He’d intentionally jammed the pistol and was showing Snow how to clear it. He patted his pockets, looking for something to help pry out the last bits of the charge casing, and his hand came across the envelope given to him by Duncan.
Max handed the pistol to Snow while he pulled the letter from his jacket, intending to use the paper envelope of the HOSaS junk-mail to make a custom tool and finish cleaning the weapon. He slit the envelope open, careful to not tear it, then tossed the letter aside. He folded, cut, and rolled the envelope into the desired shape for clearing the weapon. He placed his hand out, palm open in request for the pistol but there was no response from Snow. He turned to find she had abandoned the lesson and was instead reading the HOSaS letter.
“You missed all of the folding and rolling…” Max said peevishly.
“There there…” She patted his arm and kept reading. When she finished the first page she asked, “Are they always handwritten?”
“I doubt it. HOSaS has printers. Computer printers. Clickity-clicky-click,” Max said.
“Could this be written by…” she flipped to the last page, “It is. It’s from Freenan.” She kept reading.
Max picked up the first page. That it was handwritten, was a bit odd. But it still seemed to be the usual ‘Go Team!’ fluff he would expect from a pre-survey letter. It was strange that his pre-survey letter arrived after the survey’s start date, however. He unrolled his tool and checked the stamp on the envelope. It may have arrived late, but it was certainly sent early enough to have arrived on time.
“I think he sent you a warning, listen, ‘be alert to dangers from friend and foe and beyond those you might expect from cold or crab. As you must certainly know, you are not the first to attempt this survey and the last surveyors were lost to us. The circumstance of that disappearance is still unknown.’ And then he goes on with more barf about honor and exploration.” Snow said and handed him the page.
Max took it and read it over.
“What do you think?” she said.
“Seems like maybe just another layer of crab chuff, Freenan playing us, but…”
“But?”
“But it arrived late. It should have arrived before I left, but it didn’t. It was delayed… It seems like if he was playing me, it would have arrived on time.”
“Not that it matters now. Even if we did trust Freenan, there is no way for us to contact him. We will be in New York soon and then we will have all the time we need to expose these crab chokers,” she said.
Max shook his head.
“Haters? Lickers? Licks? Crab licks.”
Max nodded.
“All the time we need to expose these crab-licks,” she said.
Though the canal was not busy, they did pass other boats every hour or so, loosely grouped from their passage through the New York lock. Though there was not a large water level difference between the canal and the Beldorath, the inland sea which bordered New York, the lock was designed to help filter out the larger sea monsters and keep the canal safe. At least from an above water perspective.
Max wondered what the people on those boats would think when they reached the seaward dock. Would they remember the last boat they had passed before encountering the carnage at the lock? He briefly considered warning the first vessel they passed. What would he say to them? He decided It was a no-time-to-explain situation if ever there was one. He wasn’t worried news would reach the authorities before they arrived in New York. They were traveling at the speed of information in these parts, and they were at the leading edge.
Both Max and Snow were more subdued in their journey up the canal, than they had been in the days previous, approaching it. There were moments of forced levity, but there were no spontaneous games of ‘Hot Lava’ or its like.
Max tried to make it clear, the killer deserved what he got, and more. Snow agreed of course, but the memory of those innocents killed in front of them kept the mood somber.
Slowly and quietly they slipped by a much flatter landscape than they’d seen anywhere along the coast. The water level of the canal was in most cases high on the sloped bank. To the north was lush green, and red, and purple ground cover. To the south was the infamous guardian forest separating the land of Tawnee from the Coastal and Valley people of the North. Snow was watching the forest as they sailed past in the closing hours of the long day as True Night approached.
“It’s pretty,” she said.
“By all means, observe the beauty. Just don’t forget the fangs,” replied Max.
“Fangs? I’ve only seen tentacles,” she said, unmoved.
“They’re there. The yigrit, distant cousins of Doozer, though you might not think so to see them. They are tall with thin legs and bodies. They prowl the forest, looking for hot flesh!” Max said. “Also, corpses of the already deceased. They definitely prefer corpses. Still, they are scary. Like super creepy scary and if you give them a chance they will kill you and eat you.”
“It can’t be that bad,” she said.
“The yigrit are the least of the forest’s horrors. They have to come and get you and, though sneaky, if you stay alert you can fight them off or scare them away. It’s the ambush predators you really need to worry about. Pit trap gorgers and worst of all, tether hunting lancers.”
Snow stopped looking at the forest now and was paying full attention.
“They both come in various sizes. The big pit trap gorgers don’t eat very often. The biggest don’t eat for years at a time. Their pits become covered with leaf litter, branches, and other dirt until they disappear. When they get hungry enough, they have to wait for something big and tasty to walk across their covered pits. The ground opens wide, and I do mean wide. The big old ones can span fifteen feet or more. When the food falls in, they seal up the pit and take their time digesting.”
Snow was trying to feign a cool nonchalance, but her eyes had an edge of barf to them, and her nose was wrinkled ever so slightly in disgust.
