Tracked on Predator Planet (Predator Planet Series)

by Vicky L. Holt.

Naraxthel considered. “You speak of the early migrations,” he said.

  “Ha. The early migrations. The landquakes. The weather,” I said. “The Goddesses reveal their will through the broken threads of their handiwork.”

  Pattee held up a hand. “Forgive me for interrupting, but tell me more about these changes. The migrations? Animal migrations?” She pulled something out of her pack. Its black surface did not reflect firelight. She fiddled with it, and a small panel popped open. She danced her fingertips over one side of the cube.

  “Yes,” I said. “The pazathel-nax and the rokhural both have begun migrations out of season.”

  “The agothe-faxl were breeding in the caves,” Naraxthel added.

  I grumbled. “So too is the glisten-fish spawning. The rains came a full month early.”

  “Have early migrations or different weather patterns happened on Ikthe before?” Pattee asked.

  Naraxthel and I looked at one another.

  He cocked his head.

  I leaned back and looked up at the star-speckled sky as if to query the Goddesses themselves. “Not in the last twenty cycles.”

  “We need to discuss this with Raxthezana,” Naraxthel said. “He may have extensive knowledge after talking to those who retrieved woaiquovelt and survived.”

  “Why not ask him now?” I said.

  “The hour grows late,” Naraxthel said. I noticed his good hand drifted toward the injured arm before he stopped it. “The humans need more rest than we do.”

  I revealed a fang when my mouth curved in a half-smile. “Ah yes, the weak humans need their rest.”

  Pattee’s brow furrowed in a deep groove, and she opened her mouth, but Esra laughed out loud.

  “Pattee, Hivelt is being sarcastic,” she said. “He’s very scary upon first contact, but I think he might be harmless, after all.”

  I growled and snapped at Esra, but she just laughed more loudly.

  I glimpsed Pattee attempting to cover a smile through her visor.

  “Hivelt is not harmless,” I grumbled and undid my pack to lay out my pallet. When I fluffed my head-cushion, Esra laughed harder. “Peaceful slumber to you all,” I said and snorted. “I will take first watch.” I sat with my back to the fire.

  I wondered if Pattee would find her pelts to be of comfort when she slept. My heart-home ached at the thought of her sleeping beside me. I entered the halls of my dream place, just in case my heart decided to make its escape before I was ready. In my meditative state, I would still be alert to any danger, but I feared the true peril waited within my own heart-home.

  44

  I chewed my lip for a moment and watched as Hivelt prepared his bedroll.

  His constant, subconscious attention to his armor’s chest panel struck me as odd, but Naraxthel showed no awareness that anything was amiss.

  Esra laughed at Hivelt’s gruff ways.

  I wanted to talk to Esra, find more insight into the accident on Lucidity, ask her about survival and her relationship with Naraxthel, whom she called Red, but she was coddling him.

  I didn’t blame her. It seemed mystical that their armor could heal their bodies. What was Clarke’s Third Law again? ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ I sighed and returned to the screen on my Computational Machine Matrix. I needed more information before I could analyze the changes that Naraxthel and Hivelt had mentioned. I needed to know how many moon cycles made a year and what their seasons were.

  “VELMA, how many moon cycles make a year on this planet?”

  “Due to the co-orbital configuration of the binary planet system, Ikthe’s moon librates around Ikthe in a horseshoe orbit. With access to Theraxl’s internal technologies, I was able to deduce their time measurement systems. The closest to a month-equivalent would be ten loop exchanges of the moon. Theraxl moon accomplishes ten such loop exchanges in one of Ikthe’s revolutions around the dual star system.”

  VELMA included a diagram with the celestial mechanic equations.

  “What about that figure-8 symbol?” I asked.

  “Binary systems are erratic. Chaotic and unstable. At an unpredictable point in time, the horseshoe orbit may exchange gravity pulls and switch to orbiting Ikshe.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “There is a thirty-seven percent probability that the moon will impact one of the planets should such an orbit transfer occur.”

  “Wow,” I whispered and studied the diagram.

