IN NATURA: a science fiction novel (ARZAT SERIES Book 2)

by David Samuel Frazier

  Ara immediately dropped into a squat and again placed her palms to the ground, sniffing and flicking the air as she did so. She listened intently while her nose and tongue continued to sort out the various scents that had been left in the area.

  There had been many humans, she realized, although none of them had been Alex. Many of the dogs and many Arzats had traveled through. Thankfully, the strongest and most recent scent, aside from the animal that had just attacked them, was the one most recognizable of all—that of her mate Mot.

  She rose back up and turned to Tom and Maria.

  “I do not detect any more of these ‘wolf’ animals close by, Tom Pilot. It seems as if there was only the one, and it has decided to leave the area,” Ara said.

  “Well, I’m not surprised, Ara. I think that if I ran into you howling at me like that, I would leave the area too!” Tom’s heart was still beating so fast he could feel his pulse in his temples. He was still looking in the direction the lone wolf had taken.

  “I do not understand, Tom Pilot.”

  “Never mind, Ara. Thanks for jumping in,” he said, finally relaxing.

  He turned and looked at Maria, who seemed to be relatively calm given the circumstances. This was obviously not her first encounter with wolves. Tom wished he could speak with her directly.

  “Obos,” Maria said, pointing in the direction the wolf had run.

  “That is the female’s spoken word for the animals you call ‘wolves’,” Tom Pilot.

  Interesting. That is very close to the Spanish word lobos, he thought. Tom suddenly remembered an English professor in college that had proclaimed that Spanish would soon be the dominant language in all of North America. That prophecy seemed to have been well on its way to happening prior to the asteroid strike. Perhaps Maria’s own language had morphed into some hybrid version of it. Tom didn’t speak much Spanish himself, but Alex did. Maybe she can figure out how to communicate with her directly, he thought.

  Yes, if she is still alive, Ara worried to herself, reading the Pilot’s mind. “We need to go.”

  * * *

  The threesome proceeded along the rest of the morning at what Tom considered breakneck speed. Ara was on point, with Maria in the middle and Tom taking up the rear guard. Not since he had been in Army Ranger training had he been forced to maintain such a pace. Ara, he was sure, probably considered their group to be hardly moving. Maria, on the other hand, seemed to be having no trouble keeping up, despite the young woman’s very pregnant condition.

  I’m getting old, he thought for the second time as he stepped over a boulder.

  “You are not so old as you are slow, Tom Pilot,” Ara said to him silently as she moved along in front. “I remember seeing many humans in the ARC who had far more seasons than you.”

  “Damn, Ara, I can hardly have a thought without you intercepting it!”

  “Sorry, Tom,” Ara said, without the least bit of guilt. “I was just checking to see how you were doing and . . . well . . .”

  “Speaking of how we are doing—how is Maria?”

  “She says she is feeling better since her sleep. I have been speaking with her almost the entire journey. She has great knowledge of this area, Tom Pilot, and also great knowledge of how to survive here.”

  “What about Alex?”

  “She told me the entire story from the time she left her clan up until the moment that Alex was taken. I have also been able to see things more clearly in her memories as well. Unfortunately, she was not close when the Arzat attacked . . . or . . . . How would you say it? ‘Abducted’ Alex? I cannot get a completely clear picture of it.”

  Ara stopped for a moment, sniffed and flicked the air with her tongue, then continued on.

  Tom was breathing heavily and hoping that Ara would take a break. “Are we getting any closer, Ara?”

  “Closer to what, Tom Pilot?”

  “Anything,” Tom said, realizing the stupidity of his question.

  Ara stopped again and flicked and sniffed carefully. “We are close to water. I can tell you that, Tom Pilot. Let’s find it, and we can take a drink, and you and the female can rest for a moment.”

  For a moment! How about for a week, Tom thought, praying that the water was as “close” as the Arzat had just made it sound.

