The Ways Between Worlds: Peter Cooper

by Larry E. Clarke

  My humanoid host was making his way closer little by little.

  A meter and a half tall, he wore only a brief sleeveless tunic, belted at the waist. Beneath the tunic his skin was smooth and tan. His shoulder length hair was the color or bright copper wires and gleamed with a near metallic sheen as he passed patches of sunlight. About his neck was a string of animal teeth on a leather thong. On his feet were simple scandals. In his left hand he carried a slim javelin. Across his back was slung a quiver of small arrows and a recurved bow.

  He was moving cautiously toward where I sat. He knew that I saw him. I knew that he saw me. Neither had yet made eye contact. As the tree dweller drew closer I decided that he was an adolescent of perhaps 12 or 13 years. Apart from his unusual coloration he could easily have passed for human. (A totally inexplicable similarity for any creature so far removed from Earth.)

  He was slightly built with small straight shoulders, a narrow waist, and broader hips. When he stopped a few meters away we acknowledged each other's presence. I was still singing softly, now a medley of half remembered Christmas carols. Occasionally I paused to insert a few spoken words expressing my friendly intent.

  I rose slowly from my seat, keeping my hands empty and exposed. "I won't hurt you. I need your help. I want to be friends", I repeated slowly, gesturing to indicate myself and him. Slowly I pointed to myself and said "Peter" smiling what I hoped would be a winning smile. No response. I repeated the gesture and my name.

  "J'Leeta" came the soft reply as the youth cocked a digit toward his own chest.

  Simultaneously we each breathed an audible sigh of relied. The pent up stress overtook us as we both began to grin and then to laugh uncontrollably. Bless you comic relief.

  "I am Peter" I began. "I want to be your friend. I came from far away and I need your help". The words were meaningless yet somehow as I continued to speak, unfolding my story I sensed that J'Leeta understood.

  An hour later we sat gesturing and sketching on the back of a large leaf. Between us were a dish of nuts, strips of dried meat, and flagons of water brought down from a supply further up the trunk. J'Leeta had welcomed me with readiness I would not have anticipated even in a more technologically advanced culture. Oh yes.. . on closer inspection I now concluded that J’Leeta was definitely a girl.

  CHAPTER 5

  Two weeks later J'Leeta, whom I now generally called just Leeta and I had established the rudiments for mutual communication. I'd never had any special aptitude for languages but she seemed to have a tremendous knack for comprehending what I was trying to get across and for offering just the right words in her language.

  Leeta was teaching me the trade language of her people rather than that of the tree dwellers who I had learned were only her adopted tribe. She explained that Neslan was the language the Threatens shared with other sentient beings. It was widely used in trading. She also had her own Thretan langua

  "How is it that you came to be here?"

  Leeta began to reply in her own musical language which flowed from her mouth like a spring from a hillside. Slowly, with the help of many gestures and some repetition I got the story. The Tree dwellers had departed shortly before I'd arrived to follow their flocks of birds on some sort of (annual?) migration.

  With each cycle of the seasons the floods came and the birds flew away to the south. While the waters remained the birds looked elsewhere for food. Like the Lapps and their reindeer the tree dwellers guided / followed their flocks to where food was available.

  "How were you left behind?"

  Leeta took some items from the drawing materials we had been using and made a sketch. The image was of an ape-like creature with light yellow fur and four spiderlike arms and legs ending in six slender digits. The tail was drawn wrapped around a branch so I assumed it was also used for grasping.

  "These are the Tree People PeTar" came the melodic voice. As a little one Bolan the boss (biggest?, meanest?) of the tribe brought me here. For a long time I lived among them. Bolan became my father. His mate Sharrak took me as her cub after her own died. Bolan was hunting one day long ago. He found me alone and half starved in the forest. I was young and had passed but 7 or 8 cycles. My parents had been fleeing from some bad ones. Before the bad things found them and killed them my parents hid me in a deep hole in some rocks. I heard them being killed and later saw their bodies. For three days and nights I was alone and very afraid. Bolan found me and brought me here. I was still full of fear. At first some tree people wanted to kill me but Sharrak and some of the other shes stopped them. I remember little pieces of my life before Bolan, but at night I dream of another like me. A she who looks like this".

