CHAPTER 7
KIM O’HARA SAT in the cockpit of Rover, the family shuttle. He watched through the magnified viewscreen as Yaakke waited patiently on Cyndi. He fetched a hot drink for her, refilled her trencher with fish stew, and spoke attentively to her throughout the long evening.
The rest of the villagers went about their routines, finally settling in to a session of quiet storytelling. Without Pryth, their midwife, bard, and matriarch, to lead them in spirited song and dance, their mood was subdued and cautious.
Cyndi listened politely, then moved off to the women’s quarters, a cave set into the soaring cliff.
Yaakke’s gaze followed her with longing. Then he returned to the evening’s activities. But his eyes kept straying back to the entrance of Cyndi’s cave.
Kim shook off his speculation on what had happened between Hestiia’s brother and the village hostage.
He had a chore tonight. A chore which neither of his brothers would approve.
Loki was nowhere in sight. Konner and Dalleena had not yet returned. He had time and privacy to break every rule his family adhered to.
For Hestiia, his wife, and Pryth, the midwife, he had to do the unthinkable.
He fingered the comm unit.
Before he could talk himself out of his plan, he keyed in a common IMP frequency. “Rover to Base Camp, come in please. Over.” His signal seemed to take forever before the diagrams showed it had bounced off his mother ship Sirius and returned to ground.
A lot of dead air was his only response. He changed frequencies three more times before he found a static-interrupted voice at the other end. “This is Base Camp. Identify yourself. Over.”
Kim couldn’t tell if he had contacted a male or female, someone in authority or just someone playing around with the comm units.
“This is Mark Kimmer O’Hara.” He gulped, then proceeded with precious information. “Citizenship number Alpha George Cat Zero niner eight two seven Omega Prime niner eight two seven.” If any of the IMPs got off the planet, they could cancel his citizenship knowing that number. Without the number they had no power over him. “I want to strike a deal.”
Did they have any databases left to show that his number was legal?
“O’Hara? This is Captain Amanda Leonard. What kind of deal? Will you take us off planet? Will you reconnect your king stone and allow us to communicate with home?”
“Baby steps, Commander Leonard.” He wouldn’t give the woman the honor of calling her captain. She had no ship left to captain. Only her rank and name identified her now. And she would not have her rank long when her corps of followers had to hunker down and start working for survival.
Kim had never truly approved of stranding the IMPs in Coronnan. That amounted to imprisonment under conditions worse than what the IMPs would do to the three brothers if they were captured and returned to the GTE. But he recognized the necessity of keeping the GTE out of Coronnan. The exploitive policies would pollute and ruin the ecology. The GTE would totally destroy the unique and beautiful culture of the people. Hestiia’s people.
His people.
If any of the IMPs ever returned to the GTE, they must by law reveal the location of this planet.
“What do you mean by baby steps?” Leonard nearly screamed.
Kim instinctively reared away from the shuttle’s speaker. “I mean, Commander Leonard, we start learning to live together with small concessions to each other.”
“Who said we agreed to live together?” The former captain sounded nearly hysterical.
“Mr. O’Hara,” a deep voice injected into the conversation. “This is Lieutenant Commander Jetang M’Berra, First Officer of the Imperial Military Police Judicial Cruiser Jupiter. What do you propose?”
Kim wished he could see what was going on at Base Camp—the village he had helped build last year. He’d left communications on voice only. He could not take a chance that Leonard or M’Berra would recognize the landscape around Rover in the background of the messages. If they found the shuttle, then Kat could break into it and fly it up to Sirius. Giving any one of the IMPs access to the mother ship would destroy everything he and his brothers had fought for. Giving Kat access to anything in their lives meant instant danger to their persons as well as their liberty.
“Lieutenant Commander M’Berra, I have a hostage that you want very badly. You have a medic with drugs and knowledge that I need. Can we talk a trade?”
“I will settle for nothing less than your complete surrender, O’Hara,” Leonard screeched in the background.
