Torian Reclamation 3: Test of Fortitude

by Andy Kasch

  “Looks like you weren’t the only ones who swore off the tupinx last night,” Shaldan said.

  “What in Erob is going on?” Jumper asked. “Where is everyone? Why did they all leave their instruments here? I thought these things were valuable?”

  Alan had no words. He could only take in the inexplicable scene and attempt to make sense of it in his brain. The arena was practically empty. In one spot a half-dozen natives still sat playing, but that was in contrast to the hundreds who were here yesterday. And the sound. Only now did he notice how much quieter it was today. The beats of the small drum circle were proportionally less enchanting. Abandoned tupinx lay everywhere, all over the steps on nearly every level.

  As Alan watched, one of the remaining natives abruptly stopped playing. He stood and seemed to shudder before frowning at the instrument in his hand. He then looked around the arena with a confused expression, acting almost as though he were seeing it for the first time. Finally, he tossed the tupinx aside and climbed down the steps.

  Alan decided to approach him.

  “Where are you going?”

  The native gave Alan a curious look before answering.

  “Back to work.” He then sauntered away.

  When Alan turned around, Jumper was holding two tupinx.

  “These are ours. They were right where we left them.” Jumper proceeded to stuff them in his backpack. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Do you remember the shortcut?” Alan asked.

  “I do,” Shaldan said. “Down this street.”

  The three of them walked and ended up veering through a tunnel that took them back through the abandoned polwar game room. An eerie feeling descended upon Alan there, one he found hard to shake.

  When they came to the zoo, Threeclack was standing on the street looking across the mote into the laviel pen. Four other male Sulienites were with him. When he saw Alan, Jumper, and Shaldan, he waved them over. Threeclack was holding a pair of boots, and seemed to be in a particularly good mood. A wide smile was plastered on his face.

  “We might see you out there,” Threeclack said as he handed Jumper the special shoes. “A caravan of traders from the east has been spotted approaching the city. First one in more than a year. We’re going out to greet them.”

  “Well don’t take any more tupinx flutes in trade,” Alan said. “There are hundreds of them lying about the civic arena today, apparently abandoned. And nobody left playing them. The place looks hauntingly like your polwar game room now.”

  “Yes.” Threeclack’s smile somehow widened even further. “You are visiting on an eventful day. Our people have concluded that playing the tupinx is ultimately an unbeneficial pursuit. Today is the stopping day. The activity has now run its course, just as polwar did.”

  “Run its course?” Shaldan asked. “Is the stopping day something that was proclaimed by your leaders, or promoted by media sources?”

  “No. It’s a natural occurrence. It ends the same way it starts: first with a few, and then many who follow. This is the way of our people. Trends are explosive with us, but also fickle—which makes balancing supply and demand tricky. It is notable that this one had a much shorter life than polwar. If you’re interested in the tupinx as a trade item, we can now offer you a limited supply. Limited only because production will now cease.”

  Shaldan nodded. “I’ll discuss it with Trodenjo when he returns, thanks.”

  Jumper seemed uninterested in the entire affair. He was fiddling with the boots.

  “How do these work?” he asked.

  Threeclack pointed to the metal nodules on the outsides of the soles, two on each side placed at the arch and heels.

  “Standard hover technology. They’ll adjust to your weight and find an equilibrium with your gravitational pull. So one size fits all. Same with the shoe size. You’ll notice they look large. You can slip them on over your existing footwear, though you should probably disable the gravity fields on those first. Press the button on the tongue and they’ll snug up. Press it again to relax them for removal.”

  “How do you activate the hover field?”

  “Once they’re tight, fit the toe flange into the heel notch. Either side. Press until you feel it click in. They’ll turn on at a calibrated ratio, nice and easy. Movement is then accomplished by leaning: Sideways leaning for lateral movement, slight forward and backward leaning for ascension and descent, strong forward and backward leaning for forward and backward lateral movement. Would you like a demonstration?”

