Orphan Tribe, Orphan Planet

by Jonathan Vick

  Orphan Tribe,

  Orphan Planet

  Jonathan M. Vick

  Copyright © 2015 Jonathan M. Vick

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1511820934

  ISBN-13: 978-1511820936

  DEDICATION

  For my son, Paul, on his twenty-first birthday.

  Every moment of every day,

  I am proud of the son you have always been,

  and the adult you have too quickly become.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to:

  My perfect wife, who gave me perfect children,

  and somehow forgives me for the incompetence

  I display in trying to raise them.

  Jason Murphy, for helping me with the cover art design.

  What is an orphan planet?

  An orphan planet is a planetary-mass object, free-floating in space, unattached to any star or solar system. They have either been ejected from the planetary system in which they formed or have never been gravitationally bound to any star.

  In the past 15 years, more than 50 orphan planets have been found.

  CHAPTER one

  Darkness is a place; a planet without a sun; an ice giant drifting through the void; lost and alone; searching for an orbit to call home. On the surface, there is snow clinging to ice covered mountains. Violent storms ravage the valleys. Vortexing winds throw shards of crystalline stone and cyclones skim the seas. But there is movement in the darkness, loping across the surface, hiding among tufts of courageous vegetation. There are creatures without eyes or color or light, living on the mountains, in the caves, beneath the crust. The orphan planet is blind but alive; hurtling through starless skies, toward futures cloaked in danger and darkness; toward fates with uncertain echoes; toward unthinkable prospects of life, and useless reveries of love, and inconceivable orbits of warmth and light.

  Thurl awoke to darkness ...

  The cold gripped Thurl as he rolled out of his hammock and pressed his feet on the gravel floor. The warming rocks in the center of the hut had cooled overnight, and the chill of morning frost ran through the stones.

  He could hear his brothers snoring in their hammocks; could smell the musk of their breath and their sweat. His mother and sisters were already gone; headed to the springs to get their morning water, or to the river to collect the steaming rocks that would heat their hut and the central dais in their community hub.

  Thurl wrapped himself in his thickest chunacat cloak and lashed it closed with his onnireed belt. He made his way through the hut, around the warming rocks, between the rows of hanging hammocks toward the leathern flap that served as their door.

  His father slept nearest the door on a soft fegion pelt stuffed with chantimer feathers. Soon, he would have to wake his father: Sohjos, the Leader of the Hunt.

  Today was Thurl’s first hunting day. Today, Thurl proved he was a man … or failed, and proved he wasn’t. He didn’t feel ready. As the youngest of fourteen kids, he still felt like the baby of the family. His sisters called him ‘child’. His brothers called him ‘runt’. If he didn’t return with a kill, they would call him runt for the rest of his life.

  Thurl pushed through the door and stepped out of the hut, into the central dais of their hub. His family’s hut sat in a circle of eight huts, all nearest the center of the immense cavern that housed their village. There were thousands of hubs just like his, each with seven or eight huts surrounding a community dais piled high with warming rocks from the river. Sohjos was Leader of the Hunt that fed the village, so his family got one of the inner-most huts. Being the Leader of the Hunt was a huge honor for the Racroft. Thurl could feel the pressure mounting against him. If the youngest son of the Leader of the Hunt failed to bring back a kill, then maybe the Leader was beginning to falter.

  Outside he could smell the brine of the incoming tide that marked morning for the Racroft village. He stuck his tongue on the roof of his mouth and pulled it down, creating a soft bubble pop noise. At the same time, he pushed air through his throat and produced a low, soft guttural grunt. The sounds echoed off the other huts; the warming rocks in the central dais; the cavern roof high overhead. Thurl mapped them all in his mind.

  He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. They would hunt in the nude, of course, so their thousands of body follicles and sensitive whiskers could sense the motion in the air; could feel the slightest disturbance in the flow of the current; could warn them of movement before the movement reached them. But before the hunt, he needed to store warmth in his thick layers of adipose and blubber. There would be no natural warmth in the day – the warmth of their ice planet came from below; deep inside the crust. Thurl imagined the center of the planet, raging with bubbling, rolling water, like the warm water that streamed from the geyser and fed the river through their cavern.

