by Jean Kilczer
“I would, if I were them,” he said. “Huff, stand up.”
“I am up,” Huff replied.
“On your hind legs.”
Huff reared up and towered over Joe, who extended a hand toward us. “Give me your comlinks. Quick!”
We all handed them to him and he stuffed them into Huff's belly pouch.
“They can trace us,” Bat said, “even when the links are turned off. Right, y'all?”
“Right, Bat,” I said.
“Huff,” Joe started, “get down to the beach, ASAP, swim out into deep water and dump them. You got that?”
“I got that. All but a sap. I know of no a saps in the sea.”
“Try looking in a mirror, fur ball,” Chancey said.
“Just do it fast, buddy,” I told Huff, “then hurry back. We'll be heading inland.” The sun was peering over the eastern sea and laying its red path on water for the flight west. Soon it would be morning. “Now go, Huff,” I said, “before the patrol gets close enough to see you.” His white fur shines, even in moonlight.
“I am go. Be in care of yourself, my Terran cub.”
“You too.”
He leaped ahead on all fours and galloped toward the beach.
“Let's go,” Joe said.
We continued to trot inland, cracking crusty ice and trudging through snow drifts as we went.
“Jules,” Joe sounded out of breath, “see if Spirit will keep us posted on when we can skirt the patrol and continue south.”
“I will. He will, Joe He promised.”
“Nice to have some tag in another solar system,” Chancey said, “telling us which way to run.”
“I'll introduce you sometime, Chance,” I said. “He's like nothing you've ever seen.”
“That's a date, man, considering our asses aren't food for the birds on this snowball.”
* * *
I checked my watch as we sat behind a stand of spiky dwarf Shingle Trees with red pines and twisted trunks. “Huff should've been back by now.”
“We can't wait any longer.” Joe got up and put on his backpack. “C'mon, before the patrol's crawling up our asses.”
I peered seaward. Huff's fur is as white as snow, so I scanned for movement in the early morning light. But a row of dunes blocked my view of the beach. “Wish we had our graphoculars.”
“We don't need graphs,” Chancey said, “to figure out the patrol's getting close.”
Huff, dammit! I sent, where are you? I felt his thoughts at a heightened distress level. “Huff,” I whispered. “Something's wrong, Joe. They might have him.” I slung on my backpack. “I'm going down to the beach. I think he needs help. We'll meet you–”
Joe grabbed the front of my jacket. “You're not going anywhere near that beach.” He thrust out his jaw and pointed inland. “That way!”
I pulled Joe's hand off my jacket.
“Jules, please.” Sophia took my arm. “Come with us.” She searched my eyes. “For me?”
“Soph, Huff would lay down his life for me. I can't abandon him. You understand?”
Chancey stood up and strolled over, deceptively relaxed. “You heard the boss.”
“I know how you feel, Bubba,” Bat said, “but Huff wouldn't want you walking into no trap.”
“We don't know that it's a trap,” I said. “I'll just watch the beach from behind those dunes. We'll catch up to you.”
“Jules!” Joe said. “If Huff could've come back, he'd be here by now. C'mon!”
“I can't, Joe.”
Sophia dropped her hand from my arm. Chancey unholstered his stingler and spun the ring to the stun setting.
Joe put out a hand. I knew by his expression that he was holding back a deep concern as he stared at me. “No, Chancey, we sure as hell can't carry him.”
Tears shimmered in Sophia's eyes.
“I'm sorry, Soph.” I bit my lip.
“Don't be.” She wiped tears on her sleeve and kissed my cheek. “Remember what I told you? I never meant to change who you are.” She turned abruptly. “We'd better go, Joe.”
“Then I'll go with him!” Bat got up and grabbed his medkit. “Damn the torpedoes.” He strode toward me.
“Bat,” Joe said softly, “we need you.”
Bat stopped and looked from Joe to me with his mild blue eyes, and scratched under his cap. “Guess so. Take care of yourself, Bubba.” He winked. “Come back alive.”
