Sonata in Orionis (Earth Song Book 2)

by Mark Wandrey

  "We better go out and help them," Minu said and turned toward the water. And that was when she heard the whine of several turbines approaching.

  The three Broomsticks came swooping over the canyon rim, their riders searching the water below though their shiny helmet visors. The very simple craft resembled a motorcycle without wheels and two saddles and flared handlebars. Someone long ago, upon first seeing one, instantly dubbed them Broomsticks. In moments the first one swept down and the pilot snatched a floundering boy from the water. He dragged him up and draped him across the second saddle of the Broomstick, arms and legs dangling over either side, and turned to race away. One of the others rescued a second boy just as the other four candidates were coming ashore not far from where Minu and her team stood. Of course that was when she realized she was still naked. As if she'd been reading her mind, Cherise handed over her backpack and Minu quickly fished out her extra pair of clothes. Aaron was doing the same.

  The scream of the impellers on the first two Broomsticks was fading over the canyon rim while the third hovered over the river for a moment. Minu looked at those trudging toward shore and felt a dark spot grow in the pit of her stomach. They were Ivan and his group. He spotted her a second later and the look of anger etched on his face turned to one of plotting. The pilot of the Broomstick guided his craft over to land next to Minu.

  "You the bugs that crawled down the rope last night?"

  "Yes, Chosen," she answered quickly.

  He just nodded his head and gave them all a quick once over before dismounting and walking to meet Ivan.

  "That was a dirty trick," Ivan snarled at the Chosen.

  "Shut up, you piss ant bug," the Chosen snapped back. Ivan jerked like he'd been punched. Growing up a Malovich meant privileged and position, one simply didn't yell at one of his status. Minu felt a little smile creep across her face.

  "How were we supposed to overcome that challenge?" one of the others in Ivan's group complained.

  "Didn't you see the other bridge cut?" demanded the Chosen. "You can't be blind; you're looking at me now." A couple boys nodded, Ivan showed nothing. "So if you saw the other bridge, you should have been suspicious. This other group knew better, they climbed down instead of taking the bridge. Fuck, at least the earlier group was smart enough on the first bridge to only send one person over. Their losses were minimized."

  "It's not fair," Ivan renewed his same complaint.

  "Whoever told you the universe was fair?" The Chosen removed eight drags from his pouch, two for each of them, and passed out the punishments. They all already wore at least one, two had what looked like three each. One of them stared at the two new drags in despair and just dropped them at his feet. "Put them on bug." The boy shook his head. "Put them on or quit."

  "I quit."

  "Fine with me. Go wait by my Broomstick. What about you?" he asked the other boy with three drags already on his ankles. The boy dropped his too and turned to follow the first. The Chosen laughed at their backs. "And you two?" Ivan and his only remaining follower began clicking their two new drags in place. "Hey, what about those?" the Chosen asked and pointed at the four discarded drags.

  "Those aren't ours," Ivan said and pointed at the two boys now sitting on the sand next to the pilot less broomstick, "they were theirs."

  "Who was the leader of your little group?"

  "I am the leader, but-"

  "No buts, boy. You lead, you take the biggest risk. Put them on, now."

  "If I'm in charge, what if I make him wear them all?" The boy next to Ivan stared at him in shock for a moment before answering in a thick Rusk accent.

  "You do dat and you are on your own."

  "Fine," Ivan said and picked up the other four drags. "You take half." He handed two to him. The other boy looked about to complain, Ivan stood up to his full height and glared at him.

  "Very vell," he said and took them.

  "Great," the Chosen said. "Now that we understand the way things work, you can get back to what you're supposed to be doing."

  "And what is that?" asked Ivan. The Chosen laughed at him and walked back to his craft. A Broomstick, one of the two from the earlier rescue came swooping back into the valley and came into a landing next to the other one.

  "Chosen," Minu called out. "Can I ask a question?"

  "You just did."

