Then Asten’s face brightened. “I think there’s a clearing ahead. A big one. Maybe we’ve reached the coast already.”
Selina shook her head with a smile. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, honey. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Beside them, the stream rushed over some rocky steps of remarkable regularity. They were not the work of nature. Then, cutting a tangle of vines obstructing his path, Asten led his wife out onto a low ledge, a stone wall overgrown with moss.
Before them, the earth was flattened, spreading out in a wide rectangle about three hundred meters long and a hundred and fifty meters wide. To their left, their stream flowed through a canal and on either side of the wall they stood on, the long sides of the rectangle were framed by rows of terraced steps, now claimed by wild vegetation.
However, their attention was drawn more immediately by the large stone buildings ahead. Around them, the grass was long but the creeping jungle on all sides of the rectangle had stayed back as if in deference to this silent monument to a lost culture.
Asten navigated his way step by step down the stone bricks below him and turned to assist Selina. Over the past few days, he had noticed a roundness to her belly. Evidence of the development of her pregnancy that brought out further the protective instincts he had for his wife. Selina recognized this development as well and, although she was quite capable of taking care of herself, she graciously accepted Asten’s help whenever he offered it.
“Well, this is an interesting change of scene,” she said when they were both safely down and walking through the knee-high grass.
Asten pointed to two stone structures, one on either side of the stream, with round holes in their centers. “I think there may have been a water wheel between those things back when this place was occupied.”
Selina nodded. “Yeah. I’d say you’re probably right. And looking at these buildings without any roofs, I’d say they probably all had straw roofs.”
“I wonder what happened to these people,” Asten mused and stopped.
Selina squeezed his hand. She saw it too. A gaping hole in the side of one of the buildings with dark charred marks around the edge. As they looked at the surrounding buildings, they saw more evidence of such destruction. And with all the holes they saw, judging from the angle at which the stone had been scorched through, it was clear that they had been blasted from above.
“Modern weapons fire,” Asten said. “Possibly projectile weapons but I don’t think so.”
“The Imraehi,” Selina said. “This happened some time in the last five hundred years or so.” She swallowed. “But it wasn’t the Imraehi then. The Imraehi didn’t exist. It was the Phalamkians.”
Asten grimaced and put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “Don’t think like that. That’s what Ardeis wants. He wants us to think that we’re all as messed up as he and his friends are. We’re not.”
“But he might be making more points than that, Asten,” Selina said. “Remember how he said the people who colonized Corsida were contemporaries of the people who did this? The same thing could have happened there. And remember the Corsidans then went on to colonize other worlds later. So when Halea was colonized, that would have been more recently than this...”
Asten sighed. “Yeah. I see what you mean. And the Harskans and the Minstrahn...” He trailed off and shook his head. “Screw him. It’s not the same. We’re not accountable for the crimes of our ancestors. What they did was wrong but that was what they did, not us. But the thing with the Imraehi is that they’re still doing it. So if getting us to see this was his grand plan, then it’s not going to work.”
After they went around the buildings, they followed the canal into the forest on the far side of the clearing. However, while they left the buildings behind, the stone walls of the canal remained and after a kilometer or so, it brought them to the bank of a river some thirty or forty meters wide and flowing swiftly.
“Well,” Selina said. “It may not be the sea but it’s progress.”
“I wish Ardeis had given us a boat,” Asten said. “Well, I guess we’ll just try to follow the riverbank then. I hope there aren’t any sand flies.”
Thankfully, the horrid insects that Asten was worried about didn’t show themselves during the day. However, as the afternoon wore on, he and Selina moved away from the bank and up into the trees just to be on the safe side. Rather than slowing their progress, the firmer ground further up actually helped them to cover a bit more distance and they regretted staying close to the bank for as long as they had.
Then when it was too dark to see where they were going, they stopped for the night, set up their customary camp and got a fire going.
As they had done on each occasion so far, they used the fire starters that came with their cooking sets and then Asten piled some kindling on and lit that as well. As on previous occasions, their evening fire provided them both with a little light and cheer. However, this time, it led to a discovery as Asten observed sap seeping out from the kindling and as the fire heated it, the sap glued two small sticks together.
Pulling them out before they were consumed, Asten showed them to his wife. “Hey, honey. Look at this.”
Selina took the two sticks and inspected them. “The sap’s really fused these things together well, hasn’t it?”
“And it makes a seal between them,” Asten said. “I reckon that’d be watertight.”
“Interesting,” Selina said, handing the sticks back.
“An opportunity,” Asten told her with a smile. He put the sticks in his backpack. “Tomorrow, let’s see if we can find what type of tree these came from. I think we might have found our boat.”
“Captain,” Eroim said. “If you want to raise the Valiant now, I think you should be able to get a clear signal.”
Carla nodded and pushed herself up from her seat. “Thank you, Eroim. If you need me, then you’ll know where to find me.”
