Interstellar Ruse

by Gregoire, Cil;

  “I can pick lettuce,” Crystal said tearing a leaf. Torn lettuce leaves wouldn’t matter; she had to tear the leaves for salad anyway. The task would keep Crystal busy while she checked the greenhouse for tomatoes.

  “We will have plenty of tomatoes in a week or two,” Maggie said returning from the greenhouse with only two small ripe tomatoes.

  “Maybe we should take the children for a hike,” Vince suggested, his calloused hands full of peas.

  “Oh, yes!” Maggie loved these family outings. “What about writing?”

  “Family is more important than writing, especially on a beautiful day.” They carried their bounty to the basket where Crystal still tore away at the lettuce.

  “Good job!” Maggie praised. A pile of lettuce leaves covered the bottom of the basket.

  “I picked a lot of lettuce,” Crystal pointed out.

  “You sure did. You did great.” Maggie and Vince placed the peas and tomatoes on top the lettuce. “Do you have a knife?” she asked Vince.

  “Sure do, what do you need?”

  “I want a young zucchini for the salad.” Vince pulled out his pocket knife and cut away the zucchini Maggie pointed out as her choice.

  With salad harvested and the picnic basket packed, the Bradley family prepared to set off on their family hike. Maggie doused the children’s clothing, hands, cheeks, and foreheads with a citronella based insect repellent, even though the mosquito population was low due to a dry summer. Vince checked his rifle; bears were his concern.

  “Make noise to let the bears know we are coming,” Vince said. He lead them down an old game trail, now turned people trail that used to go through their front yard. After he built the cabin, the bears and moose established an alternative route to avoid humans. The trail, nearly hidden by the height of summer growth, led to their favorite picnic spot on the ridge overlooking the big swamp at the head of the creek.

  Bears were Leaf’s friends, too. Leaf knew the rifle his father carried was for protection against a charging bear. He could mentally read his father’s protective concern. Leaf didn’t want anything to happen to his family, but he didn’t want anything to happen to his friends the bears either. So he decided to keep watch mentally scanning the woods. Leaf could detect the presence of squirrels, birds, shrews, and voles in the area, but there was no sign of bears.

  Numerous wildflowers bloomed in sunny openings along the way. Maggie and Melinda had learned the names of all the flowers together. Now she identified the flowers for Crystal, Leaf, and Rock.

  After weeks of little rain, the forest was dry. Even known low spots in the trail had dried out. Yet the foliage was still lush and green. In places the Fireweed, Monk’s Hood, and wild grasses grew taller than the children, forming green arches over their heads. Keiluk broke through the tall growth ahead of them. The distance wasn’t great, less than a quarter of a mile, and it looked like the twins would make it all the way this time on their own feet.

  Hot and sweaty, they arrived at their picnic site. A few mature birch trees shaded the grassy ridge framing the expanse of the big swamp green with summer. Across the vast muskeg the Talkeetna Mountains defined the skyline to the east.

  They rested on logs near the fire pit containing the remains of their last campfire. There would be no campfire today; conditions were too dry and the threat of forest fire too great. It was too hot for a campfire anyway. A thermos of cold water was passed around. Keiluk made her way down the steep embankment to cool off in the creek.

  It didn’t take long for the children to recharge with energy. Vince romped around with the kids, making sure no one went too close to the edge of the ridge where it dropped down to the swamp and creek, while Maggie set up their picnic. She spread out the picnic blanket from the top of the basket near the fire pit where the summer growth was the shortest.

  Hearing the shrieks of laughter and smelling the scent of food, Keiluk shook herself off releasing a shower of water and quickly climbed back up on level with her family. The smell of food drew her to Maggie first who instantly protested. “Ugh, wet dog; go away!” Rejected by Maggie, Keiluk joined in the fun with Vince and the kids.

  “Lunch!” Maggie called out when all was ready.

