The way up, as it often happens, appeared easier than the descent. Therefore, despite his headache, Omis, panting, reached the top of the cliff faster than they’d descended along this slope a couple of hours previously. Reaching the top, he didn’t even try to get up. He sat on the brink of the precipice and carefully looked down, looking for his friends. The young man saw that they already walked on the land along the river.
Omis turned and looked at the sloping meadow that lay behind him. He didn’t notice anything suspicious there. Then he turned back to the river and whistled loudly. After a second, Mafkona and Ama stopped, turned to the cliff and began gaze cautiously along its upper edge. Having found him, they just stared at their comrade for a few seconds. Then the two recommenced their march.
Omis turned again to the slanted field, lying with his belly on a soft carpet of plants and putting his chin on the back of his left palm. In this position, he could see everything in front of him, and behind him, there was a steep slope guarding him. After climbing on such an abrupt mountain, he needed a rest. In addition, he hoped that his headache would subside a little more. The young man devoted this time to planning his future trip.
He proceeded from the fact that they’d come here, moving northwest of the colony. Thus, he now needed to go to the southeast. He remembered that before the descent, when he’d unfastened the screen from his wrist, it had been almost three o’clock… so now it was about five, maybe a little more. Therefore, Ro was somewhere in the middle between the horizon and the zenith, a little closer to the latter.
It followed that at the beginning of his journey the rays of Ro would shine almost directly in his face. Later, the day star will gradually shift to the right, and he would turn away from it more and more to the left.
Omis got up, raised his head, and immediately his abated headache exploded again. At the same time, his dizziness returned. He groaned, and his first impulse was to lower his head back, but the next moment he decided to stay in this pose and see what would happen. His expectation paid off—both his pain and the vertigo gradually decreased, and the traveler got the opportunity to explore the sky and establish the location of the luminary.
As soon as he’d determined the direction, Omis, with the longbow and quiver on his back, hit the road. Soon he felt that although he was walking downhill, for some reason overcoming this inclined glade seemed to be taking almost more time than it had in the morning.
Besides, after he entered the forest, it seemed to him that the plants here grew denser than around the colony. Yesterday it hadn’t mattered, but now it had turned into a rather significant obstacle. The rays of light barely penetrated through the forest’s canopy, and this prevented him from seeing Ro in the sky. Also his headache hindered him from looking up.
The traveler noticed that the farther he moved away from the cliff, the more insignificant the slope became. With each step, the scout doubted more and more—was he really going downhill?
This question gnawed at his brain, until Omis felt tired, and this prompted a new thought. It suggested that he could measure time roughly, given that they always rested after every two hours of walking during hikes. Since he already felt tired and needed a rest, it meant that he’d already marched for at least two hours.
The scout was examining his surroundings in search of a cozy place to relax when he suddenly remembered one important thing. He’d forgotten to make periodical changes to his course; he’d simply walked towards Ro, instead of frequently checking its position in the sky and turning left relative to it.
Omis involuntarily stopped and began to think about how many times he’d needed to change his course. Maybe it was too late now? No, it was never too late if you knew where to turn and at what angle. He looked around and, as expected, he didn’t see anything familiar, only orange plants all around him.
He delved into an analysis of the situation. First of all, he remembered that between the opposite horizons lay a straight angle equal to one hundred and eighty degrees. If his journey had begun at five o’clock, and he’d walked for two hours, now it was seven o’clock or exactly noon, and Ro was at its zenith, at an angle of ninety degrees relative to the horizontal plain.
He raised his head, and immediately the pulsation in his temple reminded him of its existence. After some time, through the dense crowns of the trees, he managed to detect the luminary shining from the sky, but there was no way to check whether it was really the highest point of the celestial dome. Moreover, he actually didn’t even know how much time he’d really walked, and when his trip had actually begun. Omis sighed.
Here he told himself that since he had decided to rest, he really needed to sit somewhere. He went to the nearest plant with a wide trunk and lowered himself on its roots, leaning his back against it. Omis was amazed that he couldn’t now cope with such a simple task—to get to the colony along the already traveled path, just because of his inability to measure time. Seemingly, the lack of watches was a much greater loss than they’d thought back on the bank of the river.
After having rested, the young man stood up and tried once more to find Ro amongst the tightly interwoven branches. He lifted his head and at first waited until his slight dizziness passed, which was sometimes accompanied by a barely noticeable feeling of nausea. The foliage roof turned out to be practically impenetrable in this place, and he decided to look for another location with a gap within the canopy.
En route, Omis gradually came to the conclusion that all that was left for him to do was to determine the right direction to go toward the Quiet, forgetting about the colony. The frustrated youth marched, lost in thought, until the whistle of some creature lurking among the branches and foliage above reached his ear. This helped the young man return to reality.
In the silence that reigned around him, he immediately heard the sound of flowing water. After a short hesitation he headed toward it. Omis soon saw a small stream, falling from a height of about a meter into a pool formed by a hollow stone. In addition, a little further between the plants, he noticed a brightly lit glade covered with white-and-red flowers.
