“Back in line!” Max shouted, and followed up with a guttural command that his sled team would actually understand. Comprehending human language was well outside their capability. Crab communication was based more on low chitters, with the occasional click or pop for emphasis.
But the smell of the bird colony, repulsive to Max, was a near overwhelming allure to the hairy stilt crabs that made up his sled team. They split the difference between obedience and full rebellion, edging their way towards the scent of the colony, eager to rampage through the birds, and feast upon easy prey. The birds had of course traveled to this distant wasteland precisely to evade such predators and breed in peace, so naturally they would be miffed by the intrusion.
The two smallest, most loyal crabs, who led the team, strained hard against their long leads to keep the others on track, the smallest more so even than his larger brother. Despite this, Max’s shoulders ached from the long battle to keep them on track towards village of Tuk, and away from the bird colony a hundred yards or so from his preferred path.
A shadow appeared suddenly and Max ducked, avoiding what would have been a solid blow to the back of his head. His crabs saw harmless easy prey, but Max knew the birds were anything but. If the crabs charged in, the birds would fight to protect their offspring. His crabs might weather the storm of hard sharp wings, but Max couldn’t afford damage to his rigid parka. Even so much as a small hole would dangerously expose him to the frigid wind so, sore shoulders or no, Max kept the crabs on track.
The hours of travel dragged in a way they hadn’t during his previous days searching on the tundra. Now he was focused, eager to retrieve the artifact, and escape with it.
Eventually the minutes and hours ticked by, and he found himself passing through the small line of hills that divided the dry bitter cold of the tundra from the merely unreasonable cold of the coast. Soon after he arrived in Tuk.
The village was tiny, so it didn’t take long to reach the one room cabin Max had rented. Eager though he was to press on, he had no difficulty falling asleep. When he awoke, he sat down and wrote a letter to Duncan, a childhood friend of Max’s father and the closest thing Max had to family. Though Max had been raised in SoChar’s community orphanage, he felt fortunate to have Duncan as a sort of substitute uncle figure. And with no real friends left at the orphanage, Duncan was his official outside point of contact. The survey had its procedures, and an update was one of them.
The letter was short and to the point. He told of the long search and the sudden discovery, leaving out his fall from the sled and near stranding as well as the other minor dangers he’d faced over the last month. He also left out details on how to retrace his steps, which were not strictly required by the rules of the survey. He couldn’t help feeling he was being a bit paranoid. After all, it was Duncan, not Max, who was the conspiracy theorist. Duncan who believed that HOSaS was behind the deaths of Max’s parents.
Duncan was so convinced that HOSaS had killed Max’s parents, Duncan’s best and only friends, that he refused to participate in a survey of his own, and so even now remained a child. In addition to believing them somehow responsible for those deaths Duncan had other issues with HOSaS believing that they stifled progress and handicapped researchers.
Max had serious doubts about Duncan’s theories. After all, HOSaS were the only ones looking for answers. Why would they want to kill their surveyors? Especially ones with a promising lead. It hadn’t made sense to Max, though he’d had no solid substitute theories of his own.
Having now spent over a month in the treacherous terrain of the True North, Max no longer felt any reason to seek alternate theories. He could now easily imagine a survey taking a bad turn in this place, even one that was well-prepared and equipped. Duncan had it wrong. Max’s parents had succumbed to the unforgiving nature of the True North. They were still here somewhere too, frozen in the ice. There was even some chance that Max would find them during the coming excavation. He shuddered at the thought of his axe announcing their presence via a muted impact with their mummified remains. But his parents had been dead and gone since he was too young to remember, he couldn’t predict how he would feel if or when he found them.
The local supply shop was positioned a short distance from the port. Close enough for Max to see the small forest of sail masts poking up past the cliff edge. When Max had first arrived in Tuk, Mega had been lower on the horizon, resulting in a lower tide. But now mega sat high in the sky, or as high as it got here in the True North, and so the ships and the floating docks they were moored to were riding near the peak of high tide.
