It was the first time Thalick had ever seen a human cry. The Thelericks watched with amazement as Phillips wept and fell to the ground in heartbreak. Even the tribe was unsettled at such an unfamiliar display of emotion.
Somewhere towards the rear of the tribe, nursing quietly against a patient breast, two smaller sets of eyes also began to moisten. They could never have hoped to recognize the dead ruins of St. Louis by name, but they were keenly aware of the scope of devastation around them.
A brief, momentary sparkle beamed in the youthful pupils and then was gone.
Not yet, the eyes seemed to say in that secondary instant. The time was not yet right.
But the eyes continued to cry unabated. For John and Valry Phillips had come home at last.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The tortoise herd reacted with typical disinterest when Thalick and three other Stingers commenced their attack. There was not much it could do anyway, since the Thelericks were far faster than any "Fuzzy" in the whole lot. Valry had again been responsible for this colloquial reference to the giant tortoises; as had been the case with the Stinger naming, her choice of words to catalog the wooly creatures ahead had been most fitting. The listless tortoises were completely covered with hair, hiding even their heads and eyes from view, and until one was completely shaved it was impossible to distinguish any kind of detail.
The Fuzzies were one of the few sources of food that the Stinger tribe could rely upon. Their meat was saturated with a low degree of radiation, and was thus treatable by the Stingers for human consumption. Short of the Redeyes, the Fuzzies comprised the most prolific life form on Earth, with their herds numbering in the tens of thousands all over the world. A pathetically docile creature, one Fuzzy could feed the entire tribe for days, while its heavy mammal-like coat was the mainstay for human clothing and protection against the elements.
Valry and the three Stingers passed undeterred into the center of the crowded herd. There were a hundred or so Fuzzies scattered around the adjoining valley next to the Stinger tribe, but for all their numeric advantage over the intruders, the tortoises could rely on no defense to protect themselves. Dimly aware of the danger approaching them, the only collective action the Fuzzies took was to move sluggishly into a group huddle. But this puny effort was executed so slowly, and would not have saved the bull Fuzzy that Thalick and the other two Stingers were surrounding. The kill would be completed by the time the remaining herd could converge on itself.
Valry jumped off of Thalick and watched as he and the other two Stingers began the awkward task of flipping the Fuzzy over on its back. Once this was accomplished, the three Thelericks could then deliver the lethal dosage of venom to the soft underbelly that would painlessly snuff out the Fuzzy's life. It was a more difficult task than it immediately appeared, for the protesting Fuzzy had sensed the oncoming attack and had mired itself into the clay and sand that comprised the valley ground.
Shoveling their enormous pinchers into the ground, the Stingers attempted to latch onto the shelled underside. At last, when all three sets of claws were engaged, the Stingers hoisted the cumbersome animal on its side, and finally onto its back.
The Fuzzy bellowed pitifully, as each Thelerick arched its back and perforated the exposed stomach with their stingers. For one dreadful moment, the dying Fuzzy convulsed in confusion. Then its fur clad feet and head were still forever.
A moment later, Valry and the Stingers with the Fuzzy in tow began their slow journey out of the herd. It was slow moving, because the Fuzzy would continually get caught against rocks, which forced the Stingers to stop and start throughout the way back. By the time they reached the pass leading down into the stream valley of the tribe, it was already late afternoon.
They were about to start down the last slope leading back to the tribe when it started.
The earthquake was so severe that Valry was shaken off of Thalick's head. From out of nowhere, a great gust of wind howled overhead. Suddenly, the sky grew black and the clouds seemed to be sucked up into a kind of swirling vacuum. The quake increased its magnitude and Valry could see in the distance a geyser of flame spitting forth from a mountain. Below in the valley, the awakened tribe members rushed around the puzzled Stingers for protection.
The Dark's army of black spots abruptly came together and hovered overhead. Then, a sound pierced the sky that the men of this world could not have possibly recognized. Exploding over the air, it was the shock waves produced from a sonic boom, and a moment later, the culprit for the disturbance appeared.
