by S. M. Wilson
Lincoln’s and Leif’s mouths were hanging open. It took a few seconds before they nodded at each other and jumped forward. Jesa was horrified. Storm was dumbstruck.
It took both Lincoln and Leif to pull Blaine off. By then, Reban seemed to have got his wits about him. His hands were up to protect his face and his legs were contracted, trying to shield his abdomen from the fierce kicks.
Lincoln was stronger than he looked. The muscles around his neck were rigid as he dragged Blaine back. “Stop it! Stop it now! What do you think you’re doing?”
Blaine’s face had been replaced by a mask of fury. His eyes were glittering and dark. He spat as he spoke. “Him! Get him off my land! Get him off my continent!” He turned to face Reban again, hissing, “You did this! You did this to me and my family. You’ve stolen the last nine years of my life! And now you come here? I’m going to kill you.” He wrestled in Lincoln’s and Leif’s arms as he raised his voice. “I’m going to kill you!”
Storm had thought him crazy before. But she’d never seen him like this. Never seen him quite so mad.
Reban was lying on the ground in stunned silence. Whatever he’d had in his hand had vanished. He propped himself up on one elbow and gave a few coughs. His expression was cold. “Blaine Thredell. Lucky me.” He started to dust himself off. “I see time hasn’t nourished your soul.” He got to his feet. “Or made you any more rational.”
Reban’s black trousers and top were now smeared with mud. But somehow, it just made him look even more menacing. He stepped forward and nodded to Lincoln and Leif. “Let him go. He wants to fight? Let’s fight.” From his stance, Reban looked ready this time.
Lincoln shot Storm a look before letting Blaine’s arm go. But instead of swinging a punch, Blaine seemed to think a little harder. He stepped forward until he was millisectars away from Reban’s face. “You sent me here. You sent me here to die. When I survived? You refused to let me come back to Earthasia. You refused to send me news about my family.”
Reban snorted. “I did all that? Just me? Or was it parliament? A parliament of your peers. A parliament that banished me here, just like they did you.”
Blaine frowned. The recognition seemed to sink in. “Why are you here?”
Reban gave an ironic smile and opened his arms wide. “Haven’t you heard? Piloria is my new home.”
Blaine started shaking his head. “No. No, it can’t be. You can’t stay here. You can’t live here!” He leaned forward, hissing in Reban’s face. “I won’t help you. I won’t. You’ll be dinner for the T-rexes within a few days.”
Reban shouldered past him. “Watch out, Blaine. People will think you’re mad. Remember your daughter is here.”
Blaine gave a jolt. He threw Jesa a quick glance. His fists were still clenched at his side. Storm had no idea what was going on. Was it really Reban who had sent Blaine here? Either way, she couldn’t stand the horrified expression on Jesa’s face.
Storm nodded at Lincoln and tilted her head towards Leif, her eyes telling him to bring Jesa. “Jesa needs her arm cleaned. We were attacked in the jungle earlier. Giant chickens. Or something like that. She could do with some ointment.”
Blaine seemed to snap into action. “Of course, come here.”
He guided Jesa inside and over to his pots, and lifted some rags, dipping them into clean water. If Blaine noticed the clay pots were already uncovered he didn’t mention it. He worked methodically and gently, cleaning her wound, applying some ointment and a few of the wide leaves, then wrapping a strip of cloth around it all.
Storm walked over as he finished and touched Blaine’s shoulder. “The leaves, Blaine. Can you show us where you get the leaves, and how to make the ointment?” She pointed to Lincoln. “Lincoln’s sister is really sick. Just the tiniest bit of ointment healed part of her arm. But we don’t have any more.”
“My ointment?” Blaine gave a nonchalant shrug as she nodded. “Told you it was good.” He tapped the top of his leg where his scar lay.
“Will you show us how to make it?”
Blaine gave a nod. He turned to Lincoln as he picked up the green ointment. “I just made some. But we can make some more. It’s not hard.”