  “It is close, Tom Pilot,” Ara said, twisting her head around on her neck so far that Tom found it unnerving. The Arzat was looking straight back at Tom though her body was still moving forward. He was further surprised when he saw what he thought was a wink!

  * * *

  As promised and in short order, they reached a rather sizable creek. The water was running swiftly over a shallow bed of smooth river rocks. On the far side, the creek turned back hard to the right and slowed. A natural beach of sand had formed there.

  Ara stepped gingerly over the dry rocks on the creek’s bank and squatted. She carefully sniffed and tested the water. “The water is good,” she said, taking a large sip of it from the palm of her hand.

  Tom watched as Maria quickly bent down, washed her hands briefly in the flow, then cupped them and began drinking very much like the Arzat. He peeled off his makeshift pack, which was largely made up of what was left of the clothing they had brought from the ARC, and found his own place at the water’s edge. Tom noticed that—despite having a good long drink herself—Ara’s eyes were constantly scanning the area, one hand planted firmly on the earth testing the ground for vibrations. Suddenly, she rose and sprang across the creek in a single bound, easily landing on the sandy spot on the far side a full thirty feet away.

  “Jesus, Ara!” Tom said aloud, startled by the suddenness of her movement.

  Maria appeared to be equally as shocked by Ara’s leap. She glanced at Tom, water running through her cupped hands.

  “Sorry Tom,” Ara said from across the water, carefully looking at the indentations she had just discovered. “I forget that you humans are not used to the natural movement of Arzats. The wind shifted and I suddenly caught a new scent . . . a number of them actually.”

  “Alex?” Tom asked hopefully, still amazed by the Arzat’s amazingly long jump.

  Ara continued to look at the marks in the sand. “Humans, many of them, riding on the backs of horses.”

  “Horses?”

  That’s interesting, thought Tom, unconsciously glancing back at Maria.

  “Anything else?”

  Ara took a few steps, still concentrating on the ground. She squatted and placed her hand over another indentation. “Yes, Tom Pilot. There is the unmistakable mark of another Arzat. It is that of Mot, son of Url!”

  Tom could hear the ring of happiness emanating from Ara. He watched as she rose and once again leapt back across the creek in a single bound, landing just short enough of the water’s edge to splash Tom in the process.

  “Are you ready to go?” she asked.

  “Jesus, Ara, will you stop doing that,” Tom said, almost laughing, wiping some water from his face. He looked at Ara’s eyes, which were shining.

  “Sometime, Tom Pilot, you really must tell me about this ‘Jesus-thing’ you refer to so often.”

  CHAPTER 31

  ABRAHAM

  Abraham carefully eased his horse down a narrow trail that ran along the steep canyon wall. He let loose of his reins, giving the well-trained beast its head, knowing the animal could find its own way.

  Next to his daughter, there was probably nothing he loved more than the animal he was perched on. He had captured it himself from the midst of a wild herd when it was still in its first season, and he had personally trained and cared for it since. That had been five seasons ago and now the young male had blossomed into one of the finest studs in the tribe.

  He called him Socrates after something he had seen in one of the sacred texts that—as tribal leader—he was personally charged with protecting. There were only a few of the faded and fragile books left. They were stored in a mysterious container that was made of some kind of impervious hard material
the ancients had invented before the end of their world. Highly prized as sacred objects and entrusted to the leader of the tribe from generation to generation—these books were the only tangible link to the ancestors of the Great Emergence.

  Abraham could only guess if what he called his animal was how the word Socrates might have actually been pronounced. The art of actually interpreting the symbols contained within the pages of the texts had gradually been lost over the course of many generations. In fact, the current spoken language seemed to have little or nothing to do with them.

  When Abraham was very young, a tribal Elder had taught him how to read some of the symbols and what was known of their actual pronunciations, but Abraham had been much more interested in learning the ways of hunting, combat, and survival to pay much attention to the lessons. Since then, he had grown into a man, too busy surviving and learning the ways of leadership to spend much time practicing what the Elder had taught him. He had always resolved to eventually get down to more study of the ancient words, but that opportunity never seemed to come. In the meantime, the history of their great Colorado tribe was well enough preserved by the storytellers and the images that were carefully drawn into the leather of their tents.

