Diggory's World (Wayworld Book 1)

by T. Daniel Sheppeard

  “This is junk-metal,” he said. “There is nothing special about it.”

  “These marking make me think it came from my home-world,” I said. “I am hoping that finding more pieces might help me find my pakren.” He responded with a chittering noise I’d heard shokhung make when something had caught their attention.

  “Ele, your pakren made this?” He pondered a bit. “How this help you find them?”

  “I don’t know that it will,” I answered, “but it might prove that they’re here.”

  This led to a fuller explanation of my situation. The attendant wasn’t very fond of the idea of just letting me rummage around his site with no intention of buying anything, but I convinced him to let me do so after paying a small fee with the understanding that it would be applied to any purchase I did make. He suggested one quadrant of the yard as being the most likely location for similar panels as it held most of the worthless junk metal.

  It was a daunting task. The yard was not large, or particularly full, but it was still large enough and full enough that it was a lot of searching for one man. It was interesting, though. I came across many different bizarrely shaped or marked items, each a testament of some space-faring alien race that had crossed the void from parts unknown to arrive at this mysterious planetary prison. Some of it was identifiable as tanks, coils, or cogs. Most was chunks of nameless metal, as alien to me as its origins. I amassed an impressive collection of nicks, cuts, and bruises caused by falling stacks, jagged edges, and pokey-outy-things. After an hour of searching I came across a disheartening discovery.

  It was a design comprised of four rectangular fields of alternating stripes, in black and green, arranged in a pinwheel shape. In the same pile was another set of similar striped fields, some arranged in lines, some in circles, in various colors, but always two colors per field. Always with the darker stripes sandwiching the lighter. I searched further and found more of the same. One field was seven red and six white.

  Had I discovered some sort of writing? And while I could not rule out for sure that my scrap was a piece of an American flag, an alien script was the more likely explanation. I searched for another few hours and found no flags, and only a little more of the script.

  I departed the shokhung village the following morning, having spent the rest of the day asking my standard set of questions of the hren I found there. No one had seen humans, or heard of them, or knew who might. I was told there were more settlements downstream. A small team of shokhung traders were heading east and agreed that I could accompany them.

  They were a chatty bunch compared to most of their kind I’d met, and I counted it a good opportunity to learn about the local dialect. The difference seemed to lie in vocabulary (they used a lot of words I didn’t know) but the grammar was the same. The sentence structure of Shikachui was simple and varied little.

  On the second day of our journey we arrived at a village of mud huts that reminded me of cartoon bee hives, populated by the most alien species I’d encountered yet. They were built like pillars, five to seven feet high and about a foot-and-a-half across. Each had five or six multi-jointed legs (vaguely like a grasshopper’s hind legs) surrounding the base, and a ring of long thin tentacles sprouting a foot or so from the top. Their skin was a deep violet color, almost black. Large glassy orbs that may have been eyes graced the top portion, and multiple rows of white spots were just above the tentacles. These spots glowed and flashed in seemingly random bursts.

  The shokhung called them Trunk People. The Trunk People, they said, never spoke. They weren’t even sure how the creatures communicated, but they thought the glowing spots flashed in patterns that made words. Communication with them was impossible, but they still managed to trade.

  The shokhung laid out their goods in a pile. The Trunk People approached and stacked their own items in a pile, then sorted through the shokhung wares and separated some of them into a third pile, then stepped away. The shokhung pulled some items from the Trunk People’s pile and put them into a fourth group, signifying what they would like to take in exchange for the Trunker’s request. Then the Trunkers (easier than saying “Trunk People” over and over) removed some of the items the shokhung requested and put it back into the original stack, then removed a few items they had set aside earlier and returned them. The shokhung did likewise.

  Thus an entirely wordless session of haggling ensued, and after much placing and replacing and guessing and so on, some sort of agreement was reached. The Trunk People took their new pile and their own originals; the shokhung did the same, and we were on our merry little way.

