"Fubar meet up with Milo and Stone to tell them which houses were raided,” Goru ordered.
“I would rather direct them from here,” Sport stated. Humans had reacted poorly to her at times, being that she was essentially a bipedal wolf. She was afraid to enter a situation where she would be surrounded by potentially hostile humans or post-humans.
“Can you see us okay?” Milo asked.
“Yeah, turn to your six and head past three huts then take a sharp right,” Fubar directed.
Goru mumbled something just off coms, “Okay Fubar, but be ready if they need backup.”
Fubar sighed audibly, “Yes, Chief.” She settled in to watch and give Milo and Stone directions.
- - - - - - -
Faith sat on a blanket with the various scanners and devices from the emergency med kit laid out around her. Goru and Lyla were hunched over a collapsible communications center. Millie sat on a log near the fire. The morning was still cool and Millie was wrapped in a blanket. Beaker was off and ranging the area looking for resources.
Flicking through screen after screen of instructions and tutorials on the use of each of the scanners and devices in the kit, Faith spent twenty minutes on a tablet. When she was done, Faith picked up a device which scanned for metabolic activity. “Lyla, come here i need to scan you.”
Lyla reluctantly stepped away from Goru and the communications station. Faith scanned her starting with the metabolic scanner and progressing through many of the others. When she was done she smiled at Lyla, “All done, I’ll call you over if I need anything more.”
“K, I’ll just be over with Goru,” Lyla said with a wave.
Faith picked up the tablet and tapped the screen for the results, which told her precisely nothing. She began tapping through the medical database checking Lyla’s results against the standards for Porusans. Most were well within the normal range but some, like her metabolic activity and neurological function tests were off. At first, Faith thought it might have to do with Lyla not being pure Porusan. That seemed like a cop out. She searched through the medical database couldn’t get explanation she understood. Faith flipped through the databases for possible reasons. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Faith thought she might need to go through the whole database which was virtually impossible because of the size. What did that leave Faith with? Faith stood up and left the carefully laid out devices where they were. She joined Lyla and Goru at their communications panel. “Lyla, I am going to touch you to try to understand the readings I got.”
Lyla nodded, and pulled up a sleeve.
Faith put her hand on Lyla’s arm. At first she couldn’t connect to Lyla’s cells. Faith tried everything she could think of to push herself into an awareness of Lyla’s cells. Finally she forced herself to relax. Her breathing flowed into an expression of Lyla’s heartbeat. Faith’s awareness unfolded into an awareness of every cell in Lyla’s body. There was something familiar about them and the way they were processing energy. They reminded Faith of the way Faith felt just before her metamorphosis. Faith pulled back, “Thanks, I think I have got what I need.”
Faith went back through the tablet, focusing her search on readings indicating a metamorphosis was immanent. “Bingo!” Faith blurted. Millie jumped up from where she sat by the fire. Goru and Lyla paid her no mind.
“What?” Millie asked, joining her.
Faith rubbed her forearms and considered excusing herself, “I just figured out what is going on with Lyla. She is beginning a secondary metamorphosis, and her body isn’t necessarily adapting properly.” Faith tapped away at the tablet upping the glucose concentration in Lyla’s IV glove. Then she tapped out orders for a dietary supplement the database suggested. The small independent delivery box produced several small individually wrapped nutrient bars.
“Lyla,” Faith called. Lyla left Goru and rejoined Faith, “Take these bars and eat one every two hours. You are beginning a secondary metamorphosis. You’re mental abilities are going to keep flaring up and you need to keep your body nourished so you don’t collapse again.”
“Okay, Doc. Can I head back over?” Lyla asked taking the bars.
“Yep,” Faith replied, “Millie, let me take a look at you.” Millie folded the blanket she was wrapped in and sat on Faith’s blanket. Faith ran a bone scanner over Millie’s arm and a scanner that checked for concussions over Millie’s head. Faith put down the scanners and picked up the tablet. With a few taps, Faith had the results. Millie had completely recovered from her injuries. “Millie, you’re good to go.”
