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.Land of the Giants: The Ferals	By : keithcompany Category: G through L > Land of the Giants Views: 2357 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Land Of The Giants series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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The night before the trip back to the forest was a strange one for Valerie. She was healed enough to be able to sit up in the bed by then. She was thus able to see her own wounds when Deckett changed the dressing.
He gave her an extra bit of painkiller before the procedure. She felt light and transparent for about half an hour. "Beats the hell out of biting down on a bullet," she giggled. Gessy laughed with her though she had no idea what the woman was talking about.
The liquid he'd used to fill the wounds was a dark green. It looked to her like satanic jello but he seemed pleased by the sight.
"Coming right along," he assured her. "As your body replaces the bandage with blood agents, it gets darker." He rewrapped the front of legs, then Gessy helped her turn face down for the other pair of wounds.
"But will I be able to play the piano afterwards, Doc?" she asked.
"Even I know that joke," Gessy said with a snort. They all laughed, Valerie a little longer than the others.
She lay still for a while after the dressing, until she was sure that she was in charge, not the drugs. Gessy stayed beside her as usual.
The Earthling was starting to feel herself again when the teen leaned down close.
"Valerie, are we friends?" she asked.
Valerie reached out to take Gessy's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Of course we are."
"Good." Gessy nodded then leaned down and kissed Valerie on the lips. The older woman was too surprised to do much but sit through it. When she felt the teen open her mouth, though, she reared back.
"Gessy? What are you doing?"
"Deckett does that with his friends," she explained. "Did I do it wrong?"
"No," Val said with a shake of her head. "Not really. But... Does Deckett do that to all of his friends?"
Gessy looked thoughtful. "No," she said slowly. "Only to girls." She brightened and leaned towards Valerie again. "And we're girls!"
"Hold it," Val said gently. "I'm, uh... I mean, I don't... Other than college I've never...."
"You don't want to kiss me?" Gessy asked. To Val's surprise, though, she didn't seem to be as vulnerable as she sometimes was.
"Um... I like you a lot, Gessy, but, well, no. No, I don't generally like to kiss girls." She gave another squeeze to the hand she still grasped. "I still like you but..."
"No, that's okay," Gessy said happily. "Deckett has lots of friends he won't kiss. We can be unkisser friends." She gave Valerie another careful hug.
-----
Deckett placed the cage on one end of the picnic table bench. He was as gentle as possible but Valerie still groaned as the thing set down.
"Does it hurt?" Gessy asked. Then she realized how silly the question was and waved it away. "Do you want the medicine?" she asked instead.
"No," Valerie said through clenched teeth. "If I'm doped up, Steve won't be able to trust anything I say. I can't take anything until after this..." Meeting, she wondered. Maybe a visit? Evaluation?
She sank back against the pillows and stopped searching for a label. Whatever would happen, would happen.
Gessy stroked her whistle and looked around the cleared area.
After an hour or so a ranger walked down the path. He glanced at Deckett's disassembled camera and came closer.
"Papers?" he asked. Deckett produced his ID, work form, forest access, camera pass and pet permits.
"Two little people?" the ranger asked with a glance towards the cage. "What do you do with two?"
"They help each other out," he replied. "I use them to find rare specimens. When I'm not close enough to protect them, they protect each other."
The other man nodded and walked on. When he was gone, Valerie asked, "Since when do I have a pet permit?"
"Since I bought you in a Massakand market..." He paused to check the form. "Three years ago next Tuesday. Happy domestication day."
She stuck her tongue out at him. Gessy found the expression amazing. She sat for a while practicing the tongue sticking face.
An hour after the interruption Valerie saw a bush branch twitch. "They're here," she said. The giant opened the cage door and swung the case down to the ground. He sat so they could see his feet, but he couldn’t see the cage.
Valerie wasn't surprised that only one of her fellow refugees risked capture by coming out of the undergrowth. She was surprised that it was Fitzhugh.
The older man walked gingerly up to and through the cage door, constantly glancing over to the giant's legs.
Finally he was close enough to Valerie to take her hand. "How are you doing, dear?"
"I'm fine, Fitzhugh. What are you doing here?"
"Oh, well," he shrugged. "I managed to convince the good Captain that I should be taking a look and seeing how they were treating you." He started to reach for the bandages. "Let's see the wound, eh?"
