Four Worlds

by Maureen A. Miller

  “In there.” She prompted him back further until darkness consumed him.

  This was his chance. She would be disoriented in the dark.

  Light blossomed in the cave. A stack of logs ignited, most likely from a laser blast. Heat filled the tight nook, and for the first time he noticed a certain peace settle over her unique face. High cheekbones. Dark eyes gently slanted at the corners, and a cascade of glossy hair.

  If you’re going to be abducted, this isn’t so bad, he thought. But, that notion was tamped down as he recalled the people waiting on him.

  “Sit,” she ordered quietly, the omnipresent laser encouraging him.

  Gordy settled his back against the rigid wall, eyeing the fervent flames and the cryptic shadows they cast behind the woman’s profile. In a matter of moments, the fire heated up the small cave with only a lick of cold air penetrating to tug the smoke away.

  Hefting his knees up, he rested his arms atop them and stared at the woman. Her skin had a golden glow in the firelight. Flames danced in her dark eyes, offering slivered glimpses into her soul.

  “What name do you go by?” she asked with little fanfare.

  Gordy raised an eyebrow.

  “My name is Gordeelum. My close friends and family call me, Gordy. But you are neither of those.”

  The woman reached forward and stoked the flames with a stick. She did not rise to the bait of his cutting tone.

  “Gor-dee-lummm,” she recited without looking at him.

  The pronunciation came out like a purr. It was unintentional, but the effect had him oddly wishing she would repeat his name.

  Shrugging away the sensation, he tilted his head, hoping to hear a voice calling out of his shoulder communicator.

  After a few moments, he realized she had nothing to add.

  “And yours?” he countered.

  Fervent eyes stared back at him. The logs popped, making her flinch.

  “Sema,” she whispered.

  “See-mah,” Gordy repeated.

  “Yes, my friends and family call me that. Anyone else, I kill.”

  Snorting at that, Gordy gave her another assessment, but could see no signs of a cold-blooded killer. In the stubborn tilt of the chin, and the challenging flash in her eyes, he saw a girl who strived for self-worth. She fought for independence. He recognized those traits. He had witnessed them in the reflective pane of his Terra Angel.

  This female was one with the mountains–climbing them with an agility only afforded to high altitude creatures. Yet, in the wisps of sable hair that fell across adept shoulders, and in the healthy outline of her body–the keenness of her retorts–there he detected a woman–an attractive woman– hidden behind a few smudges of dirt. Even now one high cheekbone was scored with soot from stoking the fire.

  She fascinated him.

  She was his captor.

  It was a negation.

  “Are you going to kill me?” he challenged.

  Rarely did she blink. The millisecond of vulnerability was something she could not chance.

  “Not unless you make me.”

  Sitting on a fur blanket on the earthen floor she leaned over and drew a sack out from behind a boulder. She pulled out a crudely crafted jar and extended it to him.

  “Water.” She nodded for him to drink.

  Gordy opened the sealed vessel and took a whiff. There was no foreign scent–no telltale trace of poison. At first, he considered demanding that she take the first sip, but he knew he represented some sort of prize that she wanted to deliver intact. She didn’t necessarily want him dead–unless he goaded her.

  The water was stale, but cold from the cave. After the first tentative sip, he drank amply and held it out to her. She took it and swigged without hesitation. That set him at ease.

  “So,” he settled back again, “tell me about your life here.”

  “Why?” She looked suspicious.

  “We aren’t going anywhere until morning, right? We might as well pass the time.”

  “You should worry about sleeping to gain strength for the journey ahead.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me keeping up,” Gordy smirked. “I’ll be in front of you, remember?”

  Not even a hint of a grin.

  Was the woman incapable of smiling?

  Granted, he shouldn’t take this all so glibly. As a youth, he was as serious as Sema. There always something to prove. Perhaps he still felt that way. Aimee and Zak had taken him seriously. Without them he would have never become a Warrior. Everyone deserved a chance, and perhaps this young Anthumian thought her only chance was to bring him to her elders.

  “What do you want to hear about my life here? That it has been as privileged as yours?” Defiance and sadness dueled in her eyes. “Well, it has not.”

  Gordy’s gaze fell to the fire. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Life on the Horus wasn’t as glamorous as you think. Very shortly after it fled Anthum, the virus broke out again. Many were lost–to the point that we thought our race would become extinct. But they were able to cordon off the ill, and those who remained healthy reproduced. My parents had me after that first outbreak. Then again, several rens later, we had another outbreak, but this time there was an alien on board–an alien who was able to provide us with a serum. The disease is no longer a threat to us. Everyone has been vaccinated.”

  For the first time, she made direct eye contact. It brought the heat of the fire to his face.

  “If it was a plant-born virus how did it follow you onto the ship? Were you stupid enough to bring some of Anthum’s plants with you?”

  “Of course not,” he defended even though he did not know the answer. “They say some passengers had the disease still latent in their cells. They could have been reactivated by immunosuppression.”

  Full lips thinned.

  “I suppose,” she replied unconvinced. “My people–we are Solthumians.”

  “Solthumian? I thought you were from this planet.”

