Gah! Sorry this took so long, i've had almost complete writers block for the past two months, plus I struggled to get a beggining that matched the end of the last chapter. But here it is at last! Now with sligs, chapter 5!
Chapter 5, Lost
As one learns, the middle of a patrol route is never the best place to fall asleep. Barry awoke with a yell at a sudden burning on the back of his neck. He leapt aside and the sligs around him laughed. One flicked away the cigarette that he’d just snubbed out on Barry’s skin.
"Get up Mud."
"Wh-where are you from?" Barry stuttered. He needed to be in with the right sligs. If they were from the right place he could follow them for the rest of the way. If they weren’t he was screwed.
"You’ll find out soon enough, now get up!"
Barry pushed himself to his feet, looking around the huddle of sligs nervously.
He was more than a little surprised when one suddenly grabbed him from behind and yanked his loincloth down. Another grabbed his arms and held him still as the first unfolded his clothing and shook it out. For a few seconds Barry was horrified, expecting the Orb to drop to the ground any second.
The fact that the Orb didn’t drop to the ground terrified him even more. The sligs pawed over the meat and fruit he’d brought with him until one stood up, spat on it, and threw his loincloth back at him.
Barry forced himself to hold down his panic as one of the sligs pointed a gun at his forehead while he redressed. His mind was racing, desperately trying to remember what had happened before he’d fallen asleep. He realised he must have had the Orb in his hand, he couldn’t remember putting it away. But he also couldn’t remember lying down to sleep.
The rest of the sligs were talking to each other nearby. "Well he hasn’t got anything valuable has ‘e? What dyou think the boss is after, some new fruit to go in ‘is tea?"
"Well I dunno, he might o’ swallowed it or somethin’, they’ll do a proper search if we get ‘im back. Anyway, he’s a mud innee? They’ll be happy to have the slave and enough said, even if they just send us out ‘ere again."
One of the sligs glanced at him. "Look at them scars on his face, looks like he’s been rubbing himself against a brick wall."
"We’re not all as stupid as you are Berren. Just cause you get a thrill out o’ hurtin’ yourself don’t mean we all do it."
The slig behind Barry nudged him harder than was necessary in the back of the head. "Oy Mud, get on with it or I’ll have some o’ the guys take out there feelins on you rather than each other."
Barry nodded numbly and gave his head one last fruitless search, before nodding and doing up the last knot. He prayed silently that the Orb would be picked up by a mudokon.
The slig behind him grunted and shoved him in the back with his gun. Barry yelped and stumbled froward, tumbling into the huddle of sligs. They leapt aside and he tripped over and once more found himself lying on the ground. He felt several guns press into his back. One of the sligs ran over to the one who had been guarding him.
"We thought we’d take ‘im straight back sir. It’d be to much trouble to lead ‘im around the patrol and management would go crazy if we let ‘im go."
"I know what you thought, and so will everyone this side of Sligos, the way you were talkin’. We’ll have all the savages down here in 2 hours if ya not careful. Get ‘im up and we’ll get a move on."
"What’ll they do once we get ‘im in sir?"
The slig leered at Barry. "Strip ‘im again, x-ray for a start. Then if they see anythin’ interestin’ they’ll cut ‘im open and ‘ave a look." He laughed coldly. "Wouldn’t mind havin’ a go at that meself. I can be pretty handy with one o’ them surgery knives." He mimed jabbing and hacking flesh with an imaginary scalpel and laughed loudly. The 4 of the other sligs laughed as well, Barry noticed at least one sounded rather forced.
One of the sligs over him turned to the one who hadn’t laughed. He slapped him on the back. "Cheer up Envin, only a joke." The silent slig grunted. Barry realised he hadn’t heard him speak at all.
One of the other sligs piped up. "What was that? Speak up." This time all the smaller sligs laughed, though not as loud, certainly more genuine. The leader looked angry and Envin growled again and pulled a knife out of his belt and waved it at the sligs around him.
Their squad leader spoke up. "Leave the guy alone slurgs, or he won’t be the only one wi’ no vocal chords."
He strode over, grabbed Barry by his feathers and hauled him to his feet. Barry yelped loudly, getting more laughs from the sligs, who gathered around him, three in a semicircle behind and the other three ahead. The mute, Envin, was standing close to the captain. Three guns poked Barry in the back and shoved him forward, and then they were walking southwards down the bare, treeless area, keeping towards the east side of the path in the direction Barry had been heading the night before. That was a good sign, he thought bitterly. But then remembered without the Orb they might as well have been taking him back into Glucose.
It was as they walked past the spot where they’d picked him up that he remembered tripping over with the Orb in his hands and not having the energy to get back up. The orb must have rolled out of his hands and now…
The irony of it made him want to scream out loud. Every step was taking him further from the stupid ball. What could he do, poke the slig in front of him in the back, tell him he’d dropped something and ask ever so politely if he could go and pick it up?
The sligs were walking along quickly, perhaps nervous that the natives would have heard them. Barry needed to act quickly or it would be to late and he would be made a slave for nothing.
The thought came to him. He would be made a slave for nothing, he would leave his home for nothing, leave his people behind forget everything important to him and still not gain anything through it.
Cursing the world and everything in it, Barry leapt backwards, ducking under the slig’s guns and leapt for the patch of long grass, growing in a small hollow under the tree he’d fallen down beside the night before. His arms where stretched forward; behind him the sligs were yelling. He landed on his chest and swung his arms through the grass. His left elbow knocked against something warm and round, an object that felt as delicate as an eggshell, yet so hard it couldn’t be broken with a sledgehammer.
He grasped for it. Overhead he heard gunshots and as his right hand closed round the metallic green ball that meant freedom to his race, two bullets hit him. One scraping the flesh on his back and then tearing along the side of his neck, missing his jawbone by millimetres, the other cracking into his left shoulder, braking flesh and bone. He gasped in pain from the second wound. His left arm fell limp. In a second of insight he swung his right arm, in a swift motion, down to his loincloth, stuffing the Orb out of sight and then to the lower section of his left arm.
He pushed himself up to his knees. Cradling his left arm in his right. Pain surged though his body and down his left arm from the shoulder that was itself now numb to the pain. He turned his neck towards the sligs, just in time to see a gun barrel swing forward and crack him on the side of his head.
Hope you like it, hope it was worth the wait. I'm quite happy about that one myself so I hope it's good enough to justify that.
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