by Aer-ki Jyr
“No, but I learned how to use it long ago.”
“Instruction manual?”
“I was taught to use them. Now, put these on. If they are not your size I have found others that may fit better.”
Esna was handed a stack of white clothing which she took cautiously. It was like the ones her brother was dressed in, except brilliant white. No, it wasn’t completely white. When she unfolded the shirt she saw a narrow brown line running down the sleeve. The pants as well had a matching marking, and as Esna pulled them on first she got a very odd feeling…like she was in some dream. It might have been the drugs he’d just given her, but the feel of the material on her battered, exhausted legs seemed to revitalize her a bit.
She stood up in bare feet to put the shirt on, with it coming all the way down to her wrists. It was loose but trim, though it didn’t offer any support for her breasts like her body wrap had. Still, that didn’t feel like a problem, and she could adjust herself accordingly when she put her armor back on, as she’d had to do before in some cases.
The memory of that brought another flush of tears, linking back to her brother, but this time very little fluid came out. She had cried herself dry.
“They appear to fit,” Rammak said, looking her over with a steady, almost staring gaze.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Am I hurt that bad?”
“Yes, but you will live. I have not seen a Human wearing that clothing in a painfully long time.”
“They feel good,” was all she could think to say.
“You have not earned them, but given the circumstances I believe they belong on you rather than sitting entombed in this place.”
Esna frowned. “Earned?”
“The white clothing with a single stripe down the side. It is a rank you have not earned, but no matter. They are yours now. There are shoes if you want them, but I do not think your armor’s boots will accommodate them. Still, find yourself a matching pair and we will take them with us.”
“Where?”
“Away from here, and the further the better before the eyes in the sky begin watching. Come here.”
Esna walked on bare feet across the room feeling horrible inside and pristine on the outside as Rammak led her to a sealed container that he opened revealing a pile of equally white shoes. They weren’t boots and didn’t look durable at all, but she couldn’t help but reach in and feel them. Her mind zoned out into a haze, but a hand on her shoulder brought her back from wherever she’d been.
“Are you disoriented?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Focus on the task at hand. Your body will heal itself given time.”
“If you say so,” she said, pulling out a shoe and reaching it down to her foot and lining it up. It was too long so she tried another and another until she found one that looked like it would fit. Sliding it on felt beyond weird, so smooth and soft, but it was too small. She regretted taking her foot out, but when she did find one that fit she didn’t ever want to wear boots again.
“This one.”
“Find its pair. Here are socks,” he said, handing her some tiny scraps of cloth.
“These won’t fit.”
“They will. Pull them on and they’ll expand.”
She looked at them oddly, then her mind began to wander again into a blizzard of noise and emotion that kept trying to suck her in.
“Focus on what you’re doing,” Rammak’s voice boomed, bringing her back to reality. “Put them on, then the shoes,” he said, moving to collect her armor.
She didn’t know what was going on, what to do, or what to feel, so she just did as he told her and tried to get the tiny finger-sized piece of clothing on her foot…and to her shock it did expand, covering her toes and then her entire foot up to the ankle. And it didn’t have any holes in it. How the material did that was remarkable.
Esna put the other one on then pulled the shoes over top and suddenly ended up on her knees crying out a few wisps of tears and looking down at her slightly quivering hands.
Rammak appeared before her again, tilting her chin up so she had to look at him.
“There is no time to explain. You have been hurt badly in two different ways. You will adapt given time, but you will suffer now and there is no way to avoid that. I will keep you moving whether you want to or not so you will avoid the worst of it, because the last thing you want to do is stop and end up in a thought loop. You need new experiences to get your balance back. Memories of the past will only draw you off course. You care for your brother, but for your own sake put all thought of him in a box within your mind and close it for now. You can open it later…much later…but for now there is nothing to be gained from thinking on him. We have done what we can, now we must focus on you and you alone.”
“Who…are you?”
“The person who is going to make sure you stay alive to see tomorrow. Now come with me. I have your armor and everything we need to repair it, but we cannot stay here. We must go now before word spreads and more hunters come after us.”
“Tell me who wants to kill me. Please.”
“Aside from the rabble back in town? It’s a long story, but if you want a name you may call them the Viks.”
“The…Viks?”
“And they are so powerful that I can’t fight them and win. The only way I can defeat them is by keeping you on the move and ahead of them. Can you understand that concept, even if the rest is confusing?”
“Where can we go that is safe?”
“There is nowhere safe, except where they’re not, and they can go anywhere. But if they search a place and do not find us there, we can hide there later. We have to move and keep moving, and we’ve already taken a considerable amount of time here. I do not know how much surveillance they have, so there is a place we must get to before they catch up with us. Once there we will at least temporarily lose their pursuit and have a chance to disappear, but it will be a race to get there.”
