Displaced

by Drake,Stephen

  “You’re joking,” Murdock said, disbelieving.

  “Not a bit. He also said that to him, you are blood-brother to the sun and hang the stars in the heavens!”

  “Now, I know you’re teasing me!” Murdock said incredulously.

  “He said you and your mate are great healers and have infinite wisdom and generosity,” Rose stated proudly. “So, you better be nicer to me in the future and treat a goddess as she should be treated!” Rose pushed him to the side, laughing.

  “What do you mean, be nicer to you?” Murdock questioned. “You show me another woman on this planet who can have a hot bath whenever she wants. I think I take good care of you!”

  “Yes, you do, love!” she said, kissing him. “I saw you looking at the old one at the gathering. Do you know who he is?”

  “No, I’ve never seen him before.”

  “From what I gather, he is the Elder, King, Duly elected leader, whatever term you want to use, of all their kind,” she said. “And Beron’s father.” Rose looked sideways at him, grinning. “I never would have thought you knew who to suck up to!”

  Murdock was dumbfounded.

  “What did you do to that big white one? He really doesn’t like you!” Rose continued.

  “Exist, I think. I haven’t offended him in any other way that I can recall.”

  “Yeah, that was the impression I got, too. Beron’s father warned him to leave us alone . . . or else. The or else part frightened me!”

  Rose’s words bothered Murdock. By his standards, he didn’t do anything worthy of godhood. He had just helped someone in need.

  “Rose, you were there,” Murdock started. “You know all I did was some simple first aid. It was no big deal. I would do the same for anyone.”

  “Yeah, I know. But who am I to argue with Beron when he thinks you are the greatest healer since Jonas Salk? You want to argue with him, then you do so on your own — I refuse!” she stated flatly. “Mainly because I happen to agree with him.” She kissed him and skipped ahead.

  12

  Several weeks passed after the gathering before Murdock and Rose got back into their daily routine. Beron hadn’t come around the entire time, and Murdock found that he missed his friend.

  Murdock had perfected his knapping technique, managing to make several arrows with fletchings after finding a cache of bird feathers. He had also perfected his bow and got in a lot of practice.

  Rose, confident of her capabilities, wanted to learn to shoot as well, so Murdock began making a bow of her own. The venison from the first hunt was almost gone, and Murdock knew it would soon be time for another hunt. He felt confident that taking another deer would be easier with Rose armed with a bow and he with spears.

  Using the wolf pelts, Murdock made another water skin of sorts, and a pair of calf-high moccasins for Rose similar to his boots but without a sheath for a six-inch knife. When he gave Rose the moccasins, she acted as if they were made of mink, oooing and ahhing, as she did when he made or did anything for her.

  Using the deer skin, they both worked on a dress for Rose. When they had completed it, the dress covered her arms and went to just below the tops of her moccasins. Murdock had done most of the general work, with an excited Rose playing mannequin. When he finished it, she liked it but immediately made some alterations to flatter her figure more, not that she needed her figure more flattering than it already was, in his opinion. When she announced that she had finished and that it was acceptable, Murdock, who had found some yellow iron oxalate in the veins of ore around the cave, painted a necklace of the yellow wildflowers around the front and back yoke of the dress. He was no artist, but he did the best he could, and Rose made all the proper noises when he showed her. Rose thought it was a nice touch and loved wearing the dress whenever she could.

  From the back-strap tendon Murdock managed a bowstring and thread to sew the leather. From the scraps of the pelts he fashioned, a quiver, and a more acceptable sling. He did some repairs on his own buckskins, made lashings for spears, and had plenty of thong ties.

  Even though he kept busy, his mind roamed over all the inconsistencies of this planet and the cave they called home. Murdock saw precious few birds here and even fewer insects. He saw no small animals, such as squirrels and chipmunks; it didn’t seem quite natural to him. And all the animals were so much bigger than he was used to.

  Some of the inconsistencies might have been natural, but the cave? The tunnel walls were too smooth, and everything in it was exactly what they needed when they needed them. It was all too convenient. And why hadn’t he seen the entrance to the chamber in which they now lived until after Rose’s recovery and his gift of the venison to Beron? What made him so uneasy in the area of the falls?

  He was still uncomfortable with what Rose had told him about the nature of the gathering, as well as why her impressions were so much clearer than his. But when he asked her, she was no help. All she would say was, “Females have their little secrets that males don’t need to know about.”

  Then, at times he just thought about kissing Rose, and she would appear and kiss him first. How was it that she was able to complete some of his thoughts when they talked?

  Murdock vowed to get answers from Beron the next time he came. He needed to understand the rules here, and he intended to end his confusion — within reason, of course. The last thing he wanted was to ruin the relationship he had established with Beron.

  He was resigned to the fact that he would get all the answers he could from his friend the next time he saw him. And as it turned out, he didn’t have long to wait.

  On the day that Beron came to see Murdock and Rose, they were preparing to go on another deer hunt. Their supply of venison was reduced to a few chunks, and Murdock estimated that only a few days’ supply remained before they would be eating fish. They hadn’t eaten much fish since the last deer hunt, preferring fish as a change from venison rather than the other way around.

