SWEET HOME ALLE BAMMA (SOLBIDYUM WARS SAGA)

by Musser, Dale

  Then it seemed that the tree was shaking; and I heard Kerabac’s voice.

  “Wake up, Tibby. Hotyona is gone.”

  I opened my eyes to the daylight streaming in through the narrow opening in the tree trunk. The last set of reeds we lit in the night before falling asleep were burnt to the ground and barely smoldering.

  “What happened?” I asked groggily.

  “We fell asleep and now Hotyona is gone. I just woke up and he’s nowhere to be seen. I looked outside in the immediate area; but I don’t think we dare call out his name or the troopers might hear us. I don’t know if he’s wandering aimlessly, still under the effect of the drug, but there’s no doubt that he’s nowhere nearby.”

  “Is it still raining?”

  “No, it stopped sometime before I woke up and the remaining clouds are thin. By the looks of the shadows, it’s been daylight for hours.”

  “Can you see Hotyona’s tracks? Maybe we can we follow them,” I asked.

  “Wait here. Let me look,” Kerabac slipped outside and soon returned. “Yes, I can see his tracks.”

  As Kerabac and I began to trace Hotyona’s steps, it was obvious that he was still not fully functional, as his tracks weaved back and forth, periodically looping in small circles. We traveled about a half kilometer from the tree, when suddenly the tracks stopped in the middle of a broad patch of mud, as though he had vanished into thin air. Kerabac and I stood dumbfounded as we tried to sort out the mystery, when suddenly I saw a small feathered dart sticking from Kerabac’s neck. Within a couple of seconds he began to drop to the ground; and as I reached to grab him, I felt the sting of a needle in my own neck.

  The next thing I recall was hearing chants inside my head; and for a moment I thought I was dreaming again. Everything was so dark that I couldn’t discern what was around me. Slowly the world came into focus and I found myself looking at a band of natives dancing about, singing and chanting. Most of them were naked, save for headbands woven from plant fibers, strips of bark or leather. The faces of the natives were devoid of eyebrows and the lenticular shaped eyes that gazed at me as they danced were a bit unnerving, to say the least. I also noted that they had a pair of catlike fangs in their upper jaw and a complementary pair of smaller ones in the lower jaw; but their other teeth appeared to be flat and more like the molars of a human. This was a feature neither Kerabac nor Hotyona had mentioned. As I came out of my stupor, I realized that I was tied to the branch of an I’aban tree. I looked to my right to see both Kerabac and Hotyona likewise tied to tree branches. We appeared to be high in the air on a platform of about 30 square meters built into the fork of the tree trunk. Kerabac appeared to be unconscious and Hotyona was most certainly still under the influence of the hallucinogenic plant from the day before, as he was still mumbling and gazing into space. He seemed to be a bit more alert than yesterday, but he was no doubt unaware of what was taking place.

  A small elderly woman wearing a woven headdress separated herself from the congregation of dancing natives to approach me. She had an air of authority about her that hinted at her status as a tribal leader.

  “Why you come to Sweet Home?” she said. “Why you make children of Thumumba harvest sacred plant, make them do wrong things, make them work with binding around neck? Why you destroy trees of Thumumba, make big ugly place and hurt and kill children of Thumumba?”

  I was immediately able to reply in the broken universal Bammaspeak that I learned via the headband device.

  “We not do wrong things. Other men – bad men –make ugly places and bind children of Thumumba. Bad men our enemies. They not men like us and we not bad like them,” I answered.

  “You lie! You look like them. You smell like them.” She gestured toward Hotyona, “See your brother take sacred plant and dream the dreams of Thumumba without guidance. Forbidden by Thumumba to take without guidance of elder.”

  “He take sacred plant as accident. He not know your sacred plant. He make mistake. He taste only drop on tongue. He not know.”

  “Why he do such thing if he not know? You lie! You come to Sweet Home from sky like others. Take and destroy, hurt and kill children!”

