Thirteen (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 13)
Page 3
“I’m going out,” Katie had declared, unfastening her safety belt, and climbing out of her seat.
“Are you sure? You might explode out there.”
“Probably not, Dave, but I'll take my chances. This pod can’t take off again. It’s basically a glider. If we sit here, we'll give ourselves a few more days at best.”
"Unless we get rescued. One of your starships may happen along."
Katie looked at me, her eyes filled with doubt.
"Ready, get set, go," she replied, and then, she pressed down on the console. The airlock hissed, and a gust of wind rushed across the tiny cabin. “Smell that, Dave? It smells fresh. We’ll be okay.”
Now, the door swished open and Katie leapt through.
"Wait!" I called, although she didn't.
The air did smell fresh, but it also had another scent to it. There was a tiny whiff of sulfur, and a hint of magnesium sulfate. It probably wasn't dangerous in these concentrations. Certainly, we both had been breathing it now for several minutes without any apparent toxic effect. In time, I supposed one could get used to the malodorous scent. It did give me pause, so much so that I hesitated a long moment.
The pod jerked. Dust splattered across my windshield as I realized that the wind outside was rocking me to and fro. This was not a good sign. A barren, sandy landscape with strong winds meant the chance of vegetation and animal life was even less so than before. I sat in my seat, the very place I had remained for the better part of the last week, and wracked my brain for an alternative to remaining here.
Our options were limited. In fact, they were so limited as to be nonexistent. It was here or nowhere, barring some kind of miracle.
Speaking of which, I decided to pray. Since the start of our brief journey, and the amazing response to my first attempt at such an activity, I had been praying fairly regularly throughout the duration. I hadn’t been the recipient of any more visitations, but it had helped to calm my nerves and focus my energy on a positive outcome. In this situation, there was literally nothing else that I could do.
“Hey Dave?” Katie stuck her head in the door, her hair blowing in wild tendrils around her. “Are you going to come out? We’ve got a lot of work to do. This planet is pretty rough. Bring all the water bags and whatever is left of the food. It may be a while before we can hunt down something.”
“Yes, Captain,” I nodded, and reluctantly climbed from my seat, reaching around behind me to gather what was left of our provisions.
The pod had been stocked with ten days’ worth of reconstituted water and protein bars. Although we had been careful to eat sparingly, and to drink only when needed, or supplies were running perilously short.
“Get all the tools too,” Katie called. “And, the medical kit on the shelf behind my chair.”
"Yes, Ma'am," I responded, and grabbed all that I could carry.
It didn’t take long. We didn’t have to walk far until we found what amounted to an underground cavern. It had been built by someone, another advanced creature, who had the intelligence to carve out a room and a pipe to vent fresh air, as well as construct a rope ladder to climb in and out.
“Do you think they’ll come back?” I asked, keeping one hand on the rope, while Katie surveyed the space with the single torch from the pod.
“It looks abandoned,” she replied, passing the light across the floor. “No footsteps, no scuff marks. Some kind of small animal was here, but that’s all I can see.”
“What kind of animal?” Small animals could be just as deadly as large ones.
“I don’t know, Dave,” she murmured. “Regardless, it’s not like we have a choice. Do you see any buildings around here? It’s basically here or the pod, and after spending the last week in that chair, I’m not going back in.”
“What about camping above ground?” I suggested. “Perhaps, we could build our own structure of sorts.”
“Dave,” she said with a sigh, apparently growing frustrated with my lack of comprehension. “This planet is tidally locked. Do you remember what that means? At any moment there may be fierce wind storms, destructive wind storms. What we just saw above ground could be nothing compared to what might happen. Our campsite or even the pod could be lifted and tossed around. Boulders could come flying at us. Everything could be reduced to dust. Our best bet, our only bet is to hide down here.”
“Forever?”
“No,” she replied, disappearing into the shadows, her voice echoing off the walls. “This is more than a single cave. There’s a series of tunnels. I think we should follow them. I bet they make their way to the neutral zone.”
“Neutral zone?” I took my hand off the ladder and ventured after her light.
“That narrow strip between the light side and the dark of the planet. If there’s any vegetation or life forms above ground, they’ll be there. My guess is this is where the tunnel system leads.”
We had walked for what seemed like eons, sleeping periodically, and climbing above ground to look around whenever we encountered a rope ladder. We ate up all of our few provisions, and the last of our bottled water. Fortunately, there was an underground spring where we filled our bottles with more.
In all of our travels, we didn’t encounter anyone. In fact, the only life forms we noticed were a small armadillo type creature, which roamed the darkness and shadows. They kept out of our way, and we kept out of theirs.
“We’re going to go hunting today,” Katie declared, as soon as I joined her in the tunnel. “We can’t live on tea and herbs alone. We’re going to have to try to eat one of those armadillo creatures.”
“You’re going to shoot one?” I asked, as she hid behind a boulder stalking a family of the creatures as they trundled through the tunnels.
“Yep,” she hissed, and waved for me to quiet. “I’m not too keen on eating it live. We need protein, and their hides look heavy enough for me to make into shoes.”
“What do you think they’ll taste like?”
