by Jaleta Clegg
I found another stream and followed a path that paralleled it. The stream wandered around, then joined another stream. The two of them ran very quickly into a pond. I squatted under a short tree next to the shore and studied it.
I counted at least seven other streams emptying into the pond. But the pond was less than twenty feet across and couldn’t be very deep. The water had to be going somewhere.
The sky overhead started to fuzz out. It was time to find a hiding spot. I picked a stream at random and followed it for a ways. It didn’t take long to find another set of intersections, the entire valley floor was covered by a network of paths. I found another clump of the thick bushes and crawled in.
I spent some time arranging the branches behind me. I wanted them to droop naturally and yet leave me enough space between the leaves so I could watch the paths. I’d just got it arranged when I heard a loud squawk behind me. I shifted around to look over my shoulder.
A brown furry thing no bigger than my hand squawked again. It sat on a branch inside the bush. I lay on my belly. Maybe it would shut up if I ignored it and lay still.
It gave a few more squawks before it fell silent. Then it came down to check me over. It landed onto the back of my leg. I jumped and bit back a squawk of my own. The creature leapt back onto its branch and squawked.
I tried to ignore it. It darted back and forth above me, screeching loud enough to cause major disturbances in the nearby bushes. A whole chorus of the things started up.
“Great plan,” I muttered. “Hide in a bush. No one will know you’re there. Stupid animals.” At least they didn’t have big teeth.
I stayed still and hoped they would shut up and go away.
The chorus of noise died down after a while. The animal in my bush jumped on me, retreating into the branches every time I twitched. The third time it jumped, I was asleep enough I barely twitched. I tried to stay awake but failed, in spite of the furry animal and the sharp twigs under my face and the rock digging into my hip.
I woke suddenly. Something was different. I blinked eyes still gritty with sleep.
The forest was silent. The furry brown animal slept on my leg, a warm spot on the back of my thigh. The sunlight looked less red and angry down here. It was almost normal sunlight. I was about to crawl out of the bushes when I heard voices. I froze, lying as still as I could.
They came into view, rounding a bend in a path in front of me. Two of the golden men trotted by, wands out and white tunics shining in the sunlight. Their sandaled feet padded along the path. They passed close enough I could have grabbed their ankles.
And then I stopped breathing. A single file line of people in shipsuits, most the silver or black of Patrol, but also blues and greens and even reds of the shipping companies and other ships, followed the alien men. I watched them pass, biting my lip to keep from calling out. I saw no green uniforms from the Phoenix.
More of the golden men walked with their prisoners, two of them for every six or so of the others, and another four at the end. They trotted down the path and were gone.
I let out my breath. My hands shook.
I started to wiggle out, to follow the group. Another group came down a different path. I lay back down and hoped they didn’t notice the bush waving.
The group jogged past. This group included only four of the golden men, two at the front and two at the back. The prisoners made no move to escape, even though it would have been relatively easy to avoid the wands and slip away into the trees. It might have had something to do with the wide white collars they all wore. I bit my lip in frustration. I didn't know enough, and I wasn't sure how to learn more.
I waited for a while, watching the paths for more groups. They stayed empty. The brown furry thing deserted me while I watched. I slipped onto the path.
I reached an intersection and paused. If the last group left any clues to tell me which path they’d taken, I had no idea how to even start looking. I chose at random and went straight.
The path reached another small stream and crossed it. I waded through, trying not to splash. The path climbed a small rise on the other side.
I heard a thumping that grew louder as I followed the path. The smell of burning hung in the air. Woodsmoke. A fire. Something cooking?A thick vegetable smell laced through the smoke.
The path grew wider, the thumping louder. I turned aside and wormed my way as carefully as I could through the trees and bushes that covered the low hill. The plants stopped about halfway down. I slithered to the edge and stayed under a thick bush with drooping branches.
I looked down into a tiny valley between the low hills. Valley was too big of a word. It was a cup surrounded by mounds less than thirty feet high. A thin stream trickled through it, dammed into a wide puddle in the middle. The floor of the cup was full of big steaming pots. People in shipsuits fed sticks to the fires under each pot. Other people carried buckets to the stream, filled them with water, then poured it into the pots. The rest of the prisoners pounded big sticks in the pots, smashing whatever was cooking. The golden men stood around the edges of the area, watching.
I gnawed my thumb as I watched them work. Everyone stopped at a signal from the golden men. They carried the heavy pots to the far end of the cup. I caught a glint of sun on metal. I craned my head, trying to see what they were doing.
They dumped the hot sludge into the back of a big metal box. They brought the pots back to the fires, then shoved them full of the grassy stuff I’d seen in the fields. They added water and started pounding again. The golden men just watched.
The metal box was huge, taller than the people who had fed it by several feet. I shifted branches to see better. The hole they’d poured stuff into had closed.
One of the furry creatures squawked. A guard looked up the hillside at my bush. I went flat, hoping he hadn’t seen me. The thing squawked louder. Another one joined in, right over my head. Then a third.
