by R. A. Rock
We couldn’t possibly go without her, not knowing if we would be able to return. I mean, we wanted to get back to the exact place that we had left to jump back. Shiv thought it best in order to make it as easy as possible on the devices and our physiology. It was less traumatic to travel through time if the place stayed the same.
The devices had been designed to travel through both space and time, taking the travellers to another place and time. (And alternate universes, apparently, but that was so not on the table.) At this point, though, Shiv didn’t think that was a good idea. So, the plan was to come back to Sipwesk in order to jump back to our time, four hundred years in the future.
But who knew what would happen on this trip?
We couldn’t leave Audrey behind.
Especially because she had been acting pretty weird since she got sick and we were worried about her.
So, I was just glad that Gideon had got her to come with us. I didn’t care how. We were going to go half the way in canoes, which is the method Gideon always used. It was safer and faster than walking. That was why he was at Matt and Nessa’s because he always left from their cabin, paddling all the way down Sipwesk Lake and picking up a creek that fed into a river from there.
I knew that we needed to find out what was bugging Audrey and see if we could help because she was putting a strain on the group, that was for sure. I had never thought about how close-knit Yumi, Shiv, Grace, and I were before Audrey joined us. Then it became apparent and I had to make a concerted effort to make sure she felt included in the team.
Obviously I hadn’t been doing a very good job, lately.
I dipped my paddle into the water and pulled back hard. Sure would be easier if Gideon could paddle instead of sitting as dead weight in our canoe.
The original idea had been that Yumi and I would be in one canoe, Shiv and Grace in another, and Audrey would paddle with Gideon. He usually paddled by himself anyway, so even if she didn’t have any experience paddling, he could handle it alone.
But Gideon had got into the canoe this morning and groaned. His knee was too sore to assume the position necessary to paddle.
So we had rearranged the plan. We had only taken two canoes instead of three. Gideon was in the middle of ours with his legs straight along the bottom, a small bundle of clothes to cushion it. He said in that position his knee didn’t ache so much. And Audrey was in the middle of Grace and Shiv’s because she didn’t know anything about canoeing anyway and could just ride.
At first, I had thought that Gideon might be faking but Matt had looked worried and got Cynthia to check him out. He told me that Gideon never even liked to show he was in pain — something about coming from a stoic culture. Most of the time they wouldn’t even know he was injured. The only time that he would actually let people see that he had got hurt was when it was really bad.
So we had a passenger. A very large passenger. And that made a difference. I watched as Yumi wiped her forehead. Though it was cool this morning, we were already working hard enough to sweat. I couldn’t help feeling annoyed that Yumi had got us extra work.
But I wasn’t as annoyed as I might have been because it did seem a bit like poetic justice. She had been showing off and she knew it. And now she was paying. Well, so was I but I didn’t mind so much because maybe it would teach her something.
The sun had come up and the water was as still as glass this morning. We could see the reflection of the trees and clouds. It was so beautiful and peaceful. And it reminded me of what I missed most about Earth when I was in space.
Nature.
And just being so still and on the ground.
One good thing about being stuck in time was that we were getting plenty of Earth time, which we usually all missed when we were working on the space station.
When the water could take us no farther, Gideon would take lead us to Gimli. We would continue the rest of the way on our own.
“Chad,” Yumi barking my name snapped me out of my thoughts.
“What?” I said, looking around for danger.
“Where are you?” She gave me an irritated look. “I called a change.”
“Oh,” I said, switching sides and dipping my paddle in on the left side. I pulled at the same time as Yumi and the canoe shot ahead.
***
It took a while to make camp that night because it was the first time we had done it. Yumi and I set up the old fashioned portable sleeping structures while the others completed other tasks.
“Obviously Grace and Shiv will share a tent,” Yumi said. “And I’d rather share with you, than either Gideon or Audrey. Audrey kicks like a mule. And I don’t know Gideon.”
“Likewise,” I said, reluctantly. “But if Audrey wants to sleep in your tent, then I’ll share with Gideon.”
Audrey came back to the camp at that moment.
“Audrey, do you want to share with me?” Yumi offered. “Chad said he would share with Gideon.”
“What?” she said, affronted by my suggestion. “No. Gideon and I are adults. We’ll be fine. You two can snuggle up. You know you want to.”
“We’re not snug-” I said, feeling my face heat up. We would sleep on opposite sides and even if I wanted to cuddle, Yumi wouldn’t. “I mean, it’s not like that. I… We…”
Yumi rolled her eyes, indicating that Audrey was just messing with me.
Audrey laughed.
“So easy, Chad. So easy.”
So that was the sleeping arrangements taken care of.
***
The next seven days passed by slowly and at the same time incredibly quickly. It was extremely monotonous to paddle hour after hour in the canoe, but it sure beat walking, so I wasn’t going to complain.
As the sun set on the fifth day, we saw the southern edge of the lake we were crossing.
“That’s it,” Gideon said. “The end of our free ride. We beach the canoes on that shore and start walking. Hope my knee’s up for it.”
