Stolen Worlds (The Harry Irons Trilogy)

by Thomas Stone

  Arai encouraged Harry to step up to the rope. "What do I do?"

  "It is easy," replied Arai, "just hang onto the rope longer than Japar."

  Harry looked at Japar. The Bedoran looked like he could sleep without losing his grip. Harry moved to the rope and Japar shuffled along, hand over hand, making room.

  Harry muttered to himself.

  "What was that?" asked Kathleen.

  "I said, I feel ridiculous."

  Harry pulled himself onto the rope and dangled from his hands. One of the Bedorans said something and Japar started shaking the rope. Harry pulled himself up and hooked his armpits over the line. Japar kept shaking and soon Harry was bouncing on the line like a leaf in the wind. Still, Harry thought, it wasn't too bad. Japar inched closer to Harry. Using his thick, flexible tail, he whipped it across Harry's back. To Harry, it felt as if someone had hit him with a rubber hose. In reaction, he kicked out a foot. It harmlessly glanced off Japar's side and only served to make the Bedoran shake the rope even more fervently.

  "Hang on, Harry!" shouted Kathleen. "Ride 'em, cowboy!"

  Harry was whipped back and forth and side to side. He again lashed out with a leg. Japar caught it in his tail and tried to pull the man from the line. Harry lost the grip of one hand and slipped. Instinctively, he reached out his free hand. Unfortunately for Japar, Harry's desperate grasp closed around Japar's testicles.

  As if jolted by an electric shock, Japar appeared to be paralyzed. Harry held the rope in one hand and the Bedoran's balls in the other. Japar coughed once and let go of the rope. For a half-second, he was suspended in the air, mouth agape, paralyzed with pain. Then Harry let go and Japar dropped to the ground.

  Harry looked down at Arai. "Can I come down now?"

  Arai laughed and Harry recognized the sound of it. It had been fifteen years since he'd seen these primitive, albeit highly honorable, creatures.

  "Of course, you can come down! You have won!"

  "I don't see the point of it," said Harry as he swung down. He looked to where Japar was just getting to his feet. "Is he going to be angry?"

  "The opposite. Watch."

  Japar got himself together and walked, bow-legged and bent, back to where Harry stood. He made the sign of respect to Harry and added a flourish that said something about Harry being a valuable friend.

  Harry looked at Kathleen and shrugged.

  "Maybe the little bugger enjoyed it," she suggested.

  "There will be no further problems. You now have one another's respect. Since Japar is chief, everyone will be good to you. Now we will see what you have to give us." Arai, Japar, and a good number of the tribe started back to fetch the much needed supplies.

  By dusk, Harry had the heat furnace situated and operating. They handed out blankets and showed the Bedorans how to mix the contents of the food packets. It was like Christmas and Harry was Santa Claus. Kathleen was Mrs. Claus. Arai brought other survivors forward, mostly adults who were children when they had last seen Harry. Among them, Arai introduced his son.

  In human terms of development, the boy was about ten yours old. He was a bit on the scrawny side, but then they all looked that way. His mother, Arai informed Harry, had died like so many others in the long winter.

  "This is Yoni. He is small, but he has already proved his value as a hunter."

  The boy waved his tail in greeting and attempted to smile. "I have tried to teach him what I know about humans..."

  "He's cute," said Kathleen.

  "Looks like his father when he was a kid."

  Yoni scratched the top of his head with his tail. "Father, could I see the ship tomorrow?"

  "No, you might break something."

  Harry waved a hand. "I’m sure it’d be fine. I'll give him a tour in the morning. We need to go back to pick up more supplies anyway."

  Yoni sat beside Kathleen and ran his slender fingers through her blond hair.

  "You've done so much for us," said Arai. Most of the tribe sat around the furnace and warmed themselves. The kids ran around the cave, playing chase and chattering to one another. The atmosphere was festive.

  "What can you tell us about Fagen and Blane?" asked Kathleen.

  "They were here. Sometimes they come and bring us food. Fagen wanted to take us to another planet, but Bedor is our ancestral home. This is where we belong. I was born here and I intend to die here."

