by Dave Lemel
“Sounds good, kid. I’d love to stay and chat, but your wife gave me half a dozen chores to do, and if I don’t get goin’ right away, I’ll forget at least half of ’em.”
“Right on, Ben, later.” Simon ended the call and looked at Todd. “I wonder what she wanted. Hope it’s nothing with Penny.”
Todd smiled. “I’m sure she’s fine, man. Don’t do that to yourself.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” he said aloud, but inside his head a desperate struggle to maintain control over potential nightmare scenarios was being waged.
A faint glow now emanated from somewhere ahead of the train, and the pace of the clickity-clack, clickity-clack slowed. The loudspeaker crackled to life, and a voice announced their impending arrival at Penko Peak Station.
“Guess we’re there,” said Todd as he stretched under his seat and grabbed his pack. He realized he too was fighting to contain an anxiety of his own. An anxiety unlike any he had experienced in his twenty-eight years of life. Suppressing it had been more manageable than he had anticipated pre-assignment, but now, as the train slowed to a stop, it was gnawing its way out of the flimsy cage it had been contained in, and it was not a feeling he enjoyed one bit.
Chapter 1 7
A shuttle bus ran back and forth between Prisco and Penko Peak Station, but it was not on the Penko Peak side of its cycle when the train arrived. Benjo indicated that the walk would not be long, so they opted for that route. The road connecting the two was illuminated by a series of posts on alternating sides of the shoulder. The posts burned a gas that produced a flame casting a greenish light.
The unfamiliar animal and insect sounds periodically emanating from the darkness, combining with the eerie green lamp light, amplified Todd’s slowly escaping anxiety. The trio crested a small rise in the road, and there on the horizon was a small town. A bright, glowing, greenish line angled upwards on a small incline. Around it, white lights clustered like moths encircling a glow stick.
“That Prisco?” Todd asked hopefully.
“It is. The bright line is the main street. My friend’s motel is right at the base of that.”
“Good,” said Simon, “’cause I was about to stop and pull another layer out of my pack. It is getting cold up here.”
“Yes, my Cain person. Even in the warmest times of year, which this is not, the temperature in the mountains will occasionally drop below the freezing point at night. This time of year, it nearly always will.”
Simon turned towards Todd. “We’re gonna need more stuff.”
Todd stared ahead, blankly trudging along. Simon elbowed him lightly, and he slowly broke free of his trance. “Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.”
“You all right, man?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Just tired.”
“Well, my Jordan person, hopefully I will have a bed for you in a minute.” Their three faces all became more visible as the lights of Prisco wiped more darkness from their features. “The motel is right there. That little staircase heads down to the office.”
“You mind if I stay out here while you get the room?” asked Simon. “I gotta make a call home.”
“Actually, maybe it would be best if you both stayed out here. I am hoping he gives me the room for free, and if he sees you two, he will want money.”
“Here,” Simon reached in his pocket and handed Benjo a wad of square pink bills, “just in case something goes wrong and you need it.”
Benjo’s eyes widened and he froze.
Simon reached out, grabbed his hairy hand, and shoved the bills into his palm. “No catch. They’re yours either way. Just get us a room tonight, show us the store tomorrow, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“It will be my pleasure, my Cain person.” Benjo skipped down half the steps and stopped. “This may take a little time. If my friend is there, I will catch up with him as fast as I can, but it may not be overly quick.”
“No problem,” Simon replied. “Take your time.”
Benjo completed his way down the stairs and entered the small door to the office. Simon pulled his sleeve up and called Ben. Simon could tell immediately from the background that Ben was working in the garden. “Ready for relay?” Ben asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“None at all. Your wife kept a line open in case you called before she left ’cause she’s still at H.Q. I’ll connect you now.”
Ben vanished, and the interior of the briefing room appeared. Sasha stood at the interior of the U-shaped table, her back to the screen, manipulating an augmented reality hologram of the planet Simon was now standing on. “Hey, good lookin’,” he said in his best cheesy pickup artist voice.
Sasha grinned and turned slowly. “I’ll allow that only because we’re the only two on this call, but don’t push your luck, Marshal Cain.”
“You in the briefing room?”
“Affirmative. Lombargnor has had me running point from here the entire assignment. Nobody has a clue about what you guys are up to except me, him, and you hooligans.”
“Hmmm.” Simon ran a hand through his hair. “Well, if you have to spend a ton of time hunkered down in a room, at least that’s a nice one.”
“It’s amazing. He’s shown me some things in here you wouldn’t believe. I’m not certain he’s shown many more, or even any other people, besides me some of this stuff. This place is like a little self-sustained mini H.Q.”
“You’ll have to tell me more when I get back. Now tell me why the ‘call home as soon as I can’ notice. Is Penny okay?”
“Oh! Yes, yes, she’s fine. I should’ve told Ben that; I’m sorry. Although,” Sasha paused for effect, “the news does affect her too.”
Simon’s heart suddenly pumped at double its normal pace, and he stopped walking the small loop he had been stuck in while attempting to stay warm. His face flushed with the influx of blood. “You’re pregnant.”