“Chicken.” She held out the Glock and aimed.
“Why don’t we try with our bows first?” I suggested.
“Their skin looks impenetrable. See those heavy scales on their backs? Please Dave, hush. I have only two rounds left. I need to make them count.”
The echo of the gunshot reverberated off the walls, and for a moment, I was certain I had gone deaf.
The armadillo creatures screamed, their mouths open in horrified wails, although I couldn’t hear them with the way my ears were ringing. One of the creatures, the largest, lay sideways bleeding copper colored blood into a pool on the ground. The others, instead of scattering, raised up on their hind feet, and covered their mouths and their eyes with their front paws.
“Moved out!” Katie screamed, waving the gun around, trying to scare the creatures away.
Instead, they seemed to be changing, metamorphosing into another creature. Their hind legs thickened, their backs straightened and their front legs became arms. Their heads widened and altered their shape until they looked almost human. They were short, probably half the size of Katie, yet there were many more of them than us two. Their arms and legs formed into appendages like ours, although their fingers and toes were still clawed with long, ferocious looking nails.
I jumped back, grabbing Katie's arm, which was still pointing the gun steadily at the group of creatures.
"I changed my mind," I said. "I don't care what they taste like, and I don't want to wear one on my feet either."
“Get the hell out of here!” Katie barked to them, waving the gun menacingly. “Go away! All of you.”
Apparently, they had understood her, and her comment about only two rounds.
"Go ahead," one of them replied in perfect English. "Take your best shot, and then, we'll kill you."
Uh oh. They were both intelligent and suicidal armadillo creatures, which didn’t bode well for the two of us.
“I suggest we run,” I suggested.
“Good idea,” Katie agreed.
Chapter 4
Eva
My job was to clean the sidewalks, brush away the litter, and the tiny pebbles which clustered on the pavement and cascaded into the gutters.
This was a far cry from my previous employment. At the height of my career, I had been the Chief Financial Officer. I had a staff of one hundred fifty reporting to me, one personal assistant, and several interns. I worked twelve, sometimes eighteen hours a day at the office, and then, dragged myself home to eat and sleep before the next day began.
Some days, I didn’t even do that. I would spend the night on the sofa in my office, and wash up in the restroom the next morning. If you asked me what color were the walls of my flat, or the carpeting on the floor, I couldn't tell you, so rarely was I ever inside during daylight.
I did this for thirty years, forsaking a family, forsaking a husband. My company was my life, and I made myself believe I never needed or wanted anything else. Then, the company went under, and everyone was laid off. It was like a divorce, or a death. Suddenly, I didn’t know who I was.
We had been a subcontractor to SdK Aerospace, supplying component parts that were used in spaceplane production. As the Empire broke apart, as the demand for space travel suddenly diminished, the demand for production parts disappeared overnight. I was one of the last to be sent home, but by then it didn't matter. There were no other jobs to replace the one I had lost.
For six months, I did nothing. I lived off my savings. I read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies. I slept twelve hours a day instead of working them, and I took a lot of walks, sometimes wandering for miles.
It was during one of those strolls that I saw the Palace burn down. It wasn't far from my flat, maybe two miles or so from what used to be the fashionable section of Old Mishnah. It was snowing, bitterly cold with light dusty flakes, deceptive in their beauty as they stung the skin with their touch.
The Palace fire was tragic, and almost horrific, as the symbol of Imperial power and beauty crumbled. But, like everything that once was, and wasn't anymore, it became commonplace. The ash covered ruins became a metaphor for the entire Empire.
"There will be jobs rebuilding it," I heard someone remark.
“There’s only jobs if someone’s got money to pay them,” another said.
There was no money, or rather, there was too much. The Imperial Notes were worthless, rampant inflation had reduced the value to less than the paper they were printed on. The coins could have been made of tin. A gold one bought food for only a day. The virtual credits evaporated overnight. One night we went to sleep with everything. When morning dawned, we had nothing.
“What is to be done?” the people asked themselves, and no one had an answer beyond prayer. Pray for Senya’s return, for no one else could rescue us from this mire.
I didn’t blame Senya’s sons. They were abruptly thrust into the situation without having the ability to manage it. Shika was the same age as me, and for the better part of my life, I had followed his with a fan girl’s zeal.
His first wedding to Hannah de Shrotru was an Imperial holiday, one of the few days I had taken a vacation and spent the whole time out on the streets, celebrating in front of the Palace.
His second wedding to Joanne Psfa-a-a-a was a much quieter affair with only a pic or two posted in the online vids.
Shika had made mistakes though. It was pretty apparent that he could be a first rate bastard. Although Senya had always had a reputation for being an arrogant and even vicious prick, there was something about him that made you forget all that, and want to throw yourself at his feet instead. Shika didn’t have that quality, and certainly, Revak, or Rent, as he was commonly known, didn’t either.
Rent may or may not have been intelligent. Regardless, he always had a clueless expression on his face. Every pic taken of him had that, ‘Deer in the headlights’ blank gaze, something that didn’t instill a whole lot of confidence in the teeming masses.
We were looking for reassurance, for some reason to hope that we’d emerge from this malaise, and return to the glory days of the Empire once again. Neither of the Imperial Princes could provide that.