The guard frowned. He sauntered up the hill. The little animals squawked louder, jumping from branch to branch, shaking the whole bush. The golden man paused, his wand dangling from one hand. I hoped he would decide it was the animals being normal and not check closer. I didn’t have that kind of luck.
He stopped, about ten feet away, a frown wrinkling his face. Another guard called something to him. He shook his head then leaned to one side, peering into the screen of branches. I knew when he spotted me, he lifted his wand and shouted. I didn’t wait to see what he would do next. I scrambled out of the bush and ran.
I took trails at random. The shouts behind me grew in volume and number. I hoped I could get far enough away to duck into another stand of bushes and hide. The shouts behind me were picked up by voices to my left. I ducked right, onto the next trail.
I ran into a field, one full of people and golden men. I skidded to a stop in the mud. The golden men stared for a long confused moment. I turned around and ran. The golden men shouted, adding to the chorus.
I splashed through another stream. Calls came from both sides and behind. I picked another path when I came to an intersection. The woods were so thick I wasn’t sure of directions.
The brown creatures squawks filled the air to the point they drowned out the shouts of the men. A gauzy blue flying thing rose from a tree, fluttering in a panic. More of them flapped free of other trees, adding to the confusion behind me.
The path climbed a series of humps. Big rocks poked out of the ground. The trees thinned. I came out on the top of an extra tall mound. I glanced behind me, checking on the pursuit. I didn’t see anyone. I turned back around just in time to have the path run off the edge of a cliff.
I stopped on the edge, waving my arms wildly to catch my balance. A rock gave under my foot and tumbled off. I backed away, my heart pounding even harder from the scare. The drop hadn’t been far, but it was enough to twist an ankle.
The pursuit charged up the hill, shouting as they thrashed through the bushes.
I lay flat on the ground and shifted until
my feet hung over the edge. I scooted backwards, my hands clutching at the loose stone of the edge. I took a deep breath, then let go.
I landed hard, losing my balance and sprawling on my back. The ground was soft sand, which is the only thing that saved me. I scrambled up as the shouts overhead grew louder.
I faced a cave, but it was shallow, nowhere to hide. I turned and ran.
The paths stayed the same. I ran until I was lost. My side ached. I had to stop. The shouting became confused, coming from all different directions. I found a thick clump of bushes and crawled in.
I slowed my breathing, trying to breathe evenly, not in the gasping gulps my body wanted. It was quiet in the shade. No brown things squawked. The air was heavy with humidity. A sluggish breeze stirred only the top leaves of the bush. The blue fluttery things danced in the sunlight. I rolled onto my stomach and peered out through the branches.
A whole group of the golden men herded people in shipsuits across a muddy field, except for two men in the middle. One wore Enforcer black, dirty and torn and almost more gray than black. The other wore green, a shade so familiar that I couldn’t mistake who it was, even at this distance. I’d found Clark.
The Enforcer facing him punched him, sending him sprawling in the mud. A group of golden men came out of the woods on the far side of the field. One trotted over to them and touched his wand to the Enforcer. He went down in the mud. Clark got up and was herded off with the rest of the prisoners. They left the Enforcer face down in the mud. He never even twitched.
The golden men grouped together, talking to each other with lots of hand waving and shouting. I slid back through the bush and onto the path. I took a deep breath, then ran with more purpose. If I could get close enough to the edge of the trees, where the valley started rising, then I would find a place to hide until nightfall so I could slip out again.
I trotted, moving with more care. I ducked behind a clump of bushes when I heard more of the men coming. They ran past. I waited until they turned another corner and then started out again.
I dodged three more groups. I could do this, I thought. I was good at this. I was much too self confident. I ducked away from a fourth group and right into another group coming up behind me. They shouted and I ran.
I darted down a path, dodging through the surprised group I’d just hidden from. I ran as fast as I could. The volume of shouting behind me grew. It was picked up in front of me. I took the next path I found. The shouts were all around.
The path dipped down and into the biggest stream I’d seen. I splashed into it. My foot slipped on a rock and I went down in the cool water. I dragged myself to my feet, staggering to the other bank. The stream had cut away the bank. It was higher than my head. I reached for the thick grasses at the edge and tried to jump.
I slipped, splashing back into the stream. A dozen of the golden men emerged from the trees to stand above me with their wands up. I turned. The opposite bank, a much gentler slope, had another full dozen. More splashing came from both directions in the stream.
The ones wading downstream closed in. One held out his wand. A wave of pain filled my head. I fell to my knees, soaking the front of my suit. I clutched my head, trying to stop the pain.
They grabbed me, holding my arms between two of them. They dragged me out of the stream. The pain from the wand subsided quickly. That answered at least one of my questions. The range of the wands had to be fairly small, or they would have caught me long before.
They marched me down a path. I stumbled more than once. My captors held my arms and kept me moving. They didn’t say anything. I was exhausted. I’d been walking most of the night and running most of the day. But I’d seen Clark. I knew he was alive, I had to hope Jasyn was alive, too.
They dragged me to a stop in front of the shallow cave. They hummed and chanted. The ones holding my arms shoved me forward. I staggered a couple of steps in the deep sand underfoot and stopped just inside the mouth of the cave. I caught a glimpse of metal in the back.
