The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1)

by Michael Beckum

  Thrashing terribly, the panther man moved faster than I could have believed possible, just as the plesiosaur churned through the surface near where he’d just been. The Angara shot a horrified glance over his shoulder, then splashed frantically toward us once more. As he reached for the boat, I reached for him. All four of our hands locked before the plesiosaur returned, and hit him like a freight train.

  It took us both straight up into the air, launching a good fifteen feet into the clear, blue sky. I hung there for what felt like minutes, in shock, in terror, and saw even greater fear on the face of the Angara. For several heartbeats there was no sound, no movement, and it was as if the universe had begun moving in slow motion, droplets of water hanging suspended all around us, drifting like beads of glass. The Angara stared straight into my eyes, what was left of his face shifting from fear, to horror, to the blank and emotionless expression of the dead, and that’s when I saw the crystalline beads of red float by.

  It felt like the moment would go on forever, but it ended abruptly, and I slammed back down onto the floor of the tiny canoe practically on top of Nala, almost capsizing the boat, nearly toppling the brown man over into the deadly waters surrounding us.

  The Angara still gripped my hands, his blank eyes staring sightlessly into mine. I moved, but they didn’t follow me. I knelt, and struggled to free my hands from his desperate grasp, barely noticing the flow of red that swirled around my legs, and filled the bottom of the canoe, surrounding Nala’s body. Once upright I could see that the bottom half of the panther man was entirely gone.

  “Quickly,” the brown man ordered, leaning down and gripping the heavy half of an Angara along with me. “Into the water. It will keep the monster busy so we can escape.”

  Moving with all the speed I could manage, but a little woodenly, still in shock, I did as he suggested and helped him toss the lifeless piece of Angara hunter into the water alongside the canoe. I stared blankly as his body bobbed oddly, drifting and rolling over to reveal that lifeless, blank expression, and then something black ripped by, the Angara’s torso jerked, and the sightless eyes stared at me no more as the head abruptly disappeared.

  “Sit,” the brown man commanded, and I did.

  He rowed frantically, checking occasionally over his shoulder to make certain the plesiosaur wasn’t following. I couldn’t take my eyes off the scene as darkened lumps broke the now almost placid surface near the Angara, and another chunk of torso vanished beneath the waves. The process repeated itself over and over until I couldn’t imagine there was anything left.

  I turned to my new companion, who looked very sad, his eyes down on Nala.

  I bent over to be closer to her, taking her hand in mine. She gripped my fingers again, but not with the strength she’d had before. I checked the spear. There were no bubbles around the wound. Maybe she hadn’t pierced a lung. She was still alive so her heart must be beating. I shook my head. What did it mean? Could I do anything to help her? Anything at all?

  “Bran… don?” she asked, only able to speak in syllables between gasping breaths, her eyes staring sightlessly at the inside of the canoe. Bloody water pooled in the bottom of the boat all around her, and she shivered from cold. “Bran… don?”

  “Nala?” I said, lying beside her and wrapping my arms around her to warm her. “I’m here.”

  “Did… you… find… your… mate…? Did… you… find… your… mate…?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “But… you… will. You… will. She… is… out… there. You… love… her… too… much.”

  “Don’t talk, Nala.”

  “I… wan… ted… to… be… loved… that… much. I… wan… ted… to… be… loved… that…”

  Her breathing slowed, and finally stopped. I kissed her cheek, and felt the tears in my eyes as I closed hers.

  * * *

  THE CHUTANGA

  * * *

  I SAT BACK ON THE bench of the boat, and stared down at Nala’s now lifeless body, feeling strangely guilty for not being able to give her what she wanted. Her annoying personality seemed unimportant given her short life and violent end. As I’d been doing since I arrived in Pangea I began to question everything I believed about right and wrong, good and evil, social mores and social conventions. Based on what Nala and others had told me since I’d arrived here, Nova might not even have minded my sharing a little pleasure with her given the world she understood, especially knowing how brutal Nala’s death had been. But I knew for certain that my love for Nova—as I knew and felt love—wouldn’t allow me to be ‘unfaithful’ to her, and yet somehow that noble attitude made me feel strangely cruel at this particular moment.

