She felt light-headed and dizzy with relief. “Thank you, sir. I am glad I was able to provide assistance in any way.” She took the proffered chair and sat. Tomás said something and the two Staré saluted and hurried off in different directions as Tomás cleared the table. Hardly had he finished but one of the Staré returned with a food tray and a flask of milk. The Staré set the food out, hand-bowed again, and departed once more, returning with coffee.
“Eat, please, Miss Bernardi. I don’t want to be the one to explain to your mother that you rescued yourself and then passed out from starvation at Col. Deleon’s feet in front of the entire rescue operation.” He looked thoughtful. “Unless I could do it by distance comm from orbit. No, a letter sent economy freight from the far side of Limworld’s orbit would be safer.”
Rigi giggled, gave thanks, and ate. The village Staré had cooked food well, and she never went hungry exactly, but some of the vegetables didn’t agree with her insides all the time. She was more than ready to taste human food again. The flask held wombow milk, not cowlee milk, but it was milk, and she drank slowly, alternating milk and sausage, egg, bread-like things, and something fruit-like. As soon as she finished, the Staré removed the tray. The world seemed to be a far better place than it had been twelve hours before, as long as she didn’t try to think too hard about what she’d done. She stared at the coffee in the cup, seeing charred fur and flesh, and smelling roasted meat and death and crushed sharp-scented plants.
“Rigi?”
She looked up into worried eyes. “I killed a Staré, Tomás.” He rested one hand on her shoulder, just the fingertips. “I told him to stop, he threw a spear at me, I shot him. Hit him in the chest, had the power on the shooter too high, blasted his chest open. I could see char on his bones, Tomás. Why didn’t he stop? I didn’t want to kill him.”
He looked away, over her head, and then met her eyes again. “I’m sorry, Rigi. I’m so sorry. Sometimes, we have to. After you talk to Captain Bower and the Colonel, I’ll introduce you to the chaplain if you wish. She may be able to help you.”
“Thank you.”
She finished the coffee, then said, “Ah, could you please direct me to the necessary, Lt. Prananda?”
He ducked his head and his neck turned rather more reddish than she recalled. “Of course, Miss Bernardi. Forgive me for not thinking.” He offered her his hand and after she stood, he showed her the structure, two Staré following along behind them, probably chaperones. “The expedition’s tents and supplies are over there, inside our repulsor field. Corporal Den Hartog will let you in if you wish.”
“Thank you, sir.” She made use of the facility and to her great relief found some feminine supplies. Then she went to where a morose young man stood beside a temporary gate. He looked so glum that Rigi wondered if he had an otherwise invisible rain cloud hanging over him. “Your pardon, Corporal.”
“Ah, yes, Miss?”
“I’m Auriga Bernardi, and I would like to get some of my personal items from my former tent, please.”
He looked at a data pad, found her name, and made a mark. “Second from the end, ma’am, with the blue on the door. Please initial here.” He offered her the pad. She read it, initialed that she was indeed Auriga Bernardi and she would only take what was hers, and handed it back. The tent had not been touched, other than to move it, and she put on proper clothing and her spare boots, sighing happily as she wiggled her toes. Clean socks and fresh shoes surely counted as two of the unsung blessings of the creation, along with hot washes and a chair that exactly fit. She twirled, making her skirt billow. She wanted to really wash her hair, but that could wait. Rigi added more feminine supplies to her satchel, put her now full notepad into her travel box and got a fresh one, and also grabbed her file reader. She dabbed a bit of //happy/calm// on her pulse points and emerged to face the day.
She needed the //happy/calm.// By noon, she’d decided that the woods had great appeal, and by supper Rigi began planning exactly how she would disappear into the forests, never to be seen again. She didn’t mind the military personnel, not at all. The questions Captain Bower asked were easy to answer, straightforward, and reasonable. She talked to her parents via distance comm, assured them that she was fine, and praised the other expedition members and the Company militia highly. She also assured her bother that he did not need to come get her, being careful as she did not to remind him that non-military without passes were not permitted on the continent at all. Finally getting to speak with the other expedition people came easily too. Dr. Xian and Mr. De Groet agreed that she’d done the right thing by “playing along” with the Staré, and praised her for having the beacon and for “trying to show the Staré that we mean no harm.” Margit glared at her, but finally grumbled, “OK, you aren’t a traitor. I still think you should have done more to help us.”
