Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4)
Page 20
She rolled to her back and looked up.
How long have I been here?
It felt like forever, with the fever and the wakings and the discussions and …
She sat up.
The ceiling was the same baked clay as the walls, wood beams showing through in places where the clay had cracked or worn away. Out the window it looked like morning; the sun was rising from the direction she recalled, just now cresting the edges of the far hills, beaming brilliant orange rays through the dusty air. It felt like morning.
She needed to figure out what to do.
No one else was in the hut. In that moment the screeching bird decided to fly away; whether out of coincidence or simply reacting to the movement in the hut—or flitting away in response to her sudden and intense desire that it stop that damn screeching—it was gone and she was awake and all at once she felt alert.
She threw off the sheet and swung her feet over the edge of the cot to the dirt floor, paused a moment then stood and began wandering the room. A small fire was going, always going.
She lingered as she passed the brass sheet, studying her reflection as she had before. A definite physical transformation had occurred, there was no doubt. Still her in every way, it was just as if all the loose edges had been ground away. Like she was sharper somehow. More exotic. Lithe. With the yellow eyes and the leaner aspect she’d taken on an almost feline grace. She looked deeper into her eyes, so like the ones from the dream. The more she looked, really looked—holding her own stare without glancing away—the more impossible it was to believe such a drastic change of color could be explained by something as simple as deep fevers, different atmospheres, jumps through space using Icons or any other unusual thing she’d endured. That brilliant yellow was just ... strange. There must be some other, scientific explanation. Inhuman and golden, straight from the dream world, a phenomenon for which she felt she must know the reason but could not confront, a connection across time, perhaps, and as she stood there in the brass mirror thinking on that and other bizarre possibilities she fell abruptly into her own gaze and lurched back with a gasp.
Whoa.
Like a surge of vertigo mixed with panic. Forcibly she turned from her reflection.
She was in the hut. Everything was okay.
The echo of that almost-collapse tugged her.
What was that?!
Thinking about it almost sucked her back inward and she took a few steps away, then a few more until she was standing near the door. That sort of introspection she did not need.
She stepped further and looked through the doorway into the sky. The sun was definitely getting higher, bright morning rays softening, casting the entire room in a warm orange glow. As she stood listening to all the sounds around her, wondering if the annoying bird would return—hearing others like it here and there in the distance—she began painting an audio image of what lay outside. A small waterfall burbled not far away. Voices came from down below, growing by the minute, as if a gathering of some kind, and as the voices organized she thought it sounded a lot like the activities of a small village. That would go along with the huts she’d glimpsed in the valley beneath the cliff. Some shouts came from further away, but not like a conflict. More like people hawking wares.
She moved all the way into the doorway. Tall, pine-like trees dotted the valley below and up the hills into the distance, filled in with smaller, oddly shaped trees like the one outside the hut. Visually it was an arid setting, like a desert maybe, rocky orange and brown surfaces everywhere, overlaid with green. The ledge with the hut was at the base of the higher plateau, down below the village. The morning was cool and dry.
It felt nice.
No one was in immediate view outside the hut. Then she noticed one of the dog-headed guards off to the left, near the entrance to the trail. He was looking in her direction but he’d been looking in her direction even before she arrived, watching the door, and she saw no reaction to her appearance. Surely he must see her standing there.
Idly she looked down at her whitish tunic. At best it might be considered a simple prairie dress or something; loose, not form fitting, nothing else beneath. But then, style didn’t seem important here. The boys, Galfar and Haz, the only two humans she’d seen, seemed fine wearing their simple loincloths. She smoothed the tunic with both hands, taking time to pick at a few random pieces of fuzz.
When she looked up Galfar was stepping up to the cliff ledge from down below.
She returned his smile and for an instant her brain froze. Her mouth opened to respond and locked in that action as she remembered the mind-speak.
he started toward her, working his long, sturdy staff in one hand, holding a bundle of plants in the other. The staff was taller than he was, even when he stood straight, and now, hobbling along, it seemed unnecessarily large as he threw it out in front then leaned on it with each step. She waited in the doorway until he reached her.
And if she wasn’t convinced before she was now. If Galfar could read her mind he should know exactly what she was talking about. Instead she had to explain herself, just like in a real conversation.
He shrugged.
For a moment she had the rushing idea that maybe she could call to Zac, wherever he was. But as Galfar said this she realized he was right. She had no idea “where” to contact Zac, and it did, indeed, feel like you needed to have a bead on a person to hit them in the head.
