Chapter 458

...”What is it?” Jasmine asked as she realized that Morales was intently watching the wolves.

“Don’t know, and with the wind changing direction the way it’s doing, they obviously can’t locate whatever is bothering them. Just keep alert. If the shit hits the fan, stay behind me.”

Jasmine felt a jolt of pure terror when she saw something white and impossibly big cresting the hill spraying snow and moving at a speed that seemed uncanny. Warned by the wolves’ uneasiness, Morales had already put everything down and had his crossbow up and ready, which clued Jasmine to do the same. His muttered, “Oh, shit,” was followed almost instantly by his launched crossbow bolt that caught the cat in the throat, and a half second later, another bolt hit in its chest, both bolts disappearing inside the animal. It stumbled, its front legs collapsing from Morales’ bolt cutting its spinal cord, but two arrows thudded into its chest seconds after the bolts connected. The first arrow to strike plowed deep into the animal, leaving only the fletching showing. The second arrow buried three-fourths its length into the beast a few inches to the left of the first arrow. By the time the animal had slid to a halt in the snow, it was well on its way to being dead.

“Shit!” Morales muttered. Then, turning to Jasmine, who, like him, already had another arrow nocked, he quickly ordered, “Watch while I cock my crossbow, then you can cock yours.”

Trembling from the adrenalin surge, Jasmine tried to look everywhere at once, her heart thudding in her chest. While Morales was quickly cocking his crossbow, Lobo and Lila separated and went over the hill, obviously in search of a second ... whatever.

“What the crap is that thing?” Jasmine asked, voice quavering, much to her consternation. Once Morales’ crossbow was again ready, it was her turn to struggle hers into the cocked position, and with shaking hands, fumble another bolt into the rail.

“Hell, I don’t know,” Morales absently answered her question while his eyes never stopped scanning for another of the beasts. “Snow leopard comes to mind, but that was from watching the Nature Channel on Earth. That bastard,” he said, nodding his head toward the animal, “is a hell of a lot bigger than the thing I saw on TV. But if it’s 2214’s version of a snow leopard, why in the hell is it here? Aren’t they supposed to live high in the mountains somewhere where it’s cold the year round? I sure didn’t see anything like it during the summer, and we’re a long way from the mountains.” Then, taking his eyes away from scanning the area for a moment, he glanced at her. “You’re the one with the degrees,” he grumbled. “You tell me why it’s here.”

Barely refraining from snapping back at Morales to remind him that no one was an authority on this planet, she stood with her heart still pounding while she tried to consciously stop the trembling in her hands. Taking a shuddering breath in an effort to calm her jangled nerves, she continued trying to stare everywhere at once, her mind screaming at her that another of the beasts was going to attack at any second. Hoping her voice didn’t squeak too badly, she replied, “Regardless of what you’ve heard, a few scientists from several disciplines have made a limited effort to study various areas on this whole frigging planet. More than 99% of its surface has never been touched by any human, either prisoner or scientist. Most of the General’s scientists are exploring alien planets that are far more exotic than this supposed duplicate Earth. The first and main objective here was to determine the feasibility of mining for things like gold, platinum, silver, diamonds and other precious or rare metals. The General allowed several teams in to explore after his people had already determined that there weren’t enough readily available high-value items here in comparison to other, just as accessible, planets.”

Trying to calm her nerves, she kept lecturing. “A few years ago, the discovery of artifacts from a long-dead civilization like the one found on the other side of this planet, would have piqued the curiosity of many scientists, but with the portal, so many other worlds and civilizations have been opened up for exploration that a ‘sister Earth’ is no longer that high on the attention ladder.”

“But,” he said, sparing a glance at her as they waited for the wolves to return, “I thought that the place had been thoroughly...” Stopping in mid-sentence, “Yeah, I can see what you mean, I suppose. A few people can’t really study a whole planet. So ... I imagine the prisoners here are the exploration team, more or less. If something kills all of us off, I suppose someone would notice and maybe want to figure out why. Otherwise, they just don’t give a shit.”

A frustrated Jasmine was quiet for a moment as she again tried consciously to still the trembling in her hands, with limited success. “You have to remember that the availability of alien technology made searching the planet’s high-profit items a much quicker enterprise. Oh, there were several groups of scientists who were involved with exploring 2214, but they were eventually sent to other planets. The weather, flora and fauna were reasonably Earth-like, so at some point, the General decided to use a portion of 2214 for lifetime prisoners. Perhaps, one day, he will decide to open the rest of the planet to immigration, but then again, there are other planets that would be far more attractive because of minerals, gems and other things that the immigrants could export. I suspect that 2214 will remain a prison planet for the foreseeable future.”

Then risking a further glance at Morales, “How long are we going to stand out here?”