Max opened the door to the small building, which was constructed from a hodgepodge of building materials, imported logs, the carapace of large crabs, and whole sections of massive seashells. Though made of primitive materials, Max couldn’t deny their effectiveness. Outside it was super crazy cold, but inside it was rather comfortable.
It took a moment for Max eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior. The shop was crammed with shelves, and the shelves were crammed with wares. Ropes, tools, and what counted as luxury items to the fisher folk that lived and worked in Tuk. There seemed to be no organization at all. Items were placed seemingly at random, perhaps on whichever shelf was closest at the time. Max turned sideways to move through the cramped shop to the counter. Behind the counter, exactly as he had been in previous visits, sat Nerrian, the shop owner.
“How goes the survey man-child?” said Nerrian in greeting.
Max took no offense at the comment. He had been a man for a few years, but the completion of a survey stood between him being a child and becoming an adult. He returned the greeting with a wave.
He opened his mouth intending to tell Nerrian all about his rediscovery of the star. But in a fit of sudden paranoia, he changed his mind.
Instead he said, “Should be done soon enough, I guess. As long as I can keep warm and fed. I need some tools to finish off though.”
It took effort not to share what he’d discovered. He’d neither seen nor spoken to any other humans for many days, and his urge to connect with a non-crab entity was strong. But he wondered, did his parents speak of their discovery? Was doing so what had gotten them killed? Obviously, now that he was closing in on the prize, Duncan’s paranoia was closing in on his brain.
Max handed Nerrian a list of items and the letter to be mailed.
“Why you’ve come all the way up here…” He gestured nonspecifically and shook his head. “It’s beyond me. I went south for my survey.”
Max’s eyes widened a moment later, when he realized Nerrian meant not merely south of here, but to The South, beyond Tawnee even. Now there was a story to be told, of the journey alone if nothing more.
“It was like a holiday. Warm night and day. And the ladies? They wore near nothing at all. Too hot. They had to take off almost all their clothes,” Nerrian said, and grinned at the memory.
“I thought those were just rumors,” Max said. He had heard tales of a clothing optional South almost as often as he’d heard tales of the South. He’d always dismissed them as mere stories, as he was inclined to now.
Nerrian’s smile broadened, reminding Max of the smiles of others, children at the orphanage, as they told similar tales. The truth of the matter was as opaque as ever. A mystery for another day.
“Of course, there weren’t any people at all at my survey site, but I spent little time there. I stayed in Entaarguuishawa for every moment possible.”
Under any other circumstances Max would have been eager to hear the stories of faraway Entaarguuishawa, so exotic, and dangerous. How Nerrian might have passed into that Region Max could not guess. It stretched the credibility of the story. In any case, true or false, Max would happily have sat through the tale were he not currently so focused on his own adventure.
***
The return trip to the artifact site dragged on more even than the trip into town. Max was filled with excitement at the prospect of the imminent excavation, and it pr
evented him from drifting off into the time-accelerated state in his subconscious.
Trying to avoid trouble with the seabirds, he gave that colony a wide berth. Hours later, long after he should have arrived, he realized the cost of the small detour. He was off course and had missed the site. In the end he was forced to backtrack then follow his original tracks more directly. His feelings of foolishness peaked while passing the seabird colony. The crab team, still full after their large meal in Tuk, seemed this time to barely notice the vast acres of easy prey.
The sun had set by the time he arrived, relieved but exhausted at the excavation site. He set up a shelter, fed the crabs, and went to sleep.
It was of course still night when he awoke and started digging. Thanks to Mega’s light, and the whiteness of the surrounding terrain, it was as bright at night as a cloudy day. But it was not bright enough to see into the ice column, and Max began to wonder if he had been right in the head the night before, if he had in fact seen what he thought he had seen. After thirteen days alone under the stars, with no more company than a team of furry crabs, it might be crazier to assume he hadn’t gone a bit nuts, than to assume he had.