  "Who is Minerva?"

  "Minerva is the name of the great ship in which they travel. Blane is very strange about it. He talks about it as though it was a woman. Minerva can do many marvelous things."

  "Yes," said Harry, "we know."

  "You speak as though you have not seen Fagen in a long time."

  "It's true, we haven't. Nearly as long as it's been since we last saw you."

  "You are older, my friend. The age shows on your face. Has happiness fled from your life?"

  "I am content." Harry lied.

  "Where is Fagen now?"

  "He has gone in search of the ghlowstone in the place of the Malaaz. This is what he told us."

  Kathleen listened through the translator. "What's he talking about?"

  "Got me." Harry turned back to Arai. "What is the ghlowstone?"

  Arai signed that he didn't know. "It is a legendary substance that is said to burn forever. No one has seen it. It is far away, located in a place where my ancestor's ancestors came from."

  "Are they the Malaaz?"

  "No. The Malaaz, it is said, were once our brothers. The myths tell us there was a great war and we feuded for many hundreds of years. When the True Ones came, they stopped the war by bringing my ancestors to Bedor. For three hundred years, we lived in peace. Then the True Ones returned and took my father's father and his tribe to the place where you and I first met. As you know, the True Ones hunted us like animals."

  "Genetic pooling by isolation," suggested Kathleen. "The True Ones were breeding everything for their own purposes." Kathleen spoke through the translator and asked Arai if he knew where the Malaaz were.

  "Of course. I will show you." Arai stiffly got to his feet and motioned for Harry and Kathleen to follow. With Yoni scampering along behind, they walked to the mouth of the cave. Although the sky was not entirely clear, there were enough breaks in the cover to see the stars and the multiple moons in orbit around Bedor.

  With darkness, the temperature had plunged to well below freezing. Arai pointed upward.

  "There," he said, "that is the place of the Malaaz and the home of the ghlowstone."

  Harry followed Arai's pointing finger and identified the point of light that was the second planet in the Bedoran system.

  "That is where Fagen and Blane went."

  *

  Harry and Kathleen stayed with the Bedorans that night. They lay on animal skins and pulled their thermal bedding up over their heads so they could talk without disturbing anyone.

  "Kath', have you considered what would happen if we actually found Fagen and Blane? According to Corporation dictates, we're legally bound to arrest them."

  "There're ways around all of that. We can erase the data. Arrange an accident..."

  Harry thought about it and said. "I'm not sure if I can go along with that."

  "Some things are bigger than the rules. Fagen saved your life."

  "Yeah, and I'm still not sure why."

  "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Fagen simply liked you? You reminded him of himself, you know."

  "That's ridiculous. I'm nothing like Fagen."

  "You're kidding yourself, Harry. You're more like Fagen than you have any idea."

  "No, I'm not."

  "Yes, you are."

  Kathleen was getting to Harry, but he didn't want to show it. Saying he was just like Fagen was tantamount to saying he had a criminal nature. Harry thought of Fagen as a man who cared nothing about anyone else, giving only when necessity dictated.

  "Arai said they were here a month ago. Plenty could happen in a month."

  "
They're not dead, if that's what you're hinting at. At least, not Blane."

  Harry sighed. Once in a while, Kathleen would wake in the middle of the night, saying that she thought she'd heard Blane calling to her. Harry told her there was no way her old-fashioned neural implants could pick up Blane's signal anymore. Still, she liked to believe it. He didn't deny that she had heard Blane. He just didn't believe it.

  "So what will you do?"

  "What?"

  "If we find them?"

  Harry shrugged. "I don't know. It's a problem."

  "Eveything's a problem to you. I wish just once you'd listen to your heart rather than your head. I don't want to think about it anymore. I want to sleep." With that, she rolled over and turned her back to him.

  He'd made her angry again. Without trying. It had become habitual and Harry wondered why so many of their conversations ended that way. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to relax.