She left the bridge, which felt a lot more relaxed now that they were well clear of Felkar, and entered her ready room. There, she made her transmission.
“Phalamkian Orbital One,” came a voice through the speaker. “Proceed.”
Carla frowned. “This is Carla Casdan of the Lantern. I’m sorry but I was trying to raise the Valiant.”
“Understood, Miss Casdan. You are being redirected to the Valiant now.”
There was a pause, a longer one than Carla expected under the circumstances. She checked her communication instruments and saw that the signal was not only being rerouted but scrambled as well. The regular security measures were being elevated somewhat, although she could guess the reason.
A new voice came over the speaker. “Valiant reads, Lantern. Proceed.”
“I’d like to speak to either the Adopted Lady Erama or Master Zak if they’re available,” Carla said. “You can tell them it’s Carla Casdan calling.”
“Yes, I remember you,” the communications officer on the other ship replied. “One moment.”
There was another long pause, accompanied by more rerouting and scrambling of the signal. Then, at last, Carla heard a more familiar voice.
“Carla. You’re a long way from home. I was rather under the impression that you’d be back on Phalamki by now.”
“Well, you know what they say, Zak,” she replied. “Duty takes precedence. I understand you’re heading out this way yourself. Or somewhere in the neighborhood.”
“Yes.”
And not on the Valiant, Carla thought.
“So how can I be of assistance?” Zak asked.
Its shape was not suggestive of something that would plough effortlessly through the water, being clearly made of broken branches, sticks and even leaves and twigs. However, it was a decent size, three meters long and a bit over a meter wide. Sticks squashed into the front, the rear and the center of it braced the sides and formed makeshift seats - and there was space between them for a bit of ballast.
Asten had also intended to use the sap he’d discov
ered to make a smooth finishing coat over the little boat’s hull but had given up when the tediousness of the task had first become apparent. Besides, with limited field rations, they didn’t have a lot of time; and he and Selina both now suspected that when Ardeis had given them their two weeks to reach the coast, he had factored in traveling by water.
Asten looped a vine around a jutting stick that formed the prow and tied the other end around the nearest tree.
He kissed his wife. “Wish me luck, honey.”
Selina smiled. “Good luck.”
Then Asten kicked his canoe into the water and climbed in. It moved swiftly from the bank and, as the vine went taut, it stopped and stayed more or less where it was, swinging from side to side in the current.
“Well?” Selina called from the bank.
“I think it’s working!” Asten called back, jubilant.
“No water’s leaking in?”
Asten looked around. “I don’t think so. I’ll just wait a couple more minutes out here just in case. But I think it’s good. It sits well in the water too. It’s pretty stable all things considered.”
He sat in the canoe a little while longer, inspecting it carefully for any sign of leakage. But the packed leaves, twigs and sap that plugged the various gaps seemed to do the trick. It held the little boat together and water didn’t seep through it.
When he was satisfied, he pulled on the vine and brought the canoe back to the bank.
“Put the backpacks in,” he said.
Selina did. Then she went over to the trees to fetch the two paddles they’d worked on as well. While she was getting them, Asten pushed the backpacks down into the bottom of the boat. Then he helped Selina aboard when she got back with the paddles.
“Comfortable?” he asked her once she was sitting down on the seat in front of him.
“Yeah,” she said, sounding a little surprised. “You’ve done a good job. I think I might even enjoy this. It’ll be nice to be able to relax for a little while.”
“And if it looks safe enough, we might be able to travel a little bit at night,” Asten said. “We can take shifts.”
“Well, we’ll see,” Selina replied, readying her paddle. “But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.”
“Okay, honey,” Asten told her. “Cast us off.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Selina said cheerfully and with her spare hand, she freed the vine from the prow and they shot swiftly away in the current.
Carla entered the mess. Reece was there, with a pad in one hand and a coffee in the other.
He smiled at her. “Any news on Kareim?”
Carla shook her head as she got a coffee for herself from the dispenser unit. “Nothing as yet. Eroim’s set the system up so we’ll get an alert if he leaves Felkar. But he doesn’t appear to be going anywhere yet.” She sat down across from her companion. “I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought to the possibility that he might not have any plans to leave Felkar for the foreseeable future?”
Reece sighed. “I’ve considered it but I find it unlikely. He’s involved in weapons smuggling and his pattern suggests he does a lot of moving around. At least, it does from the short time I’ve been observing him. Also, I wouldn’t be too surprised if he made a trip to Imraec Tarc in the near future as that delydrium he was mining probably had something to do with that excessive defense network you told me about.”
“You might be right,” Carla said, forcing a smile, “but what if you’re wrong?”
Reece shrugged. “If I’m wrong, then I’ll get off wherever the Lantern stops next and go back to Felkar to pick him up myself. Alone if I have to.”
“Do you have to get this man, Reece?”
“He killed eleven people,” Reece said. “Buried them alive in that mine.”
“And if you caught Kareim and brought him in,” Carla asked, “would it make any difference to those people?”
