Five minutes later they reached the section of road Amelia had suggested. It was carved into the side of the hill and surrounded on three sides by solid rock. Wayne parked the car closest to the outside edge of the road so they could see the approaches better. Blackie immediately jumped out of the car and walked to the edge of the cliff. “This won’t help against those Pico-things will it?” asked Wayne who had joined him.
“No, it won’t,” replied Blackie quietly. “I don’t think anything out here can protect us from them. We should be honest with the girls, and we need to discuss what to do if we’re attacked again. If we decide to jump, we need a bigger window than we had earlier, and at this point, I don’t know how we get one unless we leave right now, without Anonoi.”
“Maybe we should find a better spot?” suggested Wayne.
Blackie looked down the sheer wall below them and then up at the massive stone ceiling over the Nomad. “I don’t think it gets any better than this – I vote we stay put.”
“I agree,” replied Wayne, looking up at the rock ceiling over them as the girls joined them at the cliff’s edge.
“What are you guys going on about?” asked Amelia.
“This is a better location, Amelia, but it really won’t prevent a Picosaur attack. We have to make a decision; are we waiting on Anonoi and accepting the risk of staying here? Or are we moving on? Personally, I think we should stay. What about you and Joules?”
“We just talked about it in the car,” said Amelia, “and we both agree we should wait.”
“Anonoi saved us from those fire… whatever they were,” said Joules. “There is no telling what we’re going to meet next. Unless we have absolutely no choice, we should wait for him. He literally pulled our skin out of the fire last time.”
“Let’s get something to eat and drink before we lose daylight, then we can decide how to divide night watches,” suggested Amelia.
“Yeah, and I’d like to move the Nomad,” added Wayne, “but I don’t want to start it; there’s no telling how far the sound would travel and I think we can all agree the quieter we are, the better. Rather than leave it parked here on the edge of the road it might be better if it we pushed it up against that rock wall; from there we can get away quickly in either direction and it’s not as visible from down below.”
Everyone agreed so he slipped the car’s stick shift into neutral and they pushed it backward while he guided the rear of the car in an arc that put it perpendicular to the road. When they were finished it was time for dinner. Fortunately, Joules and Amelia had packed a large assortment of crackers and cheese and small tins of meat in their backpacks and all of them had bottles of water.
That evening Aspinar, the first moon of Tristian, was full and the entire valley before them was bathed in a soft light – just enough light to see, but not enough light to distinguish fine details. Blackie took the first watch, followed by Joules, then Amelia, then Wayne. It was at the very end of Wayne’s watch, as the other three were stirring and the sky began to lighten, that he noticed something moving very slowly far away in the foothills below them.
He couldn’t tell exactly how big it was because of the distance, but he thought it must be an adult Belkie that had ventured out of the grasses, maybe searching for a wayward baby. He watched as the Belkie stopped and stood motionless for a moment. Almost immediately a small dust cloud rose from the ground around it and as the Belkie’s thunderous roar swept up the hills it vanished from the dust cloud.
“Blackie, you should see this,” Wayne said softly as he turned toward the car.
“See what? What is it?” Blackie asked through a deep yawn. His hair stuck out at an angle from the side of his head like a small Mohawk gone very bad.
“Out there just at the edge of that last hill I’m sure I saw a Belkie – not a baby, a big one – and it just disappeared.”
“What’s going on?” asked Joules as she and Amelia joined them near the cliff’s edge.
“I think Wayne just saw the top of the food chain,” replied Blackie.
“I didn’t see anything. All I saw was a full grown Belkie disappear into a little dust cloud, like it was just sucked into the ground out of sight.”
“You mean it ran off and you couldn’t see it through the dust?” asked Joules.
“No, it just disappeared,” said Wayne.
“It didn’t disappear, it was eaten,” said Blackie.
“A fully grown Belkie? By what?” asked Amelia.
“They’re called Sifters; behemoths that dig enormous pits in the ground. When they’re finished, they push all the dirt back in the hole and burrow into the bottom of the pit.”