  Perhaps when I have a son, he had often thought. Perhaps we will study together and finally unlock the secrets of the mysterious symbols. Perhaps we can learn to mark down our actual thoughts as the ancients had obviously done. But that time had also never come. His mate died shortly after the delivery of his first and only child, which unfortunately had been a female. He had named her Maria.

  Since then, besides his responsibilities as tribal leader, his sole focus had been on raising his daughter. In fact, those two preoccupations had even caused him to spurn the many advances that had been made from other eligible females in the tribe who were eager to become his mate. Given the communal nature of the tribe, the women had been mostly responsible for Maria’s initial upbringing anyway, but Abraham had never found one among them to match the mate he had lost.

  In addition to allowing the females to educate Maria in the ways of the females, Abraham had taught his daughter everything he knew about hunting and foraging. By the time of her thirteenth season, she was as skilled with a bow and spear as any young male in the tribe and even more competent than most of them on a horse. Pity she hadn’t been born a male, he had often thought. But for that, she had all the makings of a fine tribal leader.

  As her natural beauty had begun to emerge, Abraham had begun to shudder at the sudden interest of the young males in the tribe. He held them off as long as he could, but when Maria had reached her fifteenth year, even he knew it was time for her to accept a mate. Much to his chagrin, she chose a warrior named Armando, one of Abraham’s least favorite possibilities. It wasn’t that Armando was bad—it was just that there were much better options in his opinion. For a while, Abraham tried to encourage Maria to pursue Moses—his favorite tracker. Moses had much greater skills and more common sense. Armando was still young and foolish and sometimes irreverent and unpredictable. Ultimately, Abraham had capitulated to his daughter’s wishes.

  When, in early spring, Armando had approached Abraham and told him of his plan to venture away from the tribe, Abraham wasn’t completely surprised. The tribe had not done well through the winter and there had been much sickness and hunger. Nonetheless, Abraham had strongly advised against such a move and had considered that Armando would abide by his wishes—especially when he had fully described the dangers and forbidden him from taking any of the tribe’s horses.

  Despite Abraham’s counsel and misgivings, Armando had gathered Maria and a small group of like-minded young adults and children and had left the camp early one morning. Since Armando had officially taken Maria as a mate, there was little that he could say even as tribal chief. As a matter of tradition and tribal law, Maria and her future had become Armando’s sole responsibility the moment they had wed. And, as he had demanded, Armando and the other males in his band had left their horses behind and set out on foot, although even Abraham was well aware that the men would have been perfectly within their rights to take their own mounts with them. He knew that Maria would have only gone if she thought they could do better away from the tribe. When they realize their mistake, they will be back, he had thought.

  But not long after Maria had left, one of his warriors had spotted a group of the lizard men from afar, hunting in the same area that the tribe often hunted. This was highly unusual. In fact, any encounter with the lizards was so infrequent that their actual existence was still regarded more as myth than actual fact. Nonetheless, Abraham’s gut had instantly told him to go after his daughter, and he had quickly assembled a group of warriors to go looking for her and the rest of her party.

  He had been tracking Maria’s group for almost a week when he had stumbled upon the brutal massacre. His tracker Moses had assured him just the day before that they were close to finding Maria, and he had been right. Unfortunately, they had also been too late.

  When he and his men had finally come upon his daughter’s camp, Abraham dismounted Socrates and puked his guts into the tall grass. It was clear that the wolves been there, but that wasn’t what had killed his daughter and her small group. The marks in the trees and the scattered tracks of the lizards told a gruesome story. There were human body parts scattered everywhere.

