Rubic stares wide-eyed. “You, uh, tired a bit? Too much excitement for one day?”
Rummmmble. The lightning continues unabated, but the thunder is softer as the storm moves down the valley.
“Ssss errrr,” Jibbawk moans in one final complaint, lies on its belly, and falls asleep.
Rubic pokes the bird-like creature. It doesn’t respond. “Jeez. Never a dull moment around you.” Rubic teases. He leans closer and inspects Jibbawk’s quills. They are sharp and hollow like hypodermic needles. “You’re an odd breed aren’t you, buddy? Are all Lan Darrians, or whatever you call yourselves, this scary looking?” He thinks about how Allan must have felt when he wound up on Lan Darr the first time. It must have been such a terrifying thing. Anger grows in Rubic. I’m supposed to be keeping that kid safe! Instead I lose him twice and into the craziest places. I gotta do better than this.
Jibbawk sleeps, its snore sounds like a loon. The creature looks like a type of bird but is obviously more intelligent. It’s gruff and uncultured, maybe a bit on the vicious side, but smart. Its culture is the problem, and that’s only a fault of birthplace. It knows what it’s taught and nothing else. Though the fact that it wants Allan to testify to the council and plead for change on a strange planet far removed from Earth and its culture, save for the English it speaks, means it has good intentions.
Rubic thinks about its language. How does it know English? Something isn’t right here. I want to know the whole story.
Rubic’s ears are still ringing from the explosive thunder, but he tries to ignore it. He unzips a front pouch on his pack, digs out a flashlight, and shines it on his companion, sweeping the beam over Jibbawk’s eyes. “Wake up, Jibbawk. Rise and shine.”
Jibbawk’s beak is scratched deep in places. The thin skin around its beak and eyes has wrinkles and is covered with bumps where quills used to grow. There are scars too, smaller ones, footnoting Jibbawk’s book of life with trauma and suffering. Do the wounds of its past mean it’s harboring a hatred for someone or something? Was it mistreated, abused? Or are they simply from a rugged, unspoiled life? Only time and traveling great distances with this creature will tell. Rubic is not a stranger to travel. He’d backpacked across Europe and through the Rocky Mountains and in South America. He’d traveled with strangers that would become friends. Maybe he and Jibbawk would connect the same way, even though they were from different worlds, literally.
An inch or so beyond the bald areas on Jibbawk’s body, the quills are thin and more like hair, but straight and pointy. They grow thicker until the skin is completely hidden. Rubic trails the light down Jibbawk’s arm. The quills thin out so Rubic can see the sheer muscle and thin sprawling veins. There are longer quills, almost a foot long, that grow out of its forearm. Jibbawk keeps the quills folded so they aren’t always visible. They splay out when it jumps. That’s when Jibbawk’s arm looks like a wing.
Its fingers are pointed because the entire tip is a claw-like fingernail. One is chipped. As Rubic stares, a red liquid drips from the chipped claw and plops on the stone. The red is bright and shimmers with glitter.
Shivers move up Rubic’s spine. He clicks off his flashlight and pockets it, tired of inspecting the strange creature next to him. Without knowing why, Rubic digs into his pack again, pulls out his large buck knife, and secures it to his belt. He feels better having something just as pointy as Jibbawk’s claws at his disposal.
BOOM!
Rubic jumps. The thunder splits his ear hairs, and the ring increases. He rubs his head and leans against the stone. He can’t hear anything over the ring. Now, sheltered in a cave hollowed out of shiny black stones, Rubic grows tired, but he doesn’t want to fall asleep. He can’t.
As Rubic stares out at the strobe-light-lit valley, he hears a faint singing. “Maybe that’s what you heard, Jibbawk.” It gets louder. Rubic scans the valley.
Rumble, boom, rumble.
Rubic opens his mouth and tries to pop his ears. He’s trying to lessen the ringing so he can hear the faint singing. The singing sounds like it’s on the wind, like a siren’s song. It’s beautiful and enchanting.
