by Jean Kilczer
Children with short, uniformly silver coats, ran, shouted, and swung easily into trees and from branch to branch. One hung by a hand and kicked a child passing beneath him. The child sat in the dirt and wailed. I watched an adult go down on all fours and chase the fleeing kicker into the woods. Not too different from human kids, I thought.
Cook fires flared within rounds of rocks that dotted the village center, with strips of meat on spits. A bare-breasted woman slid a loaf of baked bread from out a rock oven that reminded me of outdoor Hispanic homos back home.
People called to each other in their native tongue and laughed as they performed their morning chores. Smells of the baked bread and meat rose on a breeze.
I sighed. Next to water, a cup of hot brew and some slices of fried bread would've been heaven, even without the book of verse, the wine, and Sophia by my side. Sophia. I missed my beautiful lady. But it was enough to know that she was safe back on Earth.
I closed my eyes. It had been a hard night's trek. I would rest for a while here before going down to the village and finding my friends.
Joe. I wanted to probe for him and form a tel-link. Now that he was back with the team, maybe his mental state had improved.
In a few minutes, I thought wearily and closed my eyes. I fell asleep.
Something sharp prodded my back. “What?” I jumped to a sitting position.
Five Orghes, about my six-foot height, surrounded me. They were blunt-faced, with slanting yellow eyes, wide nostrils, and muscular arms and legs. Their long-toed bare feet were braced, with curved claws that dug into dirt. But my gaze went past all that, and locked onto the bows and arrows that were drawn taut and pointed at me.
“Uh, tags,” I said, and stood up carefully, my hands raised away from the stingler in my waistband, “I can explain who I am. Could you lower those weapons? I come in peace.”
They studied me silently.
I bit my lip. “No, I guess not.”
“This Terran,” a golden-coated Orghe said in stelspeak, with a lisping tone, “was with the butchers on their raid last night.” He jabbed his bow at me. “I saw him, Oldore,” he told a tan-furred tag whose face and head were white.
“I was their prisoner,” I said. “I escaped and came here to find my friends.”
“Then why did you help them?” golden-coat shouted. His muscles were bunched beneath his pelt. “You warned them that it was a trap!” He narrowed his eyes. “How did you know that?”
“That's kind of complicated,” I said, “but I didn't want to see anybody get killed. Not them, and not any of your people.” I glanced around. “We Terrans…we're not all butchers. Ask my friends about me. They're here in your village, right?” I looked around. “Three Terrans and a Vegan?”
Their wooden bows remained taut.
“Well, aren't they?”
“They are out,” Oldore said in a raspy tone, “searching for their Terran friend, Jules.”
“That's me! I'm Jules.”
“So you say.” The golden-furred one snarled and moved closer. His strung arrow was inches from my chest. “I say you are a spy for the butchers and should be executed.”
I caught my breath and took a step back.
He glanced at Oldore. “I would do it myself, Senior-breth. Right now!”
“Wait a minute!” I felt the blood drain from my face. “I'm not–”
“If you came in peace,” Oldore said quietly, "where is your sumbra wreath?'
“You know, I forgot about that. But I'll make one.” I looked around for a green bush. "Just give me a little time…
OK?"
Oldore's thick lips thinned as they spread into a grin, displaying teeth as yellow as his eyes. He chuckled. “Sunrai,” he addressed the golden one, and his shoulders relaxed, “take that weapon from the Terran's waist. Put away your slings, my breths, I think he is who he says he is.”
I let out a breath. “Do you have some water?” I asked Oldore as Sunrai yanked the stingler from my pants. “I'm as parched as that desert I came through.”
He pointed toward the village.
The five of them surrounded me as we walked down a rocky path and into the community. I was so tired I stumbled a few times. Oldore took my arm as we walked.
The laughter died. The people paused to stare at me. Some grunted and wiped hands across their eyes. A female lifted a loaf of roasted bread from out an oven. I breathed in the warm aroma and my mouth watered.
As we passed a young boy, his silver coat laced with golden strands of adult fur, he scooped up a rock and threw it at me. It missed and hit the ivory-coated tag next to me.
