Cat Star 04 - Outcast

  THE CAT STAR CHRONICLES

  CHERYL BROOKS

  Copyright © 2009 by Cheryl Brooks

  Cover and internal design © 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover Design by Anne Cain

  Cover photo © Najin/Dreamstime.com

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  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Printed and bound in the United States of America QW 10 987654321

  For those who find love when they least expect it.

  Lynx was only seventeen when he was taken prisoner in the war that destroyed his planet. Slated to be executed, he and the other members of his unit were instead sold into slavery. Thrown into the hold of a ship with no food and very little water, the new slaves were smuggled halfway across the galaxy to a slave auction on a distant world.

  Dragged onto the auction block, the terrified boy almost wished he'd been killed. To be bought and sold like an ani­mal was unheard of on his own planet of Zetith, where the world had been green and beautiful and the people were free. On this planet, whose name he never knew, he was sold to a trader who then sold him to someone else.

  Stowed in the hold of yet another ship, exhaustion outweighed his fear, and Lynx fell asleep on the journey, only to be rudely awakened by two men. As one held him down, a flexible tube was painfully injected into the soft skin of the inner side of his left upper arm.

  "Take that out, and you die," he was told, then was given a drink and left alone again in the darkness.

  Lynx lay sobbing with fear and pain and hunger. Even war had not terrified him like this. He had no idea where he was, or where he was going, and he believed that death would have been preferable to the life he now faced. He felt completely and utterly alone. Not know­ing if the journey lasted for days or weeks, he lost all track of time and was fed at odd intervals, which served to disorient him that much more.

  At last, the ship landed, and the bright glare nearly blinded Lynx as he was pulled into the harsh sunlight by his captors, who marched him down a dusty street and into a large palatial building.

  "Pretty, isn't he?" the ugly, harsh-voiced man re­marked to his cohort as they stripped Lynx of his bonds and his clothing.

  "He'll fit right in!" the other man laughed. Unlocking a large, ornate door, he pushed Lynx inside. "You're their slave now," he said with a nod. "You do whatever they tell you."

  The light inside was much brighter than the corri­dor through which Lynx had been brought, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust as the scent of perfume wafted forward and curled into his sensitive nose. Green was the first color he saw: lush, tropical plants grow­ing in profusion. Then he saw the women—scores of them, all beautiful, and all as naked as he was himself. They smelled of desire, and, despite his fear, that desire aroused him instantly.

  Not knowing what to do, Lynx simply stood by the door but was beginning to feel somewhat relieved by what he saw. Being the slave of women wouldn't be so bad; he was fairly certain they wouldn't beat or torture him. But Lynx had never understood women. Most of the time, he felt intimidated by them—never knowing what to say or do—and had remained alone in the back­ground while his friends found lovers. Granted, he was young, but the concept of enticement was something that Zetithian males generally grasped at an early age; Lynx, however, was mystified.

  As he stood there waiting, the women ignored him at first, but his erection eventually elicited a few stares, and soon he was being touched by several soft hands—hands which soon found his hard cock and played in the fluid which had begun to ooze from the scalloped edges of the wide corona on the head. Lynx gasped as they fondled him before pulling him down onto the soft cushions on the floor. He'd never felt such pleasure before in his life. Then one of the women licked him, savoring his fluids until her body contracted in a powerful orgasm. Then another tasted him, and another, and another. He had the same effect on all of them, and they marveled at his attractive feline features and his sexual prowess.

  He was the slave of other slaves, and he did whatever they asked, though his own needs were never consid­ered. Not even given food of his own, to survive he had to scavenge what he could from what the women left behind. If they ever felt the need to punish him, they made sure that there was nothing left for him. When they finally gave him permission to eat, they laughed at the way he wolfed down his food.

  Still, it was easy at first, for he was young and his sex­ual desires were at their peak. Day after day he fucked them, fed them, licked them, and massaged them. He catered to their needs and overheard their conversations, but more than anything, they craved his body, for he af­fected them in a way that no other man had ever done.

  He was both lover and slave to each of them, who were, in turn, the slaves of a man who owned far more women than he could possibly service.

  At first, Lynx didn't understand their language very well, but as he learned, he discovered that the women's greatest fear seemed to be that of bearing his child. Whenever one of them discovered her pregnancy, he saw the terror in her eyes as the others reassured her that Lynx couldn't possibly be the father. This puzzled him greatly, for he could never understand why having his child was such a horrible thing—or why they never did—but he heard it constantly, and his heart grew bit­ter. They would take what pleasure he could give them but wanted nothing more; not his children, and certainly not his love.

  And so, for many years he lived with them, at first only watching as their children were born, then later as­sisting with the births and caring for the children. He liked the babies and never held it against them that they weren't his own. He could never understand why none of the children ever resembled him, though he'd had intercourse with each and every one of their mothers. After a while, he came to realize that he must have been unable to father children, and this weakened his self-esteem even further.

