Thirty-eight
A sprout tipped with a barb thrashed at Wallace's
ankle in a frenzied attempt to penetrate the skin of his leg. Wallace
stepped absently out of range, his focus of attention on a far greater
hazard. The four massive Carn standing side by side had swung their rifle
around to cover Melanie and himself.
"Don't move," Sasha warned.
The apparent leader of the group muttered a few
unhappy words. The rifles drooped to the ground.
"They don't want you dead just yet," Sasha said.
"What are their intentions then?" Melanie wanted to
know.
"If nothing else, we are food reserves," Sasha
reminded the woman.
Melanie turned promptly ashen. "Forget I asked."
The Saur huddled all but
lifeless. Even the Carn turned sullenly listless. Sasha
and Melanie were looking his way, patiently waiting for him to serve as a
channel for an explanation of their plight.
Wallace had nothing to offer. He noticed the moon
rising in a clear patch of sky. Its surface features were
unrecognizable. Melanie nudged him and pointed. Nearby, a tree was
walking past. It's gait was ponderous, no more than a fraction of a mile
per hour, but it was in motion nevertheless.
Disheartened, Sasha turned away and joined the
huddled Saur. Dark eyes entranced by fear stared up at the Carn. The
Carn, in turn, pointedly ignored the Saur, and yet Wallace saw brief eye
contact between the two subspecies from time to time. He sensed a strong
tie between the tyrants and their slaves, warning that the relationship
between them was not as simple and straightforward as Sasha had led him to
believe. Wallace had yet to shake Qualin's strange reaction to her
participation in an act of sex between himself and Sasha. What did it
mean for a woman to get off on the symbolic act of having her throat
ripped out?
"Ouch!" Wallace jerked his foot away from the pesky
animate weed. One of the Carn guffawed laughter, but reached out with a
clawed foot to squash similar weeds exploring the side of its own scaled
hide.
Melanie pointed. "Over there. The ground is clear
of vegetation."
Wallace led the way. He had no more than put his
first exploratory foot down on the dark loam than countless root-like
tendrils caught his foot and ankle and held it fast.
Melanie grimaced. "Sorry about that." She nodded
across the way to where an eyeless, brainless rodent was being dragged
into the earth by a network of the root tendrils, then helped him pull his
foot free. The tendrils tore free with persistent effort, but not without
shredding the shoelaces and leaving the leather of his shoes pock marked.
"Stay on hard ground!" Wallace called out to Sasha
and the Saur. "And stay together!"
Sasha translated the warning to the Saur who had been
forced to their feet in defense against the scattering of hungry weeds
across the ground.
Melanie grasped his arm in a painful grip. She
pointed an accusing finger at the passing tree. "Shit, Wallace, those
damned rats are growing on that tree like apples!"
Wallace studied the slowly moving monstrosity with
more care. Aside from its smooth, flexible trunk and branches, the
life-form was built like a tree. It had branches and large, dark leaves,
although it had animate tentacles reaching into the sky as well, and a
ring of heaving tentacles about its base that allowed for its movement.
Beneath its broad base, Wallace could see a mass of conventional roots
temporarily held up and out of harm's way.
And then he saw them, furry balls dangling from the
branches like fruit. Even as he watched, a dislodged ball fell to the
ground. When it hit, the animal unfolded and scurried away.
One of the Carn growled something. Sasha relayed
Qualin's translation. "The boundary between the animal and vegetable
kingdom is blurred in this place."
"Let's hope they catch themselves a real good dose of
jock itch while we're here," Melanie muttered defiantly. "Wallace, it's
getting dark. If Sasha says this is technologically impossible, we might
be here for a reason, courtesy of your friend Ghaedor. Are we going to
die without knowing what it might be?"
The disparate group stood in a relative clearing
surrounded by dense jungle. Melanie stood at Wallace's side. A few yards
away, Sasha huddled with the Saur, two females and two males. Wallace
could not be certain that any of the original trio was still among them.
The three Carn stood back to back in a self-defensive circle in the center
of the clearing. Their quiet ferocity unnerved him, although an
undeniable intelligence burned in those strange eyes. He wanted to
believe Sasha's accusations of ritual cannibalism exaggerated, that they
were safe in the presence of these unnerving specimens for the duration of
their imprisonment. Only the Carn with their laser-like weapons could
hope to defend them against the blind violence of this world's mindless
ecology.
