by Reed, Jaxon
“When’s the time window?”
“Six days from today.”
“Okay. We’ll have a team in place in five.”
-+-
I paused to stretch. When I volunteered for garden duty, I discovered Mrs. Ng was in charge of produce for the Ranger station. A short, brown woman, with both brown skin and hair, she had a naturally dour disposition. But she seemed at least a little happy to have a fresh volunteer, and quickly put me to work.
All morning I’d been shucking corn in a storage hut filled with a fresh shipment, and I had six large barrels full to mark my progress. It was mindless work, but I felt like I was doing something to contribute. I stretched again, and considered starting my seventh barrel when the door to the hut opened.
“Hey lazy bones. Get back to work.” Dee Dee grinned.
“Lazy? Look at those barrels marking my progress this morning. What have you been doing? Punching buttons in a computer for a statistical model? Men like me have to do real work.”
She snorted, sat down beside me and started peeling the skin off a cob.
“We all do our part here to help. Both manual and mental labor. Even Daddy chips in on chores.”
I went back to shucking with her, and we worked in silence for a while. She smelled nice.
“Are you ready for the expedition?”
“Sure, I guess. I mean, I have my food pack ready. And my omnicam. You?”
She nodded. “Mom’s not happy I’m going. Connie is convinced you’re going to attack me and the rest of crew as soon as we leave.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course she is.”
She giggled. We worked quietly a few more minutes.
“So, lots of controversy over the Professor’s picks, huh?”
She nodded. “Some. But he makes a convincing argument. There is a risk of attack from Fred, but he thinks taking young people on the team will be an advantage. Most of the researchers here are over forty. Some are middle-aged, even. They’ve been here a long time. And it’s not like they’re not physically fit, but they’re not as spry as they used to be.”
I could see Professor Cruz’s line of reasoning. I wondered how many objected to him going, seeing as he was rather old himself.
I wasn’t allowed in on that meeting. But I knew the vote passed the way the Professor wanted it, and the team was set. It included the triplets, Dee Dee, Ranger Jenkins and his wife Ella, the Professor, the Physician, and me.
A dirty blonde head popped through the doorway.
“There you are, Dee Dee. The Professor says he needs your help calibrating the replacement sensors we’re bringing.”
“Okay, Jeremy. I’ll be there in a minute.”
When he was gone I said, “How’d you know that was Jeremy?”
“You can’t tell them apart yet? Jeremy has a small scar above his right eyebrow from a fight when they were little. Jason has a scar to the side of his left eye, and Jacob has a couple of light freckles on his cheek.”
“I see.”
And I did. She was highly intelligent, had extraordinary situational awareness, a sharp mind and good memory.
“Are you well fed?”
“You mean on blood? Yeah, they’ve been overfeeding me to see what happens. Physician Patel said somebody’s been donating so the blood bank doesn’t get depleted.”
“That was me.”
I whipped my head toward her. “That was you?”
She shrugged. “They asked for a volunteer to donate some blood for you. So I did.”
It dawned on me why I was asked to sit out that last meeting. Then I started thinking about all her blood I’d been drinking lately. I felt my face flush. I looked over at her again. She was blushing, too.
“Thanks.”
She smiled.
Later when it was time to head back to the O’Donnell’s for lunch, Mrs. Ng came in and I presented her with eight full barrels of shucked corn. Her eyes grew big and for a moment I thought her expression might change from its perpetual scowl and I’d see a smile for the first time. Instead she said, “Keep at it after lunch.”
-+-
On the appointed day, we gathered on the flight deck where I’d first landed. I sailed in on a zip line shortly before the triplets, our eyes red from lack of sleep. I thought they’d never stop talking the night before, bubbling in their enthusiasm about the adventure ahead.
