Salene's Secrets

by Laura Jo Phillips

  It was a button, obviously. But what would it do? She tried to shake her head when a snowflake landed on one eyelid, forgetting that she couldn’t move. Her options were limited and simple. Either push the button, or lie there while the snow covered her. She held her breath and pushed her finger firmly against the hard plastic.

  The material holding her in its grip immediately retracted and she let out a small sigh of relief. She sat up slowly, wincing at a throbbing pain that she’d barely noticed before. She reached up to touch her forehead, startled to feel something hard and metallic. Her fingertips traced the V-shaped filigreed metal from her temples to a cool, round stone. The moment her fingers touched the diamond she remembered why she wore it, and let out a slow sigh of relief to have at least one question answered. She felt around a little more until she touched a painful swelling just below the hairline in the center of her forehead, right above the diamond. There was no blood on her fingers when she checked, and the knot itself wasn’t very big. Dismissing it as a minor injury, she completed a quick check of herself, relieved to find that the bump was her only injury.

  While she sat there, her memory began to return, slowly at first, then faster the more she remembered. She looked around again, this time with the understanding that she was sitting in what was left of a life pod that had surely saved her life, though she couldn’t imagine why it had landed to begin with. Why the front of the pod had come off was also a mystery, and one she doubted she’d find the answer for since it was nowhere in sight. The atmosphere was breathable, obviously. Otherwise, she’d already be dead.

  She thought about the Gryphons for a moment, wondering if Tani had gotten her message, if she’d been able to force them to shift, and if so, whether it had proven they had Controllers, or that they didn’t. She gave her head an impatient shake. This was not the time to continue the internal debate she’d been struggling with since leaving Jasan. There were a few more immediate concerns for her to deal with at the moment. Like where in the seven hells was she?

  After climbing to her feet, she turned around with a small gasp when she suddenly remembered Jinjie. She was relieved to see him still lying just above where her shoulder had been. She went back down on her knees and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Jinjie?”

  His eyes opened slowly, and for a long moment he remained utterly still. Then he sighed softly, sat up, and looked around just as she had. She got back to her feet, letting him have a bit of time to come to grips with their current situation.

  According to her wrist device only two days had passed since they’d left the Ember, which was a relief. Unfortunately, the device flashed the word UNKNOWN in the place where it was supposed to display their current whereabouts. An uncharted world. Wonderful.

  Turning around in a slow circle, she found that they were in the middle of a small rocky valley on the side of what appeared to be a truly enormous mountain. A mile or so uphill the valley ended abruptly, giving way to a deep green forest. There was nothing other than dark gray clouds and snow in the sky. If there was intelligent life on this planet she was unable to see any sign of it from where she stood.

  Frowning, she wondered why the life pod’s computer hadn’t selected a better landing spot. The answer came to her almost before she finished asking herself the question. “This planet must be hidden by Blind Sight, Jinjie.”

  “Why you do be saying that?”

  “Because life pods aren’t supposed to land. They’re supposed to float around waiting for someone to respond to their location signal. They have just enough fuel to steer themselves away from planets and other obstacles long before they get close to one.”

  Jinjie nodded his understanding. “It do being good job to save us.”

  “Yes, it certainly did,” she agreed, noticing that the snow had begun to fall a bit more quickly and a slight wind was kicking up. Jinjie leapt up to her shoulder as she stepped out of the life pod. “I know you’re probably wishing you hadn’t come with me on this trip, Jinjie, but for the record, I’m really really grateful that you’re here with me.”

  “Me do be grateful too, Highness,” Jinjie said.

  “Please call me Salene.”

  Jinjie’s eyes widened and he nodded quickly. “Princess Salene do be correct. It do be not wise to reveal true rank.”

  Salene started to explain that she just preferred to be called Salene, but let it go. She walked around the pod, then knelt down beside the useless mangle of wires and circuitry that had been the comm panel. “At least this life pod isn’t giving our position away while we stand here.”

  “Yes, Blind Sight do be meaning Doftle.” He paused. “How long do be we here?”

  “My guess is not long at all,” she said. “There’s no door on the pod, as you can see. The moment it came off, the pod was flooded with fresh air. It takes fifteen to twenty minutes for hyper-sleep gas to wear off, so I’d say that’s about how long we’ve been here.”

  “That do be good, but we do be not want staying here long.”

  “Agreed,” Salene replied as she rose and walked to the foot of the life pod. “We need to find cover from the Doftles, and the coming storm, too.”

  “Jinjie do be agree.”

  “Those trees up the mountain look promising,” she said as she knelt down at the foot of the life pod and pressed the release levers holding the emergency survival pack in its sealed compartment. As soon as the door opened, a roll of black silk tumbled out. “I’d forgotten about this,” she said as she pulled the survival pack out and set it on the ground. She opened the top of the pack, took a moment to check the contents, then opened the weapons roll. She reached into the life pod and retrieved the kevlex clothing and the vest she’d stashed there. She added the kevlex to the pack, then unzipped her survival suit, pulled her arms out of the sleeves, put the close fitting vest on and zipped it up. Already starting to shiver from the icy cold, she wrapped the holster holding the hand lasers around her waist and buckled it, then knelt down beside the weapons roll and began arming herself.

