"You just paid me back," I told her. "When you invited me to this tree to hide. But I'm a little confused why you chose this one. I feel exposed."
When she pointed above me I fully expected to see sky through the branches and leaves. Instead, there was a solid roof. Or rather, the floor of a level above us. I followed as she showed me the way up one of the thick branches. The base of the tree split into five separate trunks. The surface above us was built between them and difficult to see from the ground. I didn't realize it was there until she pointed to it.
I had to use a fair amount of upper body strength again pull myself up. I felt pathetic compared to her. Handicapped even if it weren’t for my strong arms and shoulders. The little Peggy's body traversed upward without the least amount of difficulty.
The solid floor I then rested on was roughly three by four meters. It had been built patchwork out of debris, but only gave slightly from my weight. The shabbily constructed walls varied in height but were mostly just enough to conceal me while laying down or crouched.
"Did you build this?" I asked, ready to confess how impressed I was. It was a shitty piece of work for a group of experienced builders but admirable for a little girl to accomplish.
"No. I find."
"Where do you live?" I asked.
"Here now," she said sadly. "But I lived with my family until three days ago, on Goegly Pond."
On Golden Pond? With Henry Fonda and Kathryn Hepburn? No way!
"Bad men take me," she explained with pain in her eyes. "My father could not stop them. My mother cried. My sisters ran to save themselves. But I bit one bad man's ear after they take me and got away."
"Can you go to the authorities?" I asked. "Police, or some other agency that helps your kind when bad people come after you?"
She turned her head sideways like a dog trying to figure out what I was attempting to say. Then she shook her head. That gesture was apparently universal. "No. Only bad men and family. There nobody else."
Shit! I didn't want to get involved with some Pegillian crime world. But I also didn't want to just walk away from this pretty little Peggy that needed help. As I thought about my options, Alora's eyelids began drooping.
"Are you okay?" I asked her. She didn't appear to be hurt, but fur could be concealing an injury on that leg that the gantha-beast had pinned to the ground.
"Sleepy," she said as she slowly crawled toward me. The motion was almost seductive, but the look on her face was not. I waited to see what she planned to do. Without hesitation, she curled up on the floor beside me and rested her head against my leg. Moments later her breathing slowed to indicate that she was sleeping. Too physically drained to remain awake once the primary danger was gone.
What the fuck was I supposed to do now?
Chapter Thirteen
Alora was ultra-petite by human standards but likely average for a Pegillian teenage female. I had assumed she was a teenager based on the little bit that she had told me. She was still in the care of her parents before the bad men took her away.
I wondered how many kinds of Pegillian bad men there were? Did these guys chasing after Alora plan to pimp her out? Or maybe sell her into slavery here in TruPort? It was also possible that she could be sold off-world as a pet or sex slave. All those options were bad. But there might be some that were worse.
I had tried to help the young topless girl back in the business district when she fed me her sob story. The coins I gave her weren't much by galactic traveler standards, but were probably good money for a Peggy. And she wasn't being chased after. Alora's situation seemed much worse. I couldn't just slip away as she slept. That would make me feel like shit for a long time.
More conversation could be heard from the gang members down below. They sounded like they were getting closer. Were they able to follow our trail? They would be able to climb up here easily. In their natural element I would think that I would be at a great disadvantage even with my superior strength if they swarmed in numbers. I remembered that some of them had clubs and at least one was carrying a pistol. I would need to wrestle it off that guy to even the fight and hope that no other powerful weapons would come into play.
They were speaking their language. It was heavy on grunts and squeaks that served to only make them seem more like primates. The only word I could pick out was gantha. The type of animal that I killed to save Alora. Had they found the carcass? Did they realize that I killed the thing? Did they even know that I existed at this point? Certainly they didn't think that an unarmed Peggy girl had slain the beast.
The group was definitely getting closer. I searched the short wall for a place to peek through without revealing myself. Alora stirred as I moved, but did not wake up. If she had been on the run for a while, she had to be utterly exhausted.
The voices got louder suddenly. I thought at first that maybe they spotted me. But it sounded like an argument instead. None of them were currently looking up into Alora's tree. In fact, most were looking in the same direction, back the way that I had come.
Then I heard the guttural grunt that almost transitioned into a roar.
