Orphan Tribe, Orphan Planet

by Jonathan Vick

  As the creatures, and his father, disappeared up the tunnel, Thurl could smell them: a harsh, biting smell; like stinging steam that made his eyes water and caught in his throat, forcing him to want to choke.

  He waited until the slap of their footsteps faded into the distance. Then, Thurl got up and stalked after them, hoping the injured narvai-ub wouldn’t dare to follow.

  CHAPTER twelve

  Ahead of him, the creatures were running in a rhythmic pattern. Thurl could hear the slap of their feet on the wet, uneven ground. He chased them up the tunnel, around a corner and into a smaller tunnel, far too small for the adult narvai-ub.

  Thurl followed them, able to trace the scent without being close enough for them to hear. In his training for the hunt team he had learned stealth techniques, but none of them seemed to work without snow and wind. He was having trouble being silent.

  The smaller tunnel was thin and wet and warm. Thurl could feel the walls closing around him. He began to panic that he’d be led into a trap; that they knew he was there, following them, and they’d cornered him; tricked him into burying himself in a vertical grave.

  He clicked loudly, letting panic and fear override his caution. The echoes revealed a long sloping tunnel, moving downward, away from the surface. The creatures were down there, dragging his father behind them like prey, like conquest, like meat.

  He ran, chasing his father. He held the shield over his head, and kept his spear pointed before him.

  For a few moments, when the tunnel straightened and was wrought of smooth clay, Thurl got distinct echoes from the creatures he chased; the sound of voices, talking; laughing. He picked up a few tones that sounded like words; words he recognized; words he knew.

  He stopped clicking; stopped grunting; listened intently for more words, information, clues about the creatures.

  Then, he rounded a sharp bend, and burst through the tunnel into a cave, unexpected and vast and suffocatingly warm.

  Thurl stopped and stood still. The echoes suddenly reverberated back to him two, three, four times. The voices were gone. In their place there was a loud rushing, bubbling sound; like the warming waters around the waterfall in the Racroft village. He grunted to get a scope of the cave.

  It was immense, stretching high over his head and dripping with huge conical stalactites. It stretched before him, longer than it was wide, then turned to the left and continued into obscurity. The cavern seemed to be torn into the stone, like a great, ancient quake had ripped the rocks open; pulled them apart so some huge, unseen thing could travel between them.

  The walls crawled with insects he didn’t know. The musk of dung and hemolymph was thick and distinct. The clatter of hard, spiny legs mingled with the hum and buzz of tiny wings. Higher up, among the dripping stalactites, odd mammals clung, hanging from the ceiling, or gliding between the walls on thin, fleshy wings to feast on the insects.

  The ground before him was jagged and uneven, littered with stalagmites and fallen rocks. A path had been carved through the stones and stalagmites, trampled by use and cleared of pebbles and rocks. It stretched through the cavern toward the rocky wall to Thurl’s left.

  Slowly, tentatively, Thurl followed the path until he reached a ledge that dropped off into a deep chasm. The ledge was not wide; only barely wider than Thurl. The chasm was huge and deep. It was a wide as the entrance to the Valley of Corpses, and deeper than the mountains that rose above.

  The mud on the ground betrayed the footprints of the creatures and the skids of the laden sleds they dragged behind them. Thurl didn’t know how they’d managed to get the sleds onto the ledge. As he took his first few steps, he wondered if they’d all plunged into the void below.

  He leaned forward and grunted, searching for the echoes of broken bodies and smashed sleds at the bottom. Instead, the echoes were liquid, rising through an intense heat. At the bottom of the chasm there was a roiling, bubbling, viscous ooze churning through the cavern, exhaling a heat that made Thurl’s flesh stretch and itch; made every breath feel like he was drowning; made him want to peel off his thick, heavy skin.

  Thurl pressed his back against the stone wall. He followed the tracks along the ledge until they ended where the ledge dropped off. There, Thurl discovered a bridge made of thick roots and planks of slate. It swung and wobbled over the chasm; over the heat of the bubbling ooze. The mud trailed across it. Thurl didn’t think he could follow.