He wondered why they hadn’t noticed these places yesterday—he thought for a second before answering himself: of course, because today he was no longer following yesterday’s path.
Coming to the stream, he quenched his thirst and filled his flask. Then Omis went into the clearing so that there, in an area free of crowns, he could more accurately connect with each other the time, Ro’s location and the direction to the Quiet. Coming to the middle of the clearing, he first raised his head and waited until the annoying phenomena subsided. After that, finally, he clearly saw where the luminary was. It became obvious that it had already passed the top of the sky and was leaned toward the western horizon. Seemingly the traveler now faced almost to the south, and the east was to his left.
He once again examined the clearing, painted with its cheerful motley flowers, illuminated by the oblique rays of the day star. Suddenly he saw a small animal, apparently slipping out of its burrow a few steps from him. The creature, with its trembling eye, cast a quick glance at the man, then turned and rushed into the forest. Omis accompanied it with his blank stare, but a second later the indifference disappeared from his face and he frowned. The young man remembered that all this time after he’d left the Warm, he’d carried his bow on his back.
The clear comprehension changed his mood that sharply—now he was in an unknown forest, and he was almost unarmed. He was in a situation which no one had yet experienced on Neia.
Along with this understanding, the forest, so familiar and safe a minute ago, now seemed to look at him gloomily and was marveling at his frivolity. The scout took off the bow from his shoulder, carefully inspecting his surroundings.
Omis listened. A complete hush reigned in the woods. It hadn’t been particularly noisy before, but now it seemed to him that the silence had become even denser. The young man was pivoting slowly, watching the still bushes lined up along the edge of the
clearing. Nothing moved; the inhabitants of the forest seemed frozen in anticipation of important events. Omis thought hard.
Where can I get at least one prompting in the right direction? Where should I go? Is left really correct?
Here, suddenly, something vibrated in his memory, some words that were not random but seemingly necessary. Something connected them with the current situation; he had heard them not so long ago…
A moment later, Omis felt joy. He remembered Mafkona’s words when she’d said that they would climb hills to adjust their course. Did that not concern him now? There were no hills here, but a tall plant also would serve his purpose.
He began to search for a large tree. Studying the forest for some time, the wayfarer discovered the one he needed right behind the first row of plants. In girth, its trunk stood out from the rest. He looked up and made sure that it was superior to its neighbors in height, too. The traveler headed toward it, and as soon as he found himself again in the forest, Omis realized from the first steps that he was being watched.
Chapter 60
Having extracted a polymer fabric from a backpack, Ama and Mafkona began preparations for crossing the river. The previous night, folded in the proportion of one to two, it had served as a tent. The smaller part was the floor, and the large one, supported by plastic rods, had formed the walls and ceiling.
This time, the travelers laid this piece of fabric on the stones and first, with their own valves, hermetically closed the openings that served as windows for the tent. After that, they folded the fabric in half and connected the edges of these parts with airtight Velcro. Thus they morphed it into an air mattress.
Ama pumped it up and they had a raft four meters long and three meters wide. The late earthling engineers had designed it to be large enough that, if necessary, it would be able to give shelter to a double-sized squad. The ends of the telescopic plastic poles, that served as the supports for the tent, Mafkona unfolded like a fan and thus obtained the oars. She inserted them into the nests of the tent supports, which now became oarlocks.
Then they lowered their transport to the water together, and the girl held it while Ama collected the rest of their belongings. In the end, each traveler sat next to their oar and the mattress set sail. While constructing their inflatable raft, they’d agreed to embark toward a small rocky glade that they’d discerned on the far shore, which now seemed very distant.
The mattress floated smoothly, the mirrored surface of the river looking stark, and the travelers had the impression that they weren’t nearing the opposite shore at all. Meanwhile, in reality they’d overcome about a third of the width of the river.
“Extremely transparent,” Mafkona said, looking through the water. “It seems to be about four or five meters deep, but I can still easily see the bottom.”
“I think it is shallower, although the distance to the bottom can be distorted due to the thickness of the water,” Ama answered, also peering into the river.
They reached midstream. The river became deeper, but the bottom was still visible. The raft seemed to soar in the air above stones and algae. Mafkona saw various animals scurrying among the plants growing there. Suddenly, one of the big boulders left its place and began to emerge, moving like a gray shadow.
The girl immediately realized that it wasn’t a stone, but a living creature. A few moments later she knew for sure what was approaching the raft: it was a BRLC-1.
“Ama, a beast approaches us,” Mafkona said in a low voice.
“Where is it?”Ama straightened in the blink of an eye.
“On my side,” the girl replied. “It is floating up from the depths and seems to want to run into us.”
Ama turned his head to Mafkona, but didn’t see anything, because in that direction the raft completely blocked the surface of the water. Nevertheless, the frowning young man silently pulled his oar out of the water and picked up his ax-hammer. The girl followed his example and took the maser. With their free hands they held onto their oarlocks.
Ama asked, “Maybe I should move to your side?”
“Will the raft not turn over?” Mafkona asked, not taking her eyes off the animal. It was nearing them, propelled by its swinging tail.
