"Um, I was talking to the suit," I answered, raising my eyebrows. I understood her confusion as I was no doubt a sight to behold with animal skins covering parts of my grav-suit.
Her laugh was a short bark. "Right. Haven't thought of that for quite some time," she said. "Fire, then shelter."
"Copy that," I answered.
It turned out, with the AI's help, locating appropriate cross members for and constructing a shelter wasn’t difficult. At the perfect intersection of three trees that had grown together with intersecting branches, I built a two-by-three-meter space and covered it with pine boughs. On the open end of the structure, I dug a shallow fire pit and rolled heavy rocks to back it. Finally, I gathered more pine boughs and laid them down on the inside of the structure to serve as beds.
"Cap, fire," Marny said, bringing back an armful of dirty tubers. "You're going to have a dickens of a time getting this wood started."
"There's a stream down the hill to our southeast," I said, dumping the contents of my pack onto one of the beds I'd constructed. I offered the pack to Marny. "Leave your pack, you can carry more with mine."
"Fire?" she pushed. I looked into her weathered face. Mountain living had been hard on her as much as time had whittled her down to her essence. Her unbridled intensity was still there, but it was balanced with a calm that hadn't always been there.
"I've got it," I said, unwrapping the thicker skin that would keep me warm when I finally cooled from the activity. "Give me your water skin."
She complied, her eyes darting around the structure I'd put together. "This is quite a lean-to," she said. "I've missed the advantages an AI brings."
I poured the remains of my own water skin into hers and handed it back to her. "I'll help gather once I get the fire going and some water."
For the next three hours, we tramped through the woods, gathering as much as we could find in preparation for an extended stay. Our steps slowed as the blanket of snow thickened and heavy flakes filtered down through the trees. At first, tree branches held back much of the snow, but soon the powerful winds set upon us, piling snow into drifts. Walking became nearly impossible.
"Bring it in, Cap," Marny finally said. She was right. We gave up and slumped onto the pokey pine-needle beds I'd put together only a few hours before.
"How much more snow do you think we'll get?" I asked, taking off my outer skins and setting them near the fire to dry.
"I'd say we already have fifteen centimeters," she said. "We could get as much as a meter or two."
My jaw must have gone slack as she chuckled at the look on my face. "A couple of meters? Can we even get through that?"
"We're lucky it's early in the season," she said. "Once the storm passes, it should warm up and the snow will pack. You do understand that's why we've been carrying those snow shoes all this time, right?"
I groaned and lay back, trying unsuccessfully to make my bed comfortable. "Could you have taken that maracat?" I asked, closing my eyes. There was something very peaceful about the falling snow and even though I was sore, I felt content.
"The one you went berserker on?" Marny asked, adjusting her own pack.
"There was another one?" I asked.
She chuckled. "I hoped it wouldn't come to a fight," she said. "But I'd like to believe I stood a better than even chance. I don't work out like I used to, but there's something about subsistence living that hardens the body in ways no workout ever could."
"Ever wonder what's going on back home?" I asked.
"You mean Mhina system?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Sure. Have you talked to Nick about our trip to this place on Hotspur?" she asked.
"Not really," I said. "You know Nick. Always focused on what needs doing next. Why?"
"He's concerned with why Anino put us in life-suspension chambers," she said.
"Worked out good for me," I said. "Otherwise, I'd be dead right now. Instead, I’m a thinner, stronger version of my twenty-five-year-old self."
"You were only twenty-five standard years when we left?" Marny asked, rhetorically. "You make me feel ancient. My body is at least fifty stans at this point."
"Looking pretty darn good for it too," I said. "And Nick. Who knew he had so much muscle under all that engineering flab."
Marny guffawed. "The fresh air has been good for him, but he misses home more than he lets on."
"What’s his theory about the reason Anino put us in life-suspension chambers?" I asked.
"You sure you want to know?"
"You can't leave me hanging. Of course I do."
