Escape from the Drowned Planet

by Helena Puumala

  “The reason why there’s a fair amount of travel across the desert is that the big herds of the Narra graze in the grasslands on the other side. It’s still hot enough for the Narra, and there’s grass for them to eat. That area gets some rain, not much but enough for grass to grow. And that is about as much as I know about the place; my main interest is with the Narra, since they are the source of the fibre which is spun into thread for my looms.”

  “My father was a Narra-herder’s son who came to the big city for the excitement, and never went back, because he fell in love with my mother,” Alia, Gerrard’s attractive wife added. “He used to say that there were red-haired, pale-skinned tribes in the interior. They were wild and nasty; according to him, the Narra-herders did not want anything to do with them, but had to defend themselves against them. The tribes liked to stage raids on the herds every so often, killing and butchering the animals.”

  “I should imagine that with the success the herders have had in the recent past, they’ll have set up some effective defences,” Gerrard commented. “At least I haven’t heard anything about that sort of a thing, and I do get some news regularly from that part of the continent.”

  “Nevertheless, I would suggest that your boy, Jocan,” Alia continued, “dye his hair dark before you venture into the tribal lands. You don’t want those people deciding that he must be one of them, stolen at birth. They’ll grab him first, ask questions later; that’s the way they operate. And according to pa, they have some odd ideas about bloodlines and purity of such; they think that the red-heads are the god’s chosen ones, or some such nonsense. I don’t suppose the red-heads of The Southern Continent cotton to such silliness, but I doubt that these people can tell the difference between the Southerners and themselves.”

  Kati, Mikal and Jocan shared a glance.

  “We’ll get some dye,” Kati said carefully. “It’s best to be prepared.”

  She found herself taking Alia’s concerns seriously. In contrast to her husband’s tendency to nervousness, Alia seemed an unflappable young woman. She had taken the three new family members into her household without so much as a murmur, allocating rooms and baths to them, adding spaces at the family dining table. She had even invited Mikal, Kati and Jocan over for a few meals, although Mea and Susana had been quick to help with the chores involved in that. This was on top of looking after two lively boys and spending as much time as she could at the looms of the family business. She was not a woman to fantasize problems into existence; if she thought Jocan’s colouring might be a problem in the land beyond the Narra-herds, Kati was prepared to make sure that his hair colour would go through a temporary change.

  *****

  Unfortunately for the travellers, it was not the time of the year when large caravans crossed the desert with supplies for the Narra-herders, and returned loaded with Narra-fibre. Gerrard and Alia suggested that they ask around at the runnerbeast stables to find out if there were others like themselves, wanting to travel into the interior.

  “There are always people wanting to travel across the desert,” Gerrard said. “Usually they wait until there are enough people to form a group of about a dozen riders, before they set out. I don’t know of any danger other than heat and thirst in the desert, but many people consider it haunted country and don’t like to travel through it alone.”

  “Haunted country?” Kati asked curiously.

  “Yeah. Remember, it was productive farmland before The Disaster. There were a lot of people, in towns across the land, and working the farms. Then the heat came, the rains stopped coming and the land just dried up. People died, or left and died somewhere else. It was starvation that killed most of them; the breadbasket of the continent just disappeared.

  “Some people think that ghosts still roam the area, weeping for lost farms and livelihoods. A few claim that they can hear keening at night; there are those who find it so disturbing that they hardly sleep while in the desert.”

  “But people haven’t stopped travelling?” asked Mikal.

  “Oh no. Of course not. There are always pressing reasons to go.”

  *****

  “The Narra,” said the lanky stable hand, Jad, at Makkaro’s Outfitters, to Mikal, “were runnerbeasts before they were herded fibre-producers. And they are still the best form of transportation in a hot climate.”

  Kati was admiring the one of the sleek animals at close quarters. Somewhat to Mikal’s unease, she had entered the beast’s stall and was now standing beside its shoulders, caressing the shaggy hair on its head.

