“For fuck’s sake, Cutter!”
I wanted to laugh, but arach venom was plenty good at what it did, and I couldn’t make a sound. I didn’t know how much I’d been hit with, either, given the damn thing had snapped off the spider, before it could finish the dose.
“How’s your head?” he asked, and I wondered what he meant.
“I meant talk to me with your implant, shit-for-brains. I need to know you’re okay.”
There were so many things I wanted to say, right then, but I couldn’t settle on a single one. Normally, I would have just given him a look that said it all, but, right now, I couldn’t. With a sound of sheer exasperation, Mack scooped me up, and carried me out to where Askavor had collapsed in a heap in front of the shuttle. Cascade was sitting beside him, and growling at every person that came near.
Except the vespis. He didn’t growl at them—and he didn’t growl at Mack, or me, or Tens.
“What the fuck did she do to herself, this time?” Tens asked, when he saw Mack carrying me over.
Yeah. Thanks, Tens. I’m fine, by the way. Nice of you to ask.
Tens narrowed his eyes.
“She’s still got a mouth on her.”
“It’s your fault,” I managed, and the rest of what I wanted to say, evaporated.
“What’s my fault?”
“Leave it, Tens. She’s not all there, at the moment.”
Thanks, Mack. Thanks a fucking lot.
“You’re welcome, Cutter. T’Kit! I thought you were supposed to look after my girl, here.”
His girl?
And he ignored me, again.
T’Kit came over, and took me from him. I wanted to protest, but couldn’t say a word, couldn’t struggle, either, as the wasp laid me face-down on a blanket.
“You were lucky,” she said, her wings humming as she used her mandibles to cut away the fabric of the combat suit. “He died before he was ready to kill you.”
He had? And what made her think he hadn’t been ready? He’d looked pretty dead-set on ending me, as far as I’d been able to see. She pulled the thoughts from my head, and I sensed amusement.
“He was loaded with paralytic.”
Yeah, any idiot could see that. Her point was?
“If he’d chosen death, he’d have been loaded with something worse.”
They had different poisons?
“Venoms. And, yes. They produce a different venom for each purpose. Most have the paralytic. Those,” and she flicked her antennae towards the carcass under the drop-ship. “Those have one that kills in seconds of contact, and a third for digestion.”
“Digestion?” This time I managed to get the word to form.
“Yes.” Her mental tone was gentle. “Those arach feed on all their prey. They need the paralytic to ensure a living capture, and then the digestive to break the body into a soup after they’ve cocooned it.”
“It was going to cocoon me?”
“Oh, yes. You and the boy. Askavor, too. It is standard practice for a long flight.”
She glanced skyward.
“Where they were flying to, we do not know.”
“Rohan is okay?”
“He got into the shuttle. The arach would not have acquired it.”
And speaking of things being acquired.
“Mack. Did you give him slim sticks?”
Judging from the startled exclamations that rattled through my skull, that was a most definite ‘no’. I got the impression of movement, and Tens suddenly sounded further away.
“Rohan! Open up!”
“Oh, man, Cutter. Did you have to tell them?”
“Hell, yes! You little shit.”
He laughed, and bolted out of my head, leaving me with the distinct impression that drop-ships were great because there were so many places you could stash things.
“Rohan!” Tens sounded frustrated, and I guessed he was going to have to hack his own way into the transport.
“You’re a bad influence,” the comms tech grumbled.
Me? Rohan was his apprentice, not mine!
“Yeah, and you’d do well to remember that.”
Whatever!
I might have rolled my eyes at that, but T’Kit started working the fang free, and all I could focus on were the exploding patterns of color inside my head.
“You got any antivenin, T’Kit?” Mack asked, and I so wanted to protest.
The arach fang was a pretty big needle, all by itself. I was pretty sure I didn’t need another one.
“Stop your bitching, Cutter.”
Fine.
Turns out those weren’t the only needles I needed. Antivenin was followed by antibiotics and something to reverse the paralysis.
“That needs stitches,” T’Kit said, when she’d punched me full of holes, and she hesitated.
“What’s the matter?”
“It would be better for a human medic to do this.”
“Doc still on the orbital?” I asked.
“Yes, but Delight is beyond range.”
“You got skin-seal?”
“Perhaps at the main hospital.”
“Mack can do it.”
“Mack most certainly cannot,” Mack replied, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
But it wasn’t ‘nothing’; I could see that. Someone was very badly hurt, and Mack was worried. As I tried to work out what it was, the shot they’d given me took effect. The pain intensified, and I flinched.
“Lie still,” T’Kit instructed, but she, too, seemed distracted.
“What is it?”
A little beyond her, I could hear a rising thrum, anxious human voices, the queen…
“Wait here,” T’Kit said, and moved away from my side.
Mack followed, as though drawn by a thread.
Seriously?
I propped myself up on my elbows, dragging air through gritted teeth, and hoping no-one noticed. Judging from the activity around Askavor, no one would. Askavor? I moved carefully up onto my hands and knees, grateful when no-one turned back.
A cluster of vespis and humans had gathered around the fallen weaver. Settlers formed a half circle around him, their faces pinched and anxious. The queen was standing at the weaver’s head, a curved claw resting on his carapace.
“I have done what I can, Aska, but I fear it is not enough,” she said.
“Your majesty,” he replied, and I knew he had to be in pain, for his thoughts were broadcasting wide. “I am sorry I cannot stay.”
From amongst the settlers, I heard a half-choked sob, and one of the women turned her face to the shoulder