  "Of course, can I ask you two more questions?"

  The man turned and smirked, then nodded his head. "Go ahead."

  "What would have happened if more than three boys were drowning?"

  "Then one of them would have finished drowning." He mounted his craft, situated the first boy who'd quit in front of him on the saddle, and flung his craft into the air. With a final scream of turbines, the two craft roared out of the canyon and left them alone once more. Only now Ivan and a his last ally were there with them.

  Minu looked at him, no longer as smug or cocky as before, and then at his legs. Three drags on one leg, two on the other. The other boy exceeded that with three on each. Minu and her group carried only one each. Ivan noticed this as well. She turned and led her people back toward their camp. But she couldn't resist looking over her shoulder as she went. Ivan stood with his sole remaining ally and watched them go, his face an unreadable mask.

  Chapter 12

  Julast 31th, 516 AE

  Squeen Archeological Dig, GBX49881, Galactic Frontier

  For three days Minu and her friends followed the river along its path as the canyon snaked through the desert. The nights weren't too cold, and the days weren't too hot, It was the most comfortable they'd been in the Trials thus far. As the river proceeded the canyon was becoming more and more narrow, and the river swifter and swifter.

  In the beginning they were able to forage for edible plants, now with less dry ground it was becoming scarce. And the fishing, while plentiful, was becoming a dangerous operation. The swift current made even ankle deep water treacherous. That morning Pip was almost swept out into the deep water. They found him hanging onto rock by his finger tips and screaming for help. After that Minu limited fishing to only the increasingly rare eddy pools intermittently found by large rocks.

  And of course there was Ivan and his crony. Every time they looked the two boys were within sight, following their every move while staying a reasonable distance back. They never got close enough to be considered a threat or tried to talk to them. They were just there. It forced them to keep a guard each night lest the two should cause some mischief while the friends slept.

  "Maybe we should have gone the other way," Minu admitted that night as they ate their meager dinner.

  "The river flows away from the mountain," Cherise reminded her "going back would be a waste of time."

  The survival supplies were almost gone and the group was trying to eat as much off the land as they could. Two smallish trout and a couple handfuls of edible nuts was the sum of today’s harvest. Minu broke out a ration pack and added it to the mix. They had four left. Each packet was meant to feed one man for one day. Worse yet, the fuel for the little stove was depleted. They'd used most of it to stay warm up in the mountain cave anyway. The ax provided them with wood, when they could find some, but now it was all green and often stubbornly refused to burn. Sometimes there was dry drift wood from previous floods, but not that night. They ate the fish raw and that further degraded their moral. Pip complained incessantly.

  "Never liked sushi," he grumbled, "even when it was an expensive treat."

  "We almost never cook fish when we find it," Cherise said. The others ate in silence. Every day as they moved they searched for a way to climb the canyon walls and escape the trap they'd found themselves in.

  "If we just found some climbing gear in that footlocker," Pip mumbled and gagged on some fish. He'd already bragged more than once of his rock climbing prowess. He'd even messed with some of their equipment in the hopes of improvising something, but none of their scant metal was designed to support any weight. Minu said flatly it was
too dangerous.

  That night they heard the first signs of any wildlife. Gregg was on watch when a reverberating distant roar woke the others from the depths of their sleep. Remus had already passed over and the night was very dark. Minu blinked away sleep and wondered what made that sound.

  "Oh shit," Gregg whispered. Minu looked to see his dim outline standing and scanning the walls of the canyon.

  "What is it?" Pip asked, his voice almost a squeak in the dark. Minu knew by his reaction what it must be.

  "Kloth," Cherise whispered.

  "Where?" Minu asked.

  "Can't tell," Gregg said as he cocked an ear down the canyon. The roar echoed again and this time he spun and closed his eyes, obviously concentrating hard. The scene would have been almost comical in the total darkness of the canyon if they hadn't known what was out there. "Back the way we came," he said finally.

  "How far?" she asked.