  Chapter 12: The Others

  The next evening a brilliant flash lit up the northern horizon. Two balls of fire streaked across the sky, one toward the far west, and another almost directly north of us.

  The shokhung grew excited. “It is a ship crashing,” they told me. “It came apart and fell in two pieces.”

  “No, it was two ships,” claimed one. My hosts debated the details, but all agreed it was good fortune to witness it.

  “How often do these crashes happen?” I asked a shokhung named Gafikra.

  He flapped a hand in the shokhung version of a shrug. “Hard to say. Sometimes they come a few months apart. Sometimes many years.”

  The traders agreed to split up so that some could take their wares on to the next town and the others would veer off north where the closer chunk crashed. I asked to accompany them to the crash, solely out of curiosity. The crash wouldn’t be there long, unlike the villages. We left the trail with Debbie and a single mongmoth.

  The shokhung had a sort of science to finding the crash. I could only tell the general direction, but as we got closer over the next few days, they chattered excitedly to each other. They scratched out calculations on slate tablets and discussed them with each other. One smelled smoke. Gafikra pointed to faint dust patterns he believed came from the explosion of the craft striking the ground.

  A day later we came to a crater, surrounded by flattened vegetation, with a heap of charred and twisted metal at its heart.

  In and all around the crater were tiny scraps and debris, none identifiable to me. The charred wreckage in the center was clearly parts of a craft. I was amazed it had survived as close to intact as it had. There were no signs of survivors. Indeed, there was no evidence of bodies at all.

  The shokhung examined the wreckage with growing interest, discussing it earnestly, with a great deal of gesturing, as they did so.

  “No riding place,” one said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, approaching. He turned to me.

  “No place to sit. All machine. No place for hren,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” I said. “Maybe the riding place crashed at the other fire ball.”

  “No,” said Gafikra. “I know ships. There was no rider.”

  A drone?, I thought. I had no Shikachui word for “robot”, so I didn’t ask about it.

  I helped the shokhung dismantle the pieces, using saws, pry bars, and hammers. The crash was more intact than they usually were, Gafikra explained to me. Some crashes they retrieved little besides scrap, but this held several salvageable components. Too bad, he said, that the weapons weren’t intact.

  “Weapons?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “That is where the explosion was. Look here…” He proceeded to point out mechanisms, but I didn’t understand them.

  Movement on the edge of the crater caught my eye and I looked up to find a small party of okavi enter the area. They were more heavily armed than the ones I’d seen before, each sporting a few guns and carrying large bronze knives. Their clothing looked more like armor than the functional jumpsuits I’d seen in Forest Fort. One of the shokhung looked up and held out his arms to the side in their manner of greeting.

  “Upfunush,” called the foremost of the okavi.

  The shokhung advanced cautiously as the okavi kept their weapons low, but within reach. I only understood about half the ensuing dialog
ue. The newcomers had apparently also seen the crash and came to investigate. What followed was a quick trading session, but the okavi saw little that interested them.

  “Do you come from Forest Fort?” I asked an idle okavi.

  “Me kumsa come where?” he (or she, I was never sure with them) replied.

  I asked a shokhung name Mof, who had a good command of the southern dialect, to translate, but the fact that I needed a translator answered the question.

  “You don’t come from Forest Fort, do you?” I asked with Mof’s help.

  “Where is that?” the okavi answered. I explained the approximate location. All the okavi ceased their activities and turned toward our conversation.

  “You know other okavi?” demanded their leader. “Please, tell us where they are!” I described the location again, in more detail this time. This prompted a barrage of questions.

  “Who did you meet there?” “Are they safe?” “How long have they been there?” They wanted to know about the area south of the mountains. They had never been there.

