“This will suffice,” he said, gazing upward at the sturdy limbed tree rising above them.

It was tall with thick branches ending in tufts of purple and burgundy leaves, matching the coloring of many of the plants on this world from what Darla had seen so far.

“Suffice for what, exactly?” she asked.

Heydar didn’t bother with a reply, leaping up and grabbing one of the lower branches far over their heads with a vertical that would have put any basketball player to shame. He was going up higher to get a better view, leaving Darla on the ground below.

“Hey!”

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “We do not know who may be lurking nearby.”

“Fine. Just help me up.”

“I do not require your assistance in this matter.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to help. I just want to see.”

Those gold-rimmed eyes stared at her a long moment, making her shift uneasily. In all the commotion, she’d forgotten how much he could resemble a predator, and an apex one at that.

A long, bulging arm lowered toward her.

“Grab hold,” he growled

She did as best she could, but his wrists were too girthy for her to get a proper grip. Heydar sighed and wrapped his fingers around her forearm, the additional joints allowing them to encircle her limb in a snug embrace.

Then, as quickly as he’d reached his arm down, Darla found herself hauled aloft and placed gently on a sturdy branch.

“Satisfied?” he asked, releasing his grip.

“Yes, very.”

“Hmph.”

He began scaling the tree without another word, once again affording her a great view of that magnificent ass on the way up. With that impressive thing staring her in the face, Darla couldn’t help but look.

What’s with me? Did the Raxxians put something in the food to make their livestock breed or something? ‘Cause hot damn, I’m feeling horny as hell. Then again, now that I think of it, that may also just be the whole narrowly cheating death thing doing the talking. Funny how adrenaline can do that.

She shook her head and pushed those thoughts from her head, shifting her legs to relieve the little tingle the pressure from her current perch was producing. It was nice. Really nice, truth be told, but she had other things to focus on.

Darla’s reach wasn’t nearly as long as Heydar’s but she managed to follow him up into the heights of the canopy, and what she saw when she joined him there took her breath away.

Stretching as far as the eye could see was a lush, green world, jutting bursts of burgundy, purple, and orange plant life springing up in some areas making it into a patchwork of stunning nature.

The air was clear and crisp, small, happy clouds drifting in the breeze. It was as if they had landed in some pristine corner of the world, untouched by humanity. Of course, this was an alien world, so technically that was true.

Off in the distance the lush colors of the forest gave way to what seemed to be a reddish-brown desert. Heat waves radiated from the ground, giving it an almost wavy appearance. But that wasn’t the only thing they saw.

Off toward the horizon on their left a massive mountain range could be made out, far smaller in appearance than reality due to the tricks that distance could play on the eye.

“It’s beautiful,” she gasped.

Even Heydar’s typically rough and matter-of-fact demeanor had seemed to soften a little.

“Yes, it is,” he replied, a faraway look in his eye.

Darla scanned the terrain, looking for any sign of a city or settlement. There was none.

“I don’t see any cities out there,” she said.

“No. But that does not mean there aren’t any,” he replied. “We could tell better at night, when cooking fires would be lit, but that is hours away, and we should be moving.”

He started to descend from their perch.

“Why would they use campfires to cook?” Darla asked as she followed him down.

“Because not all societies are as advanced as others. I do not recognize this world based on this limited view, but by the undeveloped look of it, this is most likely the case here. Time will tell. Now, come. We must find shelter, sustenance, and water if we are to survive.”

Heydar reversed the ascent process, descending after her then gently lowering her from the tree before leaping down to join her, landing as nimbly as a big cat. He took one look around and made a decision.

“This way.”

Darla, stubborn as she could be, was nevertheless an alien on this world, and she thought it wise to follow the lead of someone more familiar with this sort of thing than she was. The burly alien directed them down the hill back toward lower ground, descending on the opposite side of the hill from where their section of ship had gone down.

They walked quietly for some time, the shadows growing longer as the sun gradually lowered in the sky. The thing was, she had no idea when it might actually become night on this planet. Earth days were something she was familiar with, but here? A day could be half as long or double, there was no way to guess. In any case, it seemed they had a fair walk ahead of them.

Heydar motioned for her to move closer, his use of hand signals cluing Darla to the need for silence. She moved near and hunkered down low. They had come to a small creek, the gently flowing water calling out to her parched lips with its siren song. She was so thirsty she could smell the water, her mouth craving it with an almost undeniable need.

He pointed to the damp ground closer to the water’s edge.

Footprints. Many of them, and humanoid in shape and size.

Heydar cocked his head, listening intently to the sounds of the forest. After a lengthy time motionless he finally seemed satisfied, gesturing for Darla to come with him to the creek.

She dropped to her knees and filled her hands, drinking deep, not caring one bit if there might be some alien bacteria in the water. That might kill her slowly, but if she didn’t hydrate she’d be dead long before that would be a concern.

Heydar bent forward and did the same, filling his hands with great scoops of water, drinking it down, some of the liquid flowing down his neck and chest, making his tattered clothing stick to his body, outlining every muscle as it did. He was built like an Adonis. A seven-foot-tall alien one, but impressive nonetheless.

Darla felt a warm stirring in her belly at the sight.

As if that wasn’t enough, the hunky alien shook his hands dry and licked his lips, revealing a long, split tongue, each of the halves working in unison but also separating to function independently. The heat began to press lower as she watched him, her mind unable to avoid wondering precisely what a tongue like that was capable of.

She could think of several off the top of her head.

Darla felt something else. A pair of violet eyes staring at her.

“What?” she snapped.

“Nothing. You had a strange look on your face. I thought perhaps you were feeling unwell.”

“I’m fine,” she said, the happy tingle between her legs taking its own sweet time to go away. “Hey, we’ve got water, but what are we going to do about food?”

“Where there is water there is game. I will not hunt this close to our water source, but there should be acceptable prey close enough. In the meantime, you may eat these.”

He pulled a long tubular stalk from the mud and extended it to her. The base was a gnarled root, but just above the mud line the plant shifted to a pale green length, ending at a small cluster of green berry looking things.

“Do not eat the berries,” Heydar noted. “They will make you quite ill. But the stalk between them and the root is nutritious, if not particularly flavorful.”

“You’re sure about this?” Darla asked, accepting the offering, sniffing it curiously.

“We have this on my world. On many worlds, for that matter. It is a variant of the Olama plant, propagated wherever explorers landed as a hardy emergency food source. It would do you well to learn to identify it on sight. It could serve you well one day.”