  “No,” I protested. “We seek eggs of Slow Mover to make cure (I used Slow Mover, realizing as I spoke the word that it was the name the natives used for the ruguian). Must save friend who is poisoned.”

  “Where is friend? We watch you three days now. We see no friend. You lie.”

  “Friend not here. She lay sick in house in the sky.”

  In spite of my efforts, the elder clearly found my answers to be incredulous. She came close to my face and squinted her angular eyes at me. “How friend get poison on house in sky?”

  “From bad men who bind children of Thumumba, who cut sacred plant and destroy Sweet Home. They try kill her and me, stab with poison from Slow Mover. Now she sick and face death if we not gather Slow Mover eggs and mix medicine cure.”

  “You lie. You say you poisoned by Slow Mover poison. Why you not dead or sick?”

  “I no tell lie. I poisoned too. See scar on arm? Slow Mover poison stabbed into skin from bad men blade, but I not die.”

  “Only children protected by Thumumba not die. You lie, man. You not child of Thumumba. Thumumba not save you. You lie!”

  She then turned to one of the natives standing nearby and said, “Bring Slow Mover.”

  The native quickly ran off and the woman turned back to me. “We see if you lie or not lie. If you lie, you die and friends die, too.”

  The native that she sent off reappeared carrying a woven basket covered with a lid that had a long thorn protruding from the center of it. She pulled the thorn free, reached into the basket, and extracted a ruguian. Holding it firmly in one hand, she stuck the thorn into the ruguian, sliding it up the creature’s back just under the skin. The ruguian squirmed in an effort to free himself, but it could not escape her grasp. Then she extracted the thorn.

  “Now we see, man, if you lie!” She stabbed me with the thorn, first into one arm and then the other.

  The chanting suddenly stopped and everyone on the platform stood still and dead silent. I looked at Kerabac and saw that he had also regained consciousness, but I had no idea how long he had been awake or how much he had heard.

  “What do you think is going to happen?” I said to Kerabac.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “If you live like before, it will be a huge shock for them, I assure you; but what they do after that is beyond my ability to guess.”

  I looked at the woman before me who stood in silence with the rest of the tribe, watching and waiting. After a few minutes I felt the familiar wave of illness that overcame me when Kala and I were poisoned on Plosaxen. For a moment I felt like I might black out like I did the first time. I looked at the old woman to see a smile on her face as though she had proven me a liar and that she and her people were witnessing my death. I knew that ruguian poison did not kill quickly. From what I learned from A’Lappe and the medics, the poison acted by rendering one unconscious relatively quickly, after which the victim would fall into a coma for several days before dying.

  The natives continued to watch me in silence; and after a few minutes I began to improve.

  Kerabac asked, “How you holding up, Tibby?”

  “Okay,” I answered. “I felt a bit ill for a few minutes and thought I might black out, but now I’m starting to feel better again.”

  I could see that some of the natives were starting to get nervous and were commenting and whispering to each other in a hushed panic. “He not die! He not fall into death sleep!” they murmured.

  A look of amazement replaced the smug smile on the elder’s face as I quickly rebounded from the ill effects of the toxin. For a brief moment I felt dizzy again and thought I was about to pass out. I looked up to see the tall figure of what I believed to be Thumumba walking toward me through the gathered crowd of natives. It was clear that the elderly woman and natives did not see this figure among them. When Thumumb
a reached my side, I heard the familiar whisper in my ear, “Aye ucombey nortelia Thumumba. Telalle aye eugoray seballe!”

  Intuitively I knew what to do next. I looked at the old woman and repeated, “Aye ucombey nortelia Thumumba. Telalle aye eugoray seballe!” which I now understood to mean, I speak for Thumumba. See I do not die! As I said the words, three loud peals of thunder filled the air in succession. The natives collectively fell to their knees and pressed their heads to the wooden platform, shaking and trembling in fear of retribution for doubting the one who spoke on behalf of their god.

  All was silent for nearly a minute before heads raised to look around and gaze into the sky. The old woman rose to her feet and came forward. She cut me free of my restraints using an odd-shaped knife that appeared to be made of bone.