  “They are the drasdi, I am sure of it!” declared the leader, named Vuertak. “Their company made the ripple-ship to get supplies past the hamvidri, but they vanished. We built another to go and find them, but we came here instead. Our navigator said this is not where we were aiming. We thought we had built our ship wrong, but now you tell us the drasdi have been here all along!” Vuertak stood and let loose a wailing cry that was echoed by his fellows. The noise went on, modulating and changing rhythmically. They were singing.

  “Happy news!,” the exclaimed. “Happy news! Our lost ones live and you have found them!”

  We prepared a meal and the seven okavi, three shokhung, and I, sat around discussing this further. The okavi were determined to find Forest Fort and be reunited with their fellows. They plied me for as much information as I could give. I gave names and descriptions. I relayed the few stories I’d heard from the okavi I’d met, and from D’Silva. I gave them the best directions I could. I wondered if they would ask me to take them there, and wondered how willing I was to return south rather than pursue new territory. But the directions to Black Banks were easy enough, and from there they could wait until a party from Forest Fort came to trade, or get better directions from someone in the city. This was entirely agreeable to the okavi.

  “He tells the truth,” stated Vuertak with conviction. “Only one who had met the Drasdi” (this turned out to me a company name) “would know these things.”

  By the end of the meal, night had fallen, and we all camped near the crater. In morning, we prepared to part ways. The okavi lined up behind Vuertak in a very ceremonial-looking way. He stepped toward me.

  “Diggory of Earth,” he said with Mof helping, “you have done a great thing for us. We are the hired protectors of the Drasdi, and we had failed in our mission. Until now. Now we can succeed. We have much reason to thank you.” He stepped closer and held out one of their weapons to me. “Take this zarke.” I could not believe my ears. There must be a problem in translation. I clarified with Mof.

  “He wants me to have this?” I asked. “He’s giving it to me?” Mof spoke with Vuertak and back to me.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “It is a gift for showing them the way to their pakren.”

  “Uhm, thank you!” I said. “This is very, very kind of you!” I took the weapon in my hand, afraid he may change his mind. “Uh, how does it work?”

  He explained the operation of the zarke. It was a centrifugal gun: a quickly spinning chamber released round metal pellets out the barrel at high speed. Stored in the stock was a mold for forming more pellets. Provided I could get a supply of molten metal, it would handle a wide range of materials. Vuertak motioned to a removable cartridge, with a spare also stored in the stock.

  “These are the lightning holders,” he explained (I supposed that meant ‘batteries’). “When they are empty, you will have no way to fill them again. Use the weapon rarely.”

  No sooner had the okavi gone their way than the shokhung started making me offers on my new acquisition. I declined them all. I chose to travel with the zarke concealed. As Fotis had warned me, there were many people who would like to get their miscellaneous appendages on okavi weaponry, and doubtless there were many who would use far less scrupulous means to acquire it than the shokhung ‘s attempts to barter.

  Soon thereafter we arrived at a small village where my comrades were reunited with the others of our original party. We stayed there several days while they did whatever business they had come for, and then they returned to their home. I opted to continue my journey eastward as I already knew that the village near the mountain pass offered nothing to me. The people of the village assured me that there were more hren to the east, but they had little in the way of specifics. I loaded Debbie with all the foodstuffs I could afford and journeyed onward. There was no road so I followed the waterway.

  My newly acquired weapon gave me great confidence. Once away from the village I set up my own private wilderness shooting range to test it out. The okavi had given me a brief tutorial, but hadn’t wanted to waste ammunition on test firing. Having never handled one before, I decided otherwise.

  It was a little unwieldy, being made for okavi hands and arms rather than human. It was held along the outside of the forearm with the barrel extending forward from the hand and a flattened cylinder along the forearm. I started it up and immediately a whirring noise issued from the chamber and I felt it twist on my arm. Firing produced a fwip sound and no recoil. A plume of dust showed where the pellet hit the ground.