  “Stay!” Leaf ordered Keiluk a few feet away from the feast. “Sit!” A mental directive accompanied his verbal command. Keiluk sat. “Lay down!” Keiluk dropped down on the grass. Maggie handed Leaf a dog biscuit to give to her. “Good girl,” he said rewarding her with a pet and the biscuit.

  While they ate, Leaf continued to mentally scan the area for bears. He detected other signatures of life. There were robins, sparrows, and chickadees flittering about in the trees, a moose browsing down on the big swamp, and a fox in the woods across the creek sniffing out a vole for lunch, but no bears.

  It wasn’t until they were packing up to leave that Leaf detected the mental essence of a bear, still a long ways off, but headed toward them following the ridge. He glanced at Keiluk contentedly lapping up the last crumbs of their picnic shaken out of the picnic blanket. Good, the bear was still too far away for Keiluk to detect. Now was the time for action.

  Without alerting anyone to the approaching danger, Leaf drew energy from within. Then formulating a powerful mental suggestion to change direction, he slammed it into the bear’s mind. Leaf could sense the lumbering bear’s vague confusion, but felt little to no thought resistance. The bear turned around, seeking a different route to his favorite fishing spot on the creek.

  After two days of hiking, Melinda reached the Cascade Mountains. It had taken a full day just to clear the sprawling metropolis. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she avoided the major highways as much as possible. There was no reason for her to hide except for a lack of desire to communicate. When she finally reached woods dense enough to hide her, darkness added an additional cloak of concealment. Hopefully, she was far enough away from any unseen residence not to be disturbed. She couldn’t see any lights shining through the trees which was a good sign. Even more importantly, no barking dog broke the silence. More tired than hungry, Melinda rolled herself up in her sleeping bag and fell instantly asleep.

  The sun blazed brightly when she woke the next morning stiff, but rested. No one had bothered her …for which she was thankful. After a breakfast of dried fruit and nuts, she rolled up her sleeping bag and continued on her way. The terrain had become more up and down demanding more energy to traverse. When she came to an intersection in the road, she let the tug of the key guide her direction. A couple of times she was offered a ride by passing motorists, but Melinda could sense the offers were tainted with an underlying hope of getting lucky and shook off the offers. As the day wore on, the terrain became increasingly more mountainous with communities spread further and further apart. She stopped at a marketplace in one little town and bought a sandwich and a bottle of water.

  There was only one road to follow now with few places to divert off of it. In some spots it was downright scary with steep mountainside rising up on one side of the road and dropping just as steeply down on the other.

  “Hi there! Where’re you going? I could give you a ride.”

  The voice startled Melinda. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the pickup truck driven by a thirty to forty year old woman with a friendly demeanor slowly come up from behind her. With disappointment in her lapse of attentive surveillance of all around her, she turned to face the woman attached to the cheerful greeting. She could read nothing threatening in the woman’s offer, just concern for a young woman traveling alone on foot.

  Thank you, Melinda spoke silently with her lips, then brought out the pad and pen she kept in a handy pocket on the outside of her pack.

  “I’m Melinda,” she quickly wrote and showed it to the woman.

  “Hi, Melinda. I’m Charlene,” she said gazing at Melinda with curious but compassionate blue eyes. “Where’re you going?” she asked adjusting the red bandana that held her shoulder-length brown hair out her face. Both Charlene
and the sturdy red pick-up truck she drove had a certain rural air to them.

  Pulling out her worn map folded to the northwestern states, Melinda pointed to their approximate current position and moved her finger across the map in a southeast direction.

  “I see,” Charlene said looking at the map but still not sure where Melinda was headed. “Well, hop in; I can take you as far as Wenatchee. You can put your pack in the back of the truck.”

  They rode in comfortable silence for a while, the windows down letting in the cool mountain air. The scenery was beautiful, even breathtaking …rivers, mountains, forest, and sky. Much like the mountains back home Melinda thought, but different somehow …bolder and warmer.

  “Where are you from?” Charlene asked after a while.

  Melinda could see she would be doing a lot of writing, but she didn’t mind. Charlene’s vivacious personality was contagious and she had enjoyed little human interaction lately. She just hoped she wouldn’t run out of paper.