  Ironically, it was my restraint and devotion that had seemed to appeal to Nala most.

  With these complicated and unpleasant thoughts came the startling, life-altering realization that our lives—our entire existences—were without meaning in the grand design of the world and the universe around it. Ultimately what difference did any tiny, inconsequential choice matter in the multi-billions of years journey the stars and planets took through the cosmos? The entirety of human existence was a pop, a blip, on an infinite timeline. Our individual lives even less.

  We could be snuffed out without warning, and for a few brief days our friends would speak of us in quiet whispers with downturned faces. Within days, as the first worms were already testing the stability of our coffins, those same friends would be pleasantly watching television, only occasionally distracted by poignant memories of some minor way we’d touched their lives, while living even less impactful existences than the ones the dead had just left behind.

  None of it mattered.

  Not the worries, nor the doubts, nor the fears, nor the concerns about failure, or success, or money, or cars, or clothes, or houses, or colleges, or jobs, or plans for the future… what I got, what you didn’t, did I look stupid, did I make a fool of myself, do they hate me, do you love me, was I right, were you wrong, should we wait before sex, should we fuck on the street, did you hurt me, did I hurt you, he said, she said, they said, nobody said.

  All that mattered was what meant the most to me right now, right this endless Pangean second, and that was love. All I cared about were my friends. All that had meaning for me… was them. Milton. Elia. Bruk.

  Nala. Yes. Even Nala. Right now—in this moment—I loved her for having given me this revelation.

  But mostly I loved Nova. Loved, and cared, and worried for her… wanted to make her happy, make her safe, keep her with me to love for as long possible, and if not, then to treasure the few memories we’d had. These were the only things that gave my pitiful, inconsequential, meaningless life meaning.

  “I’m sorry,” the brown man said, simply.

  I looked up at him, rowing, and realized I had forgotten he was there. I was now entirely within the power of the man whose boat I had stolen, and I had forgotten he was there. He stared into my eyes with sadness and sympathy, and I hoped it was sincere.

  “Thank you,” I said to him.

  “She was very beautiful. She was your mate?”

  “We barely knew each other.”

  “You did a lot for a dead woman you barely knew.”

  “Dead woman?”

  “She was dead before you put her in this boat, and yet…”

  “I didn’t know she was definitely going to die. I guess I hoped…” I wiped another tear and thought about how irritating she’d been during our journey. Had it all been real? It seemed so distant, and stupid, now. I shook my head and tried not to think about how much I’d disliked her. It seemed wrong and disrespectful, but…

  “We escaped…” I began.

  “… from the Grigori. I know. You speak the slave language, as do I.”

  “You’re an escaped slave, too?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, and looked past me, apparently not feeling inclined to explain further.

  As he watched the waters behind me, I checked the inside of the boa
t, and saw spears wedged under the seat of the canoe near Nala’s body, too tightly jammed in to have been much help in the fight with the plesiosaur, but given there was time to get them now, they could easily be used against me, if it was what this tall man wanted. After a moment of consideration, I looked at my companion, and saw him staring at me with an odd smile on his face.

  “Curious about my spears?” he asked.

  I said nothing.

  “What interests you about them?”

  “Just wondering if you might use one to run me through,” I replied.

  “Why would I do that?” he asked. “You just saved my life.”

  “But I also stole your boat.”

  He shrugged.

  “My life is more valuable than my boat,” he said.

  He smiled again, and continued rowing. I returned his grin. We’d gone quite a way over the placid sea and I could see him studying me with questioning eyes.

  “Who are you,” he asked after a while, his brows furrowed. “What land do you come from?”