  There was a slight breeze coming from the Northwest. It smelled like arctic wind with hints of musk and damp fur. Thurl thought he could smell at least a dozen creatures just over the ridge, beyond the entrance to the immense cavern that housed their entire village. Some of them were grazing on bonroot. He could smell the sap mixed with their saliva as they chewed it into cud. The bonroot chewers weren’t alone. There were others nearby; predators ready to pounce and rodents hiding in the tufts of amblewild. The scent of predators was faint enough that Thurl didn’t worry. They were too far away to bother his village, and predators rarely entered the caves.

  A pocasta rodent was skittering over the roof of a hut on the far side of the hub. Thurl clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and grunted to track its movement. The echoes came back in rapid succession, outlining the huts and the wiry fur down the back of the rodent. Thurl could smell the pocasta getting closer; could hear the clatter of its claws on the amblewild thatch of the roof; could feel the current of air it pushed aside as it made its way toward a bowl of kanateed seeds left out by mistake.

  Thurl had been on practice hunts before, where he crouched in the ice reeds on the far side of the cavern, staying perfectly still, waiting to feel the slightest prickle on his skin that indicated movement in the air; concentrating to feel the smallest ground thump on the soles of his wide, flat feet that would tell him there was something approaching on land, sniffing the air for the scent of sweat or musk or breath. He had spent two years training this way, hunting the fast pocasta rodents that scavenged in the cavern, stalking the docile horvill sows the ranchers kept penned along the southern wall of the cavern.

  The pocasta stopped and sniffed the air. Thurl reached for a spear that leaned against his hut. Slowly, silently, he picked it up. He let the chunacat cloak slide off his shoulders and pile onto the gravel path, and let his follicles and whiskers stretch to their full extent. He could feel every movement in the air: the way the currents pushed past the circle of huts; how they flowed over the roofs and back down into the hub; where they swirled in a corner, trying to find their way out; how they pressed unnaturally each time the pocasta moved. When it wiggled its nostrils, Thurl could feel the movement pressing against his follicles. When it pressed its paw on the thatched roof, Thurl could feel the breeze change to go around it. When it lifted its ears to hear him breathing, Thurl held his own breath, but could feel the exhale of the tiny beast.

  Suddenly, there was the sharp scent of fear, and an aroma of adrenaline. The pocasta bolted. Thurl launched his spear, but it was too late. The rodent was already gone over the rooftop. The spear bounced off the thatch and rolled to the gravel. Thurl ran to grab it, then lifted it up like he’d speared the creature. He raised it over his head in mock celebration, parading around the dais like a triumphant hunter returning home with his prey.

  “Today is you
r hunt day, isn’t it?” Asked a voice across the hub.

  Thurl dropped the spear and picked up his chunacat cloak, like that’s what he’d been doing all along.

  Oswyn was a year younger than Thurl, but she had already been chosen as his mate. She didn’t like him. She thought he was immature and silly, and she often told him so. Still, they were mated based on nonsense only the Elders understood. They were about the same age, and their bloodlines were far enough apart to avoid serious defects, so when they came of age two mating seasons away, they would be taken to the mating huts and expected to incite a child.

  “Bring me back something special,” Oswyn said.

  “I’ll try, Oswyn,” answered Thurl. “What would you like? A new chunacat cloak? Maybe a nice thick fegion pelt for your bed? Or just something small, like a chantimer feather?”

  “I think I’d like the tooth of a narvai-ub,” she taunted.

  Thurl didn’t like Oswyn any more than she liked him, but he still wanted her to respect him as a suitable mate. The hunt would prove he was respectable, if he did well. Unfortunately, he didn’t expect to do well.

  “A first hunt isn’t always the best, anyway,” he said. “Most of the time, first hunters only bring back small game. The Elder hunters won’t let us go after the bigger prey.”