  “Alaska!” Charlene exclaimed, reading Melinda’s written response and thinking she certainly looked native. “What are you doing here?”

  Melinda had learned that vague, dreamy answers were best for avoiding deeper interrogation. “Looking for something special,” she wrote.

  “I know how you feel,” Charlene sympathized. “A word of caution though, some of these ‘someone specials’ turn out not to be so special after all. I’ve had a few ‘someone specials’ and came out on the losing end of the deal every time. I’ve decided I don’t need them. I can take care of myself,” she chuckled.

  Melinda had written “something” not “someone,” but she didn’t make an effort to clarify. She decided she liked Charlene and posed questions of her own to keep up the chatter. “Do you live in Wenatchee?” she wrote.

  “For now; I moved back to take care of my aging father. I’m an only child. Mom died a few years ago.” Charlene went on to cheerfully share her life episodes while Melinda enjoyed both the landscape and the stories. “You’re a good listener,” she said a couple of hours later with a grin.

  As they crossed the summit and started the long descent back down to farmland and towns, Melinda realized with gratitude how far Charlene had taken her. The key, acquired in a nightmare and concealed in her pocket, assured her she was headed in the right direction. Yet she was surprised its tug had increased only minimally in strength. The object it lured her toward must still be a long distance away.

  “Where do you want me to drop you off?” Charlene asked when they reached the outskirts of Northern Wenatchee.

  “Bus station,” Melinda wrote after some thought. Traveling on foot was just too slow.

  CHAPTER 13

  Aaia

  With the help of the star stones, Traevus and Ilene were able to draw enough energy to teleport Captain Setas and Inventor Sulyan short distances over the difficult rocky terrain. Now the small group was taking a much needed rest after a rather steep climb. Using the star stones meant revealing their properties. Traevus explained their assumption that the Crystalline Landscape, dominating the center of the continent, somehow interfered with their ability to naturally draw usable energy from the elemental forces. But a star stone pushed back against the interference from the Crystalline Landscape, at least within a small radius, making telekinesis possible.

  “Really…” Zaloka exclaimed with surprise when Traevus finished expounding on the subject. The near star Seaa illuminated her face with soft milky light. “And how many of these star stones are there?”

  “Where did they come from?” Drak asked, his interest whetted.

  “This one,” Traevus said, holding up the smooth round golden stone he carried, “came from…”

  “That’s the stone I gave Rojaire and Theon,” Sulyan gasped in recognition. The star stone caught Seaa’s light as though drawn to it, reflecting the light toward Sulyan, giving him an aura of clarity.

  “That’s right,” Traevus confirmed with obvious surprise. “You gave it to them before they left on the mapping expedition.”

  “So it proved to be useful after all,” Sulyan chuckled pleased with himself. “We can certainly see how it got its name.” Of all the colonists, Inventor Sulyan seemed the most changed by their adventure so far, becoming more social …and cognizant.

  “But how did you come by it?” Traevus asked.

  “I found it back home on the beach …when I was conducting a rather explosive experiment,” Sulyan confessed. “It seemed to be an energy source of some kind. I wasn’t sure what it did.”

  “My star stone was found on Earth.” Ilene said in a mixture of Aaian and English. All drew their attention toward her.

  “That far away…!” Captain Setas rasped in awe.

  Ilene pulled out her star stone for all to see. She had made as much effort to learn the Aaian language as she had in conveying her own and had understood enough of the conversation to discern the topic without a translator. After all, as Theon’s daughter, Ilene considered Aaian as much a part of her heritance as English.

  “So it is possible more of these star stones might be found,” Drak concluded. It was then Traevus spotted movement below them.

  “By Seaa’s light, look who’s coming,” he announced, standing up for a better view of their teammates trudging up the rocky slope toward them, heavily burdened with freight.

  “I told you we would catch up with you,” Rojaire bragged dropping his heavy pack with a deep sigh, signaling a rest. Kaylya, Thayla, and Kiril, in need of a rest, did the same. Kiril had just enough strength left in him to choose a place as close to Ilene as he could without raising notice from the others before dropping down.

