Call of Worlds

by K. D. Lovgren

  What was Roan’s plan? Had he been this far before?

  Kal wondered if these mountains had caves. It was cold at night, and they traveled north, if her sense of direction didn’t mislead her, further from the more temperate equator. There was the roller as protection, of course. They could sleep in it. Put on their exosuits, too, if they needed to. The fluffer coat kept her very comfortable. She could fall asleep again, without him knowing she had been awake, and wake again later when they arrived wherever they were going.

  It was a relief to relinquish some control. Not have to decide anything. Had she never trusted before?

  She’d stopped him from going up to the tableland.

  That wasn’t a matter of trust, though. It was because she knew something he didn’t.

  He had trusted her enough not to go any further.

  Kal closed her eyes.

  When she opened them again, it was darker than she expected. How long had she been out, this time? She was on her side now, facing Roan’s seat in the roller. He wasn’t in it. She wriggled out of the fluffer coat, putting her hands on the seat and peering up out of his side of the roller. A great wall rose up, two meters from the roller, reaching beyond her sight. Her eyes widened. She froze in place. What was this?

  Had Roan found something, or someone? Or had they been found? Kal wanted to sink down out of sight, thinking of weapons. Why hadn’t she asked if the roller was equipped?

  This was not why they were here. She was not here to shoot anyone. She wasn’t here to die, either. Slowly, she turned her head, looking over her shoulder at what was out the other side. Another wall. The walls were what cut off much of the light. She looked out the front. It looked like a dirt path, winding out of sight, between the high walls. She ran her finger over the light shield controller and lightened the roof enough she could see up. Above her was sky. And the top of the walls.

  Now she could see clearly. They were not walls. The roller was inside a canyon, the walls a natural formation. They had reached the mountains.

  She let out the breath she’d been holding and crawled out his side. Her feet touched the soil, which was sandy and reddish. The rock of the canyon itself was a deep blue-grey, covered in broad expanses by a dark purple velvety moss. Purple mountains.

  Scanning around, then turning in a slow circle, Kal looked for signs of Roan. All was deathly quiet. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Kal took off her boots. With bare feet, she felt safer. Her bare feet on the sandy path made the tiniest sound with each step. She walked in the direction of the rear of the roller first, in case Roan had seen something and pulled to a stop afterward. He wouldn’t have left her sleeping there if he’d thought there was a risk to her.

  The narrow canyon curved gradually as she followed it, not allowing her to see all the way down the path. Senses attuned to every sound, every scent on the air, Kal took in her environment, molding herself to it as she breathed in its molecules.

  Along the side of the canyon wall she was closest to, she saw the beginning of a shallow indentation. It carved in deeper, the path splitting to a higher ridge along the wall. She took this slope, which led, as she suspected, to the entrance to a cave.

  She stood near the entrance but not visible from inside it and waited.

  Here in the canyon, she noticed what she always did when in the hollows where the starships sat. No wind. A quiet that seldom enveloped her did now. She leaned against the wall, relaxed and ready, until what was inside came out.

  14

  Inside

  When Kal thought about it later, she didn’t know what she had been thinking. Although she wanted to blame herself, the wiser self knew she’d done what she had to at the time. Needs and wants overlapped through the lens of hindsight. Afterwards, she couldn’t really separate the two and ultimately, it didn’t matter. What if she had given in? A human quality, and one she wouldn’t deny.

  Waiting outside the cave, Kal’s heartbeat was slow, but her anticipation soared. The corners of her mouth pulled back in the feral movement of a creature about to pounce.

  When he emerged she leaped. She was a little above him, on the ledge-like pathway leading to the hidden entrance to the cave, which gave her the perfect angle to land on his shoulders—this time not as prey, but predator. He cried out in surprise and folded over, protecting his eyes from whatever had flown at him, though he must know instantly it was her. She kicked out one of his knees from behind and it collapsed under him. She crossed his other arm in front of him, pulling up sharply, and threw him off balance further, tipping over the great mass that didn’t help him at this angle. He was on his back, his belly exposed, and she crouched over him, unwilling to let him go.

  She knelt on his chest, compressing his air enough to leave him vulnerable, her feet pinning his hands.

  “Kal,” he gasped. “What are you...doing?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  He struggled to get a deep breath. “How many…times…makes us even?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  Taking down a big man was gratifying. She got more comfortable, feeling smug. “What’s in that cave?”

  “Place to sleep.”

  “Why are we here?”

  She saw thoughts scudding across his face like clouds. Which one would he speak?

  “I’m going to tell you. About the—about the ship.”

  She nodded. In one swift movement she was up and off him.

  He groaned. “How’d you do that?”

  She smoothed her hair. “Show me.” She nodded toward the cave.

  He stared at her, rubbing his wrist. “Let’s get some stuff.”

  “Go get the roller,” she said, “bring it here.”

  “I have to hide it. In case they come looking.”

  “It’s solid face as far as I could see. But I wasn’t awake for the first part.” She shot him a dirty look.

  “You needed sleep.”

