She nuzzled the side of his face again and said, “I'm going for help Jonathan, you just stay here and rest, OK?” There was no answer.
Turning, she walked a dozen paces, stopped, and looked back. Renn hadn't moved. He looked pitiful lying there in the pounding rain. For a moment she just looked at him, and then she said, “I love you Jonathan.” He made no response and she expected none. Turning away she activated all of her senses and loped towards the swampy trail.
Renn awoke when the little two-headed snake took a bite out of his calf. The two-headed snake wasn't especially partial to human flesh, but meat was meat, and one must take what's available. And Renn's plump white calf was available. While the snake's eating head took a tentative bite, its cognitive-sensory head maintained a sharp lookout. After all, there were plenty of larger predators who liked to nibble on two-headed snakes. It didn't occur to either head that dinner might suddenly wake up and attack them with a rock.
Having crushed the two-headed snake with a flurry of panicked blows, Renn looked around, and tried to remember where he was, and why. Then it came rushing back. The shuttle, Murphy, Cyclops and Marla. Marla! Where's Marla? He called her name, but heard only the rattle of rain on nearby leaves, and the dull rumble of distant thunder. Maybe she was away gathering fireweed ... no ... that didn't make much sense in the rain. Then he had it. Of course! He'd been such a fool! She'd left him for dead. And why not? She didn't owe him anything. The bitch! He felt a wave of self-pity roll over him and gloried in it. So he was going to die was he? Well, he'd show her a thing or two! Gathering all his energy he tried to stand, and almost made it, before crashing to the ground. He lay there panting for awhile allowing the rain to patter down against his face and trickle between his lips. Walking was out. And, if he remembered correctly, so was riding and flying. That left crawling. No problem, he knew how to do that. With a mighty effort, Renn rolled onto his stomach and crawled towards the other side of the LZ.
Marla ran with the same easy grace as a Terran wolf, a tireless lope, which conserves energy and eats miles. It felt good after weeks in a small cell. Her eyes probed ahead, constantly moving, searching for any sign of danger. Her ears monitored not only the surrounding area, but numerous radio frequencies as well, listening for signs of life. So far she'd neither seen nor heard anything unusual. Only the muddy trail hinted at a human presence.
The trail was quite wide. Wide enough for ground vehicles, and, indeed, it appeared some sort of tracked vehicles had used it quite recently. Delivering something to the LZ, or picking up supplies, it really didn't matter.
As time wore on, the trail became more and more swampy, slowing her progress. About three inches of muddy brown water covered the trail's surface, rippling here and there, as the driving rain summoned mud-dwelling life forms from their underground homes. They slithered off in every direction, eager to get out of her way, and go about the important business of eating and reproducing. Up ahead, the rain made an endless pattern of interlocking circles on the surface of the water. More than once she tripped in hidden pot holes, fell, and got up again. It was exhausting work, but she forced herself onwards, driven by the memory of Renn lying huddled in the rain.
To the right, her infrared vision picked up the warmth of two large bodies, skulking along beside the trail. Waiting to attack? She ignored them. Probably scavengers of some kind. Predators would have attacked by now.
Up ahead she saw the trail widen, and beyond, a blur of crudely constructed wooden buildings. They seemed unusually tall at first, but as Marla got closer, she saw they were built on five-foot pilings. The water apparently got pretty deep sometimes, which would explain the wooden boats that were propped up against every available wall. It wasn't much of a town. There was a single street, with eight or nine buildings to a side, and a larger structure at the far end of town. It looked like a warehouse or something very similar.
Well, it didn't matter as long as they had a doctor. She chose the right side of the street, trotted up a short flight of worn stairs, and pattered along the wooden boardwalk. She wasn't looking forward to all the stupid comments and questions she'd have to deal with. “Look Martha ... a talking dog! Oh Frank! Can we keep her? She's so cute! She'd make a swell pet.”