Camp
Chad
Finally, we had reached the southern shore of the lake, at the end of what felt like the longest day so far. We ran the canoes aground and hopped out, pulling them ashore in the icy water.
Gideon climbed out on land, keeping his feet dry, I noticed. He sure was milking that injury these days. I was pretty sure he was almost all better. I had a feeling that Yumi was healing him from her own energy because she felt guilty but I had no proof so I hadn’t asked her about it.
“I usually store the canoes under those bushes along the shore, there.” He pointed to the spot and I nodded.
Before the others were even out of the water, Yumi and I had carried ours up the beach, flipped it, and had it tucked under the bushes, hidden and protected from the elements. We had done this hundreds of times as teenagers.
Gideon had already explained where we were making camp as we approached the shore. We could see the path he had mentioned from the beach.
“We’ll get started on setting up,” Yumi told Gideon and he nodded, heading towards the other canoe to give Audrey his hand.
“Okay,” he called over his shoulder as he helped the tiny blonde woman step on to the beach. Shiv rolled his eyes as he and Grace flipped the canoe and carried it towards the bushes.
I tried not to smile at this surprising chivalry. Gideon didn’t exactly seem like the type.
“I’m going to the bathroom first and then we can start setting up the tents,” I said and Yumi headed off in silence to find her own bush to pee behind, the word bathroom being merely a euphemism. We met back at the clearing. I dropped the backpack. The palm of my hand burned from chafing on the paddle for the past five days but I ignored it. There were more important things to think about, like getting our shelter for the night set up. I used the back of my hand instead, to touch the ground and see if it felt damp.
“Doesn’t matter,” Yumi said, knowing what I was doing. “We have to put the tarp this time of year anyway.”
“True,” I said, pulling t
he blue plastic tarp out with a crinkling sound and laying it on a nice flat spot. Then I set the tent on top and folded each edge of the tarp underneath so that it wasn’t showing anymore. This helped to keep dampness from getting into the tent. Yumi was already fitting the poles together and we worked together in silence, setting up — as we had done for the past week. We threaded the poles through, hammered in the pegs to hold each corner, and that tent was done.
We put the two green tents facing east and the brown one facing north, making a bit of a shelter for the fire. The others came up while we were still setting up the tents and they began gathering wood for the fire and starting supper. We already had a rhythm going after only a few days travelling together.
Gideon had brought a ton of freeze dried dinners that he had found when he was scavenging. They actually weren’t as bad as they sounded and tasted a lot like long distance space food. He and Audrey had also caught four pickerel when we stopped for a break in the middle of the day. So, we would eat well tonight.
***
Later that evening, we all sat around the fire, feeling full and sleepy. The smell of fried pickerel hung in the air. Man, I hadn’t eaten this well in years. I mean, we weren’t eating much. But what we did eat was unbelievably delicious.
Already I could tell that my clothes smelled like woodsmoke, reminding me of camping trips with my father as a boy. I smiled at the thought.
“What happen tomorrow?” Audrey said, in broken English.
I smiled to hear her trying to speak. At first, she had merely relied on us to translate for her or she just stayed silent because she thought we would go home sooner rather than later. Finally she was making an attempt to use the little bit of English that she knew. I thought that was a good sign.
“Well,” Gideon said, when we all looked at him. “We’ve hidden the canoes and covered them from the weather. We won’t be able to use them when we return.”
“Why not?” Audrey said.
“Because the water will be frozen,” he explained and she grimaced.
“I forget,” she said, wincing as she remembered the only other time she had been to Earth. She had come to find us when we were hiding out here at Christmas time to ask for our help. That was before we were friends. “Damn cold place.”
“Audrey is from a hot pla-, uh, a hot country,” Yumi explained for Gideon’s benefit and he looked at her curiously.
“Is that where the accent is from? It does kind of sound South African to me,” he said. “I used to know a doctor that worked up here. He was from South Africa.”
“Does it sound a bit South African to you?” Yumi said and he nodded.
None of us had any idea what a South African accent sounded like and Yumi was being careful not to agree with him nor disagree. There was no South Africa anymore on the Earth where we had grown up.
Though the place still existed, of course, Earth was a united planet which meant that everyone spoke Primary — the galactic language. Some people still spoke the language of their country, like we spoke English, but those groups were the exception.
My mother loves languages and ever since Primary had been introduced, her family had had a history of passing on their language. Grace and I also spoke Polish, which was our father’s heritage. Dvorski — our last name — was an Anglicized version of the name Dworski, a traditional Polish surname.
Our family just loved language. It was our thing. We had even gone on a year’s exchange to the planet of Xendal and we had learned their language, Xend, too. So Grace and I spoke four languages — English, Polish, Xend, and of course Primary.
And at the moment, I was damn grateful for being able to speak English because we could communicate with the people of this time.
On Earth in 2481, some mourned the loss of diversity. But we had grown up in a world that got along — no more wars — and I thought that if losing Earth’s linguistic diversity was what it cost to have peace, it seemed like a good deal to me.