  There were many loops and pockets on the vest designed specifically to hold throwing knives and sai. She wasn’t surprised to find that every loop and pocket, including the two sheathes hidden inside her boots, was lined with Kunian steel, just like the weapons roll. Whenever Aisling Gryphon did something, she did it right, and she never missed even the smallest details. Salene strapped a wrist sheath to her right forearm and loaded it with a pair of throwing knives, then closed the weapons roll and put it in the survival pack before slipping her arms back into the sleeves of her survival suit and zipping it shut.

  “Jinjie, please don’t let me forget to give you some of that kevlex to make some clothing for yourself with.”

  “It do be protective?” Jinjie asked.

  “Very,” she said. “I’ll show it to you after we camp.”

  “Yes, later do be better.”

  Salene looked around to see if there was anything else they might need from the site. Suddenly, a tickling sensation on the back of her neck warned that they were being watched. She tensed, her hands automatically reaching for the sai at her waist only to realize that all of the weapons she’d just donned were beneath the survival suit. “You better start using your head, Salene, or you’re gonna get dead real fast,” she admonished herself sternly.

  It was too late to try to get to her weapons, so she lowered her arms and turned around, her eyes searching the empty landscape. She glanced up the mountain to the edge of the forest, but that was better than a mile away and whatever she was sensing was much closer.

  “Jinjie?” she asked softly.

  “Yes, me do be feel too,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “I apologize,” a soft female voice said. Salene turned to face the area the voice was coming from, but saw nothing. “It was not my intention to startle you. I mean you no harm, and even if I did, I couldn’t do anything in this form.” After a moment something began to take shape in front of them. It b
egan as a faint haze, then darkened to a bluish gray cloud which took on a slender shape before, finally, coalescing into a beautiful young woman.

  She was taller than Salene by several inches. Her face was thin, her nose was slender, her lips full, her cheekbones soft and round, and she had high slanted brows that rose toward her temples at the ends. Her eyes were larger than Salene was used to, and she had elliptical pupils. Her hair was long and curly, but like her eyes, her skin, and even the dress she wore, it was the same soft bluish gray of the cloud. The most telling thing about the figure was the fact that her long gossamer gown remained utterly motionless in the wind. That, and the snow fell through her rather than on her.

  Salene relaxed her stance as the woman pressed her palms together and bowed over them. Whoever she was, she wasn’t corporal. That didn’t make her harmless, but it did mean it would be a lot more difficult for her to cause harm, just as she’d said. Without taking her eyes from the woman Salene lowered her head in a brief return bow, but said nothing. She would wait to see what this was about first.

  The woman shifted her eyes to Jinjie and bowed again. “I am Nia,” she said after straightening. “Long have we awaited the arrival of Firehair and Jakitu. I’m almost afraid to believe you’re really here.”

  Salene glanced at Jinjie, who could only shrug. “It is our honor to meet you, Nia,” she said. “But I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. We are unfamiliar with the names you mentioned. I am Salene, and this is Jinjie.”

  Nia’s lips stretched into a friendly smile that didn’t quite dispel the sadness in her eyes. “I know your true names, Princess Salene of Jasan, and Jinjie of the Once World called Jotunn.” She paused a moment, dropped her eyes, placed both hands over the center of her chest, then stretched them out, palms up, slender fingers extended toward Jinjie. Salene read the gesture to mean something like the Jasani’s my heart feels for your heart. Jinjie nodded his head deeply in return, reading it the same way Salene had.

  “How do you know our names?” Salene asked after an appropriate moment of silence.

  “Your arrival in this place of sorrow and sadness was foretold many cycles ago, Princess Salene of Jasan and Jinjie of Jotunn. All of my people, wherever they may be, know of you.”

  “If you know our names, why did you call us…whatever that was you called us?”

  “I hope that I didn’t insult you,” Nia said, her eyes widening as she bent again, bowing twice in quick succession. “It was not my intent, on this you have my word.”

  “I’m not insulted,” Salene assured her quickly. “Just confused.”

  “I apologize,” Nia said, bowing again. “I’m afraid I’ve allowed my excitement to get the better of me.”

  “I accept your apology, Nia, though it really isn’t necessary.”

  “I thank you, Princess Salene of Jasan,” Nia said with yet another bow. She was starting to make Salene a little dizzy with all the bowing.

  “Just Salene, please, Nia,” she said, then glanced at Jinjie who nodded quickly. “And Jinjie.”

  Nia bowed again and Salene bit her lip. “I probably should not have used those names, but since I have, I must find a way to explain them that does not cross any of the precepts.”

  “Precepts?” Salene asked, growing a little impatient. Every time Nia spoke she seemed to raise more questions, very few of which had been answered.

  “There are things I am not allowed to speak of. Actions that have been foreseen, but which might change if you have foreknowledge of them. This is why we use alternate names for you. It was feared that the use of your true names would endanger you, and the future we’ve long awaited.”

  “Are you saying that Jinjie and I do something for your people, or your world?”

