Phwolfe Song (Golsidan Revival Series Book 1)

by Kimberly McLaughlin

  “What are you looking at love?” Des asked.

  Anna smiled. “The handsomest Golsidan on this side of the galaxy. You have such a nice tail strong and sleek, those beautiful golden eyes, and then there’s your body, very nice Des. And your heart proves to be the absolute best part, such a big lovely heart. How did I get this lucky? Having the right genetics seems like such an unlikely attribute. Yet, it allowed all of this to be possible. Sometimes it just feels like I’m going to wake up and say, “Oh wow, what a dream!”

  “Come here!” Des demanded.

  Anna jumped down and he swept her into his arms. He held her close. “I waited for you before I knew you existed. I waited for you, even before we left Golria on this mission. Somehow, I knew even at that young age that I waited for someone special.”

  Desvren leaned his forehead against Anna’s. This time, they experienced no thoughts just emotions, love, wonder, joy, layer upon layer. They stood there together and waited for Dasie, Brema, and Tafka. Dasie walked with a happy bounce, when they showed up. “That barricade is wonderful. Now, we no longer need to worry on this level.”

  Tafka nodded. “We should try to make as many second levels as possible safe.”

  Anna smiled. “After the feast, I plan to try.” Taking Des’s hand she motioned with her other one. “Come on, I want to show you where to stand watch. Dasie, you go here. With this line of sight, you can see all the tree trunks, allowing no takosund to climb without you spotting it.” They walked along further.

  “Brema along that gap in the trees, right there are the four big crossover limbs, the only routes a takosund can take to get at me from other trees. You watch that.” She smiled widely at him and they walked on.

  “Okay, Tafka here that limb straight ahead of you. The cut off one is my route of escape and where I jump rail. Keep an eye out for movement behind those trees. The thick growth in there would make a nice hard to see hiding spot for takosund.”

  Des and Anna walked further down. “Here love, see how thick the harvest grows on this side. I’ll do most of my harvesting here. Honey, please don’t startle. Falling off one of the limbs wouldn’t be fun.” She gave him a quick kiss and went to work.

  Even with the watchers, Anna felt fear gnawing at her. Once again, it caused her adrenaline to flow. She sped through her first seven runs bringing in strictly greal clusters to give the processors something to work on then she started to harvest mixed loads. All the vines still clutched their fruit tight to them allowing the harvest to remain thick and heavy. She ran in twelve mixed loads before going just for the korftu. The nuts possessed a very long shelf life, which the greal lacked. Plus, some greal still remained from the last harvest. When she took in greal, she tried for the overripe to make dyes.

  They only experienced one scare. Tafka spotted movement behind Anna’s escape tree. She took that jump back to second level as if propelled by jet fuel. It ended up being a renkumon, one of the tree gliding reptiles. Tafka apologized.

  “Why apologize? You ended up being right, something alive started moving in there. It could have easily been a takosund. You spotted it, you warned me. Thank you, good job. I’m running this load in.”

  The shift ran faster than Anna’s feet. She seemed to be running constantly, which made no sense. As the only one harvesting, she should’ve been running less. But with no calls to distract her, she noticed and remembered every run she made.

  Des called the time at twenty of. Anna hit the greal again cutting off the closest clusters. She managed six runs and gave each of the watchers a cluster to carry in on the last run. When they got into the processing room, every cart top rounded up in a miniature mountain of rinsed greal. Trays of korftu nuts formed towering stacks on the counters.

  Processors 1, 2, 3, and 4 lay buried beneath the mounds of unshelled korftu that Anna had dumped on them. It overflowed the counters and tumbled in to heaps on the floor. The center counter hid under a mix of greal and korftu.

  Pealo, Cima, and Jatlo had never looked happier. Anna called East 4 and found out the harvest went fine there too. They would see her tomorrow. Des called up refreshments and passed them out after that he went and found some more carts.

  Anna ran carts to Heroes’ Hall while everyone else worked on processing. All of the greal and korftu went straight onto platters, so the hall work went real fast. Anna swung by East 2 and 4. She ordered some more boxes and grabbed all of the empty ones in sight. They shoveled the korftu into them and stacked them up to the ceiling. They ended up filling forty-nine of the hamper sized boxes. Anna chuckled. Since the korftu pods held nuts that got retrieved by cracking open the outer shell that meant they’d just stacked nuts up to the ceiling.