If only Renn were with her he could have deflected some of that stuff. It always helped to be with someone. Better to be taken for a dog than to explain things endlessly. She sighed, and read the signs as she walked along. “Let's see, some kind of a store, another store, a tannery, whoa, what have we here.” The sign read, “Doctor Lester Fesker, M.D.” And in smaller print, “I'm your only hope, so come in.” She grinned. A doctor with a sense of humor.
Standing up on her hind legs Marla pushed against the door. It refused to give. For the millionth time she wished for hands, and swore under her breath. Using her right paw to scratch at the door, she also tried yelling “Open up in there,” at the top of her lungs. One of the two strategies must have worked, because a few moments later she heard the thump of approaching feet, and a male voice called, “All right, all right, don't get excited, and if you're bleeding, be damned sure you don't get any on my new rug. It cost me six skins, and I won't have you bleeding on it.”
Then the door was jerked open by a middle-aged black man. He had a two day growth of salt and pepper beard and wore a filthy smock. He looked right, left, and finally down. “A dog ... we don't have dogs on Swamp.”
“Well you do now,” Marla said. “You're Doctor Fesker?”
The doctor nodded in amazement.
“Good, because I've got a patient who needs your help.”
Renn tackled the trip to the other side of the LZ in stages. First he'd crawl ten to twenty feet, and then he'd pass out. Of the two, he liked passing out the best. Of course, crawling provided a sense of accomplishment, and, God knows, that's always welcome, but still, oblivion had a lot going for it, too. But somewhere along the line things got all out of whack. For some reason he couldn't crawl anymore. He had odd, disturbed dreams. He dreamt of strange faces that came and went, of warm blankets, and a bothersome jerking motion, that seemed to go on and on. Sleep tried to pull him down, but he fought it, certain there was something he should be doing. But try as he might, Renn couldn't remember what. So finally he decided what the hell, and let go. And as he fell through many layers of darkness he decided oblivion really was the best after all.
He awoke with considerable reluctance. At first he tried to ignore it, but the sound wouldn't go away, and before long he found himself waiting for it, anticipating the next time it would come, and dreading it. And then it came. Ping! Ping! And the cycle would start all over. What could it be? Reluctantly, he opened one eye, then the other. Overhead, raw planks sloped sharply upward towards the juncture of a peaked roof. Two or three little creatures took turns skittering across its surface. They looked like flat brown leaves. Leaves with wire thin legs, which they used to dash from one tiny meal to the next, occasionally pausing to say grace, or burp, he wasn't sure which. Ping! Ping!
Sitting up in bed he wondered where he was. The room was quite small, and except for his bed, quite bare. Ping! Ping! Aha! The sound water makes as it hits a nearly empty metal pan. Apparently the roof leaked. Mystery solved. He slumped back against the pillow. He really should get up and find out where he was. But the soft drumming of the rain, and the warmth of his bed sapped him of all energy. He decided to give himself just a few more minutes. Soon he was sound asleep.
Plop! Plop! Renn opened his eyes. Outside the rain still beat on the roof, and inside it still fell into the metal pan, which was nearly full. He noticed his bladder was full, too. He threw back the covers, swung his feet over the side of the bed, and stood. He felt a little light-headed for a moment and then recovered.
Just then the door burst open to admit an energetic black man. He wore a filthy smock, a day's worth of beard, and a big smile. He had a tube of burning vegetable matter clenched between his teeth, and a cloud of noxious smoke hung around
his head like a gray halo. “So, sleeping beauty lives, another testament to my medical genius! Here, let me give you a hand.”
With the other man's help, Renn made his way downstairs to a small bathroom, where he emptied his bladder into a metal toilet bowl. It had been liberated from the wreckage of a crashed shuttle. “I couldn't save the crew ... but I did manage to salvage that,” the black man said as he disappeared down a hall.
As instructed, Renn made his way to a comfortable sitting room, and sat down in front of a crackling fire. Moments later his host entered with a cup in his hand. “Here, tuck that inside you. Works better than most pharmaceuticals.”
