by Sam Ryder
She almost died, the other, more trusting, part of me replied.
Eve said, “I should be fine. The Three wouldn’t have sent me if they didn’t believe I had sufficient capacity for the mission.”
Capacity. That word. It fit perfectly to describe the denominator on our life meters. Of course. This was why the Three had Leveled up Eve to the next tier in the Finder stratum. To give her the capacity for this mission. It all made sense and I had clearly not given the goddesses enough credit. Yes, they appeared weak at times, their decisions random. But they were immortal beings who’d been around the block a few times and survived for years without hearts, surrounded by demons. Their plans were likely difficult to ascertain because they spanned years, maybe even decades, rather than a few days or weeks like mine.
They’d earned at least a little bit more trust than I’d offered so far.
“Stay close,” Eve said, creeping along the tree line, trying to stay out of sight of the distant creatures towering over everything.
I obeyed. This was her turf and I was just her helper on this little mission, there to do whatever she needed me to do. Apparently the Three thought my assistance would improve the chances of success.
As we approached the clearing, I finally noticed something I’d missed because I couldn’t take my eyes off the massive marmots. The giants. There were lots of them, both male and female, moving about the clearing, hauling big old stone blocks dwarfed by even larger blocks being hauled by the marmots.
It was wild, a scene from a dreamscape, or from Gulliver’s Travels. Beyond the clearing I could just make out a much broader path cut through the thick forest, perfectly straight.
“What are they—” I cut off because I’d already answered my own question. The marmots, who weren’t moving their feet at all, were maneuvering the large blocks into place, setting them down in a gentle manner that belied their brute strength. Setting them in a row. Starting a new one, perpendicular to the first. They were building something. Some kind of massive structure.
“A house,” Eve said. I looked at her. “In case you were wondering. Giant people require giant houses.”
I blinked. Though each of the enormous stone blocks was larger than me, it made sense. Eve had probably witnessed such a scene on numerous occasions. A daily activity on Primo.
“Where are the lions?” I asked. “They created the marmots, right?”
She nodded but didn’t look back, continuing to creep forward. “The giants and lions have lived in harmony for many years. The lions loan out their marmots to the giants to help them build.” She stopped. We were close enough now that if we weren’t careful we might be spotted. I remembered how Eve had been badly hurt by the natives the last time she was on Primo in the present. They’d been ready for her, aware of what she was doing—stealing their people.
“How are we going to do this?” I asked, hoping she already had a plan. My mind was ticking over the situation, trying to come up with a strategy like I would for completing a task on Alien Civilization. Unfortunately, I was coming up blank. Nothing but raw speed would give us a chance. There was simply too much space between the tree line and the marmots for us to get close without being spotted.
“Climb a tree,” she said.
“Um, now?”
“To think. To wait. Now is not the right time to do this.” That much we agreed on. Still, the last tree I’d been in had led to me being injected with scorpion venom by a massive spider that had wrapped me in a web-cocoon to keep me fresh for breakfast. Climbing trees was no longer on my list of boyhood activities that still appealed to me as an adult.
I reminded myself that this was Eve’s territory. And it’s not like I had a better idea. I sighed. “Fine.” I started into the forest, searching for the right tree.
SIX
BIG ASS MARMOT
Because of their strange shapes, the trees on Primo were relatively easy to climb. The hardest part at times was getting past the twisting branches that curled back on themselves as if trying to block our way up. Using a combination of brute strength and finesse—something I hadn’t had before as a Warrior or Protector but had now in spades as a Seeker—we managed to reach a good spot three quarters of the way up. From here, we could barely make out the activity in the clearing, though much of our view was blocked by the gnarled branches of neighboring trees.
I stopped, looking back at Eve as she used her athleticism to join me on a branch.
A branch which suddenly began shaking. I bucked backwards, nearly tumbling from my perch before throwing my weight forwards. I’d overcompensated and now I was about to pitch headlong into a swan dive to unforgiving ground rather than water.
Eve reached for me, but I’d already thrown my arms to the side and grasped the branch firmly. My muscles popped and my sore arm screamed, but I caught my balance. Slowly, I maneuvered back up to restore my center of gravity. All the while the tree continued to shake, like it was nothing but a sapling being jostled by a kid trying to retrieve his ball from the upper branches.
“Whatthefuckishappening?” I said in a single breath, my eyes locked on Eve’s. She was hanging on as well, her grip tight, her lean arms corded with muscle.
“The marmot are moving,” she said calmly.
It felt more like the entire planet of Primo was moving. I half-expected the ground to open and swallow us, tree and all, like a fish surfacing to grab a floundering bug from the glassy surface of a pond.
The shaking intensified and then, abruptly, stopped. The tree stopped moving, but my body did not. I continued to tremble, even my teeth chattering like I was cold. Finally, my body went still too. My muscles were sore from the strain of using all of them to cling to the branch.
“Did they leave? The marmots, I mean.” Though our mission was to retrieve one of them, I was hoping the answer was yes. Messing with beasts as large as them seemed like a good way to learn what trash felt like after being placed in a compactor.
