CHAPTER 13

Kleth was the first to reach the water's edge. Surveying the scene through the pouring rain, he measured the distance between him and Trip.

"Gather some of the thicker vines," he ordered Slanea when she caught up to him. "We will tie them together to make a rope to reach him."

He saw the concern in her face as she grunted in reply and hurried to her task. Taking a knife from the sheath on her boot, she began hacking at some of the vines hanging down from the trees on the bank.

Kleth heard Ma'Com call from across the raging stream. The human and the Lanari were halfway down the nearly vertical cliff face on their side, but Kleth could see no place for them to stand at the bottom. The swift-flowing water was right up against the cliff in that spot. He motioned for them to go back up.

"We will get him!" he bellowed.

He saw Ma'Com nod and say something to the Lanari before they reversed direction and began to move back toward the top.

Slanea came rushing up with an armload of vines which she quickly began knotting together to make one long strand.

"Take off your breastplate," Kleth told her.

She looked at him in astonishment.

"You are lighter than I am," he explained. "You will go in and get Trip. I will remain here, anchoring you so you are not swept away. Your breastplate will only hamper you in the water."

Slanea glanced fearfully at the rushing water. She seemed on the verge of protest, but gulped and nodded in agreement, unlacing the breastplate and pulling it off over her head.

"We must save him," she said as Kleth threaded the vine rope around her waist and tied it securely.

Kleth paused in his work to look down at her. Much as he wanted her, he would defer to Trip, if he was whom she wanted. He had seen the way she had looked at the human, and every time Kleth looked at her when she was close to Trip, she would be touching the human in some manner.

If all three of them were Klingon, he would challenge Trip for her. But Trip wasn't Klingon, and there were limits to what Kleth could expect of humans.

And if he did challenge Trip for her, it would result in only one thing -- Trip's death. There was no way the smaller human would win a battle against him. He had come to value Trip too much as a friend to take that course.

So he would step back, and let Slanea have her choice. If it was Trip, so be it.

"You care very much about him, don't you?" he rumbled softly as he tied the other end of the vine rope around his waist.

Slanea jerked her head around sharply to glare at him. Then a broad grin broke over her face and she laughed, despite the downpour.

"Yes, I do care about him," she said, "but not the way you think."

With that comment, she yanked on the rope once to make sure it was secure, and plunged into the water.

Kleth had no time to wonder what she had meant. He braced himself, feet planted apart, and grasped the makeshift rope with both hands as Slanea fought against the current, trying not to be swept past Trip.

He shot a quick glance upward, and saw that Ma'Com and P'kora had regained the top of the ravine and were watching him and Slanea. A strong pull on the vine rope drew his attention back to water and Slanea's struggle to reach Trip.

She was being swept past the injured human, and Kleth began backing up along the shore at the same time as he reeled in some of the improvised rope, pulling her back against the current. She was a strong one, he had to admit, and courageous. By no stretch of the imagination could what she was doing be called swimming, but she wasn't being sucked under, and with strong strokes was aiming for the boulder where Trip was hanging on.

Once he'd pulled her far enough back upstream, he began to play out some of the rope. If she could angle across, the current should deposit her right where Trip was hung up in mid-stream.

He could see that she had figured out what he was doing, and she struck out again, reaching the middle of the roaring flood waters and then letting the current carry her to the boulder.

She shook Trip, trying to rouse him. When she said something, Trip put one of his hands on her shoulder. Kleth nodded in approval as he saw Slanea wrap some of the rope around Trip's waist before grabbing him under the arm and holding him so that his back was against her chest.

She lifted her other arm in the air and waved it back and forth. Kleth immediately begin reeling them in, grunting at the extra weight of the human. Under his feet, the sandy soil was shifting, making it hard to keep his footing as he pulled the rope in hand over hand.

He began backing up again, this time toward the bank. He belayed the rope around a tree trunk, relieving enough of the strain on his body that he could concentrate more fully on pulling the pair in instead of keeping his own balance.

In a matter of minutes, he had them all the way to the water's edge. Slanea was on her back, the by-now unconscious Trip in her arms as she pushed with her feet to scoot farther away from the maelstrom that washed around their legs at the edge of the rushing water.

Kleth hurried over to them. "Well done!" he said to her as he untied the vine she had put around Trip and hoisted him easily over his shoulder for the climb back up the ravine.

Slanea coughed, spitting up water she had swallowed, and looked up at him. He towered over her, an impressive specimen of a Klingon, Trip nothing more than a mere featherweight to him. As she struggled to get up, he reached out a hand which she grasped, and he pulled her to her feet.

"Come," he said. "The water is still rising. We must get to higher ground and find shelter."

She scooped up her discarded breastplate, and he allowed her to take the lead. As she trudged past him toward the steep incline, he admired her form, particularly as outlined by the light undergarments plastered to the upper half of her body.

There was something about a test successfully met that made his blood sing, and she would be a worthy mate to share that triumph.

Hefting Trip to a more comfortable position on his shoulder, he set off after her. Maybe now he would find out exactly what she meant by that statement she had made before diving into the water, and he could find out for certain which one of them she wanted.

Malcolm and P'kora watched as Slanea and Kleth pulled Trip from the water and climbed back up the ravine. Just in time, too, Malcolm realized, as another surge of water came rushing down the gorge.

