“Forget her,” Racer yelled back. “She’s dead meat.”
“The renegade bitch!” Overcash raised the pulser. Cidra was on the surface, stroking strongly toward the bank. Her main concern was trying to keep from getting any of the muddy, brakish river water in her mouth. It was Severance’s shouted order that stilled her movements in the water.
“Cidra, stop swimming! Float, damn it. Just float. Don’t splash. Don’t make a sound. Keep yourself on the surface.” She obeyed, glad that the awkward boots seemed bouyant in the water. With practiced ease she floated while she turned toward the shoreline to spot Severance. She didn’t notice if he was there or not; instead she found her gaze locked with a pair of malevolent eyes between her and the bank. A dracon was cruising toward her.
Cidra had never known this kind of terror. Only instinct kept her moving her hands in smooth, gentle sweeps around her midsection. The small movements were sufficient to keep her afloat. But compared to the fear that engulfed her as the dracon approached, drowning seemed a pleasant alternative. She could not yet see anything other than the eyes, but she sensed the vastness of the creature moving toward her. More terrifyingly she sensed its relentless, endless hunger. It wasn’t certain yet whether she constituted a potential meal, and dimly Cidra realized that it was probably because she was floating on the surface like a log rather than behaving like normal prey. Another set of eyes surfaced to Cidra’s right. She wanted to give in to the panic and have done with it. Anything was better than waiting for the dracons to leisurely start sampling her arms and legs. Perhaps they wouldn’t even bother with a sample. Perhaps one of them would simply swallow her in a single gulp. Still she floated, vaguely aware of Overcash’s agitation in the skimmer. Racer hadn’t thrown the boat into motion yet. He kept it hovering behind Cidra, and she knew that he and Overcash were waiting to see how long it would take the dracons to move in on her.
“I’m going to draw some blood,” Overcash announced. “It’ll get things over with a lot sooner.” Standing in the stern of the skimmer, he raised the pulser and aimed it at the floating Cidra.
Everyone’s attention was on Cidra and the dracons. No one noticed Severance when he stepped around the tent, the pulser he’d slept on during the night now in his hand. He aimed the weapon at Overcash and gently squeezed the trigger.
Behind her Cidra heard a man’s scream. A second later there was a loud splash and then, with blinding speed, the dracons were in motion. She closed her eyes, waiting for the horror to engulf her. A pair of eyes passed within inches, and she felt the brush of a huge, scaled body against her leg. But there was no tearing sensation. Another set of eyes flowed past, also ignoring her. Cidra didn’t stop to question fate. Using all her strength to keep her body as much as possible on the surface, she stroked again for the bank.
There was another scream behind her, but Cidra didn’t pause to glance back. She heard the thrashing sounds in the river and, slightly louder, the hum of the skimmer as it was shoved urgently into high speed. The bank seemed very far away.
Then Severance was there, wading into the river and reaching for her. He caught her wrist and dragged her the rest of the way to shore. Cidra wanted to scream as he pulled her up beside him. She automatically turned to see what was happening in the river. There was a flash of a huge, obscene shape that seemed to be made entirely of teeth. And there was something between its jaws, something that had once been human.
“Don’t look.” Severance forced her head against his shoulder. “It’ll all be over in a minute. Just don’t watch.”
Cidra stood shuddering in the circle of his arm, trying not to think of what she had seen and trying even harder not to think of how it might have been her own torn and mutilated body held fast in those fearsome jaws. In the distance she heard the skimmer’s hum fade.
“Racer’s gone,” she gasped, more for something to say than anything else.
“Racer’s good at leaving a friend in an awkward situation. Not that he could have done much for Overcash. Once the dracons sensed blood, nothing on this planet could have stopped them.”
“He was going to shoot me. I heard him say a little blood would get things over more quickly.”
“He was right.”
“You killed him to stop him from shooting me,” she said into his damp shirt. She wasn’t certain which stunned her more, Severance’s killing Overcash or Overcash’s willingness to kill her. Cidra felt dazed.
Severance hesitated. “I would have shot him even if he hadn’t been trying to wound you. I needed something to feed the dracons. In another minute or two they would have decided you were prey, after all.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I would have preferred feeding Racer to the river, but I couldn’t get a clear shot at him. Overcash was in the way.”
The awful thrashing sounds died away. Slowly, still afraid to turn and look toward the river, Cidra lifted her head. She realized that she was leaning heavily on Severance, seeking strength in him. “It’s over,” she whispered.
“No,” he answered, gently freeing her to look down into her stricken face, “it’s just beginning. Why did you jump overboard, Cidra?”
“I had no choice. I couldn’t go with him.”
“There was a chance he would have believed you really are a Harmonic, and a chance he would have let you go eventually if you’d given him your promise to keep quiet.”
“Which I would never have done, so there’s no point discussing it, is there?”
“Cidra…”
“Stop it, Severance.” She pushed away from him, still looking anywhere but at the river. “I could not go with him, and that’s all there is to it.”
He touched her cheek, his finger rough on her wet skin. “You would have survived rape, Cidra. I’m not so sure about the jungle.”
A sudden, fierce rage welled up in her. “I would not have survived rape. He would have had to kill me before he succeeded in raping me. Haven’t you ever heard of death before dishonor?”
Severance looked at her. “Not lately.”
“It would have been utterly degrading for me to have submitted to that man in exchange for my life after he’d left you to die. And it would have been equally dishonorable to have given him my promise not to tell the company authorities what had happened.”