  "Some ways," he said as the echo came again, "maybe back where we came in."

  "How did it get in the canyon?" Aaron asked.

  "Maybe it fell?" Cherise suggested.

  "Or it entered back farther on in the mountains," Minu thought aloud.

  "If it fell it could be hurt," Pip said hopefully.

  "Let’s hope not," Gregg told him, finally turning back to face them after the last roar echo fell silent.

  "Why?"

  "Because a hurt kloth is twice as dangerous as a healthy one. Their metabolism is linked to food. When they get hurt, they eat everything in sight to build up a store and fix their bodies. They'll attack things that normally they'd pass up."

  "Like?" Minu asked.

  "Cars, houses, other kloth, you name it." They all sat or stood and looked back the way they'd come. Suddenly sleep didn't seem like such a good idea. "We better get going," he suggested finally, "keep looking for a way up. Even a ledge a few meters up would be enough; they can't raise their heads more than ten degrees." Be grabbed his pack and turned back the way they'd come.

  “Maybe it will eat Ivan and his buddy,” Pip said hopefully. Minu would have chastised his attitude if she didn't feel the same.

  "Where are you going?" Cherise asked Gregg, grabbing his arm. He'd shouldered his pack and was looking in the direction of the kloth.

  He looked back at her and gave a bright smile. "I'm gonna see how far behind us the beast is," he said and gently removed her hand from his bicep. Before he let her go he gave the hand a little kiss and touched her cheek. "Kloth aren't dangerous," he said and turned to go, "not if you now how to deal with them."

  "Be careful," Cherise implored him.

  "And be quick too," Minu added as she got her gear together. "We won't move too quickly so you can't catch up."

  "Don't slow up on my account. If it is moving this way, I'll have a strong motivation to catch you." Minu shook her head as she shouldered her pack. It was hard to imagine purposely going toward a monster like that. Still, Aaron grew up with the monstrous lizards. If anyone in the group was qualified to do what he was volunteering to do, it was Gregg.

  "Let's get going," she told them and led the way. Cherise waited and extra moment, watching as Gregg’s shadowy figure jogged back up the riverbank the way they'd come and was quickly swallowed by night. With a sigh, she turned and joined the others.

  * * *

  Minu was worried and a little scared. The riverbank was giving all the indications that it would soon disappear entirely. Twice already they'd been forced to wade across deep stretches of dangerously swirling water before coming to dry land again. It was three hours since Gregg left to go back and investigate the kloth roars. The idea was his, and as leader she hadn't tried to stop him. Now she was thinking that had been an error. She failed to even think about Ivan and his cohort lurking in their shadows. Would they dare to physically attack one of her people so brazenly? After thinking on it she was certain they would.

  They came to another stretch of water, this one only a few meters wide, and took a break while Aaron probed its depths with a walking stick he'd fashioned from a piece of drift wood. Cherise would occasionally look back the way they'd come, obviously hoping to catch of glimpse of Gregg. Minu knew there was something real between the two now, and hoped it wouldn't become a liability. Then she chastised herself for even thinking that.

  "Not too deep," Aaron pronounced and began wading across. He used his stick to help his footing until he'd reached the other side. "Piece of cake," he announced upon reaching climbing back out of the water.

  "Shut up about cake, will you?" Pip began navigating the water next after giving Aaron a sour look. "Anything but raw fish and nuts would be good just now."

  "Not much chance of more nuts," Cherise said and gestured to their surroundings. The river was swifter and two tiny strips of land on either side was all that remained of the shore. They’d passed a handful of small waterfalls that all added their volume to the growing river as well. As Minu crossed the water she thought the river spray was getting her hair wet. Then she heard Pip groan and realized it was something else.

  "Rain," Aaron said, stating the obvious for all of them. In the distance behind them the kloth roared its disapproval of the change in climate.

  "They don't like rain," Cherise told them, "many will run for miles when it rains, searching for tree cover or shelter.

