It was explained that each wagon was assigned passengers at double capacity, who would have to take turns walking and resting. Quin climbed onto one of the wagon’s sponsons and was trying to look like he was guarding correctly, when he noticed just how close he was to the wagon’s huge crab. The mostly hairless crab was a dusty shade of orange with the name Becky painted skillfully on its carapace in white paint with purple shading. There was no operator, and the reins, lay on the ground, crusted in mud and dirt, and worn too short to be properly used in any case. Quin knew that ox-crabs like Becky would follow the scent block, dragged behind the wagon in front of them, without needing a driver. But knowing it and seeing it were different things. The crab was harnessed to the wagon via four thick, braided lines running through loops and carved eyeholes in the two large spikes, and two knuckled knobs, on the crab’s enormous bony carapace. On its two primary pincers there was what seemed at first to be restraints. On closer inspection, Quin realized they were struts, pointing down, away from the crab, making it more menacing not less, and allowing it to rest its claws on the ground, or perhaps use them to assist pulling its heavy load forward.
As it was being loaded with some of the most eager of the city’s residents, their wagon was filled quickly. The deep blow of a horn, combined with a high keening wail of a siren, signaled for the whole caravan to move forward. A second combined signal brought the whole thing to a stop, the current pedestrians walked to each side of the scent block, though their baggage was thankfully stored on top of the wagon.
The wagons continued to load for a long time. Long enough for the staging area to become too distant to resolve without aid. Quin thought of their binos back home, but they would have been too large and heavy to make practical road tools. After a brisk beginning, the loading slowed. Because the caravan became too long or the people too restless or some other reason, Quin did not know. During one stop, the riders swapped with the walkers. Then just as he was bracing himself against the sponson for another sudden stop, the caravan began its journey in earnest.
The old stone road was worn smooth from centuries of use, but not so smooth as to make for a peaceful ride. There was a reason that wagon trains were used mostly for baggage transport. The journey had plenty of bumps, making the passengers not uneager to walk from time to time. Swapping the riders with the walkers was accomplished without stopping the caravan. Meals too were doled out on the move from the wagon stores at Greta's command. She had insinuated herself into the position of Wagon Head. The downside for Greta seemed to be more walking. As some sort of gesture to the others in the wagon that she was willing to work harder? Quin didn't know. The upside for Greta was what? Unless he widely missed his guess, Greta didn't care about power for power's sake, or impressing others for ego's sake.
The hours of travel passed slowly, and Quin was thankful for the stamina of his lance-holding android arm, as he was certain his real arm, may it rest in peace, would have given out by now. Of course, without the new arm he would not have needed to worry about the lance, it would have been handed to someone else.
Much of the route paralleled the light rails leading to and from SoChar. But they separated at times when the railway crossed a narrow rickety bridge here or a similarly narrow tunnel there. The wagons were forced to go around. There was some bitterness when the first trains passed them by at speed. Rumors spread about the lucky souls that had been assigned passage on those small passenger trains. Some grumbled that those who'd slept late were rewarded with easy passage on the trains, others said bribes must have been involved. Quin thought either of those two stories as likely as the other, but he was betting on the third rumor that the trains were loaded with those too old or sick to travel on the rough road of the wagon trains. And he felt a jolt of fear at just the thought that they might have been separated during the trip. They might not, after-all, have an opportunity to reconnect before finding themselves in a giant overcrowded spaceship.
Cailin entertained their wagon as well as those in front and behind with his antics and high energy. He jogged around the area as they moved, picked up all manner of small animals, crabs, fold worms, and land jellies to name just a few. He liked to shove them at Jayleen, eliciting an excited squeal from her. Cailin had never before been out on the plain and there was a wealth of new sights to see. The flora and fauna of the plains were markedly different from their mountainous home city, which was growing ever smaller in the distance.
