by Renee Duke
Soberly, we started to look around for some sign of the rest of our party, but no other pod seemed to have landed in our immediate area. We didn’t even know which direction to try until we suddenly heard shouting just beyond a small clump of trees on the other side of the bog.
“Stop! Stop! Leave us alone!”
“Get away, you great, slittering, beetroots.”
“Jip and Kirsty!” I said.
Simon started to run towards the commotion. That was my first instinct too, but there was the bog to consider.
“Whoa,” I said, jerking him back. “We’ll have to edge our way round.”
We did exactly that, not running until we got to the trees and could be sure of our footing. It didn’t take us long to race through the clump and come upon our friends and the huge patch of vegetation they’d landed in. Lively vegetation that was looking for meat-based nourishment.
Though still anchored to the earth in some way, Jip and Kirsty’s assailants did look like pulled up beetroots. Except for the mouth-like slits in the root part. Slits that kept opening and shutting and had liquid dripping from them. And, oh, yeah, the little hand-like bits on the ends of the stalks. The bits currently attempting to tear open the pod.
Intent on their prey, the beetroot-things paid no attention to Simon and me, and couldn’t have reached us anyway, as we took care to stand well back.
“Help!” Jip and Kirsty called simultaneously, upon seeing us through their view panel.
“How?” I called back.
“Och, have you not still got your stun gun?”
“Yes.”
“Well, see if it’ll stun them.”
I detached the stun gun from a clip in my belt, set it on wide, and aimed at the barraging beetroot-things. As soon as the blast hit them, they all went limp and dropped to the ground.
“Bring your survival satchels,” I called as Jip and Kirsty opened up the pod.
They nodded in acknowledgement.
When they had joined us, Jip said, “Thank you. I could not use my own stun gun without opening the door. And that did not seem sensible.”
“Aye, thanks,” said Kirsty. “Coming doon, I was thinking chance might favour us and we’d wind up in the more agreeable part of Chorathase, but it would seem we’ve not.”
“Definitely not. Simon and I almost met our end in a bog. With luck, Arlyne and the kids got down all right and haven’t been attacked by anything.”
“And Nate and Leo?”
I shook my head and nodded towards the now much dissipated, but still visible, smoke. “We…we looked back. No more pods ejected. Theirs must have jammed the same way yours did. Or malfunctioned in some other way. I’m not saying they didn’t manage to fix it in time to get out, but if they didn’t...”
“I would try to sense them, but the distance is too great,” Jip said after a moment. “The same holds true for Arlyne and the children. The time between the ejection of their pod and the ejection of ours was longer than it should have been, preventing the pods from all landing in much the same area.”
I turned to Simon. “Can you calculate their probable landing site with that clever brain of yours?”
“No. I might have been able to, if I’d thought to take note of how long the gaps between launches were. But I didn’t. I was sort of concentrating on getting our pod launched.”
“Me too.” I sighed.
We pulled out our pocket computers to see if they could be of help but, due to some type of interference, were unable to get them to function.
“Och, well, I suppose it’s no more than we should have expected in a place like this,” Kirsty said as we put them away. “And I dare say any search devices people looking for us might try to use will run into the same trouble.”
“If people are looking,” I said. “Everyone might think we perished when the zoomer crashed.”
“People are looking,” Jip averred. “Taz and Vostia would not give up on their children that easily. All spacecraft are equipped with escape pods and I expect Chief Rupin would have been able to track ours as they came down, thus giving search parties a rough starting point should other scanning devices prove useless.”
“Yeah, all kinds of search parties,” Simon said ominously. “Drazok could have tracked the pods’ descent too, and I doubt he’ll be content to just let Chorathase get us. He’ll want to make sure of us.”
“Certain sure,” Kirsty concurred.
So did I, but Jip looked taken aback.
“Do you really think so? But why? His cause is lost. There is nothing to be gained by harming us and the royal children.”
“How about revenge?” Simon offered.
“Aye,” said Kirsty. “I told you it was as much aboot that as anything. I’m thinking we’ll have to be on the watch for both friend and foe whilst we’re looking for Arlyne.”
“At least know what direction to go in,” said Simon. “Escape pods are designed to land in as much of a straight line as possible. You and Jip were ahead of us, and Arlyne and the little kids ahead of you, so, if we keep going in the same direction we took to get to you, we should eventually find them. Could be a long way, though.”
“Aye, well, we’ll not cover it standing here. We’d best start walking.”
Slinging our survival satchels over our shoulders, we set off, trying to keep to as straight a path as possible. The beetroot-things were reviving as we left and hissed at us.
“Wonder how many more threats to oor lives we’re going to run into,” said Kirsty.
“Plenty, I would imagine,” I replied sourly.
In the three hours or so it took us to reach the missing pod we were grabbed at by trees with the same meat cravings as the beetroot-things, had to throw ourselves to the ground to avoid being hit by spiky projectiles some other type of tree flung at us, got battered by a sudden, but brief hailstorm, dodged columns of boiling water from several geysers, and narrowly missed being sucked into another bog.