  “It would be more accurate to say that your arrival here, in this place, at this time, and your actions over the coming days, will give my people hope, and a chance to survive into the future.”

  “We’ve never charted this world and before crash landing here a short time ago, didn’t even have knowledge of its existence,” Salene said. “What is its name?”

  “If it has a name, I do not know it.”

  “This is not your home world?”

  “Oh no, it most assuredly is not,” Nia said. “We call our world Kinah.”

  “That name is not familiar to me,” Salene said. “Does it have another name?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Nia replied. “However, I should add that Kinah is not within what you call the Thousand Worlds.”

  “Is it in a different galaxy?”

  “No, it’s in the same galaxy as the Thousand Worlds, but far enough away that it might as well be a different one.”

  “I see,” Salene said. “Nia, are you alive, or are you spirit?”

  Nia opened her mouth to reply, then suddenly stiffened, her eyes going blank and unfocused. Salene tensed as she watched, understanding that whatever Nia was seeing or hearing was beyond her ability to sense.

  “You must hurry,” Nia said, the blank look vanishing as quickly as it had come.

  “Why?”

  “Danger approaches.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  “I do not know, Prin…excuse me, I do not know, Salene,” Nia replied. “I know only that it is not directed at you, but that if you reveal yourself to it, it will be.”

  “In that case, if you’ll excuse us, Nia, we’ll finish our preparations and heed your warning by finding cover as quickly as we can.”

  “Of course,” Nia said. “I shall return at a more convenient time if that is acceptable to you.”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Salene said. She wanted to know more about the things Nia had said but not explained, but the woman’s warning had just intensified her need to get away from the landing site and find cover fast.

  “I would ask a small favor, if you do not mind,” Nia said hesitantly, suddenly looking worried.

  “If we can grant it, we shall, Nia,” Salene said, struggling to hide her impatience.

  “Though you are unaware of this, a great many lives depend upon the two of you. I ask that you take care of yourselves and each other.”

  “That’s a favor we readily grant,” Salene said, just barely preventing herself from rolling her eyes.

  Nia’s answering smile was relieved. “May the Light shine upon you both,” she said, bowing one last time with her palms pressed together before she vanished into thin air much more quickly than she’d appeared.

  “That was…interesting,” Salene said, turning back to the life pod.

  “Salene do be good on speaking to bottom,” Jinjie said. Salene stopped in her tracks. She rarely had trouble understanding Jinjie, but every once in a while he tossed in a clinker that just refused to make any sense at all.

  “I give up,” she said finally. “What does that mean?”

  Jinjie frowned. “You do be not knowing meaning?”

  “Not a clue in the cosmos.”

  Jinjie thought for a few moments. “You do be saying something small when do be big.” He looked at her hopefully.

  “Ah,” she said, nodding with relief. “You’re talking about understatement.”

  “That do be right,” he said, smiling. “You do be having understatement to Nia.”

  “I suppose,” Salene said, setting the subject aside for the time being. Remembering her inability to get to her weapons when Nia appeared, she pulled off one glove, pushed the sleeve back on her right wrist and removed the sheath. She put the sleeve back into place and strapped the sheath on over the survival suit. Then she unzipped the front of her suit and moved one of the hand lasers from the holster to one of the suit’s many large pockets along with a pair of sai. Then she put her glove back on and practiced drawing the knives from the arm sheath. The glove slowed her down a little, but it would have to do. The temptation to put her vest on over the survival suit was great, but she didn’t want to take the time.

  “Jinjie, I should have asked this sooner,
but when you shrank your suit, did you manage to maintain its functionality?”

  “Me do be, yes,” he replied. “Why?”

  “This isn’t regular fabric,” she said. “It’ll hold your body heat in once you seal the hood and gloves, and it will not transfer the outside temperature to you. It has vents to let in fresh air so you can breathe and also so you don’t get overheated. You could bury yourself in snow and stay warm, which means it also hides your body heat from infrared devices. It’s practically indestructible, but also lightweight enough not to impede movement. Best of all, it’s also a camouflage suit. There’s a switch inside that pocket on your chest that turns on the camo feature. It works off of a solar battery so use it sparingly since it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing the sun anytime soon.”

  While she spoke she helped Jinjie pull the extra-large hood of his suit over his horns and snapped the seal into place. When she was sure he was covered, she her own hood up and over her head, adjusting the clear face panel before sealing it.

  When they were both fully suited up, she knelt down and opened the only one of several compartments on the outside of the survival pack to be sewn with red thread across the flap. She reached inside and removed a black rectangular object that had one amber button, one green button, and a tiny light. She slipped the object into a pocket of her suit, then lifted the pack and slid her arms through the straps. Once she had it adjusted comfortably and Jinjie was settled, she removed the object from her pocket and pressed the amber colored button. The light began flashing.

  “See anything else we might need?” she asked while giving the pod and the area around it another close look.

  “No,” Jinjie replied.

  “Me neither.” Salene waited until the amber light turned red, then pressed the green button, and tossed the object into the life pod. She watched for a moment to be sure that the light began flashing green and the degradation process had begun, then turned uphill toward the trees.

  “That do be good trick,” Jinjie said, looking behind them.