“Thanks, would you tell them that so they will give me something to do?” Millie begged.
“Yeah,” Faith packed up the med kit carefully. Then she stood and walked over to Lyla and Goru.
Goru noticed Faith and looked up from the communications panel, “How are they doing?”
Faith rubbed her arms, “Lyla is beginning a metamorphosis. Millie is all healed up. I upped Lyla’s glucose drip and given her supplement bars. What would you like me to do now?”
Goru glanced at the panel briefly, “Are you enjoying being our medic?”
Faith blinked, and considered the question, “Yes, it feels right. Like it is what I’m here for.”
“Then get to studying the medical database. We’ve got a Kisan cyborg, a Porusan hybrid, razorwolves and Briaunti. Familiarize yourself with our physiology and common ailments.”
“Okay, I think I’ll take a break first,” Faith stated thinking only of her knife.
“Go on, you've earned it,” Goru answered without further comment.
Faith flashed a weak smile at the side of his head and turned to her dirty little secret.
Chapter Ten
Mines
After Millie was checked out as fine, she was at a complete loss. She folded the blanket she had wrapped herself in and placed it on Faith’s work blanket. Milo was focused on his mission to the point that Millie was only receiving erratic thoughts, from him. Without his presence in her mind she felt strangely empty, almost hollow, and very alone. Millie watched decided to wander off in the direction Beaker had gone. Millie watched as Faith made her report and then headed back into the shelter. Goru and Lyla were immersed in monitoring coms. Millie was more alone than she had ever been.
Millie looked off in the direction Beaker had gone. Without consciously intending to search him out, Millie set out along his trail. She found him about fifteen minutes later kneeling, chipping flakes off of a boulder with a small pick onto a carefully laid out piece of plastic. “Beaker?” Millie said.
Beaker missed the section of rock he was aiming for and scraped his knuckles on the rock. “Son of a seahorse!” Beaker muttered, “Millie?”
“Yeah, sorry, I was just…Milo is doing his own thing…everybody is. I just…Do you need any help?” Millie found it hard to organize her thoughts into a complete sentence. She wasn’t sure if it had to do with her link with Milo or the tingly bubbly feeling that welled up when she spotted Beaker.
Beaker smiled, “Yeah, gather up these chips and put them in that sample cup.” Millie kneeled and began following his instructions. Beaker stowed the pick and picked up a device. He squinted at it and smacked it a couple of times. “Jeez, I hope that our allotments allow me to get some new scanners. My gravity meter is totally out of whack. I think the gravity here is earth normal. The magnetic field matches earth’s in the early twenty-first century. What confuses me is that pollution levels are much lower than they should be. Radioactive isotopes indicate past nuclear detonations, but carbon dioxide and particulates in the atmosphere indicate a barely industrial level of technology.”
“What does that mean?” Millie asked handing him the sample cup.
He pushed the cup into the bottom of a scanner and squinted at his tablet for results, “Low population? Some kind of disaster probably wiped out most of the intelligent life on the planet, at least fifty years ago. We might have been very lucky to find what people we did. A
lso, it might explain why they don’t speak. Maybe they physically can’t.”
Millie nodded. She liked the way Beaker’s mind worked. It was quick. It perfectly matched his look. He looked prepared for anything with his array of scanners laid out around him. She liked the way his T-shirt clung to his abs, and the long sleeve denim shirt he wore over it fluttered loosely in the slight breeze. “So what do we know?”
Beaker rocked back on his heels, “This,” Beaker gestured at the world in general, “is our placement test.”
Millie blinked, “Really?”
“I’d bet on it,” Beaker stated.
“So how are we doing? Have we flunked it?” Beaker laughed, “I don’t think there is a flunking it, but if there has to be…,” Beaker gestured towards the way they had come, “They flunked it.”