Mrs. Jenkins handed me a PHU and I strapped it on, then hung food and water packs off my belt. Last, I strapped the bulky omnicam to my chest. My job was to carry and position the device in the area Fred and the gathering party were expected to meet. Unlike other cams that operate by pointing in one direction and recording through a lens, this unit was fully three dimensional and would record everything within a large radius regardless of direction. Its battery pack allowed a full 48 standard hours of operation.
Due to the long history of incidents with Fred, the Professor decided to set up this omnicam at the predicted meeting place. Rather than try to watch the action unfold in person, we were to fall back and watch at a distance, then retrieve the omnicam later. All direct contact with the primates was to be avoided.
It seemed like a good idea to me. The triplets had no end of horror stories about Fred they liked to tell, especially at night before going to sleep. I had no desire to see him in the flesh.
Most of the base personnel came to see us off. Mrs. Ng had a more dour than usual expression on her face, and wouldn’t look me in the eye. She handed me a bag of William’s apples. I strapped it on with my other food supplies, and thanked her. She turned and walked away without saying a word, but I saw her rubbing her eyes.
Mrs. Cruz and Connie hugged the Professor. Mrs. Cruz hugged Dee Dee, but Connie stepped back. She looked over at me and glared. I waved and smiled. She turned her back on me. I inched closer to listen to the Cruzes’ conversation.
“Do you have to take Diane?”
“She’ll be fine. We’re not going anywhere near Fred, and she knows the equipment.”
Mr. and Mrs. O’Donnell showed up to hug the triplets. Mr. O’Donnell gravely shook each boy’s hand in turn, said a few encouraging words and left to speak to others in the party. Mrs. O’Donnell stayed and cried over them. They tried to shoo her away, were unsuccessful, and stood red-faced and embarrassed while she hugged and fussed over them.
Other people came forward and said their goodbyes. Eventually everybody had their butterfly wings on, their packs strapped, the equipment packed, and we were all ready to go. Professor Cruz gave his wife a final kiss, turned to the rest of us and gave a “follow me” motion with his arm. He grabbed his PHU controls, shot up and hovered above the platform. The rest of us shot up and hovered with him. He nodded. We turned and flew off into the woods.
-+-
We flew full speed for about three hours, dodging tree trunks, limbs and leaves, before the Professor called a break. We landed gently on a giant branch stretching out horizontally for about a hundred yards. It made a nice place to sit and rest for a while. I plopped down near the triplets and took some sips from my water pack. Dee Dee came over and sat by us.
“So the hunt begins,” she said.
I nodded. “Appropriate, considering your name.”
“What?”
“Diane. Diana. You know. Goddess of the hunt. Roman mythology …”
It was an awkward moment. I was saved by the Professor, who rounded everybody up, and we floated off the branch, on the move again.
The triplets were merciless, shouting over the wind and hum of rotors.
“Look at me! I know Roman mythology!”
“It’s all Greek to me.”
“Yes, dear. Your name in ancient Latin means ‘cabbage head.’ It’s very romantic. She was the deity of smelly soup.”
But after a while, Dee Dee pulled up even with me. I turned to look. We locked eyes and she smiled. Then she darted ahead to catch up with the Professor.
-+-
“This is the place
. Set it down there, Marcus.”
I detached the bulky omnicam and set it down on the branch, turning it on. I’d been carrying it strapped to my chest for hours, and felt glad to finally unload it. I noticed the markings on the back: “Omni-corder Model X1B Property of NTAMU.”
I stretched for a minute to work the kinks out of my back. The thought occurred to me that the Professor probably wanted young people on this trip mainly to carry heavy loads. I wondered if he used that argument in the meeting.
“Are you getting a reading, Diane?”
Dee Dee’s hand screen beeped. “Yes, sir. The unit is working.”
The Professor let loose a sigh. “I was a little worried it might get roughed up in transit.”
“This field equipment seems pretty rugged,” I said.
He nodded. “Let’s secure it and vacate the premises. Then let’s replace the broken sensors.”
-+-
Later after supper, I pulled out the bag of Mrs. Ng’s Williams’ apples and shared them with the triplets.
