Spears of the Sun (Star Sojourner Book 3) Page 7

  “I can swim after him and bring him back.” That was Huff.

  “Oh shit!” Cold water was a natural element for this ice-planet Vegan. I swam harder and listened. Voices carry over water like the proverbial two paper cups on a string.

  “Ye be a day hunter!” Zorga said. “Ye never find him in the dark.”

  “But he could drown in this cold water,” Huff said.

  “We'll circle the harbor and look for him. Drackin is following his path.”

  “Why not just fly over the inlet?” I heard Huff ask.

  “Did ye not hear the engine quit twice on our way here! Ye may be a creature of water and ice, but I am of a desert race. I do not covet a swim in cold water if she go down in the sea.”

  Good! Just swim, I told myself. That's all you have to do. I pulled off my boots and let them sink. Their smooth surface inhibited my kicking motion.

  The current dissipated when I got out past the inlet. Phosphorescence swirled around me from tiny sea creatures as I swam toward the beach behind the far jetty.

  A yacht approached the inlet between buoys where a channel was dredged for barges and ferries. I waved. “Help!” I called. But the whine of their motor, the black water, kept the crew from hearing or seeing me.

  I was shivering badly as I approached the beach past the jetty. It was getting harder to lift my arms. I side-stroked instead, trying to relax with my head above water. High in the sky, the Shayl followed. “Come down, you slimy bastard,” I muttered and spit out water. “And I'll drown you.” But he knew better. I tried to rub the taste of salt off my tongue.

  Wait a minute. Which way was the beach? Oh yeah. The lights from houses on cliffs behind me. Behind me? I was swimming seaward! Focus on the lights, dammit! I knew I was becoming disoriented as my temperature continued to drop. In a mildly disinterested way, I wondered if I'd be able to walk when I reached land. I swam on, without thinking, gritting my teeth against the pain of freezing to death.

  What's that scraping sound? Sand beneath my shoulder! I scraped bottom as a wave receded. The next wave lifted me and plunked me down half out of water.

  I got to my knees and crawled through soggy sand and pebbles like some sea creature testing the land for the first time. Why did I weigh so much? Oh, yeah. The weight of being back on land and the muscle failure of hypothermia. I staggered to my feet and tried to close my numb hands. They were shaking, and stiff as lobster claws.

  I moaned as I looked up. The lights. Move toward the high, warm lights.

  What was that in the sand? A stingray? I'd better go around it. No. What was I thinking? Just a flat rock.

  I found the steps that led up to the cliff, to the lights, and tried to climb. My hands wouldn't close on the rail. But I could still crawl. One frozen hand after another. One iced knee after another.

  The light of a moon guided me. How many moons on this miserable, outback planet? It was a mind exercise to help me focus. Four? No, that was Halcyon's quota of moons. Or was it? One? No, that was Earth. Syl' Terria? Oh, fuck it.

  The sandy wooden steps pressed into my knees through ripped pants as I crawled, but I reached the weedy plain at the top of the cliff. There, before me, was a community of round houses, geodesic domes made of brown native rock, spread out like termite mounds, with wide lit windows to view the sea.

  I rubbed my arms and shivered as I stayed to shadows and lurched toward the closest house with its warm yellow lights. The Shayl circled in the sky, too high to see me in the shadows of this scattered, residential community, even with his night-hunter's vision.

  But when I reached the house I held back and peered through a window. A man, a woman, and two teenagers sat around a blazing fireplace. One of the kids, a boy, was talking. The rest were listening. The girl laughed and slapped the boy's shoulder.

  I leaned against the wall. Ice water puddled at my feet. If my pursuers found me here, would they murder this family so the police wouldn't be alerted? Zorga and the Shayl were capable of that. They thought no more of killing for creds than we thought of swatting a fly. Could I take a chance with innocent lives to save my own? In the distance, waves sloshed against the shore, indifferent to the frenetic pursuits of short-lived creatures.

  I gazed up at Lady Moon. Her sisters were low to the horizon. An ice maiden held by the implacable laws of the universe. But we humans live by laws and a code of ethics that transcend the order of the stars. Some of us do anyway.

