The Last Hour of Gann

by R. Lee Smith

  What all this meant to Amber was that, even though Scott still sounded sane enough as he went enthusiastically on comparing the survivors of the Pioneer to the true pioneers, who had also gone on foot over the endless American wilderness with their savage (and not entirely trustworthy) native guides, and seemed to have no trouble convincing his fellow colonists that their trail, like that of the Oregon-bound pioneers of old, would end in the eventual comforts of home, all Amber could hear was that slap-slapping sound. Scott may not be foaming at the mouth and wearing panties on his head, but ultimately she decided that, yes, if he believed what was coming out of his mouth, he was a little bit crazy. Also, her boots were falling apart.

  “Let me ask you something,” she said, turning to Nicci. “Hypothetically. When somebody consistently refuses to accept reality, when does that stop being optimistic and start being dangerous?”

  She thought that was vague enough, but Nicci gave her a look of immediate and undisguised horror, and the two ladies who’d been chatting with Nicci closed ranks and sped up like the conversation was catching.

  “Nothing’s wrong with him!” Nicci hissed. “Nothing!”

  “He’s still calling this a colony. We’re his pioneers!”

  “So? What’s wrong with that? What do you want him to call us, his victims? Why do you have to think that if no one is freaking out and terrified all the time, we’re not taking it seriously enough? God, this is so like you!”

  That gave her a twinge. “Okay, okay. Whatever. Calm down.”

  “Stop telling me what to do! I don’t have to listen to you anymore!”

  “I said, okay,” said Amber, more harshly than she meant to. People were watching and now they were whispering too. “Forget I said anything. Jesus, Nicci.”

  “He’s right about everything he says about you,” Nicci said. She sniffed and gave her head a little snap, tossing her hair just like their mom used to do when she’d drunk enough to get pouty, not quite enough to get mean. “You’re trying to turn me against him.”

  That managed to be ludicrous and infuriating both at the same time.

  “You know what?” said Amber. “Right at this moment, I don’t give a rat’s ass what either one of you think about me.”

  Nicci tossed her hair again, this time with their mother’s mean little snigger. “He says you only say stuff like that because you already know nobody likes you. He says you have a psychological need to push people around because you don’t have any self-esteem because you’re fat.”

  “I bet he’d say lots of things to get in your pants,” said Amber, but before she could add something even nastier (not a bitch i’m not and i’m not even that fucking fat anymore so there), another dried creeper hiding in the trampled mud caught in the toe of Amber’s slap-slapping boot for the umpteenth time. She gave it the same little shake she always gave it to free herself, but when she tried to keep walking, she found that it hadn’t let go. There was a swift ripping sound, a flare of pain across her toes and down the bottom of her foot, and then the monotony of another day-long hike in the rain abruptly interrupted itself by pitching her onto the ground in this world’s first belly-flop. Without a pool, no less.

  She landed boobs-first, which as painful as that was, probably was the best way to land, and her duffel bag came up behind her and whacked her solidly in the back of her head, slamming her face-down into the muddy footprints of everyone who’d walked up this hill ahead of her.

  “Ha,” sniffed Nicci, and kept right on walking.

  There was a wet sucking sound when Amber pulled her head up—shhhhlup—followed by a brief flurry of giggles, the startled playground kind that weren’t really mean as much as just surprised, and then Mr. Yao asked if she was okay. Just Mr. Yao. Nicci was already gone.

  “Yeah.” Dragging her sleeve across her face, she tried to get up, but her stupid foot was still caught. She rolled over instead.

  Her first shocked thought when she saw her boot hanging backwards on the end of her leg was that she’d broken her ankle so spectacularly she hadn’t even felt it. Then she saw her naked pink foot lying in the mud beneath her boot and realized she’d just torn the sole off. Not entirely. A few centimeters of rubber still connected the sagging tongue of the bottom of her boot to the rest of it, but it didn’t put up much of a fight when she grabbed it and ripped it away.

  “Motherfuck!” she snarled, and threw it into the grass.

  No one giggled that time.

  A second later, as she was struggling to untie her stupid laces so she could throw the rest of the fucking thing after the sole, the dark weight of a lizardman’s bad mood dropped over her. Meoraq hunkered, moved her hands curtly out of his way, and looked at her foot sticking out of her boot. His spines, already pretty damn low, went flat.

  ‘Oh sure, like I did it on purpose,’ Amber thought, but didn’t say. She wiped some more mud off her face and tried to ignore him.

  He picked up her other foot and inspected the sole on that boot too, grunting to himself as he touched each of the cracks and holes he found. He put it down again. He clasped his hands. He looked at her.

  “What?” she said, and hated herself because it was such a sulky sound.

  “This was inevitable,” he replied. “What have you done to prepare for it?”

  Meoraq did not ask rhetorical questions and he didn’t like it when she treated them that way. Amber tried to wait him out, but after just a few seconds of watching that piss him off, she gave up and looked away. “Nothing,” she said. She tried to say it, anyway. It was more of a whisper. If she’d said it any louder, her stupid voice probably would have cracked. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  He caught her hard by the chin and yanked her head back to face him. He leaned in close, red eyes burning. “I did. Why didn’t you ask me?”