He pulled out his communicator when the Klingons reached the top.

"How is he?" he yelled into the device to be heard over the noise of the storm.

"He is unconscious," Kleth's voice came back, distorted by static. "He has a cut on his head, and one of his arms is broken."

"Find some place to take shelter," Malcolm said. "We'll keep going."

He was answered by a burst of static even though across the ravine he could make out Kleth speaking into the communicator.

"The storm has generated an energy field that is interfering with your communications," P'kora said. "You won't be able to talk to him that way until it has passed."

Malcolm shut the communicator and returned it to his pocket. "We lost the scanner when Trip fell in," he said to the Lanari. "Will you be able to track Hoshi?"

"The storm has erased most of the signs of her passage," the other man admitted, "but I am familiar with this part of the forest. I know of a place where she may have taken shelter."

A loud clap of thunder punctuated his last statement. P'kora had been right. One member of their party had already been hurt. They were going to have to find some shelter, no matter how much he wanted to keep going.

He would trust the Klingons to take care of Trip. He and P'kora would get to the shelter the Lanari knew about. If Hoshi wasn't there, they'd have to wait to continue the search after the storm had blown itself out.

Waving to catch Kleth's attention on the other side of the stream, Malcolm thrust his arm out in a salute he had seen the other Klingon make when undertaking a daunting task. Kleth returned the gesture, and Malcolm watched as he and Slanea turned and disappeared into the undergrowth.

Indicating that P'kora should lead the way, Malcolm bowed his head against the wind, and the two set off away from the ravine.

Hoshi kept a wary eye on F'linu. So far he hadn't made any move toward her, but she wouldn't put it past him to try.

"We have plenty of water to drink," he said with a slight smile as he glanced at the opening where the rain could be seen pouring down. "There is the matter of food, however."

He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small package. Opening it, he removed what appeared to be a strip of dried meat. Despite herself, Hoshi's empty stomach rumbled.

"Would you like some?" he asked, holding it out to her. When she didn't take it, he added, "You have got to be hungry."

Much as she would have liked to refuse, the knowledge that the baby needed nourishment just as much as she did, if not more, forced her to accept his offering. Inspecting the morsel, she asked skeptically, "Is it supposed to be green?"

F'linu laughed. "Yes. It comes from the g'rama, a large domestic livestock animal that is raised for its meat." He bit off a piece of another strip and chewed. "It's not the type of meat that was in the stew that made you ill."

Hoshi sniffed the meat and carefully took a small bite. Surprisingly, the dried g'rama meat was tender, and the taste wasn't unpleasant, just different. Her initial hesitancy vanished and she took another bite as soon as she finished the first one.

"I just hope I can keep it down," she muttered when she had consumed the entire piece.

"It is a pity that you are having trouble digesting our food," he said. "It will make it much harder for you to live comfortably among us."

Hoshi stared at him where he was seated on the other side of the small fire. She didn't like the turn the conversation had taken.

A sudden flash of lightning was followed by the sound of thunder. None of the lightning strikes had come as close as the first one when she had run from the cave, and the rain had slacked off enough that they could talk without shouting. But there were no signs that the storm was abating.

"What do you mean -- live comfortably among you?" she asked after the thunder had dissipated.

F'linu considered her thoughtfully as he chewed. "I was wrong when I told you we didn't want anything from you, other than to prevent you from helping the government."

His eyes traversed her form as he continued, "I find you attractive, even in your somewhat disheveled state right now."

She shuddered, which didn't go unnoticed by F'linu.

"Don't worry," he said. "I won't force you to do anything...now."

He took another piece of meat from the package and held it out to her. When she wouldn't take it from him, his eyes hardened, and she could see the gold rings around his irises expand, reflecting the firelight.

"Take it!" he ordered her. "I don't want to have to carry you out of here because you are weak from hunger."

She reached over and took the piece of meat. Resignedly, she began to eat as he continued to talk.

"I have come to the conclusion that you are too valuable to the Lanari Liberation League to let you go. While I find you attractive, the needs of my organization outweigh my personal desires. Therefore, you will give your fortune to me, for the LLL's use."

Hoshi almost choked as she tried to swallow a bite of the g'rama meat and talk at the same time. "Give you my fortune!"

"Yes," F'linu responded. "I have done my research. You inherited your spouse's shipping business when he died. When you sold it, you became incredibly wealthy. How else could you set up the medical clinics on Estab?"

Not waiting for an answer from her, he stood up and turned to look out at the rain. "Your money will be much more useful to the LLL, helping it to overthrow the government."

"What?" Hoshi scrambled to her feet. "I won't allow any of my money to finance your insurgent group."

"Oh, you will," he replied, turning back to face her. "If you won't do it voluntarily, there are certain Lanari drugs that can take your will away. Under their influence, you will be more than happy to do anything I say, anything from giving me total control of your fortune to sharing my bed. And there will be nothing you can do about it."

She saw the fanatical gleam in his eyes. He wasn't bluffing -- he really believed what he was saying. There would be no chance of talking him into letting her go.

She had no idea how the drugs he was talking about would affect her, but that was a secondary concern compared to what the drugs might do to the baby she was carrying.

To protect the baby, there was only one thing she could do. She was going to have to escape again.