Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  “Here are your tools for today.” Mister Fisher handed Tudeng and me a spear.

  The spear was a dull gray color, made from permalloy and had a spear tip which was about twenty centimeters long. The entire length of the spear was just a bit taller than me. At that time, I was all of about a hundred and fifty centimeters tall. The spear was not too heavy, but I was unsure how to use it. I put its butt on the ground and stood it next to me, spearhead up.

  “You may try to acquire food with your spears today. Since this is your first duty like this, I will explain it more completely. There are fish in the river. Those can be speared and then cleaned and stored for food. There are also wild animals in the forests around Raven Academy. Those may be speared for food as well. You will need to dress and clean any animal you acquire as food. There is one square kilometer of enclosed area here. You will find squirrels, boars, rabbits, sheep, and various other animals around here. That is in addition to the turkeys, and all sorts of birds. Are you familiar with any of them?”

  “My family had swine on our farm,” I volunteered. “Boars are just wild swine, I think.”

  “Right you are Kalju. However, I suggest you avoid the bovine and boars until you have had a lot more experience. But the choice on how you do your duty is yours. It is my duty to inform you that I believe you will fail if you try to take on a boar with spears and no experience. One or both of you might also be injured or killed in attempting to take on a boar at this time.”

  I did not like hearing about getting injured or killed. But Tudeng spoke before I could say anything.

  “Sir? What do you suggest? It sounds like we are to be hunting these animals. You are carrying a revolver, and that would easily stop a boar.”

  “Great observation, Tudeng. An alert eye, is a helpful eye. Yes, I am carrying a revolver. When the time comes, you too will be trained on proper use of this fine weapon.” He patted his holster very slightly. “Yes, I could drop a boar. However, will I always be with you? Let me answer that. No. I will not always be with you, so do not rely on my armaments. You will learn to rely on each other. I am here to instruct and guide. Today, what are you carrying?”

  “A spear sir,” Tudeng answered. She was always polite.

  “So, you two, your duty is to acquire food. What do your wish to do?” Mister Fisher asked.

  “Kalju? What do you think?” Tudeng asked me.

  I have often wondered if that was some kind of a turning point in my life. How would things have been different if I had made a different choice? Maybe nothing would have changed, or maybe everything. As you know, Ryan, one little change can make a world of difference.

  “I say we go for the fish. I am not sure which river we are near, but it looked a lot bigger than any creeks back home,” I answered. I was still haunted by him saying we could get killed by a boar.

  “Kalju has said fishing. Tudeng, do you agree? For this duty, you are a team. Teammates need to be in agreement.” Mister Fisher just stood there waiting for an answer.

  “Yes sir, I agree. I have fished with rod and reel many times,” Tudeng answered. “How hard can using a spear be?”

  “How hard indeed? I expect you will learn. Follow me.” Mister Fisher turned and walked off.

  We followed a winding gravel path which led into the woods. The light from the sky tube was diffused by the overhead canopy. Numerous birds flew by, gliding from tree to tree. Some were familiar, but some were different than I had seen on the farm. Our small groves of trees were not as dense or thick as the forest around Raven Academy. I eyed a couple of rabbits in the underbrush, and considered using the spear, but they were a long way away, and I had told Mister Fisher I chose spearfishing. A noisy squirrel chattered at us as we walked along. I knew spearing that squirrel would be near to impossible.

  The smell of the river and the increase in insects told me we were getting close. I would later actually miss the presence of flies, gnats, and even mosquitos, but on that day, they were just a common part of my life.

  “Here is the river.” Mister Fisher made a wide sweep with his arm. “Your watches are sealed against water, and vacuum, so do not worry about hurting them. Your watches will also alert you to when it is time to return. Do not be late for class, so please factor in time for cleaning your catch. That can be done on the wharf where you will find the proper tools for cleaning any kind of game.” He then walked off and disappeared down the trail.

  Tudeng watched him go, and after he left she turned to me. “I feel like this is a test, or something. Do you know what is really happening here?”

  “I think we are to spear the fish and bring them back to the lodge.”

  “That is what our duty says, but I meant the bigger picture. Why a new school for a militia?” Tudeng asked.

  I just shrugged my shoulders and looked at the river. It was about a hundred meters wide, and the water was really clear. Not at all like Dale’s muddy lake. Here, I could see down to the rocky bottom. As I looked out, I caught glimpses of dark fish moving in the waters. The light from the sky tube pierced the surface, and the fish all seemed to be heading in the same direction. There were numerous pinkish-red rocks along the bank, and in scattered places across the river. Weeds and some small bushes poked up from around the rocks on the bank, and some grasses and such grew on the sandy parts around the rocky islands in the water. The water flowed around those rocks, and moved with some speed.

  Carefully stepping from rock to rock, I saw frogs jumping off. I proceeded out to where a larger group of rocks made a platform about three meters wide. I used the spear to test the depth of the water, and it barely touched the bottom. I squatted down and tried to figure out how to spear a fish from where I was.

  Slash!