He grunted. “Spawn of your mother's diseased afterbirth!” He picked up the rock and drew back his hand to throw it at the boy.
“Run!” I told the boy.
He stood straighter and jutted his chin.
Oldore lifted his bow against the ivory tag's raised arm to stay the throw.
The tag lowered his arm and dropped the rock. “Excuse me, Senior-breth. I forget myself.” He wiped a hand across his eyes. “Pain makes me irate.”
“True words.” Oldore wiped his eyes with a hand.
“Isn't he exotic?” I heard a young girl, her breasts mere bumps on her chest, tell her friend as we walked by.
The other girl nodded. “Too bad he's the enemy of LorHanns.” She scratched her furry cheek and hooted softly. “He'd make a fine pet.”
“Are you certain,” the other girl said and nudged her friend, “that you only want him as a pet?”
I looked at Oldore.
He chuckled. “Come, Jules of Terra breth. This way.”
He led me to a wooden barrel. I was so tired, I was swaying. Sunrai took off the lid. The barrel was half full of water. Oldore filled a ladle and extended it to me. “This is good water. Drink.”
I stared at the ladle and sighed. “It could be fatal for a Terran.”
“It was not fatal to your friends. They dropped in small white pellets and they drank.”
“Digestall!” I said with relief, took the offered ladle and drank my fill.
“Senior Breth,” the ivory-furred tag said to Oldore, “we would like to break our fast now.”
Oldore nodded and the four tags strolled to different cook fires.
“This way.” Oldore led me alongside a corral of strange green-scaled creatures with slanted ridged backs and heavy reptilian tails. They towered at about seven feet at the tips of their tufted ears.
Some crouched around the remains of a unicorn elk. I heard powerful jaws snap bones and crunch them. Others followed us along the fence. One raised his snake-like neck over the top rail and sniffed my hair. His smoky breath smelled like brimstone as he breathed into my ear.
“Friendly,” I said as I stared into his round red eyes.
“These are draks,” Oldore said. “He's deciding if he should eat you.”
“What?” I moved away.
The creature laid back lips to expose blades for teeth, and hissed.
“When they see that you are an intergrate, they will obey your commands…probably.”
“What commands?”
“If you should have reason to ride one.”
“These are your mounts?”
He scratched under his loin cloth. “On a good day. The decision is theirs.”
I thought of Gretch, a recalcitrant mount I had half tamed on planet Syl' Terra. She allowed me to ride her when the mood struck. Still, I missed ole Gretch.
“Your friends were lucky,” Oldore said, “today was a good day for a ride.”
“A ride where?”
“They thought you were still a prisoner of the Big Mack and went to rescue you.”
“Oh, great. Did they leave one of our comlinks?”
“They took them so they could have ears in the butchers' camp and find you.”
“So where's our ship?”
“Hidden well in deep forest.” He lifted his long-fingered hand in a waving motion.
I shook my head.
“What?”
“They said it would be too easy to see in the sky.”
I stared at the bony-plated drak with its slanted back. “You mean Chancey is riding one of these… Beasts, I thought but didn't say.”One of these draks?"
Oldore smiled. “We gave him the gentlest one, a pregnant female.”
I pictured Chancey onboard a drak and shook my head. “Oh, man.”
Chapter Eight
“Oh, man!” I said to Bat. “I thought horses were a pain in the butt. I'll be lucky if this son of a lizard doesn't castrate me.”
“Hang your oysters, Chancey. Got nothing in my medkit to heal that kinda wound.”
I glanced at Huff, who was galumping between us. “I'd rather be riding the fur ball.” Ahead lay flat desert. A few scraggly trees huddled around a pool of water. “Are you sure you know the direction, Southern boy, without a compass?”
“Don't need one.” He pointed ahead. “That's northeast. Big Mack's camp.”
I wiped sweat from my forehead. The day was warming. “What are you, man, a homing pigeon?”
Huff stopped, lifted to hind legs, and sniffed the air. I reined in as he pointed ahead. “That is the true way to Big Smack and my Terran cub.”