Ahead of them, west, Quin thought he could at times view the sea, but it was still so far away that he couldn't be sure. Behind them to the east, and stretching north to south, was the NaCharouthah mountain range that housed his former home. The area between mountain and sea was usually described as a gently sloping plain, but the reality on the ground was of countless sandy rows of low hills that ran parallel to the mountains and therefore perpendicular to their preferred direction of travel. It made for frequent ups and downs. Quin felt that even calling them hills was giving them too much respect as the tallest of them barely rose enough above the height of the wagons to block Quin's line of sight. The occasional valleys that twisted perpendicular to their path slowed the caravan considerably. Several times the wagon had to be emptied of passengers so that Becky could ascend. The flora in these low areas was thicker than the sparse bushes of the open plain.
One such valley was both long and wide, and was filled with tall trees Quin had never seen before, covered mostly in green. The valley's forest floor too was covered in vegetation, though with less green and more of the vivid purples and reds that were missing from the strange trees. The air was fresh and clean, and Quin wondered why there were no settlements here. He knew the likely answer involved an as yet unseen abundance of local wildlife. It was unlikely that some large beast roamed the valley eating passersby. But perhaps something smaller, more persistent, and less easy to be rid of. Some sort of fungus or insect. Perhaps a troupe of vicious chunk weasels prowled the valley. But on their short visit, they saw no sign of the undesirable element. Sooner than he would have liked, the wagon train climbed up out of the idyllic valley, and back onto the plain.
The wagon train had come to a complete halt once already, in order to allow the refugees to sleep, and It was about time for second sleep when Quin saw the first sign that they were making real progress towards their destination. The gentle plain was interrupted by a slope, which was steep enough to force the road into a zigzag, switchback pattern. Mega sat just above the mountains behind them, lighting the nighttime terrain brightly, but not so brightly as to keep him from seeing SoChar's faint lights twinkling on the horizon. The city was still many miles away, but he had hope now that they would complete their journey with one more push in the morning.
They made camp at the top of the slope. Everyone else had fallen asleep under the stars. Quin, unable to sleep, sat looking out over the ridge. Chaplin joined him and soon the two got to talking, for what was really the first time. Many times, throughout the long trek from NaChar, Quin had considered asking some of the many questions he had for the android, but always the noise of the wagon on the road was too much for Quin. He could hear others having loud conversations both in and around the wagons, but for Quin, a shouted conversation was not an option.
Now, with the others all asleep, Quin dared to ask the sorts of frivolous questions that had at best a tangential connection to their current situation. Chaplin seemed happy, even eager to answer Quin's questions, and told freely of his 'birth' back on Earth, and the happy—though largely uneventful—time during the long trip to Grailliyn, before the dark—and entirely uneventful—time that followed their arrival. During the long voyage, the AIs were able to socialize, sleep, and process the occasional new bits of data gleaned through their changing location in the cosmos. But when their great ship—The Longissima—arrived, the somewhat delicate marbles that were the physical bodies of the AIs were placed safely in storage to protect them during the crash landing. The procedure had the intended effect
of preserving the AI marbles through the rough landing. Unfortunately for everyone, no one had survived to let the AIs out afterwards.
Chaplin glossed over the details, but Quin got the idea that, for an AI, spending the better part of two thousand years without any sort of contact was about as bad as it sounded. He was surprised they hadn't all gone completely space crazy, though he wasn't at all sure he should be surprised, after all he had no idea what was considered normal for an AI. He had also been surprised to discover that Chaplin was not an actual android, but a small sphere wearing a robot body like clothing.
When Quin awoke in the morning, the sun had risen, and he was greeted by another sign of progress. The sea. It was only a tiny glimpse, a gleaming line of silver between the coast and the sky, but it was the sea for sure this time.
They lost sight of the sea as soon as they began their descent down the slope. But throughout the day, whenever their wagon reached a high bend in the slope of the plain, Quin sought another glimpse of it. After a few hours of travel though, the sea was in view anytime they reached level ground or better. At this region of the plain, though still far from steep, the slope’s grade was, as on the clifftops of NaChar, high enough to stay clear of the horizon so far as the haze of the atmosphere would allow.