“Oh, do Tell!” Jason said.
I smiled at the joke. His brothers shot him annoyed looks.
“No puns,” Jacob said.
Jason grinned toward me, and nodded toward Jacob. “He’s apple-lectic.”
We were camped on another large branch, well away from the expected point of contact. We had a circle of tents, with a large garbage bag in the middle. The Professor lectured us on not littering, and taking out everything we brought in with us. The only thing we were to leave behind were replacement sensors to keep the grid going back home.
Night had fallen and the nocturnal animals were out and around us. I was determined to enjoy my first night in the deep woods, even with exhaustion setting in fast. I shared a small tent with Jason, while Jacob and Jeremy were in another. Jason conked out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. I listened to him snore softly, but felt restless and couldn’t sleep. Finally I crawled out of the sleeping bag and tip-toed carefully to the edge of the branch, where it started it sloping downward.
I laid back and looked up. No stars shown through the thick canopy of leaves. Night birds and insects chirped and buzzed. I soaked in the sounds and night air.
“Trouble sleeping?”
I sat up and turned. The Professor came nearer.
“Yes, sir. Thought I’d soak up the ambience, you know? Never been to the forest before, and certainly I never dreamed I’d get so deep.”
He nodded in understanding. “It’s a little a different this far in. There’s also a certain element of danger. There’s a slight possibility Fred might visit us tonight.”
I gulped. All of a sudden the forest didn’t seem so friendly.
“Not to worry. We’re still within the sensor grid, and I’ve set alarms to go off if anything big approaches. Still, knowing there are other ‘Freds’ near all the primate settlements, it makes an overnight stay an unsafe variable. We’ve never had a team attacked while flying, but one party, the one that explored deepest into the woods in fact, was attacked by a hematophageous monkey while sleeping. Thus our precautions.”
We sat in silence for a while, soaking up the night.
“You know, Milton was right. You’re a good worker. Intelligent. You get along well with others, and you’re willing to do your share. He said you’d make a fine asset to our community, and after watching you this week I concur.”
“Thanks.”
Thoughts of Professor Kalinowski brought me back to my weeks at AES 3.
“He never told me he was a Professor while I was there.”
“You never told him you were hematophageous.”
I smiled. He had me there.
“Professor, Cruz? I’ve been wondering. Why does Professor Kalinowski stay so isolated out there? I mean, doesn’t he visit the station every now and then?”
“No. Milton hasn’t been to the Ranger station in eighteen years or so.”
“Why? Is he just anti-social?”
I didn’t think that was the reason. He’d seemed plenty sociable to me during my stay. But I had to ask.
The Professor took a deep breath and paused, as if to collect his thoughts.
“When we first came to Redwood, about twenty years ago, we were both single. So was Melody. We all worked together. It was an exciting time. A new world, new discoveries daily. Primates in the woods, all that. We were all very close, and the Ranger station was considerably more crowded back then.
“Anyway, in the middle of all our work and all the excitement, we both fell in love with Melody. It was a classic love triangle. I think she loved him, too. But, she loved me more. In the end, she chose me over him. It broke his heart. He moved to AES Three and has stayed there ever since, experimenting on tobacco and other crops in isolation. Colt is the only one of us who has actually seen him in years, on regular supply trips. Your time there is the longest anyone’s spent with him.”
We sat in silence for a while longer as I digested this newfound knowledge. I thought about the emotions Kalinowski must have felt, driving him to separate from the rest of the group like that.
“Surely he would have come back after a while.”
“The fact we have so few people at the station … Remember we lost the majority of researchers after the State banned most humans from Redwood. The fact we have so few people now means he’d be in almost daily contact with Melody and me. I don’t think he wants that.
“Besides, I think he enjoys the isolation now. He’s been performing experiments out there for years without anybody telling him what he can or can’t do.”
I nodded. Makes sense, I thought. We stayed out there a while longer in silence.
