Salene's Secrets

by Laura Jo Phillips

  “I thought they couldn’t find us with this fabric,” Tonka said.

  “They can’t pick up our body heat,” Talus said. “But there are other ways to spot people. Motion detection is the one thing I’m most concerned about at the moment--it’s a nearly universal technology and it’s very difficult to defeat. Then there’s tachyon emission spectroscopy which reads our material composition and that of everything we’re carrying--so whoever scans us with it will know you’re a Brun, and that we’re humanoids carrying provisions and survival gear. It shows a lot of detail, but it’s blocked by as little as a half inch of any dense material, like stone or refined metal.”

  Tonka lowered his head as he thought frantically, trying to think of a place they could reach in the limited time they had. There were many places he could have hidden if he’d been alone, but he wasn’t alone. Only one place came to mind, but he wasn’t sure it was possible to reach it. Since he couldn’t think of anything else, he decided to mention it. “There is a place that I could reach if I were able to run, but I don’t know if it’s possible for all of us to get there in the time you mentioned.”

  “Tell us about this place,” Talus said.

  “There’s a river that has a grove of trees on this side. On the other side is a solitary tree that’s bigger than the others, and so old it’s as if it’s made of stone. The trunk is hollow, but from a distance you can’t see that. It just looks dead. We can hide inside of it.”

  “All of us?” Salene asked doubtfully.

  “Yes, all of us,” Tonka said. “It’s quite large. Oberto and I stayed in it once, but it was difficult for him to cross the river because it’s so wide there, so we didn’t use it again.”

  “Maybe you and Jon or Kar should shift, then fly the children there,” Salene suggested. “Jinjie can go with you, and Tonka and I can run.”

  “We will not leave you,” Talus said, his tone brooking no argument.

  “Me not do be leaving Princess Salene,” Jinjie said flatly.

  “You could carry Salene as well,” Tonka suggested. “I can run quite fast on my own, but the children would not fare well if I did so with them on my back.”

  “It do be not good to shift,” Jinjie objected. “Gryphon alter forms do be having no heat suits. If they do be searching this area they do be spotting you fast.”

  “In that case, we should all put our hoods up,” Salene suggested, immediately going back to where the children sat on Tonka. She helped them get their hoods on and snapped the seals before helping Jinjie with his. Then she put her own on, and turned to make sure her men had done the same.

  “We need to get moving,” Jon said, his eyes scanning the sky. “Now.”

  “One moment, Jon,” Talus said. “We have both Air and Fire magic, so we can move very quickly without shifting now that there’s no snow on the ground to hinder us. If we carry Salene, Mali, and Tab, we can travel several miles in just a few minutes. Can you move that fast Tonka? Because we do not want to leave you behind.”

  “I don’t know how fast you run, but I know I can reach the river in the time we have.”

  “Mali, will you agree to this?” Salene asked.

  “Yes, Mom. We’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Thanks, honey,” Salene said, watching as Jon approached Tab who went willingly into his arms. Kar moved more slowly, giving Mali a chance to change her mind. After a moment she held her arms out and Kar lifted her from Tonka’s back.

  “Do you need us to remove the thermal sheets from you Tonka?” Salene asked.

  “No, they are not a hindrance, and they help to hide me.”

  “All right.” She turned her head to Jinjie who sat calmly on her shoulder. “Ready?”

  “Yes,” he replied, having already attached a strap to her suit and his own.

  “Hang on tight, Jinjie,” Talus warned as he picked her up. “Lead the way, Tonka.”

  “How fast shall I go?”

  “As fast as you can.”

  Tonka dipped his head, turned, then took off running far faster than any of them expected. A moment later the scenery around them began to blur past as Talus ran alongside the Brun. As much as Salene wanted to keep an eye on the children, she closed her eyes and rested her head against Talus’s shoulder instead. The blurring that surrounded them whenever they ran like this always made her dizzy and nauseated.