  In a few moments Leeta had sketched a fine likeness of a woman with copper hair and kind eyes. She clearly had a gift for art which she'd certainly not received from the tree dwellers. Although their level of civilization was far from primitive I'd seen no signs of anything but basic geometric decorations. Their crafts were sturdy and functional but with little to recommend them as art.

  "Why are you not with the tree people?"

  In those days neither of us was ever quite sure that we had really understood what the other was trying to say, nonetheless, Leeta resumed her tale in the halting speech and sign language.

  "Two moons ago (Which I later discovered to be about 25 days) the tribe was preparing for the great journey. A younger male and his she challenged Bolan and Sherrak to be bosses of the tribe. I begged Bolan to yield for he was now old and moved stiffly through the branches. His fur was the color of the sun on water and his teeth not sharp as they were long ago. The two fought. Each of the shes tried to help their mate and also fought with each other. For a time I thought the great god of the tree would let Bolan live but he tired quickly and in the end Rashhar threw him from the tree as he might discard a melon rind. Sharrak jumped after him as the Tree dwellers always do when they are old and their mate dies. She pulled Rashher's she along with her. Perhaps Rashher cared, perhaps not.”

  "I was never truly of the tribe. Only Bolan and Sheerak's protection kept them from driving me away or killing me. Once I saw them eat a hairless one such as yourself. Though Bolan was harsh he taught me well the ways of the forest, how to care for myself. When he and Sheerak died I fled from the home tree with a few supplies. After many days the people of the tree and their kyrien left for the winter roosts. I had no place to go so I returned here.

  Each season before leaving the people hide all traces of life around the home tree lest those who are not of the people discover the tree and the goods left behind. I watched from the woods until I was sure they were gone.

  "But Leeta? How do the tree people move with their flocks? Is the journey a long one?"

  "Yes, Pe-tar. Each day the people cover many twelves (she raised and lowered the fingers of each hand to make this clear) of 'sedes'"

  This unit of distance of course meant nothing to me until Leeta explained that a "sede" was the height of a grandfather tree (about 100+ meters), and that the journey took three sixes of days.

  "How do the people of the Tree keep up with the great flock?" I asked her, still totally confused about how any people on the ground could hope to pace birds in flight across such rough country.

  In reply Leeta once more resorted to her paints and rough sketch board. She rapidly produced a drawing of four great birds with primitive, vulture-like heads. From the leg of each a rope descended to a cross bar trailing behind them in mid-air. Hitched chariot-like to the crossbar was a woven basket of streamlined shape. Through a hole in the top the driver looked out and held jerk-lines attached to harnesses on the heads of each animal. Although the birds were enormous, perhaps what an ostrich would look like if it had wings to match its size, they were clearly not large enough to carry individually the weight of one of the tree people, much less an adult human.

  Even here, where the gravity may have been slightly lighter, muscle powered flight and enormous mass did not mix. My guess was that no animal in th
e team carries more than about 15-20 kilos. There were practical limitations that made the development of any bird large enough to carry a man on its back very unlikely. I judged these animals to be at the upper limit of practical size for true birds.

  There had been finds of enormous pteradactyl and petrodon remains on Earth but it seemed likely that these creatures glided or soared on thermal currents and could not have carried much weight for any distance.

  Over the next few days Leeta and I worked constantly at learning as much as we could about the other and the other's world. She was as keenly curious to know about my world as I hers. Most days we made the trek to the dome at local noon to look for any signs of rescue activity. Each day we found nothing. I installed a new sign on which the days since my arrival were indicated in tally marks and added the line:

  Have made first contact with a single, friendly, local humanoid!