Eve laughed. Not the response I was hoping for. “That was a step or two at most,” she said. “The giants repositioned the marmots to work on the next portion of the structure. If they’d left, the shaking would’ve lasted several hours.”
“Several hours?” From the way she said it, I got the impression she’d experienced just such a marmot migration before.
“Let’s hope the marmot stay in the clearing for a while,” she said.
Yeah. Seriously. “What now?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Being a Finder isn’t as glamorous as you think it is.”
“No kidding,” I said, massaging my shoulder, which was still extremely sore. Though my nose had cleared somewhat, I couldn’t really breathe out of it and I could feel the blood crusted along the edges of my nostrils. Not glamorous at all.
“We’ll wait until the sun sets and then see if we can get a little closer to the action.”
“Do those brutes sleep?” I asked.
“Like the dead,” Eve said. “That’ll give us a chance. But the giants will have sentries posted. Though they live on peaceful terms with the lions, there are other dangerous predators on Primo.”
“Like what?” Please don’t say spider-scorpions…
“Snakes that make Earth’s anacondas look like earthworms. Spiked hogs the size of tanks. That sort of thing.” She listed them as if she were talking about types of flowers.
“Do they climb?” I asked. Because I had to.
“Not really.” Not comforting. “We can talk specifics after we scope out the situation, but the short plan is that you’re going to be the distraction.”
“That’s the plan?”
“Yup. As soon as the giants see you, they’ll do everything in their power to try to kill you.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“You have little experience with giants, and the ones you’ve met haven’t been in their element. Alone or in small numbers, they can be reasonable. But in a group environment where they feel threatened…they hav
e a pack mentality. Attack first and don’t ask questions at all. They will try to tear you limb from limb.”
“Awesome. Sounds like another day in the life of Sam Ryder. And you said this Finder gig was hard.” I knew I was using my defense mechanism again. Always with the jokes at the wrong times. Only Beat seemed to need to do the same thing.
“Sam, listen to me.” Eve grabbed my chin and steered my gaze toward her. Despite my sarcasm, her expression was one of absolute seriousness. “You are a Level 4. You are faster than these giants. Watch for me. As soon as I get close to one of the marmots, your job is done. Break away from your pursuers and get to me. Don’t be late. I won’t be able to wait for you.”
I nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know,” she said. “You always do.” I felt my cheeks warm, somewhat embarrassed. It was probably the nicest compliment anyone had ever given me.
She retracted her hand and settled it on the blue tree branch. Near to the trunk the branch was a deep-sea hue of blue, but as the wooden appendage grew away from the core, it lightened to turquoise before becoming white at the tips, exploding into a flurry of bright pale flowers.
“Hey,” I said. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a while.”
Her gaze drifted back to me, a sly smile creasing the edge of her lips. “About how old I am?” she said.
“Well, yeah, that too. But that’s not what I was going to ask. How old are you anyway?”
Her lips opened into a cat-like grin. Her rich, brown eyes sparkled in amusement. “Trying to figure out whether I’m a MILF or a GILF?”
“Wait. You have kids?” It didn’t matter to me, but she’d never said anything, so…
She chuckled. “No. But I’m old enough to have an entire brood. Old enough for that brood to have a brood. And for that brood to have a—”
“I get the picture. You’re old.”
“I prefer to think about it as experienced. Is that a problem?”
My eyes roamed from her slender feet to her shapely legs to her hourglass curves and muscular arms, all the way to the exotic features of her face. “No problem here,” I said.
“Are you flirting?”
“Probably, though I’ve always sucked at it.”
“I can think of other things to suck,” she said, her tongue playing along her lips.
Her experience was showing at the moment, and I didn’t care if she was twenty-five or two hundred and fifty. My mind went blank as her hand found my thigh, a single finger teasing the skin just beneath the bottom of my loincloth.
“We’re going to fall out of the tree,” I said.
“Worth it,” she said, leaning closer.
That might be true. But I also didn’t think this was the time for enjoyment. This was my first mission as a Seeker and already I was letting myself get distracted. Kind of hard when Eve was around. Literally, hard.
Then again, we had no choice but to wait in this tree until nightfall. We needed to pass the time and what would be the harm and—
She kissed me, her lips moist and sweet. My mouth opened to receive her tongue, which was warm and playful, stroking its way along my own. “You need to relax,” she purred into my mouth. “You’re on an alien planet with me.”
“I thought you said we were going to wait until we returned from a successful mission to—” I cut myself off because I was a dumbass. I couldn’t even be my own wingman. Was it possible to cock-block yourself? I was proving the answer was a resounding yes.
We made out for a few blissful minutes, but then it became hard to breathe because of my blood-clogged nose. Regretting it, I pulled back, gasping. “Sorry,” I said. “Stupid nose.”
“No problem,” she said. “There are other things we can do.”
That’s when she slid off the branch and perched on the next one down, which left her mouth directly level with my—
I gasped again, but this time not from lack of breath.