  “No,” Jumper said. “That’s simple enough. We’ll figure it out from there.”

  “I’m sure you will. Please understand these are designed primarily for safety. The water harvesters use them in the deep mines. You would want a different model for rapid ascension and descent. Being as you expressed a desire to exercise physically, I thought these would be best. Are you certain you wouldn’t like to each have a pair for the climb?”

  Shaldan and Alan looked at each other and shrugged.

  “No thanks,” Jumper said. He buried the hover boots in his backpack. “We only wanted to see a pair of them out of curiosity. Something to play with when we reach the top, maybe. We prefer a freestyle climb.”

  At that moment, everyone’s attention was captured by the sound of Kayla’s voice shouting from the pen.

  “Wasah!”

  Alan looked across the mote just in time to see Casanova charging at a dummy holding a laser.

  “Oh no,” Jumper groaned.

  Casanova didn’t dodge the nondestructive laser beams. One struck him, but not for long. The attack dummy was shortly ripped to pieces. What Casanova lacked in agility he made up for in brute force. Very little was left of the dummy.

  “There goes the x-factor in your mercenary course,” Alan said.

  Jumper slowly shook his head. “Why did she have to do that? He was such a nice cat.”

  Alan couldn’t help but chuckle when he noticed Shaldan staring with a blank look on his face. Jumper frowned at Alan in response. Alan stopped laughing and motioned back towards the pen.

  “Casanova’s not afraid of lasers, Jumper. I was thinking about that the last time I saw him out on the course. Erob forbid he should ever have real weapons fired at him. He’d be a sitting tenson bird. You guys trained him with nondestructive lasers, so he thinks lasers are all harmless beams of light.”

  “Worse than that,” Jumper said. “He knows he’s supposed to stop the attack when one hits him. Or at least, he did. So he sits still afterwards, because he’s trained to be dead in the game when he’s hit. Most of the time he’s really good about that, too. What a waste! I had him trained so perfectly. All over now.”

  Kayla jogged up to the fence on the other side of the mote. She was beaming.

  “Did you see that?” she yelled.

  “Yeah,” Jumper said. “We saw it.” His tone exposed his complete dejection.

  “Oh honey, stop that. He’s going to be fine. And now he’s good for protection, too!”

  “That’s all he’s good for now, Kayla. And there’s nothing to protect us from on Banor.”

  “You need to get over it, Jumper. He’s my cat, remember? And this is my vacation, too.”

  “Whatever,” Jumper said. “We’ll be outside.”

  “See you later, grump.” Kayla turned and ran back towards Fardo and the two cats.

  “Hmm,” Alan said.

  Jumper turned to him. “What?”

  “Have you thought about what’s going to happen when we leave? With Casanova, I mean. How are you guys going to tear him away from Kush, and make him go back in his crate? How is he going to act for the trip home now, and even after he gets home?”

  “You heard her. It’s her cat, her problem.”

  “It may be her cat, but I think her problems are also your problems.”

  “Maybe we can just leave him here,” Jumper said.

  Alan laughed. “Not unless you also plan on leaving Kayla here.”

&
nbsp; Jumper raised his eyebrows and displayed that look again, as if he were considering the possibilities.

  “Come on,” he finally said. “Let’s go climbing.”

  *

  “Sorry to send you off again,” Brandon said. “And for such a long trip.”

  Perry was his usual emotionless self. As the two of them stood on the hangar deck underneath the docked ITF1, he pushed his sleeves up on his forearms.

  “You’re the mission commander. And for good reason. I never question orders from a good commander. But for what it’s worth, I happen to agree with your decision. What we could see of that garbled Chenel message was enough to tip the scales, as far as I’m concerned. Heck, the fact that we’re getting secret messages at all is probably enough. The High General will want it descrambled right away. He also wanted you at Dirg if you strongly suspected an Azaarian coalition with the enemy, which you now do. So that’s where you need to go. I’ll check in with your family and let them know you’re all right.”

  “Thanks, Perry.”