  “You know so little about a planet you claim as your native home.”

  Gordy took another sip of water, offering her the bottle in return. Their fingers touched for just a second. He saw her eyes flare before she snatched the carafe.

  “Enlighten me, then,” he challenged.

  “The Solthum Valley,” Sema bit. “That is where my people are from. It is very narrow, a mere wedge between two mountains.” Tension drained from her face. “I saw it once. I hiked to it. Our elders won’t permit us to go back there. They said we are mountain people now. People of the peaks. Our prowess at high altitudes is our advantage–our identity. Returning to the valley is a sign of weakness.”

  “Except to capture prisoners?” he quipped.

  “Prisoners never make it to our valley. It is why we were so secluded to begin with. Prisoners are captured simply because they are stupid enough to venture to the mainland.”

  “It seems to me that you are just quoting all that you’ve been told by your elders. Your elders don’t let you travel to your valley. Your elders recite tales about the people that abandoned you. Your elders tell you to capture innocent mecaws.” Gordy frowned. “Basically, you rely on the input of everyone else rather than reaching your own conclusions.”

  Before Sema could produce a retort, Gordy continued.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I can be accused of the same education. I only know what my history lessons have taught me. I should have asked more questions–not of my teachers, but of the actual survivors–the people directly involved.”

  “Your parents,” Sema offered quietly.

  “They always treated me as if I was too young to understand about the stress they went through. Then, by the time I was old enough, I became too busy to listen.”

  Gordy was startled by his admission. Until this moment, in this dimly-lit cave with this unique female, he had never even considered or recalled his attempts to learn details about his family’s history.

  Sema regarded him with soulful eyes.

>   “My mother–” she hesitated, “she was young when the Horus departed. She saw it, though. It was such a grand vessel, she said. It filled the sky, obliterating the sun.” Awe danced in Sema’s eyes.

  “There was a friend of my mother’s on board the ship–” she continued, “–or, at least my mother hoped she was on board. This girl lived in the closest village to us. Solthum was too remote to engage in the nearby educational programs. There was never any occasion to run into a lowlander. My mother met this girl by chance along the river that flows out of our valley.”

  Absently, Sema drew a winding line with her fingertip on the cave floor. “My mother was following a school of keegan, trying to catch them for grandmother’s dinner. There was a girl crying by the riverside. She was lost and my mother helped her find her way back to her village. After that, they both returned to the same spot on the river in hopes of finding each other again. They continued these trysts until the first signs of the virus struck.” Sema shrugged weakly. “My mother always assumed her friend fled on the Horus. She refused to accept the alternative.”

  Gordy struggled with the image of the girl left behind.

  “I still don’t believe they knowingly abandoned you. Surely it had to be a mistake.”

  Gone was the melancholy. Sema glared back at him.

  “Okay,” he held up his hands. “But, it sounds like your mother might not hold as much animosity towards the Horus as your father, am I right? I mean, when I look at you I see a woman divided.”

  To confirm his assessment, he studied her again. She evaded his eyes this time.

  “In you I see your mother’s empathy, and your father’s anger.”

  The observation rattled her. She withdrew from the flames and flattened her back against the cave wall.

  “Look closer,” she ordered softly. “Those are surface traits that fade under the shield that keeps me going–my sense of duty.”

  “Duty,” Gordy mused. “I understand duty. But, duty often gets you killed.”

  “Perhaps. But you’re not going to be the one to do it,” she challenged with less bravado. “I hold the weapon.”

  “You will eventually sleep.”

  Her fingers wrapped tight around the Star Laser. “You will die without me. We are too high for you to find your way back down.”

  “I’m a Warrior, Sema. I have survived other planets. I can survive a walk down this mountain.”

  It was the first time he noticed it. A glint of envy in her eyes. She thinned her lips and narrowed her gaze to disguise it.

  “You are so arrogant,” she spat. “With your tales of adventure and conquest, and your blond hair and tall frame, and your face–”

  Gordy’s lip curved up. “What about my face. Do you think I’m good-looking?”

  “No!” But her wide eyes deceived her. “You think you’re handsome. You think you are all powerful. All of your kind think they are better. They were deserving of life–of a chance. We were not.”

  “Your mouth is moving,” Gordy observed quietly, “but it is not your words that pours from it.”

  Sema raised the Star Laser. “I should just shoot you now. The elders will be satisfied with your corpse.”

  That was a disturbing notion. He didn’t believe she would shoot him, but it was troubling to think her elders wished death upon someone they didn’t know.

  “Have they killed others like me?” he probed solemnly.

  Dark eyes sliced into the cave’s shadows. Bare shoulders hunched forward. “I don’t know the answer to that,” she whispered. “I am told only to bring the Lowlanders to our cells.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Intel, I imagine.” Although she sounded unconvinced.

  “Intel on what?”

  “Well, surely you intend to reclaim the land,” she cried. “It is just a matter of time before your kind crosses the ocean and invades our territory.”

  “We are all the same kind, Sema.”

  Doubt tugged at the corners of her lips. She shrugged off the effect. “You talk too much. You are a prisoner. Be silent. We will leave when the sun’s rays touch the mountain.”

