by Mark Wandrey
“Why did it take so long?” Aaron asked. “I mean, the desert is wide, but you said you couldn’t make it there and back in one season, so that tells me you weren’t going very fast.”
“Kloth aren’t exactly dirigibles. They aren’t made for speed.”
“You ride on Kloth?” Minu gasped. The very thought of being astride a ten-meter long, carnivorous reptile sent shivers up her spine.
“Not very often. They’re best suited as pack animals. They tend to reach back and bite anyone on their backs. As far as I know, only the ancient Rusks ever got the hang of riding them.”
“Took someone nastier than a Kloth to ride one,” Aaron suggested, and they laughed together, all but Pip, who looked down at the remains of his meal.
“We have a few horses the leaders ride from time to time, but the whole reason we use Kloth is because they can cross the desert with very little water. My father believes they evolved in the desert, and that bred some useful adaptations.”
“Like what?” Pip asked, his interest renewed.
“They have nictitating membranes that cover their eyes to keep out sand; the membranes shed with the rest of their skin, twice a year. They can close both sets of nostrils with a fine mesh that acts like a filter against sand. And their feet are widely splayed for excellent traction.”
“What do you feed them?” Minu wondered. “They’re carnivores; it can’t be cheap to carry that much meat!”
“We don’t talk about that too much. We usually leave home with a cow or two. Once the cows die of thirst, they’re slaughtered. After we take the best meat, we give the rest to the Kloth.”
“You actually let the cows die of thirst?”
“It makes good economic sense. A few seasons ago, one of them lasted eleven days in the desert. Don’t look at me like that, I’m not proud of it, but it works. Some of the workers bet on how long the cows will live. Anyway,” he said, trying to move on, “after the cows are all gone, we let the Kloth go in pairs to hunt and breed.”
“Don’t they ever run away?” Aaron asked.
“They’re pretty smart lizards. They won’t go far from food.”
“You said the cows are gone before you set the Kloth loose,” Minu said. Gregg nodded his head and looked at her. “Then what food are they coming back for?”
“The horses, silly,” Pip pointed out. Minu’s mouth made a silent oh.
“You’re made of meat too,” she noted. Gregg nodded his head. “So, when they come back, they return to hunt you?”
“We have people called Tempters. When we turn the Kloth out to graze, Tempters ride the perimeter on horses, tempting the Kloth to attack. When they do, and they almost always do, we capture them. The older ones become docile enough to wander back and wait for capture. If they don’t come back, it means they found a lot of food. In those cases, we go out and find them. Once they’ve fed, they get sleepy and are easy to catch.”
“Wow,” Pip said for them all. “So what job did you do before you left?”
“I was a Tempter from the age of eight,” he said with a straight face.
“They let young kids do that dangerous job?” Minu asked, hoping he wasn’t telling the truth.
“There are a lot of risks. Old men are too slow and often cost the tribe a horse. Kids are quick with a rope.” He used his hands, palms together, to mime a big set of jaws snapping closed. Minu grimaced.
“Ever have a close encounter?” Aaron asked.
Gregg turned in his chair and thrust out a leg. He pulled up his pant leg and revealed a series of nasty pink scars cutting sideways across his lower leg and calf. “I stopped to take a drink, and a nasty old female named Shiva came out of nowhere for the horse. I tried to kick her snout, and in an instant, she grabbed my leg and pulled me off it.”
“What did you do?” Minu asked.
Gregg pulled out a very long and slightly curved knife. Light glinted off its serrated length. “I convinced her to let go.” He chuckled softly as he put the knife away. “What about you, Minu, what does your family do?”
She’d been dreading the question and started to tell them twice before Pip finally chimed in. “Her father is First Among the Chosen.”
“How did you know?” she asked him, blushing again.
“I’ve been studying the Chosen for years,” he said with a self-assured smile. “Chriso Alma has been First during the most violent period in Chosen history.”