  Des demanded that they call it a night at eleven ninety-eight. When he threatened Anna with another feeding of unripe greal, she gave in. Jatlo smiled widely, his eyes twinkling with a devilish glint. “Ah, so now I know the pack-runners weakness. I will make sure to tell the rest of the crew of your love for unripe greal.”

  “Jatlo, no, please.” Anna begged. If he told them that, they’d all gift her with it, forcing her to eat it or hurt their feelings. Jatlo’s laugh echoed from down the hall.

  Des and Anna walked to his cabin hand in hand. She showered as he called up their food. After she ate, Anna wanted to curl up and sleep, preferably on the bed that lay so temptingly close by. Des threatened her with greal again to get her up and walking down the hall. By the time they reached home, she was doing more leaning on Des than walking.

  Anna woke up the next morning, hoping to try a leka run. But the cool shift had kicked ass, filling every cart and leaving trays stacked all over the counters at East 4. When she finally managed to get caught up, things looked real good. She’d crossed quite a bit off the required list and needed no more greal, korftu nuts, mashed savti, fried savti, belao, oesla, catronu oil, sliced catronu, or whole gesar for the feast. Plus, nineteen pots of greal dye currently bubbled merrily away.

  The only foods still needed happened to be some more roasted savti, gesar syrup for the roasting, and some gesar flatbread for which Anna possessed all the ingredients except for the leka. Plus, she hoped to do up some of the long lasting foods for honor gifts. Best of all, forty-nine boxes of unshelled korftu nuts ready to be shelled remained in Northwest 3, waiting to be made into excellent honor gifts.

  Anna fell asleep before Des got home. When the alarm woke her up, she decided that after this feast she was taking a day off and just sleeping. At the hall, she strained the dyes and put them on to re-boil.

  At East 4, Anna harvested twelve carts of everything and then she dug savti. When the center station held a rolling hill of savti that threatened to topple and bury someone, she luckily found another mewu nest to dig up. She rinsed off the mewu eggs, packaged them, and loaded them onto a cart. She went to East 1 and got the packages there out of the cooler. Altogether, she ended up with six hundred and two, two ounce packages of mewu eggs. Plenty for honor gifts, she put them in the supply cooler at the hall. At East 5, Anna harvested strictly gesar. Her time ran out right after she started on the eighth cart. She met the crew at East 4.

  “Once again, well done everyone! We only need some more gesar and savti for the feast. So processors everything else goes down the appropriate round holes, save the oesla tassels. Korftu nuts wait in Northwest 3 to be shelled, weighed, and packaged if anyone feels interested.”

  Mapao stepped forward. “My tai’twain and I happen to be really fast at shelling korftu. Could we go to Northwest 3?”

  “I’d really appreciate that Mapao, Kesti.” They both nodded and walked off down the hall with their tails twined together. They both seemed to be shy and they shared a very close bond with each other. “Jatlo, Cima the supply processors in East 2, 4, and 5 are nearly full of denua fiber. I need honor gifts. You both possess far more knowledge than I. Could you please order up an appropriate selection of cloth and yarn? Everyone else, please do the same as yesterday. Five minutes, sign in p
eople.”

  Anna only got one more cart harvested before Jatlo filled a cart with cloth. “Do you approve of my orders?” He asked.

  Anna looked over the cart. Three different weight clothes in a variety of textures lay in neatly folded stacks. She nodded. She went over to the order board. “I not only approve of your orders, I’m commanding this processor to supply whatever you order until it runs out of fiber.” She typed in the appropriate keys and laid her hand on the glow panel.

  Jatlo beamed widely making dimples appear in his cheeks as Anna turned to him. “Thank you, Phwolfe.”

  “I thank you, Jatlo. I needed your experience in this matter. I’ve seen your work on the art site. I look forward to seeing more of it in the future.” Anna bowed and pushed the cart up to the hall. She unloaded it into the first supply closet. Then she ran to East 5, the cart bouncing in front of her to check on Cima.

