Chapter 27: Jak
Jak gazed at a sky swimming with stars, like the lights of a distant city, only instead of just a family, each light held millions of lives, sometimes billions. In the Waste, he could see so many more stars, so many more lives. Jak stretched and held Tessa a little closer. It was late, almost morning, and they lay sprawled in the sand on the side of an enormous dune. For most of the night, they’d climbed over broken ground and rocky outcrops. A short while ago, they’d entered an area of sand dunes. Although they’d been hiking steadily for hours, Jak still felt strong—it was as if his injuries had never occurred—but he could tell that Tessa was having trouble keeping up. So he’d called a rest stop here on the dune. They lay side by side on their backs, staring up at a multitude of stars and the waning crescent of Liss.
Leaving the river, they’d found and followed what looked like an animal path, a trail that ran through the reeds, between the water and the Waste. Once or twice, Jak spotted what might have been human footprints, but he hadn’t said anything to Tessa. If there were strangers around, he didn’t want to worry her. And if Kamura or Toko was somewhere ahead of them, they’d find them—or their bodies—soon enough.
Jak had made sure Tessa had water to drink, even though it meant that he only pretended to drink himself. If the strangeness could heal a blaster wound, it could damn well deal with a little thirst. Using Tessa’s knife, he’d cut half-a-dozen one-meter lengths of the larger reeds—some were as thick as his arm—then pounded salvaged plastic into the bottoms, filled them with water, and stoppered them with grass, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to get them across the Waste.
But they couldn’t follow the river. Even if they could make their way through the thick stands of reeds that grew to the water’s edge, they’d soon be spotted by a passing patrol. Jak was sure that Bolon was still alive, and his men must be out there looking for them. But the river here made a long loop south and then meandered north again in almost a 180-degree turn to end at Tekena. If they went overland across the top of that loop, they could cut the trek to Tekena to three or four days. Jak’s hope was that they’d find water on the way. He’d spent enough time leading hunters in the Waste to know that seeps—small hidden springs with good, sweet water—could be found in some of the rocky outcrops at the edge of the desert. But they were almost through the rocks, and he’d seen no sign of water.
"Think we’ll make it out there to our ship?" Jak asked, looking up at the stars.
He didn’t want to think about water, didn’t want to let Tessa see how worried he was. Kamura was missing, probably dead, but if they could get off Shadriss, get to a B-class planet, they could access the payment she’d promised them. Never mind that the odds of doing that were nearly impossible. Beside him, he heard Tessa sigh.
"Yeah. Someday," she said, but her voice was weary. "Someday soon, we’ll go get our ship. And we’ll be free traders. Nobody will own us. We can go where we want, do what we will."
Trying to encourage her, Jak said, "Sounds good to me. What shall we name our ship?"
"I don’t know. Something happy. The Song Bird?"
"How about the Tessa?"
"No," she said, "never that! That’s a Veloran vanity, naming things after themselves. I don’t want anything to do with that."
"But you’re Veloran," Jak pointed out. "And a damn beautiful one, too."
"No, Jak. I told you before; I’m flawed."
He touched her cheek lightly as she lay in his arms. Her head was warm and heavy against his bare chest.
"You’re not flawed, not in any way."
"My father would disagree with you." Her voice was small and choked by the ashes of burnt out anger. "I’m far from what the Veloran consider beautiful. My hair is too dark, my eyes are too blue, and I’m way too short. Any one of those defects would be enough for me to be called plain, but all three together were a constant reminder of my father’s failure to breed true to the ideal. That’s why he sold me. My father tried to blame my mother for the bad genes, but she had other children by other men, and there was nothing wrong with them."
But Jak was still dealing with the outrage her earlier words had brought.
"Your own father sold you to the slavers? I thought you must have been captured, kidnapped, something like that. But your own father . . . ." He sputtered into silence.
"There’s no need to be angry on my behalf," she murmured into the hollow of his neck. Her breath was warm on his skin as he held her with one arm around her waist and one hand caressing the back of her head. "On Velora, the mother owns any male children, and the father owns any female children. I mean really owns them; they’re property until they’re twenty years old and approved by the Veloran Standards Bureau. It’s not unusual for a parent to sell a defective child to the traders who pass through. Anyway, I’ve long since gotten over it. And I haven’t done so badly for myself, now, have I? I have you, and once we leave Shadriss, we have a ship. That’s all that I want."
Jak decided not to stir up old feelings, better to talk about the future—even one they might never see—than to brood on the past. But he vowed to himself that if he ever met Tessa’s father, he’d see how close to the Veloran standard of beauty the man came after Jak’s fists smashed his face.
"Yeah, we’ve got a ship," he said. "So, we still need a name. How about . . .how about the Dayside? Because, when we make it to our ship, we’ll be coming around to the Dayside of one hell of a long night."
"The Dayside? I like that."
Bending his head, Jak sealed the christening with a lingering kiss. But before the kiss could become more than a touch of lips and taste of warm tongue, they were interrupted by the sound of voices.