“What do they look like?” asked Joules.
“Picture a large box,” began Blackie, “and the top of the box is open. The outside of the box is covered by hairless hide – like woven stainless-steel cables – and the opening of the box is lined with jagged rows of teeth that can reach five meters in length.”
“Just how big is this 'box'?” asked Wayne.
“The average Sifter is four times the size of a bull Belkie. The largest one sighted so far was six times as big, but because they only move at night and only when they decide to dig a new pit, there is speculation that bigger ones exist – they just haven’t been seen yet.”
“I didn’t see anything fitting that description,” said Wayne.
“You won’t see them when they are feeding,” replied Blackie. “When some poor creature mistakenly walks on the top of their pit the Sifter starts to vibrate violently. The vibrations immediately cause the recently excavated soil in its pit to loosen – that causes the dust cloud – and when it loosens to the point of liquefaction there is no escape. The Sifter pushes up from the bottom of its pit through the soil and grabs its prey as it sinks into the dust, struggling to push off against ground that offers no resistance.”
“You read about all this at the Sub Bar?” asked Amelia.
“There, and at the library in Lindonika,” replied Blackie. “I was fascinated by their descriptions at the bar, so I looked them up, but I had no idea we would ever be near one. Vegetation growing in the grasslands and steppe hills attract more wildlife so they typically hang out there. Good idea to park here on the side of this hill Amelia; Sifters prefer areas with deep soil layers to solid rock formations. That doesn’t mean they don’t venture into the high hills or mountains, but it’s rare.”
“If you’re saying the farther we move into the mountains the less likely we are to encounter a Sifter, I vote we move to higher ground,” said Wayne.
“Second,” responded Joules.
“No argument from me,” added Amelia.
“Then let’s move,” replied Black.
There was no packing to do. They had stowed their backpacks in the Nomad after dinner the night before and slept in the car, so minutes later they were ready and headed up the road deeper into the mountains. Each time the road carved across the southern side of a hill they had an unobstructed view of the lowlands. Everyone strained to catch a glimpse of wildlife, everyone but Wayne who was busy navigating the winding roads, but they were so far away it was impossible to make out any details.
Between turns, and braking to keep their speed manageable, Wayne couldn’t help thinking about the last time he drove a windy road like this one; he intentionally drove right off the side of a mountain. The fact that Blackie convinced him it was their only chance of surviving made him feel only slightly better about it. As he considered the incredible amount of time, and not a small amount of money, he had spent restoring the Nomad to perfect showroom condition, he silently vowed he would never voluntarily drive it off a cliff again.
“Sorry, I was a little fast on that one,” said Wayne, as he guided the Nomad into a straightaway after negotiating a hairpin curve.”
“You okay, Wayne?” asked Amelia, who was sitting in the front seat against the passenger side door.
“Yeah, just distracted momentarily but I’m okay now,” r
eplied Wayne, who quickly glanced at her with a smile on his face and abruptly tried to put the entire “driving off the side of a mountain cliff” incident out of his mind with a final thought, “There’s no mixing zone to bail us out this time; concentrate and slow down.”
“How much fuel do we want to burn before we stop?” asked Blackie.
“We have plenty of gas,” replied Wayne, “about three fourths of a tank. I’m probably getting over two hundred fifty thousand miles per gallon,” he laughed. “At some point Amelia is going to figure out where we’ve been and how far we’ve traveled and I’m going to file a claim with Guinness World Records for having the best fuel economy of any Chevy Nomad ever made.”
“They won’t believe you,” remarked Amelia.
“I know, but can you imagine what they will think when they call you and Mark and Blackie as my witnesses and you tell them 'Yeah, we did that'?”
“Yeah, I know exactly what they will think,” pitched in Blackie. “They’ll think 'these folks need mandatory psychiatric evaluations'.”
“Exactly, and what do you think will happen when we all pass our lie detector tests?”
