Page 56 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

I crouch beside Lio. The sand is disturbed, but not enough to decipher what took the tracker. No deep trench. No broad drag. No heavy belly mark.

“Not zemlja,” I say.

Orek snorts softly. “If zemlja carried it, we would not be discussing the problem. We would be inside the problem.”

“Not guster either,” Lio says.

“Be certain before saying that,” Syin says, looking down from the ridge.

Lio points with two fingers.

“A guster would leave weight here, here, and here. Foreclaws deep. Back feet wide. Tail sweep behind it. This is all wrong.”

Orek grunts agreement. “A guster is an alpha predator. Second only to zemlja. It does not pick up strange metal and scamper with it.”

“Scamper,” Maro repeats.

Orek gives him a flat look. “You have a better word?”

“Not one that improves my mood.”

I lean closer to the marks. Tiny crescent pricks dent the crusted sand. A faint brush line arcs between them, light as a fingertip. Something crossed here with weight held high, then vanished onto stone.

Above us, the twin suns turn the world red and white and cruel. Heat gathers under my collar. Sweat crawls down my spine. The sphere gives another faint tremor in my hand.

Blink.

Not in the wash this time.

Up.

I lift my head.

A sound comes from the broken wall ahead of us. Not a growl. Not the scrape of spines. Not the deep, ground-shaking breath of anything sensible people run from. A tiny, offended mewl.

Maro’s face changes. “No.”

Lio squints. “Was that...”

Another mewl comes from the wall. Louder. Indignant. As if the desert has personally disappointed it.

Something yellow flashes between two stones.

Reddish undercoat. Dark stripes. A fluffy tail lifted like a banner of terrible self-importance.

The creature hops onto a cracked ledge, compact body balanced neatly on small paws, leathery wings tucked against its sides. Its eyes are enormous and bright blue, far too pretty for the amount of trouble currently in its mouth.

A kedi.

Of course.

Of all the ways for off-world hunters to threaten Tajss, today they have chosen a winged cat with stolen murder jewelry.

The kedi looks down at us with the round-eyed innocence of a creature that has never done anything wrong in its life and is prepared to continue that lie until death.

A black metal bead sticks sideways between its tiny sharp teeth.

The tracker pulse flickers.