by F P Adriani
*
Back in the bunk room, Tan was still asleep, but he stirred as I moved around the beds and gathered my stuff together.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” I said, looking over at him now.
His messy hair was anvil-like tilted up on one side, and one of his eyes was still closed as he stared at me through the other eye. “What time is it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Are we getting close to the mountains?”
“Yeah. You better get moving. And take a shower. It might have to last a while.”
*
We finally landed on the plateau that connected the small Astrals with the rest of the mountain range; this was as close as we could get to the larger interior Astrals.
Fortunately, Chuck’s calculations and equipment indicated we didn’t have to on-foot traverse the largest Astral, just the second-largest. Between those two mountains sat a flatter elevated area, where the exact spot we had to reach lay. However, as Hu had indicated, by law no unauthorized vehicles were supposed to fly over the interior Astrals, and the spot was too forested for safe landing anyway.
So, basically, we’d have to walk to, up and around the second-largest mountain to the other side….
I was sighing as we stepped out of the transport and onto the plateau; we lingered there rechecking our packs while we waited for Chuck to finish calibrating his topographical equipment.
I looked at Tan, whose body was hidden beneath a bunch of stuff about as much as mine was hidden: his camouflage-jacket-and-slicker-covered back bore the weight of a large knapsack, containing water, a change of clothes for him, and some other things; inside my brown backpack sat my case, plus a change of clothing and some first-aid supplies. Unfortunately, I also had to carry a fully collapsible tent inside another pack and strapped to my back. But at least this pack was more an awkward load than a heavy one.
Chuck had a tent attached to his back too, and he was wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and a jacket beneath his camouflage slicker. So was Hu—the first time I’d seen either of them wearing anything other than robes. They now looked like normal Diamond people….
The Joker suddenly stepped out of the transport, followed by that guy with the let’s-fight face. I hadn’t seen him since the Burroughs meet-up.
But now Hu formally introduced him with, “This is Cal,” and The Joker with, “This is Jeremy.” Unlike the rest of us, they had two big guns strapped to their backs beside their packs.
I looked beyond them, up toward the second-largest mountain, which sat behind another smaller mountain. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining badly here; only an annoying misty drizzle fell, which blanketed everything in a wispy haze.
My eyes slowly traveled over the more visible spots on the mountains, over the red sections of palellas, the green of the wire-leave trees, over the tight-looking black brush in some spots, the brown earth in other spots. On this side the mountains looked so dense. How would we cut through….
As if in answer to my question, Jeremy suddenly handed a laser cutter to Chuck.
“With this,” Chuck said, “we should be able to make it up, no problem. Got everything?” He looked around at everyone, but I never heard if they responded.
I thought back to my childhood. I’d never been on the actual mountains ahead of us, but I’d been on the other side of this plateau. I remembered standing inside the settlements there, I remembered looking up and seeing the dark mountainous shadows lurking beneath the pale purple clouds. The mountains seemed so solid, so eternal…but today I wondered if maybe they weren’t so solid and eternal.
I said now, “But shouldn’t we not cut through the vegetation? I thought this is a nature preserve….”
“We’ll do the best we can and disturb as little as possible,” said Hu.
I sighed. “Well, I guess that might all be irrelevant soon.”
“Don’t think like that,” Hu said sharply, as if admonishing me.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t feel very positive right now.” I hitched my backpack higher and started walking toward the mist-laden mountains.
*
Inside the forest, where the vegetation densely hung over our heads, water accumulated on the branches and leaves, and dripped down onto our slickers from those natural conduits. We were walking not even two hours before the water was stream-like falling off our slicker-visors to in front of our faces, and our boots were caked in mud, which made the going even rougher.
Hu, with her bad leg, slipped a couple of times. After the second time, when Chuck pulled her up from the ground again, she yanked her arm from his grasp and said in a frustrated voice, “I’m all right—I’m all right.”
So far we hadn’t been walking up much of a slope; I wondered what she’d do if we ever reached a really steep part….
We continued on and, thankfully, the rain gradually lessened until it totally stopped. The ground was still wet of course, but at least we didn’t have water attacking us from every direction….
Suddenly I heard a sharp cry from behind me. My head spun around, and I saw Hu bent over clutching at her leg. “Dammit,” she said. “I’ve got to stop. I need another shot.”
“Now?” Chuck asked, frowning.
“Yes, now!” She pushed sideways against a tree’s trunk and used that solidity to slide herself to the ground. Her eyes looked up at me from beneath her lowered red brow. “Pia, I need your help.”
I stood staring down at her for a moment, staring down at her weakened state. Then I sighed, dropped my packs onto the ground, and moved toward her.
“Why don’t we all take a break,” Chuck said.
“Actually, I’m going to take a leak,” said Tan as he disappeared back down the way we’d come.
“I need privacy,” Hu said to Chuck now. And he and the other two men also disappeared.
She looked at me again. “The pocket—on my pack. There’s a medical kit in there….”
I found it, and she looked up at me with a pained expression. “Now for my pants—grab here. I’m going to be even wetter after this….”