Renn took a sip, and found it to be a delicious soup. It had a creamy texture, tasty chunks of meat, and was piping hot. As the soup hit his stomach, a warm glow seemed to spread throughout his body. “Thanks,” Renn said gratefully. “You should get a patent on that stuff.”
Leaning back in his chair, the black man nodded smugly, and emitted another cloud of noxious smoke. “True. Just one of the many commercial possibilities.”
Renn put the soup down on a highly polished wood table, and stuck out his hand. “By the way ... I'm Jonathan Renn.”
“I know.” The black man's grip was dry and firm. “I'm Doctor Fesker, though most people around here just call me ‘Doc.'” He shook his head sadly. “I suppose it was inevitable, though a man of my education and superior intelligence deserves a little more respect.”
“I agree, Doctor,” Renn said solemnly, wondering what Fesker had done to end up on Swamp, and hoping it didn't involve professional negligence. “They are ... I guess I should say ‘we are,’ lucky to have your services. Speaking of which, where am I, and how did I get here?”
The doctor waved his cylinder of burning vegetation in an expansive manner. “At the moment you are in the thriving metropolis of ‘Payout,’ so named because this is the closest settlement to the LZ, and LZ is where the shuttles land, and pay off the Hunter's Association.”
“How poetic.”
“Quite. And, as for how you came to grace my humble abode, that was at the work of your furry friend.”
“Marla? She was here?”
“Of course,” Doc Fesker said agreeably. “She came to my door, and informed me of your situation. Shortly thereafter I dispatched a couple of men to go get you. Apparently you'd crawled a few hundred yards in the wrong direction, so they had a little trouble finding you, but they managed, and subsequently brought you here.” Fesker coughed, gave the tube of vegetation a critical glance, and continued. “You were damned lucky. Lucky you weren't killed and lucky you had a friend. A somewhat unusual friend, but a friend nonetheless. Friends are hard to come by on Swamp.”
Renn flushed as he remembered what he'd thought about her, what he'd called her. He owed Marla an apology and a lot more. “Where is she? Where'd she go?”
Fesker shrugged, and disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. “I heard she went to work for a hunter named Skunk, but I really couldn't say for sure. Here on Swamp it's considered bad form to stick your nose into other people's business.”
Renn felt disappointed, and abandoned somehow, but knew he shouldn't. He continued to ask questions, but either the doctor couldn't provide answers, or didn't choose to, which amounted to the same thing. So eventually Renn gave up, and took another tack. “So when can I be up and around?”
The doctor rubbed his unshaven chin and smiled. “How soon can you get dressed? You'll be shaky for a few days ... but basically you're cured. Swamp is home to a plethora of nasty bugs, and when that slug creased you, half of them jumped in the open wound. Thanks to the efforts of the original survey team, however, we've got a pretty good array of drugs to work with, and you're responding nicely.”
“Thank you doctor ... I really appreciate all you've done.” Renn glanced out a nearby window to see only darkness. “If it's all the same to you ... I'll leave in the morning. I don't suppose there's any chance of recovering my gear?”
Fesker smiled. “None at all. Cyclops and his cronies regard the LZ as a fertile field which is theirs to harvest, and barring a hidden talent for physical violence, your chances of taking your gear back are just about zero.”
“There's no law then?”
“None but that which we make for ourselves.”
Penn nodded. “I figured it was something like that, which raises a problem. How will I pay you?”
The doctor waved his smoking wand in a negligent manner. “Consider it my gift. Perhaps some day you will find some way to perform a small favor in return. Care for a cigar?” So saying, he proffered a box containing more green tubes like the one in his hand.
Renn wrinkled his nose in distaste.
“No offense doctor, but those things hardly qualify as cigars. What is that horrible smelling weed anyway?”