  Perry glanced at the craft across the hangar deck and smiled. “Plan on logging any hours in the real McCoy?”

  “Hadn’t thought about it. Maybe after I get settled in at Dirg, if I have the time—perhaps while waiting for our fleet commander to arrive. It’s tempting enough.”

  “Then what?” Perry asked.

  “After briefing our commanders, I’ll be on my way home. I’m certainly not sticking around and waiting for another battle to start. Had my share of those. Besides, it could be years before the enemy shows themselves again.”

  “I don’t think I agree, especially after that little show Azaar put on for us. Do you know who our fleet commander is out here?”

  “Yes,” Brandon said. “Olut6 gave me his name. General Islog8. I’ve never met him.”

  A wide grin formed on Perry’s face.

  “What? You know him?”

  Perry laughed. “Yeah. I know him. Oh, that Olut6. I always did appreciate serving under a High General with a sense of humor.”

  “What’s so funny about this general?”

  “You’ll see. Good luck, Brandon. See you back home.” Perry turned around and started up the ladder behind him. Brandon watched his hands carefully find their hold, rung by rung, until he reached the open cockpit at the top and slid inside.

  A deckhand then rolled the ladder away and the cockpit canopy came down. The huge mechanical arm that held the ITF1 in place loosened its grip and extended, moving the craft farther away from the hangar wall. Perry and Brandon exchanged waves. Brandon and the deckhands then exited the hangar in preparation for depressurization.

  Brandon felt bad sending Perry on a cramped two-and-a-half day space flight, especially after Perry had just been captive in the same vessel for ten hours. But it had to be done. Perry, of course, never complained when it came to duty. And the ITF1 was a large enough craft to move around in. It had beds and exercise equipment. Even so, long space flights in tight quarters could become mentally excruciating, at least for Brandon. He was happy to be travelling on a larger vessel.

  Back on the bridge, Brandon and the flight crew watched as the hangar opened and the ITF1 emerged again. The fighters moved in to protect it from the ice meteors. They shot a few, though nothing big was in the area at the moment. A few minutes later, the dag lit up and the ITF1 vanished. Brandon’s second in command, the only other human in this section of the galaxy, was gone.

  Command. That was a funny thing to think about. Never before had Brandon been in a position of authority like this. All these crewmembers calling him Commander—it almost made him laugh at first. Brandon was a civilian. He had never given orders before.

  But he was no stranger to making important decisions. And some of those had been under extreme pressure in military situations. That’s when Brandon discovered he was good at keeping his cool under stress. Stress he could handle. It was during the calm reflective times that he became scatterbrained. Too much time to think would often cause him to second-guess himself. Something about high-pressure situations brought out the best in Brandon’s natural ability. Either that or he had always gotten lucky.

  His current task figured to be nearly finished. The tough part was over. Brandon allowed himself a moment of self-recognition. He did a decent job with the Azaarians. As good a job as could probably be done, anyway. And he was making good decisions—with Perry’s help—on how to proceed afterwards. His only mistake was miscalculating the amount of time for Perry to stay away. But in the end, it all worked out. Or maybe he had only gotten lucky again.

  “Plot a course for Dirg,” Brandon said to the captain. “Get us in position. Have the boys make a final sweep around us, and when they think we have a reasonable window clear of the larger rocks, bring them in. Be ready to go as soon as the hangar is secure.”

  “You got it, Commander.”

  Another set of orders. As awkward as they had been to give at first, they were now rolling off his tongue smoothly. Heck, he was even getting used to being called Commander. Maybe being in charge wasn’t such a difficult thing.

  That is, as long as there was some pressure.

  *

  Alan watched Shaldan’s hands carefully find their hold, rock by rock, until he reached the open depression at the top and slid inside.

  He instantly popped back out and scrambled to find a foothold. A dark figure appeared above him. Shaldan’s reaction was panicky. Both his feet slipped. He held on to the ledge outside the depression with his hands as his feet dangled in the air. Ten meters below a set of jagged rocks waited indifferently.

