“So you’re going to make kids like Gabi or Marya pick up a shovel too? Is that it?”
James narrowed his eyes, and his lip curled into a sneer. “You know damn well what Gabi’s been up to since you banned her from your classroom. I found something a little less dangerous for Marya. You can at least thank me for that.”
“Troy’s not going to like this. When I go home and tell him…”
“Troy has about as much of a choice as you,” James said, slowly walking past her. “Keeping those kids cooped up in this room might just be the straw that breaks the colony’s back. It might make the difference between them starving and surviving.” He paused briefly at the storm curtain, giving her one last thought before he departed. “I know you don’t like the idea. I don’t like it either. We’re just out of options. There aren’t enough of us left. We’ll need another teacher in the future, and I hope like hell we can let Daphne apprentice under you. That’s the only silver lining I can give you.”
And I truly hope I can at least give you that, he thought as he left the Palace.
* * *
Gabrielle Serrano
7 September, 2 yal, early afternoon
In the jungle, about 2 miles from Camp Eight
Gabi traced the depression in the dirt with two fingers, noting the depth and curvature of its edges. She dabbed at the pool of water that had collected within, trying to figure out how long the rainfall would have taken to fill the hoof print to that level.
She glanced up at her mentor. “An hour?”
Will chuckled and shook his head. “You still don’t have a good grasp of time. That print’s about ten minutes old.”
She growled in frustration. She was trying her hardest to learn the tricks that Will was teaching her, but it was hard. Gabi could tell that they were tracking a long-tusk boar, but the age of the tracks threw her off every time. It didn’t help that the weather on the island had been so erratic, either. One day it would be pouring rain and the next would be chokingly muggy as the burning sun came out. She wanted to throw her vinewood bow in frustration. After all, what good would it do her if she was never allowed to shoot it at an animal? But Will insisted that she carry it while they went hunting, even though he was the only one who ever fired his weapon.
“Which way did it go?” he asked.
Gabi looked at the pattern of the tracks. They meandered around the base of a pepperine-shrouded tree, then to another. She slowly walked the path that the animal took, noting its habit of only visiting areas where pepperine plants grew. She gently took a sheared off stalk between her fingers, examining the shredded end carefully. Her stomach growled as the sweet odor of a half-eaten pepperine wafted into her nose. Gabi pushed aside the complaints of her empty belly.
“This way,” she pointed deeper into the jungle. “It was here to eat.”
“Good,” Will nodded. “Let’s go.”
They followed the tracks to the edge of the river, where they again appeared to jumble in an almost random pattern. Gabi knelt down in the middle of the trampled dirt, trying to discern which way the animal had gone. Freshly disturbed soil near the river’s edge made Gabi think that the boar had been digging for tubers, which were plentiful near the slow moving river. It was also a common place for animals to drink.
If it stopped, we can catch up with it.
“This way,” she pointed upriver, confident in her analysis of the boar’s trail.
“And we’re only a couple minutes behind,” Will noted as he dabbed his finger into the water pooling in the tracks.
They hurried off again, nearly as fast as Gabi could run. It was difficult for her to keep up with her older companion on the narrow game trail, but someday she knew she would be able to match him stride for stride. The conditioning and training he had already given her allowed her to run for almost twenty minutes straight, though they never needed to.
A couple minutes later Will pulled up to a halt and crouched down at the top of a short ridge. Gabi crawled up next to him, looking down into the dense thicket below. Will pointed into the gnarled vines, but she could not find the beast.
“It’s right there,” he whispered. “Don’t you see it?”
“No,” she whispered angrily.
“Give it a second.”
Will’s index finger tracked slowly left. She was just about to smack his hand and rebuke him for lying to her when a brown hump of fur appeared in the sea of leaves. The boar moved slowly; it was apparently unaware of their presence. Or at least unconcerned by it. The animal grunted as it searched for something.
“Your turn,” Will grinned.
“For what?”