“If the Staré had let me, I would have. After the big lizard attacked, they didn’t let any hoplings out of sight for very long.”
“I see.” She sniffed twice, sneezed, and sniffed again. “Sorry. I caught Thad’s cold.”
“The cold snap got me too.”
No, what sent Rigi climbing the canvas walls was the headline on the news feed, and the idea of having to talk to reporters and news collectors when they got back to Sogdia. “I’m sorry, Miss Bernardi, but the Royal press corps seem to have selected you to be the target of the month, so to speak,” Captain Bower said. “If I might make a suggestion?”
“I welcome your advice, sir.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Would you please tell my daughter that? She’s your age and refuses to listen to anything spoken by someone over eighteen. Ahem,” he blinked and then tapped the table top with one finger. “If the media ask why the Staré treated you differently, point out that you look different from the others, and are younger. Don’t mention your ability with scents. I’m not suggesting that you lie, Miss Bernardi, but the entire truth is not always the best path to peace and quiet.”
His words echoed her own experience in similar matters, and Rigi nodded. “Thank you, sir. I will keep that in mind, but I doubt they will want to talk to me.”
“I fear that they will, Miss Bernardi. You are young, you are different, you are already well known for your illustrations and for discovering other sites, and if you will pardon my bluntness, your face will sell more files than will Dr. Xian’s.”
Rigi blushed and looked at her lap. “Oh dear.”
“Exactly so, I’m sorry to say, Miss Bernardi. But not today or tomorrow, rest assured. We have orders not to allow any media contact until we return to Sogdia, in part because we do not want to further upset the local Staré.”
“That sounds very wise, sir.”
Colonel Javier Deleon gave her the same advice. He also answered her as honestly as he could. “I don’t know, Miss Bernardi. My Staré can communicate with the locals, but not easily. The languages have drifted so far apart that they are almost unintelligible. It wasn’t you.”
Rigi felt a little better about her lack of comprehension. “Thank you, sir. I suspect the difference in jaw shape plays a role.”
“It does indeed, and Lt. Prananda and his subalas had the devil’s own time trying to explain to the locals that the wheeled vehicles are not creatures and they did not spit out the Staré and soldiers.”
Rigi mentally compared the size of the giant river lizard and the small transports, and decided that the locals had a good reason to make that assumption. She didn’t say that to the colonel, however. “Thank you, and your men, for finding us, sir.”
“It was your beacon and then your maps that made it possible, Miss Bernardi. We never got a warning signal or call, and no one suspected a problem until Dr. Sanchez missed two data-uploads. When the university could not get an answer, they asked us for an overflight. We saw that the main tent had been burned, the kitchen and comm tent, but nothing else. It took another week to obtain permits and permissions to come, and then we found nothing, except for that odd signal
that interfered with flitter navigation.”
“Sir, pardon, but what did I set incorrectly?” She’d followed the instructions her father and Tomás had given her, and the device’s little light and whiskers seemed to function properly.
“Not you, the pilots. They assumed that we’d be looking for a civilian beacon, not an older military beacon.” He gave her a shrewd look, but continued, “Once we found you, or vice versa, we could move much faster. You were right, all the adults were sleeping in the big market area. Kor and the subalas say that the locals had gathered there and were waiting for their wise ones to finish meeting, and just opted to sleep out since it was relatively warm. We caught them by surprise and were able to get as far as the house with the humans in it before someone started pelting us with rocks.
“Your note about the slingshots was good, Miss Bernardi. Those can kill a man easily. Captain Jensen told the human troopers to get the other humans, so there wouldn’t be any tragic accidents, and Lt. Prananda and his Staré held the locals back. They fought hard once they saw the humans leaving the building. Spears, knives, slingshots, and clubs are still effective in close quarters, no matter what the news reports and bad novels may say.”
Rigi guessed, “Ah, the novel by Arijna Patel-Theebaw, sir? The one with the cover with five errors?”