  I turned around and saw Tudeng. She was still on the bank, but was lifting her spear out of the water. From the end of the spear dangled a beautiful fish. Her spear had caught it dead center.

  “I got a tench! First throw!” Tudeng cried in triumph.

  The fish was different from the carp and bullheads I knew from Dale’s lake. This fish was sort-of stocky, like a carp that way, but was a deep green on its top and a pretty golden color on its belly. The fins were black or a deep gray color. The tench looked like it weighed a kilogram or maybe two.

  “Nice job!” I called. I turned around and looked into the water.

  I saw a fish which looked to be within range. I pulled back my arm and threw the spear down. I missed. I also nearly lost my spear as it was sinking into the water. I quickly stooped down and grabbed the end and pulled it out.

  “Got another!” Tudeng called out. “A bit smaller, but still a nice tench.”

  I tried another throw, and while I lined up the spear for what I thought would be a certain hit, I missed again. I did not lose the spear, so my throw was not really a throw, but was more of an extended jab. I was thinking that a long cord tied to my hand and to the end of the spear might be a better way of spearfishing. As I thought more about that, I kept imagining throwing the spear, and then pulling it back in by the cord. I stepped across some other rocks and found a calm pool, where some fish were just swimming slowly against the small current. I aimed as carefully as I could and then thrust the spear. I missing again.

  “I have four now. How are you doing?” Tudeng called over. She was still on the bank, her catch lined up in the grass from longest to smallest. None were very small.

  “I keep barely missing.” I was getting very frustrated. I badly wanted an excuse for why I could not seem to get a fish. I was about to mention the current as the culprit of my failures, Tudeng interrupted.

  “Are you accounting for the water? Remember there is an optical refraction event at the water’s surface? That will make the fish appear higher in your line of sight than they are. You might want to try aiming lower than you think, and see if that works.”

  She was describing exactly what I had been doing. Well, except for the aiming lower. I had been aiming exactly where the fish
looked to be. I did not really want to tell her that I had no idea what “optical refraction” really meant, but what she said sounded right. The fish did seem to be in a different place than where I aimed. I struck the spear down into the clear water and just held it there. Sure enough, Tudeng was correct. The spear’s appearance changed right as it entered the water. There were no fish nearby, as apparently I had been effective in one way. I was scaring them away. I stepped along on the rocks with my eyes on the water, looking for fish.

  As I stepped down, my foot landed on what I thought was a rock, but it was a turtle instead. The turtle slipped into the river, but I pulled back my foot. I slipped, twisted, and cried out, but still lost my balance. I fell with a huge splash into the river.

  Before I had splashed too much, Tudeng was there on the rocks near me. She was squatting down, hand extended out to me. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” I was not hurt, I was angry. I was so angry, I could hardly speak. The water was cold, and was up to over my waist. My fall had kicked up some mud from the bottom, so the water was a bit murky.

  I spied a fish, another tench, which looked bigger than any Tudeng had caught. It was trapped, not half a meter from me. The rocks made a sort-of curved-in place, and I was between the fish and the open river. It was swimming back and forth, looking for a way of escape. I had my chance. With all my might I raised the spear, adjusted my aim as Tudeng had suggested, and plunged the spear nearly straight down into the water.

  “Youuucch!” I screamed out.

  I had gotten this fish, and more. The spear had pierced that fish, but then struck the smooth edge of the rocks. It had bounced off those rocks and pierced into my calf. The permalloy blade sank deep into my leg. The pants had not offered any resistance to that extremely sharp blade, and neither had my flesh.

  Bloody streaks floated all about the water, some from the dying tench, but most of the red staining the water was from my fileted leg. Tudeng grabbed my arm and tugged my upward. The spear shaft clattered onto the rocks, jarring the blade which was still imbedded into my leg.

  Alarms sounded from my watch, and a brilliant light on the watch began flashing. “Medical staff is on the way.” A mechanical voice stated from my watch. I floundered onto the rocks. The spear slapping back at me, and hitting me in the face. That did not hurt nearly like my leg. Searing pain shot from the wound and down into my foot, making my heel and ankle throb. Blood was gushing onto the rocks, and I grabbed at the spear point. Wrapping my fingers around the shaft I was about to pull it out of my leg.

  “Stop!” Tudeng barked. “Let me put pressure on the arteries first. You are hemorrhaging badly.”

  I looked down and saw the rocks were covered with red, and my pant leg, soaked with water already, was just a maroon rag draped over my foot. The flesh of my leg, near where the spear had embedded was pale, like a carp belly’s color.

  Tudeng tied something around my calf, but I was getting lightheaded and dizzy. I think I heard Mister Fisher’s voice, but it sounded far away. I looked up toward the sky tube, and thought about how everything was getting lighter and dimmer.

  I heard Marie barking, but then whiteness covered over my vision.

  Next thing I knew, I was on the treatment table in the medical office and Doctor 12B, that white automacube, was spraying something on my leg. The machine had apparently been speaking for a while, but I cannot recall what was said before I heard, “…into the tibia. Regeneration in progress. Functional in one hour.”