One of the Carn caught Wallace staring and muttered.
Sasha translated. "You are the enemy of Lord Maligoth, and a fool to
think that the Saur could hope to betray us."
Wallace held the monster's gaze. The Saur cowered in
terror, wretchedly helpless in the physical presence of the Carn.
The Carn growled again. "We require water," Sasha
said.
"We'd be fools to go looking for water in the dark,"
Melanie murmured.
Sasha translated Melanie's comment. The Carn studied
the deepening twilight and grunted acknowledgment. They spoke among
themselves briefly, then spread out, positioning themselves in a rough
circle with the Saur and their human allies at the center. Facing
outward, they brought their weapons to bear upon the surrounding jungle.
One of the Carn called out over his shoulder. "Watch your eyes!" Sasha
cried.
Wallace dropped to his knees, blinded by the sudden
glare. The stench of burnt underbrush caught in his throat. The heat of
the rifle blasts singed his face. When it was over, when he could see
again and the lung-searing heat had dissipated, the group stood in a
thoroughly charred and smoldering thirty foot circle of destruction.
A common, relatively inanimate plant burned fiercely
around the perimeter of the destruction. The Carn muttered among
themselves for a time, then calmly went out to the jungle's edge and
gathered the bamboo-like vegetation. They built a pile of the brittle
stalks, and by the time the remaining daylight faded entirely, a small but
bright fire burned, meticulously fed from the store of kindling by a
squatting Carn.
Melanie evaluated the size of the wood supply and
sighed in relief. "It should last until morning."
There was still nothing to drink. Sanitation
facilities amounted to a dangerous trip to the edge of the clearing to
tend to one's needs. The Carn squatted near the fire as the night
deepened, staring intently at the Saur. Reduced to terrified groveling by
eye contact with their oversized superiors, the Saur cringed on hands and
knees and kept their foreheads pressed to the ground.
Melanie scooted closer to Wallace. "What are we
going to do if the Carn harm the Saur?" she whispered harshly.
Wallace had no answer. They were effectively
imprisoned by the sinister jungle stirring about them in the darkness.
The rodents scurried everywhere, but they seemed to steer by a sense of
smell and gave the intruders to their world a wide berth. The fire
effectively held the predatory vegetation at bay, which left them to
ponder their fate at the hand's of the Carn.
"Ghaedor's not going to let this go too far," Melanie
said, "is he?"
"I don't know what the hell any of this is about,"
Wallace confessed. He wanted to separate Sasha from the Saur. His own
thirst had gone beyond a mere annoyance, and the metabolism of the Saur
and Carn was noticeably higher than their human counterparts.
The Carn growled. "We thirst," Sasha translated in a
whisper, her face turned to the ground.
Wallace heard genuine suffering in that gruff voice.
It was almost a plea, as if they expected the Saur to take the initiative
and respond to their needs.
The Saur covered their heads with their arms and
whimpered. Wallace feared that one or more would panic and flee to their
deaths in the darkened jungle.
"Sasha?" Melanie said. "What the hell is going on
between you and those beasts?"
Sasha averted her face in shame.
Wallace knelt at Sasha's side, unnerved by her
Saur-like behavior. "The Saur defied the Carn. You told me that the Saur
were willing to sacrifice hundreds of millions of their own lives for the
chance to start a new life for a few. If they have that kind of courage,
why can't you stand up to three Carn face to face?"
Sasha looked up at him. Qualin, rather. What
Wallace saw in those dark eyes startled and frightened him. They were
wild with more than just fear.
Wallace backed away, shaken. Melanie grabbed his arm
to keep him from retreating too far into the dark. "Wallace, what's
wrong?"
"I don't know. There's something funny going on. I
don't like it at all."
In the end, rather than panic and flee as Wallace had
expected, one of the Saur females rose to her feet and slowly turned to
face the Carn. The male Saurs wailed in terror and lunged for her, trying
to drag her back. She stepped out of their reach, her eyes fixed intently
on the towering Carn, entranced by their stare. Step by step, she
delivered herself into their midst.