The distant sounds of the giants and marmots building faded out of existence. I groaned in pleasure.
~~~
“Do you still hate Primo?” Eve asked once she was perched back on the branch with me.
“Do you?” I asked.
“It’s growing on me,” she said.
“Me too. I’m even willing to deal with the awful teleporting thing.”
“Are you? I guess you enjoyed that then.”
“I wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t. Thank you. That was a whole new experience.”
“You’ve never had a woman…”
I had. Once on Earth, but she had been way too rough and I’d ended up receiving more pain than pleasure. On Tor I’d had the pleasurable experience on multiple occasions, including by the Three, and yet they couldn’t compare to Eve. She was masterful in her technique. Toward the end, I’d almost fallen from the branch, barely managing to cling to it with my hands.
I had felt like a star, growing hotter and hotter until I erupted into a supernova.
“You weren’t like any of the others,” I said. “You’re in a class of your own.”
“I bet you say that to all of the girls.”
If only, I thought. “I swear I don’t,” I said.
She released a soft, musical laugh. “Then my work here is done,” she said. “Hey, wasn’t there something you were going to ask me before we got…distracted?”
There was, but it took me several heartbeats of frowning to bring it back to the front of my mind. “Oh. Right. I was just wondering how your family got into the Finding business in the first place. You’ve talked about your mother, but not your father. I don’t even know where they came from.”
“I—I’d rather not talk about it.”
Damn. I’d screwed up. I’d missed the signals. I felt like an idiot. Of course she would’ve already told me if she’d wanted to. And now I’d forced her to think about something she didn’t want to think about. Some painful memory perhaps. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. I won’t pry again. I promise.”
She looked at me with an expression I’d never seen her wear before. She looked almost…content. Not quite happy, but something akin to it, like a second cousin. “You’re a good man.”
I couldn’t hold back my smile. Hearing that from her lips made the statement a hundred times more powerful. “Takes one to know one.” Which, in hindsight, was a really cheesy thing to say. Then again, I was a cheesy guy, so it wasn’t exactly out of character.
“You’re right.”
“About what?”
“You do suck at flirting.”
“I can think of something else to suck,” I said, reaching up to tease her nipples through her dress. “Your turn.”
Unlike me, however, she had more self-control. She grabbed my hand and drew it away from her body. “Maybe later. I want to show you something before it gets too dark.”
Balancing as easily as a tightrope walker, she pushed to her feet, hauling me up with her. My balance had improved too, my Level 4 body far more graceful than before. To my surprise, however, Eve began climbing higher. Personally, I was pretty happy with how high we were, but I followed her anyway.
Soon the white leaves and switchback branches began to thin, revealing a broad firmament of bright red sky that was darkening to black on the side opposite to where the sun was disappearing beneath the horizon. Compared to the too-bright yellow sky that had burned my retinas when we first arrived on Primo, the red sky felt calming. Eerie as hell, too—like the evening after a nuclear war—but surprisingly peaceful. Everything was still and silent.
But all that beauty wasn’t what made my breath hitch in my lungs as I scanned our forest surroundings.
No, it was the truth that came to me, one that was impossible to discern while entombed in the thick wood, blocked on all sides by trees and foliage. This wasn’t just a forest.
It was a city.
~~~
The sheer magnitude of the f
orest city took a few moments to sink into my small brain. The closest structure was the unfinished house being built by the giants and marmot. It had risen substantially higher since we’d lost of sight of it, and now stood well above the tops of the tallest trees. Which made it huge.
And yet the house—building—was dwarfed by the dozens of forms rising into some of the low-altitude clouds. Towers of stone, thick and tall, walled in on all sides like individual castles.
The giants lived like kings—each family unit to a palace. That’s what they were building only a small distance away. The next castle. Between each of them, a path was cleared through the thick forest, like highways connecting cities. Each highway linked two clearings that had once been construction sites. Viewed from our current position, the highways looked like spokes on a great wheel, except rather than being inside the wheel they were on the outside, connecting to other wheels. Although the full picture was skewed because of our angle, I got the sense that if I was flying over in a helicopter the arrangement of cities would be perfectly symmetrical.
It was magnificent. On Earth it would’ve been one of the Wonders of the World.
Something struck me as strange. “Where are the marmot?” I asked, squinting in the direction of the latest building site. The beasts were so massive it wasn’t like they could hide. And if they’d left the area, we’d have felt an earthquake-like rumble beneath us, one that lasted much longer than the previous shaking.
“Like I said before: they sleep like the dead. I thought they were repositioning before, but I was wrong. They were getting ready for night.”
“They lie down to sleep?” For some reason, I couldn’t picture them in any position but standing. Even prone, however, they would be hundreds of feet taller than us.
Eve nodded. Then she said, “It’s time. Ready to be my distraction?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I didn’t mention the part about the big ol’ giant security guards or monstrous slumbering beasts who could kill us by accident if they flinched in their sleep.
Eve was already clambering down the tree, and I had no choice but to follow her. Her previous warning came back to me: