Nuworld: The Saga Begins

by Lorie O'Clare

  “Can’t have my grandchildren running around without a roof over their heads.” Patha walked to the door. “I’ll see that your belongings are brought to you.”

  Tara was left alone in the living room. She walked down the hallway and opened the first bedroom door. A nice sized bed and a tall dresser furnished the room. There were shelves in the closet as well as a bar on which to hang clothes. The second bedroom contained a small bed and another dresser. She gasped when she opened the third bedroom. Inside were the babies’ cradles from the house. She walked up to them in disbelief. Who had brought them here? Their dressers lined the wall; all their clothes were in them.

  Tara stood in the little room, stunned by what she was seeing. What could all this mean? If Darius was giving her all of the baby things, did that mean he didn’t want them to come back? A wave of panic ran through Tara’s body. It had never occurred to her that he might decide he didn’t want them to come home. She ran her fingers over a cradle, and her eyes welled with tears.

  He wasn’t willing to change for her. He’d made the decision and sent her these things. Tara imagined that the empty nursery had been more than he could bear. The man had no use for baby articles with no babies in the house. And maybe he thought sending her the items would make her react just the way she had. Darius could have sent her everything to scare her into thinking he didn’t want her—a bluff to lure her home.

  Tara wouldn’t put an act like that past the man. But on the other hand, she had left to teach him a lesson. She wanted Darius to know she had zero tolerance for his behavior. Tara would not live with a man, continuously wondering where he was, and with whom.

  As her finger traced the cribs’ carvings, she suddenly realized that was exactly what she was doing right now. Oh, how she missed him. Maybe she should have stayed and battled it out.

  She shook herself, trying to get her thoughts back to reality. She never could have lived with a man who did not respect her. Tara quickly walked out of the room.

  The landlink in the living room was logged on. She hadn’t noticed that a second ago. The screen indicated there was a message waiting for her response. Someone had taken the time to program this landlink to use her pass code. She tapped the screen and realized the message was indeed for her. She thought for a moment, trying to figure out who would know her pass code. Darius? She tried to remember if she’d shown it to him, but she wasn’t sure. Curiosity got the best of her, and she opened the message.

  “Hello, Tara. This is my third attempt to contact you, it is. I hope you’ll not delete this message. It’s not possible for me to right a wrong when you’ll not return to allow me to do so. I hope this trailer will show you that my intentions toward you are genuine. I’ve made every attempt to bring you back. I am now made to understand that you still do not plan to return, and instead will enter Southland. Tara, your place is here. We’ve united two nations, and it is your duty to rule over them with me, it is. You, too, are failing your duty, just as you say I have. Return within one week, or I’ll sever all relations with the Runners, disowning all of you. I don’t want to do this. My love for you is strong, it is. Return to me now. Darius.”

  Tara read the message twice. Her blood boiled, and she wondered if Patha knew of this threat. She slammed her fist on the table and turned to leave the trailer. As she opened the door, Syra greeted her.

  “Have you heard the news?” Syra was grinning. She had a bag in each hand as she entered the trailer. “I get to go with you. My papa said it would keep me away from Torgo. What an adventure. Which one is my room?”

  Tara stood there speechless. She quickly regrouped her thoughts. No one must know about the message from Darius. She walked back to the landlink and deleted it. She would not bother to acknowledge such an insult. He didn’t control everybody’s life.

  “You want me to go with you, don’t you?” Syra apparently misread Tara’s silence and looked worried. “I could be a big help with the babies.”

  “Of course, you can go with me.” Tara smiled, quickly forcing her thoughts to the future.

  Just then a jeep pulled up to the trailer. Patha and Balbo entered and began to bring Tara’s things into the room. They spent the next hour organizing clothes and saying goodbyes.

  Tara watched Patha closely. If her papa knew of Darius’ threat, he gave no indication. He spoke only of his concern that Tara stay in touch with him and let him know what the people of Southland were like.

  “Let me know when you are safely in Semore.” Patha hugged his daughter soundly. His eyes looked moist when he pulled away.

  “And take care of my daughter,” Balbo added.

  “I will.” Tara held her hands out to both of them. She hugged Reena and Torgo then climbed into the driver’s seat.

  The rocky road led down a cliff and took a long time to navigate. The attached trailer with the bike on it swerved from side to side, and Tara crawled along, fearing it would fall off the edge of the road. She was glad when they finally came to the road at the bottom, and she was able to gain speed.

  The town of Semore was unlike anything Tara had ever seen. It had been built around ruins from the Oldworld. There weren’t many ruins like these in Trueland. Small flat buildings made out of white bricks lined each side of the road. People walked along sidewalks. Tara saw more cars than she’d ever seen at any one time. After trial and error, she figured out that the tall poles with lights at intersections, indicated to drivers where they could stop or go depending upon the color light displayed at any given time. What a concept.

  Her attention was drawn to oil pumps slowly moving up and down at the edge of town. Oil was something Runners and Gothman needed.

  Ahead on the right, Tara spied a sign saying, “Rooms Available.” She pulled the trailer into a parking area covered with small red gravel.