Despite his doubts, he continued digging. Only a few hours into his work he got an answer. The whole site lit up, bathing him in a rainbow of lights that flitted and danced across the walls of the shallow trench he’d so far managed to dig. Below the ice, now clearer than day, was the glowing cylinder he’d seen the night before. He wasn’t crazy. The star was real.
Twice each day, as he worked his way down deeper and deeper below the surface, the artifact entertained him with its attention-seeking light show.
Finally, after two and a half solar days digging, one hundred and fifty plus hours, only a few more inches of ice stood between him and the artifacts leading edge. It was almost dawn and Mega after six days of travel had finally reached the far horizon and began its unhurried passage to the other side of Grailliyn. When nighttime next rolled around, Mega would cross over the horizon and trigger the beginning six days of True Night. During True Night, the sky and everything beneath it, was pitch black, leaving only the stars for light. Even in the bright white terrain of the True North it would be very dark. Max much preferred to travel in either daylight or Mega-light, so he let that motivate him to finish the excavation within the next twenty-one hours.
“No time like the current time…” he said and took another sip of his formerly hot tea. “Better out than in! That ice won’t excavate itself… If you don’t get up right now… I swear… I’ll… well, I’ll chug the rest of this very hot tea!”
When, a moment later, he still hadn’t gotten up Max followed through with the threat, swallowing the remainder of the barely warm tea. Then he finally got up, climbed down the bright yellow rope ladder that led to the bottom of the pit, picked up his stone-headed axe, and got to work.
Two naps, countless trips up and down the ladder, and twenty hours later, the star was loosed from the ice and ready to be hauled to the surface.
Standing at the top of the excavation shaft Max was suddenly filled with surge of energy and excitement. Recklessly, not to mention ineptly, he danced like no one was watching, and nearly fell into the huge hole in the ice nearby.
The star itself was a cylindrical artifact measuring more than eight feet in length. It had smooth sides and bullet-like tapered points on each end. And at less than two hundred pounds, it was rather lighter than he’d expected.
Max secured the star in his ice waste tarp and raised it to the surface with the pulley. He packed up the tent covering the excavation hole, where he’d both worked and slept, and then finally pulled the artifact clear.
When he’d finished loading the artifact onto the sled, more than a third of the cylinder was still hanging off the back, leaving only a small space for him on the sled in front.
Next, he busied himself, gathering up the rest of his gear and laying it out by the sled. With all his gear collected, he started to feel that thrill of excitement again. He was nearly finished. Soon he would be away, with nothing but travel time between himself and warmer climes. He stood and stretched for a moment, pondering, and planning in which order things would be loaded. He decided to place the tent first and bent over to grab it. There was a crack in the air above him where he had just been. A split second later there was another sound, similar to the report of a gun firing in the distance.
Max stood stupidly staring in the direction of the sound, which had so closely resembled that of gunfire. He saw nothing but white frozen terrain. But his mind slowly chambered a radical thought. What was the chance that that sound had been gun fire? Low. Very low indeed. But not zero? No. Certainly not zero.
The answer locked into place. Max dropped to the ground as another bullet cracked overhead. Max scrambled for cover behind the star.
He crouched low, hoping he was fully covered. After a moment he popped up to take a peek. Before he could see any attacker, another shot ricocheted off the star. Max flattened back down. For a moment he considered his gear, neatly stacked nearby, just out of safety. It had been expensive. He reached out for the block and tackle, but he thought better of it and jerked his hand back.
He’d already harnessed the sled team and fastened them to the sled, but to keep them from scuttling off, their lines had been wrapped around a wooden stake in the ice. The team of stilt crabs sat unmoving in front of him. So why did he hear the sound of crab legs dashing through the snow?
He stiffened. He had seen what a crab could do to another crab and it would be no better for him. His axe lay to the side of the sled, two feet from safety. Hooking his foot on the sled, he reached out for the axe handle. A shot breezed by his arm, punching a hole in the rigid sleeve of his parka, but he managed to grab the handle of the axe. He pulled himself and the axe handle back to safety behind the cylinder and was immediately struck from above, knocking the axe from his hands. He raised his hands to defend himself from the grasping legs of the stilt crab. He well knew that if the crab got a solid grip on him it would mean a truly messy end for Max Brightasson, child surveyor.
