by Bowring, S D
Ash was communicating hurriedly with a face on the screen when the pilot shouted “Brace yourselves. This may be bumpy.”
The heli landed with a bump and lifted again slightly. The parachutes detached automatically and the heli landed with a slightly harder bump, collapsing on one side as one of the supports gave way. The heli was leaning alarmingly to the left with Keller and Tane clinging white knuckled to the seat arms. Ash turned immediately and could see the two of them were okay, albeit obviously slightly shaken. “We’re on solid ground. We’ve just hit some rock on the left side and lost a leg. We need to disembark quickly.”
Keller and Tane undid their straps and followed the lead of both the pilot and Ash. They both opted to exit from the right hand side. Ash helped Tane and then Keller exit.
Tane introduced Keller to the pilot, a man called Bula. Tane slapped him on the back and thanked him for guiding the stricken heli to what was a relatively good landing in rocky terrain.
Keller looked about him. They were near the base of the valley by a narrow river. Trees had established themselves higher up on the sides about a 100 metres from where they stood. They were on a rocky area and it was uneven to walk on, although there were areas of flat rock and other vegetation nearby. A type of grass grew between their rockier area and the river. It was a flowering grass, with bright green leaves and various shades of orange and yellow for the flowers here and there. The ground looked damp nearer the river and Keller assumed that Bula hadn’t attempted to land there as it appeared swampy. A low mist hung over the grassy area in places, a nearby stream made its way lazily from the forest to the river.
The trees were a fairly bright green with tight leaves. Tane stood by the heli as Bula entered the rear compartment and passed some bags and equipment down to her. Ash was urgently talking to the viewer again. “Keller, take these and put them over there - we’re going to need them,” said Tane, passing him some packs and indicating a flat rock nearby.
Keller moved various packs from beside the heli to the rock. Ash continued to talk on the viewer. Bula climbed down from the heli and Tane and he helped Keller move the various items over to the flat area.
“We are going to need to get moving. We have to assume that whoever disabled the heli is now on their way here to locate us. We have four packs we can carry on our backs but we can’t take everything as it will be too heavy. We are only half way to Plymouth Rock and it will take days to get there so we are going to need to find a safe place on the way and arrange a pick up,” Bula explained to them both, as he started dividing up some of the kit.
Ash remained talking on the viewer and was now cursing. Tane and Bula were discussing the kit urgently - after prompting from Ash, who had yelled that they need to get going quickly.
Ash then stepped away from the heli and walked quickly towards the trio, eyeing the kit as he approached. “Split everything into four as best you can. We may have to split up along the way.” This thought had concerned Keller but the frown on the Captain’s face made him keep it to himself.
Bula looked at Ash, “What about the green guards? Their helis only passed us about two hours ago. Are they able to get one out here to pick us up?”
“Possibly - they are three or four hours away. They were travelling at the same speed in the opposite direction. They are already on the ground and are struggling with renegades who have come out of the woodwork. Either that, or the rebels are using prisoners to assist their cause. Macau B is hotting up at the moment. We may be able to get help from one of the interior settlements or Plymouth Rock – they’re working on it.” He then looked at Keller and Tane, “Are you two okay?” They nodded their assent.
“We’re going to have to move. It’s too open here. Let’s see what kit we have,” he said.
They went through the packs and decided to leave some items behind such as a duplicate medical kit. The heli had survival equipment on board such as waterproofs, food, water purifying tablets, cooking aids, night gear for warmth, medical supplies and a portable monitor. Ash picked up the monitor and he told the others that it was their lifesaver and he couldn’t risk it being damaged.
They had one backpack per person and they helped each other put these on, checking the various straps for comfort. One of the problems they were going to face was that neither Tane nor Keller had shoes suitable for a long hike. Bula looked down at their footwear. “Let’s hope we aren’t walking too long, just watch your footing.”
Bula returned to the heli and cut off the remaining power, thereby closing down the viewer and lights. Although it wasn’t an easily detectable heat source when it was on low power, he told Ash they may as well make it as hard as possible for anyone trying to track them.
They set off heading west for some trees, walking against a chilly breeze that was sweeping the valley. Ash wanted them to get under cover where they could then try and plan the journey ahead. He had already indicated that they needed to get clear away from this area first. After that, it would depend on advice he was receiving through his earpiece. His job, he told the trio, was to keep them safe until rescued.
They approached the forest canopy. There was enough room to walk between the trees. The ground was covered in a layer of branches, leaves and a strange oblong nut that some of the trees bore. It was like walking on a bed mat covered in horse chestnuts and Keller thought progress through this was going to be slow.
Having reach the trees, they stopped and looked back at the heli about 100 metres from where they now stood.
Ash sat on a fallen trunk and looked at his viewer. Bula and Tane looked over his shoulder. He called Keller over.
“I had been studying the viewers before we left the heli. There seems to be an additional complication. The renegades, or rather Kurk is seeking support and is reported to be broadcasting that the Governor, who herself came from Earth, and by implication had a conflict of interest, was bringing her son to prepare him to take her place. He is saying that we are to become a nepotistic state.”