“Consider this, M’Berra.” Kim gave up trying to reason with Amanda Leonard. The stress of losing her ship and surviving a winter on a primitive planet had obviously unhinged her mind. “In the optimistic view that you might get off this planet and back to civilization, think of the report Diplomatic Attaché Lucinda Baines will be giving her father, a planetary governor.” Kim almost chuckled at the look that must be crossing the big African’s face.
“We will get off this planet, O’Hara. And when we do, you will be grateful to come with us.” Menace dripped from M’Berra’s tone.
“Now why would we do that, M’Berra?” Kim asked, not at all intimidated. “We know how to survive on this planet. We know how to plant grain, fish the seas, and hunt for food. We know how to build shelters that keep out the cold wind and rain. You should know that. You lived in my house all winter. Now it’s past time to start planting grains and vegetables, to repair winter damage to houses. Have you done that?”
“If you are so successful, why do you need a medic and medicines?” M’Berra asked coldly.
Kim almost choked out the painful confession that Hestiia was eight months pregnant and not doing well, that their midwife had taken sick, and that Lucinda Baines was a pain in the ass. He wasn’t about to reveal his vulnerability.
“Winter brings aches and pains and chills and fevers to my people. I have over fifty locals to tend. They depend upon me and my brothers. We are their Stargods,” he said instead.
“Barbarians!” Amanda Leonard called. Her voice sounded muffled, as if M’Berra had removed her from proximity of the comm unit.
“Think about your options, M’Berra, and get back to me on this frequency at midnight.” Kim discommed and sat back in his chair in the cockpit of the shuttle. For so many years Rover and Sirius had been his home. Now he could not imagine living with recycled air, tanked food, and cramped quarters. He could not imagine living without Hestiia.
He’d go on Loki’s raid if he had to. But he’d rather do this peacefully. He did not want this world to dissolve into civil war between the “civilized” few who needed to go home and the bushie many who embraced life on this planet.
That had happened once before, three hundred years ago among the first human colonists. Scientists had unleashed a bioengineered plague as a way to settle the dispute and reduced the population to the barbaric stone age. The plague went dormant for a few decades at a time and then bloomed with new intensity.
Kim and his brothers had found a cure. The locals had honored them as Stargods because of that. They had no guarantees they could help should something more disastrous erupt from a new war. Kim would not risk his wife and child, nor the villagers who depended upon him as their Stargod.
Kat limped painfully as she climbed off the dragon. She would walk the two hundred meters to Base Camp. In the dark. Alone.
“Sorry I can’t help you, Kat,” Konner said. At least he had the decency to sound regretful. “I risk capture by your friends.”
“You cannot risk capture, but I can,” Dalleena said. “I’m just a dumb bushie who came to her aid. Wait for me. I will be back in an hour.” She slid off the dragon and landed easily.
She paused at the dragon’s head and stroked his muzzle. “Will you wait for me, Irythros?”
(As long as we safely can.)
“Will you keep my man safe?”
(As safe as he will allow.)
Kat heard a definite chuckle behind the monster’s telepathic voice.
Within a few seconds Dalleena had an arm around Kat’s waist and a shoulder under her arm. She was nearly as tall as Kat, only a decimeter or two shorter than Konner. The position must have been uncomfortable for her.
“Dalleena, you don’t have to . . .”
“Yes, I do. You are family.”
“I don’t claim . . .”
“You are family.” That stated, she began walking, dragging Kat along with her.
Kat had to admit walking was easier with her sister-in-law as a crutch. Much easier. Almost too easy.
“Can you see in the dark, Dalleena?” Kat asked when they had traversed only a few meters.
“No. But my tracking talent guides me along the easiest course.”
“More magic,” Kat replied with a modicum of disgust. She’d had a few strange experiences on this lonely planet. Not enough to convince her of her brother’s claims of psychic powers beyond imagining.
The fact that she had fought off giant serpents and ridden on the back of a mammalian dragon that appeared nearly invisible, except for his red spinal horns and wingveins and -tips, was not enough to convince her that on this planet magic worked.
(You will learn soon enough the extent of your own power,) Irythros spoke into the back of Kat’s mind. There were other voices accompanying his bright tenor, deeper voices, more melodic voices, an entire choir of voices.