  “There is still a load or two left on the ferry,” Kaylya said.

  “We can send Kiril for them,” Thayla volunteered. Kiril wished he had something soft to throw at her.

  Ilene inched closer to Kiril. “I’ll go back with you,” she whispered softly to Kiril in sympathy.

  “You will?” Kiril smiled forgetting about his weariness.

  “You made the trip fast. It’s a long hike.” Not sure he understood, she pantomimed “long hike” with her hands while attempting a telepathed message since she had the star stone, to help get her meaning across.

  “It’s a long walk,” he agreed, not quite sure of the word “hike.”

  “Yes, it’s a long walk,” Ilene repeated …in Aaian …and then again in English. Kiril stared at her in near disbelief. They repeated the phrase together in both languages until their effort dissolved into laughter.

  “We already have more seeds, tools, food, and household items we can carry into the mountains,” Rojaire informed the group, “and plenty to eat until we get there. We will also be leaving the shelter in the Cremyn Valley well stocked.”

  “How much farther do we have to go before we reach this shelter you keep talking about?” Captain Setas asked. Her voice sounded as weary as her body looked.

  “Yes,” Zaloka added, “I’m starting to worry about Wessid …lame and all alone.”

  “He’s not lame; he just needed to rest,” Rojaire reassured her. “I’m sure he’s walking fine by now. There is nothing there to hurt him and food and water is close at hand.”

  “But you said he was limping.”

  “We don’t have too much farther to go,” Rojaire said. “We should be able to see the valley over the next rise.” Actually the distance to the shelter in the Cremyn Valley was still great. It was only close relative to the distance they had already covered since leaving Lavender Beach.

  It wasn’t long before the group was ready to move on. The pace was adjusted to accommodate everyone. The camaraderie of being together lifted their spirits. Kiril and Ilene walked side by side practicing languages. His spirit was so high, he felt he could go on forever. The colonists took turns helping Captain Setas and Inventor Sulyan over difficult terrain, but when the landscape leveled out some, they stoically declined further aid. And Zaloka continued to worry about Wessid.r />
  The period of dark was nearly over by the time the colonists descended into Cremyn Valley. Seaa dipped below the horizon, leaving only distant starlight to light the way when the group finally arrived, startling Wessid out of a deep sleep. Wessid stumbled groggily out of the shelter into an unexpected crowd. “Is everyone here?” he asked surprised by the sudden throng of people.

  “Wessid, you’re walking,” Zaloka exclaimed rushing up to him, relieved to see him up and about.

  “Of course I’m walking; I’m not lame.”

  “Greetings, Father.” Kiril noticed there seemed to be a greater closeness between his chosen mother and his chosen father than he had been aware of back in their community. Making a life-altering decision to follow their son probably had something to do with it. Remembering he was the reason they were here, Kiril bowed his head slightly in contrition.

  “Greetings, my son.” It was Wessid’s turn to bow his head, but in respect. “I just wanted to say,” Wessid paused searching for the right words, “I’m proud of you.”

  “Not as much as I am of you,” Kiril found himself saying. “It took a lot of courage for you to come with me. Thank you.”

  “Thank you?” Wessid asked, not familiar with the words.

  “A simple expression of gratitude,” Zaloka explained. “I think the proper response is “You’re welcome.”

  Kiril realized Ilene must have been instructing the others all along the way. At this rate everyone will be capable of conversing with Ilene but me.

  A fire was built up and tea served as well as snacks. “I wish I had my flute,” Ilene sighed wistfully in otherwise mellow contentment. “I would play us a tune to celebrate.” Her flute and pack had been abandoned in the rooms she had been assigned to back in the Community of the High Council.

  “I’m sorry,” Rojaire said. Her things had been abandoned by his order in an effort to escape before they could be stopped. “I greatly enjoyed your music on our first expedition together. Perhaps Inventor Sulyan here can make you a flute.”