He walked over to a sack in the corner and started pulling leaves from it. He had a larger clay pot and some heavy stones to one side. The bottom of the stones were stained with the bright green colour of the ointment.
Blaine went outside for a minute and came back in holding some yellow strands. They looked like the vines that were wrapped around some of the trees nearby. He threw them into the bowl, then picked up an old cup full of clear liquid from the corner of the room. He looked at it proudly. “I made them give me some cups. This is the last one.” He frowned. “Maybe I should ask for some more. I should make a note of that.”
Storm kneeled down next to him and gestured to Lincoln to do the same. This was what they were here for. This was why they’d come.
Blaine carefully poured some of the liquid from the cup into the clay pot. “What is it?” asked Storm.
Blaine looked pleased with himself. “Oh, it’s just water. But it’s been boiled so that I know it’s clean. I’m careful.”
He smiled as he pounded the ingredients together, smushing the leaves and vines with one of the stones smeared with green. Lincoln was watching the whole process carefully but kept glancing at Storm. He pointed to the remnants of yellow vine. “We need this too,” he mouthed.
Storm nodded and smiled. “So, are you able to show us where we can find the evergreen leaves? We’d really like to take a few of the plants home with us, to see if they can grow on Earthasia.”
Blaine shook his head. “No point. They won’t grow there.” He said it so quickly she wondered what she was missing.
“Why not?”
Blaine held up his hands. “They need heat. One year it was a bit colder. The evergreen all withered and died. It didn’t bloom again for months. Not until the climate was warm again.”
He stared off into space, rubbing one hand on his arm. “It was cold then. I had to make blankets. I had to wear all the clothes I had.”
Storm took a deep breath and willed herself not to glance at Jesa. Sometimes Blaine seemed quite mad. She assumed it was because he’d been by himself for nine years, with only a crate left annually on the beach with supplies. She closed her eyes for a second.
Back home, living in an atmosphere with so many people was stifling. There were rations for food and energy. No proper health care for everyone. Walkways so busy it was hard to get by.
Piloria was completely at the other end of the spectrum. What would living here be like? To realize you were unlikely to see another living soul for years at a time? To constantly be on the watch for predators? To know that there were no buildings, no noise – just jungle or greenness for as far as the eye could see?
Lots of Storm’s dreams had been like this. Visions of her running over the wide green plains of Piloria. When she’d returned to Earthasia the tightly stacked buildings had made her shudder.
But were those dreams all just a fantasy? Maybe the truth was, if she lived here, she’d end up just as strange as Blaine.
Lincoln nudged her. “Okay?” There was concern written on his face and she gave herself a shake as she nodded in response.
Blaine had gone back to pounding the contents of the larger clay pot together with the stone he held in his hand. Storm kept watching. It seemed a simple enough process. By the time the paste was created there was no trace of the yellow vines left, just the heavy greenness from the leaves. The ointment was thick and pungent. Blaine’s movements were rhythmic – it was almost hypnotic watching him.
He sat back and wiped his hands on his ragged trousers. “That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Both Storm and Lincoln spoke in unison. They were surprised it was so easy.
Blaine got back to his feet. He waved to them. At first they thought he was turning around to speak to Jesa. But he actually walked past her as
if he’d forgotten who she was. “If you want plants, come now.”
Lincoln pulled a face at Storm and grabbed the backpacks.
Blaine led the two of them through the jungle, the rich evergreen scent enveloping them more with every step. There almost wasn’t a way through; the thick trees had no space between them. The evergreen plants seemed to envelop everything. Blaine simply bent down and started ripping the leaves from the plants and stuffing them into his sack, looking up every now and then to rip a few random yellow strands from the vines surrounding the tree trunks.
Lincoln dropped to his knees and started digging in the jungle floor with his hands. “Blaine – we want to take a few plants home. Can you help me try and get this?”
Blaine frowned but nodded. “You can take them, but I doubt they’ll grow,” he said. It was the second time he’d mentioned that and she could see Lincoln bristle at those words. But he didn’t say anything. What could he say? Climate was one thing that they couldn’t control.
