by Archer Swift
Chapter 31
After basking in the day’s first light, I knelt beside the river, which gurgled and babbled gently, to wash my face. Startled, I got a fright when I saw my reflection in the mirror-smooth water. I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a proper look at myself. Usually washing time was a quick yet thorough scrub down with up to eight other blokes doing the same thing—no time for grooming, or need for it.
Beautifying one’s appearance was the last thing on the to-do list: a fulltime schedule dominated by the priority of survival. Even if you wanted to, our bathing pool was just out of direct sunlight, overshadowed as it was by the wall of tall trees and dense jungle scrub in which our camp lay ensconced. A mirrored reflection of oneself was not possible.
This morning, however, I could see myself clearly. I was certainly not good-looking like Dylain or Judd, but I wasn’t unattractive. The bruising around my right eye was healing, but the hideous scar down my left cheek did make me more unsightly than I would otherwise have been. A flash memory exploded in my mind as I remembered the scar’s origin. It was seven moons after Dad died, before the dark-points law was formally instituted.
I was just ten years old, and another kid named Alfrid wanted my jacket. He was about fourteen, a little crazy in the head and a lot bigger than me. While he had his own jacket, he said he wanted to start collecting them and for whatever reason, mine was on the top of his wish-list. He went for me, and I fought back. On a hiding to nothing; still, I fought and fought until Victor saved me. I didn’t even realise Alfrid had slashed my face and stabbed me in the side with his hunting knife.
After Victor stitched me up, he gave me a stern talking to about the sanctity of life, but I still remember the smile he could not throw from his face. After the lecture, he shook my hand and said, “Brave boy, if he tries to take your jacket again, go for the nose immediately … hit it with everything you’ve got.”
I never got to apply his advice. Alfrid didn’t get the chance to take anything from me again. The next day, he went exploring outside camp by himself, and a Sabre chomped him. We heard a blood-chilling half-scream, Victor and some of the older guys went to help. They were too late. Within minutes, they stormed back into camp yelling hysterically: “Trees! To the trees!”
The massive male Sabre trashed our camp and tried to claw a few of us from the trees. Unlike Earth’s tiger, this planet’s monster carnivore couldn’t climb trees at all. Apparently, an adult Earth-tiger avoided climbing trees. Too heavy, weighing the equivalent of an Earth-rhino, and less agile than a tiger, Eden’s Sabre could not scale a tree—even if it did want to. After thumping a few trees with his horn, shredding what it could, it eventually got bored and urinated on just about everything before moving on. The only trace of Alfrid we found was his knife, that knife, abandoned where the Sabre munched him.
Oddly, my scar usually reminded me more of my Dad’s death than Alfrid’s. Needless to say, just the thought of a Sabre unzipped me.
I massaged the finger-long disfigurement on my face as I stared at my own reflection. The thin, fair-haired, scraggly stubble on my chin needed a trim, something that I was loath to do. Not only was it a painful exercise, another one of the million uses for my knife, it wasn’t necessary. Who cared about beautifying oneself in this place? Hygiene, yes. Manners, yes. Self-respect, yes. Vanity, no!
And then another memory jumped me. From another time, another world, another planet.
Mum’s sickly body, her gaunt, ghostly face. The only clear image I have of her. Why can’t I remember her younger, beautiful face? The stink of disease and oncoming death. The crueller sense of misery.
Dad’s despair. Utter desolation.
Kicking walls, smashing things.
His god of science failing him.
Demanding … shouting at the heavens. Cursing.
Accusing Mum’s God of abandoning her.
But Mum’s faith, her strength. Her tenacity.
Consoling Dad, even as Death darkened the doorway.
Her soft words breathing peace into Dad. And me.
The fragrance of heaven. The sense of hope.
Why can’t I remember what she looked like before—?
“Okay,” I said to myself irritably, “time to get back to camp before everyone else wakes up.”