  “She’s perfectly safe,” Jad was saying. He must have seen Mikal’s tension. “Most of the Narra are docile creatures, and we choose for riding the ones that have no trouble dealing with humans. The herd beasts can sometimes be more difficult; they don’t have as much contact with people so they can be a little testy with them.”

  “This one is beautiful,” Kati commented from the stall. She was staring into the animal’s eyes; they were large, liquid and deep. This was an intelligent creature, she realized with a start; a little bit of an effort and she likely could touch its mind.

  Later, she told herself. She would try that trick later, when they were on the trail. For now she contented herself with admiring the animal, allowing it to become comfortable with her.

  “Its head is sort of lizard-like,” she said to Jad.

  Jad laughed.

  “The Narra are not like other runnerbeasts. In fact, they’re really not runnerbeasts at all, although they do resemble them to some degree, in shape and running ability. The Narra are cold-blooded animals, not warm-blooded like regular runnerbeasts are.”

  “Cold-blooded?” Mikal’s curiosity was piqued.

  “Yeah; they really are different.” Jad’s grin was wide. “The hair, fibres, whatever you want to call it; its purpose is to regulate the body temperature of a creature that cannot do it by generating heat on its own. It keeps the Narra from overheating in the day time, and allows it to function into the night by conserving the heat it captured from the sun, during the day.”

  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a thing before,” Mikal said. “I didn’t even think it was possible.”

  “One of the reasons why I like working with the Narra,” Jad said delightedly. “They are so strange that you never tire of them.”

  “This one strikes me as being an intelligent beast, as well.” Kati spoke from the stall.

  She had wondered at the way the stalls were open to the elements but if the animals needed the sun’s heat to function, it made sense. There was the question of what was done during the wet season, but possibly the Narra were taken out of the city and to the desert then. She could ask about it later.

  “They are very smart animals,” Jad responded enthusiastically. “I consider them more intelligent than regular runnerbeasts, but I’ll have to admit to being biased; probably handlers of the regulars would argue with me.”

  “Makkaro said that we could pick the beasts that we wanted to ride,” Mikal said, getting back to the business at hand.

  “There’s not much going on right now, so you have lots to choose from,” Jad answered, gesturing towards the stalls that housed about two dozen of the animals.

  “I’m taking this one,” Kati said confidently, coming out of the stall where she had been getting to know the Narra. “Does he, or she, have a name?”

  “Ceta,” Jad informed her. “She’s a good choice. She’ll be patient with you, even if you’re new to riding runnerbeasts. I’ll make a mark to reserve her for you, Mistress Kati.”

  “Well, Kati, can you do the choosing for Jocan and me as well, or do we rely on Jad?” Mikal asked. He had that bemused look on his face that he got sometimes when he was confronted with Kati’s PSI abilities.

  “I can try, if you want,” she said with a grin. “I’m sure Jad will contradict me if I’m way off base.”

  She ran her eyes around the enclosure thinking about Mikal. Which of the animals was most l
ikely to form a comfortable bond with him? Probably any one of them would be good, she realized; Mikal was not a difficult person to deal with. Still, he might take to one of them better than to the others.

  She was running her eyes over the animals the second time when her attention was caught by a regal-looking beast, slightly larger than the others. It was a male, she was sure of that. A gentle creature, like all of them were, but spirited; something about it made her think of the horses of her own world.

  She pointed to it.

  “That one for Mikal,” she said with assurance. “And the beauty on its left for Jocan.”

  She was sure of that one, too. The knowledge about the choice for Jocan had come to her as soon as she had chosen for Mikal.

  “Well, Mistress Kati, aren’t you an uncanny one,” Jad said with a broad grin. “Do you realize that you picked the three best Narra in Makkaro’s stable? Without even knowing that they were the three best?”

  He shook his head.

  “Haven’t seen anyone do that before, that’s a fact.”

  “I gather that you agree with my choices then,” Kati laughed.