  And without any warning at all, all the poison of this miserable day bloomed hot in her chest. Her stomach flipped over. She had a split-second when she thought she was going to throw up right on his boots, but what came out was even worse: “Because you hate me!” she shouted, and everybody shuffled back, except Meoraq of course. His eyes narrowed, but that was all. “Why the hell would I ask you for help when you’ve made it so fucking clear that all I do is whine at you? Leave me alone!”

  He stared at her without blinking, without moving. Even his spines, the usual barometer of his lizardly emotions, were perfectly still. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet, very calm: “Please yourself.”

  Then he stood up.

  “We are not stopping!” he snapped at the people who were sitting on their packs and waiting for them. “Move on, all of you!”

  Amber finished taking her bottomless boot off and held it limply in her hands, watching them walk away. “What—” Damn it. Her voice did crack. She took a few breaths to toughen up and tried again. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Walk in one boot!” Meoraq snapped over his shoulder. “As that was your plan before this hour, I see no reason you should change it, but when you come to my camp tonight, insufferable human, perhaps you will be ready to ask my advice!”

  That was all he said to her, although she could see him continuing the conversation with his god until he reached the top of the hill and passed from sight. No one else waited for her; she didn’t really expect them to. Nicci did linger, and Amber almost called out to her, but then one of the other girls plucked at her arm and Nicci gave her hair that drunken Bo Peep toss and walked away. Just as well. Amber didn’t feel like keeping anyone’s company right now. She was fat and had low self-esteem.

  Amber tossed her broken boot to the side of the muddy trail and started walking, but came back after just a few steps to collect it again. She really didn’t want to have to make a whole other boot if all it needed was a new sole. And a few more awkward, lurching steps after that, she took her other boot off too. She tied the laces together, slung them over her shoulder, put her head down, and just walked.

  * * *

&nbs
p; It made for a very bad day, like the mud and the cold and the rain and the whole crashed-on-an-alien-planet thing weren’t doing enough of that already. She tried to keep up, but her feet were cold and she just fell further and further behind. Soon, she couldn’t see them at all anymore, just their footsteps in the muddy trail she was walking in.

  Why hadn’t she said something about her boots? What had she been waiting for, really? Did she think she was going to cross over one of these hills and see a strip mall with a Shoe Outlet and a McDonald’s all lit up and waiting for her? Talk about people who consistently refuse to accept reality. Amber Bierce did not ignore problems and hope they’d go away! She wasn’t Scott and she sure as hell wasn’t Nicci! She was different! She was tough!

  Yeah. And now she was barefoot.

  Stupid cheap Manifestors’ boots. Weren’t they the ones that were supposed to last for five whole years of colony work? But hell, the ship didn’t work, why should she expect better out of the boots? The Director with his billions and billions of dollars probably outsourced that too. She hoped someone, somewhere, was suing the holy fuck out of him, just like Maria had threatened to do. Class-action lawsuit, you bet.

  Everyone gets what they deserve.

  The wind slackened off some. The rain fell harder. The trail got slippery, so Amber and her frozen feet moved off into the grass, stumbling now and then over dead vines and picking her way around thorns, but staying upright at least. The grey smudge in the sky began to sink about the same time as the rain finally stopped. She trudged over the top of yet another rolling hill and found the others at the top of the next one, setting up their tents under a half-dozen knobby-armed trees. It probably wasn’t even another hour after that before she was there with them. No one said anything to her as she made her way to the fire and sat, pushing out her aching feet to warm them. She watched the mud dry and crack and drop off in little flakes.

  She had no idea how long Meoraq had been sitting beside her. She only found out for herself when she turned to see if there was some water in easy reach that she could maybe wash up in, and there he was.

  They looked at each other. His head wasn’t tipped. His spines were relaxed, neither high nor low. He could have been thinking anything.

  The fire spat and hissed around the wet braids of grass and dung it burned. The other people did the camping thing, watching them maybe, but keeping their distance. Amber waited, thinking that if he wanted an apology to go with her lonely barefoot hike in the rain, they were in for a long night.

  His gaze shifted at last to her shoulder. He picked her boots up by their laces and looked at the broken one. He grunted. It was one of his good ones. She wouldn’t go so far as to call it approving, but it was better than another ‘insufferable human’ comment.

  He untied the laces and set the boots down, then turned to his other side and brought out some flattish pieces of bark. He drew a knife, pointing it absently toward one of the nearest trees. “Mganz,” he said, setting her boot down on top of some bark and tracing around it with his knife. “Good for very few things, but this is one of them.”

  “I can do that.”

  “You will. For now, be quiet and learn something.”

  So she watched, silent, as he carved out the new sole from the inflexible chunk of bark, somewhat bigger than it needed to be. From his pack, he took a small wooden case and opened it, selecting a long metal spike from the various needles and skeins of cord it contained. Using the hilt of his knife and this awl, he bored holes all around the sole and then passed it all to her.

  “Score the soft side,” he ordered, rummaging through his pack some more. “To cushion it.”

