But as he watched her give in to despair, he was quite sure she was as much a stranger as he was on this planet. Her sorrow bothered him more than he liked to admit, but he still couldn’t disregard the possibility that she had been planted here as part of whatever test was being performed. Still, relief swept over him when she finally stopped crying and lifted her head.
The small forest creature she had enticed from the trees muttered anxiously, and he watched with what he refused to admit was envy as she stroked its fur. How would those small, soft fingers feel on his own much harder skin?
She stood, still cradling the creature between those tempting breasts, and wandered aimlessly around the clearing. He waited for her to pick up the woven bag that matched his own, but she passed it twice before he realized that she hadn’t noticed it amongst the colorful undergrowth. Hmm.
After a brief debate with himself, he pulled a dead stick loose from the tree. Aiming it carefully, he tossed it down into the clearing beside the bag. She jumped at the noise, then went to investigate. As she did, she tripped over the bag. Not exactly what he had in mind, but at least she’d found it at last.
Good. He settled back against the trunk to await developments.
Chapter Two
The harsh crack of something hitting the ground made Jane jump, then frown when she realized it was just a branch. It seemed odd that it would have landed with such force in the center of the clearing. She hesitated, then went to take a closer look. As she did, her foot caught on a trailing vine.
No! Not a vine. She had tripped over the handle of a primitive bag, roughly woven out of the vines that surrounded her.
She snatched it up eagerly, hoping that it would provide some type of explanation. To her disappointment, it only contained two items. The first was a small metal device—an unmarked cylindrical tube. The metal was smooth and unblemished, polished to a high sheen, and looked completely out of place in this primitive setting. She started to throw it away in disgust, then reconsidered and placed it back in the bag.
The second item was even more baffling. A thin sheet of white plastic was covered with meaningless symbols. If it had been intended to communicate with her, she had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to represent. Her hands shaking, she crumpled it into a small ball, but as soon as she let go of it, it unfolded into a smooth, unwrinkled sheet.
Another sign of obviously advanced technology, but what did it mean? And why would those two sophisticated items be left in such a rustic bag?
Her head ached as she tried desperately to come up with an answer. She rubbed her temples, simultaneously realizing that her mouth was dry and her throat sore from crying. She desperately wanted something to drink, but she had no idea how to find water.
“I knew I should have joined the Girl Scouts,” she muttered. Of course, her widowed mother hadn’t wanted her only daughter venturing into the wilderness. And Jane had been content enough with her books not to push the issue.
But she was still going to need to find some water, assuming that it would even be safe to drink. A sloshing noise interrupted her thoughts, and she looked over to see Mr. Tiddles upending a leaf and pouring the moisture from it into his mouth.
She rushed over to join him and realized that the plant he had chosen had large cup-shaped blue leaves, each one containing a small amount of fluid. Was it water? She hesitated, biting her lip, then dipped a cautious fingertip into the liquid. Her fingertip didn’t burn and it felt just like water. After a cautious sniff, she touched her damp finger to the tip of her tongue. It tasted cool and slightly minty.
Mr. Tiddles chittered at her with what seemed like encouragement. Screwing up her face, she took a cautious sip. The cool liquid flowing into her parched mouth felt like heaven, and she abandoned her caution, draining leaf after leaf until her thirst was assuaged.
Afterwards, she sank back down to the ground and was immediately seized by second thoughts. What if the water wasn’t safe? Horrible thoughts of poisoning and dysentery and death danced in her mind—the type of reaction her mother would have had—but she did her best to push them away. The water, if it was water, had tasted fine and she didn’t feel any distress. In fact, she felt surprisingly clear-headed.
“And you’re fine, aren’t you?” she said to Mr. Tiddles, resolutely ignoring the fact that he was undoubtedly a native of this place.
He chirped amiably back at her and she realized that the noises of the surrounding jungle were changing. The light was definitely beginning to fade. She felt exposed in this clearing, but she couldn’t bring herself to face the shadowy darkness of the surrounding jungle.
In the end, she gathered more of the enormous leaves and piled them at the base of a tree on the edge of the clearing. She sat down, her back to the tree, and pulled another leaf over her. Everything felt a little damp from the humidity, but the leaf provided a surprising amount of warmth as the air cooled. Mr. Tiddles crawled up on her shoulder and wrapped his long furry tail around her neck before falling asleep. Having him there comforted her, even though he couldn’t defend her from anything larger than a bread box.
She stroked his fur idly and tried to come up with a plan. In her earlier thirst she had drained most of the leaves from the blue-leafed bush, and she hadn’t seen any others in the immediate vicinity. She was going to need more water and soon. The liquid had been surprisingly filling, but at some
