by Tammy Walsh
It sounded like a pair of scissors. I rolled over and thought Hazel was busy working on one of her legendary Projects. Making cute photo frames, knitting baby clothes for African kids, turning plastic bottles into toys for the local orphanage… She did it all. She couldn’t just sit and enjoy herself. She always had to do something.
I rolled over. My hand slapped something soft and itchy. I frowned in my dream. That wasn’t right. It should have been a nice cool sheet of Egyptian cotton.
And when I felt something crawling over my cheek, that was the last straw.
“Hazel, stop it!” I said, bolting up.
The sea lapped against the shore and washed back again, lulling me back into deep sleep.
Oh yeah. The alien planet.
I yawned and got comfortable.
And then I heard that noise again.
Snip. Snip snip. Snip snip.
I opened my eyes and saw something from a nightmare.
Gnashing teeth and bulbous eyes on stalks glaring at me.
Hazel could look rough in the mornings, but never that rough.
I screamed and skittered backward. It was blind luck I didn’t run directly into the fire’s dying embers and the empty rib cage of the strange lemur-like creature Nighteko had brought home for tea. Instead, I ran into Nighteko’s sleeping form.
“What is it?” he groaned.
“It’s… It’s…” It was a small crab, its internal organs visible through its invisible outer shell. “A tiny crab. Millions of them.”
Nighteko arched an eyebrow at me. “They’re healer crabs.”
“Healer crabs?”
I felt something on my arm—another one of those tiny “healers.” I bolted to my feet and dusted them off, shivering as I patted myself down and ran my hands over my body to dislodge them.
“I don’t like things crawling over me,” I said. “It feels like— Argh!”
A huge mound of them formed a bulge across Nighteko’s arms and legs. They were eating him alive!
“Get up!” I said, kicking the first clod off him. “They’re all over you!”
Nighteko raised a hand. “It’s okay. I want them on me. These little guys eat harmful bacteria from wounds. Some of them… Where are they…” He searched among the giant mound of writhing monsters. “Like this little guy. He stitches the wound back together once they finish with the bacteria.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Why would they do that?”
“Because we fed them. It’s their way of thanking us.”
He placed the little crab back down on the sand gently. I angled to get a better look at his body. He’d sustained wounds during the Challenge to his arms and legs. Just as he said, they were clean and sewn shut. The stitches were so small you couldn’t make them out.
Still, I shivered at the idea of having them crawling all over me.
“I thought you were a Titan?” I said lamely. “I thought you didn’t need help with healing?”
“I don’t. But there’s no need to deny these little guys a good meal, is there?”
After their work was done, the crabs left him and scuttled across the sand and disappeared to the human eye.
Nighteko got his feet. “How about some breakfast?”
His sickness was getting better. He wasn’t limping and moved freely. Even his skin looked healthier. He bent down to pick up what remained of the lemur creature he’d found last night.
Whenever I traveled abroad, I always stuck to “normal” food. No local cuisine for me. My friends sometimes got sick and I was left to walk around by myself. But last night, I was so hungry, I could have eaten anything. This morning, I didn’t feel sick at all.
It tasted like chicken, only juicier and more tasty. We ate most of the poor little creature between us by the time we were done. We left just enough roasting over the fire for breakfast.
Nighteko snapped off a thigh and handed it to me.
Don’t think about what it looks like, I told myself. Just eat it. It’s just a big chicken drumstick, that’s all.
Once I was done, I wiped the grease from my lips. “What do we do now?”
“We’re going to get my ship back,” Nighteko said. “Then I can take you home. That was our deal.”
I looked at him incredulously. “How are we going to get your ship back? They’re out there somewhere in the galaxy and we’re down here eating lemur meat.”
He cocked his head to the side. Lemur? “I’m close to earning the money I need to stop smuggling. Then I can quit. Plus, my crew shouldn’t get away with what they did to me. They didn’t beat me. That’s the code. One of them has to beat me. I’m still officially the ship’s captain and nothing they do or say can change that. It’s mine.”
“Even if you get your ship back, they’ll Challenge you again.”
“By then, I’ll be at full strength. Then I can beat them all.”
“You can do that?”
He nodded. “I can.”
I felt certain a male of his size and strength could do pretty much anything he wanted. Only an idiot would want to stand in his way.
“We’re heading through the jungle,” he said, “to Klaxxon. When we get there, I’ll hitch a ride on a ship working as a crew member, until I get to Rogiz 4.”
“Rogiz 4?” I said. “What’s that?”
“That’s where they’ll head after they get back control of the ship and deal with the Changelings.”
I noticed a conspicuous hole in his plan. It was me-shaped. “What about me? I don’t know how to work on a ship. I can barely cook.”
He placed his giant hams on my shoulders. “You won’t be coming with me. It’s better if I go alone. Then I don’t have to worry about keeping you safe. And I would worry. A lot.”
Alarm bells rang in my head. “You’re leaving me here? What if you don’t come back?”
He looked me in the eye sternly. “You must trust me. I will come back for you. Then I’ll take you home. That was our deal.”