He reached to the quiver on his back and slowly drew an arrow. She could tell at once it was too short for his bow. Gabi’s eyes widened as he passed it to her.
“Me?” she gulped.
“You’ve got to learn sooner or later.”
Her heart raced and the tips of her fingers tingled. Gabi slowly and quietly stood up, making sure not to startle the animal. She nocked the arrow and squared off, slowly and deliberately bringing the weapon to bear. Her right hand trembled as she pulled back on the string. The bow creaked ever so slightly as it bent to her will.
“Now remember what we practiced,” Will said in a hushed tone. “Extend and tighten. Extend again, then tighten. Aim down the shaft of the arrow. You’ll need to aim a little high at this distance. Not too much. Thumb steady, and let your fingers go to release the arrow. Just your fingers; keep your form or your shot will wander.”
Gabi could feel her fingers twitch as she drew the arrow back and her thumb brushed her cheek. Suddenly an idea crossed her mind, and she saw the boar as the mother of tiny baby boars. She wondered what they would do without their mother, and if the cruel jungle jaguars would hunt them down quickly. She paused, then dipped her bow down and slowly relieved the tension on the string without firing.
“What’s wrong, Gabs?”
“I can’t do it,” she replied. “What if it’s a mama boar?”
“What if?” Will replied callously.
“Then her baby boars will starve and die.”
Will nodded, but his expression was unchanged. “They probably will. Or they’ll become prey for something else. What does that matter to you?”
“I can’t kill the babies’ mama!” she protested.
“I can understand that. So we walk away. Then the jaguar on the other side of the hill kills it anyway. Then what?”
“Then I’ll go find the babies!”
Will laughed softly, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. “First off, you’ll never find them. Second, I don’t even want to know what you plan to do with them.”
Gabi’s cheeks flushed and she felt her temper flare. “That’s not funny. Babies deserve to have their mamas. They can’t live without them.”
Suddenly her mentor’s expression turned hard. “They can’t, huh? Well, you are. Your mom’s gone, and you’re still here.”
She growled and swung the bow at him, which he easily avoided. “I’m not a baby!”
“If we were back on Earth you might still be called a baby by some people. You’re surviving. Wild animals lose their parents all the time to predators. Some of the babies survive, some don’t. But I guarantee you that a jaguar doesn’t care if that boar has kids. All it cares about is satisfying its hunger. It kills and it eats, or it dies.”
“I’m not a jaguar,” she insisted.
“Not yet.” Will quietly gained his feet and nocked an arrow in his own bow. “But you’re hungry. I can tell. The question is how hungry.”
“Not hungry enough to kill a mama!”
“Shh,” he hissed, sensing a change in the animal’s behavior. They froze for a moment to make sure that their prey did not scare off. “We’ll find out if that’s true. Sorry it’s come to this, Gabs. If I hit it before you do, you don’t get to eat tonight.”
“What?” she shrieked, sending the boar tearing out of
the thicket and over the far hill.
Will lowered his bow and sighed in exasperation. “Great. Now we have to track it again. Thanks.”
“I’m not going to shoot it. And it’s mean to take away my food if I don’t. I’m telling your dad.”
“Dad’s on board with this. You need to learn a lesson here. We’re all just animals at this point. We do what we have to do to survive. Or we starve.”
Will stalked quickly along the top of the ridge, his bow at the ready. Gabi found it even harder to match his pace with a nocked arrow, so she unloaded her weapon to pursue him. He did not go very far, stopping on the ridge over which the boar disappeared. She found it facing them, pawing for a charge, tail straight in the air. Will glanced at her only once as he raised his bow.
“Remember what I said. I meant it.”
The gnawing pangs in her stomach had grown worse. She could only imagine how terrible they would be later in the evening if Will kept his word. Gabi had gone hungry for a night before, when the adults were too busy burying and weeping over the bodies from Karen’s massacre to feed the children. She was about to face that same tormenting pain again, and it was because of her unwillingness to take an animal’s life. This animal was nothing like the fantasy of Pelusina, her stuffed cat that she had magical dreams about. This was prey, and dangerous prey at that.