  A dark-skinned, white-haired older man with black eyes and bushy white eyebrows told her about a small boarding house at the edge of town where she might be able to park her trailer. He gave her such an odd look; she decided not to ask him if she could pay with gold pieces.

  She drove to the place he’d specified—an older house set back off the road. It had a flat-roofed porch covering the front of the white clay building. The structure was longer than it was wide. Beyond it, the land stretched endlessly.

  “Hello,” she said to a young woman leaning against a counter just inside the house. “I need a place to park my trailer for a short time.”

  The young lady looked past Tara out the window at the trailer. She studied it for a minute and then looked back at Tara and studied her. The woman’s hair was black as coal. She had it twisted in the back in several braids. Her skin was also as dark as night and her inky black eyes looked curiously at Tara. “Where are you from?”

  “North of here.”

  “North? There isn’t much north of here. You live in that trailer?”

  The girl’s dialect was not like anything Tara had heard before. She liked it. The girl’s words ran together, sounding almost melodic. Tara listened carefully to understand what the girl said.

  “I do for right now.” Tara smiled, knowing her voice must sound very foreign to the young girl as well. “I have a couple of babies. We’re looking for a new life, so to speak.”

  “So, you come to Semore?” This seemed to surprise the girl. “Things aren’t good around here right now. I mean, if you’re looking for work, I don’t know if you’ll find any.”

  “I’d like to try. Could I park the trailer for just a few days?”

  “I guess we can’t turn away a mama with babies. Pull it around back and I’ll bring out the paperwork.”

  Tara thanked her and parked the trailer in the indicated spot. The young girl came out the back door within minutes. She handed the paperwork to Tara and peeked past the open door of the trailer at Syra and the babies inside.

  “I’ve never seen such blond curly hair before,” the girl commented. “Where did you say you were from?”

  Tar
a was saved from answering by two men who appeared in the building’s doorway. Both were tall, with dark skin and hair. One of the men, however, caught her off guard. He had long black hair falling to his waist. He was thin with broad shoulders and his black eyes glistened as he looked at her. The other man gestured for the girl to come to him, and the three disappeared into the building, leaving Tara alone to fill out the papers.

  The young girl appeared again before long and smiled shyly as she walked toward Tara. “My husband wants to know if someone is going to come after you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you have money?”

  “I have gold. I’ll exchange it if you tell me where I can do that.”

  She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary.”

  The girl took three gold pieces and told her it would cost her the same amount for each day she was there. “You’re welcome to join us for a midday meal shortly. You’ll hear the bell ring when it’s ready.” The girl took the papers and disappeared into the building.

  Tara watched her walk away and couldn’t help but wonder which of the two men was her husband. She thought of Darius, then the dark man, and then she pushed both images out of her head and went to her children.

  The food was not identifiable, but it was good. The couple served the meals, but didn’t eat with them. In fact, over the next several days, Tara and Syra were not sought out by any of the town folk. Nor did anyone pay much attention to them, although their fair skin and sandy brown hair made them conspicuous among the dark-skinned Neurians. Even Tara’s attempts at conversation in the food market went unheeded.

  The landlink system in the community was quite elaborate. Semore was connected to nearby towns, and Tara studied everything she could about them and their residents. She discovered that a number identified every citizen on the landlink system. Everything in the town was on the landlink. She was able to obtain a guest number and visit many of the local merchants through their networking system. Her frustration grew, however, when a message continually appeared on the screen saying her “guest status” did not allow her to view her selection. She was prevented from viewing anything about their government.

  Every morning, Tara walked down the street to buy one of the newspapers sold in the town. It primarily covered the town’s current events, but Tara found a few political news items, as well.

  They’d been in Semore a week. Tara was lonely and thinking of Darius as she walked back to her trailer. The time frame he’d given her to return had expired. She’d spoken to Patha every day, but he had never indicated whether or not he knew about Darius’ threat. Darius hadn’t sent her any more messages, and she wondered if he really would disown her, as he’d put it.

  She walked slowly along the street, reading the paper, and looking for possible work. If she were home, there would be plenty of work to do. But here, there wasn’t much call for overseeing military training, or resolving conflicts among clan members.

  Briefly, she wondered who had assumed her tasks among the Runners. Darius had learned a lot about them—had he taken on her responsibilities? If so, how would members react to Darius mediating a clan dispute?

  Tara stubbed her toe and let out a curse. Thinking of Darius would not help her right now. Maybe Patha had been right. He’d said she wouldn’t be able to fit into this community easily.

  As she half-heartedly scanned the paper, a new ad caught her eye. An assistant was needed in one of the government offices to do some landlink work. This was exactly what she’d been looking for. Excited, Tara read the ad closely. She was startled when she walked into something. Looking up, she realized she’d walked right into a man coming toward her.

  “I’m so sorry.” The man looked up from a landlink printout, obviously thinking it was he who had not been paying attention. He seemed to contemplate saying something else.

  “No, it’s my fault,” she began.

  “You just arrived in Semore, didn’t you?” he asked after some hesitation. He glanced around the street as if to see if there was anyone watching. “Follow me.”

