Cat Scratch Fever by Tara K. Harper

Author:Tara K. Harper [Harper, Tara K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780345380517
Amazon: 0345380517
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1994-12-15T08:00:00+00:00

When Tsia snapped awake, the flexor was in her hand and her breathing was stilled as she listened.

“Esha, Tsia,” A bundle dropped softly beside her, and a huge shape squatted near her saddle. “Ar Ramok.”

She fingered the weapon back to a stick and sat up, grabbing her blunter and stuffing her arms into it as soon as the cold predawn air hit her skin.

Ramok pushed the package toward her. “Clothes,” he said, his thick accent holding the consonants. “Boots and food.”

At his urging, she pulled the bundle apart. Quietly, she laid out the goods: a sand-colored jumpsuit, same material as her blunter. A small roll that unfolded to become a pair of socks; the boots looked the right size. There was a shade—the sweep of dull cloth that not only protected one’s head from the sun but used a tiny energy net to cool the air inside the cloth—a flat knife, a recharger for her flexor, a medpak, a darkeye, and a pouch of slimchims. The darkeye with its rounded, lusterless contacts intrigued her, but the scent of the slimchims made her mouth water, and she reached for that pouch first. Half the nausea in her stomach was hunger, not virus, she realized as she popped one of the wafers between her teeth.

In another bundle there were several pieces of metaplas that could be formed like a flexor into forked, curved, and straightened shapes. She ignored them in favor of examining the e-wrap she found. It was similar to the emergency type used for temperature extremes, but its colors shifted like a chameleon in her hands, and there were tiny power strips melded into its seams. She repacked the sheet carefully. There were other items—standard, though expensive, survival gear. They went into her saddlebags easily.

Tsia knew that Ramok was watching her intently from where he sat, but she ignored him. However, when she started to remove her blunter and change to the new set of clothes, he leaned over and stopped her. Carefully, he took the small bronze blunter disk he had given her back in Noirelle. Checking to make sure it was still matched to her heartbeat, he opened her collar, then pressed the disk to her neck as he helped her out of the jacket. This time Tsia’s hand stopped him.

As she took the disk from his fingers, he grinned. She touched the small, flat circle to her skin herself, then began to struggle, one-armed, out of the jacket. Ramok’s hand on her collar helped her, but his smile faded as he noted the manacles still on her wrists. He fingered the metaplas rings with a frown. She shrugged them out of his hands. Then she reached for the medpak and, ignoring her shivers, began to stretch out a skinroll for the gash in her upper arm and the puncture in her leg.

Ramok helped her pull on the rest of her clothes, the fabric sealing itself at his touch. Beneath the uniform the tall man’s hands were hot on her skin, and she felt even colder when he withdrew them.

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