  With preparations almost completed, Murdock and Rose lay on their bed talking. Outside, it was just after dusk.

  Murdock and Rose were surprised to see Beron and his mate right next to their bed. They had neither heard nor felt them coming, and they were unnerved to look up and see them there.

  Murdock got up and stirred the fire to give more light. He liked to see who he was talking to.

  “How is your mate’s foot?” he asked aloud. “Glad you came by! Early tomorrow we are leaving on a deer hunt,” he finished as he lay down next to Rose again.

  “Share,” Beron flashed to Rose and him, ignoring Murdock’s question.

  “Her foot is one hundred percent,” Rose told him in a low tone.

  Both Rose and Murdock agreed to share with their friends. To an outside observer, Murdock and Rose appeared to go from full consciousness to total unconsciousness in the blink of an eye as they collapsed. An outside observer would not have seen any bears inside the cave.

  #

  As Murdock entered what he called “the sharing state,” he seemed to be floating above the grass field that he and Rose used to gather grass to make their mats and ropes. The mountain that they lived in was in plain view, and it appeared to be either just before dawn or just after dusk. Rose faced him, looking as beautiful as ever, and he could feel her hands on his hips, even though he couldn’t see her hands — or his, for that matter. Her face was inches from his, and he couldn’t look away. He saw the rest of the scene in his peripheral vision, as if he were inside a hologram with a panoramic view.

  This was something completely new to Murdock. He was used to flashes of pictures or deep feelings, not something with this degree of continuity or immersiveness, and not so free-flowing.

  “Hi, babe, where’s Beron?” he said to Rose in this dream world. He never referred to Rose as “babe” when talking to her in real life, but he had thought it more than once.

  “We are here,” she replied, but it wasn’t just her voice. It sounded like his father, his uncle, and Rose all speaking
at the same time to him, all saying exactly the same thing. In a way, he wasn’t too surprised. Whenever Beron appeared to speak to him in previous sharing sessions, he had heard either his dad’s voice or his uncle’s, but never the two together.

  The trio of voices continued, “You have . . .” And then in Rose’s voice alone, “questions?” Immediately, Murdock knew that Rose was helping with the unfamiliar words he heard, but he asked himself whether he was really hearing the voices or whether he imagined it. He couldn’t tell if Rose’s lips moved, either. He couldn’t see them, but he did get the impression that she smiled broadly at him.

  “During the gathering, did you tell me what really went on?” he asked Rose directly.

  The trio replied, “Yes.”

  “But I got none of that myself, and I was there. How is it you understood more than I did?” he asked Rose.

  “Mate violated rules/protocol showed . . . me.”

  “When I helped Beron’s mate, why didn’t she communicate with me directly?” he asked.

  “Forbidden/violates protocol when . . . male . . . is present.”

  “What about the cave?”

  In his peripheral vision he saw the mountain change to a three-dimensional line drawing that began to slowly rotate. He clearly picked out the places he had already been, but the entire mountain looked like a warren of caves and tunnels. It was as if he looked at an extremely complex, extremely large ant hill. If the scale was correct, multiple layers went from the top of the mountain to several thousands of feet below the lowest level Murdock had been in, all running through the entire mountain. Based on what he could see, very few ways into the unexplored part of the complex existed and only one anywhere close to the base that he and Rose called home. That entrance was on one of the walls close by the pools. Soon, the scene changed from the line drawing back to a realistic view.

  “Refuge/sanctuary . . . for our . . . clan . . . during long . . . sleeping.” He heard sleeping, but Murdock received the impression that it was like hibernation or stasis. “As guardian, your . . . duty . . . protect always.” He heard always, but he felt as if it were more like at all times and seasons and by whatever means necessary until all the stars are cold. Murdock also perceived that guardian meant that he was the army, the police, and the mayor all rolled into one. And it wasn’t just him. It also included Rose and all their progeny, forever and ever.

  “Before your kind . . . arrived . . . no need of guardian. Our . . . refuge/sanctuary . . . we made for us. Your . . . moral values similar . . . ours. That is why . . . we value you.” Murdock heard value, but it meant a lot more than that. He received the impression of great admiration, honor, and respect.

  “As I see it, I did nothing special to warrant such honor when I helped your mate,” Murdock responded. He immediately felt a swell of good feelings. The view in his peripheral vision changed, so that he saw one of the large snakes attacking Rose. She was unconscious and couldn’t defend herself. Extreme fear took hold of Murdock when he saw this, even though he could see Rose right in front of his face. Then, the scene changed slightly, so that he saw Beron killing the snake with a single swipe of his sharp claws, protecting Rose.

  “To us, is same . . . you did for . . . mate.”

  Murdock was ashamed. He should have realized that on his own. Though from Murdock’s perspective he had done nothing special for Beron’s mate, from their perspective, they either didn’t know how to do or couldn’t do what he had done, for some reason, and so his action was something great and very much appreciated.