Like a meteor, the object dropped out from the Dark's now enormous mouth and sailed across the sky, trailing a contrail of fire behind it. A strange, high-pitched whine followed the thing as it disappeared over the horizon.
Abruptly, the earthquake ceased and the gale force winds died. The same dull light that pervaded over the land was soon restored and the Dark had again splattered itself in jellied segments across the cloudscape above. The whine of the fireball lasted only a few seconds more and then was gone completely.
Valry was on her feet quickly, staring at the smoke line snaking over the edge of the world.
"What was it, Thalick?" she asked in clear awe. Thalick didn't answer her question, but instead hissed quickly to the other two stingers at his side. Afterwards, he looked at Valry.
DETACH FUZZY, LITTLE ONE
Valry jumped onto the dead tortoise's underbelly and unwrapped Thalick's cord from the limp head. "I'm going with you," she yelled out from on top of the Fuzzy.
NO---THELRICK OTHERS GO WITH YOU—MAKE FOOD---THELERICK GO ALONE
"I want to go," Valry insisted, hopping down from the Fuzzy and walking in front of One Claw.
Thalick hissed once, and before Valry could do anything, One Claw had his secure pincher wrapped around her. Wriggling uselessly, Valry looked at Thalick and frowned.
"That's not fair'."
LITTLE ONE NEED EAT -THELERICK COME BACK SOON
"I'm not hungry," Valry protested, smacking One Claw's pincher with her hands as hard as she could.
Thalick turned to go. But suddenly, he was frozen in his tracks. The two watching Stingers hissed in confusion as Thalick pawed at the ground ineffectively. After several moments of this, he hissed quietly to One Claw. Immediately, the pincher that had bound Valry released its gentle hold. Running towards Thalick, she crawled up his back leg and over to his head. Tickling the Stinger's antennae, the girl made herself as comfortable as possible.
She bit her lower lip and didn't say anything for a second. Then "Thalick angry?" she asked petulantly.
THALICK ANGRY, ANGRY
And with that, the giant Stinger lurched forward, leaving One Claw and Green-Belly hissing to one another in bafflement.
* * *
The external hull temperature on the Rover approached that of the surface of this new planet's sun. Sky and clouds melted in its pathway, as it lacerated the atmosphere with rabid ferocity. An overly curious creature with ten sets of wings and a beak had the distinct displeasure of being instantly melted, simply by virtue of occupying the same square mile with that of the seething starship and pausing too long to stare in fascination.
The Rover died a little more with every passing second. But not so much so that it couldn't also monitor Zolan, who at the moment was doing very little aside from being tossed around unconscious on the cabin floor. The Rover diverted all of its dwindling energy, save that of the landing retros for what would assuredly be a more than rough landing, to the internal passenger compartments. However, even with such compensation, the inside hull temperature was approaching a danger point that not even Zolan's superior human structure would allow him to survive.
Yet there was nothing more the Rover could do. It watched Zolan now; and could see that the man was in some kind of semi-hysterical dream state, perhaps induced by the inordinately high, and getting higher, cabin temperature. But the Rover had no time to analyze Zolan's peculiar behavior further.
The Rover had a
landing to perform. And it realized that after this none-to-easy task, it might never awaken again.
TWENTY-NINE
Blackness surrounded him, and for a moment, Zolan thought that he was dead. If it was death, though, it was more horrible than he had ever feared or imagined, because his conscious was still alive. An eternity of never-ending nothingness lay before him, and he was trapped inside of it. It was cold here and very empty and he wanted to scream. Yet he knew he could not, for somehow he was now a disembodied presence without form or feeling. There was still sensation of sorts, and one of these included panic, but even this was deprived a suitable outlet. For here, there was no place to run, no place to hide from some unseen danger or fear.