I didn’t like the idea of being left on an alien planet. Anything could happen to me. Or to him. Maybe he wouldn’t find his crew for years. Or he would, but then fail to defeat them. Then he’d be left for dead on a distant planet. And I would be left here waiting for him.
I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to. We’ll find you a job in the city where you can work and save up. Eventually, you’ll earn enough for a ticket back to Earth. But that won’t happen. It’s only a backup plan.”
People needed backup plans because there was always a chance the main plan would fail.
“I’m not waiting here,” I said, knowing I likely had little other option.
“We’ll talk more about it later,” he said and lowered his lips to kiss me.
I turned away.
He sighed, not angry, but unsure what to do. “Come. We must pass through the jungle before nightfall. It’s not a safe place to be in the dark.”
Well, there’s a surprise.
I considered my options. I had precious few to choose from. I had to get him to change his mind, to make him see we worked best when we stuck together.
I stepped into the jungle and followed his broad back.
When sunlight failed to permeate the thick overhead canopy, it was like a solar eclipse. Strange creatures hooted, howled, and screeched. Eyes glowed. Some yellow, some green, some red, others flashed every color of the rainbow.
I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Nighteko marched ahead of me. He held his sword in one hand but rarely used it to cut the vines and foliage if he didn’t have to. He preferred to keep the blade sharp and ducked and weaved between the dense jungle cables.
Every so often, he said, “Watch your step.”
I was watching every step I took. I danced, pirouetted, leaped, hopscotched, my eyes latching onto every slimy surface and stubby length of wood like it was a deathray.
And snakes. That was what you looked out for in Earth jun
gles. And if the sea creature we ran into yesterday was any indication, the snakes here could use anacondas as tooth floss.
Just how did I get myself into these situations?
I decided to initiate a conversation. At least that might help take my mind off these surroundings. “I found out why they moved the Challenge a day forward,” I said.
Nighteko didn’t say anything and carefully stepped over an assault course of protruding tree roots.
“On my way to the docking bay to get back up,” I said. “Well, what I thought would be our backup, I passed my room. I had a funny feeling something was up. How could they know you weren’t being poisoned anymore? So I went in my room. I checked under my bed where I left your poisoned food and guess what? It wasn’t there. Somebody had taken it. They must have figured out we knew about the poison. You’d get stronger every day, so they moved the Challenge forward.”
Something flapped past my face and disappeared into the jungle. I swallowed. “Okay…”
I hurried to catch up with Nighteko. “I guess I must’ve been followed.”
Something snagged my foot and I tripped. I rolled over to peer at the thing still attached to my boot. A snake coiled around it. I screamed and slammed my free foot at it over and over.
“Will you be quiet?” Nighteko hissed. “I’m trying to pass through the jungle unnoticed.”
“A snake’s got me!” I said, still flailing.
He looked at my foot. “It’s not a snake.”
“What?”
“It’s an exposed tree root,” he said, crouching down to help release me.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, it looked like a snake when I tripped.”
He took my face in his hands and kissed me on the lips. It was just what the doctor ordered.
“Trust me, snakes are the last thing you need to worry about in here,” he said. “There’s a whole lot worse you should be worried about.”
The good feelings vanished in an instant.
“Like what?” I said, feeling lightheaded.
“It’s best you don’t know,” he said. “Until you have to know.”
I gulped and nodded my head. “Sure. That works. Are you even sure we have to go through the jungle?”
But he was already focused on something else. Boy, I hoped it wasn’t one of these things I shouldn’t know about. He angled his head for a better view between a pair of large leaves.
I did the same with a lower gap in the foliage. He was looking at a beautiful grass clearing. Now that was more like it. Open and clear, I could walk through it all day without a word of complaint. I moved to shove the leaves aside—
Nighteko extended his arm, blocking me. Then he pressed his index finger to his lips. He crouched down to my height and moved me to one side so I could see what he’d seen.
A man dressed in a plain brown robe crouched beside a cart attached to a creature similar to a horse but not as beautiful. When I looked closer, I noticed it had six legs and a broken wing.
Hm. Not at all like a horse, then.
“What is he?” I said.
“A trader,” Nighteko said. “He moves from village to village trading his wares.”
The wheel of his wagon had snapped off and lay in a shallow ditch. He grumbled under his breath and struggled with mending it.
Nighteko stepped through the damp leaves and held it open for me to pass through first.
“Uh, hi,” I said.
The trader straightened up and first appraised me, then the big lug standing behind me. The robe he wore reminded me of the sackcloth monks wore in monasteries.
“Do you need a hand?” I said.
“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind,” the trader said.
He turned to Nighteko and nodded at the broken wagon.
Nighteko crouched and braced the cart on his back.
“On the count of three,” he said. “One, two, three…”
He grunted as he lifted the cart. The trader watched him in awe before hurrying to slip the wheel back in place. Then Nighteko lowered it back down again. He clapped the dirt off his hands.