"What if we were in those chambers for longer than a quick trip out to the Small Magellanic Cloud? The faster-than-light drive might have had other effects," she said. "You're familiar with relativity and the effect of approaching the speed of light? Nick's worried that Anino did more than strand us on Fraxus."
"Time dilation?" I asked.
"Nick thinks it's possible more than twenty years have passed."
"How many?" I asked.
"He was working with your AI to plot galactic positions," she said.
"What'd he find?"
"Nothing yet. We just don't have any accurate enough sensors."
"Great," I said. "Not only did Anino take my fiancée, but he might have taken my family too? Frak, but I really hate that guy."
"You blame Anino for Tabby and Peter? I thought you were mad at Tabby," she said.
"I know I'm not handling things that well," I said. "I don't even know why I yelled at her. I didn't know it was coming and suddenly, I was screaming. I drove her away when I wanted her back. I ruined it just as surely as Anino did."
"Tabby is a grown woman, Cap," Marny said. "She knows you're hurting and won't hold that against you."
"What can I do to get her back?" I asked, understanding the perversity of asking my competitor's mother.
"Nothing, Cap. Tabby is in a hard spot. You were her first love and no woman every really gets over that," Marny said. "I think you're asking the wrong question, though."
"Which is?"
"If you're not together, how much do you want her in your life?"
I sighed. I hadn't truly entertained the idea of Tabby not being part of my life. She’d been in my thoughts nearly every day I could remember. I fully expected to have kids and grow old with her. Life had thrown us an impossible curveball.
The snow fell for five days and by the end of it, our supplies had dwindled to almost nothing. Several times we'd ventured out to look for food, but everything had been covered in an impossibly thick blanket of snow.
"Ready to learn how to walk again?" Marny asked.
"How's that?" I asked.
"You're in for a special treat today," she said, grinning wickedly.
"Anything has to be better than sitting in this hole," I said, my teeth chattering as I spoke. My suit's energy stores were at a critical level, no longer usable for heat. I was about as cold as I ever remembered being.
I followed Marny's lead as we sat in the deep, albeit soft snow next to our shelter. The snow shoes weren’t difficult to attach, but I recognized the problem almost immediately. The wide imprint of the shoe made it impossible to keep your feet together. Of course, I hadn’t grasped the mechanics of it and when I attempted to stand, I fell back on my butt.
"Everything's done at a slight jog," Marny said, handing me two-meter-long sticks she'd crafted while we'd been holed up. "I'll blaze the trail. Try to do what I do and keep in my tracks."
I lifted my pole and Marny tugged until I was upright. At the end of the sticks, she'd woven baskets, the purpose of which wasn't immediately obvious. Like the shoes, however, the baskets caught on the fluffy snow when I stabbed them toward the earth for balance. Seeing that I remained standing, Marny took off. At first, she lumbered as her shoes sank into the fresh powder. As her speed increased and her shoes sank in less, she seemed to skim across the deep snow.
The task was impossibly difficult and I couldn't quite
get the rhythm. After half an hour of tedious work, I found that as long as I placed my shoes into the impressions Marny left, I made reasonable progress.
"Doing good, Cap," Marny said, stopping after an hour of ridiculously hard work. There was no way I'd be able to continue at our current pace for more than a couple of hours and by the amount of vapor bellowing out from Marny, I suspected she would have similar issues.
"I'm dying back here."
"It'll get easier as we go. The snow is already starting to stiffen. Can't you feel it?" she asked.
"No," I said simply, my lungs still searching for oxygen.
It was a day I suspect I'll never forget and after five grueling hours Marny finally relented, allowing us to settle in under a large tree that had formed a snow cave beneath its limbs.
"I'd hoped to find some game out and about," she said stripping bark from the tree. "We're going to be in trouble if we don't find calories somewhere."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Makes a tea," she said. "Better than nothing, but I guarantee you won't drink it under other circumstances."