  I stumbled forward, away from the house, and tried to open the door of their parked hovair. I could at least lie down and warm up in there. But my hands shook. My fingers couldn't close on the door handle. I tried to pump some blood back into them. A wind came up and plastered my wet jacket to my back. My hair dripped icicles of water onto my neck.

  I leaned against the hovair, feeling weak and dizzy. I just wanted to lie down and curl up. It was sad to die here, now that I had gained my freedom. I folded my hands under my arms and felt tears burn my eyes as I moved on, searching for some warm, tight place to crawl into and die in peace, safe from pursuers and foraging animals. Were there foraging animals on…on – What the hell was the name of this dirtball planet? This grave of mine.

  Stop it! You've been in worse situations, a part of me thought.

  “Oh yeah? Name me one!” I muttered.

  The smell of horses! Wait. Where there were horses, there were usually barns. Warm barns!

  I moved toward a corral and a black, hulking shape beyond it. But barns were supposed to be red. Maybe it was just a hill. I used the corral fence to help me toward the black barn. Or hill.

  No. A barn. Dammit, Jules, think! It was night. No color.

  When I reached its closed door, I put my weight against it and slid it open. I breathed in the warm smell of horses and slid the door shut behind me. Warm air caressed my face in the dusty light of a dim, overhead bulb. Box stalls, a trough, the nickering of horses, and an open door to my left. I went in. The tack room! The tack room with saddles, bridles, and warm, soft horse blankets.

  I cried again, now for joy, as I got my arms under two rolled blankets and lifted them, then used the walls to brace myself as I carried them to an empty stall with fresh hay spread on the floor. I slid to my knees and used my teeth to untie the strings that held the rolls. Then I struggled out of my jacket, pulled my wet turtleneck sweater over my head, even though it made me colder, and managed to unzip my pants by yanking on them, and shoved them off. I would've taken off my wet shorts and my socks too, but my fingers could not undo buttons or slip under the socks.

  The hell with it. I laid down heavily on the soft, thick blanket, with its musky smell of horse, and covered myself tightly with the other blanket. I was still shivering badly and my body made the blankets colder. But it was pure bliss. I sighed shakily and closed my eyes. If my pursuers found me here, at least the family that lounged by their warm fireplace, unaware of the predatory hunt just beyond their door, would be safe.

  I'd have to leave before daylight, though. Before someone came in to take care of the horses. And before the Shayl could see me leave. My thoughts were returning to normal; as normal as they ever get.

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I should have become a marine biologist instead of an astrobiologist, for all the times that I found myself in the ocean. I'd considered it during my school years, but the call of adventure on Earth's colonized star systems was even greater than the call of the sea.

  Still, I thought sleepily, I should have been a marine biologist. There were plenty of deep-sea creatures still unknown back on Earth. I'd heard of a giant, highly intelligent octopus they nicknamed the Kraken. I'd probably still be married to Althea. I would've been there for our little Lisa's early years. But no. I wanted adventure. Like this one, for instance.

  Willa, I thought sleepily. You were so young. So kind and loving. Where are you now? Come to me in geth state, if you can. Sye Morth, a friendly Loranth, had communicated with me between lives when I was on Syl' Terria. Or come t
o me in my dreams, Willa.

  As I slipped into sleep, I thought I caught some threads of a conversation through mindlinks.

  He's got to be around here somewhere! I think it was Zorga speaking.

  Maybe he froze to death in the ocean. Those feelings of guilt and sadness came from Huff.

  The Shayl never deigned to join conversations, but I felt him there, somewhere in the background.

  Or was it all just my own fears, my own transitional fantasy between the waking state and sleep. I covered my blanket with the fresh straw around me. It was too dark and there were too many houses and structures to search in the community. They'd never find me here. I closed my eyes and let sleep come.

  Someone kicked me hard in the knee. It hurt too much to be a dream. I snapped open my eyes and sat up. Zorga and Huff stood in the stall. After all my efforts, they had caught up to me. But how?

  Daylight seeped through cracks in the barn wall, backlighting Zorga, with his jade-green horny head encased in his bubble helmet of ammonia and methane, and a stingler around his thick waist. His tail was naked, with raw patches of green skin showing through scales. He was shedding. He grabbed me by the hair and shook me. “Get up,” he said in stelspeak, “ye Terran pritcull.”

