All the people, over six hundred of them, were making a tumultuous noise. There were happy sounds and raucous laughter, as they were all in high spirits. One of the groups brought a sound system along, and their boat blared illegal music as they traveled through the night. The newbie captains were now guiding the boats with the river’s current, and the volunteers doing the rowing below the deck were dwindling in number, as their job was done for now.
Jan and Dom took one of the onboard lifeboats to go and find Jan’s mother and the girls. Lep wanted to stay with the vaccine equipment. Jan and Dom paddled their way from boat to boat. As they passed the boats, the people cheered for them, occasionally yelling, “What was that?” in reference to the amazing gliding stagecoach they had observed.
As they approached the fourth boat, Jan sputtered, “What? — Buz? Look! There’s Buz! Hey Buz!” He was waving his hand wildly as he anticipated Buz’s reaction.
Buz heard someone call his name, turned, and seeing Jan and Dom approaching in the lifeboat, started waving and yelling himself. They pulled up alongside his boat.
“Boy, am I glad to see you!” declared Jan, smiling from ear to ear. “I can’t believe it!”
Buz laughed and said, “Well, sometimes it pays to obsess! I was wondering where Tama went off to, and then I saw that you all had left, so I followed.” He paused, “I’m sure glad I did. They are all goners back there since the vaccine lab is gone.” Then he gave a hurt look at Jan, “Were you going to just leave me there to die with the rest?”
Dom chimed up, “No, that was me!”
Buz took a strange look at Dom, then back to Jan, and Jan tried to explain, “We didn’t plan to destroy the lab, Buz. Dom here just got creative, and something went wrong. We didn’t mean for anything like that to happen.” He paused, and with satisfaction said, “I’m really glad you made it, buddy. You don’t know how bad I felt to lie to you tonight, but the NOV —”
“— DeathBT, I know,” Buz admittedly interrupted. He looked back up river, and gave a sigh. “I understand — you couldn’t risk it. I get it — it’s OK.” There was a short silence, and then Buz chided, “So you’re a fucking love-lover! That’s why the girls like you!” He gave a questionable smile at Jan, and then leaned over to lend him a hand to come up on board. “Your mother is here, down inside helping.”
Dom had been securing the lifeboat, and came on board too. He said to Jan and Buz, “What’s all this love-lover stuff?”
Jan looked at Dom, puzzled. Surely, Lep would have told him that it was the escape of LERN. “You know this is a LERN escape, right?”
Dom didn’t believe him, “LERN? No way! Love-lovers? Ughhhh! No — you’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not joking, and there’s no escape for you now, buddy,” Jan laughed as he slapped Dom on the back. Zak looked at Dom and shrugged his shoulders. Zak was not sure how emotional the reunion below deck would be, so he avoided it by staying up on top.
Jan and Dom made their way downstairs, and there was Martha, busying herself with Rebecca and Rachel, doing triage on packages and boxes that had been hurriedly dumped there during the escape. They were looking for hunting, fishing, and cooking equipment for now. There were other people below deck as well, gathering useful items for the rest of the evening.
Wow, she doesn’t look very happy, Jan thought when he saw his mother.
Martha turned her head to see whose footsteps had just come down the stairs. The box she was carrying dropped out of her hands when she realized who it was.
“Jan!” she screamed as she ran over to him, and she wouldn’t stop squeezing him.
“Hey, what about my turn?” Rebecca remarked, as she and Rachel followed Martha’s lead.
They got into a group hug, as Dom stood there looking awkwardly at them. The ever-social Rachel said, “Come on, Dom, you can join in!” She could see that he would not easily do this, but no male could resist her charm. She grabbed Dom by the arm and pulled him in with them so that he had no choice.
After they released each other, Dom was smiling oddly, as if he had been hit in the head with Cupid ’s bow. Dom thought to himself, that was scary, but — OK, I guess. Love-lovers, I dunno. Wait until I see Lep, I’m gonna nail him good! Dom continued smiling, and now he was chuckling to himself.
Martha’s face fell again as Jan looked at her.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” he asked.