But then, very suddenly, all despair vanished. He was aware now that he was moving, and though darkness still surrounded him, he was grateful that he was no longer bound to an interminable stay of motionlessness. After a moment, there was an enjoyable sensation to his travel, and shortly afterwards all initial fears and agonies were replaced by a euphoric sense of freedom.
Where am I? Zolan heard himself ask aloud, though there was no sensation of speech from a physical mouth or throat. This was much more than a dream, he thought; perhaps, he really was dead after all. But, somehow, Zolan doubted this - he was feeling too...alive! But if he was not dead than what had happened to him? Was this all some kind of bizarre nightmare?
Suddenly, the darkness began to lift. A gray, patchy fog glowed around him, and somewhere there was a light source, though Zolan could not tell where it was. He had stopped moving again, and just for a second, he began to feel fear.
Don't be afraid, a voice said from someplace distant. Immediately, his uneasiness vanished. It was lighter now, though everything around him was still misty and indistinct. Presently, a figure appeared before him.
Zolan stared at the girl standing ahead. She seemed very close to him, though Zolan was not sure how 'close' could be defined in this alien environment. She could be inches or miles away, he thought somewhat abstractly, possibly even light years, though this was a bit fantastic for even Zolan to accept. Still…
The girl extended her hand out to him, and amazingly, he, too, now had a hand again. She was warm to touch, though Zolan suspected that even this detail was somehow illusory; he was not really here in physical form and neither was the girl. Zolan was about to question his companion on this point when she spoke first - or he thought she did, anyway.
Who are you? she asked in a baffled voice. Was it even a voice, Zolan wondered. The girl didn't move her lips, yet he could understand her thoughts. Telepathy, he deduced a moment later.
Zolan answered the question.
"My name is Rzzdik. What are you called?"
"Valry," the voice answered softly, then paused; "Rzzdik; strange name. Sounds funny."
Zolan didn't say anything this time.
"You're from far away," Valry continued, staring at Zolan in fascination, "A traveler. Like Thalick."
How much could she know about him, Zolan wondered silently. Quite a bit, obviously, from only a few moments of contact; substantially more than he knew about her.
"Yes," he said cautiously, "A traveler," he continued, realizing at once that he didn't have a clue where he actually was at all. "Who's Thalick?"
"My friend," she said sweetly, then cajoled: "Don't be afraid, Rzzdik," Valry said softly. "We're safe here. This is a place where we can talk."
"Where is…here?" Zolan asked with just a touch of mounting frustration in his voice/thought.
The girl holding his hand seemed to reflect his confusion for just an instant. Then she smiled with an understanding that was still dismally bereft from his own.
"I...don't know for sure," she said in slight awe, "but as long as we're here together, nothing can hurt us."
Now, for the first time, Zolan was actually listening to what Valry was saying to him. His curiosity replaced a mounting dread.
"You say nothing can hurt us here, wherever we are. Is something trying to hurt you? Some kind of danger nearby?"
Zolan could see the image of Valry's face grow sad and frightened. She nodded very slowly.
"What is it? Is it something outside of this place?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell me what it is?" Zolan persisted.
Valry closed her eyes, as if trying to remember something that was just out of reach of memory. A name formed on her lips.
"Re...Resistor!" she whispered.
Zolan could suddenly feel the girl's touch grow cold, and all at once he perceived movement. Valry looked around herself and clutching his hand together as she did so. Abruptly, she looked at him again, though this time he could see a small tear forming in her eyes.
"Help me," she pleaded "I don't have much time."
Zolan took her hands in his, shaking his head in confusion. There was something about the girl that made him want to extend sympathy and comfort to her; a disturbing and exciting sensation that he could not recall having felt for anyone or anything before in his life. Suddenly, he wanted to hold her, to touch her again, to tell her how much he wanted to help.
"Wh..how, how can I help you? Where are we?"
Valry's eyes grew wider and more desperate. Then, without warning, the girl released his hand and floated away from him. He could hear her crying and see her reaching out to him, but something was preventing her from coming back. Then, he too, felt a strange tugging sensation from behind. He was moving again, though very slowly.
