Page 51 of Keeping Freya
I follow the stream, using my knife to cut through the underbrush. I’m not well underway when I encounter a big rock that is too high and steep to climb. Cursing, I make my way around, but I am losing precious time. It takes me at least half an hour to circle the rock and make my way back to the river.
The shore is different here. A long and narrow meadow with a two-foot sandy beach lines the shore. Birds are chirping, and the jungle is coming back to life. It looks as if the worst of the wave has passed.
I call out to my mate. “Fr’Ya! Fr’Ya!” Not caring about being seen, I run into the open, trying to find traces of her. I jog across the meadow, calling her name, but no response. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, so I continue running towards the other end.
It takes me at least a mile until I spot something in the distance. As I jog closer, I make out the big branches I saw passing me by earlier. There appears to be some sort of blockage.
A rock formation breaks the beach, and when I near it, I see some sort of funnel in the river. The passage is small and lined with rocks—that must be blocking the logs! Hope surges inside me— maybe Fr’Ya managed to get out of the water here. Scanning my surroundings, I immediately go into high alert, but the jungle makes its usual sounds, and my scans do not pick up on any heat signatures.
Turning my back towards the water, I scan the meadow, my pulse rising when I spot a patch of squashed grass. Crouching down, I investigate. Fr’Ya’s scent is not strong enough to linger on a spot, but the imprint looks like a small body or a large animal. I have no doubt my mate surfaced here and made it out alive.
I track crushed spots in the grass towards broken branches in the underbrush. It does not take me long to find her trail. My mate has many talents, but stealth is not one of them.
I spend the rest of the day following the tracks. My hurry does not make me a better tracker, but after every wrong turn, I manage to find my way back to the path.
It worries me that I cannot find her. I should be quicker than a human female; where could she have gone?
After half a day, I encounter another river, where trouble hits me. The river is shallow, but the current is fast, and when I cross it, I do not manage to pick up any trace of my mate. It is like she vanished into thin air. Cursing, I sit down on a big boulder, time to regroup and think about my next move.
First, I try to contact my crew, but they are still too far away to get into direct contact with. I do, however, manage to get a message across. I share my current location and inform them of the events of the past days. I keep my report short and to the point; there are many things they do not need to know.
A pang of sorrow shoots through the bond. I was finally making progress. Finally getting somewhere, and now she is gone. Why did she not wait for me? Does she have this little faith in me? Scanning my surroundings, I fumble with my wrist com for a bit but only encounter some minor heat signatures. When I focus my scans on them, they register as a feline kind. Prone to appearing on jungle planets, but they are rare enough to be held across the Galaxy as pets.
I enlarge the scans. Something is off about the feline heat signature, but I cannot tell what exactly. With a huff, I expand my search, but nothing comes up. I have exhausted myself this day. Now is the time to eat something and regroup. The sun is already setting, and the cold is settling in.I tell myself I cannot help my mate if I am badly injured or dead. I have to look for myself, even when it is against my nature.
So I pitch up the tent and try to get some rest, and I will find my mate tomorrow.
Freya
The water is everywhere.It’s deafening, blinding, and suffocating at the same time. I never knew water could be so loud and so heavy. I fight it with everything I can. When I break through the waves, I gulp in air, only to be dragged back under.
It takes all my energy not to be pulled down to the bottom of the river. I can’t scream, can’t even think. My sole focus is moving my arms and legs to get to the precious oxygen. Breathe—struggle—breathe—struggle.
The cycle comes to a sudden stop when I crash into something. My body protests at the clash, and all the breath is forced out. Grabbing around me, my fingers encounter smooth rock. My head is spinning, I need air, NOW.
I try to grab the rock and search for cracks. Euphoria fills my body when my fingers stick and I pull myself up. When my head pops up from the water, I gasp and fill my lungs with air. I hold on for dear life, and when I can keep myself steady, I look around.
The current has slowed, and I appear to be caught in a funnel. Downstream, I hear the river roaring, and it’s still flowing faster than before, but I think the worst has passed.
I barely think about it when something crashes into me. With a yell, I see a big log stuck in the same funnel as I am.Squinting my eyes, I spot more of those logs following in the distance, which means I’m a sitting duck around here. Luckily, I’m close to shore, so using the rocks as a lifeline, I make my way there.
Crawling onto land, I don’t stop until I’m at least five feet away from the water before I collapse onto the grassy surface of a meadow.
I’m alive. Thank the fucking Gods if there ever are any. If that constriction wasn’t there, I don’t know if I would have managed to keep myself from drowning. I shudder when I remember the pull of the deep, so fresh in my mind.
For one moment, I close my eyes. Just to rest my body for a minute. One minute, sixty seconds, but the dark of sleep catches me before I count to ten.
CHAPTER 30
Freya
Something wet tickles my nose, and I swat it away absentmindedly. An engine starts rumbling nearby, and the wetness returns. At the same time, something swats my face. Blinking, I open my eyes and look into the giant yellow eyes of a jungle cat.
A yelp escapes me, and I scramble back, hands before my mouth. I don’t want to scare the animal into attacking me. When I’ve created some distance, I take a closer look. The cat looks like a cross between a lynx and a snow leopard; its fur is white and thick, decorated with a combination of spots and stripes. Its head is long and graceful, with tilted eyes and big ears with tuffs on the tips. Large fangs or small tusks curl from its upper lip, and it is purring like its life depends on it.
We are approximately the same height sitting down, and when I fix my gaze in front of me, I look it straight into the eye. The purring intensifies, and it smoothly stalks towards me. I’m too scared to move. I’m all alone on a strange planet,with a strange predator—who purrs like a regular old house cat. I close my eyes, waiting for the kill, but it doesn’t come.
When I feel wetness on my face again, I look beneath my lashes to see the big cat licking my face. Too astonished to act, I let him. It purrs heavily, then butts my shoulder with its head.