  During his training, his older brothers had played every trick they knew to make him look foolish; to make him fail. They had all been hunting with Father before, but none of them had made the hunt team. His oldest brother, Muxil, had come the closest, but after the hunt his Father said he was too slow, and too hesitant. In the end, none of Sohjos’s children had been allowed on Sohjos’s hunt team. Still, they had all done well on their first hunts. All of them came home with prey on their sleds. All of them had brought home meat for the village.

  “Your brothers brought home plenty,” Oswyn reminded him. “We had michau and omino meat and I think I remember a feast of repivrow after Wohsel’s hunt.”

  “That was because our dad helped them!”

  “Yes,” Oswyn nodded. “I’m sure that happened. Because none of the other hunters would say anything about special treatment, right?”

  This was why Thurl didn’t like her. She was smarter than him, and she knew it, and she liked to insult him with his own words.

  “Anyway,” she said. “I’m heading to distribution, so have a nice hunt. If you get killed I’ll have to mate with somebody else so, you know …”

  “Are you telling me to be careful, or to be reckless?”

  “Whatever,” Oswyn said as she walked away down the path. “Depends on how badly you want to mate with me, I guess.”

  She rounded the corner and disappeared behind a hut on her way to distribution, where daily necessary resources – food, water, warming rocks – were shared equally among the members of the tribe.

  Thurl listened to her feet pad on the gravel; smelled the unique perfume of her hair and sweat until the scent had dissipated. He didn’t like her; didn’t want to like her. But, something in him always felt broken when she left.

  He sighed. Oswyn didn’t need to pass by his hut on her way to distribution. She had done it on purpose, to tease him, or taunt him, or maybe just to wish him luck in the only way she knew how.

  Thurl smiled a little, just before he smelled the kanateed seeds.

  CHAPTER two

  Thurl’s brother, Alfor, was hiding behind the pile of cooled rocks that sat against their hut. Thurl could smell the rot of kanateed seeds that Alfor liked to chew.

  “I know you’re back there, Alfor,” Thurl whispered. “I’m not falling for any of your tricks today. Today is my hunting day with Dad.”

  Thurl walked to the tall pile of spent warming rocks. He clicked his tongue and grunted as he round the corner, but Alfor wasn’t there. A small ramekin of chewed kanateed seeds sat on the ground.

  Thurl could feel his heart begin to pound. He opened his mouth and drew in the frigid air to slow his heartrate so it couldn’t be heard. Carefully, he let his chunacat cloak fall back to the ground. The hairs on his thick, wrinkled flesh stood tall and poised in the cold morning air.

  He could feel the breeze pressing between the huts. He could feel the current coming from his left; banking off the rocks; leaning toward a pocket and whorling over the top. Any movement or change in the current, and Thurl would feel it. He would know if Alfor was shifting or breathing or farting.

  Thurl slowly twisted his arms, outstretched at his sides, to let the finer hairs along his torso feel for movement. He waited, unbreathing, listening for breath.

  There was a temperature difference pressing the top of his head. He could feel the cold air touching his shoulders, as if warm air was forcing the cold to fall. There was warm air above him rising into the void, displacing the cold and pressing it down.

  Alfor was breathing above him, crouched on the pile of rocks! He was silent and still, but his warm breath betrayed him.

  Slowly, Thurl raised his hand to his mouth and drooled into his palm. He opened the palm and let the globule of slobber crystalize and freeze in the icy air. Then, he let his mouth hang open until his heart cooled and slowed and calmed his mind. In a torrent of speed, Thurl unleashed the ball of ice at Alfor.

  Alfor tried to dodge, but the spit ball caught him just below his ribcage. It stuck to his follicles and began melting onto his skin.

  Thurl tried to hold back a laugh, but it came out anyway. Alfor cursed, and leaped down over his little brother. He dropped from the rocks, pounding his wide feet on the gravel below. He clicked and grunted and tossed a handful of sticky, suckled kanateed seeds at Thurl. Thurl felt them coming – every seed pushing the air in flight; every hair on Thurl’s body sensing the difference in the current. He rolled out of the way and the seeds skated over the frost on the gravel path.