  I stared a bit myself, then answered simply, “Pasadena.”

  He furrowed a brow, obviously never having heard of it before, I shook my head, and tried to explain about the outer world I’d come from.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, just say so,” he said when I’d finished.

  We floated along in silence a while longer before he spoke again.

  “Why did you try to help that Angara?”

  I thought about it a moment, then simply shrugged.

  “I met an Angara recently who… he helped me. Made me think differently about things. I thought…” I considered what I was going to say next, and realized I had no idea. “I don’t know,” I said, finally.

  More silence, and then:

  “What about you?” I asked. “Who are you, and where are you from?”

  He looked at me in surprise.

  “I am a Chutanga, as you can see. My name is Zash.”

  “You say that like I should know what a Chutanga is.”

  “Because everyone does. I can’t believe you don’t. Maybe you are from outside Pangea.”

  I smiled.

  “The Chutanga,” he continued, “live on the islands of the central sea—the Usayasa Um. I don’t know about other islands on other seas, but this is the central sea, and one of the largest. We are well known. My people are legendary for their height and their color, as well as for being a fairly peaceful people who were once slaves to the Grigori, but are now free. Legendary among most Pangeans, anyway.”

  I looked him over more carefully for the first time, really. I saw that his skin wasn’t so much brown, as a dark bronze color, like a gold dusted African. His hair had a tightly curled texture, like many black men I’d known back on Earth’s surface, but it was lighter in color, an almost copper blonde. Overall, he was a damn fine looking human being.

  “We’re fishermen,” Zash continued. “which is probably obvious—though we’re known as excellent hunters as well. I’d just gone to the mainland for some Hajet, you know. They’re not native to our islands, and my wife loves them.”

  I must have been staring at him blankly, because he felt the need to explain.

  “Hajet,” he said, as if no one could be as stupid as I obviously was. “Little furry creatures that are kind of a delicacy, and not easy to find. Their meat is very tender when cooked properly and tastes wonderful.”

  “Ill have to try it someday,” I said.

  “Well… not anytime soon. I tossed mine aside when I saw that Angara. It was tough catching that many, let me tell you.” He paused, lamenting his loss, shaking his head.

  “Everyone knows and fears the Angara, I take it.”

  “Not my people, so much. We’re big—nearly as big as they are, and fierce. But that one back there was really big, and he looked angry. What did you do to him?”

  “I split his face with an axe. Dropped a wall of rocks on his head. Killed two of his friends.”

  “Mmm. That would make anyone angry. And then you tried to help him. Strange.”

  Again, I just shrugged.

  “You’re an odd man. What is your name?”

  “Brandon Mack.”

  “Well, Brandon the Mack…” he said, smiling, “thank the gods for your weird point of view. It led you to save me, as well. Our meeting may have been a little unusual, but it seems to have been destined. We’re alive, and I will once again see my wife and family.”

  I suddenly remembered the whole reason for tricking and killing the Angara, and for dropping the wall of rocks. I turned around, frantically searching the bottom of the boat. I didn’t see it! Not anywhere!

  “Are you looking for this?” Zash asked.

  I looked, and he held up the silver device I wanted so desperately. He handed it to me gently, and I took it as if it were the most valuable thing in the world. Which, to me, it was.

  “You dropped it along with the oar when you went to save the Angara. What is it?”

  “Something that tracks slaves of the Grigori. It’s the whole reason I killed the other two in the first place. My whole reason for being, right now. I’m hoping it will lead me to my…” I stopped and considered it for a minute. “To the woman I love, and hope to make my wife.”

  Zash smiled.

  “Ah,” he said. “As good a reason as any for dropping rocks on Angara heads. Does it work? Will it lead you to your woman?”

  I looked at the little screen, wiping blood off the face of it. I turned the knob that widened its view, saw the outline of the shore, the islands behind us, and continued adjusting until I saw nearly the entire sea. Finally another dot appeared on the curving edge of a peninsula to our right. A single red light, with two blue ones nearby.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “It shows an escaped slave, but I don’t know if it’s her or not.”

