the plan, relayed communications between the two groups and counterfeited the passes that allowed them access to the labs. Although Hak had been first to offer to help, he ended up being there more for moral support than anything, as he was simply too big to do anything much…
So without the pack to back me up, how am I meant to do anythin’…? he thought, dismally, losing the scent trail. If he ever managed to get into the labs, he’d sure as hell never get her out on his own… Jump that hurdle when I come ter it, he mused, casting about for the scent.
Aalu sighed, faintly, shifted her shoulders, waking up, slowly. She found herself flat on her back on the ground – it was damp, and cool – so it would be morning, then… With a yawn, she lifted one heavy eyelid, and a sudden brightness assaulted her senses; she winced and squinted until her eyes got used to the light. So… what had happened? She’d been out walking, when… something… something she couldn’t quite put her finger on… had she fainted? Her mind was full of fog, she couldn’t concentrate…
Suddenly a face hove into view – a long, narrow face, masked, with small, brilliant-red eyes. At first glance her brain automatically thought “Hak”. Then her eyes focussed, and she realised – it wasn’t him. The owner of this face was smaller – although not much; they still had the massive bulk of a Big Bro – and the stare was not the worried one that Hak often wore, but a cold, distant smoulder… And then her memory kicked in; the powerful arm round her throat, the damp rag over her face, stifling, suffocating… She shrank back, feeling her throat tighten. “Who-” her voice came out a squeak. “Who are you…?!”
The slig shrugged. “Does it matter?” he asked; his voice was different to Hak’s, as well – not the reassuring bass rumble but thinner, more nasal.
Aalu pushed herself to her feet and skittered unsteadily away from him. “Where am I?” she whimpered, faintly, searching for the scent path.
The Big Bro. caught her roughly by the upper arm and turned her round. “Yer not goin’ that way. Yer comin’ wi’ us.”
She tried vainly to pull her arm free. “Going where…?”
“Back where yer came from,” the huge soldier smiled, coolly, route-marching her along. “The bosses want their li’l lady back…”
She had to trot to keep up. “The… the bosses?” her voice had shrunk to a whisper. “I-… Please, let go of me, you’re hurting…”
He just smiled, unpleasantly, kept his grip firm on her arm, and marched her along in silence.
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