  Gordy obeyed out of curiosity. Leaning back, he set down his canister of water and tipped his head against the rock wall. Far from comfortable, he regarded her for a few moments before lowering his eyelids and feigning sleep. Honestly, he was tired. It seemed rens ago that the Horus detached into five independent modules. The stress of responsibility for the crew, and his family weighed upon him considerably.

  As the night dragged on, he noticed Sema’s shoulders slump forward and her head loll. Keeping his lids lowered he continued to study her, observing how serene her expression was in slumber. Anger had distorted her beauty.

  Tanned legs stretched out before the fire. Cradled atop them was his Star Laser. He tested out some motion, stretching his arm to ease a cramp.

  Silence.

  There was a stray pop of a burning log, but no reaction from the young woman sprawled against the wall. Wary, he wondered if she too was feigning sleep. The rise and fall of her chest seemed too rhythmic, though. Her arms were dotted with goosebumps, an indication that she wasn’t as warm and cozy as she tried to allude.

  Gordy hiked his knee up, cringing when his boot scraped the dirt.

  Still no motion.

  Would it be his luck that she slept so soundly?

  Slowly, he plied his spine off the cave wall and leaned forward. It wasn’t close enough to reach the weapon resting on her lap. He budged his rear forward an inch, watching her face for any flicker of an eyelid, or jerk of a facial muscle.

  Nothing.

  Gathering his balance, he leaned forward again, his fingers hovering over her bare leg.

  Just a bit more–

  The muzzle of the laser flashed so close before his face he could barely focus on it. He almost toppled backwards, but caught himself with his palms.

  “Do you think I’m a fool?” her husky voice accused.

  “No. No.” And that was true. He had underestimated her. It was a grave error of judgement on his part.

  Gordy held his hands up and sank back into his reclined position.

  Glancing out the cave entrance, Sema announced, “It’s time to go.” She rose, her neck tucked down to accommodate the low ceiling. “You will be someone else’s problem soon.”

  One of Zak’s curses sprang to mind.

  Gayat.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “That should do it,” Corkos exclaimed.

  Aimee hovered over his hunched shoulder.

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, sending a signal on the tracker might go unseen if our antagonists have no savvy technology, so instead I have embedded a message in the communication system on Aulo. It says simply, The sun is shining in Solthum Valley today.”

  “Who would hear this?”

  “Everyone in Aulo. There is a midday summation of local events that is transmitted to everybody wearing garments outfitted with auxiliary communication, and broadcast in the courtyard before the Town Hall. Perhaps the statement will sound odd and ill-placed. I doubt anyone will have ever heard of Solthum.”

  “But anyone from that valley will take note of the message and try to locate its origin.” Aimee filled in.

  “Discreetly, I imagine,” Corkos grinned. “But, yes, it will lead them back to me. Me,” he emphasized. “They will come find me. You cannot be here.”

  Aimee glanced at her wrist. It was a reflexive gesture, but there was no watch there.

  “My husband will be wondering where I am. I can’t seem to connect with him from inside this cave. Are you sure your message made it out?”

  “Quite.” His tone of affront was so familiar.

  “I will go,” she conceded, “but I will come back with support. What if someone tries to attack you?”

  “Worry about yourself. I have looked after myself for a long time now, and I’m still alive.” He swiveled a slab, rotating a hologra
m image of the Bio Ward below. Another nudge of his fingertips and Aimee could make out the path up the hillside. “No one can find their way into this cave, and I can detect if anyone approaches.”

  “I don’t know how to enter your cave. You pulled me in, but I want to come back, with my husband. I want to help.”

  Corkos looked dubious.

  “I understand your desire to keep this low-key,” she added, “but don’t tackle it by yourself. Let us help. We will be discreet.”

  “I don’t trust anyone.” He frowned. “Why would I possibly trust you?”

  Aimee considered that as she rubbed the fine fabric over her stomach.

  “Your JOH. He trusts me. He has protected me in the past. I therefore am indebted to his creator. And, my husband, Zak and I–neither of us are from Anthum. We have no prejudices.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  “Well, that’s a long tale. Trust me, it is because we are peaceful and believe the people of Anthum are peaceful as well.” Worry settled on her face. “Right now, though, our primary goal is to find our friend. He was in the last Horus module. It had to ditch after being flung from the wake of the ship before it.”

  “Ah, yes, I saw that ship go down on the tracker. Ironically, it is not far from the Solthum Valley.”

  “You saw it?” she jumped. “Can you tell if everyone is safe?”

  “As best the tracker revealed, there were no casualties.”

  Slumping back against the table, she murmured, “Thank God.”

  “You need to go,” he hastened, anxiously pacing back and forth between active monitors. “I will show you an alternate exit in case our visitors are assembled on the cliff with more wicked plans.”

  Aimee clutched her abdomen protectively.

  “Yes. I better go. But I will be back soon,” she promised.

  ***

  “Zak, Zak.”

  “Aimee!” Zak barked into her shoulder. “Where are you? Craig and I have been searching everywhere.”

  “I’m coming down to the Bio-Ward now.”