“Why have so many Chosen died lately?” Gregg asked her.
She secretly heaved a sigh of relief, glad none of them were going to give her a hard time about her father. “My father says it’s because the Tog are finally allowing us to go on important and dangerous missions deeper in space. He told me last year he’d taken a team to visit a graveyard of spaceships on the other side of the galaxy.”
“Spaceships?” Pip asked, looking genuinely interested in the conversation, his eyes glowing with youthful fascination.
“Yeah, he said there were thousands upon thousands of junked, abandoned spaceships. Most were so old they were falling apart like worn out tissue paper.” They all continued to watch her and listen with their full attention. This was the first time anyone, except maybe her mother, had wanted to hear stories about her father. Of course, her new friends wanted to be Chosen; it made sense that these stories would ignite their imaginations.
“How many worlds has he been to?” Aaron asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, not even trying to guess. “More than you can count, I’ll bet. He was most impressed with Herdhome.”
“The Tog home world,” Pip said with a smile. “It’s supposed to be a commerce hub. The Tog are mostly known as brokers of rare goods and farmers.”
“You know a lot,” Aaron said.
“So?”
“I’m impressed.”
“Oh!”
“My family are farmers,” Aaron admitted.
“What do you grow in New Jerusalem?” Pip asked. “The land is so rocky.”
“Olives,” Aaron said with a grin. Minu whistled; she knew what a jar of olives or a bottle of olive oil cost. “Actually, it was my ancestor who brought olives to Bellatrix. He crossed with a bucket holding five olive trees. Only two survived the first winter, but now we have thousands. Olives made my family fairly wealthy.”
“I’ll bet,” Gregg said, looking a little envious.
“Don’t get me wrong; it’s hard work. During the height of the season, you must guard the trees and chase away the howlers. Damn lizards love olives. They’re the only things on Bellatrix that do, other than humans. Anyway, I’m a huge disappointment to my father.”
“How could a Chosen in the family be a disappointment?” Pip wondered.
“Because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a desert, chasing howlers away from olives.”
Minu chuckled and he looked at her. “Who would want to?” she asked. They all laughed, and Aaron smiled. They sat and talked for so long the dining area began to empty. “Let’s go up to the nose and sit in the observation deck,” she suggested. They all agreed and headed for the dirigible’s nose.
* * *
The weather was merciful, and the airship arrived at its destination in the normal eighteen-hour travel time. It was evening on the 4th of Julast, the day before the Trials. The terminal at Steven’s Pass, home of the Chosen headquarters, was tiny compared to the one at Tranquility. It existed only to service the Chosen and transfer a few passengers going north or south.
The dirigible finished discharging its passengers and roared back into the sky. Minu stood with Pip, Aaron, Gregg, about twenty other kids their age, and watched it take off.
As the dirigible disappeared into the distance, a Concordian-manufactured aerocar rocketed overhead and banked hard. Gravitic impellers whined and made the hair on the back of their necks stand up as it came in for a landing. The shiny black craft was about twenty meters long and shaped like a flattened medicine capsule. An instant before it
set down, thin legs popped from its underside and gracefully absorbed the nominal landing shock. The impellers’ whine dimmed, a seam opened along one side, and a door slid away to reveal a man in his early twenties, dressed in the black jumpsuit of the Chosen.
“Candidates?” he asked the assembled crowd. “I am Chosen Kenneth. Come on, I don’t have all day. Are there any Chosen candidates here?” Minu raised her hand, followed by her friends, then all the other candidates. “Very good, grab your bags and pile aboard. You have ten seconds. Move it!” He roared the last at the top of his lungs, leaning forward, spittle flying from his lips. Pip paused and yelped in surprise, but Minu was already running.
She dashed for the baggage cart the dirigible crew was unloading. Seeing the green handle on her bag, she snatched it as she went by, wrenching it from the pile and sending half the other bags flying. Though the yank hurt her shoulder, she ignored the pain. She found the shoulder strap and flipped it over her head as she ran toward the flier. The man moved aside just enough to allow her to dive past him into the first seat she saw.