Kat stumbled under the onslaught of alien thoughts inside her head.
Dalleena kept walking, as if she had not heard the dragon’s prophecy.
They covered nearly the first hundred meters to Base Camp slowly but relatively smoothly. Just as the torchlight—electric illumes had worn out moons ago—around the cluster of cabins became visible in the gloom, Dalleena stopped short. Kat stepped awkwardly upon her burned ankle. Fiery pain shot up her calf into her thigh. The leg wanted to crumple.
She dropped her grip on Dalleena and sank to the ground, grateful to get her weight off that leg.
Dalleena still did not move.
“What is it?” Kat whispered. As much as she needed to sit, she wanted more to be back at camp with Medic Lotski spraying cooling sealant on her wound. She’d used up the scant supply in her med kit deflecting the snakes.
“Th . . . there.” Dalleena pointed hesitantly toward a darker lump against the dark meadow, then turned her palm up in that direction.
Kat peered into the darkness, barely able to discern the shape let alone the substance against the backlighting from the torches. “It looks like a rock to me.”
Then the lump moved.
Both women yipped and skipped, or scooted, back a pace.
The lump lifted one end, extending a tail. Then it rocked forward and stretched, revealing a head.
“It’s just a cat,” Dalleena sighed. She sounded a bit chagrined by her earlier fear.
“Biggest cat I’ve ever seen,” Kat said on a long exhalation. “Almost as big as a Denobian muscle-cat, and they are reputed to be huge, closer to a lion than a cat.”
The cat wandered closer, stropped Dalleena’s ankles, then butted its head against Kat’s hand and purred.
She obliged it with scritch behind the ears. “Do you have a name, kitty?” she asked. The purr soothed her frazzled nerves. Knotted muscles relaxed. She wanted to gather the animal into her lap but didn’t quite dare. Would the beast even fit? It must weigh eleven kilos at least.
(Gentian.) The beast spoke into her mind just as the dragon did.
Kat yipped and scooted again.
The cat followed her, insisting upon more scritches and pets. It even tried to climb into her lap, sprawling awkwardly across her legs.
“We cannot stay here, Kat. I have to get you to your people and return to Konner.”
“Tell that to Gentian,” she replied a little breathlessly. Something strange was happening.
“Shoo.” Dalleena pushed the animal off Kat’s lap and helped her to her feet again.
Gentian’s eyes glowed in the dark. He looked particularly sullen as he shook and ruffled wings.
“Wings? The cat has wings?” Kat choked.
Dalleena crossed her wrists, right over left, and flapped them.
Kat didn’t have time to puzzle out the origin or meaning of that particular superstition.
“Y . . . you have been honored, Lady Kat,” Dalleena stammered.
“Honored? By a cat?”
“A cat with wings. A flywacket. Such creatures are rare. They bestow their affections on very few humans.”
“We stumbled over it. It purred.”
“He gave you his name.”
“I was just getting used to dragons who speak telepathically and insist upon names,” Kat moaned.
“You must introduce yourself. It is the proper protocol.” She spoke the words carefully, as if still uncertain of the vocabulary. “Gentian, I am Dalleena Farseer, a Tracker, mate to Stargod Konner.”
Kat sighed heavily. She waited a long moment. The winged cat just kept looking at her. Expectantly?
“Gentian, I am Mari Kathleen O’Hara Talbot. Pleased to meet you.”
Gentian meowed and detached himself from Kat. He ambled forward three steps then stopped to look back over his shoulder. (Are you coming or not?)
“I think we are supposed to follow him,” Kat said. “I just hope he takes me to Base Camp. I really need a medic right now.”
“Gentian knows that. I’ve heard rumors that flywackets begin their lives as purple-tipped dragons. One of a set of twins, but there can only be one purple-tip in the nimbus at a time. So the redundant twin must become a flywacket. They know everything the dragons know.”
“And what one dragon knows, they all know,” Kat finished. “This world gets weirder every day. I really wish I could go home.”
(Be careful what you wish for.)
