As Jan walked up upon the discussion, Dr. Kalep became agitated at Jan’s arrival. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said to Jan as he walked up.
“What?” replied Jan, not really asking, because he already heard about the decision they were trying to make.
“You always show up like this — at times like this,” Dr. Kalep said in an exasperated way. Winoni looked on with amusement at this young upstart.
“That usually means something is going to happen that shouldn’t,” joked Jan. He smiled at Dr. Kalep, but Dr. Kalep did little more than smirk at him, and shake his head.
Dr. Kalep had gone from a deep distrust of Jan to a moderate dislike of him, along with disconcerting flashes of actual respect. Kalep did have his love-lover training, after all. He did not realize that he feared Jan. Kalep surprisingly said, “Well, Jan, let’s see what you have to say, you’re going to do it now that you’re here anyway.” They then filled Jan in on the details, with emphasis on Kalep’s side of the argument.
What they did not know was that Jan had a dream the night before. He had seen the same terrain that they were in, but he had risen high above it. The path went east, towards the southern end of the river as it joined the ocean, and the path he saw was alive, like a slithering ela forming the letter “S” over and over again.
Now, Jan looked around and noticed that the way he had seen in his dream appeared hilly and dangerous from ground level. They could not see the flat, clear, and safe path because of small hills hiding the “S” curves, but he knew that they were there.
“Take the way over there, to the left of the side of this hill, but don’t go into the valley,” Jan said.
Cush threw his cup down, and said, “Blast this insolent young commoner! It won’t be any problem at all in the valley! Just look at it! It’s all clear!”
They all looked down into the valley, and Cush did have a good point. “I’ll tell you what,” Cush said. “Let us rest here a while, and we’ll send a group of scouts down to the valley to see. It should take them half an hour to reach the stream down there.”
“Great idea!” said Dr. Kalep, looking around for takers.
Jasma said, “It sure would be nice to have them bring some fresh water back,” looking for Jan’s reaction.
Jan just shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know. All he was sure of was the path they should take.
Since nobody protested, it was decided that a group of six hunters would be sent down to scout the area and bring back some water. Then they would listen to the hunters’ report. They approached the hunter’s caravans and the ones there were not happy about it, but they did provide six volunteers to scout. Jan went back to his wagon, near the end of the caravan, to get his gun to help cover them.
The group of scouts went down the steep hillside into the deep valley, towards the distant stream that ran through the bottom of it.
Jan traveled back to his wagon, hoping they would be alright. He got his big gun, and was heading back when he heard screaming up ahead. They were shooting from their location, and there were a few shots fired in the valley.
He ran up to the others, and looked down the hill. All six of the scouts were already being devoured by a pack of at least ten crantics that came out of a cave far below. The planning group could not see the cave opening from their vantage point above, because the lair was below, on the same side of the hill that they were on. Jan fired at the crantics along with the others that were shooting, but the distance was too great, although they scared the crantics back into their lair. Thus far, crantics, being shrewder than realized, had perceived the caravan as very alien and therefore too dangerous to approach.
“What can we do?” Jasma cried out, looking at Jan. “Can anybody help them?”
“Only by going down there,” replied Jan, looking at Dr. Kalep.
Dr. Kalep averted Jan’s gaze, and looked at his feet. Nobody was about to go down there now, not even to retrieve the bodies — or what was left of them.
They all shuffled about a bit, but eventually prepared to go back to their wagons to continue the way Jan had advised. Winoni came up to Jan and said lowly, “You know, I’m beginning to think you’re not full of hydrogen.” He smiled, and patted Jan on the upper back, which, reckoning Winoni’s size, knocked Jan off his balance for a moment.
Jan just smiled, and they walked together as far as Winoni’s wagon, Jan then continuing alone to his own wagon. He smelled food cooking, coming from the wagons as he was passing and wondered, What are Mom and Rebecca cooking for dinner? The two of them had taken on the job of cooking for the nine people on their wagon. Buz was usually helping the hunters now, spotting, with Jan’s pistol or rifle on him.