He smiled for the first time she’d seen since she’d reached the camp. “Exactly, Miss Bernardi.” He tipped his head to the side, brow wrinkling as he asked, “What was the fifth? I only counted four.”
“If you look at the carnifex-leaper in the background, it has a striped-lion’s body and hind legs, sir.”
Col. Deleon looked up, as if trying to imagine or remember the image. Then he smiled again. “You’re right! I missed that. My daughter loves the book.”
I’m sorry, sir, Rigi thought. She’d giggled and groaned too much to finish reading the story. “Has anyone decided what to do about the locals? Will they be punished for killing four people?”
The smile disappeared and he seemed to age, or to grow wrinkles around his eyes and mouth at a hyper-fast rate at least. “No, they will not be punished. At least not now. Things in Sogdia and NovMerv have, I will say, complicated matters greatly.” He stared over her head, glowering at something or someone far away. Then his expression cleared. “And I believe Lt. Prananda and Kor are here to speak with you, Miss Bernardi. Weather permitting, we will break camp and return to Sogdia in three days.”
She stood and curtsied. “Thank you, sir.”
Rigi walked out into the grassland with Tomás and Kor, followed by two more Staré. Rigi carried a rifle as well as her borrowed shooter, just in case. Capt. Bower approved. “Wildlife happens, Miss Bernardi.”
Another cool wave had passed through that morning, and low clouds skittered across a pale blue sky, casting weak shadows on the grass. Kor, walking on her right hand, almost vibrated with pent-up something, and Rigi wondered if he would speak first or just explode in a puff of every scent possible, accented by a cloud of dark fur. Tomás acted calmer, although he looked around constantly, on alert for something. At last Kor vented //anger/frustration,// and said, “They listen not, understand not.”
“The humans, or the local people?” she asked after considering his words and scent.
“Both, but the here-Staré more so. Not listen, pretend not know Staré, ignore Stamm wisdom.” He switched to Staré. “Their wise ones not wise, not have truth, not have wise eyes. But others will not see, will not hear. Blame spirits for all evil, believe diggers release spirits. Not understand story of First World.”
Tomás had been listening carefully and frowned, but with more thought than anger. “Kor, do they believe that the ruins are from the First World?”
“They not know. Or say are spirits made, but not the true first spirits. Makes no sense, their words are jumbled like their Stamme.” A wave of the same bitter, peppery, stinging scent Rigi had smelled once when a second Stamm had corrected a sixth flowed into her nose and she wanted to sneeze. They climbed the rise and stopped. “Miss Auriga, what see you?”
Rigi let her eyes sweep the land ahead of them, then worked back toward their hill, watching the tan and emerald grasses bow to the wind’s passage. Something stood out, not obvious but still different and she reached into her satchel, removed a sketchpad and a sharp, fresh pencil and let her hands copy what her eyes saw. “There, to the left,” she gestured then returned to drawing. “A line in the grass, faint, curving away from us.” The sun emerged for an instant and revealed something more. “And a hollow where one should not be.”
Tomás nodded. “Yes. Not a burrow hollow, Kor, but shallow, like a grass-grown dust wallow with straight sides and flat ends.” Tomás waited until Rigi paused, then thumped her shoulder with a light bump of the fist. “Another site.”
“Auxiliary to the main site, I think. We are on a line to Scout Site.”
Kor had pivoted slightly and called to the other Staré, “Hear the truly wise.” He turned back, ears tipping slightly to the sides. “Straight lines only to water and salt, not wallow, Master Tomás,” //correct/agree.// “After you see, I see.”
Rigi looked down at the sketchpad and blinked. In addition to the curving rise and the rectangular depression, she had drawn two circular features on opposite sides of the rectangle, half-way down the long side. When she looked up and focused her attention, indeed, the grass appeared greener, probably because the shallow basins held more water than did the flat soil around them. “Here’s the coordinates,” Tomás said, showing her his digital point-finder. She added them to the sketch, with the date and note about who was here with her. “Are you going to tell Dr. Xian and the others?”
“Do you want to drag them into the transport by their collars as they try to dig their hands and toes into the grass so they can stay and investigate? If so, then yes, I will.”