“You should get some sleep, Marcus. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”
Chapter Eight
I woke up to the savory smell of forbidden Redwood cow steak sizzling on a grill somewhere. I crawled out of the sleeping bag and made my way to a makeshift mess, where Ranger Jenkins prepared thin slices of skirt steak, potatoes and scrambled eggs on a camp stove.
“Morning, Marcus. Help yourself to some breakfast tacos.”
After eating, I made my way over to Dee Dee, the triplets, and the Professor who was fiddling with some equipment.
“Try it now, Dee Dee.”
She flipped a switch and a hologram popped into existence: a three foot sphere, showing branches and trees. Dee Dee looked up and smiled when she saw me.
“The transmitter works. This is a scale hologram of what the omnicam is picking up. It has a 100 yard range, and the hologram is one yard.”
I looked in fascination, watching slight movement in the leaves. The clarity was very high.
A bird glided into the sphere. I’d seen one like it before. Its body was about the length of an Old Earth horse. It had a wingspan of twenty feet or so. In the hologram it appeared very tiny, but visible.
It swooped down suddenly and grabbed a bug out of the air that must have been the size of a softball. It stopped on a branch to chew and gulp down the meal, then flew off, gliding out of the cam’s range.
The Professor nodded in satisfaction.
“We should have a front row seat for the show.”
The show took a long time to start. The triplets fidgeted, bickered, fought, and eventually left to explore every square inch of the branch we were on. Mrs. Jenkins corralled them and put them to work packing up all our tents and sleeping bags. Idly watching the hologram seemed preferable after that, so they rejoined the Professor, Dee Dee and me to keep an eye on the instruments.
Ranger Jenkins produced a box of cigars.
“Redwood’s finest. Compliments of Professor Kalinowski.”
We all took one and lit up with a lighter he passed around. I did a double take when I saw Dee Dee take one.
“What, haven’t you ever seen a girl smoke a cigar before?”
“No, actually I haven’t.”
Jeremy snickered.
“You’re the first girl he’s ever seen, Dee
Dee.”
“Actually, that’s not true. I’ve seen lots of girls before. I’ve seen them on just about all my layovers on other planets.”
The triplets were rather jealous of my trips off planet. I didn’t bother to explain to them that being a pilot on an automated ship was not exactly prestigious.
I changed the subject.
“Who came up with the name, ‘Fred?’”
“That’s a good question, Marcus,” the Professor said. “I don’t know.”
“It stands for First Real Enemy Detected!”
“Really, Jason? Where did you learn this?”
“Aw, I just made it up.”
“I see. Well, it sounds as plausible as anything else.”
-+-
We had smoked turkey sandwiches for lunch, along with some dried fruit.
“Go ahead and pack the mess up, Colt,” the Professor said. “I hope to be home before supper.”
Ranger Jenkins nodded.
“Let’s hope Melody’s statistical model works out.”
“Daddy, the sensor grid is showing the hunting party leaving the city!”
The Professor and the Ranger looked at each other and smiled. Physician Patel walked up.
“So it begins?”
The Professor nodded.
“They’re doing their part. Let’s see if Fred shows up.”
Some time later, the party’s scout showed up in the omnicam’s hologram, jumping onto a branch on the outer edge. He looked around, jumped down to another branch, stood up on hind legs and sniffed the air. He hooted, apparently giving the green light to other members of the party.
One by one they came into range and appeared in the hologram, a dozen of them. The last four were laden down, arms crossed, carrying fruit close to their chests. The fruit looked like berries of some kind, purple and each about the size of a tennis ball. The others ran around from branch to branch, inspecting a small bush-like outgrowth on some of them. When they found a berry or two, they’d rush back and put them in the arms of those carrying the fruit.
Jason chuckled. “Twelve little monkeys. Only, they’re not so little, are they?”
We watched as the party gathered fruit, jumping from branch to branch, making a slow arc through the omnicam’s field. Everybody seemed to be holding their breath.