  “Doesn’t it have a camo mode?”

  He slapped his thigh. “I’ve never used it.”

  “If it’s set to the wall it will be hidden enough.”

  “Right.”

  She shrugged.

  “Let’s go together. Just in case someone else attacks me.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  He rubbed his chest ruefully and they started back toward the roller, side by side. No need to be quiet now. Their scuffling had been announcement enough, if there was anything else sentient in these mountains.

  “Will they worry?” she said, not much caring, but willing to pay it lip service. “We don’t want a full-on search.”

  “I left a note for Cooley.”

  Their feet crunched along the iron red, sandy floor of the canyon, faint echoes of each footstep spoken elsewhere. Their voices whispered back at them, after a delay that made Kal confused every time she ended a sentence and another version of her voice still spoke. “What did you say?” …you say?

  “We needed some personal time away from camp.”

  Kal’s eyes widened. “Personal time?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  “I said we were getting married by a Demetrian dude. That’s personal.”

  “Right. Very personal. Why didn’t you just say we were gonna fuck in a cave?”

  His face took on an exaggerated joy. “Are we? Is that what this is?” He made a capering movement, like a young mountain goat.

  She put her hand over the side of his face and pushed. “You lured me here, cave dweller.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “And I chose right!”

  “Fuck off.”

  “I will!”

  She had to laugh.

  They set the camouflage, which worked exquisitely well, the roller blending into the background of the canyon like a chameleon. They took some things to keep them warm and a couple of packs Kal hadn’t noticed, full of supplies. It seemed reasonable to leave the roller away from the cave, even camouflaged,
for whatever half-assed security they were practicing.

  Kal felt safe here. Her early warning system, integrated into her human form at its most fundamental level, had no alerts. It made sense to her that something lived here on Demeter, but if it did, she didn’t know where and didn’t sense it here.

  Trudging back to the cave with the gear on their backs, Kal was reminded again of her childhood escapades—which were really escapes from home—to camp out in different places on the rez where she felt free.

  Roan didn’t say anything on the walk back. She wondered if he’d fallen back into his usual habit of silence when they were away from camp. Or if he was dreading telling her about what had happened to the crew of the Land on their way to Demeter. As much as she thought she wanted to know, now she wondered if she really did.

  At the entrance to the cave she stopped. He’d found it, so he could do the honors. He leaned down a bit with his pack and entered, disappearing completely from outside view the moment he stepped inside. She found she was holding her breath. She stepped into darkness.

  Inside, the air was cool and dry. The ground felt the same at first, but as she felt her way in a further few steps, it changed to a smooth rock. Even though the air smelled dry inside, she could feel the ground might be slippery from the smoothness of the stone floor.

  A light flicked on. In front of her was a one-eyed Cyclops of light. Roan must have a headlamp. He silently handed her one. She fitted it over her head and turned it on.

  Now they could see each other. He nodded and turned, leading the way.

  Where they entered was just about human-sized, with no immediate widening into a larger chamber. They were walking along a tunnel about the size of themselves. Roan had to duck occasionally. It fit Kal perfectly. A couple of other tunnels branched off the one they were in. Kal memorized the turnings Roan took. At one point they turned sideways to shimmy through, packs off and shoved through first. Then the cave opened up, the ceiling higher and the same dark rust red as the canyon’s floor. Gradually, the tunnel widened. Kal thought they were ascending, which she could only tell from the greater effort required of her thigh muscles. They walked for a long time.

  Roan stopped abruptly. Kal ran into him, as she’d been studying the red ceiling. She held on to him to steady herself. When he didn’t move, she peeked her head around his side so she could see ahead.

  “Oh,” she breathed. He moved a little forward so she had room to stand next to him.

  Here, the cave opened up. It reached high overhead and sank lower underneath. They were on the edge, before it began its expansion. Inside she saw little sparkling lights everywhere. Had Roan set it up like this for her, as a surprise? It was dazzling.

  Her eyes adjusted better, and she realized what she thought were lights were reflections from their headlamps, facets reflecting the light. The room in the cave was studded with crystal formations of the same red color as the ceiling, but deeper, cut like precious stones embedded in the high ceiling and walls.

  “Roan,” she whispered. She reached for his hand. His big mitt enclosed hers. It felt normal, here. They looked around, their lamps sending glittery, flashing trails wherever they pointed.

  “Is it rubyglass?” she said.

  “I think so.”

  “This is what Cooley wanted.”

  “Yup.”

  “She doesn’t know this is here.”

  “Nope.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Makes people crazy.”

  She thought about that, unsure.

  He went on. “Like every other shiny object with powers inside.”

  “Oh.” She knew exactly what he meant.

  “I don’t want to tell her.”

  “I’ll do what you want,” Kal said. “You found it.”

  He looked at her, blinding her with his headlamp so close. She turned away, seeing stars.

  “Sorry. Thought we could bed down here. There’s ventilation from somewhere that way.” He gestured toward the back left quadrant of the cave room, which was about the size of the bridge on the Ocean. “If you want.”