“The Outer Regions of Klavor were a picnic spot compared to this place,” Kirsty said as we approached Arlyne’s pod. “We only had swamp creatures snapping at us there.”
“And Drazok chasing us,” I added.
“We might still have that.”
The first pod had landed near — but luckily not in — a river. The doors were open, and no one was inside. We walked all around, calling, but received no answer.
“I wonder why they left,” said Simon. “Rule Number One when finding yourself stranded in the wilderness is, stay with your craft and await rescue.”
“We didn’t,” I said. “Ours got eaten.”
“And we’d have been eaten if we’d stayed with oors,” said Kirsty.
“Yeah, but Arlyne’s came down all right, so she should have stayed here. That’s what she was supposed to do.”
He looked so thoroughly annoyed I couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s with the sudden righteousness? You hardly ever do what you’re supposed to do.”
“Arlyne’s not like that.”
“I know. But unless she was looking back, like we were, she wouldn’t have known the other pods got held up. She’d have thought they’d land close to her and she wouldn’t have to go far to find us. And if that’s what she’s trying to do, she can’t be too far off. Not carrying two little kids and a couple of survival satchels.” I peered into the hold-all and mentally commended her for having the foresight to transfer some of its contents into the satchels, which I was sure only contained water, water purification tablets, and the same kind of tasteless, barely digestible, nutrition bars we’d received as rations on the immigrant ship. “I know Challa can walk, but she’d soon play out.”
“Arlyne may indeed not have gone far,” said Jip, “but she would not have known which direction to take in seeking us, making it difficult for us to know which one to take in seeking her.”
We looked around for inspiration.
“Well,” I said, “the river’s pretty close. She m
ight have decided to follow it.”
“Upstream or doon?” Kirsty inquired.
“Down,” Simon called from over beside it.
“And how are you knowing that?”
“Footprints along the bank. One set of little ones, one set of bigger ones.”
Relieved, we went the way they were going, staying on the alert for any riverside perils and keeping a watchful eye on the sky for air cars, be they friendly or unfriendly.
We followed the footprints until they suddenly came to an end near some bushes. My first — horrible — thought was that they might be carnivorous, but there was no sign of blood, or even a struggle. They also hadn’t tried for us, but then, they might not have been hungry anymore.
Just to be sure, Simon got a stick and poked at them.
“Seem harmless,” he said. He poked some more. “Hey, look at this.”
He pushed aside some of the bushes to reveal a large platform made of a light metal which no doubt floated.
“It looks like a raft,” said Kirsty.
“It is a raft,” said Simon. “The Chorathase guides use them for travelling on the navigable parts of rivers. There’s usually two of them. Arlyne must have taken the other one.”
“She’d never be able to steer a raft,” I said, appalled.
“It steers itself. The technology’s built in. You just punch in how far you want to go.”
“Does the interference that put paid to oor pocket computers not affect it?” Kirsty asked.
“No. It’s specially designed.”
“Well, then, I say we shove it oot onto the river and get after them.”
“Me too,” I said. “But maybe we should eat something first.”
“Aye,” said Kirsty. “We’ve had naught but water for ages.”
We dug around in our survival satchels, which, food-wise, did only contain the tasteless, barely digestible, nutrition bars we’d had on the immigrant ship. They were just as unappetizing as I remembered, but we weren’t in a position to be choosy. We each ate one, and since it was a hot day, and our water bottles were nearly empty, filled them with water from the river. Having seen no animal skeletons near it, we assumed it wasn’t toxic, which, in Chorathase it easily could have been. We still popped water purification tablets into each bottle though, to remove any little bugs the local animals could stomach but alien humanoids couldn’t.
Because we didn’t know how far we wanted to go, I studied the control panel and punched in a Manual Stop command. I also put in a Danger Avoidance command, which was just as well, because it enabled the raft to keep us clear of a couple of whirlpools.
Sometime late in the afternoon, we saw a small island up ahead of us, an island that had bushes loaded with a Cholarian fruit we knew was safe to eat. Pleased to have found an alternative source of sustenance to the nutrition bars, we pulled in to pick some.
“Looks like Arlyne did the same,” I said, pointing to some rinds on the ground.
The island appeared to be devoid of wildlife, but as we gorged ourselves, we could hear the grunts and growls of animals coming from somewhere near the not too distant riverbank. There seemed to be quite a few of them.
When we’d finished eating, Jip suggested we gather some more fruit to take with us in case there were no more safe food sources along the river.
“Or off it either,” I said. “But Arlyne might not stay on the river. Maybe we should take this thing across to the bank and go along it slowly, getting off to make periodic checks for her raft and/or more footprints.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” said Simon.
“Why not?”
“I’ve watched nature clips about taiskels. Taiskels make interesting sounds. Sounds like—”
“—sounds like we’ve been hearing?”
“Yes.”
A disturbing cross between a snarl and a yowl rent the air.