Kor puffed amused and Tomás shook his head, then cleared the display. “No, thank you, because more likely they will take to the woods, and I do not care to explain to either the captain or the colonel why one of the scientists is now missing a limb, and why we are dragging one of the night-hunting monotremes back with us so the entire scientist can return home.” Rigi caught a strong gust of //amusement,// and observed Kor and the two soldiers looking suspiciously expressionless, even for Staré. Tomás caught it too, and winked before acting properly dignified again.
“You actually found one of the night hunters?”
Kor gestured, //strong affirmative,// and said, “If Miss Auriga follow, please?”
The five returned to the military encampment, continuing past the mess tent and the Staré shelters to where a large pelt hung on a temporary frame. “It attacked two of my troopers,” Tomas told her. He folded his arms. “The head is on the stick. I suspect the biologists in NovMerv will want my head as well, for not popping it into a preservation box for them.” He followed a fascinated Rigi as she examined the head, ignoring the flies and faint rotting-meat smell. “It might be poisonous.”
The hollow front teeth certainly suggested that to be true, Rigi thought, sketching quickly. The eyes appeared red, and she hunted around until she found a slender bit of wood, probably left from making the pole, and lifted the lid. Indeed, the sclera burned crimson at her, around an enormous pupil. The eyes appeared oversize, and she lowered the lid, dropped her stick and drew. Then she noticed a detail, found the stick again, and gently ran it down the brow ridge and over the eye. A second lid, thicker and darker than the first, descended, and she drew the eye once more. The long skull and narrow jaws under the black and brown fur looked unusual, as did the tiny triangular external ears. It had enormous, stiff whiskers. “I wonder. The head looks like an oversize,” she murmured to herself. “Hmm.” She picked the stick back up and ran it along the side of the upper jaw. The whiskers tipped back, then seemed to lock flat against the skull, on both sides. She ran the stick backwards and lo and behold, the whiskers snapped out again.
“It bu
rrows, maybe like a giant, large-animal-eating worm digger,” she suggested.
Tomás seemed intrigued, as did Kor and the others. Rigi inspected the pelt and the still-attached feet. The forefeet had enormous flat claws, rather blunt and thicker than Staré or leaper claws. The dark-furred, flat feet resembled paddles or shovels. “Were the feet like this when it was killed?” She asked Kor and the Staré.
One of the soldiers, high fourth Stamm, gestured with his ears and one forefoot. “Yes, Miss Auriga, Ma’am,” //agreement.//
“Thank you,” she nodded toward him, then turned back to the hide. “Very short fur that doesn’t hold dirt, flat digging front feet, thick neck and shoulders, stubby little tail, and the curved hind feet would make pushing dirt a little easier, but still allow it to walk.” She drew as she spoke, and a little animal appeared beside her drawing of the pelt and skull. She showed the animal to the others. “Something like this, please?”
The three Staré puffed //agreement.// “Ma’am,” the soldier offered, “hind legs more crooked, like so,” he drew a Z-shape in the air with his free forefoot. She corrected the sketch. “Exactly, ma’am.”
“Another ambush predator for the list,” she sighed as she made the note. “Nothing on this continent gives you a chance to fight back. Except the giant river lizard, but that doesn’t count.”
Tomás looked from his troopers to the pelt and head. “It does explain why the locals act so skittish. They are too used to everything jumping out and biting them. Did you notice that the have no wombows? Only domesticated leapers, a bit like the striped leapers of the Kenusha Plains.” Tomás rubbed under his nose. “Have you seen any wombeasts or the like?”
Rigi tried to recall. “No,” she admitted slowly. “Only the dust of their passing, and that at a distance from where I was. But I did not specifically look for wombeast sign. Something like terror-birds but stockier, and a heard of spotted wombeasts passed near the camp overnight three weeks ago, with kitfengs and a few terror-birds, these with stripes on their sides. We saw the followers but not the main herd. And one day we saw dust on the horizon, like a very large herd moving, but I do not know if a mini-flitter was launched to investigate. None of the animals came close enough for me to draw, other than the stocky birds.”
Staré: Shikari Book Two Page 12