I nodded, glanced at Sophia and Joe, nodded to Chancey, and started toward the dunes. My heart pounded with more than the physical effort of trotting through snow and ice. Let the chips fall, I thought.
I saw no footprints or tire tracks in the snow as I moved toward the beach. A good sign.
When I reached the line of dunes, I took off my backpack and drew my stingler. Bird-like creatures cawed and circled in the air above the beach.
Oh Great mind, I thought, please don't let it be Huff. I climbed a dune on hands and knees, and ventured a look over the top, afraid of what I'd see, but knowing I had to see whatever was there.
The sight struck me like a physical blow. “Huff!” He lay on his back, motionless, his fur wet from a recent swim, his head to one side, his tongue in the sand. A bird landed on his chest, then lifted back to the flock. “Oh, Huff!” I lowered my forehead to the cold sand and held back tears that would blur my vision.
The beach was empty. A lone wind ruffled his wet fur, so soft it rose around him, a fitting shroud for my great friend.
I holstered my weapon, walked around the dune, and approached, hoping his eyes were shut. I think I would've broken down if they were open and staring blankly. No, I saw as I approached him, his eyes were closed and I was grateful.
“Oh, Huff.” I dropped to my knees beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “He was my friend,” I recited to the sky and circling birds, “faithful and just…” I was afraid to roll him over, afraid to see the killing blow that had released his kwaii from his body. “He died on his homeworld,” I whispered.
Then I almost fell backward as he gasped in a breath and blinked open his eyes.
“Huff!”
He rubbed an eye. “I am Huff.”
Oh my God! You're alive."
Then I knew that my response to his trumped-up death was the bait that I had taken, sucking me into a trap.
“Uh oh.” I stood up and unholstered my stingler. The deep whine of a large ground vehicle grew louder from behind a dune. Sand spewed into the air. I yanked on Huff's forearm. “C'mon!”
He rolled and staggered to his feet, then sat down and swayed.
“C'mon, buddy!” I tried to drag him to his feet, then froze as a large vehicle on tracks, the color of sand, rose to the top of the dune. Its mounted laser cannon swiveled in our direction.
“Drop your weapon, Terran heathen,” a speaker demanded, “or we will drop you and the traitorous Rebel, and not with a stun setting this time.”
"The crotefuckers still wanted me alive, for Aburra's bloody altar, one more example for those who would oppose him. On the other hand, I wanted them dead. I fired at the right track and saw it snap apart and slide off the wheels.
“Run, Huff!” I started for a dune.
He got to his feet, staggered sideways, and fell.
“Attempt to get away,” the speaker said, its voice hollow, "and this time I will burn him to a crisp slab of meat, suited only for the birds.
I stood in front of Huff and aimed at the left track, but the vehicle spun around, protecting that side.
“I will walk!” Huff grunted, “though the ground moves beneath me like a current in Mother Sea.” He staggered toward a dune, and I kept pace, blocking him from the crippled vehicle. It spun its right wheels, digging itself a hole in the sand. The mounted gun was mirrored and impervious to my hand beam weapon. As the vehicle ground into the sand, it exposed its left track, I fired and heard the satisfying clang of metal as the track broke loose and flew into the door.
“Follow me, Huff,” I urged,
“we can still make it.”
We topped a dune and I caught my breath as though I'd been hit with ice water. Three Cultists on foot, their weapons drawn and aimed at us, waited at the bottom of the dune. Two more left the crippled vehicle and trotted toward us. I let my stingler hang at my side.
Huff sat down and sobbed. “Sorry am I, my Terran cub, that I could do no better.”
I stroked his shoulder and felt suddenly weary as they surrounded us. “We put up a good fight, buddy.”
A Cultist from the crippled vehicle slapped the stingler from my hand and hit me across the face with a blow like a hammer. I slid to my knees, my hands pressed against my head as pain riveted my skull like driven nails.
The Cultist dropped to all fours close beside me. “What do you know of a good fight, spawn of the Pit? We fight for right, while you conspire with the Dark Lord.”
I wanted to tell him that might doesn't necessarily make right, but I didn't want to get hit again. I scooped up a handful of snow and held it to my bleeding lip.