Rubic emerges from the small cave and walks toward the vegetation. Even though the lightning lights up the area in intermittent flashes, Rubic can’t see much. Seconds before he steps down he sees one of the squirrel-looking creatures lying under his boot. It’s not moving. He nudges it and rolls it on its back. Its mouth is agape, but it’s not dead. Rubic heads to the tree where he’d seen that green-eyed creature. Sure enough, the thing is fast asleep, lying on a branch like a sloth. Everywhere Rubic looks, the creatures are asleep, lying around in odd places.
Down the valley the singing gets louder. Startled by the snapping of tree branches, Rubic crouches behind a bush.
Rummmmmmmble.
Rubic waits and watches. He sees a large animal, twice the size of an elephant, approach from the distance. It has armored scales, and its head is fat and low to the ground. It’s like a dinosaur. Its back slopes up in a gentle arch then lowers to a ball-armored tail, which it swings back and forth as it walks. A bolt of lightning hits the thing in the back, and electricity spreads around the beast like electric racing worms until they find gaps in the armor. The creature shudders as it absorbs the energy. Wow.
It lumbers closer. A flabby trumpet-looking horn protrudes out of its thick skull. The beautiful song comes from the creature’s horn. Such a lovely song. Rubic wants to lie down, but for some reason it doesn’t have as powerful an effect on him as it does on the other creatures. His ears still ring slightly from the thunder. Maybe that’s why.
The creature meanders along, sniffing and searching with a wide mouth. It’s only a few yards away now. The eyes are as large as footballs, bigger maybe, but it doesn’t seem to see very well. “You are a freakin’ dinosaur,” Rubic mumbles. The creature’s wide lips come across a sleeping animal and slurp it up. “Oh no you didn’t!” Rubic says, shocked.
The beast hears him. Its huge rhino-like head turns, and its song gets louder. The singing resonates in Rubic’s head, and he sways back and forth like a drunk. Shit, this is bad. That thing can eat me up.
The dinosaur snorts and starts toward Rubic. Rubic turns, but his knees weaken. His legs turn into noodles and he falls. The song, he’s got to shut out the song! He looks over his shoulder. The dinosaur isn’t fast due to its stubby legs, but it’s coming. Rubic smacks both ears, making them ring again. His dizziness increases, but the ringing gets louder. He stands and pulls out his buck knife. Then, looking at the knife and back at the beast, he puts it away. The large stones at his feet are his next best option, so he picks one up and pitches it at the trumpet horn. It strikes the top, folding it over easily. The song stops.
The dinosaur rears up and stomps. Rubic picks up a larger stone and throws it. It glances off the head. The armored tail comes at him. It pounds the ground, leaving a crater. Rubic dives, avoiding another swing.
He runs back to the small cave. The dinosaur pursues him, quick now that it’s mad. Before Rubic gets to the cave, the tail comes down on the entrance. Stones shatter and collapse on Jibbawk, but they fail to wake it.
“Jibbawk, wake up!” Rubic yells. He reaches into the half-collapsed cave and shakes Jibbawk, careful not to get poked by the quills. He gets no response. The tail is going to hit again. Rubic grabs Jibbawk’s arms, where the quills are thin and small and more like coarse hair, and drags it out. It feels like he’s pulling on a cactus. He can’t pick up Jibbawk, fearing the larger quills will impale him, so he tries to drag it up the hill.
The dinosaur pulls back its tail for another strike. The tail comes down as close as it has ever come. Sand and dust rain on Rubic. Jibbawk wakes with a jerk, eyes focusing on the beast, and jumps to its feet. It whips an arm out, releasing a large quill from its forearm. The quill bounces off the dinosaur’s scales harmlessly. The tail swoops down, but Jibbawk and Rubic dash up the hill. After each step, the loose sand cascades down in small avalanches.
Jibbawk turns and flings another quill. This time it spears the shoulder where the dinosaur’s scales are smaller. The beast roars and moves back. It can’t look at the quill, but tries. Its eyes widen, and it falls on its side, trying to rub the quill out of its hide.
“We don’t have much time! I can hear other beastsss coming!” Jibbawk hisses and continues up the sandy hill, running sidelong instead of directly up.
The intermittent flashes of lightning give Rubic sunspots that make it harder to see, but he has to retrieve his backpack. He slides down the hill, finds the cave, and peers into the rubble. “Oh no.” His backpack is buried under rubble. It has all his food, water, and supplies. He tries to remove a large black rock, pulling until his feet sink into the sandy hill and his muscles burn.