  “Indeed. Ceta, Wayfarer and Runner will be marked down as the ones assigned to your group. Do you know when you’ll be leaving?”

  “Makkaro was telling me that counting us, there’ll be a group of a dozen or so people ready to head into the desert the morning after tomorrow.” Mikal was studying Wayfarer as he spoke. “He said that he can equip us for that, assuming that we want to leave then, and of course we do.”

  “So we’re equipping you, too?” asked Jad.

  At Mikal’s nod he added: “That’s good. We can make sure that you have everything you need and nothing is going to come apart on you two days into the trip. Sometimes when people are new to the desert but insist on getting things together themselves, they end up in a lot of trouble. Not everyone in this city is totally honest; travellers do get cheated.”

  “Our friend, the Weaver Gerrard, recommended Makkaro’s. He also mentioned that newcomers sometimes get treated poorly by some merchants.”

  “Ah, Gerrard, he’s a good man!” the stable hand said. He was watching Mikal stare at the animal which Kati had chosen for him.

  “Do you want to get acquainted with Wayfarer just a bit?” he asked Mikal.

  “Mikal, that might be a good idea,” Kati encouraged him. “These are intelligent animals; they may well want to know the people that they’ll be carrying across the desert. I would suggest that we get Jocan to come in and spend a few moments with Runner, as well; tomorrow perhaps.”

  She accompanied Mikal to Wayfarer’s stall.

  “How much experience do you have dealing with animals?” she asked him.

  “Not much,” he replied. “Beasts of burden were used on Borhq but I did not have much to do with them. I was there for other reasons, and I only spent two years there. On Lamania, some people keep pets, but animals are not common in the cities. And I’m pretty much a city person these days.”

  “The simplest way to approach an animal, especially one this big, is to grant it the same respect that you would grant another human being,” Kati told him. “Recognize its right to be an individual, a creature with inalienable rights. One that, in this case, is willing to carry you across the desert on its back.”

  She stood aside and allowed Mikal to walk to where the Narra’s head was. The animal turned to look at the man curiously. Mikal looked at Kati questioningly.

  “Greet him, Mikal,” she said. “Even if you feel silly talking to it.”

  “Hello there, Wayfarer,” Mikal said after drawing a deep breath. “So are you prepared to take me across the desert, my friend?”

  The beast seemed to study him with its beautiful eyes.

  “You’re a handsome animal, aren’t you?” Mikal heard himself say. “A beauty of a beast.”

  He caressed the creature’s head, ran his fingers through the shaggy hair on its head. He turned to look at Kati and Jad who were following his progress.

  “I’m starting to babble, right?” he muttered, a bit embarrassed.

  “That’s all to the good,” Jad said. “It never hurts to speak admiringly of the creature whose job it is to get you across the desert.”

  “True, so true,” added Kati. “You’re doing just fine. I think that Wayfarer and you will make a good pair.”

  Wayfarer snugged its nose into Mikal’s armpit and made a sound that sounded almost like a purr. Apparently it agreed with Kati’s assessment.

  *****

  They still had a few loose ends to gather together in Oasis City before it was time to saddle the Narra and head into the sands. Kati was glad that they had another day that they could devote to running errands, and to saying good-bye to all the friends that they had to, once again, leave behind.

  The Seabird was still tied up in the harbour. It had unloaded the cargo it had brought from the Southern Continent and the Sickle Island. The wood that she had taken on in Delta, according to Captain Lomen, was going to be used for building homes and businesses for the people involved in the expanding Narra-cloth manufacture. Oasis City was experiencing an economic boom because it was the nearest port to where large Narra-herds could be grazed profitably.

  “I just hope that the City Elders have the sense to handle the expansion properly,” Captain Lomen said to Kati and Mikal over pints of beer in a portside alehouse that evening. “The fabric is very good and tough; clothes made of it will last a long time. Right now everyone is clamouring for it because the product is still new. Many people are just getting introduced to it. But sooner or later everyone will have enough clothes made of it, and the demand will slow down. Will Oasis City be able to adjust to that when the time comes—that’s what I’d like to know.”