  VELMA’s chart could be manipulated to be seen from all angles, and I studied the mechanics. It was my field—on a much grander scale. So far, the celestial bodies didn’t give me any hints as to why the systems on this planet’s surface were going haywire, according to Hivelt and Naraxthel. I still needed more information.

  “VELMA, download weather system information collected from the first deployment of the transospheric nanosatellite array into my CMM.”

  “Complying,” she said. “It will take a few moments.”

  The fire had died down. Hivelt had used a thick stick of compressed material and some scattered kindling from off the moraine to create it. I looked around for more branches but saw very little.

  Naraxthel and Esra were asleep.

  I prepared my own bedroll using the shegoshe-tax fur, tree thief and case pelts, followed by the beautiful white and silver fur of the pazathel-nax. I leaned back on my elbows with my legs stretched out in front of me and looked out over the wide plain.

  We had VELMA experimenting with low- and high-frequency signals emitting from my helmet, and now Esra’s, attempting to keep this planet’s creatures well at bay.

  A touch on my shoulder made me jump out of my skin. “What?”

  It was Hivelt.

  “I am sorry.” He pointed to the fur beside me. “May I join you for a few jotiks?”

  “Of course.”

  We sat in silence. Why did he want to join me if he didn’t have anything to say? But every time I opened my mouth to ask, I clamped it shut. Maybe if I snuck a peek, I would see him with a tight-lipped expression that matched my own.

  My heart raced every time he was next to me. Little sparks of happiness lit me up inside when I recalled any of his kindnesses or how his mouth turned up in a smile when he spoke of the food he had foraged on this planet. Our bodies had taken different evolutionary paths, but our souls danced at the peripheries of our skins, reaching toward one another. I made a fist and looked at my boots, wonder spiraling around anxiety at the idea of caring for someone so alien from me.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “There is a myth of my people, carried down for centuries,” he said. “It is the myth of the heart-home.”

  I cocked my head. “Heart-home?”

  Silence for a minute.

  “Your technology tells me that Theraxl physiology differs in the cahr-dee-o-vaz-qu-ler system.”

  “Okay. That’s the heart and blood system in our bodies,” I said, in case VELMA hadn’t explained it yet.

  “Theraxl have a tightly woven cage of thick fibers surrounding our hearts. It is buried within a cage of bone, yet there is a hollow cavity, just without the fibrous walls, where the heart may reside.”

  VELMA supplied an animated graphic in my IntraVisor. I would have to ask her later where she got it.

  “During adolescence, the heart leaves its heart-home and settles temporarily in the hollow cavity,” he said. “Your technology tells me that what you know as hor-moans are released into the bloodstream that explain the ebullient and joyful time of adolescence.”

  Not how humans experience the teen years, I thought to myself.

  “At the end of adolescence, the heart retreats to its heart-home, never to leave again,” he said. “But the myth states that upon meeting one’s …” He stopped. “Meeting one’s …” He cleared his throat and gestured with his hand. He coughed. His fists crumbled a handful of gravel.

  “Heart mate?” I supplied my guess.

  His shoulders sagged. He stil
l wore his helmet, so I was unable to see his expression when I turned to the side to look at him.

  “Yes. Upon meeting one’s heart mate, the heart leaves its heart-home and resides in the new place until death.”

  I sat up, wrapping my arms around my knees. I looked up at the infinite sky, not knowing what to say. He had rubbed at his chest panel many times over the last few days. Naraxthel and Esra. Great Spirit … was he experiencing this mythical medical event as a result of meeting me?

  My heart had yet to slow down, although VELMA made no mention of it, thank goodness. While Hivelt did not specifically say that his own heart was choosing its heart mate, I noticed him sag in relief when he finished his description. Would he be happy if his heart … chose me? Would I be?

  The anxiety swirled more rapidly in my gut, stirring up feelings of inadequacy and memories better left unearthed. I looked at my hand, wondering what it might be like to have Hivelt hold it. I bit the inside of my cheek for a second to gain command of my emotions. “Thank you for sharing part of your culture with me.”