"Are you a doctor?" Gessy asked. She'd been sitting quietly in the corner since Deckett put the cage down. The Commander smiled over at her.
"Gessy, is it? It is a pleasure to finally meet you." He reached out to take her hand and kissed it. Valerie smiled at the delighted expression on the girl's face. The rogue could certainly be charming when he felt like it.
"No, dear, I'm no doctor. But I have seen more injuries than anyone else in our little group." He winked at Valerie. "Several of my former associates have felt that discussions are not complete until a lead pipe is used."
He peeled the bandages back gingerly. "Ah, very good. No infection. The color is good." He bent to sniff. "No gangrene." He replaced the dressing, noticing Valerie's hiss of pain.
"Are you taking anything for pain?" he asked urgently.
"Yes," she said after a moment. "Just not now. Need a clear head."
Fitzhugh nodded. "You're going to have to talk to Steve." He pulled out a walkie-talkie and turned it on. His report on her health was short and positive. Steve acknowledged it then everyone got a chance to talk to Valerie.
The rest of the conversation she probably could have predicted. Steve was upset that he hadn't been there to save her from the trap. Betty was upset that Valerie wasn’t taking anything for the pain while Dan was upset that she might be becoming addicted to the painkiller. Mark used a lot of spy-movie terms to talk around the need for an escape, possibly taking Gessy out with her.
Teenager Barry asked a lot of questions about teenager Gessy. When the girl asked if Barry would be a better friend for kissing, Valerie laughed and ended the chat.
"Steve," she said into the radio, "I think I'm safe with Deckett and Gessy. It'll be a while until I'm able to walk, and a bit more until I can run fast enough to avoid capture."
"You think..." he repeated. The unspoken question hung in the air. There really was no way to be certain the pair were trustworthy until they had a chance to betray the Earthlings.
The other concern was how healthy Valerie should be before risking life in the wild again. There were risks leaving her with the giant just as there were if she wasn't ready to survive in the forest.
"Look, Steve," she finally transmitted, "there's no perfect answer. But I think it'll be better for everyone if I stay with Gessy for at least a while longer." She waved at Gessy as she spoke. The girl brought over a dose of the pain medicine and Valerie gobbled it down.
Fitzhugh took the radio for one last discussion. "When shall we three meet again?" he asked Steve, while looking at Valerie. "In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"
Both of the women in the cage with him just stared. "I don't like lightning," Gessy said softly.
"I hate going through the forest during a rainstorm," Valerie pointed out. Fitzhugh rolled his eyes.
"The educational crimes of the giants are to be expected, but you, Valerie, should know - "
Betty's voice came over the radio with the next lines. "When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won. Macbeth."
"Exactly," he said happily. "So? When are we doing this again?"
"Steve says that each of these visits is dangerous. But he wants to stay in contact. How about every 30 days until Val is all better?" He raised an eyebrow. Val nodded and he transmitted agreement.
"So, I'll leave you the radio," he started to say.
"No!" Gessy shouted. Beside the cage, Deckett's feet shuffled at the sound. Fitzhugh paled. Valerie took his hand and made calming sounds. "Sorry," the girl apologized. "It's just, we can't be caught with Earther tools. We'll be taken away."
After his scare over the giant's attention, Fitzhugh didn't take much convincing. He was out the cage and across the clearing like a shot. Gessy watched him go, then whistled.
The giant picked up the cage and they returned to his home.
------
Two months after the accident, Valerie managed to get out of the bed and all the way to the toilet by herself. She flagged after using it, though, and had to call for help.
Gessy cheered her success then held her standing up long enough for Deckett to lift her back to bed. After that he put Gessy in charge of physical therapy.
The girl became a cheerful demon for walking. "If I live the rest of my life without hearing 'just two more steps,' I can die happy," Valerie muttered after the first week.
Gessy had been warned by Deckett that people in therapy became evil vindictive blood spreading villains, though, so she didn't take it personally.
A typical morning would include thirty five steps from the bed to the toilet box, twenty five to the breakfast box, seven to the Luck Box (placed with careful precision by Deckett under Gessy's direction. Sixty seven was her lucky number so it was sixty seven steps into Val's day to reach it.
The two women would then sit on the sponge that topped the Luck Box and plan out the rest of the day.
"How about we climb down to the floor," Gessy suggested one day, "then cross to the sofa and climb to the top of the back? Then we can rest until Deckett comes home."