Sasha roared with laughter. “How did you know? What, do I have the worst poker face in the galaxy?”
“Well, it’s not good, but that was only part of it. I had an inkling when you told me you were disturbed by the total of your Dos Amigos order, but I brushed it off at the time. Then the way you said the Penny thing, and your horrible poker face, well, the inkling rushed back into my head. How far along? When did you find out?”
“Just yesterday. I had this feeling, and there was a leftover test under the sink from before Penny, so I took it and sure enough.”
“So you haven’t even been to the doctor yet?”
“No, but I ran out and bought another one right away, and that was positive too. No way I false positived two tests.”
“So, obviously, super early. Well, I was only home for a small window, so yeah, I guess the approximate conception date isn’t that hard to estimate.”
“Right.” Sasha tilted her head toward the screen. “If you want to tell Todd, I’m fine with it. It would be good for you to have someone with you who knows. Where is he right now?”
“Sitting on some steps by a motel we’re getting a room in for the night. You’re not going to believe who we ran into on the train up to the mountains.”
“Who?”
“Benjo.”
“You’re kidding me. Did you ignore him?”
Simon shook his head. “He sat down right in front of us, completely oblivious to our presence. We surprised the heck out of him but quickly convinced him we were not here for him. He told us his side of the story, though, and I do believe him. It fits what I know of him, anyway, and meshes with what I’ve heard otherwise from that night.”
“Well, tell him to stay away from Callisto nonetheless. I heard a rumor that we weren’t the only ones looking for him, and he does not want the other finding him.”
“Will do. Hey, that rumor didn’t happen to come from our buddy Ja
ck, did it?”
“Actually, it did, indeed. Him and Li are good. Purchased a used merchant ship right after you guys dropped them off. Similar make and model to his old one, so he’s pretty happy. I think he really likes having Li with him. He was quite lonely before and…wait.” Sasha’s eyebrows crept upward. “Are you still with Benjo? You said you’d tell him, and you said you convinced him you weren’t there for him.”
“Yep. He’s getting the room now.”
“You didn’t tell him about your assignment, did you? No details, right? You can’t trust that drifter with this, Simon. Lombargnor doesn’t want anyone else knowing what you’re up to.”
“Well,” Simon began sheepishly, “we told him some. I mean no details, details.” Simon’s face contorted a little. “Okay, maybe some details. But he won’t tell anyone!”
“Simon! Seriously?”
“Listen, listen, we didn’t tell him who we were looking for, and he obviously was not going to buy that we came here on vacation together. He’s from this town in the mountains we have to start our hike from. He’s already been a big help, and tomorrow he knows where we need to go for the rest of our supplies.” Simon watched anxiously as his rationale was working its way around Sasha’s head. “He won’t tell anyone. He wants us to clear his name.”
Sasha rubbed her forehead. “Okay. Maybe don’t tell him about the scumbag looking for him on Callisto. If he has no reason to come back, he may not care about his name being cleared.”
“Honey,” Simon smiled.
“Okay, fine, warn him.”
Just then, the door to the office clanged open, and Benjo hopped up the steps with a key in his hand. “Speaking of,” Simon held up a finger to Benjo and the now rising Todd, “that’s Benjo with our room key. I’d really love to discuss your original bombshell a little more, but I guess it’ll have to wait. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes, I mean it, good so far. The tired is starting to creep in more and more, but it is definitely different the second time.”
“I can’t believe this,” Simon shook his head. “We better find him quick so I can get home in a hurry.”
“It is what it is, hun. I love you, and go get a good night’s sleep. You’ve got some hiking to do tomorrow.”
“All right, sweetie. Love you, too, and give Penny a big hug for me when you get home.”
Sasha smiled and kissed at the screen before it went blank.
“All good on the homefront?” asked Todd as Simon rejoined him and Benjo.
Simon gave a thumbs up. “All good and then some.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll tell ya later. Where to, Benjo?”
Benjo pointed to a dimly lit, crude path hugging the side of the building the office was located in. “Straight up this path,” he replied as he led the way.
“Oh, and by the way, you should probably stay away from Callisto even if we do manage to clear your name.”
Benjo stopped walking and spun to face Simon. “Why do you say that, my Cain person?”
“The wife said rumor has it someone there is looking for you, and you do not want to run into them.”
Benjo shook his head and continued to the final doorway on the path. He pushed the key into the lock and paused. “I never should have sat down to that game. I did not like the look of those two right from the start.” The key turned and he pushed the door inward. The trio stepped inside, and Todd closed the door again behind them.
Chapter 18
Todd woke first, and after vigorously rubbing the sleep out of his face, crept to the door at the back of the room. He made certain all the locks were open and pulled it open as quietly as he could. He slipped through and shut it once again, attempting to make as little noise as he could manage.