Millie thought about Beaker’s words, “Okay, so what do we do next?”
“That would be the question.”
- - - - - - -
Milo followed Stone through the village. She was analyzing the villagers body language and gestures, looking for a pattern. She seemed to be getting close to a breakthrough, “That man is going to take four melons from that cart. He asked that woman for them.”
“Okay, so how do we ask them for help?” Milo asked as the man performed as predicted.
“I have no idea,” Stone shrugged.
Milo sighed, he activated his mic, “Goru, we are butting our heads against a brick wall. We could ask for fruit, but Stone has no idea how to ask for or offer assistance.”
“I think they might be Psi, it would explain why they aren’t talking, but not why we can’t sense their thoughts,” Stone said after she activated her mic.
“Stand by, we’re getting a report from Fubar,” Lyla replied.
“By all means, patch us in,” Stone begged.
There was a slight click and Fubar’s voice came through Milo’s earpiece, “I would rather direct them from here,” Sport stated.
Milo guessed he and Stone were the ones she wanted to direct. “Can you see us okay?” Milo asked.
“Yeah, turn to your six and head past three huts then take a sharp right,” Fubar directed.
Goru mumbled something just off coms, “Okay Fubar, but be ready if they need backup.”
Fubar sighed audibly, and replied, “Yes, Chief.”
Milo and Stone turned back and followed Fubar’s directions. The villagers ignored their passage. Within two minutes Milo and Stone were standing in front of a hut with its door hanging slightly off kilter. Milo gesture for Stone to enter first. The adult residents of the hut let them in and in no way barred their passage. Of course the man and woman didn’t assist them either. There was no sign of children in the hut, but there was what must have been a camouflaged trapdoor in the floor.
Milo stepped down into a low-ceilinged makeshift basement. It was outfitted to keep children calm and happy. There were two little pallets with thin blankets. Dolls and blocks were scattered around. Milo picked up and examined the toys. They were simply made vague representations. He could hear Stone upstairs trying to get the parents to talk. Milo climbed back up the ladder. The parents said nothing. Stone made subtle gestures Milo assumed had meaning. Finally the parents pointed to a small monkey-like creature sitting on a cupboard watching them.
“Milo, it’s some kind of living surveillance camera. They aren’t going to say anything where it can see,” Stone whispered.
Milo whispered, “It’s probably new because if they had been hiding the children long it would have reported them much before now.”
“Are you talking about a little monkey-creature?” Fubar interrupted.
“Yeah,” Milo answered.
“The guards dropped it off when they took the children,” Fubar explained.
“Uh, don’t you think it might report us?” Stone asked, “Because, we are theoretically still children…” Stone pointed out.
“Why don’t you three head back,” Goru interrupted sounding concerned. Milo decided this was an excellent order to follow.
- - - - - - -
“Sure, follow the big hostile humans with a cage. That can’t possibly go wrong,” Sport muttered to himself as he trotted from bush to bush, barely keeping up with the horse-drawn wagon. He kept falling further behind. Finally he was just following the haze of dust churned up by the wagon. When that disappeared, Sport ran headlong towards where he last saw the trail. He nearly fell over the edge of a deep ravine. The wagon-rutted path turned sharply to hug the ravine wall. Sport spotted the wagon at the bottom. It had stopped at what looked like a small mining camp. Several tunnels led into the ravine walls. The guards unloaded the children from the cage.
The camp overseers cracked whips at the children, who cowered. A pair of teens dressed in rags crawled from one of the tunnels. They were shackled at opposite ends of a long chain. The guards pointed to the children and the teens went along and shackled the new children to their chain. Sport cocked his head to the side, trying to hear if the guards were talking.
The chain of children crawled into the tunnel the teens had come from. Sport looked around at the camp. There was a tower at the center of the camp with what looked like living cameras growing from the top. Squirrel-sized monkey-like creatures patrolled the perimeter. Scout began counting the numbers of guards and overseers. He scoped out the guard quarters. There were more guards relaxing in their barracks.