“While I appreciate your enthusiasm,” the Chosen said over his shoulder, “you should probably let me drive.”
She looked in front of her and, seeing a dazzling array of controls, realized she’d jumped into the driver’s seat by mistake. Quickly, she grabbed the back of the seat and, pushing with her legs, flipped over the seat to land in the one right behind the pilot. The Chosen glanced at her and nodded before turning back to see the second kid arriving at a dead run. Minu was pleased to see Gregg. She wondered if he was as quick as he looked and thought it would be fun to see if she could beat him in a foot race.
Next came Pip, who was almost bowled over by a much bigger boy. She was amazed he’d been third until she remembered he already had his bag when they’d disembarked. His shock at the Chosen’s brash orders caused his delay. Aaron was fifth through the door, rapidly followed by ten others. The Chosen thumbed the door closed, but he re-opened it a moment later when a young, blond-haired boy was stuck half in, half out.
“Can’t let it cut you in half,” the Chosen said, as the boy took one of the last seats and rubbed his stomach where the door had shut on it.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
“Way too much paperwork,” the Chosen grumbled and took the seat in front of the controls. A few of the kids chuckled, but Minu wasn’t one of them. She knew how tough the week would be, just as she knew it was not unheard of for candidates to die in the Trials.
The flier began to vibrate, and she heard the impellers spin up. A moment later it leaped into the air and began accelerating toward the nearby mountains. She tried to sit and enjoy the ride but found it almost impossible. The Chosen’s screaming at them had unnerved her more than she’d expected. She was sure that was the intention. From this moment on, everything that happened was calculated to wash them out of the Trials or force them to give up and go home.
Despite her mental musings, she noticed the pilot buckling his seat restraints. Why would he do that when the craft used inertial compensation? The gravitic impellers ensured a comfortable and safe ride for the passengers. He finished buckling his restraints and did something with the controls. A tiny alarm began flashing on the display, and Minu recognized the word ‘override.’ Quick as a flash, she snatched the recessed tabs of her own seatbelt. She’d just managed to buckle the lap harness when she felt the quiver in her belly that announced the cessation of artificial gravity.
“What—?” some kid started to ask, but never finished his question. The Chosen wrenched the control stick and sent the flier into a dizzying spin. A moment later, accompanied by the sounds of screaming kids crashing around the inside of the cabin, he nosed the craft into a gut-wrenching dive.
“Did I forget to remind you to buckle your restraints?” he yelled over the din. Minu struggled to get her shoulder harness in place as negative and lateral Gs tore at her body. The forces were strong enough to make spots appear before her eyes and pull painfully on her breasts. The pilot glanced over his shoulder. Seeing her still in her seat, he grunted and yanked the stick in the opposite direction. The maneuver generated at least seven Gs of force.
Minu abandoned the shoulder restraints and grasped her padded seat, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a feral snarl. Was he trying to kill them?
“Stop it!” screamed one of the kids. “We’re going to die!” another cried, panic evident in the tone.
“I’m not stopping until one of you quits,” the Chosen announced, throwing the craft into a series of negative G loops, hoping to unseat his only seated passenger. Minu felt herself slipping out of the lap harness and gripped her seat even tighter. She felt one of her fingernails tearing away and heard the seat fabric ripping. She wasn’t going to let go, she swore to herself. The only way the bastard was getting her out of the seat was if it separated from the dualloy deck.
“You won’t beat me,” she managed to snarl through clenched teeth.
She stayed seated, and no one quit. The Chosen grunted and leveled off. Minu snatched her shoulder restraints, and those kids who still had control of their senses dove for seats. A few lay where they’d landed and whimpered. The distinct smell of urine and vomit reached Minu’s nose as she snapped the shoulder restraints home with a reassuring click.