  His sleep was seldom undisturbed, for there was al­ways a woman seeking his attention—whether it was to bring her food or to make love to her—and before long, it all began to seem the same to him. What he had initially considered to be a blessing now became a curse. The sound of female voices began to grate on his nerves, and the constant bickering among them irritated him almost to the point of screaming. There was no respite, no time to himself; they were always there, always demanding his undivided attention and the sexual gratification he could give them.

  His bitterness grew, and his exhaustion was never-ending. As time went on, his erections began to diminish, becoming infrequent before finally ceasing altogether. Then one day, three men marched into the harem, seized Lynx, and dragged him out to be resold. He heard some of the women laughing, and, knowing that they must have complained about his impotence, any feelings he might have had for them turned to dust.

  Marched naked to the auction block, Lynx was sold again, but this time, his companions were all male, which was a welcome change. The men might have been rough and crude, but they were undemanding, and Lynx slept well for the first time in many years. His new owner, a just man who didn't believe in slavery, told Lynx tha
t after five years of service, he would be freed. Seeing hope for the first time since he was enslaved, Lynx put in his time, working hard and learning what the men could teach him, after which he was freed. He stayed on for several more years, working in the diamond mines and saving his pay, for he had heard of a new colony on a planet called Terra Minor where he could be his own master and live out the remainder of his days in peace­ful solitude.

  Peace and quiet were the things he longed for most of all, but to find that peace, Lynx needed money, so he saved his own and watched as other men gambled away their pay or wasted it on the favors of women. As a free man, Lynx saw women and could smell their desire, but

  he was never aroused by them, and he avoided them whenever he could, for, having been used and betrayed by women, he now despised them all.

  But their voices still haunted his dreams, and he would wake up in a cold sweat with the sound of their laughter echoing through his mind as he was dragged away—not one of them even whispering good-bye.

  Chapter 1

  The day before Lynx came, Bonnie cut her hair. Not artfully or with any skill whatsoever; just pulled it away from her scalp and kept right on cutting until it was no longer than the width of her fingers. As a result, she could easily have passed for a boy, but her pregnant belly was there to give her away. She'd been told many times that her hair was beautiful—blonde and shining like spun gold, as Drummond always said—but she no longer had any use for it. It only at­tracted attention—unwanted male attention—and all she wanted was to be invisible. Men were all liars, cheats, and scoundrels, and she had no more use for them than she did for her hair. As a farmer, her style of dress did nothing to attract notice, either—just sturdy boots, rugged trousers, and a pullover shirt. She didn't even own a dress.

  The young apple trees blossoming in the orchard were there to remind her that one bad apple didn't spoil the whole bunch, but she was having a very difficult time convincing herself that there was such a thing as a decent, honest, moral man.

  Unfortunately, a man was what she needed—moral or otherwise—which was why she'd advertised for a hired hand at the immigration office in the spaceport at Nimbaza. The mines weren't hiring, so anyone coming there in hope of finding work would be sent her way. At least, that was the plan. Drummond, head of the regional immigration office, had been skeptical.

  "Don't know how long it will take," Drummond had said, scratching his bearded chin. "Could be months now that word's gotten out about the mines."

  "I don't care," Bonnie said grimly. "I need help, and I'll need it even more after the baby comes. Just send me whoever you get."

  "Not particular about the species, then?" he asked. "Not many Terrans come here to work in the mines, you know—well, not many good ones, anyway." Drummond was Terran himself, as were many of the planet's in­habitants, but the miners were a hodgepodge of species from throughout the quadrant.

  "I don't care what they are as long as they're willing to work!" Bonnie declared. "I can't pay much at first, but it'll be a place to live and food to eat for anyone who shows up and would rather stay here than get back on the cruiser."

  There were laws about that on Terra Minor, en­acted in an effort to keep the riffraff of the galaxy at bay, though it wasn't completely foolproof. Any im­migrant either had to have money to buy land or start a business, or had to have a job within a week of their arrival, otherwise they were deported—and the authori­ties had some highly effective means of enforcing that law. They electronically tagged anyone who landed and could then track them no matter where they tried to hide—and since the tags were deeply embedded in the skull, they were nearly impossible to remove. Some had tried, of course, though they usually wound up dead as a result. Sylor hadn't cared for the idea—the reason for which was perfectly clear to Bonnie now—but she hadn't objected to the implants herself. After all, she wasn't the one who'd absconded with money stolen from a pregnant girlfriend.

