Barbarian Mine (Ice Planet Barbarians #4)
Ruby Dixon
What Has Gone Before
Aliens are real, and they’re aware of Earth. Several human women have been abducted by aliens referred to as ‘Little Green Men’. Some are kept in stasis tubes, and some are kept in a pen inside a spaceship, all waiting for sale on the extraterrestrial black market. While the captive humans staged a breakout, the aliens had ship trouble and dumped their living cargo on the nearest inhabitable planet. It is a wintry, desolate place, dubbed Not-Hoth by the surviving humans.
On Not-Hoth, the human women discover that they are not the only species to be abandoned. The sa-khui, a tribe of massive, horned blue aliens, live in the icy caves. They hunt and forage and live as barbarians, descendants of a long-ago people who have learned to adapt to the harsh world. The most crucial of adaptations? That of the khui, a symbiotic life form that lives inside the host and ensures its well-being. Every creature of Not-Hoth has a khui, and those without will die within a week, sickened by the air itself. Rescued by the sa-khui, the human women take on a khui symbiont, forever leaving behind any hopes of returning to Earth. They join the sa-khui tribe.
The khui has an unusual side-effect on its host: if a compatible pairing is found, the khui will begin to vibrate a song in each host’s chest. This is called resonance, and is greatly prized by the sa-khui. Only with resonance, will the sa-khui be able to propagate their species. The sa-khui, whose numbers are dwindling due to a lack of females in their tribe, are overjoyed when several males begin to resonate to human females, thus ensuring the bonding of both peoples and the life of the newly integrated tribe. A male sa-khui is fiercely devoted to his mate, and several humans are now claimed by the males, and pregnant.
Recently, a small party ventured to the ‘ancestors’ cave’ – the broken ship of the original sa-khui people – in search of answers. While there, the original Little Green Men returned, stole one human woman, injured the two sa-khui accompanying them, and left the other human woman to get help.
This is where our story picks up.
Chapter One
HARLOW
I need two poles for a travois. Two. No problem. There’s got to be trees in the distance, and I’m strong and whole.
Okay. I can do this. I can.
Aehako’s instructions ring through my mind, over and over. We need to make a travois and take Haeden back to the healer. My heart races wildly in my chest as I sprint through the snow, looking for the thin pink wispy trees of this planet. Kira’s gone, and both aliens are wounded. They need my help, and I can’t let them down. I don’t know why they don’t go back to the alien ship and get healed. They don’t trust it, and I guess I understand that. I’m used to technology, and it still freaks me out to think of the cold, emotionless voice of the computer.
Also, I know what it’s like to fear the doctor.
My feet sink into the snow with each step, and my leather boots quickly become sodden. There’s no time to fix them, or reinforce the insides with warm dvisti fur. Time is of the essence. I trudge forward over a drift-covered hill, and when I see the pink, wispy eyelashes of trees in the distance, I pick up the pace.
Almost there.
I have Haeden’s knife, since he’s too wounded to use it. The bone handle is smooth in my hand, though it’s a little too big for my human-sized palm to grip comfortably. Everything here on Not-Hoth is sa-khui sized, not human sized. I’m a decent height for a girl, but the average person on this planet seems to be seven feet tall, and the snows are deep, the caves huge. Really, everything feels just a wee bit too big. It’s like I’ve been transported to a Goldilocks house, except instead of just right, everything’s too big.
It’s just one more thing I must adjust to in an endless stream of new and frightening things.
Weeks ago, I went to sleep in my own bed, and the biggest concern in my mind was when I’d start my chemo. Then, a few weird dreams later, I woke up, shivering and weak, pulled from a tube and told I’d been abducted by aliens.
Which would have been hard to believe except that I’d come from Houston, Texas, and my air conditioner had gone out, so I’d spent the evening sweating and praying the repairman would come by soon. When I’d woken up? It had been so cold my bare feet had stuck to the metal floors, and strange blue aliens occasionally entered to chat with the humans.
It’s hard to call someone a liar when they’re seven feet tall, blue, and horned. After seeing that, I had to believe. And even though sometimes I want to pinch myself until I wake up, I have to accept the fact that I’m now living on a snow planet with no chance of getting home, and I’m infected with an alien parasite that allows me to endure the harsh conditions of Not-Hoth. Not exactly how I’d visualized my future at all.
But…at least I have a future.
According to the ship’s medical computers, I’m cancer-free now. I don’t know if it’s wrong, or if it’s Not-Hoth’s atmosphere or the new ‘cootie’ (as some of the girls call it) living in my chest.
All I know is that the inoperable brain tumor isn’t showing up in scans. And for the first time in the last year, I have hope.
But first…a travois.
When I get to the trees, I move to the closest one and touch the bark with my fingertips. It feels spongy and damp despite the chill in the air, and not sturdy enough to support a massive, muscled alien. I have no idea if this will work, but I’ll give it a shot. I owe the sa-khui my life, and so I’m going to do my best to help Haeden and Aehako.