  Evenings we would sit for long hours in lamp light munching dried nuts while Leeta drew and amazing array of plants, animals and even a few creatures which I wasn't sure were either. Two other races which she identified as sentient by showing them clothed, using tools or weapons. I had already seen her sketches of the tree dwellers which she called the Nugas and of her people, the Threets. These new races were the Ysridds and the Grmaths.

  The first were tall thin creatures with arms and legs so slender they took on the appearance of stick figures. The limbs were oddly segmented to give the impression that a large preying mantis had suddenly decided to stand erect. Their skins were ashen grey and the couple Leeta drew each had a half dozen narrow eye slits stretching horizontally across an angular grey face. The mouth parts were surrounded by stiff grey bristles which covered a double row of flat teeth which reminded me of a broken comb.

  Despite their strange appearance, Leeta indicated that they were the gentlest of creatures who ate nothing but plants. Members of this race were said to possess an almost magical knowledge of plants and healing.

  The Grmaths were quite different. They lived far to the south near the tribe's winter roosts. These were drawn with heavy fur striped like a chipmunk's, but they were far from cute or cuddly in appearance. The words "that only a mother could love" came to mind as I looked at them.

  Each was equipped with powerful jaws and a set of claws that could rip through a print copy of the U.S. budget. Sharp incisors overlapped at the end of a long snout. Yellow, cat eyes, looked out from below a heavy brow and above them a wild shock of mane began near the back of the snout and ran down their midline before playing out in the middle of their back.

  Around the mid section of each Leeta had drawn a sash with pockets laden like a G.I. ammo belt. Pouches and purses hung here and there and to each side was slung a dagger with a curved guard. On any other creature the daggers would have looked threatening or ominous but on these nightmares it somehow seemed almost silly. Imagine grizzly bear walking out of the woods armed with a cubscout knife. Also slung from the sash was a set of metal balls bound together with light chain. It looked to me like a weapon of some sort, a cross between a morning star and bolo.

  By now the sun was near its high point for the day and Leeta and I would soon leave for our daily trek to dome. I mentally called it the "transcieving station" as I felt that passengers both arrived and departed there. My estimate was that it had been at least a medium size relay station. Nothing in the immediate area of the dome suggested any form of local transportation to other areas of the planet. Few of the buildings looked like they had been living quarters. I believed the place had worked like the old hub and spokes airline system, with many passing through an airport but few if any having it for their final destination.

  We began the long slow descent in the inner core of the tree. The tree dwellers descended only occasionally from their leafy environment high in the branches. They lived their lives in the branches rarely needing to visit the forest floor. Water they generally collected in cisterns as it rained. The kyrie provided them with meat, eggs, and the raw materials for most of their utensils and household items.

  On the forest floor the tree dwellers were more exposed to the large predators that sometimes hunted in the area. I'd heard enough of their calls in the night to be glad that I now was relatively safe hundreds of feet above them. Leeta laughed as she recalled how terrified I’d been when she had mimicked these calls that first day.

  The slippery steps had dried a bit with our daily passage over them but the descent was still hazardous. It took a long time to wind our way carefully to the bottom. Leeta told me that it was not uncommon for the great trees to be hollow at the core with only the outer walls still growing. This stairwell was a sort of emergency exit for the tree dwellers. Once before in the tribe’s history they had been attacked by a rivals and driven from their old homes to this new location. Many were lost because the only escape was by harnessing the kyrrie. Many died as thy tried to flee on the backs of single birds. Sherrak had described to her how some of the stronger birds did manage to half fly with their burdens before bird and rider spun to the ground. Since that day the people of the Red Kyrrie tribe had always prepared for themselves an alternate exit as insurance for such occasions.

  Grey thunderheads were beginning to build to the west as Leeta and I climbed the hill. We passed along the course of the stream where the ursoid had attackd me, swinging wide to avoid the both the catapults of the porcupine plants and the stench of the still decomposing body. Leeta had looked over the corpse the first time we’d passed it. She had never seen this race before.