Audrey’s accent came from speaking Primary but whatever Gideon needed to believe to make sense of us was okay.
We just couldn’t tell him the truth.
I hated lying to him, we all did, but it wasn’t possible to explain everything. It was bad enough that even Matt, Nessa, and Ernest knew about us. Shiv was completely paranoid about us changing the timeline significantly and coming back to a completely different 2481 than the one we had known.
I dragged my thoughts back to the present and focused on Gideon’s words.
“So, the canoes will be good there till I need them in the spring. And we’ll head south on foot from here, following the highway. That’s still the fastest way if you have to go on foot because even though it’s overgrown by now and breaking down, it’s still the best walking compared to going through the thick brush.”
I nodded, that made sense.
“How many days walk to Gimli?” I said. In the background, I could hear the eerie sound of the wind blowing through the tops of the spruces and the monotonous sound of the waves lapping on the shore.
“We’re not going to Gimli,” he said. “I’ve decided to escort you directly to The Wastelands. And that will take us about three weeks.”
“What’s The Wastelands?” Gracie said, a worry line between her eyebrows.
“It’s the worst place in Manitoba. A desert with no life. People go into The Wastelands and never come out. They say it’s inhabited only by… monsters.”
“Monsters?” Shiv snorted in disbelief. “You believe in monsters?”
Gideon seemed like the least likely person to give credence to fictional beasts, so I wondered what he meant when he said monsters.
“I’m not talking about the monster under your bed here,” he said, his face serious, eyes wide with fear. “I knew one guy who fought them off. But lost an arm in the process.”
Well, that has horrifying.
“I’ve seen people return with such bad burns that they were completely unrecognizable.”
We exchanged worried glances.
“And some came back saying that their friends had been kidnapped and made slaves.”
I thought for a long moment.
“Well, I wish that you had maybe mentioned this before,” I said. And that was an enormous understatement. “But it doesn’t change things. We have to get to Winnipeg. No matter what stands in the way.”
He scowled and shook his head.
“You’re a bunch of fools, then,” he said, crossing his arms.
“If you’re so scared of these Wastelands,” Yumi said. “Then why have you decided to take us all the way there?”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable.
“You guys seem like good people. I want to help you as much as I can. The least I can do is see you safely to the edge of The Wastelands.”
“Wow,” Grace said. “We appreciate that.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said, looking unhappy. “If I was really helping you, I’d convince you not to cross in the first place.”
“Anyways,” Yumi said, not wanting to get into an argument. Gideon could argue like nobody’s business. “Thanks for taking us all the way. It’ll be a real help. No chance of getting lost between Gimli and this desert.”
“Knee okay walk long time?” Audrey said, her voice worried.
Gideon smiled warmly at her, as if he liked that she was concerned about him.
“If it isn’t, Yumi’s going to carry me.”
“God damn it, Gideon,” Yumi said, giving the fire a particularly vicious poke with a stick to get it burning bright again. “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”
“Not likely,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “I’ll still be telling that story when I’m old and grey. About the woman who kicked my butt and then because I was injured, paddled me all the way to Gimli. My grandkids will never believe it.”
Yumi smiled, shaking her head.
“Anyways…” Shiv said, trying to get the conversation bac
k on track. He hated tangents.
“Anyways,” Gideon repeated taking up the thread of the conversation again. “I’ll leave you guys at the edge of The Wastelands and then make my way back to Gimli. I’ll wait there for you. If you don’t return in a week, then I’ll head back to Matt and Nessa’s for the winter like I usually do.”
“What will we do if it takes more than a week?” Grace said, she had rubbed her cheek at some point and had a dark grey smudge of ashes there.
“If you make it back, then head for Gimli and bring some game, they’ll let you stay in one of the empty cabins till you can walk back to Sipwesk in the spring.”
Yumi and I exchanged a glance. If we made it back? Obviously he had a lot of confidence in us. Not.
But if we did end up missing him, we could hunt on our way and have enough meat to exchange for a place to stay.
I really hoped that it wouldn’t come to that, though.
“I have to warn you again,” he said, unable to let it go. “No one crosses The Wastelands. And for good reason.”
“Could you explain a little more?” Shiv said. His impatience at our lack of knowledge showing in his voice. “Are you talking about these supposed monsters?”
Gideon’s story had been fairly vague about the dangers of The Wastelands but he seemed terrified of them, which was kind of freaky because otherwise he didn’t seem scared of anything.
“Yes. The monsters may kill you. But so might the desert itself.”
“How?” Grace said, looking like she thought he was exaggerating.
“You’ll see when you get there,” he said.
“Of course, most of the dangers will kill you. But some are worse.”
“Worse than death?” Grace said.
“I told you that I don’t know exactly. I’ve only heard horror stories. I’ve never been there. But there are terrifying stories telling that there are things way worse than death in The Wastelands,” he said. “And I guess you’ll find out, since you’re so hell bent on getting to Winnipeg. Who even knows what you’ll find there? Things went bad in the city.”