  The questions and answers seemed, to Murdock, to go on for days, but quite a few of his questions were answered. Granted, because, when he asked why the snakes hadn’t been eradicated, and destroyers, when he asked what lived in the area by the falls, weren’t really answers, nor were they descriptive, but that was better than no answer at all. Over the course of the time he spent in the dream world, he figured out, inferred, or was told or shown outright that Beron and his kind, who called themselves Oomah, were, at some point in the distant past, the same kind as those who had invaded earth, the Teknarah. He discovered that the Teknarah needed what Murdock liked to think of as sheeple, to survive.

  Murdock viewed sheeple as self-aware beings, who, for whatever reason, couldn’t or wouldn’t think for themselves. On Earth, they were the go along to get along crowd, the ones whom all the advertising geniuses loved to cater to. These were the people who thought as others do and did as they were told without questioning, having no idea why they did. The Teknarah couldn’t have dissension in their midst, so all free-thinkers had to go, but they also had a deep revulsion for wasting resources. Thus, the forced emigration from Earth, which wasn’t the only planet they had invaded. Their choice of this planet for the humans had been a way of getting back at the Oomah for their rebellion against accepted practices.

  In the distant past, the Oomah had developed a deep moral aversion to controlling others by force, preferring to suggest rather than command. This really wasn’t control, as they gained nothing, other than knowing that they tried to help others. Anyone they helped was free at any time to go his own way. The Oomah had no vested interest in the outcome.

  At some point, the Oomah had decided to live a more corporeal life and had created and developed this planet and everything on it to suit only their needs. In taking on the forms that they had chosen for themselves on this planet, they had gained a more fulfilling life. A few of the gains were the sensual pleasures of companionship, eating, and lying in the warm sun on the grass in their meadows. But they had also given up a lot.

  Their current form didn’t require a lot of deep sleep. Relaxing, resting, and dozing sufficed; however, they required recuperation for extended periods. For millennia, they had roamed this planet from mid-spring to late fall, going into their long sleep cycle the rest of the year. Only the white ones could stand the cold of winter, so their cycle was reversed from that of the rest of the Oomah. Their long sleep could be interrupted for something very important, but they didn’t like it and became what Murdock thought of as grumpy. However, they were vulnerable during their long sleep.

  Another loss for the Oomah consisted in their inability to control very small or very fast-moving objects. When Murdock questioned Beron about this inability, he learned that while it would be nothing for them to change the orbit of the planet, toss the transport pod back into space, or throw a man a continent away, small objects, such as stone shards or arrows, were either too small or too fast-moving for them to manipulate. However, the Teknarah, whose bodies were small, gelatinous, parasitic masses, had the reverse ability.

  The vulnerability of the Oomah hadn’t become apparent to them until the pilgrims arrived. Then, the Oomah perceived them to be a dire threat to their existence through the humans’ dogged determination, ingenuity, and sheer, cussed meanness. But by that time it was too late to change forms; they had grown comfortable with the form they had taken, preferring to die rather than change.

  Half of the Oomah wanted to wipe the offenders off of their planet. The other half took a wait and see stance on the matter. To the Oomah, killing one of the snakes was something that their cubs did when they reached adulthood. Murdock, having killed one while Beron was watching the humans, had made him more acceptable. Thus he had been selected as Guardian for several reasons, mainly for his maturity, compassion, intelligence, and generosity.

  Since the Oomah had no knowledge of humans, Beron had volunteered to investigate and report his findings on the stranger’s capabilities and intentions. He had also volunteered to die if need be in order to gain the information they required to make an informed decision. Because Murdock demonstrated what Beron considered signs of the higher qualities, such as compassion, lack of greed, concern for limited resources, and independence, the Oomah had made more resources available. Murdock also found that the big, white bear, Murdock’s antagonist at the gatherings, was from the “squash ‘em and eat ‘em” camp and wouldn’t be swa
yed easily, if at all.

  Murdock discovered that they had no word or understanding for human love or humor. He and Rose were teaching them those concepts, which was why Beron had brought his favorite mate to Murdock when she was hurt and none of their kind could or would help. Murdock felt that Beron was starting to care for his mate.

  When Murdock asked about the area near the river that he called the “dread feeling area,” he received the impression that monsters or destroyers lived there, and he learned nothing more about it, no matter how he asked.

  From what Murdock gathered, the Oomah had a strong moral bias against violating another’s privacy, which explained why he and Rose were never interrupted during intimate moments, as well as why Beron always asked about sharing. Granted, sometimes Beron, in dire need of information, was a little impatient, but Murdock was always free to decline. Telepathy was as nothing to them, but because they lacked a common frame of reference with humans, this made it extremely difficult to perform under the best of conditions, and the Oomah viewed forced sharing as a violation of privacy. Eavesdropping, however, was acceptable. Murdock discovered that he broadcast his thoughts to everyone and everything around him. Even though they had developed from the same creature as that of the Teknarah, the Oomah had developed their own individuality while simultaneously maintaining the hive-mind closeness of what Murdock considered their evil twins, though that was not exactly an accurate description.

  He learned that by human standards, the Oomah had a very strong moral compass that could be violated only at peril. The Teknarah, however, were totally amoral by any standard. They were certain that no entity was qualified to judge their actions or motivations, much like a lot of politicians Murdock had heard about, as well as one in particular with whom he had some unfinished business on this planet.