  She focused on how good it felt just to be in Talus’s arms. She loved the way he smelled and always had. Now though, she remembered how her men had smelled the night before when they were so aroused and so hot. It was the same, delicious aroma, but stronger and more sensual. She shivered at the memory, suddenly wishing she could be alone with all of her men for just a few minutes. She had a strong urge to reach up and kiss his neck and opened her eyes to look at the spot just below his ear. She loved that she now knew just exactly how he would react. She even started to raise her head when she remembered where they were and what they were doing. She was surprised at how aroused she was just from the thought of kissing him, but this was definitely not the time to indulge that particular desire. She closed her eyes again and tried to relax.

  A few short minutes later Talus slowed, then came to a stop. She opened her eyes and looked toward where Kar and Jon stood holding the children. She was surprised, but pleased, to see Mali smiling behind the clear panel of her hood.

  In front of them was a river that was running fast and furious, no doubt due to the recent storms. About fifty yards to their right was the grove of trees Tonka had mentioned. They were easily the biggest trees she’d ever seen, and she was surprised to find that the branches were thick with green leaves considering the time of year. To their left, another fifty yards on the far side of the river was a single tree that looked a lot like the others except that its branches were bare, and it was a dark grayish brown color that made it look dead, just as Tonka had said.

  “The water is moving much faster than usual because of the recent storms,” Tonka said. “It’s wider too, and I suspect deeper as well.”

  “We can jump it,” Talus said.

  Tonka looked at Talus, then eyed the river again. “I never would have thought of that, but I think I might be able to jump it as well.” Talus, Jon, and Kar all looked at him in undisguised surprise. Tonka lowered his head a bit and twitched his ears in what Salene thought might have been his version of a shrug. “I was born and raised inside the silo, so everything outside of it was as new to me as it was to the others when we escaped. Things that may seem perfectly natural to you are more often than not completely new to me. I’m eternally glad that there were no witnesses to my first attempts at hunting.”

  They all heard the soft beep of Jon’s hand terminal again. He shifted Tab carefully so he could hold him in one arm, then he reached for the hand terminal and pressed the buttons with his thumb. “Ten minutes,” he said shortly.

  “That’s a little sooner than the previous estimate,” Talus said.

  “It’s picked up speed,” Jon confirmed, his eyes on the screen. He returned it to his belt and shifted Tab so that he had a better hold on him.

  “Me do be staying here for minute,” Jinjie said, startling Salene.

  “Why?”

  “Do be hiding tracks.”

  “All right, but we’ll wait for you on the other side,” Salene said.

  “Do be fast,” Jinjie said, leaping to the ground.

  “Thanks, Jinjie,” Talus said before taking two steps back from the river. Then he ran forward, leaping into the air just before his feet touched the water. A moment later he landed on the far bank, his arms holding Salene securely so that the landing didn’t jar her.

  Salene looked back across the river, suddenly tense. She didn’t like having a river between herself and the children. “They’ll be safe, don’t worry,” Talus said softly. “While we have a private moment, I must tell you that the scent of your arousal is intoxicating.” Salene looked into his eyes and shivered. Talus’s eyes darkened. “P
erhaps later we can find a few minutes to be alone.”

  “I’d like that very much,” Salene whispered. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Jon and Kar leaping across the river with the children in their arms. Kar landed a little short, his boots splashing into the water just where it met the muddy bank, while Jon cleared the river cleanly.

  Salene was glad that the children had crossed safely, but she wouldn’t fully relax until they were all together again. Tonka stepped further back than the Gryphons had and then, digging his paws into the damp ground, he ran as fast as he could to the water’s edge, and then leapt into the air. He landed with his back paws in the water, and his front paws clear.

  “Good jump, Tonka,” Salene said with relief.

  “That was rather exhilarating,” he said while shaking his fur out. Salene squinted into the distance, finally spotting Jinjie just before he leapt across the river. He landed in the grass, then jumped up to her shoulder.