“What this ride needs is a better view,” the pilot told them. Until now, the only exterior view was a small port over his controls. With the touch of a control, both bulkheads became transparent.
“Shit!” someone screamed. Minu felt her stomach lurch as she looked down at the ground hurtling by thousands of meters below. “No, please,” another whimpered.
“Not afraid of heights, are you? You know what’s awesome about these fliers? They’re nearly indestructible. Here, watch this!” Suddenly the impellers cut off, and they fell like a stone, spinning and wobbling toward the ground. Many who weren’t in seats floated up in free fall and banged against the craft’s ceiling. Minu tried not to look down but failed. The ground was hurtling up toward them at a precipitous speed.
“Fuck this, I quit!” squeaked a voice from the back of the flier. Minu moaned; the voice sounded suspiciously like Pip’s.
The pilot looked over his shoulder at the speaker. Then he simply nodded his head, toggled the hull back to opaque, and flipped another switch. All sensation of flight ceased, and the door began to slide open. Gravity gradually returned, gently lowering those pinned to the ceiling back to the floor. A boy lying stunned on the floor yelped and tried to get away before the vacuum of space could suck him outside. As the door slid open, Minu saw the same compressed-gravel landing field they’d arrived at a short time earlier. The truth dawned on her like a wave washing over an unsuspecting beachcomber. They had, in fact, never left the ground.
“You shouldn’t trust your senses,” the pilot said and unstrapped his harness, “they can lie to you.” He moved to the rear of the flier, checked a couple of dazed and stunned kids, and reached one who was sitting on the floor, shaking his head. Everyone watched the Chosen. “You’re the one who quit?” The boy nodded slightly, tears beginning to form in his eyes. Minu didn’t recognize him, and she let out the breath she’d been holding. She didn’t look for her friends; the drama in front of her was too compelling. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about; you kids hung on longer than most.” The boy looked hopeful, but the Chosen shook his head. “Up with you, time to go.” Tears flowing freely, the boy meekly followed the Chosen to the door and stepped down to the ground. The Chosen handed him his bag and a red envelope. “The dirigible will be here in a couple of hours. Thanks for applying.”
The door slid closed on the disappointed face as the Chosen turned and climbed back into his seat. He began strapping in again and this time, everyone aboard rushed to do the same. Even if none of them made it through the Trials to become chosen, for the rest of their lives they’d instantly strap into any craft they boarded.
As the impellers began to spi
n up, Kenneth turned and looked at Minu. “Been in fliers a lot?” he asked.
“No sir, this is only the second time.” Kenneth looked somewhat skeptical, so she continued. “It was one of those little open two-seaters.”
“If you’ve ridden in a Broomstick, your father is Chosen.”
“Chriso Alma is my dad,” she admitted. He gave a little smile and nodded his head. “What’s so funny?” Minu asked.
“You’re the first kid I haven’t managed to bounce around the cabin,” he admitted as the flier lifted off the ground. This time it felt different. Minu felt and heard the subtle clues of motion and sound and made a mental note to remember them. She doubted this would be the last time they’d face deception during the Trials. “Should have known it would be Chriso’s kid that beat me. Welcome to the Trials.” Minu didn’t feel very welcome.
* * * * *
Chapter 5
Julast 4th, 514 AE
Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass
This flight was real, and in a few minutes, the flier swooped in and deposited them on a landing platform built into the side of a mountain, thousands of meters above a lush valley. The candidates quickly filed out, some helping those who were still shaky.
“Wasn’t that a little extreme?” Minu heard Aaron ask the pilot. She could see him favoring his right ankle and wiping blood from his nose.
“Compared to what? Being killed by a hostile alien? Losing control of your craft and killing a whole squad of Chosen? Or, maybe, being abducted by another race and fooled into revealing our secrets? All those things have happened at least once. Still not convinced? Think that kid got a raw deal?”