  I guess that was some vermin species of Altair's fourth planet out. I stood up and realized my knees were still shaky. “How did you find me?”

  Huff opened his mouth to answer, but Zorga glared at him and he shut it.

  “Huff?” I said.

  He kept his head lowered and wouldn't meet my eyes.

  “C'mon, Huff,” I urged him. “How did you find me?”

  Zorga took my clothes from where I'd draped them over the low wall to dry, and threw them at me with a meaty hand.

  I caught them.

  The clothes were still clammy and full of sand. I shook them out and pulled them on, though they made me shiver. At least I could feel my fingers again.

  Zorba grabbed my arm and pushed me out of the stall. He came out after me, clutched my arm again and pulled me to the barn door. I threw off his hand and paused.

  The morning sun felt warm and comforting in a cold world. A sea breeze carried the salty smell of the ocean. Waves rose and fell with the rhythm of elements moved by the invisible hands of universal laws.

  I was relieved that the view from the house was blocked by the barn. Speaking of invisible hands, though, I closed my eyes, leaned against the barn door as though I were still dizzy, and pictured that red-hot coil spinning within my head. I willed the coil to intensify. Quickening. A burn through brain cells. I attached a message as I forced the coil to gain power by sheer will and felt it grow. It hurt, but it was worth the try. I gathered the coil and threw it! Interstel is tracking you, I sent. An ion device is racing here to destroy you! Flee for your lives! I had no idea what an ion device was, but it sounded good.

  Zorga hit me so fast I never saw it coming. An explosion of pain shook me to the core and dissipated the mental coil. I found myself on my knees.

  “Ye do that trick again,” Zorga yelled and whipped out his stingler, “and ye spend the ride back with ye brain in deep freeze!” I saw him turn the weapon's ring to “stun.”

  Dammit! He was a sensitive.

  “Zorga,” Huff said, “we're not supposed to do that. You might harm him.”

  “Ye are beginning to vex me!” Zorba told Huff and waved the stingler at him.

  I tried to stand up and the stalls turned like a carousel, complete with horses who peered curiously out of their stalls.

  Huff took my arm and helped me to my feet. “Can you stand by yourself?” He brushed straw off my clothes.

  Who did he think he was kidding? Good cop, bad cop? He was just another devious, greedy slime. I yanked his paw off my arm. “Get away from me, you lying bag of slime.” Anyway, the barn had stopped turning.

  He nodded and moved back.

  My tel powers were stronger since I'd intimidated the five crotes in the tunnel, but I still couldn't send on Spirit's subliminal level, a level that didn't alert a sensitive, including alien races. I would have to learn that skill if I lived long enough.

  I walked outside.

  The Shayl crouched on their hovair with his wings folded, looking for all the world like a gargoyle hood ornament. Six appendages. Two arms, two legs, and wings. Six was an unusual pattern. They are a cunning race, but not technological. That takes teamwork. They paid their way for space travel by catching native fish with their talons as they skimmed the surface of their lakes. The eggs from the Six-Fins, as the fish were called, were prized throughout the colonies and Earth as a delicacy that rivaled Earth's truffles.

  Huff opened the hovair's door.

  “Get in,” Zorga ordered.

  I was halfway into the vehicle when a voice from behind me grated in stelspeak: “Stay right where you are. Move and you're dead.”

  I stopped and ventured a look back.

  A muscular man, with kinky black hair and the dark skin of an Earth African, stood with legs braced, and an old bullet semi-automatic rifle pointed at the group. The Shayl spread his great wings and hissed. Zorga and Huff stopped moving.

  “Me too?” I asked.

  “You'll want to move away from them,” he told me. “Out of range of my rifle.”

  I felt a great sense of relief. “Sounds good to me. But what about the Altairian's stingler? He's dangerous, tag.”

  “Call me Chancey. You got a problem with the way I'm rescuing you?”

  “Your call, my friend.” But as I stepped away, Zorga reached out and grabbed me. Altairians are stronger than humans by far. He dragged me in front of him and drew the stingler. Chancey fired above my head. I heard Zorga's helmet crack and the hiss as gas poured out. That would be ammonia and methane! I broke from his grip and threw myself away from him.