Martha, with an anguished look said, “Jan — your father — died tonight.” Then her face broke into an ugly spasm as her words turned into choking sobs, “Griswolt — Griswolt — gave his — life — for us.” Clearly distressed, she looked at Jan and told him, “All three of us would have been shot.” Martha put her face in her hands, “I abandoned him, and he died for me-e-e-,” and started crying, hard, with deep, deep sobs. “He wanted to come with u-u-u-u-u-us! He could be here right now, alive!” she wailed, and was now crying hysterically.
They all waited awkwardly for Martha to slow down. She eventually did, then looked at Jan again with a very intense yet forlorn expression and continued, “Jan — he said that he — loved — me-e-e-e —” and she broke down again into a torrent of tears.
Both of the girls were caressing her shoulders and back, Rebecca saying, “Martha, there was no way you could have changed this. You couldn’t risk the escape — all our lives.”
“I could have trusted him!” Martha wailed, and she started crying again.
Dad’s dead. The thought was beginning to be absorbed. He’s gone. Jan felt Martha’s grief — they did after all abandon Griswolt.
Jan hung his head, not knowing what to say or do as he juggled his opposing cerebrations — I never did give it much thought — why? It was something we had to do — Dad couldn’t know, could he? He said he loved her? I can’t believe it — he said he loved her.
Dom had become clearly uncomfortable with the scene as it had been unfolding. He said, “Hey Jan, why don’t we head back to the vaccine boat?”
Jan looked at his mother, then at Dom. “No, I think I’ll stay and help out here for now.”
Dom shrugged his shoulders and replied, “OK. Well, I think I should get going.” Then he looked at Martha with sympathy and said, “I’m sorry to hear about your husband, Martha.” She was still sobbing, so he backed his way out of the group, went up the stairs, and headed on back to Lep and the vaccine equipment.
The occupied cargo boats, thirty-six in all, slowly made their way down the river that night. Most of the boats were loaded on the top deck with three wagons and six contisses, meant for the land travel ahead. There was no hurry now, indeed, they did not want any nighttime accidents. Some of the escapees slept, others could not, and simply hanged out up on deck talking. Some just worked all night. The boat crews took turns piloting and sleeping. The plan was to travel until daylight, and then gather everyone together for a meeting on land. Cleaning up after the contisses was easy — they just dumped it into the river.
The next morning was pleasant, with low winds, and sunny skies. “Over here!” called Winoni. He was a big Aletian, standing at nine feet and four inches tall, and weighing in at five hundred and ten pounds. Winoni was a Chief Smelt Engineer who could manage anything from mining ore to refining to smelting it, machining, and producing many of the everyday tools and items that these people would be needing. He had brought his entire library with him, and the New Aletians were very fortunate to have him. He was not in LERN, but his wife had told him about the escape. She knew he was tired of all the NOV rules, laws, the harsh punishments, and the constant intimidation. “Anywhere would be better than here, even if I am stuck with a bunch of love-lovers!” was his reply when she brought it up.
“No! I said over here!” Winoni was now hollering at the pilot of the next boat that they were now attempting to anchor against the shore.
Jan rubbed his eyes, and took a look around from the edge of the boat. There was nothing but the river and the landscape of the hill to the right, l
ooking west. On the left, it appeared that the terrain was more flat, and lower. Looking back to his right again, to the hillside against the river, he saw a number of holes of various sizes in the ground, particularly at the bottom of rock formations. What’s living in you? he pondered, as he looked at one particularly big hole, silently black and hollow, halfway up the same hill.
They had already tied his boat to the shore. Jan got off his boat, and casually walked over to Winoni and asked him, “How are we all going to gather?”
Winoni looked at him, “I can’t remember any more names for now, so I won’t ask you. We’re going to gather over on that flat spot over there.” He pointed over to his left.
“What about predators?” Jan asked.
Winoni said, “You see those guys?” He was now pointing to one of the boats already anchored. “A few of them are official NOV Hunters from the Hunter’s Stations, and the rest are professional private hunters. They seem to know what they’re doing. They’ve been preparing to scout the perimeter.” Then he paused, looking Jan over. “They’re looking for volunteers, if you want to join ‘em.”