"Please help me...Zolan," the girl cried again.
"Wait: Come back:" Zolan yelled, reaching out his hands to her, realizing suddenly that she had called him by his first name without him having told her. All at once, he found himself back in the intolerable black void being pulled from behind like a kitten by the scruff of the neck. He was not afraid anymore; the pained, beautiful eyes of the girl haunted him as he raced backwards, and the only thing he felt now was frustration... and something else; something - wonderful... and terrifying..
Such turbulent emotions, however, fizzled out instantly as he was blinded by a bright light. A second later, and Zolan recognized the ceiling of the Rover's flight deck, sparking and smoking above.
* * *
She had been daydreaming. That had to be it.
Valry shook her head and closed her eyes. She felt better immediately.
Thalick had stopped dead in his tracks. He had anticipated the girl collapsing on top of him; his senses had, for the first time ever, detected an energy drain in his small charge that was both disturbing -- and by Stinger standards, unbelievable.
For just a few seconds, all brainwave activity had come to a halt in Valry. Impossible, Thalick admitted -- but in Valry's case, perhaps not as surprising as would be suspected. He monitored Valry silently as she seemed to recover; he would question her later about the matter. For now, he was happy that everything was functioning normally.
But Valry was way ahead of him.
"I'm fine. Just tired, I guess."
Neither one of them believed this explanation for a moment, but the subject was dropped before it was even raised. Something else took its place for priority and attention.
Even before she could see it, Valry knew that the ocean was very near. Her heart beat excitedly as Thalick crawled out of the crater and onto flat ground again. Immediately, the smell of wet, salty sod on a crisp breeze lapped
deliciously at her face. She had not seen an ocean in many years, since Thalick had kept the tribe inland near snow-capped mountains for more than a decade. Many of the rivers that flowed into or from the oceans were hopelessly polluted, so the Stingers had wisely decided to stay far away from the great, useless bodies of water, and stay close to the fresh-water producing ice of the higher elevations.
As Thalick approached the cliff edge overlooking the sea, the ancient calls of a dead heritage tugged at Valry's soul. The sounds of gulls shrieking overhead, or the drone of a watchful foghorn were all absent here, as wa
s an orange sun preparing to dip under the watery horizon with the approach of dusk. No ships could be seen entering a welcome port, and no rocky peninsula supported an elegant lighthouse. Even the beach far below was deprived of a drooping palm tree that had long ago been famous for giving shade to lazy lovers. The sea of this world was a thing stripped of a wondrous past, still churning in agony from a rape perpetrated on it a million years earlier. But like a seductive, wanton thing, it stretched itself out before Valry and made itself appealing, arousing within her the same lust that had been aroused in her ancestors eons ago. And though she would never know the joy of walking barefoot in the surf, collecting seashells, or receiving a salty kiss of love on the beach by moonlight, Valry need only look out to the waves and imagine the beauty of it all, as if it were a world she had always known, and could never live without. The dreams of the sea would give to her what the sea had always given Man: a sense of freedom that had once made his spirit bold and adventurous, and which had eventually driven him to the stars.
Valry squinted against the cool wind that even so far above the sea here on the cliff edge, was sprinkled with a light spray. Far away, on the edge of the world, she could see a forest of waterspouts lining up along side of one another. Like the land twisters that ravaged the plain and desert regions, the monstrous storms of the sea bludgeoned the waters into a hellish foam. In a few hours, there would be great tidal waves approaching inland that would crash into the cliffs with devastating force.
Thalick saw the storm warnings the ocean offered, and he quickly turned to analyze the skies above and behind him. As he had feared, the Dark's schizophrenic behavior of a few hours before had turned the atmosphere inside out. He was already regretting having come this far to look for the flying fireball that had dropped from the Dark. There was still time, though, before the land and ocean storms converged together and unleashed the hundred mile winds, and Thalick increased his crawl to a trot along the cliff edge.
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