Long-tusk boars always raised their tails before they attacked, and she had once witnessed one gore an adult jaguar, spilling its innards all over the jungle floor. This boar was squared off to Will, and it was only a matter of seconds before it would spring into action. Not because it wanted to kill Will. Because it was threatened. Terrified.
Gabi set her arrow in the nock and raised her bow quickly. The muscles in her arms and shoulders complained as she drew back the string, tightening as she aimed. She was too late to beat Will, as his loosed arrow flew from his bow in a blur. The pit of Gabi’s stomach dropped, but not because of the realization that she had waited too long and lost her dinner for the night. Will’s arrow missed its mark. His aim was ever so slightly off, and the tip of his arrow glanced off of the boar’s tusk just an inch from its face.
The boar’s powerful legs went into action at once, propelling the beast directly at Will. He shouted a curse and reached for another arrow. Time seemed to speed up, and Gabi had only a second to react.
If I had to aim high when it wasn’t moving, I need to aim high and in front if it’s moving.
Gabi spun a little to her right, leading the target with the arrow. She had almost no time to aim before she let loose the arrow. The palm vine string sang as it snapped back into place. The arrow arced slightly before coming down into its target. Gabi’s aim was off as well, and the arrow found flesh far to the rear of her intended target, sinking into the haunches of the beast. The boar squealed and its hind quarters dropped, dragging in the dirt.
The delay was enough. As the boar found its feet again, Will’s second shot plunged into its chest, and it collapsed in just seconds. Though gravely wounded and screaming at the top of its lungs, the prey continued to thrash. Will drew another arrow and fired again from as close as he dared get, and the boar finally expired. Gabi circled it, looking into its dead eyes as its tongue drooped from the side of its mouth.
“You’ll be happy to know,” Will noted, “it’s not a mom. This one’s a male. And you’ve definitely earned your dinner.”
She took in the sight of the chipped, cracked tusk that protruded from the left side of its mouth. This animal was no mother. That was all something she had imagined, and it almost cost Will his life.
I’m not a little girl, she thought. I can’t act like one anymore. I have to be a jaguar.
Viae Duas Vitas
Calvin McLaughlin
24 December, 2 yal, 15:03
North Concordia
Pale orange flames flickered and danced over the logs in the fireplace, filling the air with crackling sounds and pungent smells from the pot of rabbit stew that hung above the fire. Heat rolled off in waves, cutting down the bitter chill of the room. Cal rubbed his arms underneath the blanket that draped over his shoulders and smiled. Three days of work during the waning days of summer, spent patching gaps in the rough timber walls and river rock chimney, had yielded a dramatic reduction in the building’s draftiness. While still cold, it was nowhere near the previous winter’s bitter chill that sliced to the bone.
Alexis padded over to the fire, stirring the pot with a long, wooden spoon. “Just a few more minutes,” she chirped cheerfully.
“Time for a wood run, then,” he replied as he glanced at the nearly empty spot on the floor next to the stairs where they piled their firewood. Only two slender pieces and a few scattered scraps of bark remained. Goose bumps rose on his skin as he shed the blanket, and darted downstairs. He peered into the darkness under the covered shed out back and considered spending a few minutes splitting more wood, but thought better of doing such a task. Instead, he went to the storeroom and loaded a bundle of cut firewood into his arms, retreating to the loft above to unload his burden.
Alexis had portioned the stew into two bowls already. She sat at the foot of their mattress, staring at the mesmerizing flames as she dipped a chunk of stale bread into the steaming brown broth. Cal carefully added a piece of alder to the fire and joined her, once again shrouding himself in the warm fur blanket. As he ate he watched the flames lick at the newly added fuel. The log hissed and crackled; not exactly the driest wood, but it suited the purpose.
That fire reminds me of something, his doppelganger’s voice interrupted him. The unwelcome intrusion startled Cal, and he almost choked on a searing hot carrot.