  It took a little work to get the feel for it. A long depress of the firing lever (not quite a trigger ) resulted in a sustained burst. It was not very accurate at long range, but at close range I felt it could be very effective. I didn’t practice too long, not wanting to use up the battery or my limited store of ammunition.

  Along my journey I had to resort to testing wild plants again, since there were few plants I knew to be edible. Foraging, therefore, took some time and slowed my journey. I wasn’t worried about it too much, since I didn’t even really know where I was going.

  My loneliness persisted, but the sense of ennui that sometimes assailed me was largely absent. I wasn’t sure why. For whatever reason, for the time being at least, I felt lonely but still somehow comfortable with the loneliness.

  The terrain was beautiful. The dominant earthy orange colors took a little getting used to, but soon I began to notice the immense variation within that pallet. The trees that dotted the landscape were sinuous and twisted about in intricate curls.

  Wildlife was plentiful, with herds of various waybeasts and many other animals that were new to me, frama of both familiar and exotic varieties, and whistling bugs and scampering hodo. There was no shortage of meat or fish to be had. I resisted the urge to use my zarke to hunt, relying instead on arrows and spear. I made camp in a broad plain for several days to stock up on provisions. If Debbie appreciated the extended break she didn’t show it. Hers was a stoic species.

  A few days later I heard a faint drumming sound. It was hard to pinpoint the noise and it never got much louder no matter which way I went. It ceased after an hour or two. It might have been some sort of animal, I suppose, but I strongly suspected that hren were somewhere nearby.

  I resumed my journey along the river. The next day I heard the drumming again. I was sure it was closer this time and coming from somewhere up ahead. Then I heard other noises. There were loud cries, banging and shouting, roars and growls. There was violence nearby. Leaving was the wiser course, but instead I hobbled Debbie and crept cautiously forward, wanting to know exactly what was going on. I rounded a hillock and saw the battle ahead of me. A troop of bodifos fought with unfamiliar creatures.

  They were larger than humans, but smaller than the bodifos, dark red in color, and showed no preference for two legs or four, alternating between them as the situation merited. Their heads were long and angular, with the skin looking tight-
stretched over their bony, craggy skulls. Their jaws were lean and jagged with spiny teeth jutting out like some sort of deep-sea monstrosity. There were no eyes in evidence. They had large triangular ears like a cat or dog. Many wielded weapons like great bronze scythes; other bore spears; still others fought with tooth and claw.

  The bodifos fought with their six clawed forelimbs, striking in rapid, furious succession. Fierce though they were, the others outmatched them in terms of weaponry. Each swipe or stab did more damage than the claws of the green ten-limbed hren. There were half-a-dozen of each, with several fallen bodifos littering the ground, though only one red alien lay still. No knowing the combatant, I made no move to intervene and hid in the nearby brush.

  Both sets of combatants were fast and determined, but the superior weaponry of the red creatures and their greater ferocity whittled down the bodifos until the last one went down beneath the scythe-like blade of a blind alien. I watch the victors paw through the bodifos’s few possessions. There were drums scattered about the battlefield, which they inspected, then dropped. After gathering up a few things from their fallen opponents, the Reds dashed off to the south.

  I stayed hidden for quite some time before deciding it was safe to leave. As I stood, however, I noticed movement among the fallen bodifos. At least one them was still alive.

  I knew nothing of the conflict—who was the aggressor, who the defender—but I did know that a fellow hren was lying helpless and suffering. I made my way down the slope to the site of the battle and to the bleeding and broken form of the living remnant. It stirred faintly. I knelt beside the bodifos and cradled its head in my lap.

  “Here, drink this,” I offered it some water. I did not know if it understood my words, but a long tongue snaked out and lapped at the water I slowly poured on its lips. It groaned quietly.

  “Kralsnar,” it whispered hoarsely. “Kralsnar too much north. New fight. Brukasi kralsnar.” The rest of its faint words were too quiet and garbled for me to discern meaning or sound. I poured a little more water. It did not drink. It was dead.