In Enemy Territory - Shannon West Page 0,84
few hours head start.
Just before they were about to go, the door opened again and the general reappeared. To Ryan’s shock and horror, he had a small boy with him.
“Close your mouth, Ryan,” the general said with a cruel smile. “I’ve brought you something to help you evade the tigers. At least I hope it will give you a little extra incentive. You have a child of your own, I believe. And humans seem to have a strong instinct to keep their young ones safe. So, I’ve brought you this boy to protect on your travels.”
Rasc looked from the general back to the child in shock and disbelief. Ryan spoke up beside him. “This was the ambassador’s little boy I last saw waving to me from the hovercraft.”
Rasc stared down at him in amazement. The child’s face was blank, but his eyes lit up a bit when he saw Ryan, as if he may have recognized him. Ryan reached to pull the little boy next to him and the child never resisted, but he was trembling and kept his eyes lowered. Rasc knelt down beside the boy and started speaking to him in a low, soothing voice. He told him he was safe now and they’d take care of him and other nonsense words. This little boy would die right along beside them, but the general was right about one thing. They’d do everything they could to protect him and everything in their power to save him. Even if it felt hopeless at the moment, they’d try.
“What have you done to him, you monster?” Ryan asked the general, trying to keep his own voice low so as not to further traumatize the child, who couldn’t have been over six.
“I haven’t done a thing to him. He’s been like that since he saw that Leerian father of his die on board your hovercraft. I’m afraid I did lose my temper when I saw it wasn’t you we’d kidnapped, and somehow the fool operative had managed to bring me someone else. I’m afraid I shot them both before I could stop myself. I didn’t kill the child though, as you accused me of doing. I brought him here to my own home, and the servants have been seeing to his needs. I thought I’d hold him for a while to see if I would have some need of him in the future, but I really can’t see what I’d need him for now as I’ll be leaving here once the hunt is over. So, since you’ve expressed so much interest, I give him to you, and we’ll run this little experiment. What will happen if you have a child like this to try and protect? It’s an interesting concept. Anyway, he’s all yours. I’ll be interested to see what happens.”
Ryan tightened his arms around the child protectively, turning his face away from the general. After another moment of gazing at the three of them with keen interest, he turned and left the room.
“Someday I’d really like to kill that bastard,” Ryan said softly, and Rasc nodded.
“What are we going to do now?”
“We’ll follow the same plan. And take turns carrying him if we need to. I don’t think he could keep up otherwise.”
“He’s a big kid. Let’s see if he can run with us first.”
Ryan regarded the child for a moment and then nodded. A six-cycle old Tygerian was about the size of a thirteen-year-old human, so it was very possible he’d be able to keep up just fine. They left the compound with the child jogging alongside them. They had begun by simply running straight into the jungle, heading for the deepest part of it, guiding the child along by holding onto his arm. Rasc tried to control his panic, thinking that if they could run as far and as fast as they could, they might put a good distance between themselves and the tigers. The undergrowth was thick and hard to navigate, and they all stumbled often and fell more times than they could count, but they managed to keep going.
After thirty minutes or more, Rasc’s panic was fading a bit simply because eventually the adrenaline and the unrelenting fear just couldn’t be maintained at that level for any longer and left numbness in its place. When they stopped to rest, Ryan began ferreting around under the trees for something.
“What are you looking for?”
“Vines to make a snare. It won’t stop them, but it might slow them down long enough