by Athena Storm
I also spot nearly a dozen squat, heavy creatures, quadrupeds with vaguely reptilian features, though they also sport a shaggy coat of fur. Curved tusks come from their lower mandible, which might look fearsome if it wasn’t for the waddling stride and slow movements of the animals. Daphne joins me at the cliff side as they dine upon the long strands of wild brown grass growing near the stream’s muddy banks.
“Fascinating. They appear to be some form of herbivorous herd animals.”
“They appear to be our lunch, is what they appear to be.”
I grab my khaffi stick and take aim with the rifle end, but Daphne hisses and puts a hand over the barrel.
“What are you doing? Do you want to alert the Odex to our position?”
I open my mouth to argue, then close it. She’s right, of course. Shrugging, I holster the weapon and start looking for a way to gain egress to the floor of the meadow.
“Now what are you thinking?”
“I’m going to climb down there and club one of those over the head. Better start looking for kindling, because we’re having roast….whatever those are.”
“Duric, stop. We don’t know anything about these creatures. They might be dangerous.”
“Bah, we already know they’re not carnivorous.”
“But the tusks—damn it, Duric, be careful at least.”
Smiling, I pick my way toward the meadow, moving carefully so as not to make undue noise and spook my prey. I’m sure Daphne is cross with me, but she’ll feel better with a full stomach.
Nineteen
Daphne
I could scream. Duric might as well be whistling as he ambles down the hillside, so confident that he’ll be able to best one of these reptilian creatures, heedless of what their habits are. What their intelligence might be.
If I sized up every new species I met against myself based solely on their appearance at initial contact, I might presume I was the only thinking creature in the universe. And that includes most humans. Despite how moony I’ve felt, Duric sits squarely in that department himself.
Midway down the slope, he crouches behind a boulder to get a better look at them.
“Hsst! Hsst!” I’m trying to draw his attention without attracting the notice of the grazing herd down in the glen. When he finally hears me and turns to look up, I wave him back up the hill sharply. His jaw drops in a goofy grin and he waves at me like a child.
I could murder this Vakutan pig.
Willfully ignoring me, Duric sets about wresting a long, supple limb from a thicket of reedy trees tucked in among the grove. Drawing a knife from his belt, he strips off the leaves and sets about whittling an intimidating point at one end. White-green slivers curl away and pile up at his feet as he leisurely slicks them off in long strokes.
He’s taunting me. The bastard is taunting me. Daring me to storm down the hill and join him. Well, small chance of that, you headstrong lout. I’m perfectly content to stay up here and survey the whole mess.
Testing the branch’s strength against his knee, he nods at last and turns to fire another toothy grin my way. I bare my teeth at him, shaking my head, and he puts up a hand and shushes me in a pantomime show of anxiety. All I want is to smack the stupid grin off his face.
If he actually brings down one of these critters, I’m going to be hard pressed to take a bite. I doubt I could even get it down.
The spear crafted, he grips the knife in his other hand and prepares to slink down into the herd. In that moment, everything about his demeanor changes. The devil-may-care comedy routine he’s been fumbling through to infuriate me evaporates, and the stealthy gait of a natural born killer takes its place.
As much as I hate him right now, it’s impossible to take my eyes off of him. The tiny, frenetic tingle of attraction sizzles below my gut and I have to steady myself. Don’t topple headlong for this reckless Vakutan, Daphne. There’s too much about him that needles you.
Still, look at his back. His powerful legs coiled under him as he stalks down among the grazers. The sinewy flex of his arms, ready to strike at any provocation. Damn him, he’s thrilling in spite of himself.
Duric reaches the outermost creature and passes within feet of it, with no reaction. It remains idly munching at the bushy, moss-like grass blanketing the meadow. Are they blind? Even he registers the oddity of it, with a slight settling of his taut stance.
He passes another with the same ease. By the time he wades into the middle of this insensible flock, they are rubbing against his calves as he moves. Duric is literally nudging them out of the way as he wanders among them, arms slack at his sides – the knife and spear lolling lazily as he goes.
My cheeks burn and I feel foolish. As though I have been over cautious and allowed myself to get too wrapped up in my own particular wariness. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s that I could probably stand to be a bit more careless when the time calls for it.
Had it been up to me, we would have skirted the edges of this field, staying well above the incline lest they should catch our scent and charge up to trample us. It would have added an hour to our trip and left our bellies as grumblingly empty as they were before. Caution would have made for a longer day, and a keener hunger, so that’s something that I need to consider.
“Human woman,” comes the call from down the glen. “I am in danger.”
Some danger. He’s raised his arms in the sun and is laughing up to me. Nearly every one of the creatures has pricked up its large ears at the sound of him, but none seems overly perturbed. Some of the nearer ones have inched away, but that could have as much to do with the quality of foraging as with the jolly figure towering over them.
Surveying the snuffling bodies around his legs, Duric shrugs his shoulders and makes a random selection. Heaving the spear high over his head, he sinks it between the shoulder blades of one poor victim with a swift and forceful strike.
The creature lets out an awful, high-pitched wail and kicks wildly, its great tail flailing as blue blood gurgles and spurts from its back. Duric wrestles with his end of the spear, working to bring the dying animal to heel.