Seeing the city and the sea beyond it had the effect of slowing Quin's perception of the last leg of the trip. But, eventually, they reached the outskirts of the city. At that point, the wagon train veered south, in time reaching the bottom of a rocky bluff which served as a hard boundary of the city's southern limit.
There the wagon train stopped to unload a half dozen wagons at a time. Quin was so dazed and road weary from the ordeal, that he failed to notice the dark opening in the cliff wall until he, along with the whole crowd from their section of wagons, were directed to disembark the wagons and enter it. Quin passed his lance to the tall Grailliyn directing the unloading process. The man was surprised when the next lance handed to him was from Chaplin. But though his mouth hung open, he made no comment. Quin gathered his few belongings from the wagon as well as his people. Cailin waved a sad goodbye to Becky. Quin considered bidding Becky a fond farewell with a friendly knock on her carapace, but he realized, standing on the ground beside her, just how huge she really was. She towered above him. One small shuffle step from Becky and he could be in need of another new foot. So like Cailin, he simply waved.
When they'd cleared the wagons, the caravan moved ahead again. He turned back to the tunnel and followed the crowd up the path towards it. A thin gray coating of dust covered every surface of plant and rock. The dust became thicker as they got closer to the tunnel. Huge mounds consisting of gray sand lined the road. It suddenly occurred to Quin, if he guessed the plan correctly, that they might not see Grailliyn ever again. He stopped at the threshold of the tunnel and took one last look at Grailliyn daylight before the line of impatient and tired refugees pushed past him.
Entering the tunnel, they passed quickly from blindingly bright to blind in the dark. Voices around them lifted in concern and wonder, echoing in the tunnel. They quickly lowered their voices or stopped talking completely. Further ahead along the downward sloping tunnel, Quin could see lights strung along the wall.
The silence didn't last long. From the first unloaded refugees ahead, a lone voice lifted in song. A deep baritone, though distant, filled the tunnels with a tune likely familiar to all in the caravan, save perhaps Greta and any others who, like her, secreted their way into the camp. It was the Battle Hymn of NaChar. An ancient tune from centuries past that gained a permanent position in northern hearts during The War. The one war, with Tawnee, more than two centuries before in which both sides claimed to have won. It was the north, however, that was forced at the end of the war to cede land along the northern edge of the forest and the shores of the Beldorath. Other voices joined in and soon a chorus echoed down the tunnel towards them. Quin questioned the choice of song for this moment of retreat, but despite that one reservation, he couldn't help but feel stirred by the tune.
When the song ended there was silence again. Then some brave joker took advantage of the short silence to start a new song. This time it was the somewhat familiar theme song to the Brady Bunch. Little reverence was given to this second song and the general quiet ended as the travelers began speaking again all at once.
The chill air of the tunnel began to sink into Quin. The air was not only cooler, but moister compared to the plain, and it had the familiar smell of new concrete. The source of the smell turned out to be bands of support arches where the otherwise solid rock wall was cracked. Most of the wall was smooth and straight. Quin was forced to attribute the work to some fancy equipment brought by the earthlings, as every other carved tunnel he'd seen had been more roughly made, and living in the mountain bound city of NaChar, he'd had no small amount of experience with tunnels.
It was not far into the mountain, perhaps five minutes by foot, when the loose line of refugees tightened up. One need look no further than Cailin to see that the long journey had drained and wearied the refugees. Normally a bundle of energy, Cailin barely registered the change in pace and continued walking until he banged his head on Chaplin's unyielding back.
The bottleneck slowing their line turned out to be a door. The door was open and easily passed through, but each of the refugees slowed as they passed through, pausing as something there claimed their attention.