Holy christ, here I was helping Arlene “Princess” Hu take off her pants! If only the world could see me now…. Some people would have loved to have her in front of them in such a disadvantaged state.
We finally worked down her pants, mostly on one side, where shorts-like white underwear covered her hip. Her leg beneath looked almost as pale as her underwear, and now she shifted till her white hip was in the air. “Can you do the injection?”
“Me?” I said, sort of cringing backward.
She sighed hard. “Don’t tell me you hate needles. That’s why I didn’t ask Chuck. His passing out is all I need right now.”
I almost laughed. A big tough guy like that afraid of a little pricking….
“No, I’m not scared,” I said. “I just don’t see why you can’t do it….”
“My hands are shaking too much—in too much pain to do it right. Near the joint, between my hip and thigh, here….” Moving her underwear aside, she pointed to the general area on her pale skin, her breaths coming harder now.
I held up the syringe, flicking at it till there were no air bubbles; then I pierced her. It took some mental effort to keep me from jabbing her too hard….
As I slowly released the medicine, her eyes watched me. She began speaking in a low voice. “I got hurt there once, when I was a teenager, had a bad fall. For years it only rarely bothered me. Then I re-injured it months ago and it hasn’t stopped bothering me since. Aging.”
The medicine had finished pumping, so I put the equipment back into its case as she worked up her pants again. At that moment I realized that I, too, had an old leg injury—a knee one. And it wasn’t exactly feeling so swell right now. Still, I had a lot more strength than Hu….
“You don’t look too hot,” I said to her then because, well, she didn’t. Her lips were a bit blue, as was her damp face.
“It’ll pass,” she said, “when the medicine kic
ks in. In a few minutes, I’ll start feeling better.”
“Is it just a pain-reliever or does it heal too?”
“It’s supposed to do both, but I’m feeling a bit dubious at the moment,” she said on a smirk.
Then she starting talking more, confiding in me, it seemed; maybe the medicine had cut down her psychological defenses, or her common sense….
“I might need an operation—better get it before I make my deal.” Her mouth turned down sourly. “I hope everyone’s happy with what they get. Some people will celebrate seeing me behind bars. But a lot of people will be disappointed. And angry. I’ll have to mitigate that somehow—but from behind bars? I don’t know how. That’ll be up to Chuck.” At her mentioning his name, her face softened, but then an instant later she frowned hard. “We’ve been tight together for five years—we haven’t spent even a day apart. I really don’t know what will happen to him, being without me. I don’t know how he’ll function.”
At first I just looked at her, wondering why I should give a damn about her problems. She had been a menace here for so long…but maybe not as big a menace as I’d thought.
I frowned too now, thinking. “You know, if you got married, you’d probably be allowed conjugal visits. Once a week I think is the usual.”
Her eyes suddenly shot up to me as she said, “You’re lucky.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Never mind.” She shook her head slowly, somewhat sadly, looking at the ground again. Then: “I think…my leg’s feeling better. I’ll try getting up.” She did, but she couldn’t make it at first—until I grabbed her by the elbow and gave her a yank up and a solid footing with that yank up; I stood there while she leaned her weight against my arm.
“Chuck!” she called into the forest. “In about twenty minutes, we’ll get moving again!”
There was no reply. But Jeremy showed up nearby. “He went to piss. We’ve all been doing that.”
“Not all of us,” Hu said, frowning.
Now I realized that, before, she probably had to piss too, but she didn’t want to ask me to help her with that. Good thing she didn’t because I doubted I would have helped her there. I had to draw a line somewhere.
*
Ten-minutes later the medicine seemed to have finally kicked in to-the-max: Hu disappeared into the forest, saying, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Tan showed up again then. “Well? What are we doing?”
“We’re waiting for her,” I said.
“Even when I’ve gone swimming, I’ve never felt this wet,” he said to me now. He was frowning and adjusting his slicker over his matted-to-his-wet-head black hair. My right hand reached out, touched his pale sad face. His head jerked to me and his cold tight lips quickly kissed my palm.
“Maybe we’ll dry off soon,” I said in a soft voice. “Like at night, in the tent.” Which I really hoped was still dry in its supposedly waterproof pack.
*
Night eventually surrounded us, but we still pressed onward.
When he didn’t have to cut the way ahead, Chuck remained at the back of the group as he shone a bright floodlight at the rest of us up front. But the forest still seemed so endlessly black beside the beam, as if the immense night would eventually swallow all the light.
“We’re probably the only living things here, but this is still creepy,” I said to Tan as we moved beside each other.
“I’m getting really tired,” he replied then, his voice flat with exhaustion.
“Shouldn’t we stop soon?” I called over my shoulder. “How far have we gone?”
Chuck’s light stopped moving because he had. He was staring down at his digital counter. “Almost half the way. The rain and then the dark slowed us down. We’ll make better time tomorrow. Let’s look for a spot to camp.”
We found a largish slightly open area where the humus was so thick and the natural mulching process so constant that no forbs grew beneath the huge trees. We set up the tents and from his pack Cal pulled out a small gas cooking and heating stove—at least it looked small. But once he’d fired it up, it threw off quite a bit of heat and light.