“Viks…” she repeated, losing her focus again.
“Very well,” he said, picking Esna up in one arm as she squealed in surprise, “there is no more time for talk. We are leaving.”
A bag full of her armor suddenly appeared to her right as she was held aloft in his left lower arm like another bag.
“I can walk.”
“Later. I must get you moving now.”
With those words the world around her suddenly began to thunder and blur as the Calavari took off running. Her body flopped up and down but his arm held firm, which was good because her head went completely blurry up until she felt solid ground beneath her feet…then she slumped down again for a moment, but a pair of hands picked her up again at the waist and her legs split. Next thing she knew her butt hit something hard and a rope was strung across her legs. It wasn’t too tight, but it held her in place as Rammak’s bulk suddenly was before her.
It took her a moment to realize she was back on the speeder, then the walls blurred again and she was thrown back against something large behind her. Holding onto the rope she twisted around and saw a bundle of sacks and supplies latched on.
“Where…” she muttered, then decided not to speak as the wind picked up. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus her vision when she opened them but there was nothing aside from darkness for quite a while. When the light returned it was sudden and blinding…then they were back on the surface and hurrying along across the barren landscape at dizzying speed.
Time swirled around Esna as they flew across far too much terrain with her mind lost in thought, exhaustion, and emotion. Eventually everything seemed to numb out to a graciously silent calm with the sound of the wind whipping by nearly putting her to sleep. When there was a sudden deceleration it roused her slightly, then the big mass in front of her slid off the seat and she fell forward, caught at the waist by the rope tying her down.
They’d stopped without her realizing and the suns were just dipping below the horizon. Everything was dark save for a sli
ver of sky on the western edge and that darkness would remain that way for a few hours only, but for now the boulders surrounding them were eerily defying her ability to see without her helmet.
“We will rest here,” Rammak said, untying Esna and helping her off. “You need to sleep.”
“Where are we?”
“Well to the south. I spotted two other vehicles, but neither were pursuing us. I think we’ve lost those looking for us in the settlement, but word will spread and other will be watching for us. It’s best if we stay ahead of that news, but we can spare a few hours here.”
“Do you have a light?” she asked, suddenly realizing her bladder was full. “I need to pee.”
Rammak dug into the stash of supplies on the speeder and pulled out a tiny rod that snapped into a bright blue glow.
“Thanks,” she said, holding the cool rod between thumb and forefinger as she stumbled away from the bike on cramped legs, disappearing behind several boulders with only the glow over their peaks marking her position. When she eventually came back out she saw Rammak moving smaller rocks aside creating a relatively flat position around a cylinder the size of her leg from knee to hip and about the same thickness.
She held out her hand, returning the glow rod that he reached back and took with his lower left as he continued picking up and tossing aside stones.
“Stand clear,” he said, getting up and chucking one last rock back over the speeder. Rammak touched a button on top of the cylinder and walked away, with it beginning to unfurl a few seconds later. Esna watched in surprise as it expanded out into a small building with a flat top and hard halls, which she confirmed with a poke of her finger as Rammak opened the door.
“How?”
“This planet used to be far more advanced than it is now.”
“We’ve…never found anything like this in the ruins.”
“I’ve had a lot more years to look. I’ll get you a bedroll and some food, then sleep as much as you can. We’ll be moving not long after sunup.”
Esna stood by and watched as he pulled some more equipment out of the stash and installed it inside the building. Eventually he waved her inside and she saw both a light and two beds laid out along with some other equipment, including a separate compartment.
“If you want to take a quick shower you can use this,” he said, pointing inside. “I’ll show you how to use it, and this is the more civilized way of relieving yourself.”
Esna looked as he pressed a button and a stool rose up from a panel of equipment on the floor.
“Take this outside and eat as much as you want while I use the equipment, then I’ll switch with you.”
Esna took the flat box into her no longer shaking hands and opened it, finding a variety of food cubes and rods that looked pathetically small.
“They’re condensed, so you’ll get a lot more food out of one than you might think. Two red ones should be enough for a full stomach for a Human.”
“Did you make these?”
“Yes. I salvaged some foodstuff production equipment. These wouldn’t have lasted since the bombardment like the rest of this stuff did.”
“Is this meat?” she asked, picking up a black cube.
“No,” he said gravely. “It’s made for Calavari. Your stomach probably won’t like it. You eat meat?”
“I grew up on a farm. We raised Brendilin.”
“You killed them?”
“Only a couple times. Usually Yammar did when we ate them, but most we sold,” she said, taking a step backwards as the look on Rammak’s face turned into a snarl. His fist balled up, then flexed open and shut several times.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, suddenly afraid.
“Humans eating meat…is abhorrent.”
“Why?”
Rammak just shook his head. “I expected better of you, but I assumed wrong. The fall has corrupted you as well.”