  “Well, you must go and be sure. Where is she?”

  “That way.” I pointed. “That peninsula, and a little in. Back on the mainland.”

  He looked in the direction I’d indicated, and nodded.

  “Sa Fasi. Home of the Nyala.”

  “Yes!” I said, suddenly enthusiastic, remembering Sa Fasi had been Nova’s home.

  “It’s not hard to reach,” Zash said. “There are two islands between here and there. Mine is only a little further—right there. You can eat and rest with me, then begin your search, once refreshed.”

  “I’ll go as soon as we land.”

  “You will drop from exhaustion as soon as we land,” Zash said, grinning. “I know that look.”

  “If I sleep the Angara will come for me.”

  Zash shook his head.

  “Not on the islands. Did you ever see one of my kind when you were a slave?”

  I shook my head.

  “No,” Zash said. “You wouldn’t. Long ago, when Pangea was young, the Angara would often attempt to make us slaves because we were big and strong and could do hard work. They had taken many of us, and preferred us over the other tribes of Pangea.

  “The story goes that once, long ago, a massive raiding party landed on our shores. But this time, everyone united; friend, enemy, man, woman, child. We fought so fiercely, and so desperately, slew so many Angara that there were barely any left to take people prisoner, though they did manage to make off with a few. Those of my people that were taken back to the Grigori cities refused, this time, to bow down, and others of our people who were already slaves rose up with them. They killed even more Angara and so many Grigori right in their own cities that at last the flying beasts learned it was better to leave us alone than try to make us theirs. When they released the hundreds of other captured Chutanga, the slave language became one of our tongues.

  “Eventually—with slaves doing all the work—the Grigori became too lazy to even catch their own fish, and so they realized they needed us as merchants to supply their needs. Soon a truce was made between the races. Now they give us certain things that we need, metal an
d other items, and we give them certain things, and the Chutanga and the Grigori live in peace.”

  “What things do you provide them?” I asked.

  Zash considered an answer, then shrugged and looked away, apparently deciding it was better not to.

  “Do you provide them with people?” I asked. “To eat?”

  “We do not provide them. But the Grigori bring them.”

  “And you allow this?”

  He shrugged again.

  “They are not our people,” he said. “It does disturb me, but it’s better than the alternative of Grigori feeding on Chutanga.”

  “Do Grigori eat babies?”

  He tried not to show it, but I could tell I’d hit on a truth, one that bothered him more than he was willing to admit. His ‘admission’ made me think of something. Something unsettling.

  “I never saw any Chutanga, back in Emibi,” I said, “but I also never saw any children.”

  Zash continued his silence.

  “Or… pregnant women,” I fairly whispered.

  Still nothing.

  “Do they eat the mothers, as well?” I asked.

  Zash didn’t speak. But his intense stare was answer enough.

  “I’ll need to return to Emibi,” I said, realizing I could no longer leave Milton and Elia to the ‘safety’ of the Grigori city. “I have to rescue a friend of mine and his mate before their child is born, and the Grigori bring it here to…”

  Zash continued to row, but his jaw had set and his eyes focused, not on the horizon in front of him, but at the stormy thoughts gathering in his head.

  “I will, Zash,” I said. “rescue them, I mean. I won’t let them die.”

  “I believe you.”

  “And then I will kill every last one of those evil fucking Grigori,” I continued with fury, “and wipe the entire race off the face of Pangea.”

  Zash was a tall, thin but well-muscled man, standing a good six foot six, or six foot seven. He had a full, rounded nose and that copper-blonde hair, loosely tied in a thick ponytail. His face was chiseled, with prominent cheekbones, a strong jaw, large, full lips, and gold-flecked, gentle, eyes. All in all, he was an impressive, good-looking man, and he spoke well and thoughtfully.