  Tara followed out of curiosity as he led her through a nearby door and down a poorly lit hallway. He was possibly five to ten winters older than she, very thin, with black straight hair that fell to his shoulders.

  He turned toward a closed door at the end of the hall, tapped on it, and then opened the door slowly.

  Tara tapped her pocket, reassured by the hard metal of her laser.

  The dark man glanced at her and moved through the doorway.

  She followed. Tara faced three men. The one she’d followed, along with two others who sat by a desk in what appeared to be an office. One of the seated men was quite heavy; the other had long silver hair pulled back into a ponytail. The silver-haired man looked older than Patha.

  They all stared.

  She returned their stare, noticing that they seemed nervous.

  “We, uh…” The man standing by her began speaking, stopped, and looked at his friends. “That is, um, we know who you are.”

  “That’s nice. But I don’t know who you are.” She forced herself to appear unconcerned.

  “Fleeders,” the tall man pointed to himself then to his friends. “Snith and Tilk. We, uh, work here.”

  The room was well lit with an overhead light and a lamp next to the landlink. There was another desk in the room with a landlink on it as well. The shelves lining the walls were filled with landlink parts and discs. After she’d studied the contents of the room, she turned to stare to Fleeders. “Why’d you bring me here?”

  “To talk to you,” Tilk, the old man spoke up, and the other two looked at him with worried glances. “We’ve been monitoring your communications.”

  “You’ve been what?”

  “It’s our job,” Fleeders said quickly. “We understand that you’re not happy about this. But, we monitor all landlink activity.”

  “Gowsky has us do it.” Snith wiped sweat from his upper lip. “It’s not really common knowledge, but we’ve been through bad times.”

  “We know you’re Tara, daughter of Patha, leader of the Blood Circle Clan. You joined with the leader of the Gothman, and you defeated the Sea People,” Fleeders said awkwardly. He added quickly, “We know you’re not here to hurt anyone.”

  There was a chair next to the empty desk, and Tara sat in it, spreading her long legs out in front of her and crossing her feet. A small smile crossed her face. These men were scared to death—apparently of her!

  As they should be. She could kill all three of them in this small office and return to the street without anyone realizing it. For some reason, they’d decided to speak to her. It had been a sacrifice for them, since they were obviously terrified by her presence.

  “So why am I here?”

  Tilk and Snith looked at Fleeders. So did Tara. He cleared his throat again, something he’d done often in the short time Tara had been in his presence.

  “Gowsky found out you were here several days ago. Maybe he’s known longer, I’m not sure. He’s convinced you’re here to start some kind of revolution—take over the Neurian Government. We were asked to monitor your communications and give him a report at the end of the week.”

  Tara listened closely as Fleeders spoke. She still wasn’t accustomed to their singsong accents. “So you’ve monitored my communication. And…?”

  “We don’t think you’re here to start anything,” Snith said.

  “We think you’re here out of curiosity,” Tilk said. “And to get even with your husband.” He added this last sentence quickly and quietly.

  “You did make one comment about our oil.” Fleeders looked at his friends, instead of her.

  “So you know all about me.” Tara twisted in her chair and looked at the landlink next to her. It was a lot bulkier than the Runner landlink. The three men didn’t say anything as she brought up the screen. It displayed a directory the main landlink offered to every Neurian. Tara had already accessed this on her landl
ink and was somewhat familiar with its contents.

  “You use a similar binary code in your programs.” She turned and looked at the trio. “So what will your report say to Gowsky?”

  “That’s just it,” Fleeders lowered his voice just a little. “That is why we brought you here, or I should say, decided to try to get you to come here.”

  Tara looked up curiously.

  Fleeders continued. “Gowsky stopped by yesterday and told us to infect your landlink so you could no longer communicate with your people.”

  Tilk interrupted. “He told us he was going to pick you up and charge you with—”

  “Charge me with what?” Tara interrupted as she leaned forward in her chair and slapped her hands on her knees so hard the three men jumped.

  “It’s just what we’ve been told,” Tilk said, sounding apologetic. “Charge you with conspiring to start a war.”

  “I see.” Tara stood and began pacing while her thoughts raced. “Any defense I come up with will likely be shot down in your government. I could leave right now, but I would have accomplished nothing.” She stopped and stared at the men.

  They looked at her glumly.

  “Why have you told me all this?”

  “Neurians have been devastated by the loss of trade with the Sea People. We could rebuild if we could ship out our oil. We’ve researched you and your Runners since we had access to your landlink system while you were talking with your papa. You’re an advanced race. More advanced than Neurians think you are. We’ll try to explain all this to Gowsky, but I don’t think it will make any difference. He wants you brought to him.” Fleeders shrugged and sincerely looked sorry. “We’re telling you this so you know the Neurian government is watching you.”

  “We don’t know what you want to do with this information,” Tilk added. “Now you know what’s going to happen.”

  “I know exactly what I’m going to do.” Tara walked to the door.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tara froze as she heard loud voices at the end of the hallway. It sounded like several men headed in her direction.