Blaine bent down to help Lincoln. Storm started following the strands of yellow vine that were coiled around the nearest tree. Tracing the origin of the plant wasn’t easy. Its starting point was nowhere near the tree and she had to crawl some way before she finally found the roots of the vine.
As they collected more leaves and dug up the plants, Blaine started to seem more connected. “You mentioned a virus. Do they really think it will kill the dinosaurs?”
Lincoln gently lifted a plant out of the ground, cradling the roots in one hand. He shrugged. “They hope it will. We planted one of the viruses at the watering hole for the raptors before we came here.”
Blaine looked confused. “What do you mean ‘one of the viruses’? You have more than one?”
Storm nodded. “They gave us one for the raptors, one for the T-rexes and one for the pterosaurs.” She paused for a second. “Maybe we don’t have to use the other two though.” She glanced at Lincoln. “We could just tell them that we did. I know you were worried about them finding out if we didn’t do it, but how could they? We don’t even know how long the viruses are supposed to take to work.”
Blaine seemed shocked. “Wait. You have a virus that could kill the T-rexes and you’re not going to bother?”
Lincoln looked directly at Storm and narrowed his gaze slightly. “We still don’t know how the Stipulators will find out if we use the viruses or not. I don’t want to risk the chance of us being refused passage home. Not now we’ve found the leaves and can make the ointment.”
Storm sat up a little straighter. Of course. Lincoln was still only thinking about Arta. Just like she should be. But she couldn’t help hating the idea of releasing these viruses.
“Where is it?” Blaine stood up and started pacing. “I need it. I need it!” He pulled up his trouser leg, revealing part of his scar. “Do you think I want them around after they did this to me? Why wouldn’t you put the virus in the watering hole?” His head kept flicking from side to side. “Who has it? Are you scared? Give it to me. I’ll do it! I’ll poison them. Even one less T-rex would be an improvement.”
Storm licked her lips as she gingerly carried the vine plant over to Lincoln’s backpack. Blaine was getting worked up again.
“Lincoln works in the lab, he’s not even sure if the virus will really work. They rushed everything.”
“Let’s go.” Blaine started walking in the direction from which they’d come. It was clear the conversation was over. Storm looked at Lincoln in panic. They didn’t really know the way back to the shack from here. If they didn’t follow him now they could get lost. She grabbed the sack on the ground – Blaine seemed to have forgotten about it.
Lincoln looked annoyed. “We need to get more samples. We can’t leave yet.”
Storm shook her head. “We can find a way to come back later.” Blaine was already disappearing from her line of sight. “Let’s go.”
Lincoln shook his head, but he stood and closed the backpack. “There’s only one reason I’m here and this is it. I won’t go home without what I need.”
She could see the little tic in his tight jaw.
Something inside her squeezed. She understood. She knew Arta. She liked her. No, more than that, she cared about her. Storm had seen the suffering of the blistering plague and hated the fact that back on Earthasia there was really nothing she could do to help.
She gave a nod of her head as she started after Blaine. “Don’t panic, Linc. We have time. We’ll find a way to get back here. I promise.”
Her stomach gave another uncomfortable twinge. Who was she to promise him anything?
She only hoped she wouldn’t be proved a liar.
Lincoln looked around, trying to contain his anger as he searched for signs of broken twigs or branches. “Just how fast does this guy walk?” he snapped at Storm.
She sighed and stared at the jungle around them. She was seeing exactly the same as him. Trees, trees and more trees.
“This way,” she said, moving off in one direction.
He shook his head and gave a smile. He could tell she wasn’t sure and was only pretending. He adjusted the backpack on his shoulder. “Why not.”
In the end, it took them over an hour to get back to the shack. It seemed that their previous visit had given them a moderate amount of tracking skills. When they arrived, sweaty and bedraggled, Leif was standing in a corner with his arms folded and Reban was looking amused by it all.
Jesa rushed over. “Where have you been?”