We laid our slickers over the waterproof tent tops—except for Hu and her slicker. She pretty much collapsed onto the ground, sitting right in front of the stove. Beneath her slicker, her hands rubbed her leg.
“You need another shot?” Chuck asked.
“No. I need to get warm. I feel too stiff there.”
Now he bent over her and began rubbing at her jeans too. He also began giving orders; Cal and Jeremy were to take turns guarding while the rest of us slept. Cal would sleep first for several hours, then Jeremy would wake him up and take Cal’s guarding place.
But for now we all needed to eat and drink.
Chuck quickly laid out some flat rubber cushions for us to sit on; then he passed around complete-meal bars. We drank hot herb tea with them, except for Jeremy who said he’d make coffee to help him stay awake.
“No,” Hu told him then. “You go get some sleep. We’ll be up for a few hours more. We’ll wake you before we head into the tents.”
Nodding, Jeremy walked away to his and Cal’s tent; soon after, Cal disappeared into there too.
The four of us were now alone around the stove. It felt almost…cozy. Except for the black woods all around and the infinite bit of sky above.
The rain clouds had cleared, and now when I looked straight up, I could see them there: the bright points of stars, their silvery, web-like lines of light. I sighed….
“It’s incredible up there,” Tan said. “Well, up here, I mean.”
My eyes were still on the sky. “When I was little and my parents would take me to the smaller Astrals, at night I’d always jump up, thinking someday I’d finally touch a star. But now, well, I’d settle for getting near one.”
“Not much chance of that, Pia,” said Hu in a somber voice.
“Nothing wrong with trying for something you might never get,” Tan said then, his words sounding quite heated.
My head spun to him. He was staring down into the stove now, but I didn’t like the angry forward thrust of his mouth and shoulders.
Hu was sitting across from him on the other side of the stove. I watched her face change now; it went from tired to pensive, and quite instantaneously.
Then she said, “We’re never going to make it to our destination in the right frame of mind if we don’t clear the air between us.”
Tan’s head shot up, and his voice turned snide now. “Meaning?”
His brow immediately lowering, Chuck stirred against his cushion, and he seemed on the verge of rising.
But Hu shook her head at him fast. “No. Don’t interfere. Tan needs to say some things to me. I’d rather he got them out in the open now.”
At first it seemed Tan wasn’t going to respond. His mouth shook as if he were gritting his teeth behind his lips.
But then his mouth flattened, and he finally spat, “The fact is: you messed up my head. I was barely eighteen.”
Now their conversation continued as if Chuck and I had instantly disappeared into The Great Big Ether. Our mouths hanging open a bit powerlessly, we both silently stared at Tan and Hu as they back-and-forth discussed their past relationship.
“Yes,” Hu said to Tan, “and you were too young to deal with the ramifications—”
“Then you shouldn’t have been fucking around with me.”
“Hey…you wanted that too. You were of legal age, don’t forget.”
“So what? I wasn’t ready in the head.”
Her face turned slightly away from all of us. She seemed to hesitate in moving her mouth. “Maybe things would have gone differently if we’d met a few years later.”
“You mean when you were a wanted terrorist? Yeah. Right.”
Now she sighed, heavily, turning back to us, turning back to Tan. “I don’t feel the need to justify my life’s actions to you or anyone else. But in my life…I do regret some things I did. Some
things I don’t regret. …But they probably don’t count as much to others as the ones I do regret. I regret when I’ve hurt people I didn’t mean to hurt. I admit I’ve been drunk on power. And I don’t always make the best decisions then. I’m sorry for some things I’ve done then. I’m sorry for taking advantage of you, Tan. I’m sorry that when I felt I didn’t need you anymore, I dumped you without an explanation. You were too young still and I shouldn’t have done that.”
Tan nodded slowly, but he wouldn’t look at her and he didn’t speak anymore. We all sat there appearing a bit stunned. I also felt quite numb; that the stove’s heat output had decreased didn’t help matters….
Hu’s honesty in front of Chuck had really surprised me, but when I looked over at his face now, he seemed less angry than before. I got the feeling that Hu had explained some things to him privately before her public explanation. What she’d explained to him, I’d probably never know. And maybe that was a good thing.
*
Later, when we were in our tent and lying beside each other, Tan said in a soft voice, “I’m sorry for before—that you had to hear that. But it was better than my talking to her privately. Better for you and Chuck.”
I turned to him, but I couldn’t see even his outline in the pitch black. “You mean you thought of talking to her alone?”
There was an uncomfortable-for-me pause.
Then, from Tan: “Yes.”
“You’re right: better that you did it in the open,” I said, but I stilled when I said it.
*
When we woke up in the morning, a dull shaft of sunlight was shining through the single plastic tent window. Physically I felt rested, but mentally I was a bit of a wreck. I’d slept fitfully, during which I’d thought on the whole around-the-stove conversation more, and I didn’t like that Tan had wanted to meet with Hu privately.
“When did you feel like that?” I asked him now, but he had barely woken up and that had been the first thing I said to him today. My question had totally come out of nowhere.