  “It’ll have to,” Mikal responded, “unless they can find some untapped markets. Gerrard mentioned an off-world Free Trader who comes by a couple of times a year to buy bolts of the cloth, all that Gerrard can spare, apparently. I don’t know who this trader is reselling it to, but the universe out there has potential markets that would make your head spin.”

  “Still I would very much hesitate to get involved with off-world markets except in a small way,” the Captain said, shaking his head. “It’s all just so out of our control on this wee, backward world. You’d never know when things might fall apart, or why.”

  “It might not be a bad idea to start thinking about associating in some way with the Star Federation,” Mikal mused out loud. “I know this world has no space travel capacity but its position among the stars seems to be close to existing trade routes. Free Traders stop here regularly, that’s apparent; Kati and I have heard various people mention off-planet folk visiting here. The criminals that we’ve had the misfortune to be involved with, have a rendezvous spot on the Southern Continent.

  “I’m not talking about Full Membership; a planet has to have space travel capability for that, but one of the Protectorate levels, maybe Protectorate with Restricted Status, might serve to keep out the riff-raff, like our non-friend Gorsh, and force the Free Traders who do adhere to the laws of the Star Lanes to register their vessels as regular visitors.”

  “I have heard some people worry about our location among the Star Lanes,” the Captain said. “The assumption has been, as far as I know, anyway, that we were pretty close to achieving space flight before The Disaster. Whether that was through our own efforts or by buying technology from some outside source, I don’t know, and I suppose nobody does know any more. The Disaster, of course, set us back tremendously, forcing us to start anew from primitive conditions, and not able to use most of the technologies that our ancestors had developed, since those were what caused The Disaster in the first place.

  “Now we have no hope of joining the Star Lanes on equal terms and I guess we mostly just ignore them. But, of course, they do exist, and space vessels do come here, just as you pointed out.”

  “And it is because they do that I’m talking of this.
Once I’m back in Federation space and have pinpointed this world on Federation star charts, I’ll have to make known the situation here to authorities higher up than the Peace Officer Corps. The fact that criminals have set up a meeting place on this world is going to bring it under scrutiny; that can’t be helped. I guess, personally, I want to see that the inhabitants here—including all the friends Kati and I have made—get a fair shake, whatever happens.”

  “You might mention in whatever sort of a report you have to make that the people of this world have not chosen to have dealings with Space criminals,” Captain Lomen declared. “We haven’t helped them; we did not even know about this rendezvous point which you speak of, until you told us about it. We may be a poor, destroyed world, but we do like to think that we still have remnants of our integrity.”

  Mikal nodded at the Captain.

  “I think that I’ll end up recommending a Protected status of some kind,” he said, “one which would allow The Peace Officers to clear out that vipers’ nest on the Southern Continent. There’s a lot on this world that needs to be kept safe and intact from that kind of exploitation.”

  Kati was thinking of the Kitfi. They had done an excellent job of remaining invisible to the other inhabitants of the world as well as to the off-planet criminals who had been frequenting an area close to their hidden territory. How long would it be until they could no longer hide? Yes, Mikal would have to make an issue of this world, if only for the sake of the Kitfi.

  “I don’t suppose that there is much that I or anyone else on this planet can do to prevent you from bringing up our world to be scrutinized by this Federation that you speak of,” Captain Lomen was saying carefully. “Outside of taking up that Guzi’s habit of killing people, that is. I would, however, ask you to be careful, and consider the best interests of our population. We don’t want to be exploited, and we don’t want to be sneered at, even though, as history shows, we have perhaps not always shown wisdom in our handling of the bounty offered to us by the planet.”

  “People of all kinds have always made mistakes,” Mikal answered gently, “so no-one is in a position to point fingers—certainly not the aggregation that is the Star Federation. The best interests of this planet’s population—its whole population—is precisely what I want to take into account.