  A great screech bellowed throughout the surrounding air and the dark figure lunged at Shaldan. Shaldan moved his head to avoid being pecked. The huge bird then stabbed at his hands. Shaldan let go with one hand, then found another hold and removed the other hand just as the bird tried to peck it.

  “Hold on Shaldan!” Jumper shouted.

  The sound of Jumper’s voice echoing from below startled the bird. It popped its head over the front side of the ledge, peered at Jumper and Alan, and then took off. Alan watched it soar down the mountainside and then fly off towards one of the green oases.

  “It’s gone!” Jumper yelled back to Shaldan.

  Shaldan managed find steady holds for his hands and feet. He eased his way back down to the small mesa where Alan and Jumper were resting. Alan could tell Jumper was trying not to laugh, but failing.

  “Did you get a close enough look at it?” he said.

  “Too close.” Shaldan sat down between them and breathed heavily. “It’s magnificent, though.”

  “Man, what were you thinking jumping in on it like that?” Alan asked.

  “I didn’t see it at first. Got confused and thought it was up on a higher ledge. Then I came down right next to it. That bird hunches into a ball and looks like a black rock. Came to life when I nudged it. Wasn’t happy.”

  Jumper continued laughing. “You seem to be having issues with animals on this trip. Maybe you should take up a different hobby. Next time you decide to get a better view of one, I’m going to have to dig our weapon out of my pack to protect you.”

  Shaldan eyed Jumper’s backpack. “You have weapons with you?”

  “Only one small hand laser. Trodenjo assured us there were no dangerous animals on Mpar, so that’s all we brought.”

  “Unless you count the tupinx,” Alan said.

  “The flute-drums, right.” Jumper stopped laughing. “We could always break those out and play them. The sound might seduce whatever beast Shaldan finds himself tangling with.”

  Alan pointed down. “The problem is they might also seduce us. Right off the mountainside.”

  Jumper’s eyes followed Alan’s finger. “Hey, there’s Threeclack and his entourage, going out to meet the traders.”

  Alan looked to the ground and realized just how far up they had climbed. The Sulienites were tiny.

  “They’re headed south,” Shaldan said. “Not
east. Looks like they’re going through the canyon.”

  Alan could see where the southern pathway turned in the distance. It followed the base of the rocks below them before angling left and vanishing in a valley between two more mountain ranges, eventually coming back out on the eastern horizon. Threeclack’s group appeared to be moving at a rapid pace.

  “The Sulienites really are a unique people,” Alan mused.

  “Because of their reclusiveness?” Shaldan asked.

  “I was thinking more about their fascination with new activities—polwar and the tupinx in particular, and then their tendency to abruptly lose interest. But yes, that too. Reclusiveness and attraction to new things is an odd combination. Perhaps that’s what makes them suddenly all quit a popular hobby.”

  Jumper spoke as he began fumbling through his pack. “Threeclack said it’s because they came to realize those hobbies had no value. Not just because they lost interest. It’s like they realized they were wasting their time on unprofitable pursuits.”

  “They’re not much different from my race in that regard,” Shaldan said. “We’re an efficiency-minded people, trained from youth to recognize and pursue profitable courses of action.”

  “But polwar,” Alan argued, “and this flute-drum thing, are terribly addicting activities. It’s not so easy to suddenly quit something like that, even when you’ve come to admit it’s a bad thing.”

  “I quit polwar,” Jumper said as he pulled both tupinx out and set them on the rock. “It wasn’t that hard.” He kept searching through the pack.

  “You quit when we moved to Banor, where there is no polwar, so you couldn’t play anymore. That’s not the same thing as voluntarily quitting.”

  “No, but I also quit the tournament after the second event. I could have kept entering that. Extat, people expected me too, being a former champion.”

  “But you couldn’t practice anymore, which is probably why you lost. And why you never entered again, right? You couldn’t stay in practice enough to compete at a top level.”