“They won’t believe us,” remarked Amelia a second time. “I hardly believe it myself.”
“I’d like to hear that conversation,” Joules laughed, “when Terra Bulga gets the news that practically everyone else in the universes is hopping from planet to planet. I’m surprised your Mr. Einstein didn’t say anything about his travels.”
“He didn’t say anything because he knew no one on Earth would believe him,” replied Amelia. “But they’ll believe us, right Wayne? What did Einstein have that we don’t have?”
“Good point,” offered Wayne. “This needs more thought.”
“While you are thinking, how about we stop on that high point?” said Blackie, pointing from the back seat to a high peak looming ahead of them. “We can stretch and have a snack; since Mark isn’t here we actually have some food left.”
“I’m telling him you said that,” sniggered Wayne.
“I’m sure he’ll be shocked,” replied Blackie, who hesitated than added, “we are going to find him, aren’t we Wayne?”
“We will,” declared Joules immediately. “As soon as we reconnect with Anonoi we’ll be on our way.”
Wayne brought the Nomad to a stop at the very top of the highest peak in the range where everyone got out of the car to stretch and take in the scene before them. The air was crisp and the northern slope of the mountain was bathed in morning sunshine. Spreading out before them was a series of long, broad steppes, each one separated from the one below by a small outcropping of stone.
Untold millennia of weathering and erosion had produced ton upon ton of soil that was deposited in deep beds between the staggered peaks. They descended to lower and lower elevations until finally vanishing completely into a grassland that stretched for miles before them.
Joules stood next to the front of the Nomad with her arms folded tightly against her chest to ward off the morning air. “What a beautiful sight,” she said, looking out over the great green patches that looked like gigantic fairways on a golf course stair-stepping down the mountainside.
“It is beautiful isn’t it?” agreed Amelia who joined her at the front of the car where heat from the engine compartment made the chilly air slightly more tolerable. “It looks so peaceful.”
“Yeah, peaceful like a pride of lions waiting for an antelope to come bounding by,” countered Blackie. “Just when you think everything is peaceful and serene you’re standing in quicksand.”
“He’s not usually a buzzkill,” piped up Wayne with a grin on his face, “but when he is, he’s phenomenal.”
“Before the witty repartee ensues, why don’t we grab a snack?” suggested Joules who was blowing on her hands and rubbing them together.
“Joules, you know you could just turn up your glow a notch and your hands would get really toasty,” suggested Blackie.
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” she said sheepishly. “I’m still getting used to the idea I can grill a slab of Chakatori at a distance of 25 meters.”
Amelia stood looking out over the steppes while the rest of the group spread a blanket on the ground and laid out their food. It wasn’t breakfast but no one was complaining.
“Amelia are you hungry?” asked Blackie who had joined her near the edge of the road.
“I could really use some coffee,” she said.
“Sorry, no coffee; what are you looking at?”
“I don’t like the looks of that piece of road,” she said pointing to a stretch that ran between the third and fourth steppes from the bottom. “Just there. It looks different, like a rough patch. All the rest of the road looks about the same, but that piece caught my eye and I can’t take my eyes off it; something tells me that just isn’t right.”
“Looks like road to me,” said Wayne who joined them as he munched on crackers spread with soft cheese.
“It just doesn’t look right,” said Amelia.
“It does look different,” added Joules as Blackie and Wayne strained their eyes to detect why they thought it was unusual.
“Oh my, look over there to the left,” exclaimed Joules.
A Belkie was slowly meandering along the same road they had been scrutinizing. It stopped to graze on the dew-covered grass then slowly moved forward again. For a few seconds the group lost sight of it behind a small rise on the west end of the fourth steppe, then it reappeared, casually walking with its head down and eating. Then, the Belkie raised its head, stretching its neck and lifting its nose high in the air.
“Which way is the wind coming from?” asked Amelia frantically as the Belkie’s head swayed back and forth in the soft breeze, it’s tusks and nose pointing almost straight up.
“It’s from the north; we’re downwind,” replied Blackie, “it can’t smell us.”
“Then what is it smelling?” asked Joules.
“It smells them,” said Wayne, pointing slightly north-northwest of the Belkie.
From their vantage point they could see what the Belkie was sniffing. Twenty Picosaurs had reached the edge of the flat plain and were tearing up the first rock ledge separating it from the lowest steppe as ten more sprinted across the plain trying to catch the frontrunners. The Belkie finally caught the scent and let out a tremendous bellow, shaking its head in the air as the lead Picosaur cleared the second rock tier and shot past just out of reach of its outstretched tusks.
The second Picosaur was equally as fast as the first but it was much younger, and not having the finely-honed hunting skills of the pack leader it attempted to pass too close to the Belkie’s swaying tusks. It was gored just as a wave of Picosaurs reached the third steppe.
The Belkie bellowed again when the lead Picosaur attacked it from behind, gouging its left flank with its long claws. It spun wildly and threw off its attacker only to be jumped by two more. Sensing it had no chance of winning the confrontation in the open where it could be attacked from every angle, the Belkie bolted as ten more Picosaurs joined the pack and gave chase.
As it ran east along the road one Picosaur after another leapt on its side, some crawling up to its back where they bit savagely at its spine and neck. With nine or ten Picosaurs clawing at its hide the Belkie stopped suddenly, spinning to throw off its attackers and impaling two more Picosaurs as it turned to continue its desperate escape.
“They’re all doomed,” said Amelia. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t look away.
“That Belkie doesn’t have a chance,” said Blackie, “there’s no place to hide and no good place to fight.”
As Wayne looked over his shoulder to make sure nothing was happening behind them Amelia replied, “None of them have a chance, they’re all doomed.”
“I think the Picos have the upper hand,” said Wayne, “it’s only a matter of time before they bring down that Belkie.”
“Amelia’s right,” said Joules matter-of-factly, “they’re all d
oomed,” she continued, pointing to the stretch of road they had discussed earlier.
The Belkie was now carrying twenty of the remaining twenty-seven Picosaurs. They were scattered over his back and sides and three were viciously attacking its neck when he abruptly slowed down.
“They’re taking him down,” said Wayne.
“I don’t think they’ll get the chance to finish,” replied Amelia as two more Picosaurs climbed up the Belkie’s back legs.
The remaining Picosaurs never had a chance to mount their prey. They were surrounded by a light cloud of dust as they tried to jump but couldn’t seem to push off the ground hard enough to propel themselves toward the Belkie.
‘I think it’s over,” said Joules just before a massive Sifter crashed through the loose soil beneath the Belkie, grabbing it and twenty-two Picosaurs in a thrust that propelled it four meters in the air.
The remaining Picosaurs couldn’t run to escape. The Sifter’s vibrations had reduced the strength and stiffness of soil under their feet rendering it to a near liquid state that prevented them from gaining a sure footing and the opportunity to get away. They struggled, but the liquefied soil under them offered no resistance as the Sifter crashed back into its feeding pit. Within minutes, all five of the remaining Picosaurs were eaten, one at a time.
The sight of a Sifter feeding on a Belkie and an entire pack of Picosaurs left them all speechless. Wayne nervously glanced over his shoulder again to make sure nothing was coming up the road behind them. His mind was full of questions. What if they hadn’t decided to stop on the peak? What if they had followed the road down through the steppes, would they have encountered the Belkie?
What would have happened if they had driven the Nomad over that feeding pit? Would the Sifter have felt the Nomad coming down the road and been prepared to attack? If it somehow missed them would they have been upwind of the Belkie, alerting it to their presence? Would they have been seen by the Picosaurs as they made their way into the grassland just as they were approaching the steppes?
Wayne’s head was reeling and he broke out in goose bumps with the realization that time and circumstance had been more than kind. “I need to sit down,” he said to the others as he turned away, “I need to sit.”
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