  He popped and grunted. The bridge was long; longer than any bridge they had in the Racroft village. It swayed and swung over the chasm, rising in the heat as the ooze bubbled below it and shot geysers of thermal warmth toward unseen exhaust holes buried between the stalactites. The other end of the bridge was fixed into the rock, pressed against a wall that opened on both ends where the thick, viscous river below turned and cut another cavern through the bedrock, stretching deeper into the planet. There was another thin ledge that wound up the rock to the other side of the cave, and flattened into a floor as the cave recessed toward an exit tunnel. On the other side of the bridge, there was trail through the stalagmites, pounded with use, muddy and wet with the tracks of Sohjos’s captors.

  He could hear sounds in the exit tunnel; voices again. He imagined he could hear his father groan; calling for help.

  Slowly, nervously, Thurl put his foot on the first slate step. He clutched his shield and spear, and inched his other foot onto the next slate. The bridge wobbled beneath him. He took another step, and waited for the rocking to calm.

  The heat was maddening, rising up around him on all sides.

  He tried to think of other things: his childhood Elder Lessons about what was beneath the crust; the extreme heat of the planet’s core that kept them all from freezing to death; the severe spin of their planet that pulled everything toward the center an prevented them all from floating away into the void; places beneath the sea where the rocks melted ice into water to create the oceans; places on the land where rocks warmed from deep inside the planet kept vegetation growing; and the geysers – like the one that warmed their cavern and heated their rocks – that shot super-heated water from the depths of the core into the hollow mountains where it fed streams and fueled plant growth.

  Thurl tried to focus on the legends; tried to ignore the bridge and the heat below and the dripping stalactites above. He tried to remember the fairy tales and dramas from his Elder Lessons. He wondered if the ooze beneath the bridge was the center of the planet; the melted core the Elders had talked about. He wondered how far below the surface world he had gone.

  There was suddenly a sound that tore through the air; some ripping, whistling flash or wind that pulled past Thurl’s head and clattered against the stone walls.

  Thurl clicked and grunted loudly, trying to direct the echoes through the din of the cavern.

  On the opposite side of the bridge, there was a figure; one of the creatures. It held some long staff, bent and tied with a flexible root. The creature was placing a small spear against the staff, aligning it inside the root, then pulling back until the staff creaked. A moment later, the small spear was released, and launched at Thurl with amazing speed. Thurl heard it zip past his head, felt the wind as it broke through the air.

  Thurl crouched on the swinging, unstable bridge. He held his shield in front of himself, then slowly, carefully, moved forward toward his attacker. Even if he had a clear shot, if the creature wasn’t hiding behind the rocks, if the echoes could locate the thing and Thurl could come out from behind his shield and throw his spear; even if everything went right, he would only have one chance. He needed to get close; to make sure he couldn’t miss.

  He pressed his feet forward, feeling for the edge of each slate strung between the thick roots that made the bridge; stepping from one slate to the next.

  There was a click in the cavern, like the sound of wood tapping wood, then the creaking of a stretched root and a bending staff; then, the crack of splitting air. A small spear thudded into Thurl’s shield. He felt the reverberat
ion run through his arm. The stone tip stuck.

  Thurl knew he need to move quickly. He didn’t know how many small spears the creature had, but it seemed to take a long while for it to draw back and throw each one. He took advantage to attack gap and stood on the bridge, running across the bouncing, shifting catwalk toward his unknown attacker. He howled and lowered his spear.

  Below him the churning, viscous river plumed geysers of seething warmth upwards into the cavern, surrounding the bridge in a lifting current that pressed on Thurl like a suffocating cloak. Above him the insects and gliding mammals were crunching and screeching and clattering. There was movement everywhere, like the cavern walls crawled; like the entire chasm was alive and angry.

  Thurl shifted his shield aside, and popped his lips as loudly as he could. He was more than halfway across the bridge. On the opposite side, just above a flat stone, Thurl thought he detected the movement of the creature’s head. He popped again, then drew his arm back and launched his spear as hard as he could.