Freeing his backpack is hopeless. It is his safety, his security, his lifeline, all bundled neatly into one compact interior-frame hiking pack that took him years to perfect. His camping stove, fuel, foil blanket are in there. Rubic feels fear crawl up his spine like a rattlesnake in his shirt.
The beast snorts only a few yards away.
“Come, Rubic!” Jibbawk yells from farther up the sandy hill.
As the thunder encore ratchets up, the humungous beast stands, snapping twigs under its huge feet. Rubic pulls his feet from the sand and runs to Jibbawk. The crashing sounds of other beasts fill the valley. The herd of dinosaurs ram trees and stomp, adding more deathly instruments to the ensemble of thunder and lightning.
At the top of the hill are more outcroppings of black stones. One is large enough to hide behind. Jibbawk and Rubic stop shoulder to shoulder, gasping for breath, feeling severely strained from running on sand.
“Got a nice right hook there. More like a right shot,” Rubic says, leaning back, feeling the absence of his backpack. “Poison in your spikes?”
“Yesss, a light toxin. I evolved to poison my prey before consssuming it. Sssmaller prey die from it, larger beastsss are only stunned.”
It isn’t much different than what the beast below does to catch its prey. I guess we all have our weapons. “What happens when you run out of quills?”
“They grow back in time. But not to worry, that is not my only trick.”
Rubic doesn’t want to see any other tricks. In fact, he never wants to be on Jibbawk’s bad side, ever.
Rubic peeks from around the boulder. The huge creature lumbers away. “We’re in the clear.”
“Good, let’sss keep going.”
“Do you know what happened? Do you remember passing out?” Rubic asks.
“I remember a sssong. It was the most irritating noise.”
“Put you to sleep like a baby,” Rubic snickers.
Jibbawk growls.
Rubic wonders if Jibbawk realizes he saved its life. He almost mentions it, but doesn’t. Jibbawk isn’t stupid or naive. Jibbawk must know Rubic saved its life, but it doesn’t feel the need to say thanks.
Rubic follows Jibbawk along the ridge of the hill, heading perpendicularly away from the lightning storm. The clouds move away, chasing the horizon, allowing starlight to fill the sky. Part of the star-filled canopy is an arching shaft of light. It glows from reflected light and brightens the night considerably. It’s a planetary ring! The ring resembles the bands on a record but glows. There are six solid bands and lots of thin bands. Points of light scatter around the rings like buckshot. They’re moons.
“That’s amazing.” Rubic knows Jibbawk doesn’t care for beauty, but he can’t hold his appreciation inside. When something is so beautiful and threatens to make him cry, he’s got to say something. “Ah, this is gorgeous, stunning, unbelievable!” Saying the words doesn’t stop the tears. They stream down his cheeks and into his beard and make him giggle like a lunatic.
All the previous fear and panic and fighting-for-his-life adrenaline simply vanishes. He stumbles on a rock and reminds himself to watch where he steps. There is as much danger here as beauty. Rubic needs to survive and get to Allan so they can witness these sights together. He so desperately wants to be with his family now, to share what he sees. He wonders if Allan feels the same way.
Chapter 15
Welcome Party
Allan, now in the colorful jungles of Katonaay, grabs the string under the red balloon and ties it to the handle of his wheelchair. He wonders about the balloon. Did it belong to a child? Is the child some wacky animal or a human? Did this balloon come from a party?
Allan rolls over a cluster of small roots and through wet, rotten leaves. He’s in a dense jungle where the trees tower over his head by thirty feet or more. They have straight trunks topped with thick, bright red leaves. Some of the trees are covered in pink vines and parasitic plants with blue leaves, some are as naked as bones. It’s pleasant enough on the senses, and Allan eagerly soaks in the details.
The heat and humidity forces Allan to take off his jacket and tuck it into his pack.
“The worst thing about traveling via Hubbu pollen is how it drops you off wherever it damn well pleases,” Allan grumbles. He’s figured out, from the cavern experience, that speaking out loud eases the fear of being alone. “I need to find some high ground and see where I am.”
