Page 77 of Caveman Alien's Terror

“She’s known about us the whole time,” I sigh. “She just doesn’t want to come and live here.”

The sun is setting and the sky is a deep red. The jungle under us is its usual colorful self, stretching to the horizon.

Bryar is busy cooking thin slices of meat on the fire while stirring a big pot with her other hand. All the girls are here at the Penthouse, a ragtag band wearing dinosaur skin clothes, ribbons made from grass, pretty stones, straw hats, leather belts, and bracelets. Everyone is here.

Except Cora.

“Did she say why?” Alba asks, chewing on the end of a straw.

It’s been a few days since I saw Cora, and I’ve needed some time to process my encounter with her. Also I needed a honeymoon, and I knew the girls didn’t want me to cut it short. After a couple of relaxed days with Praxigor and no dire, life-threatening crisesto get out of, I’m rested and happier than I thought was possible on this planet.

“She tried,” I tell them. “But I’m not sure I quite got it. I think it’s one of those things that it’s hard to verbalize. Or maybe she hates me and she’s too tactful to say. I wouldn’t blame her.”

Bronwen frowns. “She knew we were living here. She must have understood we were worried about her, that we thought she might be dead. And still she made no attempt to contact us?”

“I didn’t confront her with that,” I admit. “I was so relieved to see her, it wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to ask. I was probably not the right person to be the first to contact her.”

“How did she seem?” Alba asks. “Healthy? Content? Depressed? What?”

I get up from the rock I’ve been sitting on, just to stretch my legs. “She actually looked really healthy. She was so pale and thin before, remember? Now she has more of a glow to her, she’s not all skin and bones. She was… not exactly happy. But determined, I guess. Serious. Not a big fan of the cavemen.”

“Traumatized?” Bronwen asks, idly putting the end of a stick into the fire and poking at the coals.

“I wouldn’t know what to look for. Don’t we all have PTSD, though? Anyway, she’s not alone. She’s being cared for by a tribe of… I don’t know what they’re called. They’re big-eyed monkeys with a dozen arms each and fangs like tigers. I saw one of them in the tree Cora lives in. Apparently they talk with sign language and prefer not to be around cavemen. Or us. I actually met some of them before, with Praxigor. They had a big underground village that we broke into. I think I told you they kicked us out of it, so that Praxigor cracked his scales? Anyway, Cora’s tribeis a different one. They still give her food and shelter after they found her walking the woods years ago.”

The penthouse goes quiet as we all think about it.

I’m not sure how to feel. Relieved, of course. She’s still alive. And she’s doing pretty well. But the reunion wasn’t as glorious as I had secretly been hoping.

Bryar takes a wooden spoon and tastes the concoction in her pot. “She would be welcome here. But I’m sure you said so.”

I sit back down. “I tried to persuade her to come here, where it’s safe. I got as forceful as I thought I could. She’s not having it. She’s safer right where she is, she says. And she does appear to have a point.”

Piper nods. “We all have been in deadly danger many times each. Even after we came to the Borok tribe.”

“Exactly,” I agree. “Cora claims to have had a calm and uneventful life since the monkey things adopted her. Also, she would prefer if the cavemen are still kept unaware of her. She lives pretty close to the village, after all. I told her I can’t guarantee that, but I will ask you all to not tell anyone. Not even your husbands. Praxigor knows, though. He spotted her while flying over the jungle, specifically looking for her because he knew it was important to me.”

“Well, you haven’t told us where she lives,” Bryar points out. “So there’s not much we can reveal, anyway. Those monkeys must be good at hiding, though. If they’ve kept a woman secret from the tribes for years with nobody suspecting anything.”

I hide a yawn with my hand. My honeymoon was relaxing, but there wasn’t much sleeping. “Cora says they’re the closest thingXren has to sentient beings. She says the cavemen came from elsewhere just a century or two ago. Which would seem to fit with what Praxigor told me about the dragon slayers.”

“Take a plate each,” Bryar says and takes the slices off the metal grill. “Let’s get some dinner.”

We munch on the food and open a pot of frit, cheering for Cora.

“Does she want us to send her stuff?” Bronwen asks. “Food? Tools? Medicines? Clothes?”

I suck a bone clean of tender meat. “She wants no contact with us. Every delivery of food or other items would mean a risk of being discovered by the cavemen. She says that if it hadn’t been for Praxigor, nobody would ever have found her. I think she’s right.”

Alba throws a bone into the fire. “Surely that risk is reduced to zero if Praxigor does the deliveries? The caveman wouldn’t be able to track him if he flew in and dropped supplies for her at night. Like, once a month. And a dragon should be good at keeping secrets, what with the hoards and so on.”

I rub my chin. “So, a couple of problems with that. First, Praxigor isn’t a delivery boy. He would find it beneath him to be sent on those errands. It’s actually really hard to get him to do anything that’s not his own idea, even for me. And things he doesn’t actively want to do? Forget it. Second, her monkeys hate dragons. They may take steps to keep him away, and their kind nearly killed us both before. They’re resourceful as hell. Third, Cora really doesn’t want it. She’s not kidding about that. She wants no contact. Period. But she liked my hair. Getting her hair done was the only thing that made her hesitate. But not for long.”

The penthouse is quiet again as we sip on frit and munch on slices of bread.

“Did you tell her about this?” Bronwen asks and holds up a rind of her bread. “Maybe just bring her a loaf. I mean, she won’t be able to resist!”

“I did mention the bread you make,” I tell her. “She somehow knew about it, too. Must have smelled it. Still no dice.”

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