“Are you okay?” Alexis asked. He nodded in silent reply.
Go away, Cal snapped back at the voice, irritated.
Don’t get snippy with me.
Cal felt a hint of indignity from his alter ego. This only aggravated Cal more. He clenched his teeth and stirred his stew, trying to ignore the interruption. It was some sort of psychotic personality break, as Dr. Taylor had explained it, caused by his hibernation on the journey to Demeter. Psychological side effects of the sleeper berths were rare, but the research crew had known about them before the ships ever left Earth. The clinical term was “Hibernation Psychosis.” Cal simply referred to his irritating mental delusion as “Jerk.”
Dr. Taylor had recently discovered that an anti-psychotic medication could be synthesized from a combination of native plants, and it worked well in suppressing Jerk. Unfortunately a steady supply of the medicine was not available during the winter, and it had been three weeks since Cal’s last dose. His unwanted friend was paying him a visit more often, sometimes being enough of a pest to disrupt his chores.
“I was thinking about how sad tomorrow will be,” Alexis said softly.
Ooh, I love it when she brings this up, Jerk giggled.
Cal took another bite of the savory stew. And I hate it when you interrupt her. Shut up and go away.
“Why’s that?” he replied casually, careful so as to not tip off the argument in his head.
She sighed heavily and frowned. “Because they’re not going to be here for Christmas dinner.”
Cal slipped an arm around Alexis and drew her close, kissing her on the forehead. “I know. But they can’t just come back for a day and go back. Not in the middle of winter.”
“But there’s so much space on the ships,” she protested.
“I know. But it’s too far for them to travel without a crawler, and you know that Traci’s not going to go pick them up.”
Alexis bit her lip and nodded. Her chin drooped, and she stirred her food aimlessly.
Boy, she’s pissed with you, Jerk noted.
Me? Why me?
Because you sent Jake and Cora away.
It was Jake’s choice.
Feeling Jerk’s amusement was an odd sensation, like shame mixed with enjoyment. What made Cal’s skin crawl was that at times he could not distinguish his own
emotions from those of his alter ego. As much as he wanted to suppress the tingling sensation of glee, he could not do so completely.
What? Cal asked.
Sure. Their choice. Right after you came home from a critical negotiation, sent there by Darius.
We’ve been over this, Jerk. She understands their decision.
And I still think you’re blissfully ignorant.
God I wish Dr. Taylor had more medicine.
Oh, but then who would keep you sane? Jerk quipped.
Cal dug his pinky into his ear and rooted around, as if he could remove the voice if he tried hard enough. This only made Jerk laugh more.
“I wonder what it’ll be like for them up there,” Alexis mused as she finished off her meal.
Well, Jake won’t be sticking a gun in my face, Sweetie, Jerk interjected.
“Oh, they’ll be fine. Cora’s going to have her work cut out for her whipping up the feast they’re sure to have. Hopefully Jake can keep Norris out of her hair. And everyone up their loves the kids, so I think they’ll be happy all around.”
“And not missing us,” she added sadly.
He put the bowl down and wrapped his arm around her, pressing her warm body against his. “Of course they’ll miss us, Lexi. But that’s their new home now. Besides, if we somehow managed to go up there, you know that Doc would be disappointed. And I’d never hear the end of it from Hunter.”
She gave him a cross look, though it barely masked her amusement. “Oh, and I’m supposed to be worried about you getting your ear chewed off by Hunter?”
“Hey, it’s not as much fun as it sounds. And you know what they say. Happy husband…”
Alexis cut him off with a playful shove. “That’s supposed to be happy wife, dork. How would husband even rhyme with life?”
“I’ll find a way.”’
She squeezed his shoulders, then collected her empty bowl and stood up. Cal knew she would be demanding his dishes in a moment, so he wolfed down the last of the chunks floating in the thick broth, then soaked the liquid up in his bread before handing it off. She went downstairs to clean up while he relished the remnants of his dinner.
Project Columbus: Omnibus Page 100