“Though, as I said it’s the tether hunters, the lancers, that are the worst. You almost never see them, unlike the yigrit, and they don’t sleep for years at a time like the gorgers. They blend in perfectly with the trees. Their carapaces mimic the shape of fungal trees, bark, and branch. They don’t move at all while they’re hunting and the only distinguishing feature to pick them out from the forest is the tethered lance attached to their tails. When primed to launch, they can fling the lance, from a standstill, with vastly more power than a human could with a running start. Even you,” he said, “The lance flies through the air pulling behind it a narrow but strong filament tether. When it strikes its target, the lancer pulls in the tether and along with it, the skewered prey.”
Snow had one eye and one cheek raised in skepticism, “It can’t—”
“Then it eats.”
“Barf,” she said. “It can’t be as bad as a death sentence. Your ancestors got through didn’t they?”
“They were either extremely lucky, or there were a lot of them to begin with so that some made it through. Even the lancers can only eat so much,” Max said.
“Grim,” she said.
Snow continued to gaze south, into or through the forest, until the sun set in the east. Night came slowly. The speed of darkness at the beginning of True Night was often slow because, though Mega was partially concealed below the horizon, it was positioned opposite of the sun, therefore the hemisphere that remained in view was fully lit.
But within a few hours, the full darkness of true night arrived when Mega slipped completely below the horizon. Soon they could see nothing at all. The sounds of the forest were amplified in the night, and blindness heightened Max’s other senses. He could feel the wind more consciously and hear every clack, pop, chitter or screech. The beasts of the forest came alive in the dark, and they had a lot to say.
The air cooled quickly as cold air in the west was drawn in as warm air in the east flowed upwards. They took full advantage of the brief burst of wind. Lamps were lit an
d positioned in the outer hull so the canal’s banks could be seen, and Snow was positioned at the bow as lookout.
With no way to safely sail solo at night, they weighed anchor when it was time for food or sleep. The boat was well stocked with alcohol and so they were able to drink away their sorrows before falling into drunken sleep.
The loudness of the forest took on new meaning when they awoke and continued sailing in the dark, this time hungover. After a collision with some of the only rocks along the entire canal, they decided to sleep early.
When they awoke for the second time, thirty hours of night had passed, and blessed daylight had returned. The side of the boat was scraped, but with the primary advantage of a Garg shell boat being extreme durability, Max had harbored little fear of real damage. The snails were regularly pushed onto rocks while in the safety of shallow water. Much of that shell strength remained when the snails were scraped out. And with this particular vessel’s hull, boat designers went a step further, coaxing the bio-engineered snail to shape and strengthen it further.
The next full day and night of sailing was better. Max hadn’t forgotten the bloody violence of the lock, but he thought about it less. And by the beginning of the third day, Snow’s chirpy optimism had returned to near full strength. Seeing Snow recover helped Max to recover as well. The day was full of smiles, jokes, and even some genuine laughter. The horrors were behind them, and New York and their goal to reach it were only hours ahead. With luck they would reach that goal by first light the next morning.
It was only a short while before dark when they saw another boat anchored in the canal ahead of them. Then they saw another, and another. Soon they could see a small traffic jam in the distance
“Hey!” Snow said, “We got here in time for the annual, New York Highway Canal Jamboree!”
Max smiled, but he wasn’t feeling it. He began removing the telescope cover which, like everything on the shiny expensive boat, was well crafted, new, and made of clean, bright canvas and a high-grade synthetic fabric. Underneath was not a telescope but a set of fine binoculars. Much nicer than the pair on his boat. Its handholds had the mother of pearl sheen of polished shell which contrasted with the plastic and polymer of the remaining housing. He aimed them forward, towards the traffic jam ahead and the smile left his face.
What at first had seemed to be a small flotilla was in fact a few small vessels and one hulking mothership. Its elegant, smooth, predatory white hull was long enough to physically block almost a third of the canal. In place of a mast it had a smokestack puffing little white clouds into the darkening sky. Forward and aft of the central stack were weapon emplacements, presumably filled with machine guns, rockets, cannons and other fantastic technology of the Tawnee. With its well-maintained gleaming white hulls, the Tawnee warship would have been beautiful, were it not for its purpose. Max let the sails out and their craft quickly slowed, first to a stop, then very slowly it slipped backwards along the canal in the water’s current.
Snow wore a look of confusion.
“It’s not a jamboree,” Max said, “it’s a blockade.”
Snow said, “For us?”
“It’s definitely for us,” he said solemnly.
“Double barf,” she said.
Chapter 32
Snow turned to the boat’s life preserver and punched it savagely. Unsatisfied, she picked it up and smashed it repeatedly against the mast until it broke in two, showering herself with a cloud of tiny foam particles.
“We should have just stayed in SoChar! We could have watched movies and eaten candy and been… happy,” she said.
“They would have found us there. And when they did, they would not have worried about our rights and privileges,” Max said.