  “I knew you were there,” Thurl said.

  Alfor didn’t reply. He ran across the dais and along the path between two of the huts. Thurl grunted in rapid succession and followed him.

  Alfor was leaving a trail of disturbed air currents and his own scent behind. Thurl chased him around another dais, through an alleyway, past a group of giggling girls on their way to the riverfront. The scent of the young girls, the sweet smelling sap of tiolle leaves on their skin, masked the trail of Alfor. Thurl stopped and the girls surrounded him.

  “What are you doing here, Thurl?” Asked Oedo, one of his friends from Elder lessons.

  The girls giggled, and repeated: “What are you doing?”

  “I thought this was your hunt day,” Oedo said, and the girls giggled again.

  Thurl opened his nostrils wide and tried to pick up the scent of Alfor.

  “I was chasing Alfor,” Thurl said. “He’s trying to—“

  “Thurl, can you help me with this?” Asutat asked.

  He remembered Asutat from his early hunt training. She was the daughter of one of the horvill sow ranchers. Thurl clicked to get a clear echo of what help she wanted, but instead of discovering Asutat in distress, he got the echoes of his brothers, all eight of them, standing just behind the circle of girls.

  “Oh, you witches!” Thurl shouted, as his brothers grabbed him, and bound his hands in onnireeds.

  Muxil clamped his broad hand over Thurl’s mouth as Wohsel and Hartenir tied his feet together. Thurl struggled and writhed, trying to shout curses through Muxil’s grip. His brother laughed.

  “Zam! Tsirc!” Muxil shouted to two of his brothers. “Hurry up with that chunacat cloak!”

  Thurl could feel Zam and Tsirc wrap a chunacat cloak over Thurl’s head. Then, his eight beloved brothers – Muxil, Alfor, Tsauf, Wohsel, Hartenir, Skaen, Tsirc and Zam – picked him up. The girls were giggling and clicking, shouting encouragement to the sons of Sohjos.

  Thurl was raised over their heads and they began marching through the village.

  “The Runt! The Runt! The Runt is on the Hunt!” They chanted as they carried him through central dais’s, and past as much m
orning activity as they could find.

  The echoes were muffled with his head wrapped in the cloak, but Thurl could feel the air currents as they passed groups of Racroft; could hear the cheers and laughter and chanting; could smell the warm brine of the river as they marched along the banks. It wasn’t long before his brothers were leading a parade of Racroft through the village, all of them chanting: “The Runt! The Runt! The Runt is on the Hunt!”

  Finally, they began crossing the bridge over the warming river. Thurl tried to orient himself through the muffled sounds of the rushing water below, and the roaring waterfall not far behind them, and the scents of the deilla stalk fields, and kanateed trees, and the strong scent of plaka growing on the stone walls. They were on the last bridge before the waterfall, just outside the Grand Hall.

  Suddenly, half-way across the bridge, the sons of Sohjos stopped, and raised Thurl high over their heads. There were cheers and laughter as Racroft lined the banks of the river. Quickly, their plan dawned on Thurl. They were going to throw him into the river, where the racing currents were strongest.

  Despite his embarrassment, he began to laugh and struggled to get the loose binds off his hands and feet. He remembered participating in a similar hazing ritual when it was Skaen’s hunt day, but instead of throwing Skaen in the river, they carried him outside the cavern and buried him in the snowbanks, and urinated all over the snow, daring him to dig his way out.

  Thurl managed to kick the onnireed rope free of his legs, just as his brothers cheered loudly, and tossed him over the side of the bridge into the steaming warm water below.

  The river gripped him immediately, and washed him down the deep central channel in its strong current. When his head bobbed above the water he could hear the fading sounds of his brothers and their gathered crowd cheering him on. The water was deep, far deeper than Thurl could reach, but his body floated fairly well. He kicked his legs to keep his head above the water, and shook his head back and forth to unfurl the chunacat cloak. He clamped it with his teeth and pulled and twisted until it released and floated alongside him. He rubbed his wrists together, back and forth, until the loose onnireed slipped off his hands.