Lincoln gave an exasperated sigh. “We got a bit lost. Your dad took off too quickly for us to follow him.” He narrowed his gaze as he realized Blaine was nowhere in sight. “Where’s he gone?”
Jesa pointed to the shack. “He’s in there. He’s looking at the viruses in the carrier case.”
Lincoln turned to Leif. “Leif? What’s going on?”
Leif gritted his teeth. “He took them off me. He’s adamant that he’s the best person to plant the virus at the T-rex watering hole.”
Storm spoke first. “So we’re planting it then? I thought we hadn’t agreed that yet.”
Leif scowled. “No. You hadn’t agreed that. The rest of us are happy to get on with it.”
Lincoln glanced in Reban’s direction. He still didn’t trust him. He still suspected Reban might be spying on them. “My priority is the ointment and a passage home. If I have to plant the viruses to guarantee a place on the ship then I’ll do it.”
Storm let out an exasperated sigh.
Lincoln touched her arm. “Do you really want to be face-to-face with a T-rex? Look what happened to Galen.”
“Who’s Galen?” asked Jesa.
The rest of them glanced at each other. Reban frowned. He clearly remembered Galen too. Lincoln turned to Jesa. “Galen was one of the Finalists who came to Piloria last time. He was very…competitive. And ruthless. Not someone we would call a friend. At the last nest site, he seemed more interested in doing me damage than actually capturing the T-rex egg. He ended up cornered by a T-rex.”
Jesa’s face paled a little. “What happened?”
Lincoln bit his bottom lip. Maybe it wasn’t the best tale to tell when they were just about to go and plant a virus at the T-rex watering hole. “He got his arm ripped off.”
Jesa swayed and Storm stepped over beside her. She gave Lincoln a glare, then changed the subject rapidly. “No one knows the dinosaur behaviour better than Blaine. Maybe he can help keep us all safe.”
Reban gave a brief shake of his head. “I don’t care who plants the virus, just as long as someone does it. The fewer T-rexes on this continent the better. Some people here have the privilege of going home. The rest of us don’t.”
Storm shifted on her feet. Of course. Reban had to stay. Lincoln looked at him suspiciously. He literally only had the clothes he was standing in – how many belongings had he been forced to leave behind on Earthasia? Or would he be returning to them after all?
Blaine came back out from the shack, cradling
the carrier.
“How far to the T-rex watering hole?” Lincoln asked Blaine.
Last time around they’d come here from the cave. He wasn’t quite sure how long it would take them to reach the watering hole from Blaine’s shack. Blaine finally looked up from the carrier. He seemed fascinated by the red and blue viruses. He kept tilting the carrier up and down, letting the glass from the vials catch the light. Every time Blaine appeared to be a little bit sane he did something crazy again.
“Half a day,” he said quickly. “We won’t leave until morning.” He gave a shake of his head. “Too many predators at night.”
Lincoln felt an involuntary chill. The jungle was warm and on a few occasions he’d found himself swept away by thoughts of what it might actually be like to stay here. But words like those brought the harsh reality back home.
On Piloria, no one was safe. Not ever. Not for a second. To get comfortable was to die. Blaine’s words were a stark reminder.
Blaine looked around – as if he finally realized they might be staying with him overnight. There was a visible second of panic, followed by another anguished glance towards Jesa. How did you learn to be father to a teenage girl overnight?
Reban was standing on the sidelines watching with those cool, violet eyes. For the first time, Lincoln felt a twinge of sympathy for him. He had no relationship with Storm. He’d missed out on almost sixteen years of her life.
Lincoln gave a sigh. “Well, I guess we better bunk down for the night.” His stomach clenched and his leg gave an involuntary itch. “Tomorrow it’s the T-rexes.”
He unrolled his mat and sagged down onto it. All he really cared about was the plants. Now he had a few specimens he had to keep them safe. The last thing he wanted to do was go anywhere near the T-rexes.
But if he wanted to keep Blaine onside, to help them gather more plants and get out of here alive, and ensure a ride home, it seemed it would be essential.