Chapter 25
“Our position is that we have no responsibility to show you any courtesy of any kind. You have not signed the agreements put forth and passed in galactic summit. As such you are not bound by their limitations. And neither are we bound by those limitations, as they might otherwise hold us in regard to you,” Linda said, with a voice suited for tough business. Negotiations had only just started, and they were not going well.
“But we weren't at those summits—” Snow said.
“Exactly,” the alien mining boss said.
“But we would have signed if we had been there,” Snow said, “probably.”
“Irrelevant,” said the alien.
Frustration was welling up faster than Snow could push it down. The signal had a visual element to it which Linda had placed on the monitor. The image showed the aliens, arrayed in much the same way as had the sciencey-history blobs been in person on their ship. Two in the front waving their tendrils around like crazy and two in the back that cut into the conversation when those in the front got out of line. She was sure there was more to the connection between the front and back and side to side positioning, but Snow was clueless as to how, and in this moment, couldn't care in least. She put more brain power into picking which of the four blob-sacks she would first pummel the stuffing out of, were they closer to hand.
“It's the whole of our people! You can't just leave us out to dry,” Snow said.
The aliens, all four of them, convulsed in unison. “There is no need to become vulgar,” the aliens said. “Our decision has been made. No ships shall jump from the system before operations are concluded. Do not contact us again.”
The transmission went dead. Snow buried her face in her hands. She was supposed to be a communicator. But these aliens were just such weirdos. With their tendrils flapping around and the talky friend beside them, and the teacher/boss/parent person behind them. And their complete unwillingness to consider someone else’s point of view.
“So, what are we going to do now? We have to get out of here, otherwise every human we know is going to die, along with possibly every human we don't know,” she said.
“I think we should maybe let them cool down a bit. Give them some time to cool off and put things in perspective,” Max said.
“You mean I should cool off and put things in perspective.”
“Well… It wouldn't hurt.”
“You think this is my fault?” Snow said.
“No. I think those people want to not have a reason to help us. They have their whole operation going and they don't want
it disrupted,” Max said, “and I think that maybe, being left out to dry, is a particularly nasty thing to say or do from their point of view.”
“Like murdering babies!” Linda said helpfully.
Snow cringed at the thought of baby murder. But she got the point.
“And we might not want to tell them so much of what they can or can't do,” Max said.
“Maybe the nerds will help us. They seemed a lot cooler and less obsessed with mining,” Snow said.
“Agreed. In the meantime we could try looking around with some of the drones. See what we can see, test the sensors and maybe learn something useful for later when we have gotten out of here.”
“Should we try and contact those big nerds?” Linda asked, with an obvious effort to fit in with cool kids Snow and Captain Long Legs.
“You're a big nerd, LC. It's part of what makes us like you so much,” Snow said. It was true. Linda was a super huge nerd. Snow wondered if they should get her some cool nerd glasses to help her fit the role.
Max nodded. “Launch Scouter,” Max said. His voice clear and precise. But nothing happened. “Sorry, Linda. A drone. Just launch a drone.”
“Ah, got it,” Linda said. There was the sound of a drone being fired from the rail. “Scouter launched.”
“Good stuff,” Max said. “Let's see what happens—”
“Uh-oh,” Snow said. The entire ring of sentries lashed out at the drone with coherent red beams of light. But the expected explosion or vaporization did not occur, and the drone carried on away from the encircled Dee-Dub.
“What would they have done if we showed up with more ships, and they flew off in different directions? How would they keep one of the ships from jumping out?” Snow asked.
“Maybe they just start shooting?” Max said.
“I calculate the ring of disruption ships could affect as many as twelve ships. Beyond that they would just have to accept that they are not in control,” Linda said, “or maybe they have more of them around. It is difficult to determine how many ships are in the area. There are many stationary objects large enough to be space vessels. It is clear from those examples I have seen, that they coat their ships’ exterior surfaces with a material that causes them to register no differently than one might expect of an asteroid or comet. No two ships have the same signature, though their active sensors and engines make them obvious enough when in operation.”
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 20