He flailed at the crab, pushing it off and letting its momentum carry it away before it could grab solid hold of him. It landed on its back and slid a few feet towards his crab team. Max dove forward staying low and shoved it the rest of the way to his sled team. One moment the team members were as still as stones, next they were on the stranger, tearing and rending it. Soon all that was left was a steaming hot bloody purple mess marring the white snow.
“Go team,” Max said.
The attacking crab was not long dead when the sled team finished dismantling it, eating it, and settled down again to wait. Max did not watch the interesting nature scene unfold. He grabbed up his axe and waited for the second crab, which he could hear tick-tick-ticking its way towards him from somewhere beyond the star. It leaped up onto the cylinder and scuttled menacingly towards Max.
As the crab crested the star, Max swung. The axe penetrated fully through the crab and dug solidly into the cylinder pinning the crab in place. Its legs worked, struggling feebly to pry itself free. Another shot rang out. This time the shot hit his axe and the stone bullet shattered on impact. Tiny fragments hit Max, spread across his face, chest, and arm. He howled in pain as he slid back down behind the cylinder.
His face throbbed and he kept his eyes closed tight, afraid to open them and find that he still saw nothing. A crab in his sled team chittered as though curious. Max braced himself and opened his eyes to find everything blurry.
He rubbed his eyes and his vision cleared. He looked ahead of the sled to the stake holding them in place. Unless he unhooked the sled, they would be going nowhere. He slid forward onto the ice and crawled towards the stake. When he dared go no further, he grabbed the line behind him leading to the sled and pulled it towards him. Slowly, he repeated the sequence, crawling, pulling, crawling, pulling. Another shot cracked past him as he reached the stake. The crab team was eager to go, and seei
ng Max unhook the line they got up and began taking up the slack. Max, staying low, flopped onto the sled and shouted commands to the team. They took off, charging over the ice and snow, their feet reflexively fanning open over snow and clicking back into sharp clawed points over ice.
Behind him, the star lit up, blinking its light show in a spiral pattern across its surface.
Chapter 3
Max drove the sled team at top speed until they’d placed a few miles between themselves and the excavation site. No one followed. Away from the dig site the terrain was again stark white, flat, and featureless. Gusts of wind whipped particles of ice and snow into the air, causing miniature blizzards that impaired his view intermittently. But between gusts he could see for miles. He would know if someone was following.
Maybe his assailants were not prepared to give chase, or maybe they were now short a pair of crabs in their sled team and unable to keep up. Whatever the case, with no sign of pursuit, Max stopped to deal with his injuries. Not for the first time, he considered dumping the star. Surely, that was all they were after.
He pried his axe free, releasing the second attack crab pinned to the star. He tossed the crab to his team, and then took some time to assess his shrapnel-filled face. He winced while prodding gently with the rigid finger of his work glove. His injuries there were painful but did not seem serious enough to keep him from moving on. More serious were the wounds to his clothing. Even in daylight the wind was deadly, the biting cold rushed into every gap in his rigid parka as he fled. He’d struggled with limited success to cover the gaps with his free arm, but already he was worryingly cold.
Fortunately, he had not left behind his universal repair tool, a roll of gray tape he kept on hand at all times. Using a small ceramic knife, he shaved the fur around the holes in his parka and generously covered them with tape. When finished, his formerly stark white parka, formed from the well-insulated furry exoskeleton of crabs similar to those in his sled team, was marred with flecks of red brown blood and patches of gray. He considered gathering up the clumps of fur left lying on the snow, but a fierce gust of wind spread them far and wide. In any case his path remained obvious. The sled’s tracks would leave little doubt as to where he had gone, or where he was headed.
Starship Relic (Lost Colony Uprising Book 1) Page 2