  “It’s beautiful.” She could smell a freshening of the air. He was right about the ventilation. “How solid are the crystals up there? Tess said they were all over the base of the cliffs on Sextant.”

  “I think we should set up here, where there aren’t so many overhead. There aren’t any loose ones on the floor, so it may be this is a more solid surface for them to adhere, or the temperature stays constant so they don’t shed like on Sextant.”

  “‘She made it all the way to the middle of the Milky Way, until a crystal fell on her head in a cave on Demeter.’”

  “I’ll make sure that’s not your legacy,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  They climbed down to the floor of the cavern, Kal’s bare feet serving her well, Roan’s boots skidding on the stone.

  He found a spot with smooth, flat rock and began to unpack some of the gear from his pack. He pulled out a pyramid-shaped object made of a cloudy glass-like substance. He set it down and did something to it she couldn’t see. It began to glow. When Kal approached she felt warmth emanating from it, too.

  Roan rolled out a bedroll. He set up two little back rests. He brought out food.

  Kal sat cross-legged on the bedroll and pawed through the food. She munched a cracker with a faint flavor of dirt.

  The light from the pyramid set the crystals to glittering sparks of light when Kal raised her head.

  “We’re hidden away,” she said.

  He sat down, too, leaning against one of the back rests. “Yeah.”

  “Further away than anyone.”

  He smiled, though his mood had turned somber. “You’re beautiful.”

  Kal stopped chewing the cracker in her mouth and swallowed. “Oh.”

  “I wanted to say that before.”

  “Um.”

  “That’s all.”

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t seem to be able to look her in the eye anymore. He folded up the back rest, stretched out his long frame on the part of the bedroll she wasn’t sitting on, and lay down.

  She stared at the pyramid, wishing it were a fire. She put her hand on it. It wouldn’t burn her, like fire. It could only warm them up. Innocuous and non-threatening, this substitute for fire. Taking away the danger took away the mystery.

  “What do you want?” Kal said. She stroked the pyramid, without thinking, and it shifted from a steady glow to a fire-like movement of light and shadow. Of course it would.

  Roan didn’t respond.

  She turned back to look at him. He stared at their pretend fire, as if it had answers.

  He wasn’t watching her, but she knew he was conscious of every movement. She took off her jacket. Brought her braid over her shoulder. Slid off the band that held the end in place. She began unbraiding.

  When her hair was loose, she ran her fingers through it, combing it out. A raven’s wing.

  She turned to him again. He didn’t move. She took his hand. “Take off all your clothes,” she said.

  He sat up slowly. His layers were many. He shed them, one by one. He sat next to her, unself-conscious. She looked at his body.

  “Do you want me to touch you?” she asked.

  “Yes.” His voice was hoarse.

  Reaching out, she ran her fingers down from the curve of his shoulder, over the hard muscle of his tricep to the roughness of his elbow, down the smooth glide of his forearm.

  She stood up. He looked up at her. His head reached to her waist. She stepped closer, her legs close to his chest, and lowered herself down into his lap. Her legs wrapped around behind him. This close, she could feel his energy as if it were a physical force, emanating from him. She wrapped her arms around him. Lay her head on his shoulder.

  He wrapped his arms around her.

  Her eyes drifted closed.

  When they went back, they went silently.

  Spoken or unspoken, it ha
d all been said.

  Getting through to another level of this place, Demeter, to see the unseen, what had decided to keep itself hidden—with the right key it could all be unlocked. Kal knew that now.

  Every place they traveled, with their righteous, corrected ideas, their close birthing with their own planet Earth, the ideals they brought here, non-colonialist, non-invasive, non-destructive—they defined themselves against what had been done to them, Kal saw now. They couldn’t be the people they had been before the cultural genocide, as much as she wished it were true. They had been changed, unalterably. Had it always been their fate? What had they become? What had she become, a world away?

  A plunderer. An invader of spaces. A taker of pleasure in destruction.

  No.

  By seeing the rubyglass, she had broken its spell.

  Sif. Of all people, of all creatures, Sif was right.

  Kal was a destroyer, too.

  I feel uncomfortable in my skin. I don’t know where I am or when. What happens after? When I’ve crossed the line and my own boundaries and someone else’s. It’s only sex. It’s only death. It’s only life. He’s only a man.

  They walked in as dinner was coming to a close. The scent of the mountains was on them, the scent of somewhere else. The startled eyes, the looks of recognition, of fear, of envy. Kal kept her head high, her eyes just above meeting the gaze of anyone else.

  He hadn’t told her about Sextant and the Land.

  She hadn’t asked.

  Sasha. She had left Sasha, just after she’d come awake to herself. Sasha wasn’t her responsibility. None of them were. They’d left, hadn’t they? Accepted what Rai had done, accepted what Kal had told them was safer to save their own skins. Family was an illusion. This whole place was a mirage Kal would spend a little time in. Then it would evaporate, as time and space always did. Sucked in by the vacuum, until it was spat out in re-creation as something else.