"Did you hear that?" he whispered.
Tessa raised her head from Jak’s shoulder. He froze in the darkness, his ears straining to catch the sound.
"There, I heard it again," he said. "I think it’s coming from the other side of the dune."
It came once more, a faint cry, almost lost in the whispering of wind over sand. He couldn’t make out the words or recognize the voice, but he was sure the sound had come from a human throat.
"It sounds like someone calling for help," Tessa said.
They were far into the Waste, days from the nearest village, and well beyond the point where any sane person would choose to roam. Yet the sound was unmistakable. They turned and crawled up the dune toward the voices. The dry crust of sand tended to give way beneath their feet, and Jak had to grab the Tessa’s arm to keep her from sliding down. As they neared the crest, the words became louder.
"Stay away from the claws!"
"I’m trying," a second voice said.
It was a woman’s voice, and she spoke with the tight, desperate tone of someone at her wit’s end. There was no one in sight, but the speakers couldn’t be more than a few meters ahead, just over the crest of the dune. He strained to hear more.
"Climb!" the first voice urged.
It sounded like a man or maybe a boy. With the crust breaking under their hands and sand showering down on them, they crept closer. Together they crested the dune and peered over the top.
The far side of the dune was a steep drop-off. Looking down, Jak saw two people clinging to a small ledge of black stone about three meters below. A man and a woman, trapped there by an enraged moki on the ground beneath them. The woman pressed back against the side of the dune while the man fended off the moki with his knife. The woman looked up, and Jak recognized Kamura frightened face.
"Help us, please!"
What could he do? The moki was out of range of their remaining blaster. If he tossed the weapon down, they’d more than likely drop it while trying to keep away from slashing claws and teeth. They could probably climb up the rest of the way to the crest if that lizard weren’t ready to drag them back down. If he could get closer, get Kamura and Toko out of the way, he’d have room
to stand on the ledge and use the blaster.
"I’m going down there," he told Tessa. "Be ready to help Kamura up."
He could see the moki, a writhing shadow in the dim light of Liss. It was about five meters long and a meter around at its thickest. Snarling, it gave Jak a good view of a mouthful of white fangs in a long narrow head. The moki swiped the long claws on its first pair of legs at Toko, while the other two pair churned up the sand as it tried to scramble up to the ledge to reach them.
Now, he thought, while the moki’s attention was on Toko and before it was in position to strike. He swung his feet over the edge of the dune.
"No, Jak! Please, don’t!" Tessa begged.
"I can’t just leave them down there."
"It’s only a mobbie and a Terran. They mean nothing to us."
He couldn’t blame Tessa for not wanting to risk rescuing Kamura and Toko. The life she’d lived left no room for altruism. Once they were off world, he promised himself, he’d see that she had a chance to live a very different kind of life.
"I’ll be fine. Just watch for Kamura. Toko can climb, but Kamura may need help."
Tucking their remaining blaster in the waist of his pants, he lowered himself over the side of the dune. He felt Tessa’s fingers grip his hair, and then he slid out of her grasp, and started down. It was only about three meters to the small ledge where the two crouched, but the moki raged on the ground only another six or eight meters below that. There wasn’t room enough for three of them to stand on the slippery looking black stone. Hearing him coming, Kamura looked up.
Clinging to the scant footholds on the face of the dune, Jak reached for her. "Give me your hand!"
"Go!" Toko urged her. "Go, now!"
Jak felt the sand under him start to shift. He couldn’t wait any longer. Kamura screamed as he got a good grip on her long hair and hauled her up off the ledge. He shifted his grip to her arm, and then to the back of her tunic, but there was no purchase for her feet, and she started to slide back down.
With a grunt of effort, Jak got one hand under her firm rear end and gave her a hard shove up the side of the dune. It was enough of a push to propel her up until she hung half way over the edge above them, and he heard Tessa curse as she pulled the girl to relative safety. Jak dropped down next to Toko.
"Go!" he said as he drew the blaster.
Toko gave him a quick, sideways look and scrambled up the dune. Jak shielded his eyes from the sand that sprayed down on him. With a hissing snarl, the moki sprang at the ledge. It hung by its front legs, the claws scoring deep scratches in the black rock. Jak fired straight into the mouthful of fangs that were ready to take off his arm. The moki screamed, a hoarse sound like the scream of a man. It lunged forward again. This time, Jak fired at the neck. He’d hunted enough moki to know they were tough to kill. The only way to be sure it was dead was to sever the spinal cord. It lunged again, this time surging all the way onto the ledge. With those claws, there was nothing to stop it from climbing up to Tessa. No way was that going to happen! With a snarl, Jak threw himself on the lizard.