He’s so preoccupied that he can’t see that the rest of the herd has gone completely still. An eerie hum rumbles through the valley, finally attracting his attention. The reptiles begin to bob their heads and sway lightly to each side. All eyes have come up from the ground and are now intent on the Vakutan in their midst.
And then, a thumping sound rises, like heavy hailstones battering against the turf. At first slowly, but rapidly gathering in intensity. From where I am perched, I can see that their heavy tails are hammering the soil, beating out a heavy tattoo that vies with their agitated hum.
In the center of the throng, Duric has released his spear and is turning in circles, overwhelmed. It’s unclear what is about to happen, and he looks up to me with an expression that tells me he regrets whatever cavalier attitude put him in the middle of this mess.
Then, the storm breaks. In a startlingly fast move, one of the creatures spins violently, sending its pendulous tail smashing into Duric’s legs. Even from here I can see how it stings, and he’s very nearly thrown off balance.
Once the first attack has been launched, the entire field descends into a maelstrom of swinging blows. They thunder against Duric’s legs and back, and he goes into a blind counterattack, lashing out indiscriminately with the knife in one hand, and working to bodily fling creatures away from him with the other. But as soon as one is cleared, another takes its place.
With no weapon to come to his aid without endangering him, the best I can do is watch as the melee roils around him. Carving his way to the tree line, Duric drops the knife into the hoard and sets about hoisting himself up into the tree. Catching my breath, I watch his legs. They’re going to be heavily bruised, but no bones appear to be broken.
He scales the trunk in a clumsy shinny until he finds a branch substantial enough to toss himself over. The look on his face is so plaintive that I almost forg
et to be upset with his chicaneries. It’s very tempting to leave him stranded up that tree until the lizards tire themselves out and move on.
But they begin to thwack against the base of the tree with such ferocity that it begins to waver unsteadily. If they can manage to topple it, Duric might find himself in legitimate trouble. I’m going to have to think of something fast or this will get out of hand.
His sludge-thrower is leaned against the rock where he carved his spear, but I’m uneasy with the idea of descending anywhere nearer this riot than is necessary. Suddenly my cautious nature seems more like an asset. If the creatures came after me, my bones don’t have the kind of density to handle more than a blow or two before giving out. It wouldn’t be pretty for me.
Digging into the satchel, I search for something that could be of use. Pelting the beasts with roots seems unlikely to help any. My hands rest on the communication unit. I feel certain it could prove useful – but how? I fumble with it dumbly, hoping for inspiration to strike. Looking back down at the swaying tree and swinging tails, it does.
Switching the unit on, I crank the volume as high as I can and open up a channel. Fishing a small data pad from the bag, I turn on the microphone and crank it up to the maximum. Looking back down the hill, I slam the two together.
An unholy blare of feedback rips through the air from the hateful devices. The hum from the valley dies down, as does the cacophony of thumps. Every large ear is standing at attention, twitching in discomfort.
That’s as good an indication as I’m going to get. Keeping the units glued together, I begin to run down the hillside, bringing the shrill siren directly toward the furtive beasts. As I draw nearer, they send up wails of their own and tear away from me, galloping in gangly strides up the opposing slope and scattering among the trees.
Only a lone form remains behind, a crude spear pinning it to the landscape.
Panting, I reach the bottom of the tree and wait a bit before clicking the units off and letting the air go quiet again.
“Well,” comes a winded voice from above me.
I look up to see Duric clinging to his branch and doing his best to force a smile.
“I caught dinner.”
Twenty
Duric
Cursing, I sort through the deadwood on the floor of the jungle, searching for a bit of timber that isn’t too moist to act as fuel for a fire. The rich smell of humus and rotting vegetation are cloying, filling my nostrils to the point where I almost can’t stand it.
I’m agitated, irritable, and not just because I can’t find what I need for the proposed fire. Attempting to hunt the reptilian monsters had turned into a near total disaster. At least I managed to bring one down before the whole cursed herd came after me.
If not for Daphne’s quick thinking, I’d probably still be up in that tree, waiting for the creatures to abate their hunger and move on. Naturally, the insufferable woman was being condescending about the whole affair. She’s told me so many different variations on the phrase ‘I told you so’ that I don’t know whether to be angry or admire her linguistic creativity.
No, I’m definitely angry.
Not only did I have to put up with her condescending attitude and smug sense of superiority, but now we have to cook our meat for her sake. As a Vakutan, I can digest raw meat, though it takes longer than eating something that has been cooked. However, her fragile human physiology could not handle the potential microbes and bacteria that probably live within the shaggy reptilian beasts.
Heating the meat to a sufficient temperature to render the bacteria inert will require a fire. A fire which I must build, after finding the sufficient fuel and kindling to do so.
I reach down beneath a canopy of dead leaves, and grab what I believe to be a fallen branch. Then it leaps about in my grip, and I pull my arm up out of the leaf pile to find one of the plant/snake creatures that menaced Daphne on her climb earlier.
Part of me wants to crush it, rip it apart, venting my anger upon its body. But just because I’m angry at Daphne doesn’t give me the right to take a life when I’m not even going to eat it.