Chapter Twenty
The Road Home
T
he caravan continued for the next two days, and the people did find fresh water along the way. They followed the twisting “path” between the lower hills east-southeast. The hunters had their routine down, and very few predators could get near the
caravan without becoming dinner. The path became rather narrow at parts, and the occasional blog would be able to hop speedily into a wagon. Even the wild ones were not particularly dangerous unless cornered — they were after the food they smelled. The blogs out here were bigger than the ones used as pets or fed to the contisses back in the NOV. When standing upright, blogs were almost four feet tall. They made a racket when any predator would come close, so the caravan started to allow them in, to trap them. They began to keep blogs on leashes as alarms at night. Being the primates of D’otians, they were remarkably intelligent, and became somewhat tamer by the day, as they were fed and kept safe.
It was the middle of the day now, and the people were plugging away at their trek with rising anticipation.
“Look at this!” Dr. Kalep cried out. He had been walking in front of the wagons with the lead hunters, anxious to see any signs of the city. Far in front of them and to the right was an aboveground mansion, sitting on the side of a small hill they were just rounding. “It’s magnificent!” he exclaimed, as he ran ahead of the hunters, continuing until he reached it.
“Hold on there,” one of the hunters hollered. “We don’t have time to clear it!”
“I want it! I want to live here!” Dr. Kalep gasped, as he was enormously excited at the discovery. The building had one westerly long curved edge going up, like the front of a boat, except that the sides along the edge were initially concave, and it was four stories high. It came to a pyramidal peak at the top. The winds coming from the west kept the gleaming metal surfaces polished like glass. The edge split the westerly wind as a big cleaver would split a gendra thighbone. The thick windows were still intact, albeit hazy and translucent. Dr. Kalep went up the hillside to the building, and put his hand to the gleaming metal. He looked at the others standing around the wagons that had arrived now, astonished. “It’s cool to the touch!” he yelled to the others. They started murmuring about it, because it should have been very warm if not hot, with the sun out in the clear sky.
“We must move on! Mark it, and if we are close enough to the city, you can decide then what you want to do!” said Nugen, the lead hunter.
Kalep knew he could not stop the whole caravan. He looked around while he had the time. From where he was, up the hill a ways, he could see in the immediate surrounding landscape that there were underground homes scattered about, buried in sand, silt, and rocks. He returned to the others, and they continued.
About three hours later, they all knew they were coming up upon something important. The path they were traveling was becoming wider, flatter, and straighter. Dr. Kalep had become quite adept at spotting homes which to others looked like ordinary mounds of sand and such. These mounds were fast becoming more numerous and the “path” would eventually lead them straight towards a yet-to-be discovered big circular road. Before they could see the road-circle ahead, they noticed the outline of something up in the distance there, stretching high up from the ground, and
it was very intriguing. In about fifteen minutes or so, they were close enough to not only see the tall object, but the circle around it as well.
“We’ve hit a crossroads!” the hunters up ahead shouted.
As the caravan arrived, they all gathered the wagons on what looked like what once was a circular road, now covered with sand. What they were goggling at was in the least, unexpected. In the center of this three hundred-foot road-circle stood a huge round metallic object that looked like an giant umbrella on a pedestal. Most of them ran towards the center to look up at it, to be completely under it. The sculpture had ornate designs high above them. The designs were done in relief, and it was unlike anything that Aletian imaginations had created in the NOV artwork that existed. The golden lines up above them were flowing from their own centers, gently curving, multiplying, and ending in big tips that looked like arrowheads. Its circumference shadowed the eastern part of the circular road beneath. Looking up at it from below, it had round depressions near its perimeter, appearing to have possibly held lights at one time.
“That thing must be over two hundred feet high!” Jasma exclaimed, “How beautiful!”