Fesker held the smoldering roll of leaves between thumb and forefinger, and frowned. “You are somewhat tactless, sir. However I'm afraid you're right, this does leave something to be desired.” He shook his head in disappointment as he placed the offending vegetation in the lid of an empty drug canister, and stubbed it out. “It is part of my ongoing search for a tobacco substitute. Unfortunately, the noble weed refuses to grow on Swamp, so I have dedicated myself to finding an acceptable substitute. Such a discovery would bring me personal succor, plus if it was good enough, commercial remuneration as well. My fellow citizens would pay well for a good smoke.”
“But doctor,” Renn objected, “what about the effects on their health? Surely you don't condone a habit which causes cancer?”
Fesker looked shocked. “Surely you jest! Of course I do! After all, cancer can be cured, and what good is a cure without a disease? Imagine, they buy a tobacco substitute from me, enjoy it, become cancerous, and I cure them! There's profit at both ends and happiness all around!”
Renn did his best to look agreeable, took another sip of his soup, and wondered if the doctor was serious or just putting him on. The two men continued to talk for some time, an activity which Fesker obviously enjoyed, and one which provided Renn with a lot of information about his new home. For example, he learned there were about a hundred thousand prisoners on Swamp, give or take a few thousand, because while some died every day, others were constantly arriving. There were three other major towns besides Payout, named Ditch, Black Head, and Clover. The latter was named for a person and not a plant.
The planet's economy was centered on one thing, monster hunting. Monsters came in various shapes and sizes, some having more commercial value than others, and some being more difficult to kill. Basically, monsters fell into one of two commercial categories, which were referred to as “stinks” and “skins.” “Stinks” it seemed, were hunted primarily for a small hormonal gland located near the third of their seven sub-brains, which when properly treated, yielded the main ingredient for some very exotic and expensive perfumes. Repeated attempts at synthesis had so far failed, making Swamp the only source of this valuable stuff.
Here Renn really perked up his ears, since this was not only valuable information, but it also had a bearing on his previous life. Having imported perfumes himself, he knew how protective the large companies were of both ingredients and sources, and wondered which famous brand was based on swamp-monster hormones.
Fesker went on to explain that while stink skins were OK, other monsters, the ones called “skins,” were hunted for their valuable hides. Though not as valuable as stinks, skins were still quite profitable, and a lot easier to find. Properly tanned, their hides made a very distinctive leather which was not only waterproof, but damned near bulletproof as well. Yet in spite of its toughness monster hide remained supple and more importantly retained the capacity to match the color and texture of its surroundings. Skins, it seemed, had a chameleon-like ability to disappear into the background. And, for reasons no one had yet figured out, their hides retained that ability even after the death of the monster itself. As a result, monster skins were sought after for use in hig
h-fashion clothing which constantly shifted color to match the wearer's surroundings, and light body armor, which was quite popular with both military officers and professional assassins.
In fact, the doctor said, the scientists who worked in Swamp's orbiting space station were trying to crack the biological mystery represented by an epidermis which continued to function after the death of its owner.
Here Renn was reminded of the leather clothing sported by Cyclops and his men, and how it had blended with the background. No wonder they hadn't stripped him of his environmental suit. They had something better.
As their conversation continued, Renn learned that while the economy centered around monster hunting, only a small proportion of the population were so engaged. The majority made a living by either supplying monster hunters with products and services, or robbing them after they'd been paid. This took two forms. There was the out-and-out theft of the sort practiced by people like Cyclops, and the more subtle kind, carried out by gamblers, prostitutes, and shopkeepers.
“So,” the doctor added, throwing another piece of wood on the fire, “unless you have a special set of talents like mine...” Renn shook his head, “then your choices are clear. Shopkeeper is out because that requires capital which you do not have. That leaves a choice between hunting, stealing, or gambling, the call for your sexual services being somewhat limited. It happens that Swamp is blessed with more men than women. All things considered I would recommend the profession of gambler. It's nice clean work, only occasionally violent, and has considerable financial potential. After amassing a sufficient amount of capital, you could open a store, or engage in some other legitimate form of enterprise. Excuse me, I think there's someone at the door...”
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