“Then we must change its position, so that both of us can see the beast,” the young man said. With these words, he released the oarlock, again lowered the oar into the water and made a couple of strokes with it.
Meanwhile, the animal was getting closer to the raft, but Mafkona didn’t even try to shoot. The predator still remained at a depth, and the microwave radiation wouldn’t harm it there. The scouts carefully watched the predator, which was clearly visible below the surface. Having approached the raft directly, it suddenly and quickly jumped out of the water; its eye swayed a couple of times in its gutter, and in the next moment the animal had returned back into the depths.
This happened so unexpectedly that the girl didn’t have time to shoot, let alone aim. The creature didn’t remain near the surface, but went deeper by two or three meters. Then it turned around and rushed up. The raft passengers, with bated breath, stared at its swift approach.
After a few seconds, the animal swam under the mattress and disappeared from the travelers’ eyes. The next moment, a strong blow shook the bottom of the raft, forming a bulge in its middle for an instant. The kick tossed travelers slightly upward, but they remained in place, because by that time they were again holding on to the oarlocks.
After a second, the scouts felt that the beast had started to push the raft. They didn’t understand the reason for its actions until it appeared on the edge of their mattress and, seizing the edge with its teeth, began to shake it from side to side. Apparently before this the predator had tried to do the same under the water, but there, below, it could not grab the fabric with its mouth.
Seemingly the predator had decided to tear a piece from it, but no animal could damage the material, made three hundred years ago specifically for stellar expeditions. Instead, the creature, being very powerful, was jerking the raft around with the people on it. The scouts were doing their best not to fall into the water.
Finally, the animal realized that the raft couldn’t be torn and that it was unsuitable for food. However, nothing prevented it from pushing the raft and trying to throw the two creatures from off of it.
The predator unclenched its jaws, released the mattress, and ducked down again. Submerged by a couple of meters, it turned around as before and accelerated back towards the mattress. After a moment, it struck the raft with huge force. The travelers managed to stay in their places. The beast repeated this maneuver again and again, without weakening the force of its blows. Its mighty hits were throwing up the middle of the mattress almost half a meter, and moments later it was falling back onto the water with a muffled clap.
Mafkona and Ama, outstretched on the mattress, could do nothing. Their only desire was to not fall from the raft, and thus not end up in the jaws of the beast. However, they also were waiting for it to get tired and stop its assault. But the beast simply continued its attacks, with the same fury and without any signs of weakening. Fountains of spray flooded the raft. The young people were wet from head to toe.
But still they managed to avoid damage. First, the inflated mattress itself, in the form of a flexible gasket, reduced the force of the beast’s blows. Second, it had never once struck the place where the travelers were sitting.
At one moment the explorers understood that the predator was now hitting their floating craft not constantly in the same place, but it was attacking them from different angles. Soon this strategy brought about the desired effect. The beast punched the bottom of the raft near the spot above which Mafkona sat. The girl flew up into the air and when she plopped back down her foot slipped off the mattress and plunged into the water.
Seeing what had happened, Ama, still holding on to the oarlock with one hand, leaned on the ax-hammer with his other hand and got up on his knees. He bent toward the edge of the raft and f
ound that the predator had already launched a new attack. Quickly swinging his limbs, he rushed to the girl. The brute clearly wanted to thrust its teeth into her leg and pull her into the water. As soon as the young man understood its intention, at that very moment, it was as if rough leather twine squeezed his heart.
The sudden understanding frightened him: Mafkona didn’t have time to lift her leg back on the raft; she would become a victim of the predator and be dragged down to the bottom of the river. After that, no matter how long the girl floundered and tried to break out of the jaws of the predator, it still would kill her.
Fortunately, the beast got to the right place an instant later than required. Mafkona even felt its touch before she pulled her foot out of the water. Ama averted his look from the predator and peered at the girl. Her eyes had frozen in a senseless gaze.
Seeing her absolute indifference, Ama even forgot about the beast. He was alarmed by a new threat: what if his companion, frightened with such a terrible danger, would she lose the ability to act according to the situation?
But the next second it turned out that Mafkona was weighing something else. She glanced at her comrade and said distinctly, “Let us lure it out of the water. I will stretch my leg beyond the raft, it will attack me again, and you can shoot it. Here, take the maser.”
Hearing this, Ama even forgot about his own worries, being incredibly surprised by the girl’s fearless offer. However, he devoted only one second to this feeling, and then said, “This is not necessary. Let us wait a little until it finally gets tired and leaves us alone.”
Instead of an answer, the girl thought a moment, put the maser on the raft and kicked it to the young man with her foot. Then she grabbed the oarlock with both hands, lay on her side, lifted her leg slightly and stretched it outside the mattress.
Right in that moment Mafkona felt a strong, stunningly painful blow to her thigh. It made her breakaway from the surface of the raft not just slightly, as before, but she flew into the air, by at least half a meter. The girl, having been ready to attack, didn’t unclench her fingers and managed not to fall into the water but still, she felt terrible pain! She screamed, and her cold, frantic voice, like a sound surge, doused the surroundings, that had been previously immersed in silence. The beast had finally hit the mark.
Space for Evolution Page 27