The humming stopped abruptly. The men behind me muttered to each other. I turned around. They stared at me, confused. The muttering grew louder. Finally one of the men grabbed my arm to pull me out of the cave.
They took off again, trotting down the paths, dragging me with them. They went clear across the valley and out to the other side. The cliff was much higher and more sheer. They turned south and took a path running along the base of the cliff.
They skirted several thick walls of thorny bushes. More of the tiny streams threaded underfoot. The men splashed through them without pause. The muggy heat near the cliff left me dripping sweat.
They ran past a tall outcrop of rock and turned into a narrow canyon. They stopped at another thick wall of thorny bushes. Three of the golden men stood guard at the only entrance. My captors gabbled at them. They gabbled back. I stood and sweated and wanted a drink, food, and a place to sleep.
The gabbling got more intense. My captors finally turned aside and dragged me into a small cave to one side of the thorn barrier. They shoved me along a short passage to a larger space where they dumped me on the floor before leaving.
I blinked in the dim light. I couldn’t see much, vague shapes that suggested furniture. Under my hand the floor of the cave was soft, covered with fabric.
I wasn’t alone. Another of the golden men stood in the shadows watching me. The man stepped forward and a light snapped on. Yellow light flooded the room, dimmer than the sun outside.
He stood over me, studying me like an insect trapped in glue. I made myself get to my feet. I wasn’t going to sprawl on the floor in front of anyone. I stared up into his face. The top of my head barely reached his shoulders.
He made no move to use the wand slung from his belt. I studied him as intently as he studied me. Maybe I’d misjudged what I’d seen. Maybe I could talk to him. Maybe I could convince them to let us go.
His eyes were not the vacant blue of the others, but steel gray that watched me with a lot more intelligence than the others had shown. He blinked, like a surra snake hypnotizing its prey. I shivered and wished I hadn’t spent so much time in the exotic zoo on my free days at the Academy.
He said something, a long string of gabbling I didn’t understand. He looked behind me and repeated himself. Hands grabbed my arms. The man who grabbed me pushed me against a pillar of some smooth material. It wasn’t stone and it wasn’t metal, it felt like something in between. The man squashed my face against it. He grabbed my arms and stretched them out to either side, locking my wrists into cuffs.
Nothing happened for a while. A faint humming sang through the pillar, coming in pulses that grew gradually stronger and louder. My head throbbed in sync with the pulses. I tried to pull my face away from the pillar. The man smashed my face against the pillar, holding it tight with one meaty fist.
The pulses came faster and stronger until they made a constant hum that ached in my bones and resonated in my sinuses. The voices started then, sliding into my head. The unfamiliar language trickled into my brain. Words lodged in memories, pushing some aside and rearranging others. The trickle grew to a torrent. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, I felt nothing but the throbbing beat. The voices grew from whispers to shouts.
Everything ended abruptly. I slumped against the pillar. My head felt swollen, huge with undigested language. They unfastened the cuffs and I collapsed.
“Ruteris sha nier stand,” the gray-eyed man commanded.
I managed a groan. He nudged me with his foot.
“You sha nier stand,” he repeated. The words began to make sense as the extra knowledge in my head slowly sank into place. He kicked me.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms. I stayed on all fours for a minute while my head spun. I swallowed nausea.
The man waited impatiently. “You will stand in my presence.”
I tried, but didn’t make it. The other man, the stupid one, grabbed my arm, hauling me to my feet.
“Who are you?” the gray-eyed one
demanded.
I didn’t answer. What did he want me to say? He backhanded me across the face. My head snapped to the side.
“Why did the kerrognaucht not respond to you?”
My brain refused to translate the term into something useful. He hit me again. My lip split and I tasted blood.
“You will speak!” He hit me again. I saw stars.
He kept repeating the same question and hitting me when I didn’t answer. My eye swelled shut, my lip dripped blood. My head pounded from the forced knowledge.
He hit me a few more times. I blacked out. Only the other man’s hold on my arm kept me from falling face first on the floor. He shook me until I blinked awake again. The gray-eyed man wrapped a piece of white cloth around my throat. The other man let go.
I staggered and caught my balance. I blinked stupidly for a moment. And then lunged for the door. Pain exploded from the band of white cloth, ripping through my already battered body. I sprawled on the floor, tearing at the collar. The pain grew worse as I clawed at the unyielding fabric. Dots of light swam in front of my eyes.
It ended as suddenly as it began. I lay on the floor, panting like an animal.
“Put her in the ocarvinga,” the gray-eyed man said.
The other one jerked me off the floor. I bit back a whine of pain. He dragged me out of the cave into a late afternoon. He pulled me with him as he broke into a trot down one of the paths.
I was barely conscious when he stopped at one of the thorny bush barriers. It was lifted aside and I was shoved through. I sprawled on hard packed dirt. Part of me was screaming to look around, to check for danger, to find an escape route. The rest of me told that part to shut up. I gave in to the demand of my body to let go of consciousness.
Chapter 16