"No way," Valerie argued. "That's much too strenuous." To the redhead's dismay, Gessy remembered all of her escape stories, and used those as goals for Valerie's exercises.
"You told me you climbed to the top of a park bench once. We'll take breaks. Come on. Just ten steps to the power cord of the lamp, then it's a slide to the floor for a rest." She popped up with a smile and held out her hand. Valerie groaned and took it.
On another day the giant came home and found the pair on his desk, dialing the operator for the correct time. He didn't help or interfere, just sat in his chair and watched the Earther push the dial with her legs while his pet held her by the arms.
"The clock isn't good enough?" he asked after hearing the voice on the hand set.
"Just practicing various skills," Valerie said. "Never know what you'll have to do to make it through the day around here."
"This one time," Gessy started to relate. Deckett held up his hand over the two women.
"Later," he said. "I have bad news. Something came up at work and I can't take you into the forest tomorrow to meet your friends."
"Oh." Valerie looked up at the giant face, trying to gage sincerity. This might be a trick.
"Can you take her tonight?" Gessy asked.
"Um, yeah. But her friends won't be at the campsite until tomorrow."
"We can camp out!" The teen turned to Valerie and begged. "Can we? Just one night? Then your friends can pick you up tomorrow." Val knew that her camp was not too distant from the campsite but didn't mention the fact.
"What about you, Gessy?" Valerie asked. If she was any sort of judge, Deckett's expression was one of concern for his little girl.
"Oh, Deckett can pick me up day after tomorrow. You can come to the camp in two days, right?" she asked him.
"Yeah, I can," he said. He seemed unconvinced though. Gessy threw herself across his hand. "Please? Can I go visit Valerie's friends in their forest camp? Please? I won't ask for anything else, ever, ever, ever again.
"And if I get lost, I just do what you told me." She stood, waved her arms and said 'My name is Gessy, I belong to Naturalist Scholar Deckett, and we live at 1645 Manfire Thoroughfare, apartment 3G."
He glanced at the Earth woman. She shrugged. "I think we can keep each other safe for a night or two." Gessy scampered back to her and squeezed her in a tight hug.
So an hour later Deckett knelt beside the path and opened the cage. "Okay, you have your packs?"
"Yes," they assured him.
"And the blankets? And the vitamins? And the food pellets?" They nodded. "And cat repellent?"
"Yes, yes, and yes," Gessy said, rolling her eyes.
"We'll be fine," Valerie assured him. He finally sat back on his heels and watched them disappear into the brush. Valerie limped off towards the lake, then started circling around towards the Spindrift's location.
For all her social naiveté, Gessy turned out to be a deft hand in the wilderness. She was constantly pointing out hazards and finding ways around them.
"I'm impressed," Valerie told her at one of their frequent breaks. "You know your stuff out here."
"I do help Deckett find things for his work," Gessy pointed out. "It's what he taught me." She snapped the blossom off of a flower and held it in her lap like a pillow. "Will your friends like me?"
"I'm sure most of them already do," Valerie assured her. "They've talked to you, about you." She waved the girl closer and gave her a warm hug, "You're a good person, Gessy. Anyone will like you."
Gessy hugged her back then turned away quickly. "I think those seeds are edible," she said. Val smiled at the tug in the girl's voice and walked on.
A few trees away from the camp the captain of the group of Earthlings stepped out from behind a root with an angry look on his face.
"Valerie, what the hell are you doing?"
Val stopped walking. Gessy took a step further, then stopped and retreated to stand behind her friend.
"Why, thanks, Steve. It certainly is good to be home." She took Gessy's hand in hers.
"You... You can't bring her into the camp. You can't show her where the ship is. Hell, you've already brought her too close!" The other members of the group appeared around the pair.
"We can trust her, Steve," Val said urgently. "I trust her. Do you trust me?"
"Of course I do," he replied. "But she's on the giants' side. We can't be sure she won't tell them where the Spindrift is!"
"I won't," Gessy said softly.
"No, you won't," Mark said. He stepped up to stand beside the two and took Gessy's hand. "You won't."
On the opposite side, Betty stepped up to take Valerie's arm. Dan eased the pack off of her shoulders and slung it on his own. Barry hurried past Fitzhugh to do the same for Gessy.
She resisted, keeping a grip on her pack until Valerie gave her a nod. The whole group moved past an exasperated captain towards the camp.
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.Land of the Giants: The Ferals