Still, a bit of hope held. Maybe the “rules” of this telepathy weren’t really rules at all. Maybe they were just limitations. With practice maybe she could actually …
the old man was saying and her skin prickled,
he said.
She had no valid objections. The resistance she felt was automatic. Only … why did they have to go anywhere? She didn’t want to be gone when Zac came …
A bit of the panic hedged in; a short little spike and she pushed it away with a shot of reason. There was no point not to leave that place. In fact, there was every reason to leave that place. Zac wasn’t coming, it now seemed clear, and when he did eventually find his way there …
What if she sat there waiting forever and went insane? Better to take action. She felt fresh, ready. Maybe a journey was exactly what she needed. If nothing else she at least realized—if she looked at it objectively—she needed to keep moving. The way out was the way through, and escape from that place was not going to fall from the sky.
Maybe this was her destiny. Being
right there, right then, as she was and with no more than her will and her own personal strength to go on, maybe it was time to move.
And as she stood staring at Galfar, his hunched figure dark in the gloom of the hut, bright morning sunlight shining in behind her, she had the sharp and unexpected recollection of a particular refrigerator magnet back in Boise. So vivid, so unexpected was the recall … for a moment it freaked her out. Why that image came to her out of nowhere ... Such a funny little picture, she remembered it now, the image of it clear, so thoroughly out of the blue to be thinking of it smack in the midst of this setting, so out of place—seemingly from another life …
As the shock passed it made her grin.
Galfar frowned.
Jess shook her head.
Life is a daring adventure, or nothing.
Indeed, she thought.
She leveled her gaze at Galfar. she assured him.
He nodded sagely.
**
So far the elimination of the humans was not going as quickly as expected. It was, however, proceeding apace.
“Region five reports fully cleared,” came a report on the bridge. Kang watched as Kel operators managed incoming feeds on screens spanning the massive dreadnought bridge, stations everywhere monitoring the progress of battles around the globe.
“Region nine in final clean-up.”
Screens shifted on the main viewer, shuffling to show aerial views of each, telemetry and progress info scrolling in the unintelligible Kel glyphs. Not every military had mobilized as part of the effort so the Kel had switched to wiping out bases and infrastructure and fleets from above as necessary, engaging those gathered in defense on the ground, the dispersed units, until the Earth fighting forces were neutralized. So far that strategy was being effective.
“I have reports from the Golett, sir,” one of them said above the bustle and Voltan looked to that man. “They’ve been boarded.”
Kang recalled the first mention of that incident; one of the Kel transports had actually been disabled on the ground and now, apparently, was being overrun by the humans.
It was probably just a matter of odds. Advanced though they were, some of the Kel had to fail.
Voltan looked back to a particular feed of information on an overhead display. “Can they divert and repel?”
The operator shook his head. “Negative.”
Voltan didn’t hesitate. “Destroy it.”
“Yes, sir.”
And with that quick, easy suicide order Kang was reminded of the things he liked about these Kel.
“Sir,” came another voice.
“Yes?”
“We’ve confirmed the anomalous intruder.”
Kang perked up. Anomalous intruder? He didn’t recall any talk of that in the past hours.
What anomalous intruder?
He realized Voltan was staring at him.
“It could be your friend,” the one-eyed Kel commander spoke directly to him. Until that moment and in fact for some time prior Voltan had been doing his best to ignore him.
Kang found his voice. Raised his translator wand.
“My friend?”
“The one we found you with. In space.”
It took Kang a moment to realize he’d become frozen in place.
Voltan turned back to face the giant forward screen, filled with images of action, conflict. “It looks as if he’s shown up down there,” he said, though his gaze did not appear to settle on any particular image. Frantically Kang searched them all, looking for sign of …
Horus. There he was. Dark hair, bare skin, flying among the Kel ground forces in a wooded valley on one of the newly activated monitor feeds.
Immediately Kang stepped all the way to the screen. “Where is that?” Right at the front of the bridge, nose inches from the images relaying Horuses’ furious action below. And why haven’t you mentioned it before now?!
“Reports were at first confused,” Voltan shrugged, failing to answer directly—instead continuing his relay of information, “but visuals match those from the incident.
“I believe we’ve found your enemy.”
Kang was on his way back across the bridge to face him.
“Get me down there. Get me to him.”