Simon swallowed. “And I’ve personally heard Pesca make that kind of noise, out in the palace grounds.”
“What was she doing when she made that kind of noise?”
“Hunting. Just birds and other unfortunate small creatures, but a taiskel pack can take down almost any size game.”
Jip blanched. “Your brother is right. We are better off here for the time being.”
“Not necessarily,” I replied. “Most animals can swim, and taiskels might not mind going for a dip if it meant getting one or more of us for supper.”
“Uh-uh,” said Simon. “They’d definitely mind. They only swim if they absolutely have to. They hate water. And since we currently have a nice bit of it between us and the riverbank…”
“We should probably just bide where we are for a wee while before going to see if Arlyne went back to land from here,” said Kirsty.
The rest of us were in complete agreement and turned our attention to filling the smaller of the raft’s two storage boxes with fruit.
The taiskel pack stayed in the area for a long time. It wasn’t until night was beginning to fall that their hunting cries ceased.
“No point in setting out again now,” I said. “We’d better spend the night here.”
Though the day had been warm, the night was not. Since we were all in summer clothing — Simon a short set, we girls thin dresses — we were glad of the blankets in the larger storage box. Kirsty and Jip curled up in theirs and fell asleep almost right away, but Simon and I sat up awhile, staring across at the shore as the river’s dark waters lapped against up it in the moonlight.
We didn’t say anything at first. My thoughts were on my sister, and when Simon finally spoke, it was easy to tell his were too.
“It’s Arlyne’s birthday tomorrow.”
I’d lost track of the days. “Is it?”
“She was so sure that Mother and Father would do something special for it this year.”
“They did.” I drew my blanket more snugly around my shoulders. “Even came across with it early. ‘Happy birthday, dearest. If you make it to your birthday now that we’ve put Drazok onto you’. How’s that for special?”
“Remember how she always used to call for them whenever she was sick, or hurt, or scared?”
I nodded. “I don’t expect she’s calling for them now.”
“I always called for you.”
“Which was a bit more practical, since I was far more likely to be within reach than they were.”
I’d gone to her as well, of course. But now I couldn’t. And somewhere out in the vast, hostile, wilderness around us, she was all alone with two small children she had to comfort and care for.
Chapter Eighteen
We woke just after the sun came up, ate some more fruit, and, hearing no sounds denoting the near presence of taiskels, took the raft to shore and went slowly along the riverbank looking for any sign of Arlyne having put in somewhere.
We had not gone far when Simon spotted an air car in the distance.
“Should we be waving or hiding?” Kirsty inquired.
“Not sure yet,” I replied.
The question was answered by the laser beam that hit the front of the raft as soon as the air car got close enough to spit one out.
The raft spun around wildly and struck the bank. We jumped off and fled into the forest, temporarily forgetting about savage plants and animals.
The air car couldn’t follow us into the forest. Nor could it land on water, and there was no clear flat area between the river and the trees for the pilot to make use of. From the (relative) safety of the trees, we watched him take it downriver, looking for one.
As soon as the air car disappeared around a bend, we went back to the raft. Its controls were no longer working, but even if they had been, we didn’t want to go back out onto open water. Stuffing as much of the remaining fruit into our satchels as possible, we resigned ourselves to walking the rest of the way to wherever we were going.
“The river’s not very wide here,” said Simon. “Or even very deep. We should cross over and make our way downstream alon
g the opposite bank. When Drazok’s guys come back, they’ll see we’ve abandoned the raft and think either, (a) we’ve left the river and gone inland on this side, or (b) we’re going to keep following the river from this side.”
“Making the other side the better one for us to be on,” I said, and Kirsty and Jip agreed.
We could all swim, but didn’t have to, as the water wasn’t very deep at that particular point. Our only real concern was whether or not it contained aggressive aquatic things. Fortunately, it didn’t.
From the trees on the other bank, we saw four men return on foot, stop by the raft, and go into the forest just as Simon had predicted. We, too, then went inland, but not very far inland, as it was only by keeping the river in sight that we could be sure we were still headed downstream and still on Arlyne’s trail.
Several hours later empty water bottles forced us back to the riverbank. Most of it boasted thick and, in places, threatening, foliage but we came out onto a spot with hardly any. Instead, there were rocks. Rocks that led to hills, which in turn led to mountains.
And, pulled up onto them, was a raft similar to our own.
“Now there’s a bit of luck,” I said. “It has to be Arlyne’s and we’d never have spotted it if we hadn’t come to refill our bottles.”
Simon gave it a cursory inspection and said it seemed to be in good working order.
“Aye,” said Kirsty, nudging it with her foot. “So, why did she leave it? And where did she go? She’s not likely to have taken to the hills. That’d be hard going with we’ans.”
“It certainly would,” I agreed. “But somehow…Somehow, I think she has.”
“Me too,” said Simon.
“What are the pair of you basing that on? Sibling intuition?”
“Kind of,” Simon replied.
I nodded. “It is just a feeling, but I’m sure that’s where she’s gone. Up into the hills.”
