Which means he's most likely a gladiator.
Which means this is probably a privately held planet where someone's using this place as hunting grounds for a gladiator training school.
Kef. Kef twice.
Sterre hisses and lunges at the pit, swiping one paw down. I put a hand on her shoulders and she swats me with her tail again. I crouch near the pit, gazing down at him. I'm glad the damn thing is filled with mud at the bottom, because if this male is a gladiator of some kind, he wouldn't hesitate to kill me. Or Alice.
He smiles up at me, his expression friendly, but I don't trust it. I lift my chin at him. "You here alone?"
"Define 'alone'?" he asks. "Am I currently unaccompanied? Yes. Is this planet empty? No."
"Gladiator school?" I ask.
"How'd you know?"
"Lucky guess." I study him. The pit's as deep as I am tall, so he must be a shorter sort—either that or he's not willing to try escaping with an angry Sterre lurking up here. "How many of you are there?"
"In the jungle right now or in general?" He puts his hands up. "I'm not trying to be vague. I'm trying to give you specific information. There's four of us out in the jungle right now, and I'm not sure how many back at the barracks. At least twenty, maybe more, and that's not including staff. See?" He gestures at his hands in what he probably hopes is a friendly gesture. "I'm cooperating. I'm not trying to be difficult. I would very much like to get out of this pit alive, that's all."
I nod. "You know I can't let you go, right?"
"I figured. You going to tie me up, then?" His gaze slides to Sterre. "Or you going to let the animal eat me?"
I pretend to think about it for a while, watching Sterre. In reality, I know I can't let her kill him. Not because it's wrong, but because this guy is a fountain of information. He's been in the pit for all of a hot moment and he's already running his mouth. We need his information. "If I jump down there to tie you up, what's to stop you from attacking me?"
"If I agree to let you tie me up, what's to stop you from letting your beast eat me?"
An excellent point. I pretend to consider this for a little longer, weighing our needs. Information is important, though. If there's one gladiator, there'll be more. Lots more, it seems. "How far is the gladiator school from here?" I ask, not willing to answer him just yet.
"A few days’ hard hike?" He shrugs. "I'm supposed to find one of the clones they tagged and released with me, kill him, and return, but I'm not in a hurry. That place is brutal. Even worse now with the new shipment."
"New shipment?"
"Get me out of here and I'll tell you all about it, I swear." There's a desperate note to his voice. "If you leave me down here and someone else finds me, I'm dead."
That gets my attention. "Was someone else on your trail?"
"No, but you can't be too careful." He gives me a pleading look. "Come on, friend. Help me out. All I want to do is live, just like anyone else. I didn't ask for this. I got taken from my home and next thing I know, I'm in some shitty gladiator school. I just want to get free of this mess."
I stare down at him. I can't tell how young he is, but I suspect he's rather young. It's probably why he's running his mouth. As for being taken from his home and forced to do something he doesn't want…it makes me think of Alice.
Instinct tells me to get down there and let him out, but I'm learning a new way. I straighten and gesture at the pit. "Sterre, if he tries to get out, eat his face."
And then I head back to the tree, to go ask Alice what she wants to do.
59
ALICE
When Kaspar climbs back up the ladder, he pokes his head into the ship and gives me an absolutely fake smile. "Sunshine, I have good news and bad news. Which—"
"What's in the pit?" I interrupt. This is no time for games. I love this man, but sometimes I want to shake him. "Just spit it out. Is it dead? Is it dangerous?"
"It's a splice."
That makes me pause. It doesn't sound familiar to me. There's so many different aliens out here in space and so many terms that I have a hard time remembering all of it. If someone's mentioned it to me before, I've forgotten all about it. I try to draw up a mental image, but all I get is a blank. "What's a splice?"
He finishes climbing up the ladder and hops into the ship, tugging up the ladder after him. "That's when someone decides that a mesakkah or a praxiian isn't quite dangerous enough, so he has a mixture of the two grown in a lab to bring out the most aggressive traits in both. It's very risky and most don't live long, but it's very popular amongst gladiator rosters." Kas finishes pulling up the rope and drops it at our feet. "The good news is that I think he's the one you saw the other day. He's that dark shade of blue you mentioned. Unfortunately…that's the only good news I have."