knees. The bottom was mostly dry sand, but his left knee managed to hit an exposed rock. A bolt of pain shot through Cobb’s body, and he stifled a cry. He sat back and pulled his pants leg up to take a look at his knee, but it was too dark to see anything. He could tell the kneecap wasn’t broken, but it was going to hurt like hell for a few days. Cobb groaned. The deck was already stacked against him, and now he had to walk on a bum knee. Then he remembered that in few days he would either be dead from exposure or killed by the Kirrians, so in the long run, it didn’t really matter. That cheered him up.
Between the dark and his hurt knee, Cobb decided he’d better wait until first light to continue his search for water. He curled up in a ball and tried to get some sleep. It was cold out and he was in pain, so sleep didn’t come easily. And when it did come, it was a tortured affair. He saw the faces of his squad mates burning and twisting into hideous shapes, and he saw the faces of the civilians he had passed in the village. Two of them look like his sister and mom. He woke up with a violent start, covered with sweat. It took several minutes for him to get his bearings and remember where he was. Disappointment washed through him as he realized that it had not been just a dream. And in case he hadn’t gotten the message, his aching knee helped bring him quickly back to reality.
The eastern sky was glowing a dull red that reflected off the clouds. He estimated about another hour before sunrise. Days on Kirria were about eighteen Earth hours long, which meant the nights were short, but Cobb had been here long enough to adjust to it. The Kirrians had their own way of telling time, but the Alliance used standard Earth time wherever they went, which made for very serious temporal conflicts between natives and the military.
He checked to make sure he had all of his things after last night’s fall. Confirming this, he lay back for a while, thinking about his dreams from the night before. He’d been so caught up in saving his own life yesterday that the loss of his company had not really sunk in. He didn’t have many friends, but the few he did have were in that company. He felt a pang of sorrow deep inside, but it was deep enough that Cobb knew it would probably never surface. Considering his chances, he thought he’d be joining them soon anyway. He didn’t know what to make of having seen his mother and sister in a Kirrian village, but he really didn’t have any more time to dwell on dreams. He had to get moving.
Moving in Cobb’s case was a relative term. His exertions during the previous day, the multiple cuts and bruises he’d sustained, and the damaged knee prevented him from moving any faster than a slow walk. His knee was giving him the most trouble, and he kept looking for something to use as a cane, but the area he was passing through was the same dry grassy plain he’d been in the day before. He knew he had to keep moving; if he stopped now, he would die.
Cobb had never been much of a nature fan, but he’d had survival training and had done some long-range hiking in his youth. He knew that birds fly toward water in the morning on Earth, and he figured that what passed for birds here would do the same. As he limped along, he watched the Kirrian birds, which were more like bats than birds, and noted that they were moving in the same direction he was, west. Thus, Cobb knew he was approaching water a good three kilometers before he spotted the tree line that marked the edge of the river. He moved as quickly as he could toward the trees.
As he approached the tree line, the combination of brown trunks, green leaves, and shadows reminded him of the tree line he had fired into just over a day ago. The thought made him edgy. He had little choice and, once in the shade, collapsed on the ground with his back leaning against a rotting tree stump. He had been walking for hours. Even though some of the soreness had worked its way out, there was still plenty left to keep him wincing. The coolness of the shade was refreshing, and, for a while, he drank it in like water. But it was not water, and his thirst drove him to get back on his feet. In just those few brief moments of relaxation, he had begun to stiffen up. Getting up was excruciating. He spotted a dead branch on the ground near him and grabbed it to help him stand. It held his weight in spite of its somewhat bent shape, and he thought it could serve as a staff, enabling him to move with less pain.
Cobb only had to walk about fifty meters to reach the bank of the stream. Upon reaching the edge of the water, he continued walking until he was in its middle. The water level was just over his hips; its coolness seemed to take away the pain. He looked down into the water to see that it was moving slowly from right to left and was clear enough to see dark rocks lying on the bottom. He could make out his image reflected in the moving water as distorted shapes that collectively gave him no clear picture of his appearance. If he hadn’t gotten his disguise right, he would know as soon as he confronted his first Kirrian. He leaned over and drank as deeply as he could. He could feel the cool water coursing down his throat, and he could feel it reviving his strength. He thought what an amazing feeling it is to drink when one is very thirsty; it was probably one of the most enjoyable things a person could experience. It also dawned on him that the water was probably polluted to some extent and might make him sick or even kill him. But at this point, it wasn’t like he had many options.
With his thirst satiated, food replaced water as Cobb’s highest priority. He knew he had to move on to the Kirrian village that he could just make out about two kilometers downstream on the opposite bank. He retraced his steps out of the water and back up the bank, slipping a few times and adding to his already dirty appearance. He moved toward the city, paralleling the river just inside the trees. There was some foot traffic and a few carts traveling on what he assumed was a road just on the other side of the river. When he was close to the city, he crossed the river and started limping down the road that ran into the village. He wanted to enter the village traveling down the road as if from a neighboring village, not to sneak in from across the stream.
His footfalls raised small clouds of dust from the dry road as if his feet were initiating miniature explosions. He could tell the village was not very large, maybe a thousand individuals, and the buildings appeared to have been made of the same dirt that was accumulating on his feet. From a distance, the village appeared to be a natural part of the landscape. As he got closer, he could make out the Kirrians moving among the buildings. They looked like laborers and farmers, and, though he hated them, it was fear he felt now more than anything. Cobb had no way of testing his disguise prior to actually being seen by Kirrians, so his initial test could very well be his last. He kept a steady, limping pace into the village while sweat soaked the bandages on his face and his hand slowly caressed the handle of his laser. If his disguise didn’t work, he really didn’t have a plan. He would just kill as many Kirrians as he needed to make his way back across the stream and lose himself in the woods. But he also knew that he would not last a day after that.
With his heart pounding in his ears, Cobb’s moment of truth passed with a whimper. An elderly woman, cleaning fish at the edge of the village, looked up at him for a few seconds and flashed him a toothless grin before returning unperturbed to her labors. As Cobb entered the village proper, several more Kirrians quickly repeated this same behavior. He breathed an internal sigh of relief that he had succeeded in becoming one of the army of invisible vagabonds wandering the countryside.
He knew a village of this size would have a central square and decided to move toward it. From there he could watch the traffic and capitalize on the larger concentration of people from which to beg. But he had never begged for anything before and needed to try out his routine before he got too far into the village. He brought out his bowl. Holding it out in front him, he approached a well-dressed Kirrian walking toward him at an angle. Again his heart was in his throat and his hand shook as he thrust the bowl toward the male. He tried to made guttural noises that sounded like Kirrian words. The male was middle-aged and wore clothes that indicated he was a merchant. The merchant was startled by the sudden appearance of this filthy apparition and qu
ickly began moving at right angles to his original direction. He spoke some Kirrian words and frantically waved his hand at Cobb as if to shoo him away. Cobb did not understand the words, but he definitely understood the hand signals. It meant he had successfully passed his second test, and his relief combined with the expression on the Kirrian’s face was almost enough to make him laugh. Almost.
As Cobb worked his way toward the center of town, he became more confident in his appearance and began to realize that in was not necessarily the quality of his disguise; it was that when Kirrians looked at him, they would avoid eye contact by quickly look away as if the sight of him was painful to them. In a way, it probably was. Maybe they saw him as a possible future for them, especially in a world where war was always at one’s doorstep. Whatever the reason, it kept them from closely scrutinizing him. He also began to refine his begging technique. Quickly approaching individuals tended to intimidate them and scare them off, but through trial and error, he found that by slowly approaching a person in a subservient
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