“Thank you very much, stranger,” the old trader said. “This wheel always has had a habit of slipping off. Where are you headed? I could give you a lift if you’re heading my way.”
“We headed to Klaxxon,” Nighteko said.
“Oh,” the trader said. “I’m sorry about that. I’m headed in the opposite direction, I’m afraid. But I won’t let you go empty-handed for your kindness.”
Nighteko waved his hands. “That’s not necessary.”
The trader stepped on a spoke of the mended wheel to reach into the back of his cart. He came out with a single container. “It’s not much, I’m afraid, but enough to keep you going for a day.”
He opened it, revealing a small amount of cooked food. It looked like a rice stirfry but I couldn’t identify most of the ingredients.
I wanted to turn him down, to tell him there was no need, but then my stomach grumbled.
“I can only spare one, I’m afraid,” the trader said. “I carry everything I own with me. My food has to last me until I reach the next village where I can bargain for more. But please, take this.”
His face was gaunt and I suddenly realized why Nighteko refused it.
This was all the food the trader had.
But he was a trader. Maybe he was willing to go a little hungrier if I gave him something in return…
I slipped the bracelet from my wrist and gave it to him. “How much food will you give us for this?”
Nighteko shook his head. “Don’t give it away. It’s worth too much.”
“If it helps us see the end of this day, I think it’s worth it,” I said.
Nighteko was starving too. Still, he didn’t like to see me lose the only keepsake I had of my father.
The trader held it up to the light.
“It’s made from silver,” I said. “I don’t know what it’s worth on this planet but it’s worth good money where I’m from.”
The trader opened the locket, revealing the images of my parents. He handed it back to me. “I can’t take this.”
“I don’t need it,” I said, and I tapped my temple. “I have everything I need to remember them up here.”
The trader nodded gratefully and tucked the bracelet in his pocket. “I’ll get a good meal for it in the next village. It’s only right we trade more fairly.”
He climbed back into his cart and came out with a second, slightly larger container of food.
“You need to keep your strength up,” the trader said. “Especially in a place like this.”
The trader climbed onto his cart and made a clucking noise out the corner of his mouth. The not-horse took the mended cart down the narrow winding path. It wasn’t a regular road but two tracks, worn into the soil from hundreds of similar carts on identical journies.
He took a corner and was gone.
We tore into our containers without needing to mutter a single word. I didn’t care what was in it or even what it tasted like. I couldn’t shove it in my face fast enough.
“I guess both humans and Titans are beasts when it comes to being hangry,” I said.
Nighteko chuckled as he sucked his fingers.
Neither of us were full but it would keep us going for a few more hours, at least.
I’d never seen Nighteko so warm and generous before. He really did have a streak of honor in him. We followed the tracks through the jungle.
It was a much more pleasant journey, especially when I had his firm ass to keep me entertained.
Nights came and went much faster on this planet. Maybe it spun faster or had a different tilt? I didn’t know. As someone who loved their sleep, it could only be a good thing.
The path we took was not straight and tended to move in wide arcs. I got the feeling this road hadn’t been designed. The pioneers had simply moved around the jungle’s hardiest impediments rather than cut through them.
I began to wonder if
we would ever make it out of there.
The hoots and the howls and the growls from mysterious creatures deep in the jungle had come out to play. Eyes glowed and floated in the trees and swung from the branches, following our progress every step of the way.
“Nighteko…” I said.
“I see them,” he said. “Keep walking. With any luck, they won’t bother us.”
We finally reached the path’s mouth on the other side of the jungle. It fed onto a wide plain dotted with small huts. They were dilapidated, the roofs having caved in. Black scorch marks ran up the walls like tattoos gone wrong. It might have been picturesque in its day.
But no longer.
The jungle had already begun to reclaim what was once its domain. Trees sprouted through the closest huts, roots cracking the walls and tearing them apart from the inside out.
Nighteko moved among the remains and ran a hand over a craggy wall. This place held significance for him.
“We’ll sleep here tonight,” he said.
It was a huge step up from the beach. At least now we had a roof over our heads—even if many of the roofs now had holes in them. We passed through the former village until we came to the hut with the least amount of damage. There was still a big split in the roof, so Nighteko picked up an overturned trough and placed it over the hole. It was good enough for tonight.
It even had a bed inside. I jumped on it and immediately regretted it. It was hard as rock. I rubbed my ass. It’d be badly bruised in the morning. When I raised the woven mat, I found it really was rock. Still, it beat sleeping on the floor, and with all the crazy creatures they had running around, that could only be a good thing. It’d been built for creatures larger than humans, that was for sure.
Some of the huts were connected by small tunnels. I got the feeling that as families grew, they added extra rooms like we would with extensions back home.
Nighteko stood at the entrance. He hadn’t taken a step inside yet. “I’ll… make a fire,” he said.
Something was on his mind. But what?
In the corner were piles of blankets made from animal hides. I poked at them with my foot to scare away any rodents—or something much worse—before I picked them up. Most were damp and no good for us to use. But one was dry and much softer than I expected.