Sarai, стр. 21

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ALEKYN WASAS GOOD as his word. Two days later,after some intense discussions with his pardmates, he bundled Jamieup in a heavy cloak, masking his face and form, and sat him in avehicle like a hovercraft, albeit one that was far moremaneuverable than the human equivalent. Like a dragonfly, ithovered and then darted upwards and along. At first Jamie’s felt abit queasy but once he’d gotten used to it, he’d begged Alekyn tolet him fly it.

To hisoutrage, Alekyn had laughed and shook his head dismissively, eventhough Jamie had insisted he’d paddock-bashed cars and trucks onhis family’s farm since he was ten years old. He could drive justabout anything and so could Matt and Theo. He gave up arguing aftera couple of hours, and silently, morosely, studied how Alekynhandled the flyer. Eventually his Naferi captors would forget towatch him closely and then he’d seize the day. His earlier fantasyof flying a space shuttle returned. Yeah, right, steal one of theseflying things, find a space port, steal a space shuttle and then,bazam! home to Earth.

Yeah,because that wasn’t at all unlikely, was it?

The firsttrip to the centre of Altas, the city the pard called home, raiseda few issues. Once Alekyn landed the flyer, he unstrapped Jamie andhelped him out of his seat. Seriously — did he think Jamie was somesort of girl?

Yeah, hedid. His sarai. His significant other. Something fragile, someonewho had to be looked after. Jamie bit his tongue and said nothing,even though his masculine pride was taking a beating.

Before Jamiehad time to orient himself and look around, Alekyn grabbed hishands and swiftly carabineer-clipped the bands together.

“Come,sarai,” Alekyn put his hand under Jamie’s elbow, guiding himforward. Jamie dug his heels in, outraged.

“No way,” hesnarled, hitting Alekyn’s hand away. “I’m not going anywhere likethis!”

“Likewhat?”

“Manacledlike a criminal.” He pulled fruitlessly at the bands, but theywouldn’t separate. “Shit! Take them off me now!”

Alekyn shookhis head. “No.”

White withrage, Jamie stared at him. “Take them off,” he said slowly andclearly, fury acid-etching his words.

“Come,sarai,” Alekyn repeated implacably and reached for him once more.“You wanted to see something of your new home, and so here we are.Tig and I decided people have to know you belong to our clan.That’s why the bands are necessary —”

“It’s notnecessary to chain them together, you big, possessiveoaf.”

Alekyn’seyes almost crossed with anger and for a moment Jamie feltintimidated. He stood his ground, though, glaring back asferociously as he could. After a second Alekyn muttered somethingunder his breath and shook him slightly.

“Did you notpromise to behave if I took you into the city?” he growled. “Doesyour word mean so little to you?”

“You didn’ttell me you were going to drag me around like a prisoner!” Jamiefelt his face burning. “This is awful. Why don’t you just chuck meinto a jail and have done with it?”

“Stop performing, sarai. Youwanted to see Altas and here we are. Do you want to go straighthome again?”

Jamieseethed with anger. To hell with not being able to fly anything atall — he was going to find a way home and Alekyn, goddam him, couldgo whistle in the wind. Stupid catman. “I’m not performing. I’malso not bloody moving until you take them off me.”

A tufted eartwitched, and that was like gold to Jamie. Time to manipulate thealien, he decided. He dropped his gaze to the ground. “You don’tcare this is killing me, do you?”“

Right oncue, a tear rolled down his cheek, and his mouth quivered softly.“I’m nothing more to you than a…a possession.”

Rumblingissued from Alekyn’s big chest and he shifted uneasily. “Jamie, thebands tell others that you belong to me.”

“You don’thave to chain them together, though. That just makes me feel like acriminal. I’m not going to wander off or try to run away. There’snowhere for me to run to — and if any other Naferi tried tosnatch me, well, you’d be able to fight them off, wouldn’tyou?”

He risked aquick glance at Alekyn. The big Naferi looked torn, so Jamiesniffed, a sad little sound.

It worked.

“Oh hells,sarai, you win,” Alekyn grumbled, unclipping the carbineer. “Butyou are to hold onto my hand, do you understand?”

Jamiegrinned broadly and nodded. He understood, all right — heunderstood that as soon as he could, he’d find that damn spaceportand fly away way home.

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FOR AN ALIENWORLD, DOWNTOWN Altas reminded Jamiepretty closely of the photograph of a Paris street scene his motherhad displayed in her sewing room, except that also had a gorgeousParisian couple from the 1940s kissing one another passionately.Cobblestone streets were lined with ornate shopfronts with largewindows showing all sorts of interesting — and admittedly much moreexotic — goods for sale. Not that he had much of a chance oflooking too closely at anything, he thought resentfully. Alekyn,still angry, was walking way too fast for Jamie to actually seeanything more than shopfronts and blurred shapes.

He sighed.This wasn’t quite what he’d envisaged this morning when they’d setout. Instead of a leisurely comfortable walk through this newworld, all they’d done was argue, and now this march-or-dieprocession. He was heartily sick of it. He wanted to stop at one ofwhat looked like cafes, have the equivalent of Naferi coffee —yuck, öte — and maybe talk to some of the locals. He grinned, someof the local aliens.

Fromdifferent worlds. Strange, unknown — to him, at least — worlds andpeoples, a good proportion of which seemed to be represented on thestreets of Altas.

But Alekynwas simply pulling him along, not letting him see anything. Hetried digging his heels in and almost stumbled but his Sarat, hisspeed not one whit abated, simply righted him and strode onwards.Jamie hadn’t felt so put upon since he’d been a toddler. Whilechucking a mammoth tantrum might relieve some of his anger, he hada feeling that instead of being patiently ignored, as he rememberedhis mother doing with him until he’d exhausted himself out ofwhatever infantile snit he’d been in, he’d now end up beingpunished in a more adult way.

Maybe even a spanking.

That randomthought unexpectedly focused his mind sharply and disbelievingly hefelt his groin tighten. Oh,come on, he told his dick,don’t tell me you’re getting a