“Oh, do it to me instead!” Huff cried. “He is innocent.”
“Your time and your pain will come,” the Cultist told him, “and no one is innocent.”
My hand trembled with meting snow against my face, but fear was a colder cup at my lips.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Huff and I were taken south in a jeep the Cultists called for, with replacement tracks stuffed into the back. They made Huff trot beside the small vehicle with a rope around his neck. There was no room for him inside. After two hours, my sturdy friend was panting.
“Can't you give him a break?” I asked the driver. “He's breathing hard.”
“He is lucky to be breathing at all,” the Cultist beside me said.
“I am all well in the liver,” Huff gasped, to comfort me, I think.
“OK, Huff,” I said. “Don't talk.” I wondered if Sophia and the others had made it around the Cultist patrol and were heading south. Spirit? I sent and waited.
Spirit, Syl 'Via sent, Jules is calling you.
I know, dear. He never calls just to say hello. Yes, Jules?
Can you tell me if the others made it?
So far. They are still walking south.
Thanks.
You are welcome. I felt his sigh as he broke the link.
In the distance, a dark wall of stone cut the horizon. The Cultists' Southern headquarters, I surmised. It wasn't very far south.
I was glad, for Huff's sake, that we were near the end of our journey, but whatever lay ahead might make us wish we had never arrived.
* * *
Huff and I were locked in a cell with a bunk, a table with one chair, a barred window, a bathroom that sported a vac unit for cleaning clothes, and a shower. I guess the Cultists believed that cleanliness is next to Godliness. I took the opportunity to brush my teeth with soap, and vac my clothes.
Huff wanted to stay and watch me shower, but I told him we humans were shy about our bodies.
“That is because you have so little fur.” He studied me as I entered the shower, “and in such strange places.” He shook his head. “You have no sheath for the baby-bringer.”
“No, Huff! No sheath.” I slammed the shower door shut.
As I showered, I heard him leave the bathroom, mumbling something about dangling parts.
* * *
The day was waning. I looked out the barred window and watched Cultists striding on foot, and driving their war machines. The compound was huge from what I'd seen on our way in. A broad-based, dark, stone church towered above all other buildings, with ten statues, their gods, I assumed, lining the parapet, and one of Lord Aburra with a real golden armband fluttering, set higher than the rest, and rows of vehicles in a parking lot.
There was an air of excitement, with hurried conversations and gesturing, and compulsive glances at a clock on a tower. I had the distinct feeling that they were gearing up for a battle. From this location, Lord Aburra and his hordes could spread across the narrow continent, their Bible in one hand, a weapon in the other.
Huff was asleep on the cold stone floor, exhausted mentally and physically, I think, by his recent ordeal.
I sat on the bunk as day darkened to flat, subdued light, and thought of a saying I'd once heard. We did what men could, and suffered what men must. Where had I heard that? Spirit?
I don't know either, Jules. It's your history.
No, not that, Spirit. I rubbed my eyes. If…if Aburra has me dragged to his bloody altar, if he holds a burning knife over my chest, ready to plunge it into me and rip out my beating heart to hold in his hand, while the light fades in an agony I can't even imagine, will I have the courage to slice his brainstem with a death blow, and then turn it on myself and end my life quickly, before he strikes? Great Mind doesn't condone suicide. You told me that yourself.
If it comes to such an unfortunate event, my Terran friend, I will do it for you. I do not presume to know Great Mind's plan, but I believe in my heart that He would forgive my transgression to save you from an agonizing path into geth state.
Thank you, Spirit…then I won't know Lisa, or Sophia, or you, in my next life? That's what you told me.
We could get reacquainted.
I thought of my sister Ginny, killed when I crashed a helicub where I shouldn't have been, and sighed. Maybe finally, that sin would be washed from my memory and my soul. Aburra might be doing me a favor!
It was no sin, Spirit sent. You were a child yourself, in the teens of your race, when you flew the small plane too high and crashed into the mountain peak.
The crash that killed my young sister. It was my fault, Spirit. I was reckless.