He landed hard on a coil of steely muscles covered by dry, warm scales. The moki hissed and writhed under him. He felt the stone of the ledge wobble. He fired at the neck again, but the narrow head whipped around and teeth sank into his forearm. Jak yelled as he felt the hot burn of poisoned fangs pierce his arm. Then the stone under them broke free of the sand, and he and the moki went sledding down the steep side of the dune. Twisting, they tumbled onto the rocky ground below. Jak landed on the top with the slab of stone between him and the moki. His arm on fire from the moki’s bite, Jak got the blaster against the thrashing neck and pulled the trigger over and over until the charge died with a stuttering whine. With a final shudder, the moki collapsed.
He’d nearly decapitated it; the head remained attached only by a few centimeters of skin and sinew. The smell of charred meat was everywhere. With a grunt of effort, Jak staggered to his feet. Nauseating waves of pain ran up his arm. He knew that the moki’s poison was supposed to be fatal, but it would be fatal to him? At least everyone else seemed to have avoided both fangs and claws. For that, he was grateful.
With a shower of sand and small stones, the other three scrambled back down the steep side of the dune. Jak was nearly knocked over again as Tessa grabbed him. Her small fist slammed repeatedly into his chest.
"Don’t. You. Ever. Do. That. Again!"
Ignoring the pain from the moki bite, Jak pulled her into his arms. "Hush, it’s alright. I’m okay," he lied.
Well, maybe it wasn’t a lie. He wiped away the tear tracks on her dirty face. The strangeness within him had helped him heal from deadly wounds before now. Could it deal with a moki bite? He felt weak and ill, and his arm hurt like hell, but he hoped he wasn’t going to die.
For a moment, Jak closed his eyes. It seemed that he could feel that alien something within him more now that he knew what to look for. It was as if whatever had tried to invade his body had left a piece of itself when it withdrew. When it ran, he amended. The thing, the strangeness, the phage, seemed harmless, maybe even helpful. But each time he called upon it to drag him back from certain death, it grew stronger. Would there come a day when he once again had to fight for the right to control his own body?
Shaking off worries, he let go of Tessa and turned to see that Toko had cut open one of the big veins in the moki’s neck, just below the blaster burn, and was lapping the pinkish blood that flowed from the wound. Kamura might find the sight sickening, but Toko was right to make good use of the remains. But there was more to be had than a little blood.
"Move over," he told Toko as he got a grip on the black slab of stone. Toko glared at him but moved aside when he realized what Jak meant to do. It took two tries, but Jak was able to flip the slab over, exposing the moki’s body. Using his knife, he made a deep slit down the soft underbelly, and the tender flesh pulled away from the bone easily.
He cut a hunk for Tessa and handed it to her, then cut more for Toko and Kamura and himself. The four of them crouched around the carcass like predators around their kill. Chewing his own portion, Jak noticed that Kamura was just holding hers. Now what?
She noticed him looking at her. "Aren’t we going to cook it?"
"With what?" he asked, still chewing. Toko had already finished his first helping and started on a second. Tessa ate hungrily, too.
"With. . . with. . ." At a loss, she looked around. There was nothing to burn, just sand and rock and more sand.
"Eat," Toko ordered her. "We might not find more."
To Jak’s surprise, the Terran did as Toko said. With a shrug, she nibbled daintily at her share of the moki while the rest of them ate quickly, like the hungry animals they were.
"What happened to your face?" Kamura asked. "I hardly recognize you."
"Never mind my face," Jak said. He wasn’t about to try to explain the strangeness to this girl. "How did you two wind up here?"
Kamura gave him a long, measuring stare but let the subject drop.
"We went over the side as soon as we heard blaster fire," Toko said.
"It was what you said to do," Kamura added, as if she feared being accused of cowardice because they hadn’t stayed for the fight.
"You did good," Jak told them. He gave them a brief outline of what had happened aboard the barge as he cut more strips of moki.
"Mice is dead, yes?"
Jak shook his head. "I don’t know. I’m pretty sure Kishee’s dead." He remembered seeing the mobbie boy stick his knife into the girl’s back. "But I didn’t see what happened to Mice. And I didn’t see what happened to Bolon." No way was he telling them that he could sense that Bolon was still alive.
Jak wrapped the meat he’d cut in a piece of the hide. The carcass would soon rot in the heat of the day, but if they covered some of the meat in the sand, it might still be fit to eat tomorrow.
"How did you and Tessa survive?" Kamura asked. "When we were hiding on the shore, we saw men on the ship cutting the ropes that tied it to the barge. It was hard to tell in all the smoke, but we think they got away. We looked for you, but all we found were the corpses of two of Bolon’s men and burned debris from the barge. We thought you’d both died."
"It was a near thing," Jak admitted. He’d cut and wrapped six more strips of meat. It would have to be enough. The sun would be up soon. "We went into river during the fighting. I was hurt, but Tessa got me out of the water and stayed with me until I could get moving again."
He saw Tessa glance at him, warning in her blue eyes. No need for that; there was no way he was going to tell Toko and the Terran anything more. Nor that he had healed what should have been a fatal wound. It was none of their business.
Omniphage Invasion Page 27