When he turned away from the door, he found himself on a small patio. The view hit him so hard he felt his brain pulse. Where the patio ended, the toasted almond–like grass began. It was dark brown at the tip with the rest of the stalk a rich, creamy beige. The soil it grew from appeared to be a shade of dark green, like pine needles. The field rose quickly to his left and dropped just as rapidly to his right. Beyond the rolling humps and valleys, it transitioned to forest. The trunks of the trees were a deep greenish hue like the soil, and as they spread into branches above, they held leaves of red, orange, and yellow. Todd recalled being informed that this was the spring season for the northern hemisphere on Gleeb, so he assumed that unlike on Earth, these were the usual leaf colors. There were even some trees that looked like evergreens, except on Gleeb he imagined they would be called everoranges, as they looked like sections of a freshly peeled tangerine. The view went on as far as the eye could see, jaggedly rising upward to countless peaks capped by mint green snow and down to the valleys below them.
As he absorbed the majesty laid out before him, he marveled at how the darkness the night before could give way to this in the light of morning. Suddenly, a smell like fresh-baked bread wafted in on the breeze, and he sat down as he inhaled deeply through his nose. The doorknob turned behind him, and Simon snuck through the opening and joined Todd on the patio. “Whoa.” Simon’s eyes panned back and forth. “That is really something.”
“Isn’t it? And do you smell that?”
Simon inhaled through his nostrils and sat down next to Todd. “The bakery?”
“I’m not sure it’s actually a bakery. The breeze that it came in on came from out there. I think it may be the trees or some flowers or something.”
“No way.”
Just then in the distance, a group of animals came into view at the forest edge. There were about a half dozen of them. They stood on four legs and were maybe a few feet long and a couple tall. They were mostly dark green with sparse tan stripes, thicker at their backs and tapering down as they neared the underside of the animal. They had rather flat faces at the end of relatively long necks, and most were burying these faces into the almond grass, peacefully grazing the morning away.
Todd and Simon had been silently watching them for a minute or two when all at once they stopped eating and their heads collectively snapped up. Two large grey creatures dropped out of a nearby tree. Even from a distance, their disturbingly orange eyes were clearly visible. One landed on the back of its victim and wrapped two long arms around the neck. The other landed a few yards away and sprinted on two legs at the grazer’s side before driving a shoulder into it. The rest of the group ran off as their unlucky compadre tumbled over and vanished into a flurry of viciously pounding fists, grunts, screams, cries, and then silence.
The two attackers dragged their prey deeper into the forest, and Todd exhaled audibly. “Well, that was unexpected.”
Simon chuckled uncomfortably. “You can say that again. Oh!” Simon lightly smacked Todd on the arm. “And speaking of unexpected… Sasha’s pregnant.”
Todd’s head snapped around. “What!”
The doorknob turned, and Simon held a finger over his mouth. “We’ll talk more later.”
The door opened, and Benjo joined them on the patio. “How are my Jordan and Cain persons this morning?” He stretched before taking a seat beside them.
“At the moment, blown away by the view,” replied Todd. “Well, that and trying to figure out what just pounced out of that tree and brutally slaughtered the green zebra thingy.”
Benjo asked for a description, and Todd replayed the events for him. “The two that dropped from the tree are called nitchites. They hunt in pairs. You will want to be careful of them when you are out there. They know to be afraid of Gleebans, but I’m not sure what they would make of two humans.”
“From what it looked like,” said Simon, “a couple puddles of mush.”
“So where’s this store you told us about?” asked Todd. “And can we possibly get anything resembling coffee on the way?”
“It is at the high end of the main st
reet. There is a beverage here that resembles coffee. We can grab some on the way.”
“I think we’ve already tried it.” Todd grimaced as he stood up. “Not a huge fan, but I’ll choke some down.”
“Well, I kinda liked it.” Simon jumped up beside him. “Lead the way, Benjo.”
A short while later, the trio emerged from a small storefront midway up the sloped street. Each held a steaming cup. Simon looked up and down the street. “I like the look of the buildings up here. The black rock they used is quite a bit more attractive than the color choices in Jandor.” He walked up close to the building they had just left. “These razor-thin silver streaks running through are cool too. What’s with the roofs though? Looks like the buildings are wearing witches’ hats.”
“That’s to keep the snow from collecting there,” Benjo responded. “We get very heavy snowstorms in Prisco. The steep pitch does not allow for it to pile up, and it slides off into the alleys and street. ”
The sidewalk was not busy, but the locals that were out at this hour tended to double- or triple-take at the two humans as they made their way through town. Todd took a sip from his cup, cringed, and then smiled wide at an elderly Gleeban wearing so much makeup that she resembled a furry clown, who had stopped in her tracks at the sight of him. She did not return his smile, choosing instead to shake her head at him and then slowly follow them, glaring.
“Right up there.” Benjo pointed. “The big place on the left.”
Across the street and at the top of the block, the largest structure in town stood at the foot of what looked like a park entrance. In the center was a bank of doors under two of the interwoven ancient rune-like Gleeban letters perched above. They crossed the street and made their way through the bank of doors.
Todd and Simon looked around. “Ummm, Benjo,” said Todd, “this is a grocery store.”
“Food on the first floor. Hiking, camping gear, and supplies upstairs.”