  "Why they don't like water," Aaron wondered aloud.

  "Would you like water if you were long, narrow, walked on your belly and couldn't lift your head?" Minu thought Cherise had a point.

  "Did it sound closer?" Pip asked. "I think it sounds closer," he mumbled when no one ventured a guess.

  They continued onward slowly. Not only was the bank narrow, they were further slowed by large rocks. Boulders really, some two or more meters across. Minu wondered at the type of force it took to roll those massive rocks this far from the mountains. The walls of the canyon, now well over a hundred fifty meters high, were smooth and it seemed unlikely the boulders fell from there. They came around a bend in the river, the rain now a steady drumbeat on their already wet heads. "That's just perfect," Pip spat when he saw what lay ahead.

  The river finished a sharp turn and came up against a large piece of land. On this land was a massive pile of logs and other debris washed into the corner by some past flood of the river. It was so massive it overhung the side of the river, presenting an obstacle that looked impossible to climb.

  "What do we do, boss?" Aaron asked as they approached the mountain of snags and stumps. There were even a few entire trees, their roots intertwined like a dead pile of spiders.

  "We wait to see how Gregg fairs." With nothing more to say, they all found a comfortable place to sit and wait.

  The sun finally climbed over the canyon rim, and eventually began to set again with no end to the waiting, or the rain. Minu helped them set up a lean to using a pair of shelter halves draped over logs protruding from the huge snag pile. At least they didn't have to sit in the rain. They each sat and passed the time differently. Cherise watching for Gregg's return, Pip reading an old book from memory (a hobby of his), Aaron tossing rocks into the now raging river, and Minu trying to think of a way out of their predicament that didn't include turning around and going back.

  Aaron threw another rock and instead of the splash she was expecting it was a loud cracking sound. She turned to see he was targeting a large branch floating by. Throw after powerful throw was dead on target.

  "You have a great arm," she told him.

  "Thanks. I spent a lot of time as a little kid chasing howlers out of the olive groves. They love green olives." Another larger log came down river and became the newest target. She watched it float by and suddenly had an idea.

  "Damn it," she cursed and looked around at all the broken trees. "How is the ax holding up?"

  "It's dualloy," Pip reminded her, "it will be around long after we're gone. What do you have in mind?"

  Minu went around gathering a handful of small twigs and bringing them back
under the shelter. She found some long stringy bark and began to build her little project. It was only for demonstration and was done in a few minutes. "This is how we get passed the blockage," Minu told them and with a flourish she sat it in the water and the current quickly took it away.

  "It's kinda small," Aaron said, his chin in his hand as he watched it move away.

  "We'll make it bigger," Minu said with an exasperated tone to her voice. Aaron blushed and threw another rock. Pip just laughed and made a funny face at Aaron's back.

  "We’re going to float down river on a raft?" Cherise asked. Minu could tell by her voice that she found the prospect dubious at best.

  "I don't see why not. Back on earth people sailed across oceans on rafts. We only need to go a few kilometers." There was precious little shipping on Bellatrix owing to the lack of large oceans. There was some along rivers and the small equatorial sea. Minu could tell from the look on Cherise's face that the idea of floating on a raft was at the very least a frightening prospect, at the worst terrifying. "You do swim, right?"

  "Of course," Cherise said then mumbled something at her feet.

  "I didn't catch that?"

  "I said I sorta swim," Cherise snapped, her face livid. Minu gawked at her. "I managed to qualify the swimming course by five seconds to spare. I dog paddle really well. Better than Gregg, anyway."

  "But how come you-" Pip started to ask.

  "I'm from the desert, asshole," Cherise snapped. Minu knew from experience that Aaron swam, but she wondered about Gregg. His past demonstration showed his lack of ability. How common was a water crossing in the nomadic life of a trader?

  "Don't worry about it," Minu told her friend, "I'm certain we won't have to actually swim. That's why we're going to build a raft, right?"