Somewhere, in between the moment Senya disappeared and the moment I had suddenly found myself one of millions unemployed, a new people had invaded our country. They called themselves Rossorians, and they dressed in flowing gowns which hid their bodies and most of their faces. They carried with them the Book of Rosso, and every word, no matter how odd, was their law. Somehow, between then and now, the rights of the Rossorians superseded our own.
“How did that come about?” I asked my landlord as we sat out on our stoop one afternoon, enjoying a brief bit of winter sun.
Reggie was old, more than ninety years, and had once worked at the Palace, although he never revealed what exactly he had done.
“I don’t know, Lass,” he replied, sucking on his pipe, the warm fragrant smoke drifting lazily into the air.
We were watching a couple of Rossorians kneel on the sidewalk in front of us. It was one of their twenty-seven required prayer moments that day. The people passing by were forced to veer around them, to step into the street as if the sidewalk was damaged.
Reggie snorted, and blew a long stream of smoke. “If Senya ‘twas ‘ere,” he said. “None of this foolishness would be allowed.”
“How would he stop it?” I asked.
The Rossorians were now standing up, rearranging their robes around themselves, hugging their books to their chests, and walking on. Still the traffic veered around them, the Mishnese people glaring at the strangers as they passed.
“’e do it the same way ‘e did it before, by scaring the shit out of everyone. Let me tell ye, lass, nature dun’t like when there’s a vacuum, they say. T’ain’t nobody in power now, and thas why these fools ‘ave come about. T’ain’t nobody ta stop the planets from fightin’ or bombin’ each other like them Luminerians ‘ave dun. T’ain’t nobody to say ‘No’ and frighten these fool politicians, so they’re all back to linin’ their pockets and stealin’ our rights.”
“How does that all equate to the Rossorians? What do they have to do with it?”
“I dun’t know,” Reggie shook his mane of long white hair. “Looks ta me as if they be the way Evil moves in. Once we was all Rehnorians, and now, we’re back to bein’ Mishnese, and Karut ‘cept now there’s Rossorians who are more important than us.”
“What if the Emperor’s dead?”
“Ach,” Reggie scoffed, and laughed at me as if I were as foolish as the Rossorians. “Senya be as old as time, ‘een when ‘e was a wee lad. Fella like ‘im dun’t ever die. The question be, does ‘e want to ‘elp us agin?”
I didn’t really understand what Reggie meant by all that, and being that he was nearly as old as time himself, I discounted most of it.
“Why wouldn’t he?”
Reggie scoffed again. He took a long drag on his pipe, and studied the sky. A spaceplane was soaring across it, disappearing for a moment behind a cluster of stratocumulus clouds. By the time it reemerged, it was just a tiny pinprick, a flash of silver metal against blue. In another blink it was gone, launched into the thermosphere and from there, somewhere into outer space.
“We dun’t deserve it,” Reggie said, pulling himself to his feet. “We weren’t ready the las’ time. I dun’t know if we’ll ever be ready agin.”
I watched him walk back into the building. Despite his advanced age, he held his head high, his back straight, and strong. I imagined him in an Imperial Guard uniform. Reggie must have been quite a looker in his day.
“Did you know him?” I called.
Reggie stopped in the doorway.
“Ach, Lass. I knew ‘im as well as any man, but no ‘un can say tha’ they truly knew Senya de Kudisha.”
After several weeks of sitting around, burning thro
ugh what remained of my money just to eat, I decided I needed a job, any job. Otherwise, I would surely end up out on the streets like so many others.
By that time, there were no jobs in finance, or any of the other off shoots of what had been my profession. Manual labor was all that remained, and all that it paid was equivalent to pennies only a few years before. But, I took it. I accepted a broom and a route on city streets, including the neighborhood park, if only to give myself a purpose, a reason to wake up in the morning.
Surprisingly, I enjoyed the fresh air, the sense of accomplishment when my area was clean, and the odd collection of people who I encountered.
Most of them were bums, itinerants, and homeless with no place better to be. They became known to me, and I to them, our own little social group. Tina was the old woman who dug through the trash. Pollo was the man who moved the benches so I could reach beneath. Simon always asked after my health, and then, requested a coin. I always gave him one even though I had few to spare.
One day, perhaps a month into my route, I noticed a new man sitting upon a bench, dressed in an old and torn black leather jacket. He had on a worn pair of jeans, runners without laces, and was wearing dark glasses even though the sky was dark. His hair was striking, long and shiny black with a wild curl that danced across his shoulders. It was sprinkled with gray, as was his beard, and the faint hint of an old scar crossed his cheek from north to south.
A Karupta, I surmised, and a menacing-looking one at that. But, also a bum. His ragged clothing made that apparent.
He sat upon the bench, gazing at the geese in the park pond, although from behind his dark glasses it was hard to tell. There was something in his stance that made me think he was ill or in pain, as his left leg stretched out at an odd angle, while his right leg curled beneath. Across his lap was a thick cane, and in his fingers an unlit cigarette. This was how I came upon him, and how he was when I had finished my quarter and left.