Jan looked over at them and saw that they were indeed in their hunting gear and they were departing their boat now.
“It looks like they’re leaving already,” Jan said to Winoni, and continued with, “I’ll think about it.” Then he had another consideration, “How well armed are we? Is there any chance I can get a gun — for protection?”
Winoni answered, “We have plenty of guns, and ammunition to last for years, and my crew can make bullets from raw materials in no time. You were supposed to bring your own though, you know.”
“I’ll check with my mom when I get back to her,” Jan said. If we were supposed to bring our own guns, I’m sure she would have brought ours.
Jan went strolling along the shoreline, observing everyone that had come along. There were so many people, from all over the country. He talked with some, and then moved on to others that had come ashore. He recognized Ziba and her friends.
“Oh Jan! Come here, I want you to meet Jasma! I’ve told her all about you!” exclaimed an exuberant Ziba.
Oh boy, a nest of old ladies, Jan thought. Little did he know that he was about to meet the most powerful LERN leader who had made it through the escape alive. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you,” he said to Jasma.
Ziba chimed in, “Jan, Jasma has the largest collection of Platac writings that exist. I asked her if you could study them, and —”
“And I would be most happy to share them with you, my dear.” Jasma said with a delighted smile. She came closer to Jan, and staring at his crest, asked, “May I?” Before he could answer, she reached up to touch it. She ran her fingers along Jan’s crest and said, “Your crest reminds me of something — something I remember reading —” Jasma now held a puzzled expression.
“What was it?” asked Jan, quite curious now.
“So many things I have are just loose pages — and the Platacs could be quite cryptic.” She paused, then said, “I’ll dig it up, and show you later.” She could not take her eyes of off Jan’s crest after that. Then she said, “Ziba tells me that you can hear someone you call the ‘Guide’. Would you tell me about that sometime?”
Jan felt a bit of embarrassment, thinking, why did Ziba talk about that? They’re all going to think I’m nuts! Then he replied to Jasma, “OK, if you promise not to tell anyone about it, we’ll talk about it sometime.” As this conversation was going on, most of the people were on land now. Jan looked around at them and said, “People wouldn’t understand, they would just think I’m crazy.”
Jasma did understand, and said, “Fine, Jan, whenever you are ready, I truly would like to hear what you have to say.”
Jan turned his eyes to the left, and unexpectedly barked to their astonishment, “What the FUCK?” He had recognized Sak, and immediately dashed out of the females’ presence, heading for Sak, who was now working for Winoni’s crew, broken rib and all. Jan surprised Sak, grabbing him and violently throwing him to the ground.
“Hey, Hey! Hold on there! What’s going on?” Winoni bellowed, running over to Jan and Sak. Sak was gripping his broken rib, and staying in a guarded position on the ground.
“How did he get in with us?” Jan demanded to know, pointing his finger at Sak.
“He asked me when we were loading. I could have just tied him up with the other dock workers, but he begged me to take him with us,” Winoni answered — “Why?” — and now he was eyeballing Sak.
“He’s a no-good, back-stabbing piece of predatory shit, that’s why!” Jan barked as he went to lunge at Sak again.
Winoni and the others held him back. “Whoa there, son!” Winoni said.
“I was in a coma for three days because of him and his gang, look at these scars!” Jan showed him a two-inch scar on the side of his head, and the one on his neck. “They tried to cut my fucking head off!”
Winoni sighed, shaking his head, and looking at Sak. “Well he’s with us now. What are we supposed to do, throw him to the yetas?” Winoni countered. Sak was now getting up, brushing himself off, while still holding his right side with one hand.
As far as Jan was concerned, “Yes, throw him to whatever. He’s bad news, and he will cause problems here.”
Sak spoke up. “Listen Jan, I know you hate me, but you don’t know what just happened. Look at me. Barab left me to be beaten by Kran and his gang. He betrayed me!” Sak was looking for sympathy. He was not about to let these good folks know that he also bombed Barab’s house, murdering his mother and brother. “I came down to the river to drown myself, and I ran into this. A new chance for a new life!” He paused, looking on an absolutely unbelieving Jan.
