Cat • a • Lyst by Foster Alan Dean

Author:Foster, Alan Dean [Foster, Alan Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504093521
Amazon: B0D22WD3R1
Goodreads: 211754769
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2024-04-09T07:00:00+00:00

XII

When she was finally allowed to rejoin her companions, Da Rimini proved decidedly uninterested in discussing the print and film rights to her experience, or much of anything else for that matter. Though she responded at first to the Fernández brothers’ offer of assistance with an impressive string of curses in both Spanish and Quechua, she eventually allowed them to seat her on one of the beds with which they had been provided.

She sat there trembling slightly, though whether from fear or the lingering aftereffects of the sedative she’d been dosed with no one could tell.

“I thought they goin’ to kill me,” she muttered. “I was sure they goin’ to kill me.” She looked up. “What they do, anyway? I don’ remember nothin’.”

Ashwood smiled contentedly. “Well, for one thing you screamed. Quite loudly.”

“They didn’t cut you,” Fewick told her. “They ran some kind of advanced CAT scanner or X-ray machine over your abdomen and used it to take a look inside your body.”

“I see.” Suddenly she gazed sharply at the plump archaeologist. Her intensity was beginning to return. “What parts of my body?” she asked dangerously.

Bearing in mind a previously demonstrated proclivity toward violence on the part of the attractive young woman confronting him, Fewick considered carefully before replying.

“Your stomach. Your kidneys and liver. Your intestines.”

Her gaze didn’t waver. “That’s all?”

Fewick nodded tersely, found a reason to begin grooming Moe’s neck.

“That’s okay, then.” She leaned back against the wall, glared angrily around the enclosure. “An’ nobody tried to stop them from takin’ me.”

“Why should we risk ourselves for you?” Ashwood shot back. “Besides, what did you expect us to do? Take on armed men with our bare hands? If they’d taken me instead what would you have done?”

Da Rimini nodded slowly. “Prob’ly the same thing. Did it help them make their damn decision?”

“They have not said anything to us yet,” Igor told her. He looked over at the Fernández brothers. “You were gone a long time with them. Do you think they can do what they say?”

“We don’t know what they can do,” Manco replied. “They talk a lot but they didn’t show us anything. No bombs or nothing.” He paused. “They asked us to help them.”

“Y’all ain’t goin’ to?” Ashwood said.

“Of course not,” Manco replied dutifully. “We are not interested in conquering Europe.”

“I wish I could have done something,” Trang Ho murmured.

Da Rimini looked over at her. “To help me?”

“No.” The reporter eyed her camera. “I don’t know how those pictures I took off the viewer will come out. It would’ve been better if I’d been there in person.”

Da Rimini started for her but soon had to return to the bed. She was still too shaky to engage in any kind of active pursuit.

“All my life I hear of the gold of Paititi,” she muttered. “All my life I have searched for it. If I found it I knew I would defend it against anyone who tried to take it from me. But I did not expect to have to fight for it with the original owners.

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