  He tasked his warriors with carefully combing through the remains of the dead, trying to determine exactly who had been killed. The job was difficult, made more so by the obvious scavenging of wolves and the rapid decomposition of what little was left of the bodies. The stench of the decay was almost too much to bear. Eventually, his men had accounted for all but one of Maria’s original group, but exactly who was missing was impossible to tell. Many of the faces had been mauled beyond recognition.

  Perhaps they took a hostage, thought Abraham hopefully. Perhaps it had been Maria. It was also quite possible that the wolves or some other scavenger had simply carried off the head of one of the victims, which would account for the discrepancy. Even if one had survived the attack, the likelihood of it being Maria was remote at best.

  “Shall we bury them?” asked Moses.

  Abraham was bent over, studying the marks of the lizards, his blood boiling.

  “No, Moses, there is no time. We are going after them. They might have one of our people.”

  Moses knew better than to argue with Abraham. He would have liked to have buried or burned what was left of the victims, but his blood was boiling as well, and he was just as anxious to find the culprits and render justice.

  * * *

  The warriors mounted up and rode hard through the night, almost to the point of endangering the health of their prized horses, but Moses had been brilliant at tracking the beasts. At one point, Moses had been so confident about the lizard’s direction of travel that he had convinced Abraham to take a difficult and dangerous shortcut so they could possibly intercept them.

  His strategy paid off. Moses had not only found the lizards, he had led Abraham’s warriors ahead of them to the cliffs where they could be ambushed. The warriors had left their horses, prepared their weapons, and had quietly waited. That the lizards had chosen to rest just below their hiding place had been nothing more than pure luck.

  Now, as Abraham rode down into the small valley, he began to appraise the slaughter. He dismounted, carefully observing one of the dead lizards. This was the first time he had ever had the opportunity to see one up close.

  In a sense, they almost look to be human, he thought, amazed at the beast’s physical similarities to his own. But the lizards were much larger. Bigger by far than any man he had ever seen. A snake in a human’s body, he thought.

  The other warriors had also made their way down from the cliffs and were similarly engaged in studying the giant reptilians and the pile of skinless human bodies nearby. One of the younger warriors lifted a lizard’s spear. He looked at it for a moment in wonder, screamed a war cry, an
d then brutally thrust the spear several times into the lizard’s corpse.

  At the edge of the canyon, Abraham could see Moses bent over, carefully looking at the ground. “What is it, Moses?”

  At first, his tracker said nothing, continuing to study the earth, moving ahead a few paces at a time. Finally, he rose up and looked at Abraham.

  “One of the lizards has survived.”

  CHAPTER 32

  DOCTOR MOSS

  Alex was still trying to recover from the violent confrontation she had just witnessed. In the dim morning light, she looked over at the enormous cat, which was no longer moving but still bleeding out from the sizable hole in its throat. Its golden eyes were open and staring into space. Except for the nonelliptical pupil, Alex concluded that they were strikingly similar to Ara’s.

  The Arzat was standing over his kill, his own crimson eyes shining with both triumph and pain. Alex could see that he had a large gash in his left shoulder, undoubtedly rendered by one of the cat’s large claws. The wound was bleeding profusely. The blood had run to the black tips of his fingers and was dripping onto the ground. He hardly seemed to notice, his eyes still fixed on the cat.

  “Well,” Alex said telepathically, rising up, “we should probably try to do something about that wound.”

  Za’at blinked, his reverie broken, and unconsciously looked down at his left hand. He wasn’t sure if he was more in shock from the unexpected and viscous battle with the koota or the fact that the uman female had just clearly spoken to him again.

  So you can speak, little uman, he thought. Why, it’s just as though she were an Arzat!

  “Yes,” Alex replied, reading his open mind. She approached him and gently lifted her hand, as if asking permission to examine the wound.

  Za’at didn’t move. His mind was spinning. The umans are just animals, his head kept screaming! Yes, they have weapons and clothes, and yes they are known to have their own language, but they are certainly not civilized! The Elders have always said . . .