“Goru, Lyla, I found some kind of mining camp. The hostiles are using the kids to mine and process some kind of mineral. There aren’t many captors relative to captives and townspeople. We might be able to adjust things here, for the better,” Scout reported back.
Lyla responded quickly, “Scout head on back. These hostiles probably know about us. They have surveillance on the village, Being that they seem to prefer taking children we need to regroup and plan countermeasures.”
“Aye chief, heading back,” Scout immediately turned to follow his trail back.
- - - - - - -
Goru paced from the shelter entrance to the communications setup and back. It seemed like it was taking longer for the teams to return than it took for them to get to their positions. Lyla had all the coms open and was listening to them on her earpiece. Goru felt like he should go back and listen in too, but Lyla had shooed him off coms when he started tapping compulsively on the screen showing their relative locations.
A deep sigh escaped Goru’s lips, he had never been responsible for anyone more than himself and his sisters. That responsibility had always weighed heavily on him. He would walk the front lines between his sisters and his mother. He had shouldered more beatings than both his sisters put together. Now, he had sent people he could call friends into danger while he stood relatively safely here. That was why he hadn’t slept last night, he couldn’t leave his new friends unprotected in an uncertain environment. Waiting for them to return was worrisome, especially since there were men dragging children into slavery. Only Faith, Fubar and Sport had reached full physical maturity.
Beaker and Millie returned to camp with arms full of plastic-wrapped packages. Millie held up her armload, “It’s amazing! He set snares and caught rabbits. Then he showed me so many edible plants. We have practically been walking through a grocery store. This planet is Beaker’s personal delivery cupboard.”
Beaker set his bundles down by the cooking area he had used that morning. Goru was impressed with his skills. “What else did you find in the way of resources?”
Beaker smiled, “There aren’t many mineral resources readily available to a pre-industrial society, which is what I think we are dealing with. Actually, a post cataclysmic pre-industrial society. If I am right, we were too lucky to believe in finding the village.”
“What are the chances…” Milo interrupted returning with Stone.
Millie continued the thought, “…that we would run into a village like this…” She embraced her brother with tears welling.
“Needing our help this bad
ly,” Milo finished over Millie’s shoulder.
Beaker spoke up, “I was talking to Millie about that earlier. I think this whole thing is our placement test.”
“So if we know that doesn’t it invalidate it somehow?” Lyla asked.
Goru felt the urge to check on Sport and Fubar’s locations until he glanced past Milo and saw them both trotting towards him. Stone was just a few steps behind Fubar. Goru did a mental headcount. Everyone was here. It soothed the raw nerve he had been nursing since they left.
“Well, I have done my best but I can’t communicate much more than economic exchanges,” Stone admitted, “They don’t even try. Oh, yeah, if we’re talking strange circumstances, I haven’t been able to sense electronics since I woke up in the dorms, not even my own.”
“Here’s a question that bothers me,” Goru interjected, “If we are on an earth, are we still in The Preserve? How controlled are the parameters of this test? Can we be injured? Killed?”
Faith raised her hand, “Injured yes, but I don’t think this is life or death.” She gestured at Millie.
Goru nodded at the logic, “Would you guys share what you found?”
“Well, Fubar spotted some thugs with a cage, I followed it back to a canyon thing with a slave labor camp. It looked like some kind of mine,” Sport replied.
“Okay, if this is a test, what do you guys think they want us to do to prove ourselves?” Goru asked.
“We have to help these people, these kids,” Beaker insisted.
Goru dug in his emergency pack and retrieved the pouch holding their non-lethal arsenal. he opened it and began laying out their weapons on the ground around the fire pit. He moved with an economy of motion that conveyed his message without words. When he was finished, Goru sat back on a log. and gestured at the display.
Beaker picked up a stun pistol and took aim on a tree. The dart he unleashed hit the center of the trunk. “The sight is good.”
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