Lion Man's Captive, Kaitlyn O'Connor [top fiction books of all time .txt] 📗

too damned focused!” Aidan muttered. “I need to forgetabout that satellite. Probably a lost cause in this amount of timeanyway. We need to get to the ship. It’s the only chance we have ofstopping the genesis.”

Not that he believed there was any realpossibility of stopping the process anyway, but he had to trybefore her and her people and their entire civilization was wipedout by the terra-formers.

He glanced at Anya and sawthat, naturally enough, she hadn’t understood one word he’d said,but he didn’t have the patience to even try to explain.“Yes, ship. Go were shipfall.”

“But that isn’t what youwere talking about before, is it?” Anya said, more confused thanever since he seemed in as big a hurry now that he appeared to havechanged his destination goal.

But then maybe she hadn’t figured itout?

She was abruptly sorry that she hadn’tattempted to learn a little of his language. It went beyondfrustrating to have no idea what he was saying!

Between the low light levels and theirhurry, neither of them had the faintest idea that they’d foundwater until they fell in it. The shaft they were in widenedabruptly—in every direction—they stepped out and found waterinstead of the hard bottom of the pipe—very cold water! Anya suckedin a sharp breath as the cold enveloped her and strangled.Fortunately, it wasn’t deep. She surged upward to escape thetorture of icy water as quickly as she found the bottom, but shewas coughing so hard and so shocked by the abrupt dousing that shecouldn’t find her bearings.

Aidan grasped her upper arm and hauledher to the edge where they found a narrow ledge just above thewater line. She was shaking so bad her teeth were clacking togetherby the time they managed to hoist themselves out. Aidan’s teethweren’t chattering, but he was shivering with the cold.

And he was still more interested inthat thing on his wrist than anything else. He seemed to relaxafter a moment and looked around. “Dis place?”

Anya had been wondering about thatherself—with a good bit of dread. She realized she’d sucked in asizable sample, however, and she could pretty well dismiss thehorrible possibility that had first entered her mind. It definitelywasn’t a sewage treatment pool!

Well, she thought it was probably justrain runoff until her and Aidan had taken a piss a couple ofculverts back.

She wished to hell she hadn’t thoughtabout that because she was damned thirsty!

She shrugged. “Something to helpprevent flooding, maybe?”

He frowned, clearly confused. She wentback to the pantomime, fluttering her fingers to try to give theimpression of rain. “Rain water runoff.”

He began digging around in his pocketsafter a few moments and finally pulled something out that lookedlike a narrow tube—or a very big drinking straw. He removed thepackaging, examined it and then leaned down to put one end in thewater.

Anya was torn as she watched him. Shehadn’t had more than a few sips of water in hours and hours—shedidn’t even know anymore. But as thirsty as she was, she was stillvery reluctant to drink from the mud puddle.

Especially since she’d pissed down thetunnel a little ways.

She was desperate enough, she begantrying to convince herself that she really didn’t have to worryabout the urine. It wasn’t as if either of them had produced enoughto flow this far! It had probably just seeped into theconcrete.

She certainly didn’t recall walkingthrough it.

Aidan handed her the tube. She examinedit as he had, discovering that it was some kind of filtrationdevice—not merely a tube.

Closing her mind to the possibleorigins of the water and/or anything it might have run over orthrough on its way to this spot, she drank as much as she couldhold and then passed the straw back to Aidan. He leaned down todrink more and then offered her the device. She considered it anddecided to top her tank off since there was no telling when theymight find water again. While she was working on trying to makelike a camel and fill her storage tank, Aidan got up and exploredthe ledge that ran around the pool.

“Here! Disting!”

Anya peered through the gloom and sawhe’d discovered an access ladder. She looked up as he flicked hislight toward the ceiling. He had highlighted a hole the ladderdisappeared into, she saw, but it was too dark beyond to seeanything.

She was willing to bet the ladderdidn’t go much higher than what she could see, though. She got upreluctantly. “You know those damned things y’all sent here probablyate the ladder,” she said crossly. “Just how do you think we’regoing to get out when we run out of ladder?”

He summoned her imperiously with agesture. She contemplated shooting him a bird and refusing, but hedidn’t seem to have lost his determination to hang on to her andshe wasn’t up to trying to outrun him.

In fact, she was feeling less up to itas time went on. She refused to consider the dependency she’drapidly developed—for an alien who also happened to be an enemy!Physically, she was just done in. She’d always considered that shewas in pretty damned good shape, but she’d hardly had any sleep,anything to eat or drink, and she’d been moving almostconstantly—in spurts of running for her life! The uneasy sense thatshe wasn’t actually very well equipped for survival swamped herabruptly. She tried to shake it, but it was as hard to ignore asher aches and pains.

Aidan waited until she’d reached himand began climbing. As she’d predicted they ran out of laddershortly after they passed into the shaft. “I hate to say I told youso,” she muttered.

Instead of heading back down as she’dexpected, however, the alien surveyed the dirt shaft leading upmoved to the very last rung and then carefully positioned himselfso that he was braced against the sides with his arms and legs.Anya studied him doubtfully, fully expecting him to come down ontop of her. Instead, he began to inch his way upward.

“I can’t do that,” she saidflatly.

“Yes.”

“No!” she said moreforcefully.

He glared down at her, braced himselfcarefully and then reached down. “Yes!”

“My arms and legs aren’tlong enough, damn it!”

She could see he was determined,though.

After debating, briefly, whether sheshould just take her chances with the sewer and hope that somewherethere was