  His mind had been remarkably clear for the last few days. He knew Kathleen watched him closely for any signs of mental impairment and hoped he hadn't given her a reason to believe he wasn't all there. There was no doubt in his mind that the kitzloc had done something to him. So far, it wasn't lethal. But who could know how things would turn out?

  Sleep finally overtook him. He dreamed he was flying over the rugged terrain of a red-tinted planet. On the plains below, he saw forms running. He shifted his outstretched arms and dropped lower until he could see that the creatures were kitzlocs. As he flew by, they craned their necks and looked up at him. In his mind, he could hear them calling to him, psychically sharing their experiences and taking from him his own thoughts. They pulled at his mind and Harry was unable to sustain his flight. He dropped gently until he stood in the center of the creatures.

  They surrounded him and gently probed his mind, sampling his thoughts like passing a hand through running water. In turn, Harry felt their thoughts, their feelings. He was surprised to find no feelings of overt hostility, no thoughts that sped their hearts to commit violent acts, nothing to indicate why they were considered to be such savage creatures. To the contrary, their state of mind was one of calm serenity and a seemingly unfathomable deepness of understanding.

  The dream passed and was replaced by a dream Harry often had. He and Kathleen were together, happily in love as they had been so many years ago. They walked along a deserted beach, free from concern.

  Harry smiled in his sleep and moved closer to Kathleen.

  *

  Yoni climbed into the rover's cab alongside Harry. His eyes were wide as he tried to look at everything at once. He ran his hands along the smooth instrument panel and marveled at the changing readouts on the computer display.

  Harry pointed at the seatbelts and showed Yoni how to strap himself in. Soon, they were bouncing along the ravine, headed back to the shuttle. Harry asked if the boy liked the snow.

  "Yes," he admitted, "but I like the sun more. Father says the cold will go away one day and Bedor will turn from white to green. I think I will not miss the snow."

  Harry was impressed by the boy. He was a quick study. He watched Harry drive the rover and asked questions, wanting to know what the controls did and how to read the instruments. Harry tried to explain but many of the answers were beyond what the boy was capable of understanding. Still, the boy patiently listened and watched.

  When the shuttle came into sight, Yoni fidgeted with excitement.

  "Inside this, you fly to other worlds?"

  "Yes."

  The boy stared at Harry. "Are you a god?"

  "No," stammered Harry, "I'm not."

  "Then how is it you can do so many wonderful things?"

  "I can't make signs with a tail."

  "That is true," Yoni observed, noting Harry's limitation.

  They pulled up beside the shuttle and got out. Yoni glanced at the sky. "More snow coming soon."

  "We'll load up the rover, I'll show you around the shuttle, and we'll start back." Harry looked at the tracks left by the rover in the snow. More flakes were beginning to fall. He led the boy into the shuttle and together they loaded more supplies for the Bedoran tribe.

  There wasn't much left to carry. After fifteen minutes, the rover was full and Harry took the boy on a tour of the shuttle. First, he showed him the engines and tried to explain how they worked. Harry could tell whenever he lost him by the glaze that fell over the boy's eyes. Harry'd seen that expression hundreds of times before in briefings, business meetings, and classrooms. Whenever Yoni did understand something, the boy became quite excited. It was like peeking behind the curtain in the wizard's castle.

  "This is what we call the cockpit," said Harry as they climbed inside. "From here, we control the craft." Harry sat in the pilot's chair and showed Yoni how to work the joystick. "Up," Harry pushed the stick away. "And back," he pulled it toward himself.

  Understanding dawned on Yoni's face. The boy smiled and nodded. His tail flicked happily in the air. Encouraged, Harry continued to point out ship details.

  "This is the computer. I know you won't understand, but I'll show it to you anyway. Computer, on."

  The computer answered immediately, startling Yoni.

  "Ship talks?"

  "Yes, I guess you could say that."

  "But ship is not alive?"

  "No. It's a machine, like I explained before."

  Yoni pointed at something else and Harry explained the throttle controls. Then he got around to showing the controls for the seat. Yoni pushed the buttons and made the chair go up and down. He looked over to his left and reached for a lever that was situated alongside the seat. Before he could grab it, Harry stopped him.