“Maybe not,” Reece conceded. “But it might save others down the line. Kareim’s a killer. I’d bet you those people in the mine aren’t the first people he’s killed and, if he isn’t stopped, they won’t be the last either.”
“Let the authorities deal with him.”
Reece frowned. “I may not be on a regular payroll but I’m more or less with the authorities, remember? Back on Erelli. I’m a freelance investigator but I’m registered.”
Carla shook her head. “I’m sorry, Reece. It doesn’t fit. A local law enforcement officer on a Federation world, even a freelancer, doesn’t go gallivanting out past the Frontier chasing criminals from system to system. Now, if I were to contact the authorities on Erelli for confirmation of your story, they wouldn’t have any record of your registration, would they?”
Reece sighed. “No.”
Carla leaned forward. “What happened, Reece?”
“I had a brother. We weren’t particularly close but he was a nice guy. And he was my brother. One day, he was going to Taij on business when the convoy of ships he was traveling with were attacked and destroyed by a small group of militants with one misguided cause or another. They weren’t a particularly big group and, according to the news reports, they had no support from any recognized government. Yet after they were all killed off or brought in, it was revealed that they’d had a lot of sophisticated weapons at their disposal and, with their lack of manufacturing equipment and the prerequisite technical knowledge required to make the things, there was no way they could have developed any of those weapons themselves.
“And then it just happened. I left my job taking tourists yachting around the islands and I started tracking down some of their associates I read about. It seemed to all happen so fast and then... with one thing leading to another, I ended up in that mine where you found me.” Reece was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Carla.”
“It’s all right,” Carla told him. “I’m not angry. If anything, I admire you for what you’ve tried to do. And I’m sorry about your brother.”
“Thank you.”
“But the thing is,” Carla continued. “The thing is... I like you, Reece. I like you a lot. But if you want to go off on some kind of personal vendetta, then I can’t go along with you.”
“I understand,” Reece said. “But from everything you’ve told me, it sounds as though you’ve never had to deal with the bad guys getting away with it. You saw Corinthe put away. You saw that Minstrahn triumvirate put away. And that girl who kidnapped you, while you were out that way... You saw her hauled away too and you scored her ship in the deal as well. You’ve always had closure. You don’t understand what it’s like when you don’t to get to see the baddies get their comeuppance. I haven’t had any luck so far.”
“Yeah, I’ve been lucky,” Carla said. “That’s true. But when you’re talking about Kareim ‘getting away with it’, then I’m having to deal with that just as much as you are.” She smiled and tried to levitate the mood. “And besides, you’re forgetting that I also had to come to terms with my old employer Big Blue not getting his comeuppance.”
Reece grinned at this and shrugged. “I don’t know. I also remember you telling me about your friend Drackson paying him a surprise visit later. It sounds to me as though he got some form of comeuppance in the end.”
Carla chuckled at the memory. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Then, her smile faded and she reached over the table and held Reece’s hand. “But if I can talk seriously for a moment... if you go back to Felkar alone, then who knows? Maybe you will get Kareim. But you’ll lose me. So you should ask yourself what’s more important -being with someone who cares about you or gallivanting off to get revenge on a nobody.” She kissed Reece on the cheek. “Think about it.”
Selina woke in a daze. The air still felt close and steamy, even though the sun had fallen behind the trees that lined the river to either side of her and the night now crept in from the distant sea. When she and Asten had set out in the canoe, its sparkling waters had felt so close that she had expected to see its wide
horizons revealed to her around ever bend in the river - that vast ocean she had seen through the viewscreen of the Lady Hawk in that other life of hers. That life that seemed so remote it was as though it had been another person’s entirely. However, as she had come out from the shelter of the trees onto the rippled silvery expanse of this river, a veil had been lifted from her eyes and now she truly comprehended the vastness of her surroundings. In an hour, she and Asten must have passed through swathes of forest that would have taken them a day on foot and yet, as the after-trail of the sun’s descent lit the scene around them in one last dazzling show, like fire burning up the edges of a sheet of velvet, they seemed no closer to their elusive prize of white sand and a far off horizon.
She now felt that she and Asten were more isolated, more alone, than they had been when Merceil had abandoned them in that clearing, as now the sights and sounds of the forest were cut off from them as well. The closely knotted trees and the tangle of the undergrowth on both banks of the river formed solid walls, shutting them out from the life that flourished within.
“Are you all right?”
Selina blinked and came back from the realms of her fancy to the little canoe that was their lifeline, all that was keeping them afloat in the ebb and flow of this nameless river, in a darkening forest on an alien world, far from the comfort and the safety of her home.
She turned around and saw her husband looking at her with concern.
“You’re crying,” he said.
Selina sniffed and wiped the tears away. “I’m all right.”
“We’re making good progress,” Asten said. “If it’s possible to get to the mouth of this river before our supplies run out, then we’ll make it. I’m sure of it.”
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