The bark tea wasn't that bad. Sure, it was bitter, but coupled with a small amount of our remaining tuber, it provided welcome calories, although nowhere near the replacement we needed.
While seated, my AI alerted me of movement only a few meters from our position. I held up my finger to let Marny know we needed to be quiet. I signaled that I had contact with something. My suit's batteries had charged some, having vamped my heat as I strained to keep up with Marny in the snow. As such, I knew I could grav-assist if needed. Turning, I caught sight of the ears of a rodent Nick had referred to simply as a rabbit. The animals weren't exactly like those found on Earth, but they were small, around a kilo and a half, furry, and best of all, they were edible.
In a single, fluid movement, I lurched from my seated position, my legs screaming in protest. With as little boost from my grav-suit as I could manage, I twisted and landed atop a very startled rabbit, who at the last moment attempted to squirt away. The ensuing combat was anything but pretty. In the end, it was a point to Hoffen.
"Maybe I should dress that," Marny said, looking at the carnage I proudly placed on the ground in front of her.
"I'll start the fire."
Four days later, things took a turn for the worse. While we'd been keeping a lookout for wildlife, none had presented themselves. Following the first storm, a second had blown into the valley. Worse yet, we'd only made fifteen kilometers from where we'd been hit by the first storm. Without adequate supplies, these were serious enough setbacks that I wondered how we'd make it through.
"The snow is slowing," Marny announced on the third day. "We have to find food. We can't survive like this."
I nodded, pulling on my snow shoes and taking lead on the trail. With every passing hour, I came to understand that our struggle had become life threatening. That Marny had us out in this storm told me she felt the peril too.
Mid-afternoon on the fourth day of the second storm, the snow finally relented, but we struggled to keep moving. Clear skies gave us hope and when my AI pinged contact, my heart leapt.
"I've got something," I said, fumbling as I came up next to Marny.
"Good," she whispered, her face drawn from hunger. She followed my gaze into the forest where the contact had come from. I still hadn't seen what type of animal was there when she growled, "Stay behind me, Cap."
I looked again, not fully understanding until a second blip showed on my HUD. "Do you see it?" I whispered.
"It's that maracat. It's been tracking us."
"All this time?"
Marny nodded wearily. "She's a wise old woman. She's been following, waiting for us to weaken. Maracats are intelligent. She knows we're slow and she must have figured out that we're not in very good shape."
I pulled out Nick's knife. If we were going down, we'd go down fighting.
The adult maracat appeared from the tree line, flanked by the adolescent. She hadn’t sent the young one off like she had on the other side of Juba mountain. Their plan was simple. They would charge and finish us off.
"Come on!" I yelled. "You want some of this?"
Apparently, my words translated into free food, come and get it, because the two felines bolted into action, racing toward us over the snow. I stepped in close to Marny, who had braced her spear and was prepared to accept the charge. It was my job to keep Marny freed up to fight for as long as possible. Between the two of us, she stood the best chance of surviving the short odds.
In unison, the two maracats left the ground. I took the impact of the larger one straight to my chest and fell back into the snow. Wildly, I swung my blade, piercing the animal’s side, completely amazed that I hadn't taken more injury. Not interested in wasting my good luck, I pulled around and jabbed my knife into the beast’s chest, when I suddenly realized the beast wasn’t moving.
"I got it!" I cried exuberantly, trying to free myself from the tangle of fur and blood.
Strong hands grabbed my arm and pulled me up. I found myself looking directly into Tabby's face.
"Point Masters," she said with a wicked grin.
Chapter 9
Elves
Tabby's face was only centimeters from my own. For the first time in many ten-days, she willingly looked me in the eye.
"Frak, I'm so sorry, Tabby," I said, pushing a stray hair over her ear. I slumped. The reflexive move felt inappropriate.
The look of triumph faded from her face. "Sorry for almost getting yourself killed?" she asked, pushing the dead maracat off into the snow.