Sak continued, “Give me a chance, Jan. I’ll show you, I’ve changed. I want to help here.”
Winoni was studying Jan and could see he was hardened in his position. “We’ll just keep you two apart for now, and see how it goes, OK?” Winoni suggested in his deep husky voice.
Jan just sighed. What else could he do? These people were not going to send Sak to his death. They did not know him.
“Whatever,” Jan replied, and then he turned to Sak and said, “You stay away from me and my family.” Then he left them and went up to where the others were all gathering. He was thinking about his last words. Martha and Rebecca were certainly family. What about Rachel? She has to stay with us, she’s having my baby. She’s family now, too.
They had all heard gunfire over the hill for the past ten minutes or so. Jan mused — I guess the hunters are doing their job. Good.
The crowd waited for the hunters to clear the area and come back. When they did, they were carrying five dead splints, and six of the hunters were dragging a fully-grown yeta. The hunters were all smiles. “This is the easiest hunting I’ve ever done,” one exclaimed. “We’re not going to starve out here!” They put their bounty, already gutted, over by their boat, to finish cleaning and butchering later. The meeting then started, with hunters standing guard around the perimeter of the immediate area.
Jasma was given the honor of being the first to address the crowd. She stood up on a small, conveniently flattened boulder, and after the initial greetings and congratulations, she said to them, “I know you all have not yet been told of our plans. Well, we have old maps of this area — they were developed over one hundred years ago when these areas were still populated. We are heading for what was a major city of the Platacs, near the ocean. Their living structures were known to have excellent construction, so we may be able to find places there suitable to clean out and move into. We will eventually need to leave the boats, and travel by land to get to our destination.”
She went on to say, “Dr. Kalep’s advisors feel that we should start our land travel sooner than later, but we won’t be deciding where or when just yet. We do know that we will be on this river for about one month. Dr. Kalep and his partner Dr. Brader believe that the closer we get to the ocean, the more risk we have of being attac
ked by a molick or other large sea creature.” Although Dr. Kalep was an archeologist, and Dr. Brader a chemist, they had consulted other appropriate professionals on board, and felt that they had good advice to go by. Although their relationship had been kept ultra-secret before the escape, all was out in the open now. Most who knew them were aware they were gandy all along, but this was not a big problem within LERN. Prior to the escape, non-LERN folks also knew about Kalep and Brader, but feared Dr. Kalep’s powerful connections, and would not dare to go against him.
They were primarily concerned with a molick attack on the boats. A molick was a humongous fish that had hands with opposable thumbs — on arms with very bony pointy elbows. It was also known to produce a ghastly haunting smile from its eerily looking face when hunting, capturing, and picking its meal apart — always a live one.
Jasma concluded her small announcement with, “My son, Asa, and I are looking forward to a wonderful, loving life out here, and I am just so pleased to be with all of you — out here, free at last!” Everyone cheered, and then Jasma told them all that it was time get into lines to receive their “wildlands” vaccines.
“I hope we’re not too late for the vaccines,” Jan muttered to himself. He went over to where Lep and Dom had set up shop, and asked, “Do you guys need any help?”
Lep said, “Here, take these to those two other tables,” and he gave Jan two boxes of syringes. “Make sure you bring the needles back!” Dom yelled to another group that was leaving with some vaccine supplies.
After everyone had received their vaccinations, they all re-boarded the boats, and headed downstream again. There was not much for Jan to do for the next few hours, so he found a fishing pole, and started fishing alone from the back of the boat. It was not long before he saw a big ripple in the water.
“What was that?” Jan asked aloud. The thing was at least seventy-five feet long. “That has to be an ela,” he said to himself, studying the slithering swimming style it had. Jan had heard that they could not get into the boats. He saw it lift its nose for air, and go back under. “Our guns!” Jan said aloud. He put the fishing rod down, and went below where Martha and Rebecca were helping to prepare something for the boat travelers to eat for the day.
Dystopyum (The D-ot Hexalogy Book 1) Page 25