Before he could speak, Lobo and Lila appeared, each coming from a different direction. The two wolves ran to touch noses, before trotting over to the cat. After sniffing the animal for a couple of seconds, Lobo came over to Morales, sat and stared up at the human.

The hair on the back of Jasmine’s neck tried to stand up when she realized that Lobo had to be reporting in. A moment later, Morales spoke to her. “There aren’t any more of the things close by. I’ll turn my back. Go have your potty break. Call Lila to go with you. You can watch for me while I do the same.”

How did he know I had to pee? But she realized she was, indeed, about to pee in her pants.

Instead of going somewhere, as soon as he turned his back, she yanked her pants down and peed. Standing, she pulled her pants up before kicking snow over the yellow stain.

“Your turn,” she said as calmly as she could, turning away. I can’t believe I just dropped my pants and peed not ten feet from him, but I’m certainly not going off by myself just after that thing attacked. Don’t they have mates? Where is the other one? Oh, crap. How does he stand the tension all the time, not to mention he will have instances like this for the rest of his life?

With their “break” over, she turned back to him, “So, you’re saying there isn’t another ... snow leopard or whatever? But how can you be sure...”

Interrupting her, he gruffly said, “Look, all I know is that the wolves didn’t find anything nearby. They followed its back trail for ... uh, some distance, and they think it was alone, or there isn’t another one near right now, or something like that, anyway. And don’t fucking start asking me how I know. I just do,” he groused.

Jasmine’s temper flared, but she forced it down, realizing that both of them were strung out just now.

Knowing the answer, she asked anyway. “So, what are we going to do now?”

“Well,” he said with a sigh, “there’s no way I’m going to let that beautiful pelt go to waste. So I’ll skin the cat, scrape the hide and begin the tanning process.”

“Well,” she said resignedly, “show me what to do, and I’ll help all I can.”

“It’s messy,” he warned.

I’m well aware it’s messy, she thought, but said aloud, “But those hides you wrapped around me were soft and warm, and ... this Gore-Tex coat cleans easily with only a damp rag.”

“Got your knife with you?”

“I listened to you,” she responded, thinking about his lecture about going fully armed, and her knives were part of her weapons.

“Good. Let me get it started, then I’ll show you what you can do to help.”

As they worked, thoughts tumbled through Jasmine’s mind. Darnit, they did it again. Somehow, the wolves told Morales that there wasn’t another leopard close by. Looking up, she checked to see where they were. Now Lobo seems to have sentry duty while Lila scouts. They just can’t be that smart. They just can’t be, but Morales didn’t tell either of them to do anything – not specifically, anyway. At least, not that I heard, and I was standing right beside him. But they are obviously protecting us while we skin this thing.

Hearing Jasmine muttering under her breath, “Grumpy today? Wrong time of the month?” Morales teased with a chuckle that pissed her off even more.

“No,” she snarled, “But, if you must know, I have an implant that stops my ovulation for a year.”

Well, that was more information than I expected or wanted, he thought. “So what the fuck did I do?” he groused back at her.

“You obviously wouldn’t understand,” she griped back.

He looked at her, started to say something, thought better of it, shut his mouth and went on with the skinning.

Later, he hung the skin on a rack not far from the entrance and began the first scraping.

Without his having asked, Jasmine stood in the snow, crossbow in hand while he worked. After a few minutes, Lobo whined, came down from the rock and sat beside her.

“How does he do it, Boy?” she whispered. “How can he understand you two and I can’t?”

Lobo leaned against Jasmine for a second, before climbing back atop the entrance rock to again sit watching.

“You can’t be that smart,” Jasmine whispered as she watched the wolf. “You just can’t be.”

A half hour later, Morales took the heavy hide down, rolled it up and walked by with it over his shoulder on the way back inside. “Would you bring my weapons, please?”

“Sure,” she replied, already reaching for his bow and crossbow. Draping the crossbow’s lanyard around her neck and the bow over her shoulder, she grabbed the end of the skis to pull the wheel/ski assembly after her, knowing their trip for logs wouldn’t happen this afternoon.

Inside, she put the assembly by a wall and the weapons in their place. Without being asked, she checked the percolator, decided there was enough coffee left, punched the cookfire up with a hardwood stick that Morales used for that purpose, and put the pot on to heat.

Walking over to where Morales had spread out the hide and was now doing a second scraping, “Sorry,” she said.

Morales chuckled and sat back on his haunches to look up at her. “As I said before, welcome to 2214. The first time you look death in the eye ... well it kinda gets to you. But you know I’m going to ask. Where in the hell did you learn to shoot like that? Your bolt was only a split second behind mine, and so was your arrow. Both were dead on the mark, too.”

“Oh, it’s a long story.” Then with a grin, “I was just glad I didn’t pee in my pants. If I had thought of it, though, I probably would have,” she finished with a nervous chuckle, knowing that what she said was truer than he realized.