Voltan practically laughed. The Kel commander had never even smiled, and he certainly wasn’t smiling now, but from his reaction it looked as if this greatly amused him.
“I thought that would be your demand.” He maintained his poise, not flinching, hands behind his back and standing tall. Damningly taller than Kang, no matter how straight he held himself.
“Get me to him,” Kang repeated, no patience in his tone.
Voltan looked past him, watching the screen. No doubt impressed with the extent of the damage Horus was doing. As Kang watched over his shoulder he was grudgingly forced to acknowledge the fact that the Kazerai was decimating the Kel forces; a far greater display than Kang himself had been able to pull off, simply ripping up the interior of a starship. As a result he was sure Voltan thought Horus an even match. Perhaps even Kang’s better.
You could not be more wrong, my dear Voltan.
“Get me to him,” Kang growled. “Now.”
Voltan looked at him.
Said: “It would be my pleasure.”
CHAPTER 20: KANG RESPONDS
It was a horse. A real, actual, honest-to-God horse. No matter which way Jess looked at it … she could find nothing to tell her otherwise. Even up close there was nothing alien about it. As a girl she’d spent summers riding at a local ranch, near their home in Florida, getting good enough to teach other kids how, along with how to saddle, feed, take care of them and so forth. She knew horses. She didn’t consider herself a full-on expert, but she knew way more than the average person. And this animal before her—she reached and touched its flank, experimentally, confirming the hair and texture were what she remembered …
Was a horse.
A real, frickin, horse.
Galfar watched, mildly amused as she satisfied her curiosity.
he confirmed. Then got a quizzical look of his own.
Jess nodded absently as the horse sniffed her, getting in on the curiosity circus. She was curious at the horse, Galfar was curious at her and the horse was curious at just what the hell everyone was so curious about. It side-stepped a little and she put a soothing hand to its nose. Velvety moist and oh-so-real.
Galfar made whatever connection was teasing at his mind.
Jess stroked the horse’s soft snout and it settled a bit and nuzzled her. This one was in the village street, tied loosely to a post. So far on their short trip down from the hut to the village she’d seen a few birds and a few smaller animals, all furry or feathered and not totally unlike animals of Earth—though they were definitely not Earth cre
atures. None so strange as to be what she would consider alien. The forest, the land, the animals—all of it was like an Alternate Earth, just like Anitra, not some extraterrestrial bug farm. Bug worlds must exist, surely. Even bizarre mammal worlds or dino or dragon worlds or whatever—the universe was huge—but this wasn’t one of them. Like Anitra, the parallels with Earth were uncanny.
Only …
Horses?
From the vague meaning in Galfar’s thoughts she wasn’t sure whether he truly understood the different concepts of “land” and “world”. He might not have any awareness of planets at all. Looking at the completely medieval setting around her she suspected he did not. But now that she was thinking of it … Did horses come from Earth? She actually didn’t know the scientific evidence on family trees for horses. Science was always trying to make humans fit into some sort of primate lineage. Had they for-sure nailed horses? It seemed likely that they had. Though, even if there were gaps she expected Earth scientists weren’t too worried about it. They probably told themselves they’d find those missing links eventually, and that for now gaps were fine. After all, everything had to evolve on Earth, right? What other options were there?
Of course she knew better. There were all kinds of other options. And now that she was standing on yet another world with yet more perfect examples of humans and, of all things, horses, she had to wonder:
Just what the hell went on in their collective past?
Humans originated somewhere, that most definitely had to be the case. But did they really originate on Earth? And wherever they came from, did they truly evolve?
Or were they engineered?
The worn dirt streets of the village were alive with humans. Most were dark or lighter-skinned negroes like Galfar and Haz, no Caucasian features among them. Like they’d all come from Africa or the southern shores of the Mediterranean at some point in their past. After getting over the horse she was now starting to feel the stares. She was different. Not that she was lily-white, she wasn’t, but while her own skin might’ve been as brown as the lightest-skinned among them, her features were different enough to make her a stand-out. On top of that was her eyes. She was sure they were drawing just as much attention. Everyone else’s eyes seemed to be varying shades of brown or black, no tiger eyes among them. A few she caught glimpse of had green eyes like Galfar and Haz, but those were the exception. Her eyes, and she herself, must appear outright bizarre. She’d stopped trying to figure out how to keep her gaze down or pull her hair over her face to hide them, and so walked along as if nothing was the matter. It wasn’t working. The yellow-eyed girl was making for an interesting interloper.