He uses the electric motor to boost him over a tangle of roots. The ride is as bumpy as it gets. If the roots get any larger, I’ll get stuck.
Birds chirp in a variety of tones and tunes, but keep out of sight. Allan finally sees one. It’s bright orange with a huge beak and large eyes. The bird ruffles its feathers and takes off. There are darker shapes in the canopy that resemble monkeys, though they are too far up in the branches to see clearly.
Allan rolls next to a root that arches over his head. He ducks underneath it worrying that the roots might get too dense and entangled to traverse. He has no choice but to keep going and hope for a way through.
A fat, blue caterpillar sits on the large root. It’s as large as a hotdog bun and has two eyes and a wide mouth. When it sees Allan, it pulls up the front portion of its body and smiles. Allan laughs as the slimy creature starts to resemble something cute. He and the creature stare at each other.
Allan has trail mix, crackers, a jar of peanut butter, and some flatbread. He chooses the trail mix and munches on a handful. “It’s hot here. Like I’m staring into an oven,” he says to the caterpillar. “You probably like it, huh?”
The caterpillar’s round head cocks to the side like an inquisitive robin. The first few sets of feet touch together reverently.
“You want a raisin? They’re not my favorite.” Allan places a raisin in front of the caterpillar. It picks up the raisin and throws it like a child discarding an unwanted toy. “Oh, you want my M&M’s, then? Well tough. They’re all mine.” Allan unloads a handful of mix into his mouth. “Which way to the Hubbu plants? I need a blue one to get me to Lan Darr.”
The caterpillar only blinks.
“Big help you are.” Allan returns the snack to his pack and keeps going. He rolls over and through more roots before finally emerging from the jungle into tall grass. He pushes through the grass carefully, swatting away flying bugs. When he breaks through the tall green reeds he stops. His mouth drops open.
He sits at the edge of the tallest cliff he’s ever seen. The sky is pink and, for a moment, hurts his eyes. Down below, far below, are two rivers, surrounded by more jungle. They intersect, drawing a Y on the landscape, and snake over the horizon.
A pearl-white dome rises above the forest on the far side of the river. He squints and sees buildings too. Lots of them. There’s a city over there! But it’s so far away. Allan is emboldened by excitement.
He follows the cliff’s edge, hoping he’ll eventually get down to the valley floor.
Rolling along the edge is easy, and Allan finds himself singing a favorite song. He wishes he had a camera, a music player, and a hat. He makes a mental note to bring a bigger bag with more supplies. He might even need a tent.
He wants someone to travel with, too, and thinks of Asantia, who has al
ready traveled the galaxy. She’d know where to go, what to do. Maybe they could take Laura with them. The three of them, galactic adventurers. The thought makes Allan surge with happiness.
He imagines himself on Asantia’s ship looking out the window at the scenery below. Asantia turns to face him, but she has Laura’s face.
A moment of sadness comes to Allan as he thinks about how Laura betrayed him by stealing his diary. But she didn’t mean any ill-will. She was trying to do something good. She is his best friend. She never saw the wheelchair he’s stuck in. Allan clears his throat.
Allan comes across a protrusion in the cliffside. As he gets closer he sees stairs. They zig zag down the rock face. He shakes his head, “No, no, no. Not another stairway!” He says it so loud he startles a bird from the tall grass. Allan doesn’t use the stairs, choosing instead to keep following the cliff’s edge.
Some time passes, he has no idea how much. He eats more trail mix and drinks more water, keeping in mind he’ll need to ration his food and water.
His arm muscles stiffen and he thinks about camping. On Peebland, according to Martin, the days are two and a half Earth days long. Without knowing how long the days are on Katonaay, Allan will have to listen to his body and try to rest when he needs it. Which he might need to do. He looks around, considering. No, not time yet. Maybe I can get to the city first.
Allan keeps going. The cliff turns outward like a peninsula. Some twisted, golden thing sits at the end of the rocks, gleaming in the pink light.
The sound of a deep horn interrupts the myriad of chatting birds, silencing them. The thing at the end of the peninsula makes the sound. Allan rolls up and over a wind-softened stone, rolling as fast as he can. Someone, or something, has to be up there blowing on that great big horn.
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