  The trackers would have caught up with him and returned her money quickly enough—if she'd ever bothered to report it. Bonnie thought it was callous of Sylor to leave her in such a way, but he had worked hard helping her build the place, so if he wanted to leave and take the ready cash, she couldn't very well say no. The part that stuck in her craw was the way he'd done it. No note, no good-bye, just gone one morning, tak­ing his clothes and all the money they'd saved, along with anything portable that had any value at all—which, unfortunately, included her grandmother's engagement ring. That ring was the only thing Bonnie had left of what she'd inherited, the bulk of the estate having gone to pay for the land and the farming equipment. He took the good speeder, too, leaving her with the relic out in the equipment shed that didn't work half the time, along with a mortgage on the house.

  It couldn't be said that Sylor hadn't worked for the money he'd taken; he'd helped her build a house, fences, and the big shed—though it was prefabricated and hadn't taken nearly as much work as the house—and he'd helped her plant the crops. He'd captured their herd of enocks, too, running down each one in the speeder, throwing a net over it, and hauling it back to the corral he'd built. He hadn't seemed to mind the work when it was all new and exciting—and capturing enocks was more exciting than most things—but, as it turned out, the daily grind of rural life just wasn't his cup of tea.

  Bonnie's only wish was that he'd realized that before they decided to have a baby.

  Sylor had always said he wasn't the marrying kind, which should have been Bonnie's first clue not to trust him—though it was now apparent that was the one thing he'd been completely honest about. He'd had such grand plans for their future on the newly colonized planet, and he'd infected Bonnie with them. Unfortunately, once she'd been bitten by the bug, he had gotten over it.

  Terra Minor had been haggled over for centuries, with several worlds laying claim before it was finally bought outright by a consortium that sent in a team of scientists and ecologists to catalog everything from the insects to the weather patterns. Next they sent in timberdroids to harvest most of the trees on the flatlands, after which they planted tough grasses, creating a savanna.

  The climate where Bonnie's property was located was temperate year-round, with one season slightly cooler and rainier than the other. The weather and terrain being similar to Central Africa on Earth, some official had de­cided that the names of places in the region should sound African in origin. This was more a tribute to the Old World than anything, and while it was doubtful that the names had any actual meaning, if they did, those original meanings had been lost with the passage of time.

  The only thing to fear from the weather was the storms, with their heavy rains, high winds, and spec­tacular lightning, which started the occasional wildfire. Though the fires did serve to keep the savanna from growing back into forest, they were dangerous, and each homestead was required to have a wide firebreak around it for protection.

  Living there may have been risky, but the land was fertile, and Bonnie had yet to plant anything that wouldn't grow. Sylor hadn't been interested in farming, preferring the excitement of chasing enocks, but she en­joyed raising the plants as well as the more domesticated livestock. At least they didn't try to take a piece out of her every time her back was turned.

  Enocks were what had caught Sylor's fancy from the beginning, though Bonnie now realized that he had seen it as a get-rich-quick scheme, rather than a lifelong pursuit. Much like the ostriches of Earth, enocks were large, flightless birds, but they were far more vicious than any ostrich, with razor-sharp beaks, daggerlike claws, and a belligerent, carnivorous nature. They were dangerous to work around, but their eggs, which were huge and very tasty, were highly prized and brought an excellent return on any investment. The enocks were omnivorous, so they fed them mostly fruits and grain, but occasionally one of Bonnie's chickens would stray into their pen, which meant certain death for the chicken. She'd put wire mesh around the lower part of the fence to keep them apart, though it wasn't always successful. What she n
eeded was a force field, but such things were expensive luxuries, and since chickens were cheap, she'd yet to earn enough money on their eggs to justify the cost.

  Just feeding the enocks was an adventure in itself, but gathering their eggs bordered on suicide—which was something Sylor had always enjoyed. Bonnie would throw out feed to distract them, and then he would make a run for the eggs. She'd been doing it alone since he left and had had a number of close calls—as well as the scars to prove it. Even before Sylor left, Captain Jack had noticed the bites on Bonnie's arms when she'd been in Nimbaza last and had sold Bonnie some excel­lent ointment, but Bonnie was beginning to believe that what she really needed was a suit of armor—which, of course, Jack hadn't had in the hold of her ship, though as a successful interplanetary trader, she had just about everything else.

  Bonnie had begun to despair of ever finding a hired hand, but thankfully, her temperamental comlink was ac­tually working the day that Drummond finally called her.

  "Got someone for you, Bon-bon!" Drummond said, his raspy voice booming out over the comlink. "Not Terran, of course, but I think he'll do. Actually, he kinda reminds me of Cat—you know, Captain Jack's husband?—and Leo, too, of course. Anyway, they look like they might be the same species, but so far, this guy hasn't mentioned where he's from. Says he was a slave but earned his freedom, or some such bullshit. He's probably a runaway, but I don't hold with slavery, so it wouldn't matter a hairy rat's ass to me if he was."