  It skidded off the stone, and struck something soft. Thurl could hear the crunch of bone and the squish of slicing meat. There was a screech, a squeal, like and injured beast, then the sound of footsteps running through mud, retreating away toward the exit tunnel.

  Thurl bounced on the bridge, ignoring the terror, racing across the swinging slats until his feet found solid stone. He lunged forward and clattered onto the ledge, holding his shield in front of himself, awaiting another attack.

  He pushed himself away from the edge of the chasm and wedged himself in an outcropping of tall stalactites. He clicked and grunted, hunting for movement.

  On the path cut through the rocks ahead, he could smell blood. He moved forward slowly, not certain how many creatures had stayed behind to attack. When he reached his spear lying inert on the ground, there was a dead gliding mammal plunged through with the tip, but the creature had run away unharmed.

  Thurl picked up his spear; cleaned the animal from the shaft. Then, he quickly moved through the cavern, along the path carved by the creatures in front of him, and through the exit tunnel, out of the chasm.

  He was in cramped mud and clay tunnels again, claustrophobic and suffocating.

  He pulled the small spear off the front of his shield and tucked it into his hand with his own spear. Then, letting his shield scrape the ceiling, pressing his spear in front of him, he ran.

  The scent of the creatures was getting stronger. Corridors branched off and tunneled in different directions. He passed dozens of intersections; paused to sniff the air and feel the ground for fresh footprints; tried to feel the disturbed air swirl and pulse with the vibrations of the running team. Thurl followed the scent. He was closing the gap; getting closer to the rotting meat and the warrior hunters and Sohjos, his father.

  He followed the shaft around a corner, through a small cave, down a steep slope.

  And then he stopped.

  The scent suddenly enveloped him. It so strong it choked his sinuses. He could hear the creatures ahead. They had stopped running, but he could hear them panting and whispering to one another.

  He slid his foot forward, trying to advance as silently as possible.

  Then, he felt an itching warmth at his back. Thurl turned around and grunted twice and came face to face with an unknown creature.

  CHAPTER thirteen

  In a narrow tunnel, with smooth walls, Thurl stood before an unknown creature.

  It was taller than him, but only slightly. It had similar features: two arms, two legs in equal distribution; a similar head, though smaller, with a thinner mouth and moving eyes.

  The alien warrior held a long dagger in one hand. In the other he held a stick topped with a shifting warmth, like a hovering liquid atop the staff.

  “Who are you?” The creature snarled.

  The accent was strange. The words sounded weird, like a Racroft speaking with its mouth held closed, but Thurl was able to understand. The words formed oddly, but they were the same words he knew.

  For a moment, he seemed sure these creatures had been Racroft; that they were one of the lost or exiles the Elders sometimes spoke about. If they were Racroft, it had been a long time ago, and it didn’t excuse them for taking his father as meat.

  Thurl thumped and grunted and lunged with his spear, but he creature was fast. It leaped aside in the thin tunnel and pressed against Thurl, shoving him into the mud wall and pressing the dagger into Thurl’s flesh. The dagger was made with some sort of soft bone, and the tip broke off before it could pierce Thurl’s hide.

  Thurl tossed his spear and shield aside and grabbed the creature; pulled him closer; let all Thurl’s follicles and whiskers graze against him, searching for weaknesses. The creature had thin skin, but strong heavy muscles. Thurl clicked to get a better impression of his face, but the creature poked the warming stick at Thurl. The warmth was intense. Whatever strange liquid clung to the top itched and tore at Thurl’s flesh, sticking to his follicles and spreading.

  Thurl threw the creature to the ground and pressed his wide foot against the creature’s face. He dragged handfuls of mud off the walls and packed them over the itching liquid to protect his follicles; to stop the itch. As he covered himself with mud, the liquid seemed to disappear.

  Beneath his foot, the creature squirmed and whistled a high pitched wail that hurt Thurl’s ears.

  There were more creatures coming back up the tunnel. Thurl could hear them panting as they ran. He clicked, searching for his spear and shield. They were both out of reach. He was going to have to release the creature beneath his foot to get them.