  Ten minutes later we were among the outer buildings of the complex. In the close quarters of the ruins I followed Leeta's example and walked down the middle of the overgrown streets so as not to offer an opportunity to be surprised by something lurking behind a crumbling wall.

  As I turned to check behind us I saw a lone animal dart for cover about a hundred yards back. It had been a small creature, no more than knee high, with a funny waddly gait. From the glimpse the thing seemed to have at least six legs and a blunt snout well equipped for eating just about anything.

  "Look, Leeta, What is that funny animal?" I asked as it appeared once again.

  Her eyes widened at the sight of it. From the unmistakable fear in her eyes I knew this was no cocker spaniel. “The drakor. Run Pe-tar, run. A few ever escape them."

  "THEM?"

  CHAPTER 6

  Keeping to our original course toward the dome we broke into a run. Behind us the animal turned its snout skyward and began an eerie warbling howl. Starting with a low rumble its call rose in volume and pitch utill it was so high as to barely heard, only “felt”. The siren-like sound was piercing. Its impact on our nerves was almost electric. Like unceasing “nails on a blackboard” it assaulted our ears and reverberated inside my skull.

  Within seconds a pack of twenty or more animals had rallied behind the scout and were waddling after us as fast as they could. They were humorous looking, and they had not been able to draw closer us despite their obvious attempt at speed. The situation would almost have been funny but for the fact that we weren't drawing away from them either. I was already beginning to tire while they showed absolutely no sign of fatigue. Black pits marked the creature's nostrils. As they waddled after they took turns bringing their noses close to the ground, bloodhound fashion.

  Leeta and I ran faster now that we were near the top of the hill and the grade was not so steep. Perhaps we would outrun them yet. They were rather slow for pack hunters.

  Looking back I could still see a leader a bit ahead of the pack. Its eyes were small and deeply set in sockets at the side of his furry head. As with the ursoid, this creature waddled on only four legs the front set had touched the ground only on the steeper parts of the upgrade and seemed designed for grasping.

  We rounded a corner and lost sight of our pursuers. "This way." I led Leeta over one low, broken wall and then another. Ten minutes later we fell panting in the shade of a plasticine wall.

  "We've
lost them. I don't hear anything behind us."

  Leeta only made a down and away gesture "no" with her hand to reply. After a deep gasp she added, "We dare not stop. Drakor need not see us to follow. By the smell of us they can follow. They will try to circle us so that we may not escape. From the tree once I saw a pack smaller than this take on a full grown Illia. When it was finally exhausted they brought it down and tore out its insides in moments."

  I imagined the giant antlered herd beast beset by the drakor going down to die in rush of crimson as it guts were ripped out.

  "They seldom come to the forest Pet-ar because their prey escapes them in the trees. They have been seen here in the ruins before. The tree people avoid this palace. They speak of other horrible monsters which dwell here".

  Twice more we ran and rested without catching sight of the drakor. We reached the base of the dome and began to circle it. Most of the entry tunnels we passed were blocked with rubble others appeared open but we knew these too were blocked somewhere along their length. At last we came to the opening leading through to the transceiver chamber. Why we had run here I cannot say except to note that this place was familiar and had been our original destination. At the entrance we sank down again, exhausted, perspiration streaming from flushed faces in the ruddy sunlight. We couldn't run much further. Making it back to the protection of the trees was out of the question. The drakor had cut off that avenue. As we had fled we’d seen no place to climb out of danger from the drakor. Leta also warned that by working in shifts they would keep their prey treed until it collapsed from thirst, hunger, or exhaustion.

  As if sensing what I proposed to do Leeta signaled agreement. This was as good a place to make our stand. To run further would only insure our exhaustion when they finally caught us. Better to meet them here, using the few minutes we had to prepare.