  He gave a gusty sigh. “Thank you for listening. Sleep. I will wake you for second watch. Awaken Naraxthel for third, and Esra will take the last.”

  “Okay.”

  He rose and left me to my bedroll, but I lay awake long into his watch, thinking about Theraxl hearts, heart-homes, and heart mates. About the word heart in Ojibwe.

  There was no single word for heart in my people’s language. In order to be understood as heart, it needed a prefix to accompany the dependent noun stem //de’. Thus, ‘my heart’ would be ‘inde’. And ‘your heart’ would be ‘gide’. I pondered this with great interest. Because for Theraxl, the heart didn’t exist either. Without either its home … or its mate.

  45

  The Shegoshel crested the mountains to the east, and we broke camp.

  I watched Pattee pack her things. Did she use extra care with the white fur I had given her? I huffed. Did it matter? But when she approached me and offered me some of her pemmican, my heart felt as if it rolled with pleasure.

  “Dusheshe,” I said.

  “Dusheshe?” she asked.

  I listened to VELMA’s translation.

  “Thank you,” I supplied.

  She smiled. “Does your race of people have multiple languages on Ikshe?”

  I cocked my head. “Ah, no. Does yours?”

  She smiled and nodded as we walked over the Plain of Ancient Ice. “There are hundreds of languages. I, myself, only know two,” she said. “My original language is called Ojibwe.”

  “Oh-jib-wuh,” I mimicked the sounds.

  “Yes. We were an indigenous people, Anishinaabe, many thousands of years ago on my home planet,” she said. “There were several such tribes scattered across my continent. During Earth’s Accountability years, the people realized our unique strains of DNA were going extinct. Genetic scientists called for volunteers and established programs to try to halt genetic drift.” She looked ahead at the Black Mountains; they seemed no closer despite a half-zatik of walking. “The Ojibwe people were lucky. We now have a sizable population …” Her voice trailed off. Ah. She was a vast distance from her people now.

  I did not understand some of what she had said, but I could see it was of great importance to her.

  “What is the word genetic? VELMA uses two of our common words together in an unfamiliar way. Jaxshe. Together, they are Carry Life.”

  Pattee nodded. “I barely understand it myself. But it’s the DNA, the tiniest part of ourselves that carry on life from parents to children,” she said. “Like when I collected a sample from you.” Blood filled her cheeks. She tilted her head when she looked at me. Her gaze softened. “Perhaps your daughter, your offspring, has your eyes or your skill at tracking.” She bit her lip and waited for my reaction.

  I considered my memories of Afarax. “The last time I spoke with her mother, she told me Afarax seldom listened to her and preferred to ramble about the wilderness and bring home serpents and bugs in her dress pockets.”

  Pattee’s joyful laughter brought a smile to my face. Flashes of Afarax’s tiny hands holding a nonsense bug aloft froze the blood in my veins, icy shards spiking my heart. I missed my offspring. And my heart continued to threaten an irrevocable split from its home. It was too much, too painful. Where was Afarax now? What would happen to her if the Kama discovered I had a heart mate? Did I have a heart mate? I paused mid-step and schooled my features. I opened the great doors to the hall of my dream place, strode in, feeling its welcome on my sweating face, and gasped for breath until the pains ebbed.

  By now, Pattee’s face bore lines of concern. “Are you okay?”

  I gave a humorless laugh. “I am well,” I said. “Let us make haste.” I called back to Naraxthel and Esra. “Let us run for a zatik. I am eager to rejoin our brothers.”

  “Very well, Hivelt,” Naraxthel said. He swooped Esra up in his arms and began a steady lope.

  I couldn’t help the pride I felt when Pattee ran beside me as we headed north to the Black Mountains and to our perilous quest. I always wanted her by my side.

  We were silent for many long rotiks, and then she broke the silence. “I never finished my story,” she said. “And we had a deal, so I owe you the rest.”

  “You owe me nothing, Joaxma,” I said, my voice lowered of its own volition.

  “Nevertheless, I want to tell you,” she said.