  He stepped back and grabbed his shield, which was closest. The creature immediately scrambled to its feet and escaped down the tunnel, shouting warnings as it went.

  Thurl grunted and began to chase, then stopped. The creature was so fast he had reached the rest of the team before Thurl had gone a half dozen paces.

  They were talking; arguing; discussing. Thurl could only catch phrases and words, and he didn’t understand many of the words. They were speaking a common base language, but much of it was different.

  “Stole my torch,” Thurl heard. Also: “hair caught fire but the flesh didn’t burn”; and: “like he couldn’t even see me”; then: “broke my dagger on his skin”. Finally, “leave that one and let’s go”.

  Thurl didn’t understand many of these words: torch, fire, burn, see. What he did understand was that they were leaving; running down the tunnel; running away from Thurl.

  Thurl chased. He had come to rescue his father. Either he wasn’t going back to the surface alone, or he wasn’t going back alive. He would kill every one of the creatures if he had to. He could still hear them running away, down the wet, muddy tunnel, when he reached his Father.

  Sohjos had been left lying on his side, pressed against the wall, abandoned and alone. Thurl could feel the ruts the sleds had made as they were dragged away by the creatures. Even pulling those sleds, loaded with hundreds of pounds of meat from the narvai-ub lair, the creatures were faster than Thurl.

  “Father,” Thurl whispered, as he knelt beside Sohjos, softly grunting to discover the extent of the injuries.

  “Thurl?” Sohjos choked. “What are you doing here? You belong at home with your Mother.”

  “Can you walk?” Thurl asked as he ran his fingers over Sohjos legs, feeling for wounds.

  Sohjos clicked and reached for Thurl’s face.

  “I don’t understand why you’re here, Thurl,” Sohjos said. “Why would you come after me?”

  “Because you’re my Father,” said Thurl.

  “That’s not a reason,” Sohjos answered. “Or, it’s a poor reason. Sons do not put themselves in danger to save their fathers. It’s disrespectful to my legacy, to your future.”

  “You’re delirious,” Thurl said. “You have a fever. Your legs were shredded by the narvai-ub. I’ll have to carry you home.”

  Sohjos choked and gasped.

  “Where are we?” He as
ked.

  “I don’t know,” Thurl admitted. “Underground, somewhere. I don’t recognize the smells or the currents in the air.”

  Sohjos didn’t respond. He was breathing softly; labored and shallow. Thurl could hear the heaving of his caved-in chest.

  Thurl grabbed his father by the arms and tried to pick him up; wrestle him onto Thurl’s back, but the old warrior was too heavy and cumbersome. He slid back down into the mud. His heavy arm thumped something heavy and hard. Thurl clicked and discovered his shield.

  Slowly, carefully, Thurl shifted Sohjos; maneuvered him onto the shield like a bed. Sohjos groaned whenever Thurl touched him. He was still bleeding in places. His flesh was razed and bitten and torn. Thurl hoped he could get him back to the surface in time to save him. The warmth of the tunnels wasn’t good for either of them. Thurl was sweating and panting. He wanted to dive his face into a drift of snow and roll in it until his follicles and whiskers stood firmly from his skin.

  Sohjos was lying in the shield like a sled. Thurl got behind the sled and pushed, digging his wide feet into the soft mud of the tunnel. The shield shifted and moved a bit, collecting wet clay in front of itself until Thurl couldn’t push any further.

  “I can’t push you,” panted Thurl. “I can’t push you home.”

  He sat down, wary of creatures coming back; distraught and exhausted. He pressed his back to the wall and felt the tendrils of deep roots digging into his flesh. On the verge of tears, on the edge of despair, he suddenly had an idea.

  He grabbed the roots and pulled. They moved a bit, not much, but some. He dug and scraped out a solid length, then found his spear and cut them near the top.

  Using the roots as a long, bulky rope, he tied it to a hole in the bottom of the shield, and draped the other end over his shoulder. Even stretched and wet, the roots were too short, but he was going to make it work.