“That's Mack, Huff,” Bat told him.
I tapped the drak's sides and she leaped into a gallop.
“Go easy,” Bat called as he galloped after me. “She's pregnant.”
“Whoa,” I yelled and tried to slow her, but she stiffened her neck, clamped down on the bit, and set her own pace. “Tell her that!” I stood up in the stirrups as she bounded across sand. The back of the wooden saddle, the high cantle, kept kicking me in the butt. “The shit I do fer superstar!”
* * *
“Bat.” I pointed to the northeastern sky. It was coming onto dusk when one of Mack's hovair's cruised the sky.
“Take cover,” I shouted and headed the drak to a big tree, followed by Bat and Huff.
“Recon,” Bat said as we dismounted under it. Huff trotted to Bat's side. “Give you five to one,” Bat said, “they're searching for the Orghes' Village.”
“Five to one what?” the fur ball asked, fished around in his belly pouch and took out a candy bar. He opened the wrapper and munched as we watched the hovair swing northwest.
“Man,” I said, “I'd give superstar's credcount fer a hovair.”
“I'm afraid,” Bat watched the hovair disappear over the horizon, “that sooner or later they're going to locate the village.”
“Those Orghes got a few aces up their sleeves,” I told him. “By the time Mack and his people get to the village, they'll have packed their tents and faded into the woods.”
“I don't know.” Bat kicked a rock. “Sooner or later…”
“You gettin' ideas o' staying on this godforsaken rock an' helping the Orghes? You're starting to sound like superstar.” I brushed off my pants. “Listen up, tag. We find Jules. We pick up Joe, an' we're outa here. I didn't sign up to fight no mercs with nothin' but two tags an' a fur ball.”
Bat took off his cap, scratched his bald head and rammed it back on.
“Well?” I said.
“Chance, ya'll know the Alliance can't get involved in this affair. It's outa their jurisdiction.”
“Damn!” I shouted and squashed a big black bug with wings that bit my arm. Green bug juice splattered my arm and hand. “Shit!” I reached for my canteen.
“No, Chance.” Bat grabbed the canteen. “You're gonna need that water.”
“Another flying fucking roach!” I rubbed sand on my arm and hand until they were clean. “No matter where we go in this motherless universe, these crotefuckers find us!”
“It's not a roach,” Bat said wearily.
“If it looks like a roach,” I told him, “an' it flies like a roach, an' it bites like a roach–”
Huff sniffed the squashed bug, then licked it up. “And it tastes like a roach…”
“Oh, give me a fucking break!” I said.
“Then it's a roach.” Huff swallowed.
“Pearls of wisdom,” I told the fur ball.
He looked around. “Where? I see only sand and rocks…and a few twigs from this tree. I see no pearls.”
Bat rubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed.
“What's the use?” I scanned the northeastern sky. “That fine sense o' direction, Southern boy, does it tell you how big this island is?”
“I surveyed the island when we were flying Sojourner,” Bat said. “I'd guesstimate about two hundred miles from north to south. Mebbe three hundred across.”
“Big Mack's got a lot o' land to cover to find the village,” I said. “A lot of it's forested, too.”
“That's good,” Huff said.
“Glad you agree,” I told him.
“The candy bar.” Huff extended the last piece. “It was a ThatsGoodBar.”
I smiled tightly. “Was it good fer you, fur ball?”
He nodded. “That is why I ate it.”
“We should get movin' on.” Bat stood up and brushed off his pants. He mounted. So did I. Huff got up on four feet and shook himself off.
“I wish I had Jules' tel power,” Bat said.
“Ain't that the truth.” I turned the drak northeast, was about to kick her sides and thought better of it. “Don't know how else we're gonna find him in that camp.”
* * *
We waited till dark on a hill just south of Big Mack's camp. I watched men hurrying into sheds and coming out with rifles, rocket launchers, mechanical beetles, and ground sensors.
“They sure got the hardware,” I said.
“You think they located the village?” Bat asked.