  Mister Fisher’s face loomed over me. “You will live. We will win this together. Your classroom studies will need to be made-up. See you in an hour.”

  No one else was in the room. As I pushed up to my elbows, I saw Mister Fisher walking briskly away. The table was covered in blood, and I wondered if I was going to be responsible for mopping all that away. As I said, red, the color of my blood, was the only color besides white I saw in that room. My spearing my own leg was my first injury fixed in that room, but not the last, not by a long shot. And when I think of all the other wounds I have endured, that first one was pretty minor, but at the time it was huge.

  When the hour had passed, my leg was sealed in a white, flexible coating. Not cloth or some familiar material, but some sort-of thing the medical automacube had spayed on. It was more firm than my skin, but flexible and could be moved as I carefully touched it. It felt stuck to my skin. There was almost no pain, and as I moved around, the wound just pulled a bit.

  Doctor 12B stated, “You are released from acute medical treatment. Your leg is mending, and when the sealant bandage wears out, you will be fully recovered. You may resume strenuous physical activity tomorrow. There are no other post-traumatic treatment requirements for this injury. Please proceed to meet the other sophomores in your classroom. It is toward the river end of the lodge.”

  I found a new pair of pants sitting on a nearby chair. My shoes and socks were laid out below the pants. I dressed and realized that my underwear and shirt had not been removed, yet they were completely dry. Maybe they had been taken off at one point, but I could not remember when that was. I could see no sign of my first pair of machine-made pants, short lived as they were. Additionally, there was no blood anywhere now. The treatments table was sparkling and white. How that happened, I did not know at that time.

  “Did I lose that spear?” I asked.

  “I am a medical automacube, not a security model. Please refer your question to the appropriate people or automacubes,” Doctor 12B replied.

  I walked out and turned down the hall. Marie met me and her tongue lolled to the side as she stared at me. I patted her a few times, and she sniffed my leg. I guess I passed her inspection, so she trotted off. My leg held my weight okay, but I was embarrassed. I wondered what Tudeng would say, and how angry Mister Fisher would be if I had lost that spear. Then I remembered breaking the fancy techie gloves during testing, and I was more nervous than ever.

  The classroom had double doors, and it was labeled simply, “Classroom.”

  I knocked on the door, and Mister Fisher called from beyond. “You may enter Kalju.”

  I stepped inside and saw the classroom for the first time. It had six tables, with two people at each one. A lectern was at the front, and Mister Fisher was standing there. A graph and some charts were on a display behind him.

  “Kalju, please take your seat with your fellow inductees.” He made a sweeping motion to the class. “Tudeng’s report of this morning’s incident is on file and accessible from your room’s desks, as well as the conservation slates. I suggest you familiarize yourself with what happened to Kalju here, and read the summary report. Be sure to review the instructions on proper emergency treatment of puncture wounds. Tudeng did an adequate job, but utilized old-fashioned methods. Which is a good place for us to continue in our lessons.” He pointed to the display behind him. “The next category are anadromous fish. These species are those which spawn and hatch in freshwater. Like our rivers or streams, but then travel to and live the majority of their lives in salt water basin at the bow. They will return to freshwater to spawn. After spawning, some of these species will actually die shortly thereafter, but others do spawning in cycles. Unlike on the Earth, the fish species on the Marathon are specifically designed to procreate in…”

  I moved over and sat down next to Carol. Her brown eyes met mine briefly, and her dark colored face was split by a very quick smile. She turned her attention back to Mister Fisher. A conservation slate was waiting for me. I lifted the thin, flat, square device and it’s display screen lit up. The whole slate was about twenty-five centimeters wide, and only two centimeters thick. On its display was my name, but beneath that was a syllabus of readings, assignments, and lists of quizzes which needed to be completed. A scrolled message moved across the bottom. “Link with watch completed.”

  I had missed the rest of what Mister Fisher had been saying about the fish going to the salt-water basin. I had only heard of it, and never been that far from home.
I set the slate down and concentrated on the next type of fish he was discussing. I was in no mood to listen to anything about fish, but I forced myself to pay attention. And thus, the day passed. At lunch time Mister Fisher dismissed us. As we were getting up to leave, he called me aside.

  “Kalju, you are on limited duty for the rest of today. Please report to the kitchen and trade duty with Radha. You will also be on food preparation. Usually inductees are not on both food acquisition and food preparation, but this is your lucky day.” Mister Fisher said that with a straight-face and I was not sure if it was intended as a joke or not. I found nothing funny or humorous about my injury.

  “Mister Fisher? Did I lose the spear? I could go back to the river and hunt for it.”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Now, that is a good spirit. Bravo. Never leave a weapon behind if at all possible. Tudeng brought back both spears and all the fish. She gave you credit for half of the catch.” He tipped his head down a bit as he said that, and sort-of gave me his famous look. I would come to recognize all his various looks, but on that day, I was too new to it all.