"There were two of them," I said as reality snapped back into focus.
"The yearling ran off," Little Pete responded, only a few meters away.
Tabby turned back to me as if she was waiting for an answer.
"It's just … I can't do this," I said.
A flash of pain crossed her face but was quickly replaced by anger. "Can't do what?" she growled, turning away.
"Don't do that," I said, placing my hand on the side of her cheek. She resisted but allowed me to rotate her so we were face to face. "Don't get angry. I don't want to fight with you. It's not fair what happened to us. None of that changes how I feel about you, but I never should have said what I did. You were right to look for happiness. How could you have known I was alive?"
I was vaguely aware of Little Pete talking, only to be called off by Marny. I held Tabby's gaze as she processed what I was saying.
"I never lost hope," she said, her eyes puddling with tears. "This thing with Peter just happened. He's such a good man. I don't want to hurt either of you."
"If I could put the world back twenty years, I would," I said. "The fact is, you aren't the one at fault. It's taken six ten-days and me nearly dying in a blizzard to figure out who’s to blame. If you need a name, it's Thomas Anino. The fact is, there's no going back. We have to accept where we're at and move forward from here."
"You make it sound so easy," she said.
"Honestly, it is that easy," I said. "You have a hard decision to make and there's no reason you need to make it right now."
"I have a decision to make?" she asked. "What about you? Or maybe you're forgetting that I almost had a baby with Peter."
"That's in the past, Tabby," I said. "Sure, I don't love where we're at with this, but nothing has changed for me. That said, I'll respect whatever decision you make."
Tabby sighed. "This was a lot easier when I was mad at you."
"How'd you know where we were?" I asked, eager to change the conversation.
"Peter," she said, helping me out of the indentation in the snow.
"Yup," Little Pete answered almost immediately. I'd been so focused on Tabby that I’d lost track of him and Marny. When I turned to look at the big man, I could tell he was concerned. His face, however, showed none of the hostility I had expected and – honestly – what I knew I would be feeling in a similar situation. "Mom blazed the trail. It was easy to fol
low."
"Start a fire," Marny said, taking charge. "We need to process this maracat before we move again. The back-to-back snows burned down our supplies."
"Pretty lucky, this snow." Little Pete grabbed the back legs of the heavy cat and with brutal efficiency, started to clean the animal.
"Lucky?" I asked. "We haven't had a good meal in a ten-day."
Pete dunked his large hands into virgin snow and wiped as much blood away as he could. From a pouch, he pulled out a leaf-wrapped travel bar like the ones we'd run out of some time back. "Eat this first. But you’d better get started on the fire or mom will have your hide."
I eagerly unwrapped and tore into the bar. "You know, this really does taste like berries."
Marny laughed, hearing the old joke. In our previous life, I’d always claimed the replicator’s berry-flavored meal bars were my favorite. In truth, none of our meal bars had ever had much flavor to them and I never really minded. I used to think it was funny that people expected more from their food than nutrition. Oh, how times had changed. The tart berries in the travel bars were tasty and I took a moment to savor the treat. Peter gave me a quizzical look but continued working on the maracat.
"Kind of sad to see this old girl get put down," he said. "She's raised her last cub, I guess. I'm surprised she attacked you. She's always left us alone."
"Early snow," Marny said. "Blood deer have headed over the mountain to where there's still green."
"I still don't get why we're lucky it snowed, Little Pete," I said.
"Look over toward Bluetop," he said, pointing to the northeast.
While we were too far away to see Bluetop Mountain, we were able to make out the broad valley that separated the two mountain ranges. Just like where we were situated, there was a fresh blanket of white snow sitting beneath a cerulean blue sky.
"All I can see is snow," I said. " Snowshoeing sucks, by the way."
"Aww," Tabby mocked, dropping a load of firewood into the circle of matted snow we'd formed during the attack. "Nothing more invigorating than the cardio of snowshoeing."
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