“I'd bet superstar's credcount they did.”
“We've got to warn the Orghes.”
Huff crawled between us.
I reached over his shoulder. “How do you suppose we do that?”
“I guess we try to steal a hovair an' beat them to the village.”
“An' Jules?” I spat out a strand of Huff's fur. “Will you move over,” I told him.
He squeezed closer to me. “Is this better?”
I got to my knees. “What about Jules?”
Bat got to his knees, too. “I vote,” he said over Huff, “That warning the Orghes is priority one.” He leaned on Huff. “Then we come back for Jules, the gods willin'.”
“Yeah,” I leaned on Huff's back. “If the Good Lord's willin', an' the creek don't rise.”
“I vote,” Huff stood up on all fours and I fell back, “to find my Terran cub first.” He hung his head. “My liver aches for him.”
Huff," Bat patted his shoulder, “we have to consider Joe. He's back at the village, you know? He'll be in some real danger during a surprise attack…especially in his condition right now. These trolls are out to kill as many Orghes as they can.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that's how they earn their paychecks. You got any ideas?” I asked Bat, “on just how to go about stealing a hovair an' beating them to the village?”
“I'm trying to think how Jules would do it,” Bat said.
“He'd probably walk into camp as a used hovair salesman an' talk them into lettin' him board a hovair to explain why his vehicles are better than theirs.”
“I have seen my Terran cub,” Huff said, “take the clothes from a man he put to sleep with his weapon, and put the clothes on himself. Then he walked among the enemy.”
Bat and I exchanged glances.
* * *
I stretched the tight camouflage shirt I'd stripped off one of the two unconscious, tied guards, and buttoned it. A button popped off. “Damn!” I muttered.
“These pants are too loose,” Bat complained, and they're too long."
“So roll the cuffs, man. What is this, a friggin' army surplus store?”
We were outside the fence of Big Mack's base camp, shadowed by night. Bat's medkit was at his feet. Huff waited under cover with the two draks. If our plan to steal a hovair didn't work out,
we'd need those miserable mounts. If it did, we'd turn them loose.
“You ready, Chance?” Bat belted his bunched-up pants and grabbed his medkit.
“Always, Southern boy.”
We slung the guards' rifles over our shoulders, strolled through the smashed front gate, and toward the two hovairs. Lights blazed throughout the busy field. Men trotted to waiting jeeps and halftracks. Orders were shouted through outdoor speakers: “Board your vehicles and hovair number one.”
Men were lined up and boarding one hovair.
“C'mon, Bat,” I trotted toward the other one, “make it look like you got important places to go.”
The second hovair hatch was open. I pulled my cap down to hide my face as we went through it and into the empty main deck. I closed the hatch and locked it.
“The cabin,” Bat said.
We unslung our rifles, set them on stun, and opened the cabin door.
Two tags were seated at the controls. The pilot glanced back. “Didn't get orders to let you board yet, tags.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but we ain't waitin' on orders.”
“Wait a minute. Who are– I zapped him on stun setting. Bat zapped the co-pilot and they went limp in their harnesses. I grinned.”Man, this is too easy."
We dragged them to the hatch, unlocked and sprang it, and dumped them outside. “Sleep tight, mercs,” I said.
Bat took the controls. I slid into the co-pilot's seat as he lifted the craft and turned toward Huff's hideout behind a shed outside the fence.
Bat blinked the lights as a signal to Huff that it was us.
Huff waved and unsaddled the two draks.
I sprang the hatch and he climbed aboard with a saddle and a bridle under each arm.
“Good thinking, Huff,” I said as I took them, “saving the saddles.”
He nodded his snout. “I thought the draks no longer needed them.”
“Right. This is so damn easy,” I called to Bat as I closed the hatch, “it worries me.”
Bat lifted the craft and turned southwest. “Stop worrying!” he yelled. “Hang on!”
I did as he floored it. Huff slid and crashed into the wall. I crawled to him as he lay whining.
“Huff? Man, you OK?”
“I will be, in my liver,” he cried between whines, “when this pain goes away.”
