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"Please"

He ru kit One tiny prick into the skin ofIt , but it makes me care less

"Is that better?"

"Much, thank you"

Vel sets his pack within easy reach, and I set my shockstick near ainst his, but since it’s a local, it shouldn’t affect my state of mind I let myself enjoy the reflected war protection of the ther le: shrill shrieks, raucous calls, gentle chirrups The sounds blur into a soothing symphony, and I fall asleep faster than I expected

I wake to a night up the tree below round S, and they bear spines on their backs for i their prey I scramble backward, conscious of how far I have to fall The narrow ledge willa bitch, and where the hell is Vel?

He drops from above, his twin blades in hand, in the tih I’ The h painkiller left inpain Right now, there are only two, though their screah to knock it toward the edge, and I folloith a side kick, which sends it tu at branches and vines, but succeeds only in battering against the trunk on the way down It hits hard and does not get up In the time it takes me to dispatch mine, Vel has already sliced the other creature’s throat The blood sht, less rotting vegetation and e

"Have you slept?" I ask him

"No I moved to stand watch after you drifted off"

So he only lay with h to permit me to relax, as I wouldn’t have done alone Hoell he knows me That makes ht here yet

"Then it’s e point above?" At his nod, I ask, "How far up?"

He directsI’m sure he doesn’t expect "Would you like me to stay until you fall asleep?"

Vel hesitates, his posture a clear Ithtorian expression of surprise Then he simply answers, "Yes"

So I lie down at his back, listening until his breathing steadies I wonder if Adele suspected even before she saw the truth of him Because he does not sound human at rest, even clad in faux-skin His inhalations are too deep, slow and long, hinting at extraordinary lung capacity I wait until I’m sure he’s out, then I slip out froher lookout position; it’s no more than a notch carved in a thick branch, but it offers a stable place to sit

The rest of the night is quiet I can only presume that the bodies at the base of the tree offered predators both an alternate food source and a warning By the tiht as well Vel stirs as the day brightens, and we suck down packets of paste from my pocket He swore once he’d rather die than eat the stuff, but we can’t cook up here, not even on his chemical burner, and we have no idea if we can safely eat any of the native flora and fauna That probley is fried, so we can’t scan for local toxins I don’t knoe’ll do when our food runs out

"How are we for water?"

"We need to find a local source I have purification tablets in et stranded on a class-P world with no functional technology"

His amusement manifests in a quirk of his hidden mandible that almost resembles a smile when it pulls at his face "Precisely so"

"I’ll go down first Warn ’s about to swoop down on round, I note that the corpses have been gnahile we slept When he joins s with his knife I don’t know if I can stand to watch him eat it; his people enjoy fresh meat But instead, he pares the flesh away fro look, he explains, "I a his own blades to sharpen the bone to a fierce point, he lashes the blade to my shockstick with a thin, tensile vine, and then he ce from the trees I take the s

"Thank you We h this after all"

"We will," he says quietly "Never doubt it"

CHAPTER 27

We’ve spent seven nights without seeing anything capable of co with us Ten different species have tried to eat us This is our eighth day

The jungle thins ahead, opening to a dark plain where nothing grows, all obsidian and basalt Deep trenches have been cut in the distant land, though I can’t tell whether it was nature or n of civilization