Was? You always fly too high, up there with the soaring birds. It is your nature. When the time comes, and you reincarnate, whenever that may be, your true nature will reassert itself, no matter the body it inhabits.
That's comforting.
It is no more than the truth.
But to never see my Lisa, my child, again, Spirit, and Sophia.
I will tell you a great secret, Jules. At the end of time, when our universe has burned out its last star, we will all be reunited within Great Mind. He is the Body and the Soul of all that exists within creation, and as my own body inhabits the fissures that run deep through Halcyon, as you Terrans call my planet, and I create the lifeforms, so His body inhabits the cosmos. He is the fount that gives us our life force. He is the essence.
Thanks, Spirit. I didn't know all that. Still, I'd rather play out this life in this body, if I can.
If you can. They are coming.
I took a shaky breath. How many?
I count six.
They're not taking any chances with me.
They've learned from your previous incursions into their thoughts and their behavior.
I don't suppose you could lend a hand…or a tentacle, in controlling the six of them until Huff and I escaped?
Jules, you know that I've had my…tentacle slapped by Great Mind for interfering on your behalf. All entities, on all planets, are His children.
Even these ravagers and mass murderers?
Even them. In their next lives, they might be saints in the making.
That's good, Spirit, I just want to give them the opportunity, sooner than later.
I am truly sorry, Jules. I will remain with you, in the background.
My stomach suddenly hosted a flock of migrating butterflies at the sound of boots echoing down the stone hall.
Huff awoke and got to his feet, growling deep in his throat. I patted his neck with a trembling hand.
Six blue-banded Slatties crowded around the bars of our cell.
I stood up. Spirit! If they torture Huff…
I will see to the coup de grâce myself.
Thank you.
A Cultist unlocked the door. “You, Terran.” He gestured gruffly toward the hall.
I took my jacket, glanced at Huff, whose eyes were tearing, and walked into the hall.
> I was led across a wide courtyard, surrounded by the six guards, while Cultists paused to watch and point at me. We walked through the long shadow of the church that cut a dark swath across the compound.
As the sun weakened, and drained colors into monotones, the cold north wind tightened its grip on the land. Snow had been plowed from paths, and for the first time since landing on Kresthaven, I walked on hard, dirt ground. The smell of food cooking on open fires made me realize I hadn't eaten since the day before. I was breathing hard and feeling weak as we walked. Huff was not the only one suffering from the ordeals of this day.
Oh no! I still had the bottle of digestall tablets. The team couldn't eat anything indigenous to Kresthaven. They'd have to make it to Big Sarge's camp. How far south, I didn't know.
The whine of a hovair overhead grew as it banked and settled to a pad. Mechanics worked on ground and air vehicles. “Getting ready for a party?” I asked a guard.
“Shut up.”
I was led through tall, ornate church doors, down a hall with stone steps, and into a vast cavern that held the tomblike chill of death. Frosted electric stars dotted the walls and domed ceiling. Above a dark stone slab on a platform, stained with blood, hung a golden moonlike orb.
Hundreds of Cultists sat and swayed on the floor. A line of new arrivals filed in through a break in the wall and were given bowls to drink from.
“Drink deeply of the Sacred Pool,” a broad-shouldered Slattie said as he handed them bowls from a table, “and you will know the bliss of the Ten Gods.”
Would I ever leave this room alive? I doubted it as I walked between the silent congregation to either side of the path that led, on a red rug, to the bloody altar.
I held my head high, though my knees wanted to buckle. I had lived fully. If this was the end, then so be it.
You poor bastards, I thought, as I scanned the Slatties. Their eyes were glazed. They swayed. What drug had they swallowed in Aburra's holy water? They were prisoners themselves, of their own twisted allegiance to a psychopath, though they didn't know it.
When the last Slattie had drunk, the vast room grew still. I drew a quiet breath as silver-furred Lord Aburra, wearing his golden armband and a red cape with a star clasped at his throat, emerged from a door in the wall and moved majestically along a golden path, painted with religious symbols, I think, that led to the altar.