“But that’s a total lie, they are the ones that brought me here” protested Keller.
“We know, Keller, calm down, we know that. This Kurk is clever enough to have back up plans. It occurs to us that if Governor Whelehan hadn’t eventually capitulated to his blackmail scheme, then you would have been paraded by them as evidence that the Governor had a plan to retain Rayleigh through nepotism. Perhaps for personal gain? You would be the young man from Earth, an Outsider at that, with no apparent abilities or experience and would control the future and prosperity of a population already made nervous by its relatively precarious existence.”
“It’s crazy! It would be better if you could just get me back home and then they would know I have no interest in this. I didn’t ask to come here.” Keller was stunned and felt helpless.
“Keller, it has complicated matters but we can regain control of the situation. It’s just likely to take a little longer,” said Ash.
Ash believed that the minor rebellions would be quelled and various renegade groups would be brought back in line when they realised the government wasn’t going to be cowed. However, they would need to be isolated first and it wasn’t clear how widespread they had become. Keller was a pawn at the moment and Ash said his presence could confuse matters for some of the population, now that Kurk had changed tactics.
Keller sat down on a trunk by himself and looked miserable. The other three discussed the next steps and were considering what direction to aim for.
Tane then came over to Keller. “It looks like we will follow the stream through the forest for some way. It’ll take us up and then across to the next valley which is some way from here. There is a small settlement about 10km away and it may be a good pick up point.”
Ash came over to Keller. “Katherine, sorry, Governor Whelehan, is aware of what has happened here,” he said nodding towards the heli. “She is in the process of quelling a local rebellion. It’s not good, but the rebels are failing to get a foothold there a
nd she has good people supporting her. Macau B is a different matter. There have been casualties among the green guards. Kurk really seems to mean business and he could destroy everything we have built here.”
Keller noticed that Ash had called his birth mother by her first name. A slip, he thought. He look closely at Ash who had turned away quickly to look back into the forest. Keller wondered at their relationship for a moment. “Ash?” he asked, “can we be tracked? The Scouts who picked me up in England said they had tracked me by body warmth.”
Ash turned back to Keller, “A heat signal you mean? Yes. We would have to be in a line of sight. Alternatively, a satellite could do it - but it requires a lot of patience and time, sometimes just luck. At the moment, their best bet if they have the resources is to get to our heli and track us from there. So we need to get moving towards a safe place. At the same time we have to use tactics to avoid detection. The first move is to get out of this valley and into another. They can track us at the moment by simply standing by the heli with a scanner and they will eventually pick one of us up. It’ll get harder as we put more trees between us and them.”
They set off at a steady, brisk space.
It was hard-going. Keller thought it was tough on Ash, who followed behind the other three. Keller knew that Ash would have been able to make much faster progress on his own, as would Bula. Keller’s muscles and lungs had not been tested for a long time. He wasn’t sure at the outset how far he could go before he would need to slow down or stop for a while. Tane didn’t look particularly fit but she was still fitter than the Regents back home, and she didn’t seem to be struggling with her pack.
He didn’t want to let these people down.
The thought that there were casualties back at the prison and around Macau B was a shock. He wondered what it meant when Ash said ‘casualties’. The worlds weren’t perfect but the deliberate killing or wounding of a fellow human was usually restricted to local and domestic disputes. A declining population doesn’t normally waste its people. Food, and certainly land, were plentiful compared to other periods of history. There wasn’t a world that could afford to waste people, its greatest resource; even those who made up the low prison population worked shifts since labour was in such short supply.
Tane waited for Keller at a narrow pathway that Bula had come across. “We have a few hours before longnight so try to keep going as best you can.” This time of year, longnight would be five hours long.
“This is an animal track,” Keller said to Tane, looking up and down the path.
“Is it?”
“Yes, far too narrow for a man. It looks like it’s frequently used,” Keller said.
Tane looked at Keller thoughtfully. “You probably have a better grasp of field craft than me or Bula. I have primarily been working out of Plymouth Rock and other population centres; even as a child I had a relatively urban upbringing. Bula would have been the same,” she added.
“Foragers have made this path - they eat the tubenuts that fall from the tree and various root vegetables,” Ash said catching them up. “They’re harmless enough, not good to eat though – they taste foul. They eat too much of those awful tubenuts which are acrid. The forest workers call them ‘The Stink’ and prefer hunting almost anything rather than a Stink,” he added. “Let’s move on,” he said, looking back through the trees.
Having stumbled along the forest floor for an hour, it was a welcome change to be able to walk along the path left by the Stink. Despite his fatigue, the flora and fauna of Rayleigh was starting to interest him and provided a little distraction to his other worries, great though they were. He noticed that some smaller paths led off from the main narrow path and he could see that some of these stopped abruptly at a burrow. The so-called Stink had a size that he suspected fell between hare and badger from the size of the burrow. The entrances to the burrows were carpeted with cracked tubenuts, presumably discarded by the Stink after they had fed on the soft internal nuts.