  “Thank you so much, Jinjie,” she said. “Without you we’d have left a trail leading right to us.”

  “Do be easy,” he said, his light brown skin deepening in what she suspected was a blush.

  “We’re not there yet,” Jon pointed out. Tonka dipped his head, then took off running toward the lone tree with the Gryphons alongside him. They covered the distance in moments, much to everyone’s relief. Even though Tonka had told them that the tree was big enough for all of them, it was far larger than Salene expected.

  Talus, Jon, and Kar put Salene and the children down, then followed Tonka through a tall thatch of weeds to the five foot high irregular opening in the side of the trunk that they had to nearly crawl through. When they came back out a few moments later, they were smiling.

  “This is great,” Talus said. “It’s a little difficult for us to get in and out of, but there’s lots of room inside. We should camp here tonight.”

  “Inside a tree?” Salene asked. “How will we stay warm?”

  “We can light a fire in there,” Talus said, casually picking Tab up as though he’d been doing it for years. He gave the boy a little toss in the air that had Tab grinning from ear to ear. “There are a few small cracks near the top for the smoke to get through, and the tree itself is petrified,” Talus continued. “Like Tonka said, it’s stone.”

  “Let’s go inside then,” Salene said, holding her hand out to Mali who was staring at Tab with an expression on her face that Salene couldn’t quite decipher.

  “Mali? Is something wrong?”

  When Mali turned to face Salene fully, she saw the tears in her eyes and immediately knelt on the grass in front of her. “What is it, honey?”

  “I’ve never heard that sound before,” she said, looking back up at Tab.

  “What sound?”

  “Tab laughed,” she said. “When Talus tossed him in the air, he laughed. In my mind, I mean. But I never heard that before. Not ever.” She turned to Talus. “Thank you, Talus.”

  Talus approached Mali and knelt down beside Salene. “You needn’t thank me, sweetheart. It’s my pleasure to make Tab laugh, and I hope that we’ll make him laugh often. I hope that, one day, we’ll be lucky enough to make you laugh, too.”

  “Me too,” Mali said softly. Tab clapped his hands together in agreement with that.

  “Right now I think we need to get inside that tree,” Salene said, her voice just a little bit hoarse. She stood up, took Mali’s hand, and led her through the path of already bent weeds, trying to minimize the damage that Jinjie would have to fix. She was trying her best not to cry over the fact that Tab…happy, bright, always smiling Tab…had never laughed, not even silently.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Mali said, looking up at her when they stopped in front of the entrance to the tree.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, it is,” Mali said, nodding. “We’re happy now. That’s what matters. Right?”

  “Yes, that’s absolutely right,” Salene agreed. She kissed Mali on the cheek, then urged her to enter the tree. Mali was more than small enough to walk through the opening and Salene only had to bow her head a little.

  Salene was surprised at how spacious the interior of the tree actually was, and equally surprised to find that it wasn’t dark thanks to the little cracks Talus had mentioned. They let in just enough light to see by even with Talus blocking the entrance as he crawled through.

  “Can we take our hoods off now?” Mali asked.

  “Not yet, honey,” Salene said. “We need to wait and see if the spaceplane is going to come around here first.”

  “Jinjie do be removing new tracks,” the Jotunn said, leaping off of Salene’s shoulder.

  “All right Jinjie, but please be careful.”

  “Me do being careful.”

  Salene watched as Jinjie left the tree, then moved closer to the opening so she could keep an eye on him. He moved out of her sight for just a few moments, then returned, straightening the bent weeds and grasses leading up to the tree as he passed through them. She relaxed again only when he returned and they were all safely under cover.

  “There’s another storm coming and its moving fast from the looks of it,” Tonka said, lying near the opening so he could see out without blocking it.

  “In that case the spaceplane did us a favor by hurrying us a long,” Salene said. Jon opened his mouth to respond to that when his hand terminal chimed again.