Dr. Kalep was temporarily absent as he had a digestive emergency upon seeing the structure.
They walked around underneath the ‘umbrella’, and observed the crossroads. The roads that joined the circle to the right and left were similar to the one by which they had arrived. The apparent road straight ahead however was wider than the rest, straight and relatively flat. In fact, it looked like it could have been a highway that one would see in the main capital of the NOV. It was an easy choice to take that way.
They continued, and Jan’s wagon companions were all out walking along side the caravan, taking in the curious surroundings. They could see the outlines of what had once been streets, because the depressions in the sand were so uniform and straight, coming off their path at right angles. These were all lined with the ups and downs in the terrain that Dr. Kalep said were homes.
Jan was talking with Buz, saying, “It’s going to get dark, soon.”
Rebecca chimed in, “We need to keep going! We need to — get to the city center. I just know it’s up ahead. I have to see it. Tonight!”
Even Martha, who had been subdued for most of the month-long journey, was beginning to become animated as she exclaimed, “All my life I have been waiting for this!”
“How do you know there is a city center? If there is, how do you know it’s not in some other direction?” Buz commented.
Jan could feel that Rebecca was right. They were going the right way, still — “You’ve been acting a bit off today,” Jan said to Rebecca, “What’s up?”
Rebecca was feeling strangely. She said, perplexed, “I don’t know.” She looked around them. “It’s all these homes. There were people here, and we killed them all. It’s strange, and I — I guess I’m affected by it, that’s all.”
“Well, we didn’t kill them — the NOV did, one hundred years ago. As far as I’m concerned this is payback for us, for all our suffering. A reward!” Rachel gushed, as she walked along with Martha, holding Martha’s arm. She looked at Martha with a big smile on her face, and Martha contentedly smiled right back.
“Let’s get the biggest, nicest house for all of us!” Rachel said to Martha. “We can clean it out, decorate it. Oh! I wonder what the artwork and sculptures are like in these homes? — and they must have had theaters! Big, beautiful theaters! I can’t wait! I want to keep going, even if we go all night.”
“The hunters have protected us so far, haven’t they?” said Rebecca, joining Rachel in the debate.
Martha did not join in the conversation further. She was still digesting the long-withheld news that she was going to be a grandmother. I sure feel like a grandmother, she thought to herself. She was physically drained, and her knees were barking. Martha was thirty-eight now. She was getting older, but still had a good nine years left. She could live longer than the average, but those ones who dragged on often suffered greatly with sores and any number of diseases until the end. Yesterday, Martha was in shock upon hearing of Rachel’s pregnancy, but since then she was able to digest the news. The rules had all changed. As far as anyone knew, there were no rules, yet. She was musing about what the others would say. If anyone speaks of unapproved pregnancy, I’ll tell them to fuck off! Martha mused about it some more — they really should get married, though. She glanced at Rebecca, who had seemed to be astonishingly OK with the pregnancy of Rachel. What about Rebecca? I have seen for years now how she loves Jan. She has nobody else she wants. Jan should marry both of them. After all, out here, who is here to tell him he isn’t wealthy enough?
Jan wasn’t talking much now. He and Buz decided to walk up to the front to see what the leaders may be cooking up.
On the way, Buz broke the silence, “I saw Sak today, sleeping under Winoni’s wagon.”
Jan stiffened at the mention of Sak. “I hope he got covered in pladises,” he replied. “I never see him, unless it’s from a distance. I think he’s hiding from me. He may be smarter than I thought.”
“Well, there are always the predators,” Buz said, enjoying Jan’s look of satisfaction at the thought. “Hey, I thought you love-lovers were supposed to love everyone.”
“I’m still a D’otian,” Jan replied dryly. “He just — doesn’t belong here. No, that’s wrong. He doesn’t deserve to be here. My dad should be here.” Then Jan went silent again, as they continued to walk more quickly to the front of the moving caravan.