  Using the tip of the awl, Amber scraped awkwardly at the wood and the torn fibers fluffed out a little. She scraped some more, trying to get it as plush as possible all over without digging too deeply through the wood, and just sort of hoped it didn’t have bugs. If there was any way at all this day could get worse, it would be with a screaming case of boot-bugs.

  Meoraq had found a thin roll of leather, just scraps apparently, and was waiting for her to finish. At her lackluster nod, he covered the sole and held out that small wooden case. “Find a strong needle and a thick thread,” he said, or at least that was how she filled in the blanks.

  She’d never sewed anything in her life. She didn’t wear clothes with buttons and if she ripped a shirt, she threw it away.

  She got one of the thickest needles and picked out some cord to thread it with. He took it from her once she had and began to stitch, pinching and tucking the leather as he worked around the sole to make a kind of crease. It looked pretty rustic, but at the same time, she knew hers was going to look like a total shit-cake, so she tried to pay attention to exactly how he was doing it.

  “Keep it tight,” he muttered, sewing. “Do not allow folds or pockets to form. If you discover one, take it out, regardless of the effort it requires. There is no hurry. Just keep a strong pull and take whatever time you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  He sewed, silent, until he had finished the sole. He handed it and her broken boot to her. “You will need to use the awl. Keep them at least a finger’s width up from the edging. The holes needn’t line up exactly. Keep the stitching even and tight. The seam will draw up this way, and form an overlap. Mend them both. I will have something to seal them in the morning.”

  She nodded and got to work.

  He sat and watched her. Not her hands, not the boot, not the tools she was borrowing. Her.

  She struggled with the awl and kept her head down, her eyes stubbornly on her work. She ignored him.

  “Pride,” said Meoraq, very quietly, “has no place in this camp.”

  The wind blasted its freezing breath into her face, and still she felt the blush heating up her cheeks. She kept her eyes fixed and her hands busy and did not answer.

  “You have asked me for training. You have demanded it. I have agreed to give it, because you have shown me the necessity and I judge you fit enough to learn, but there is no place—” He caught her chin and made her look at him. “—for pride in this camp.”

  I know. I’m sorry. Please stop. Please.

  His eyes shifted to a point beyond her. He stood up and walked off without another word. Shortly afterwards, Nicci crept up and sat down.

  And for a second, Amber was disappointed. She hunched over her boot again, forcing the awl the rest of the way through the leather. “Hey.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Nicci. “I really am, Amber. I’m sorry we fought.”

  “I know. I’m sorry too.”

  So that was okay. Almost.

  Nicci turned her head to watch Meoraq move around the camp. “He went back a few times. To check on you, I guess.”

  “Yeah.” She hadn’t seen him, but she hadn’t done much looking at anything but the trail in front of her. And in all honesty, Meoraq probably could have been in arm’s reach of her the whole way and if he didn’t want to be seen, she wouldn’t have seen him.

  “I’d have gone back too,” said Nicci after a moment.

  “I know.”

  “I just thought it was best if we were all together.”

  Amber looked at her and although she was okay and she really wasn’t even angry, it was right on the tip of her tongue to say that she’d have never left Nicci behind like that, never. But her sister’s eyes were the same anxious, lost and pleading eyes that they’d been pretty much since they got here and Amber couldn’t stand to see them wet again, not after the day she’d just had.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She even smiled a little, for Nicci. “It was nothing. I was acting like a bitch and I got a little spanking, that’s all. I’m fine.”

  Nicci nodded and picked at her laces. “Can you do my boots for me? They’ve got, um, holes.”

  Amber kept smiling. “Yeah, sure.”

  Nicci took her boots off and got up. One of the ladies sitting around the fire outside the women’s tent called her name, waving, the
n saw Amber and hesitated. Nicci waved back and stood there, looking awkward.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Beats sitting around and watching me do this all night. Go on,” Amber said again, just like she didn’t even care. “Have fun.”

  Nicci left and sat down with the other women, disappearing into their laughing, talking circle. Amber sewed.

  The sun went down, and as the grey light dimmed rapidly to black, people began to shake out their blankets and clump up around the fires to sleep. As it got later and more people went down, Nicci finally wandered back. Amber set her boots aside, but Nicci just put herself to bed. And that was okay. They were all tired.

  Meoraq’s scaly knuckle tapped at her shoulder. He crouched down and gestured vaguely at her duffel bag while staring over his shoulder at nothing. “Sleep.”

  “I’m not done yet.”

  “Finish in the morning.”

  “I’ll finish now. I always have the first watch, don’t I?”

  He kept his head turned, his eyes moving as if he could see some hungry thing pacing back and forth beyond the edge of camp. And for all she knew, he could. At length, and without further argument, he simply stood up and walked away.

  Amber resumed boring holes through her boots, but had managed only one more stitch before he was tapping at her shoulder again. He gave her a piece of cuuvash, acknowledged her thanks with a grunt, and moved to the other side of the fire where he crouched and watched people. The firelight threw orange stripes over his scales, broken by scars. They shifted as he breathed, as mesmerizing as the embers themselves could be. He did not respond at all to her stares, perhaps didn’t even notice them.