Sarai

house, taking their bloody fightaway from the fire. Maybe they were still inside, burning intoash.
Whatever. Hecouldn’t waste time worrying about any of them — he needed to gethelp, needed to get away.
He stood,swaying and shaking, almost falling again, then staggered toward awork truck parked near one of the outbuildings.

Chapter Two
ALEKYNHELPED HIS PARD remove the two Keinyn bodies from the burninghouse, laying them respectfully on theground at the front of the building.
Tig bentover to check the body at his feet. He looked up at his clan mates,grim-faced.
“Keinyn” —as if there were any doubt at all about that! — “caught mid-shiftand insane with it.”
Which waswhy they’d been able to take them down so easily — out of theirminds and at the mercy of the intense hormonal and otherphysiological changes their bodies were trapped into cycling, theseKeinyn were neither one thing nor the other. Dangerous, fearsomebut vulnerable to organised and logical attack. The Keinyn, unlikethe Naferi, were still able to shapeshift into their ancestralforms, but the ability was unstable, more of a liability thananything else, Alekyn privately believed, even though many Naferidisagreed.
“Why werethey with the Zill? Captives?” Eled asked. “Were theymind-altered?”
“Possibly,”Alekyn murmured. “Two dead, one got away with the Zill. Maybe theZill left these two to fight us.”
The Zillnever fought face to face if they could help it — they preferredblitzkrieg battles waged at a distance - but once they wereplanetside, they used brain-controlled slave fighters to obliterateall opposition. The slave fighters were completely dispensable; theZill didn’t even bother to recall them when they’d finished theirdirty work — they ended up being consumed by the Zill along withthe populations they’d defeated for their masters.
Tig gruntedand gestured to the corpses. “We’re taking the bodies back to thehealers for examination?”
Alekynnodded. “They’ll want to see what was done to them.”
“They wereafter the small creature trapped inside,” Bram muttered.
“We didn’tsee it leave so it’s probably still in the house.” Eled lookedregretful. “Shame, it was a pretty thing from what Isaw.”
Alekyncursed silently. He’d been so focused on taking down the Zill andtheir Keinyn slaves he hadn’t spared their victim any thought. “Getthe bodies onto gurneys…Tig’s right, the healers will want to seethem.”
Eled presseda button on his belt; two floating gurneys materialised, ready forthe corpses.
“Tig, whenwe get back to the ship, see whether this planet is sufficientlyadvanced to have some kind of compnet. If it has, upload as muchinformation as you can — we’ll need to know how advanced thisworld and its inhabitants are.”
He didn’tneed to tell them why. They already knew. If they could, the Zillwould ravage this planet, taking all its resources and enslaving orconsuming its inhabitants to further their endless war against theNaferi and the other PanGalactic Federation members.
From now on,this world would fall under the aegis of PanGal, simply to keep itsafe from the Zill. Alekyn wondered which interplanetary powerwould be granted protectorate privileges. He shrugged. That waspolitics and not his concern. He just had to get his pard, thecorpses and this new intelligence back to Naferi as fast as hecould.
Hefrowned. Thoughts of the small creaturelost in the fire were nagging at him, though. Tig was busilytapping his e-tab; Eled and Bram were loading the bodies onto thegurneys. While they were occupied, he’d do a little scouting of hisown. He headed around the side of the structure, to the windowthrough which he and Eled had entered the building. Flames were nowshooting up the exterior walls. The dwelling was obviously made ofhighly combustible materials. He felt a momentary sadness at thethought of whatever had died in the room, but there was nothing hecould do. He and his pard only narrowly escaped themselves,hampered as they were by the bodies of the Keinyn.
He lookedaround, wondering vaguely whether the fire would spread to theother buildings and whether it mattered. He sighed. Probably not.He turned back to his companions. They should just get back to theship and head for home. Luckily the void would ensure a fasttrip.
Deep inthought, at first his eyes slid over something moving on the groundwell away from the house. He did a double take and looked moreclosely.
Staggering to its feet some distance fromthe house was a small figure. It was coughing pitifully and holdingits ribs as if they caused it pain.
Theirmissing victim, injured but alive. Maybe Tig could heal it anderase its memories of the trauma to which it had beensubjected.
He followedthe creature quietly, not wanting to frighten it, as it movedunsteadily toward one of the primitive vehicles. A gentle breezemooched up, blowing toward Alekyn. He sucked its cool freshnessinto his lungs, welcoming it after the acrid rank ofsmoke.
Then hecaught his breath sharply. Something tickled and teased his senses,something that caused him to inhale sharply, an almost undetectablepulse, an awareness of sudden need, rippling through his body,centering on his cock and balls, causing them to jump and twitch insensual harmony. Soft golden motes speckled his vision, swirlingaround him, curling towards and wrapping around the little shapebefore him. He found himself chuffing with unexpected, overwhelmingdelight. That smell, so sweet, like nefan flowers in high summer…
The creaturestopped, then began to turn toward him slowly, its expressionhorrified. For a heartbeat, Alekyn, his head spinning, simplystared at the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, then, wantingto reassure it, reached toward it, arms opened wide.
“It’s allright, pretty thing,” he crooned. “Don’t be frightened…I will helpyou.”
The creaturecringed, backing away unsteadily, itseyes huge and frightened. It spat a string of musical notes at himand Alekyn smiled reassuringly. It was obvious the little thingdidn’t understand a word he was saying.
________________________________
JAMIE HADJUST REACHED the truck when a strange sound caused him tostop, trying to hear something, anything,over the rapid staccato of his heartbeats. What was that noise? Itsounded like a cat’s chuffing, an odd soft chirruping. He turnedslowly, dreading what he was going to see.
One of thealiens stood about two metres from him, impossibly huge arms wideopen and reaching.
Jamieclenched his fists, straightening his hurting body as much hecould, as aggressively as possible facing a creature standing atleast a head and half taller than him.
“Back off,”he grated. “Back the hell off, whatever