“What are you talking about?”
The Calavari calmed himself, then held up a reassuring hand. “Later. Right now you need to eat and rest. We can talk while we move, so save your questions.”
Rammak gave her the glow rod back and pointed at the door, which she left and he sealed behind her. She didn’t know what that had been about, but she really didn’t like the look that had crossed his face. Suddenly she realized just how much she needed him, and the thought of him turning on her made her lose most of her appetite.
She walked over to the speeder and sat sideways on the seat, picking one of the red cubes and nibbling on it experimentally. It thick and chewy, very dense like he’d said, but it tasted special…just like all this crazy equipment and her clothes felt. Esna popped the full cube in her mouth and chewed a lot, finding it incredibly difficult to work through and swallow, but her taste buds said it was worth it.
Her stomach did too as her hunger finally started to register. She picked up another red and was halfway chewing through it when Rammak came back out of the building and pulled a pair of bottles out of the stash to her left, handing one to her.
“Water.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking it and trying to avoid his eyes.
“I’m not going to strike you, but what you did was wrong. This planet is full of wrong, and I had assumed a Human would be immune to it.”
“Did you know other Humans?”
“Many.”
“Where?”
“Here and other worlds.”
Esna frowned. “You’ve been offworld?”
“Not for a very long time, but I was born on our capitol, Varasiss. I was fighting here when the planet fell and was left for dead. I’ve been here ever since.”
“How is that possible?”
“If I’m not killed I will live forever.”
“How?”
“Training,” Rammak said simply.
“Training?”
“There is a great deal you do not know, and if we survive long enough I will teach you, but for now finish eating, drink, and use the facilities inside to clean up. We don’t have much time to rest, and you look like you need every minute you can get.”
“The healing patches are working.”
“Not what I meant. You’ve been through a lot, body and mind.”
“I…”
“Don’t think, don’t speak, just rest. There will be time for both later,” Rammak said, taking a long drink from his own bottle.
Esna chose to let her questions go and did the same, tasting the purest water she had ever put to her lips. She wanted to ask where it came from, but let that question go as she gulped down more and more until the bottle was empty.
“Come. I will show you how to work the equipment, then give you some privacy.”
Esna gave him back the food tray and bottle, then he took her inside and did as promised. When he came out he shut the door and dug three small spheres out of the cargo stash, turning each of the little sentries on and releasing them to float in the air. He commanded them via a small band he put on his wrist and they flew off in different directions, giving him a heads up if anyone approached or any comm signals were picked up, for Esna wasn’t the only one who needed sleep and as soon as she was finished they were both going to grab a few hours before flying on further to the south and the canyons in the Peshvagma Belt.
7
“How old are you?” Esna asked, using her helmet’s audio amplification to shout past the wind whipping past them as Rammak’s extremely fast speeder dragged them further and further south. The Calavari had patched up her armor prior to waking her, so now she wore her gifted clothes underneath it while her sunburned skin from the previous day got a much needed break from the intense stellar radiation.
“This planet’s years are not true years. They’re slightly longer than standard, but in the proper units I am 1204 years old.”
“There’s no way that’s possible,” she yelled back far more than necessary.
“I am not the eldest, and those who hunt you will be older. Some are rum
ored to be over a million years old.”
“You’re not being serious. I’m not a child. Don’t play games with me.”
“This is no game,” Rammak said, almost in a growl. “The V’kit’no’sat have been around for well over a million years.”
“But the same ones?”
“Advanced races do not die unless killed in combat or accident. And when you are as powerful as them you have little competition capable of killing you. It’s part of the reason they hate you so much.”
“What did I do?”
“Humans can kill them,” he said simply.
“There’s a lot you’re not telling me,” she said, getting more frustrated. “Why can’t you just say whatever is needed plainly? Why the riddles?”
Rammak hesitated, then slightly turned his head back as they powered on across a plain full of rocks and scrub brush. “My apologies. It is hard to remember being ignorant. I don’t know all that you don’t know.”
“Just assume I know nothing.”
“It’s not that simple. There are things one must assume. Like the meaning of words. If you don’t know them, then explanations become pointless. I’m trying to keep my answers simple, but since I don’t know what it is that you do not understand I can’t navigate around it. Just keep asking questions.”
“I’m ignorant?”
“Do you know what that word means?”
Esna frowned beneath her helmet. “Not exactly.”
“Then you are ignorant about ignorance,” the Calavari quipped. “Ignorant means you don’t know something.”
“Really? That’s all?”
“That’s all. You thought it was an insult?”
“Sort of. What’s a normal year?”
“Different worlds spin at different rates, so a day is either based on the sun in the sky or by a set amount of time. Ours was based off the main capitol world’s, and a year was the same way. That kept everyone in the empire using the same measurements.”
“What empire?”