I hurl the thing away from me, and it slithers through the brown rot, rustling leaves as it hisses its indignation back at me.
Sighing, I go back to my task. It takes much longer than I intend, and the morning stretches into late afternoon before I return to the meadow.
Daphne is sitting cross legged on a rock, a pliant clear sheet meant to keep off the rain draped across her body. I assume she is using it to keep her clothing free of the blood and detritus as she cleans my kill. With how long I’ve been gone, it should be butchered already, the good meaty bits set aside for roasting, but it looks like the reptilian type animal is mostly intact, though it is missing its skin.
“Duric, this creature is amazing. I can count six, no, wait…seven different stomachs. I think they might have a form of chlorophyll for blood, which beggars the imagination. These creatures are upon the cusp of animal and plant life. Do you have any idea what this means?”
“Of course. It means you’ve been playing with entrails instead of preparing my kill for roasting—which was your only job.”
Her eyes narrow, and the smile fades from her lips.
“What are you talking about? I need to understand this thing before I cook it.”
“Why would you need to do that?” I huff over, and dump my bundle of sticks unceremoniously upon the ground. “Cut it open, strip out the meat, grill it. Simple.”
“Why are you being so nasty?” She leans back and wipes the sweat from her brow with the back of her forearm, as her hands are covered with bluish green ichor. “And it’s not that simple. Not even close. Obviously you’ve never eaten Fugu.”
“Fugu?” I crane my neck to the side and scrunch up my brow in confusion. “I’m not familiar with this word.”
“That’s because it’s not basic IHC Esperanto. It’s from the Japanese language.”
I sigh heavily and my belly rumbles as I look at the unprepared carcass.
“And this is important to me why?”
“If you’ll shut up for a second, I will enlighten you.” Daphne shoots me a dark look before continuing with her lecture. “The Fugu is a blowfish, a type of piscine creature that lives in Earth’s seas. They can puff up their bodies and extrude spines, which make them hard to eat.”
“So why do people try?”
“I’m getting to that. The meat is a delicacy, but it has to be prepared just right. If you sever its sex organ, you can taint the meat with toxins that can paralyze a human, or worse. I have to go very slow, and exercise extreme caution, to insure we don’t suffer a similar fate.”
Grumbling, I plop down a few feet away and dip my head under the stream’s cool waters. I gnaw on a few more of the edible roots she discovered while I impatiently wait for her to finish preparing my kill.
“You could start the fire instead of playing in the stream.”
I sneer in her direction, water running down in rivulets between my facial ridges.
“I’m not playing, woman, I’m cooling off.”
“Well, when you finish with that, start the fire.”
“Yes, commander.” My mutterings are dark and all but inaudible. “My pleasure, commander.”
There are a number of roughly head sized stones about, which I use to form a rough circle near the stream’s muddy banks. The fire is a risk, but given the amount of mist in this jungle it will probably be hard to spot a smoke trail from the jungle floor. Of course, the Odex might have a shuttle or escape pod which can achieve altitude, but we must eat regardless.
Getting the fire going is difficult. I’ve selected the driest wood I could find, but it still proves a challenge to ignite. Finally, I grow frustrated and use one of my precious remaining bullets, pulling the cap off to access the chemical accelerant within.
Once I’ve sprinkled a few pinches of the black dust on the kindling, I return to harnessing the sun’s rays to ignite my pile.
My back and shoulders ache from holding still for so long, but eventually I’m rewarded with a tiny plume of white smoke drifting upward. Once it catches, I blow frantically upon the kindling until I finally have a decent sized fire.
Daphne and I don’t speak as we spit the bits of meat she deems safe upon sharpened sticks and drape them over the fire. The sizzling meat has an unusual smell, one that I can’t quite describe. The best I can say about it is that it’s reminiscent of gamey meat pickled in swamp water.
Hunger, however, will cramp even the most ardent gourmet’s style. Both of us devour our portions, in spite of the bland, grassy flavor. The meat hits my stomach like an anvil, but I don’t know if that’s because it’s barely palatable or because I haven’t had a substantial meal in so long.
As I reach for another charred haunch, Daphne shakes her head and moves it out of my grasp.
“We need to save some for later. It will take us at least another couple of days to make it to the peak.”
“Woman, I hunger. Do not interfere—“
“Look, Duric, I know you’re the big bad hunter, but we were lucky to get this food. It would be foolish to eat it all in one day and then go hungry.”
“Oh, so I am foolish?”
Her face scrunches up, and her lovely eyes have a dark cast about them.
“That’s not what I said, and you know it.”
“I know that your insufferable arrogance has worn my nerves thin.”
“Arrogance?” She puts her hands on her hips and glares up at me. “Who was the one who blindly charged right into the midst of a herd of dangerous animals we knew nothing about? That’s arrogance. Who decided to go for a swim with potentially lethal creatures swarming about? That’s arrogance, too. And—“
“I tire of your woman’s prattle.” Standing up, I grab the haunch from her hand rudely and begin striding away. “Rest time is over. We will never reach the peak if we don’t begin moving now.”