Though he was clearly concerned he might become a victim of collateral damage, he bravely stood his ground.
“So, going to New York? The city they control. That will make us safer?” Snow said.
She continued to smash the former life ring, reducing it to smaller and smaller pieces. Doozer attacked the larger chunks of foam that landed on the deck. But when they didn’t fight back, he grew bored and turned to the task of clearing his fur of countless white specks of plastic.
“We’ve gone over this. At home, they follow the rule of law. At home it is sacred. If they didn’t follow the rules there, it would weaken all their arguments about us and lower them to our level,” Max said.
Snow didn’t like it when facts were at odds with how she felt, and she felt like this all seemed stupid. “This all seems stupid,” she said.
“It is stupid,” he agreed, “but…”
He shrugged, apparently at a loss.
“So, what are we going to do?” she asked, slightly calmer, having all but annihilated the foam ring.
Doozer shook his fluffy coat in a further attempt to eject the foam bits stuck in his fur.
“I don’t know.”
Despite having no plan, Max looked somehow relieved.
Snow had a plan. She knew Max would not agree to go into the forest, but she was putting two and two together. Both Freenan and Max said the same thing. The Tawnee and HOSaS would probably leave them alone if they were to reach New York. But New York was just a satellite. If they got to Tawnee, they would have to be safe. One toe Freenan said. One toe.
“It’ll be dark in an hour. If we stay put until then, we can head back without looking too suspicious,” Max said.
“I don’t think they’re going to wait until then. Look.”
Snow pointed past Max up the canal towards the blockade. A white sided boat, much smaller than the small capital ship but still much larger than their own, was moving at high speed across the water, headed in their direction. And, like its big daddy ship, it had no sail. It was powered with some Tawnee technology. It seemed ‘normal’ enough to Snow, but she had seen nothing like it since waking from her pod. It blew right past a number of vessels and was headed right for them. Then, as rapidly as it had accelerated it slowed and approached a small white, spiral sided, Garg shell vessel.
“That is a bad sign,” Snow said.
“Barf,” Max said.
The patrol vessel had a loudspeaker from which commands were barking and the small boat was ordered to prepare for boarding.
“We can’t outrun that…” Max said.
Snow stood tall on the bow and looked to shore. They could land easily on either side. To the North, it was wide open. There was plenty of low scrub but it was too low to supply much cover. To the south was of course the forest.
Max grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back down to the deck. “Get down,” he said.
“They are going to know someone’s on the boat,” she said.
“They don’t know there are two of us. Stay below and steer us closer to shore,” Max said.
“They are looking for you, though,” she said.
She shouldn’t have had to say it. It should be obvious.
“They might be…” he started to say.
“Might be?” she questioned.
“They probably are, yes. Almost certainly. But no matter who they are looking for, if they find you, the gig is up. You’re all out of wigs remember?” Max said.
“If we know they are going to catch us then why are we even going to let it get that far? Let’s book it to the woods right now, while we still have the chance,” Snow said.
“The woods equal certain death,” Max said, clearly irritated that he had to say it again.
“Almost,” she said. “Almost certain death. But if they catch us, they will definitely kill you. They have had an assassin after you for weeks or months or whatever. They are not going to stop now.”
Max clearly didn’t like it. He was about to say so when they both heard the noise. The patrol boat was moving again.
“Stay below and keep Doozer with you, they might just shoot him on sight,” he said, “If you swim for it, you’ll probably make it, the canal is safe. Ish.”
He pulle
d the pistol from his jacket pocket and handed it to her then turned and stood up at the wheel. He pulled in the sails and nursed what he could out of the weak breeze. The boat limped slowly to shore and Snow went below deck. She grabbed the killer’s backpack they’d found earlier and stuffed it with gear. A large water bladder, clothes, and a blanket went into the bag. She was attaching a small digester from the boat’s storage as well as the killer’s digester when she heard a loudspeaker yelling for them to halt. She had just put it by the rear hatch when she heard a gunshot.
Chapter 33
“Whoa!” Max said, “Keep it civil, folks.” He turned the boat into the wind and depowered the sail. The boat quickly slowed, and he raised his hands. They were closer to shore. But not close enough to make a run for it. “I was just trying to get out of your way—”
“Prepare to be boarded.” The voice from the speaker was calm but loud, and it echoed off the water and the banks of the canal.
Max wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do to prepare, so he just stood there with his arms raised. The large boat approached at an alarming speed. Then it slowed and, almost magically reversed, so that when it bumped into Max’s boat, it only just nudged them. Gentle though it was, it still turned their boat such that the sails again filled, and they began moving closer to shore. Max tried to keep the smile from his face with limited success. Luckily, the armed men aboard the patrol ship didn’t notice his smirk. They did however notice his boat was moving again.
“We told you to halt!” shouted the loudspeaker.
“You nudged the boat,” Max said weakly.
Starship Relic (Lost Colony Uprising Book 1) Page 16