  “I am listening,” I said.

  “I told you I had waited a long time for my father. On the first day I had seen him, he insisted on meeting someone in a dangerous part of town,” she said. We ran several paces before she continued. “I wasn’t afraid for myself. Between my father’s lessons and some experiences I had when he was in prison, I knew how to take care of myself. But Father was older by then.”

  I tried to imagine a male figure with Pattee’s features but came up short.

  “I was torn, Hivelt,” she said. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with that world. I had been free of it for years. But Dad needed my protection,” she said. “Oh, he told me to stand outside. I obeyed him at first. But then I heard shouts inside. I ran in. I almost tripped over my father’s body. He was already dead; his eyes were open but stared into nothing. A pool of blood widened from underneath him. I looked around the room. The man who had killed my father was still holding the weapon, but he hadn’t been expecting me to barge in. I flew at him, tackled him, and pounded his face.” She glanced at me. “One of the men ran out the back, but the one who stayed …” She cleared her throat. “He attacked me from behind. I used the weapon to kill him, then went back to pounding the first man’s face, though he was no threat by then. When my anger was spent, I stood up and I watched his blood drain into the ground.”

  Her voice remained calm throughout her tale.

  I considered her words many veltiks in our journey before I spoke. “You bear the wounds of those you killed,” I said.

  She stopped running and rested her hands on her knees.

  Naraxthel and Esra stopped within a veltik of us but stayed aloof, as if they knew we needed privacy.

  “Yes.” She looked up at me, and tears streamed from her eyes.

  The sight of her tears triggered a pulsing ache in my heart and a memory long buried. I would drink them, just like in the story that mother told us when my sister and I would sit at her knees before the fireplace on long cold nights. I had forgotten. I wanted to be the strong male with the stone heart. I would drink my mate’s tears. I would bear the burdens of all Theraxl with my strong back. When I had told my mother my wishes, she had laughed and said the hunters could never bear the sisters’ burdens. They were far too heavy. I never spoke of it again.

  Pattee’s silver eyes sparkled, and I could stand the pain of it no longer. I grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her to me, cradling her helmet against my armor and fitting my arms about her, holding her entire length against me.

  I held her while she cried in my arms.


  When Naraxthel looked my way, he nodded once and put his arm around Esra.

  Esra’s face was solemn.

  They turned away, and I let Pattee’s pains seep into my body.

  I hungered for more. I wanted her pain. I wanted her sadness. Her rage. But when I caressed her back from shoulder to the base of her spine, I hungered for the rest of her as well. Her laughter, her smiles, her joy. I searched out Naraxthel again. I wanted what he had. And when my heart felt as if it would split in two, I realized I was just about to receive it.

  46

  Hivelt collapsed. One minute he was holding me in a tender and compassionate embrace, the next he was flailing on the ground. His clawed gloves clutched at his chest armor, clenching and releasing while his legs kicked and ground into the soil in artless chaos.

  I fell to my knees beside him.

  “Naraxthel! Esra!”

  I couldn’t hold him still. I couldn’t hold him at all.

  “VELMA! Something’s happening to Hivelt!”

  Was he having a seizure? I looked up at Naraxthel, my brows creased, and my mouth in a rictus of worry.

  He now stood beside me, grasped my elbow, and lifted me to stand.

  VELMA said nothing, but Naraxthel spoke. “We cannot help him,” he said. “Nor do we want to. Would you like to sit in vigil with us or here beside him?”

  “But what’s the matter? Did I … do something?” My heart raced.

  Naraxthel cocked his head before answering. “You did not do anything,” he said. “He told you of the heart-home?”

  I gasped. Was I his …? I wasn’t ready. We were still new together. But I did care about him. A lot.

  I watched Hivelt, my ally and confidante, writhe upon the ground in agony. “His heart is … moving into the empty space?”

  “Yes. Come sit with us,” he offered.

  I looked beyond him to Esra, who sat with legs crossed and head bowed, as if in prayer.

  I shook my head. “No. I will be right here when he’s … when he’s finished.”