Keller spoke with Ash for a while as they were walking on the easier path. He asked him about the forest workers that Ash had mentioned earlier. Ash told him they tended to work the forests nearer Plymouth Rock or near other main settlements, particularly those near the rivers or the sea. It simply reduced the effort required for transport. They had plenty of forests, just not enough people working them - so they could pick and choose where they worked. Some of the main forests on the north of New Fiji were mostly trees similar to pine. They grew fast, had soft wood and their resin was harvested and distilled to provide a valuable source of turpentine. This was useful in solvents, paint, cleaning products, medicinal purposes and so forth including the creation of synthetic camphor. The products arising from turpentine were one of the many exports sent as freight to the New Exeter hub and onwards to other worlds where cultivation of forests wasn’t an option.
The settlement they were heading for (they had a choice of several), was on a river and was solely a forestry outpost for both the Lambda and Theta trees. Named after ancient Greek alphabet letters, the Lambda was a pine-like tree and Theta was an extreme hardwood tree. Theta was slow growing but very successful on some parts of Rayleigh particularly on the western and northern parts of Khatru. New Fiji, on its’ own though, had enough to sustain the industry using the current resources available for harvesting this wood.
The four of them eventually came to a river with hills either side. Over a period of time, rocks had fallen into the river creating a white-water effect in places. Generally though, it wasn’t fast flowing. They were able to cross several times, back and forth as they moved on, just in case their tracks were found.
They stopped to eat up the slope from the river. Sitting under a rock promontory gave some feeling of security with good visibility downriver. Keller was suffering - he was weary and his feet were sore due to lightweight shoes. Tane had fared just as badly.
It was dark by the time they had food ready. Ash set up his viewer displaying a small amount of light towards them whilst they ate. The energy pack inside would last at least three weeks he said, so there was no problem using some of this energy to generate light. It didn’t, however, generate heat so they needed to get into their night gear which would protect against the cold. The night gear, which included a light nightbag for sleeping in, was treated so that it would deter insects, In particular it would deter the ant-like creatures that would find you if stayed still too long and would either sting if they thought you were a threat, or bite if they thought you were food - so Ash had told him.
Ash then used his viewer to send a communication to Government House. The elected officials had gathered there to work towards regaining control of the security of Rayleigh. He had agreed to send a series of notes to the Governor’s office to alert them that they were well - six separate musical notes. When they reached somewhere safe for pick up, he would then send a different signal - only switching to voice or text messages when their rescue was imminent. They had agreed to avoid any other signal in case there were any comms engineers intercepting these and keeping Kurk and his renegades informed.
Keller and Tane had settled first, falling asleep quickly beside a low rock that provided wind protection. Bula settled soon after. Ash had told them that he would continue to listen to the sounds of the forest until he was satisfied that there was no sound of human activity. As Keller started to doze off, all he could hear was the night-time sounds of insects clicking, the fading bird sound and the breeze. Keller fell asleep knowing that progress through the forest would be very difficult in the dark for any pursuers.
The Pursuit
Keller woke to find Tane leaning on him with her hand over his mouth. “Don’t move! Lie still!” she whispered, holding his gaze. She was still in her nightbag and had pinned him down. It was light. He heard a buzzing noise above them. “Heli,” she whispered.
Keller shifted his eyes to the right and saw Bula and Ash, both out of their night gear and pressed back against the rock for cover, lookin
g tense.
The buzzing passed. Tane took her hand away from his mouth and rolled off him. “Stay still for a minute,” she commanded. Tane looked over at Ash. He nodded and seemed to relax.
Tane got up and out of her nightbag. Keller did too. “Get your packs ready,” Bula told them.
Ash came over then explaining that this was the second pass of the heli, the first being on the other side of the valley. “The heli was above us and our location under the rock meant that they shouldn’t have been able to detect anything. The nightbags also prevent heat loss, so even if you had been detected, you would have appeared too small a heat source.” He continued. “It’s a fairly wide sweep. If they don’t know we are here then they should be sweeping further afield on their next pass. However, we should get going away from this spot, as we can’t be certain. If there are any trackers on foot then they will gain on us. Let’s wait about 20 minutes. We can get some food and drink and then leave.” He look up at the sky intently. “The heli was travelling at an angle from us on both runs that seem to be parallel with each other. In which case we need to change direction slightly east, otherwise we are likely to walk across their next search path.”
Keller was grateful that Ash had been alert. He didn’t know what was likely to happen if they were located by the renegades but he didn’t want to find out. As he ate breakfast, he spoke with Tane. “Do you know how to use that viewer,” he asked her, indicating Ash who was again studying it.
“It’s called a slate. Apparently, the original ten commandments were written on slate or rock,” she said. “Hence the name. Yes, I can use it but it has many functions, levels and applications and it may take time for me to find every useful function on there. It’s a bit of a skill to navigate it quickly. Why do you ask?”
“I just realised this morning how much we rely on Ash,” Keller said.