  “Oh, Zorga!” Huff cried.

  The oxygen in Type-Earth air is lethal to an Altairian. He screamed as the gas mixture dissipated and his tank went dry. He clutched his chest, then tore at his own throat as oxygen burned his lungs. I turned away, unable to witness the agony of his death throes. When his screams subsided, I opened a mindlink with him.

  There's nothing to fear, I sent. The geth state between lives is pleasant, and there's no pain. You will reincarnate somewhere. Maybe not in the Altair system. Use the time to learn about the downside of greed. Practice compassion.

  All I received was anger as his kwaii fled his body. He had a long way to go to achieve enlightenment.

  The only sound was the squawk of a seabird that left its roost and flapped toward the ocean.

  I turned around. Zorga's body lay with blood dripping from his open, still mouth. His eyes were fixed. His throat was ripped by his own claws. The Shayl licked the bony plates of his mouth.

  I went to Zorga and closed his eyes. What a wasted life. The ammonia and methane smell of his body were overpowering and I backed away.

  Chancey shifted his feet. “Would you like to test my resolve, too?” he asked Huff.

  Huff shook his furry head. “But he was my friend.”

  “Take off that mouse beamer and let it drop,” Chancey ordered Huff.

  Huff released the holster on his leg weapon and the small beamer fell to the ground. He stared at Zorga's body with his paws at his snout.

  I picked up the weapon. The charge light was on. It couldn't have fired. I stuffed it inside my jacket pocket and looked at Huff.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “It is a thing only meant for destruction.”

  The Shayl, true to his nature, seemed unmoved by his colleague's death. In a swift motion, he turned and leaped into the air, wings spread, and flew low between houses. The wiry tag aimed. “Son of a dragon!” He lowered his rifle. The Shayl turned a corner and was gone. “Too many houses in the way.”

  “Dammit!” I said. “He's going to report back.”

  “It doesn't matter,” Huff told me. “If General Rowdinth wants you, he will know where to find
you.”

  “He's that good, huh?” I said. I thought of Rowdinth's security agents, probably planted in Gorestail, as I unstrapped Zorga's holster, strapped it on and sleeved in the stingler. “We have to get rid of the body,” I told Chancey. “Will you help me?” I dragged Zorga's heavy body toward the hovair.

  “Let me help.” Huff looked at Chancey. “Please?”

  He nodded.

  Together Huff and I loaded his friend's body into the vehicle's storage compartment. The ammonia and methane gas had dissipated, but Zorga smelled like bitter root. I have to admit, I felt very little sympathy for the dead Altairian.

  “You want to tell me what the hell's going on here,” Chancey asked me when I wiped my hands on a rag from the compartment.

  “Have you heard of General Rowdinth?” I asked.

  “Everybody's heard of General Ki Rowdinth. You're not from around here, are you?”

  “No, are you?” Come to think of it, he'd arrived just in the nick.

  “I'm a free agent for hire,” he said. “I protect the miners, mostly from each other.” He slung the old rifle over his shoulder and gestured toward a cabin down the dirt road. “I'm renting there. Who are you?”

  His job probably doesn't pay well, I thought, with that old projectile rifle. “Right now I'm also on a job. I owe you, my friend. Can I pay you for your help?”

  “Naw. I make a good cred. A ride into Gorestail would even things up. My damn hovar broke down. It's a holiday and I should be in town keeping an eye on the mining tags. Rough bunch.”

  Huff sat on his haunches and hung his head dejectedly.

  “Go home,” I told him. “Go back to Kresthaven and your people, Huff. You were never meant for this work.”

  “I am too tainted by my own acts,” he said sadly. “It is too late for forgiveness. I would be a pariah to my people.”

  “If you go back to General Rowdinth,” I told him, “he'll add you to his museum collection.” “I am doomed to a low level of The Pit from the events I have engaged in,” Huff said. “A breaker of the Codes.” He laid down, his broad head between front paws and whined. “I am an outcast now. Doomed to wander until I am killed by an alien people who also cannot tolerate me.”