  “You speak truth, man from house in sky. You speak for Thumumba. Children of Thumumba listen.”

  I heard Kerabac exclaim, “Well I’ll be damned, just like your dream. You’re going to convert me to be a follower of Thumumba, if you keep this up.”

  As he spoke, two natives came forward to cut him free, while another two cut Hotyona free – though Hotyona was still looking about aimlessly and didn’t seem to know what was happening. The old woman spoke quietly to one of the two who freed Hotyona and the native nodded and ran off. She then turned to me.

  “Tell us, man who speak for Thumumba, what is Thumumba wish?”

  “Thumumba wish children set free from bad men who bind them. Thumumba wish all bad men be gone from Sweet Home,” I said.

  “Children of Thumumba wish same, but bad men strike with lightning and fire sticks and ride metal animals that kill children of Thumumba. Bad men also wear hard skins. Arrows and darts not pierce, so children fight but not win, only flee.”

  All hopes I had that the natives could join us in the battle against the Brotherhood vanished, as she related with sadness and desperation the reality of their situation. I realized that what she said was true; and if anything was going to be done to get the Brotherhood off the planet, it was going to be up to me and the crew of the NEW ORLEANS to accomplish it – or at least hold them at bay until the Federation could arrive. I wasn’t sure just when the NEW ORLEANS would arrive. They could be here already or it could be another day. In any case, we needed to get back to the ALI to contact them. The natives had unfortunately taken our guns and our cloaking devices and smashed them after we were captured, believing we were enemies. We had no idea where we were in the jungle; and if we were going to get back to the ship, we would need the natives to guide us.

  “Your name?” I asked the old woman.

  “My name Jnanara,” she said. “I speak for children of Thumumba.”

  “My name Tibby. I speak for Thumumba.” I hoped that I was saying things properly and using the proper protocol. One wrong response and we might have ended up tied back onto the tree.

  “Friends and I need guide. Take us to sky boat to gather fire sticks. We fight men who bind children of Thumumba.”

  “No! No return to sky boat! Bad men wait in bushes and shadows… wait for Tibby and friends return.”

  This was getting worse all the time. Apparently the Brotherhood had found our ship after the cloaking device expired. They would not have been able to get in; and since none of them had ever seen or heard of a Mirage Fighter, they wouldn’t have the first clue as to its origin. They had no doubt decided to wait for the owners to return with the intent to capture them and gain access to the ship to find out who we were and what threat we posed to them.

  Kerabac overheard the conversation. “What are we going to do now?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I need to think this over.”

  “How many men hide in bushes and shadows?” I asked Jnanara. She turned to one of tribesmen nearby. Using his fingers he counted out twenty-five.

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t think we’ll be going back there unarmed to try and overpower them. If we still had the cloaking devices, we might’ve had a chance, but not this way.”

  “Maybe we can build a large fire and signal the NEW ORLEANS,” offered Kerabac.

  “I don’t think that’s a very safe idea. First they may not realize it’s us and just assume it’s a forest fire; and second, the Brotherhood would also see the signal and know where we are. I think we stand a better chance if we go back to the compound. We should be able to stealthily taking out a few troopers, arm ourselves with their gear and, if we have the chance, disguise ourselves in their uniforms. Maybe we can create a diversion while we’re there, as well – do some damage to the facility that distracts their forces long enough to set the natives free. If we do it right, they won’t know how many of us there are and they’ll pull back the troops staged at the ALI to help defend the base. If we can find a good place to hide after we release the natives and hold there until the guards at the ALI pass us, we may be able to move quickly enough to get back to the ship and escape before they return.”

  While Kerabac and I made plans and communicated with Jnanara, two natives returned with a nutshell bowl containing some grayish liquid. Using a large, pliable leaf that they folded to make a cup, they scooped the liquid and coaxed Hotyona into drinking it.

  Jnanara noticed my look of concern at what was happening and she said, “Children give friend naga juice. Naga make friend see this world Sweet Home again – no more see world of Thumumba.”