  “Captain Royce says that the spaceplane just passed over the spot we were in before making our run,” he said after disconnecting. “It hasn’t deviated from its course so it doesn’t appear to be following us.”

  Salene frowned. “With an entire empty planet to fly around in, one of only three spaceplanes within what could be hundreds of miles just happened to fly over the exact spot where we were?”

  “I don’t like it either,” Talus said. Salene wished that Talus hadn’t said that. Now she was even more worried. She sighed, then her breath caught in her throat.

  “What?” Talus asked at once.

  “That hybrid,” she said. “I forgot to tell you this, but Jinjie and I think it had a Controller.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Talus said. “But it’s dead now. It can’t do anything, Controller or not.”

  “That’s not true,” Salene said. “The new Controllers are different in more ways than what you experienced. If they detect that someone is aware of their existence, they’ll force their host to commit suicide. It stores whatever data it has and uses reserve power to send a signal. A return signal tells it where to send the data. Or, in this case, I suspect it revealed its location.”

  “It still doesn’t matter,” Kar said. “All they’ll find is a dead creature covered in snow.”

  “That, and whatever it saw before it died. That means us. All of us, including Tonka and the children.”

  “It never saw us because we were behind you in the cave,” Talus said. “I don’t think it saw you either since its back was to you. And, don’t forget that Jinjie hid our tracks for the first couple of miles, and he’s just hidden them again. If they do come here, I’d expect them to search that grove of trees up river rather than this one. There’s nothing from the outside to indicate that it’s hollow.”

  “All right, but humor me on one thing, please.”

  “Of course, Zerura,” Talus said.

  “I want to line the inside of this tree with thermal sheets. Otherwise, if we light a fire in here it’s going to light up infrared scanners like a great big sign pointing straight at us.”

  “You’re right,” Talus said. “Jinjie, will you help with this? You’re the only one who can make that stuff do what you want.”

  “Yes, me do be helping.”

  Salene put her pack down and opened it. She removed four thermal sheets still in their packages, plus four that had been used for various things over the past couple of days. “We’ll need more than this, I’m afraid.”

  “We’ve got plenty,” Talus said, opening his pack a
nd handing her a stack of them. “Jon and I’ll go out and gather firewood and water. I want everyone else to stay inside, and keep your suits on until we give the word.”

  “All right,” Salene said. She watched them leave then unfolded one of the sheets and spread it out for the children to sit on. “Do you think you can open some of these for me?” she asked Mali.

  “Yes, I can do that,” she replied eagerly, accepting the stack. She immediately opened the first one the way she’d seen Salene do and handed it to her.

  “Thank you,” Salene said. She unfolded the thermal sheet and shook it out, then she and Jinjie got to work lining the inside of the tree trunk.

  The thermal fabric was thin, flexible, temperature resistant and very tough. All good things until you wanted to attach it to something, or try to cut it. A special annealer made it fairly simple to connect one sheet to another, but attaching a sheet to the stone tree would have been impossible without Jinjie’s magic, and even he couldn’t cut one. Working together, with Kar reaching the high areas, it didn’t take long to finish the task. They added another sheet over the entrance and Salene declared it a job well done. She gathered the empty packaging and returned it to her pack, then gave Mali a kiss on the forehead in thanks.

  “We can’t light a fire yet, but I think we should go ahead and setup camp.” She removed the shrunken bundle of blankets and sleeping bags from her pocket and set it on the floor. Once Jinjie returned it to its normal size, Salene began setting things up the way they’d been the night before. Mali got up and helped, earning an approving smile from Salene that made her flush happily. By the time Talus and Jon returned with water and wood, camp was set up, including the Gryphons’ sleeping bags.

  Salene used one of her Kunian steel knives to cut kindling so when Captain Royce gave them the all clear a short time later, the fire was ready to light. Within moments they had a fire going and two containers of purified river water heating for hot drinks. With the thermal sheets lining the interior of the petrified tree and covering the entrance, the space was surprisingly warm and cozy.