Buz thought about Huto, and also his own mother and father and brother. They were fast becoming a distant memory. He never had developed any feelings for them, or anyone for that matter. He was a relatively successful product of the NOV. Up until now, Jan’s importance had been more as an ally. He liked him well enough though. To Buz, love was an alien concept, and he perceived the love circles they did every week as freaky. He wondered though, as he lived among all these people over the last month, what was really so bad about love? They all seemed normal. In fact, they treated him better than anyone ever did at home.
“You guys are OK,” Buz said, and when Jan gave him a quizzical look, he elaborated, “LERN, your group, you’re OK by me,” and he sounded like he really meant it. There was a feeling growing inside Buz that he not felt before. It felt good and happy. It felt like freedom was expanding, and would not stop now for anything. Buz smiled to himself. Tama had begun to accept him as safe, and he melted every time she would talk with him.
When they reached the front of the caravan, the leaders had indeed decided to go on into and through the night. Excitement was in the air, and some wagons had broken out the tuba for an early celebration. Jasma was with Ziba, as usual, and they always welcomed Jan when he visited.
“Oh Jan,” called Jasma, “Look ahead — well, what do you think?” she asked, smiling broadly.
Directly up ahead, Jan saw what looked like more iron shafts, but they were short, and perpendicular to the ground.
“That’s the city!” exclaimed Jasma before Jan could answer. “I can’t wait!” In spite of her age, which was about five years older than Martha, she seemed to rise above her worn out body, and she still had a youthful way about her. Ziba, on the other hand, was at the age that most D’otians began to break down with disease. She was tired looking now, but had great stamina and usually marched on with the rest. When she would get exhausted, she would ride in her wagon.
“I guess that means that we are going to continue in the dark then,” Jan said.
Ziba answered, “The hunters are quite confident that the road is so wide, and the area so open that they will be able to protect us.”
Jan was starting to feel the excitement, and he decided, “Why not?” He smiled at Buz and said, “We need to celebrate.” He turned to Ziba who was enjoying a glass of tuba and asked, “Where’d you get that?”
Jasma chimed in and said, “Go to Winoni’s wagon. They still have a great deal of tuba conc
entrate, and they’ve been brewing it for the past few days with water they had set aside. They were able to make much more when we found water the other day.”
On the way back to Winoni’s wagon, Jan heard an unusual noise coming from the wagon in front of Winoni’s. “Something sounds wrong,” he said to Buz. They went around in back, and Jan opened the doors. Inside were Asa, five of Asa’s buddies, and Sak. Sak was holding his hand over a girl’s mouth, while Asa was just beginning to disrobe her. Jan recognized the girl as Ghina, a girl that had arrived without her family, as they had been captured in the escape.
“What the hell is this?” Jan bellowed, as he and Buz jumped up into the wagon. Asa quickly turned, his hanging headdress flying about his shoulders and retorted, “It’s cool — she’s with us, right, Ghina?”
Ghina looked very groggy, and Jan demanded, “Get your hands off of her!” to Sak, who was now wide-eyed and scared. They all looked frightened now, even Asa. Nobody wanted a scene with so many witnesses walking around outside the wagon.
Sak immediately released Ghina, who clumsily started buttoning her blouse, “It’s all right,” she said while walking towards Jan, and then she tripped over and passed out right there in front of him.
Jan jumped to stop her fall, and Asa moved forward toward him and said, “See, she said it’s all right, give her back!”
Asa was moving as if he were going to take her from Jan, and Buz barked, “Fuck off! We’re taking her back to her wagon.” Then he said, “And we’re reporting you!”
Asa laughed a fake laugh, “To who?” He laughed some more, looking to his posse of rough looking scoundrels, who followed his lead. He looked at Jan and Buz, sneering, and spat on the floor, saying, “Silly little commoners. Go — take her!” Then he gave Jan his evil eye.
Dystopyum (The D-ot Hexalogy Book 1) Page 28