  Cima’s cart rounded up in a heap of yarn netted down into place to prevent it from rolling off. She’d constructed her pile out of two, three, and four ply yarn packaged in a variety of skein sizes; three, six, and twelve ounce, one and two pounds.

  “Do you approve, Phwolfe?” Cima asked.

  Anna smiled and gave her a hug. She walked over to the order board. “I approve and am ordering this processor to fill all your orders until it runs out of fiber. Cima, this is beautiful stuff. To get colors, do you have to hand dye?”

  Cima nodded. “We’ve been hand dyeing what we want for over seventeen annuals because the supply processor needs filled dye wells to make the colors. But, when working they produce a wide selection of hues, sometimes taking a full day to make up the dark ones.”

  “Well, hmm…I guess I need to read up on how much dye it takes to fill those wells. Maybe it will work with only three wells full.” Anna shrugged. “Thank you Cima, I’ll come by whenever I get a chance to pick up the carts.” Anna waved and trotted off wheeling a cart in front of her.

  Anna kept very busy. Jatlo and Cima filled carts at an alarming rate. Plus, the processors continued to stack up gesar and savti. Finally, she told Cima and Jatlo to ferry their product to the central station and stack it on the shelves. She’d catch up with them later.

  By the time Anna got to run over to Northwest 3 at ten forty, Mapao and Kesti had seven full carts waiting. They were indeed fast, having already gone through twenty-nine of the boxes. Anna ran the carts in as fast as possible without toppling them. The korftu nuts went into a supply closet of their own. When she caught up with them and returned their carts empty, Mapao announced. “We plan to work over and finish the korftu nuts.”

  “Thank you Mapao and Kesti, I appreciate your help.” Anna bowed. “May your blood stay strong.” She ran back to East 4, by happenstance, just as Jatlo finished out the denua fiber on his processor. She might catch up someday. After a couple of runs, she hit East 5.

  “I’ll finish the denua fiber in one more cart load of yarn and then stay till twelve and work on the gesar.” Cima said.

  “Thank you, Cima. Thank you very much.” Off Anna ran with a full cart.

  At eleven, the processors in East 4 announced that they wanted to stay and process until twelve. The harvesters volunteered to run full carts to Heroes’ Hall, leaving them outside the entry and pushing the empties Anna left there back to the processors. Anna thanked them profusely.

  By the time twelve rolled around, Anna had a supply closet full of cloth, one full of yarn, and one and a partial full of korftu nuts. All forty-eight sixty liter pots gurgled away boiling down gesar syrup. The denua and oesla dyes decorated the shelves in rows of pretty bottles. The roasting ovens once again worked on a batch of savti. The drying ovens hummed along sucking the moisture out of the gesar rinds. Plus, the greal dye happened to be on its last boil.

  Anna managed to stumble home and collapse into bed. One of the best things about being on a spaceship turned out to be that everything always stayed within walking distance. The chutes, as the Golsidans called them, quickly shot you to even the far side of the ship. Anna disliked riding on them. To her they made roller coasters seem like a picnic in the park. She’d begun to suspect that their invention resulted from the Golsidans trying to make a theme ride. They rode them whenever they got a chance, smiling like children on Christmas Eve.

  Anna woke up the next morning irritated with herself. Why couldn’t she just sleep in? Here she lay curled up nice and comfy in Des’s arms and she woke up early. She stayed there unmoving for a while hoping to fall back asleep. Finally, she conceded defeat and got up slowly. She slid out of bed gently at least Des could sleep in. She trotted down to the cabin and took an extra long shower. After which, she headed back to KP duty.

  The roasted savti went onto platters. The greal dye got strained and bottled. The gesar syrup, Anna strained and put back in to the small pots to boil for glue. The gesar rinds went into the pounders. Subsequently, she went out into the entry hall and started on the full carts there.

  Anna refilled seven of the big pots with gesar. All of the roasting ovens got stuffed with savti again. Then, the gesar flour finished grinding. She looked around the hall. Everything seemed to be in order. Leka, she could try to get the leka. Anna sighed. She felt tired already. Maybe she could do it tomorrow?

  But, Anna remembered Tava, Liso, and Des saying the people needed leka and takosund. They still needed the leka. Yes, she felt tired. But, Marfi had endured fatigue and pain when she stayed over to help Anna. Every night, the cool shift stayed over working late. They probably felt way beyond tired by now. Anna could and should get the leka. It wouldn’t be easy or fun, but it needed to be done.