  "No, Yoni. We don't want to pull that. That's the emergency eject. You pull on that and BOOM! you go through the roof." Harry pointed to the escape hatch overhead. He looked at the boy and realized he'd scared him.

  "Sorry. Some things in here can be dangerous."

  Outside, the snow was piling up again. By the time they were ready to go, several inches had accumulated. The wind blew in gusts, blowing the snow and making it difficult to see. The storm moved in much more quickly and fiercely than Harry imagined it could. The rover rocked in gusts of wind. As soon as they drove away from the shuttle, visibility dropped to zero. They hadn't traveled for five minutes before Harry had to stop.

  "We'll just pull up for a few minutes until this clears out a little." They waited fifteen minutes. Instead of the storm dying, it raged on and gained in strength. They ate some soy packets and waited another half hour. By then, the snow was piled to the windows. The exhaust kept the snow melted behind them, but in front it finally piled so high and heavy that the wiper blades could no longer manage to push it away.

  Harry put the rover in gear and tried backing out but it was useless. The heavy vehicle moved a few feet before becoming stuck. Harry couldn't believe it. They were stranded.

  Chapter 5

  The fuel gauge registered less than a quarter tank. Harry thought about hiking back to the shuttle. It wasn't far. He glanced at the boy. Like the other Bedoran men, he wore leather leggings, a grass skirt, animal skin shirt and cape-like affair. Harry wore arctic-tested survival gear. Preliminary temperature variances indicated possible lows of one hundred degrees below zero. Even Harry's clothing wouldn't hold up to that.

  He pressed a button on the instrument panel and an antenna telescoped up from the roof of the rover. Harry switched on the radio and hoped Kathleen was listening.

  "Kathleen? This is Harry."

  He paused a moment. When no answer came, he tried again. The only thing that came back was static, more white noise. Over and over, Harry tried unsuccessfully to raise Kathleen at the Bedoran camp. After a few minutes, he saw that his effort was wasted, and he switched on the automatic emergency beacon. If Kathleen got around to turning on her radio, she'd hear the message.

  Yoni calmly sat in his seat and watched.

  "I've never seen snow come down so fast," Harry c
ommented in English.

  Yoni signed that he didn't understand and Harry repeated himself in Bedoran.

  "Sometimes it goes like this for days."

  "Can't say that I'm glad to hear that. But we won't have to be out here that long. Help will come."

  "Not from the tribe. Nobody goes out when the storms come. Sometimes we have to stay in the cave for a week at a time."

  "You're just full of good news."

  Yoni laughed the peculiar Bedoran chuckle. "I do not mean to be. Things could be worse."

  "Oh yeah? How's that?"

  "The beasts could come for us. Not too many of them left, but they can smell us out, even through the snow. Sometimes they get so crazy with the hunger, they come into the cave looking for food."

  A shudder went through Harry, not from the cold, and not from Yoni's comment. A tingling started at the base of his spine and quickly rose, spreading goosebumps over his neck, shoulders, and arms. As unexpected as it was, the sensation was not unpleasant. He felt comfortable, calm. His senses felt extended, as if he could stretch his arms for miles and then recognize what it was he touched. Aromas were heightened. The heated air was tinged with the metallic smell of machinery. Yoni's clothes smelled almost as bad as the boy himself.

  Harry wasn't out of touch. He listened as Yoni kept on talking. "But if a derkel or a giant throbber came by, we might have a problem. I have not seen either of those in a long time." Yoni looked at Harry. "Are there fierce animals where you come from?"

  Harry smiled. "Yes. And I've found them on other worlds as well."

  "What is the most fearsome known to your tribe?"

  Without hesitation, Harry said, "The kitzloc. Have you heard of them?"

  Yoni waved his tail in the negative. "Tell me about them."

  Images sprang to Harry's mind of the kitzloc he had encountered. He remembered its ferocity and the impossible quickness by which it moved. And he remembered the odor it secreted. Like a kaleidoscope, the smell changed from musky to sweet with a number of variances between. He told Yoni all these things and the boy stared, wide-eyed with interest and fear.