Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

"Am Jenette friend," the alien replied, hurt, "but Jenette must go back to Enclave. Tarkas must take."

"I'm not going back."

"But Enclave safe. Enclave good."

"No, it's not!" Jenette said fiercely, "and you know it because my daddy does mean things to you too!"

Tarkas hung his head, conflicted. "Yes, but... long time back, Jenette mother said for Tarkas to take care of Jenette. Tarkas promised."

Now Tarkas looked sad. That made Jenette sad. Tarkas was the closest thing she had to a mommy now that her real one was gone. He took care of her, not like her busy daddy who never had any time.

For a moment on that cold, dark, and miserable night, she wanted to give Tarkas a hug. She wanted to cry and she wished for all the bad things that were happening to go away, but even at six years old, Jenette knew that wanting and wishing almost never made things come true. "My mommy wouldn't make me go back," Jenette sniffled. "You told me she always said to do the right thing."

Tarkas clattered his teeth in consternation, looking from the kits to the stormy sky, and then to Jenette.

"Are you going to help or not?" Jenette demanded.

"Urrkurrkurrk." The colors on Tarkas' flashbuds froze in a troubled pattern. The alien had made up his mind. "Hnrrrph..." he rumbled, "Tarkas, Jenette, and Jenette's friends must run away together."

Boom... boom, came thunder from ahead where the island ended.

Jenette ran with her iridescent friends, struggling to maintain her balance on the rippling ground. One moment they were deep in a trough, cut off from the rest of the world, the next they were high on a wave crest. Sheets of rain fell. It was hard to breathe. Her chest hurt. Her legs hurt. She needed to rest. But they could not stop running. They had to escape.

Boom ... boom.

Jenette burst out of a waxy thicket onto a cliff top where the island ended. A wall of spray caught her and the aliens in the face. Salt water stung their eyes as a great black shape rose and fell a few yards away.

Boom... boom.

The thundering mass was another floating island, driven too close to Jenette's by wind and sea.

Boom... boom. The two islands crashed together, thousands of tons grinding mercilessly. Showers of ghutzu? the gnarled, interlocking root that made up the islands' structure? splintered and fell into a frothing, platinum-colored sea.

Wherever that nutrient-rich water splashed, plant shoots and tendrils grew so fast that Jenette could see them move, like worms. To her this was natural? she had never seen the blue-green ocean that her mother had sung about in lullabies from another faraway planet? but the fury of the storm and the islands smashing together scared her nevertheless. And it scared the kits, too.

"What now, what now?" they trilled, huddling around her.

Jenette did not know. All she had thought about was running away from her mean daddy. She did not have a plan. She did not know where to go now.

Tarkas watched the rise and fall of the colliding islands. "That Feral island," he said, looking across the rift. "Ferals live there."

By Ferals, Tarkas meant Feral Khafra. Tarkas was a domestic Khafra, stolen from the wild when he was young, like Jenette's friends the kits, and raised in cages by Jenette's daddy and the other Enclave humans.

"Are Ferals nice?" Jenette asked, hugging the nearest kits for warmth and courage.

The large Khafra shook his head sadly. "Tarkas does not remember."

Jenette squinted at the other island, shielding her eyes from salt spray with one petite hand. "Are there Feral mommies there?"

"Urrr, Tarkas thinks so. Yes."

"Then we have to go there," Jenette decided. "How do we get across?"

"Jump," the adult Khafra said after some thought. "Tarkas takes Jenette and kits on back."

"Okay," Jenette agreed.

Tarkas wanted to take Jenette first, but Jenette made him take the kits first, three at a time. They scrambled onto his leathery back and clung tightly to his neck as he timed the rise and fall of the two islands. His strong rear legs coiled up as the Enclave Island surged up. At its apex, he leapt, springing high through rain and spray. Jenette lost sight of him for a second. She tensed with the remaining kits.

Had he fallen? He would be crushed! But then she spotted Tarkas, safely depositing the kits on the other side. Another carefully timed leap and he was back on her side.

"Jenette goes now?"

"No, not now. Later."

Tarkas loaded up another three kits and leapt again.

Tarkas made many leaps taking kits across. Soon most of the kits were across, but Tarkas was getting tired? and the searching lights were picking up Jenette's trail, getting closer again.

"There! There! Track! Follow track!" howled the hunting voices.

"Jenette goes now?" Tarkas huffed worriedly.

"Not now! Keep going!" Jenette urged the last three kits onto the large Khafra's back. With a last look at Jenette and the closing lights, he reluctantly leapt, but he mistimed his launch and arched through the air, thudding against the side of the far cliff.

"Hang on! Hang on!" Jenette cried as Tarkas scrambled with the claws on all four of his legs, trying to grip the crumbling root face. One of the kits on his back slipped. A wall of spray blocked Jenette's view as the older Khafra shot a forearm down to grab the youngling.

The pursuing lights homed in on Jenette. Eight large, domestic Khafra bounded out of the jungle and formed a semicircle around her and the cliff. They edged closer.

Jenette scrambled as close as she could to the cliff. She tottered, windmilling her arms for balance.

Pieces of ghutzu broke free under her small boots and tumbled into the chasm.

"Not jump, not jump!" the domestic Khafra howled.

"Stop!" boomed the voice of a man.

The domestics froze. Jenette froze. A man strode out from the undergrowth, a great, bullish man, thick-boned with brutally short hair and eyes like cold iron. He towered over the domestics and the six-year-old human girl. One scowling glance sized up the situation. Meaty hands clenched a pulse-rifle.

This was Olin Tesla, Jenette's father.

Jenette froze as his voice boomed. "Jinny get away from the cliff!"

"No!" said Jenette, still searching for Tarkas.

"It's okay," her father said. "Daddy's not going to punish you. Daddy just wants you to be safe."

"Go away! I hate you!"

The large man's face flinched as the rain and spray abated for a moment. Jenette spotted Tarkas, safely atop the cliff; he had not lost any kits.

"Run! Run! Get away!" she yelled. "Get away!"

The kits hesitated on the other side. They did not want to leave her.

"Go! Find your mommies! Go!"

Finally, the kits turned away, but not Tarkas. He saw the other domestics and the grim featured human, but his legs still coiled for another leap.

Frowning, Olin Tesla cocked his pulse-rifle. "No!" Jenette yelled.

"No, Tarkas! Stay! Don't jump! Run away!"

Unable to imagine abandoning Jenette, let alone doing it, Tarkas sprang. The alien arched through the air as Tesla methodically raised his pulse-rifle and led his target.

Jenette loosed a shriek of utter, forlorn terror. "Don't hurt him, daddy!"

Tesla pulled the trigger. The weapon's shot-torque was set perfectly. There was no splatter of blood, no explosion of bone; Tarkas' skull cracked like a super-heated stone. His body cartwheeled, his flashbuds flaring and fading to black. Four hundred pounds of lifeless Khafra crumpled on the cliff beside Jenette. Jenette's mean daddy was quite satisfied? that is, until she lost her balance and tumbled over the precipice.

"No!" Olin Tesla cried, running to grab his daughter.

His two human legs were far too slow to carry him to the edge in time, but his domestics leapt after