  Anna ran home and stuffed two sweaters along with six flasks of water into her pack. She went to the supply section and found leka gathering containers and supplies. She took gloves for pulling herself along the rails, ladles for scooping out leka, and scrapers for getting in to the corners of the hive.

  The containers stacked one inside another to save room when empty. Anna took as many as fit into her pack. If she hiked all the way up to that rail room and pulled herself out into the jungle in a hanging basket, she intended to make it worth every drop of sweat she secreted. A basket that size usually carried three harvesters; she planned on filling two thirds of it with leka for the return haul. Maleka hives were designed to be emptied every annual, but they easily held up to twenty annuals worth of leka. Since none of the hives had been emptied in way over twenty annuals, she knew this one would be full.

  Anna found collapsible, triple-layered twenty quart plastic bags. They had a valve to the innermost bag and got filled by a hand operated pump. The outer two bags inflated with air and protected the inner bag from puncture. She stuffed them everywhere. She put them in her pocket pouches. She folded them into nets and clipped them all along the sides of her pack. She filled the belly pack with them. She left the belly net open for gesar flour.

  Anna ran back to the hall and strapped thirty pounds of gesar flour onto her belly net. It only took three pounds to drug a normal hive for two or three hours. But un-harvested hives grew to huge sizes, the longer they went undisturbed the larger they got. The gesar flour provided a dietary supplement that the insects lacked. It attracted them fiercely and they loved to eat it, drugging themselves, falling asleep, waking up, and then going through the whole process again and again until the flour ran out. Since Anna planned to drop it from a height instead of spreading it on the ground, she needed to use ten pounds at a time. If the Maleka started to get active before she finished, she’d throw out another ten pounds.

  At seventeen thirty-two, Anna started the weaving run through Environmental Control, not having a clue about how long this endeavor would take.

  At Deck 11, Anna scrambled up the ladder. She trotted up the ramps and through the interconnecting rooms until she got to Deck 20. She looked around and saw no sign of a rail system or a basket. She spotted an information console and turned it on. “I’m in the wrong room!” She pulled up the schematics of
the Environmental Control sections and discovered she’d taken the wrong turn at the top of the ladder. She should have ended up in the East 7 section of Deck 20. Instead, she reached Deck 20 in the Midnortheast 6 section.

  Safety bulkheads riddled Environmental Control and not all of the rooms accessed onto every deck. Most of the Environmental Control rooms connected through other Environmental Control rooms. The only way to get where she wanted to go was to backtrack to the top of that ladder.

  Anna turned off the information panel and ran down the ramp. “Left, left, go left at the top of the ladder.” Getting back to the ladder didn’t take long because she ran downhill on all of the ramps. Once she took the left, she hit the cold section. She took off her pack, pulled on her sweaters, grabbed the pack, and trotted off.

  Finally, Anna reached the rail room on Deck 20. With a sigh of relief, she took off her pack and dropped it in the basket. She stripped off the extra sweaters and threw them over by the door. As she headed towards the harvesting basket, Anna found it hard to concentrate. One thought kept running through her mind; the Ladreti Khwa was huge. Des had told her that it had twenty-two decks, but it failed to really sink in until now. She’d just traversed up fourteen of them. Slowly, as she worked, Anna came to terms with the fact that the Ladreti Khwa’s size and complexity lay far beyond anything she’d experienced in her human life.

  The time read seventeen eighty-seven, before she finished checking, greasing, and testing all of the mechanical parts. Trance learning was so cool.

  Phew! Out on the rail system, it felt swelteringly hot. Anna silently blessed whoever had the forethought to store gloves in with the maleka harvesting equipment. They made the difference between hot fingers and burnt fingers. The best way to pull required leaning back against the edge of the basket, reaching as far as possible out onto the center rail, grasping the rail with both hands, and pulling in a sweeping motion all the way to the front of your body.

  Once she got going the grab, sweep, and release fell into a nice rhythm and built up a fair amount of momentum. She coasted for a bit when she got tired and then started over. The meter counter beeped when she got within twenty meters of the hive.