The Goddess-Queens of Pudendor - The Abducted - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

On the Road

We walked for several hours, until the sun, or whatever star we were beneath, stood overhead, before Kamita called a halt near a small stream. Apparently these people had the same custom as earthlings of stopping for lunch at noon, for which I was very grateful. It was hard to say exactly how long it had been since we’d had our last meal on the ship. Perhaps four or five hours and maybe as many as ten or twelve. At any rate, we were ravenous. But overriding our hunger was our thirst, and the water in the small stream looked better than anything. The other slaves went immediately to the stream, knelt down and began scooping up handfuls. Stanley and I were right behind them.

I scooped up a double handful, but let it splash back before bringing it up to my mouth. “How do we know this is safe to drink?” I asked.

“We don’t,” Stanley replied. “But what choice do we have? Dying of thirst will kill you faster than starvation.  And they’re drinking it.” He nodded towards the other slaves.

“They live here. They’re probably used to whatever bugs are in the water.”

“Look at it this way. The bugs in the water here are probably not used to what’s in your stomach. Then again, the critters on the ship gave us that stuff that made us able to eat their food without shitting like a dysenteric hippo. It must have contained whatever intestinal flora is necessary to allow us to live here. Maybe they also inoculated us against the water. I mean, would it make sense to kidnap us and haul us all the way here, only to have us die from the tourist two-step?”

So we scooped up water like the rest. And it was good, like the best bottled spring water. Even better, really, since whatever subtle natural flavors it carried weren’t filtered out of it. There were no immediate ill effects, but that wasn’t surprising. My experience of traveling in third world countries had taught me that the bugs like to sneak up on you hours or days later, usually at the most inconvenient time.

Thirst slaked, we walked back to the carts. One of the slave women pulled a sack out of the back of the lead cart and handed out small, round loaves of bread. The dark brown crusts were hard and slightly glossy, as if they’d been glazed. Dubiously, I broke mine in half. The interior was dense and coarse, but also moist and studded with what proved, upon tasting, to be nuts and chunks of dried fruit. Nothing improves the taste of food like a good seasoning of hunger, but even allowing for that the loaf made a decent meal, both tasty and filling. What it would have tasted like if there had been a Burger King in the neighborhood is another matter.

After about an hour’s rest Savitra came around giving orders. We resumed our places between the carts, the two male slaves went to their respective draft animals, and we were on the road again, putting one dusty foot in front of the other. And so we spent the rest of what became a very boring afternoon. We trudged along through what seemed like an endless repetition of the same scene. Low trees and bushes, then a stretch of grassland broken up by patches of brush, then more low trees and bushes. And more of the same and still more of the same. The land seemed almost level with only an occasional slight up or down slope, contributing to the boredom.

The conversation was mostly notable for its lack. The instinct to cling to the familiar caused us new slaves to walk in a bunch, but neither Li Mei nor Dmitri seemed to be in the mood to talk, and Stanley was only slightly more chatty. I could tell he was watching everything, though, making mental notes. As for our new companions, they frequently eyed us surreptitiously, but made no moves to open a dialogue.

Every so often we stopped for a short break, roughly after an hour’s travel, though the timing of the rest stops seemed to be more related to arriving at a convenient spot, by the side of a stream or a shady grove. The only excitement came at a stop near a patch of grassland broken up by low hummocks and patches of brush. Suddenly two of the armswomen kicked their mounts into a trot and dashed into the field. We watch them darting back and forth, occasionally cocking an arm and launching their spears.

When they came back each had a pair of rabbits. Or that’s what I first thought they were. As they came closer I could see that they more closely resembled that taxidermy joke one sees in rustic restaurants and general stores in the rural West: the jackalope, a stuffed jackrabbit with antelope horns glued on its head. These critters were somewhat larger than a jackrabbit but smaller ears. The hindquarters were even more massively developed than a rabbit. And the horns more closely resembled the small, black backwards hooked horn of the European chamois than the American pronghorn antelope.

They returned and hung their trophies on the tail of the lead cart. They hung there, swaying back and forth with the jouncing of the cart for another hour or so. Then Kamita signaled the caravan to pull off into a small clearing, which would be our campsite for the night.

The rest of the slaves, used to the routines of travel, immediately went about their tasks. We newcomers stood around watching and waiting for direction. It gave me a chance to observe activities, particularly the fate of the jackalopes.

One of the male slaves retrieved them and, one at a time, hung them from a nearby tree limb. Taking a small knife from the kitchen box in the cart he proceeded to gut them. I moved to a place where I could watch him work but not get in the way. While cleaning wild game wasn’t high on my list of favorite ways to spend some quality time neither was it repellant. I’d spent a month on a field trip to that mecca of anthropology students, New Guinea. I knew that meat didn’t come from the supermarket, miraculously wrapped in plastic film on a foam tray.

I had a reason for being so interested. Outwardly, this planet’s flora and fauna seemed very earth-like. I wondered how far that extended. I had my answer quite quickly. When the first of the creatures had been opened up and its insides spilled into a wooden bucket any attentive high school biology student could have easily identified the major organs, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, stomach, intestines. Nothing at first glance was very exotic.

This was interesting. What were the odds of parallel evolution on two planets producing biological structures so close? Or had these creatures descended from earth animals, or earth animals descended from them? And how long ago did the separation occur for these changes to have evolved?

Another question I’d had was answered when it was time to dispose of the guts. The slave carried the bucket away from the carts and dumped them on the ground. The armswomen had already led their vikagas to the place. I’d seen the birds pecking away at the ground like so many giant chickens when they’d been picketed out during the lunch stop, and I’d seen the armswomen feeding them fruit and scraps of bread. But I wondered how extensive their diet was. I had an answer quickly. The giant birds rushed on the pile of guts and made quick work of them. Clearly they were omnivorous, with a strong taste for animal parts, and therefore potentially very dangerous. My next question was did they have wild kin roaming about, and how much of a threat might they be.

Continued in Chapter 7