  “How much time before friend no see world of Thumumba?” I asked.

  “Soon!” She said. Before long it became obvious that time, as perceived by the children of Thumumba, was divided into only a handful of categories – many days, days, not soon, soon and now. In this case, soon turned out to be about ten minutes, at which time I could see Hotyona returning to normal rather rapidly. His confusion as to where he was and what had happened to him was apparent. At first he talked nonstop about Thumumba and heaven. He believed he had been gone for years. He had difficulty reorienting to his surroundings and the actual timeline of events; but slowly, more and more details of what had actually taken place returned to him as though he were recalling a dream.

  I asked Jnanara if she could provide us with a guide to get us back to the Brotherhood camp. I could see the concern on her face at my request, so I explained that we wanted to set Thumumba’s children free and destroy the place where they took the stolen sacred plant. Jnanara looked at me silently, her unique and sad eyes filling with tears, as I did my best to communicate in the rudimentary language that we wanted as much as she and the children of Thumumba to free the bound ones, restore control of the sacred plant to the elders and remove all signs of the Brotherhood from Sweet Home. She called another native and instructed him to guide us to the Brotherhood compound.

  As we descended from the I’aban tree, I was surprised to find that we were nearly a hundred meters off the ground. At first we descended by moving down branches while holding onto vines for support. Our guide moved swiftly and gracefully, stopping often to wait for us, as we were not nearly as sure-footed or at ease with the decent. We had to finish the last 25 meters using the vines alone, lowering ourselves hand over hand until we reached the ground. Kerabac and I were able to do it without much trouble; but Hotyona had some difficulties, possibly because he was still groggy from the drug in his system, but more likely because he was not accustomed to such endeavors and exercise.

  Once on the ground we moved at a more rapid pace. Our guide was constantly looking about and scanning the trees, to which he would direct an occasional whistle or chirp that sounded like one of the local jungle creatures. This signal always received an answer; but only on two occasions did we get a glimpse of the native who supported the search from above. As we progressed, he stopped once to point out one particular I’aban tree. It took a few moments for me to recognize it as the tree where we had spent the night. In the light of day the dark shadow of the narrow opening that led into its interior didn’t seem like an opening at all.

  Another time he
stopped us and sniffed the air, then diverted us on a route around the path we were taking. “Beaguna,” he said, and I knew that the word meant female drodoceal in the universal Bammaspeak language. It took a few minutes before I saw it lying along the edge of the path. An unwary traveler walking by would probably not have noticed it until right on top of it, which is precisely too late. As we passed by at a safe distance, I caught the strong spicy scent that the guide had picked up on much sooner. I was surprised at the size of this drodoceal. It was much larger than I anticipated – easily large enough to eat a man. I expected it to have a hide like an alligator or crocodile, but it appeared to have smooth skin, not scaled or rough at all.

  A little later he stopped and pointed to some small, hairless, simian-like creatures in the trees that seemed to be excited about something. He motioned us off the trail once more and into a thicket of the oil-producing reeds we had used the night before. He gestured to us to crouch down; and as we did so, I saw in the distance six Brotherhood troopers moving through the trees along the trail. They didn’t seem too alert to their surroundings, as they were talking and laughing while they passed by.

  I heard one of them say, “Major Undoth thinks they’ll head back to their ship, but I say they got lost in this jungle and probably got eaten or poisoned by something. The ship isn’t a federation design, so I think it’s either a drug runner that followed one of our ships back here, looking to score some God’s Sweat, or a pirate hoping to steal something. One thing for sure, they aren’t going anywhere now… and when we catch them....” At that point they were so far past us that I couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation.

  They were heading straight toward the drodoceal. I motioned to Kerabac and whispered, “This could be our chance. If the drodoceal attacks them, we may be able to take them out in the confusion.” Kerabac nodded and said something to our guide, who nodded in return and crouched down in the reeds. Kerabac, Hotyona and I began to follow after the troopers while trying to remain concealed in the thick reeds that flanked the path.