The riding beasts are four-legged creatures with barrel chests, long tapering heads, and legs which look impossibly slender to support our weight. "Like horses," Harley Haught says, and pats the neck of one beast. It responds with a pleased snort.
"You are familiar with riding animals, then?" I ask him.
"Used to ride horses when I was growing up in California," Haught replies. He makes odd sounds at his animal, which responds with odd sounds of its own. "These guys don't seem much different."
"The child, Nejje, says the animals are docile. And we will need to move faster than we can on foot, if we are to visit this tower's site and return before nightfall."
Haught looks hard at me. "Why not just do a point-to-point transport?"
"Shohl agrees with Rrueo that the energy surge of a transporter beam might be misinterpreted by the sleeping giant. Have you ever seen a transporter scramble case? Rrueo has, and Rrueo has no wish to become one." The riding beasts seemed like a reasonable compromise. I eye mine doubtfully.
Haught shrugs cheerfully. "Well, OK. Let's get started, then." He pats the beast's neck again and makes reassuring noises, then slips his foot into a stirrup and lifts himself into the saddle. He looks easy and natural; evidently, he has had practice. I follow his example. I have had less practice with riding beasts, but I will not be shown up by this soft Starfleet scientist....
The beasts respond with docility to our urging, and we leave the steadhold at a gentle trot. It is still early in the morning, and the cool clear air is refreshing - taking away some of vestiges of the cloying stench of that black stuff. It is still with me - perhaps not detectable by shallow human senses, but perfectly clear to a Ferasan nose. I will have to bathe, when I return to my ship; bathe, and bathe again....
We set off in an easterly direction, up a gradual rise in the ground, into the low rolling hills. I let my senses expand.... The riding beasts' minds are simple animal things, sentience without thought; Haught's beast is placid and uncomplaining, but the mind-tone of mine is shot through with little speckles and sparkles of unease. It knows, at some dim instinctual level, that it has a predator on its back.
Haught's own mind is - not as simple as the beasts', but not complicated. If Shohl's mind is a fortress, Haught's is... a village; a plain, bucolic place, open and friendly and pastoral. He is not stupid, true, but he is not... sophisticated. There is almost an innocence about him. If I had time, I might bask in that mind-tone, just to refresh myself.
He stops at the summit of one hill, and consults his tricorder. I rein my mount in beside his. "This is kind of interesting," he says. "Look at the route the kid gave us."
I pull out my own scanner and consult the rough map Nejje was able to draw. "So?"
"So," says Haught, "superimpose the pattern of those buried telluric deposits." He touches controls on the tricorder, and a new image appears on the screen. "See? The tower site is at, well, a sort of nexus."
The telluric deposits worm through the ground beneath the steadholding, and through the surrounding countryside - I do not know, yet, how far they extend. "You are right," I say, "that is... interesting. It suggests a possibility to Rrueo."
"Oh?"
"The intermittent existence of this tower might have a mundane explanation. It may retract into the ground, like those plants." I would prefer that, I think. Far better than my original suspicion, that the thing becomes real or unreal at the whim of the sleeping giant.
"Yeah, could be," says Haught. "But we won't know for sure until we get there and take a look." He flicks the reins of his mount, stirring the beast into motion once more. We trot on, down the far side of the hill, and the buildings of the steadholding are finally lost to our view.
We carry on, at a trot, and I note a change in the landscape as we progress. The green vegetation becomes sparse, yellowish, stunted; the soil beneath our mounts' hooves becomes light-coloured, dry and powdery. I call Haught's attention to it. "Yeah," he says. "I think the telluric deposits are... interacting with the local water table. Somehow. Maybe they're something like aquifers themselves, regulating the distribution of the water."
"Directing it away from the uninhabited areas, towards the steadholdings, perhaps?"
"Yeah, could be. There's a definite, well, symbiosis, isn't there? Between the colonists and this - whatever it is?"
"It controls them, and it looks after them. If you call this symbiosis - well, the word is as good as any. But what is in it for the sleeping giant?"
Haught does not answer. Naturally, for there is no answer.
We travel on. We are moving up a steeper slope, the dusty ground crumbling beneath our mounts' hooves, when my communicator beeps. "Rrueo," I answer it.
"Sir." Toriash's voice. "We may have a problem."
"Explain."
"Last scheduled check-in with the Anar elicited no response from the ship. We are unable to contact the Goroke, either. The Starfleet team is attempting to contact its parent vessels - they are not reporting the results to us, naturally, but there are long faces in the Starfleet camp."
"The ships are out of communication? What resources do we have, with which to raise them?"
"Standard local distress beacons only. We could construct a subspace transmitter, but we would have only enough power to reach a few light-hours of range. If the ships are incommunicado - or, worse, lost - then we have a problem."
"Indeed. Calculate their orbits based on last known data, and keep a watch at night - ach! Rrueo was forgetting...." I think hard. "Perhaps, if we make a discreet hole in the roof of the guest lodgings, we can watch for the ships from there."
"I will calculate the requisite placement," says Toriash, "and keep you apprised of all developments."
"Very well. Carry on. Rrueo out."
During this conversation, Haught has drawn ahead of me - perhaps, in his simple way, he does not wish to overhear a private conversation. He will never progress in Starfleet Intelligence with that attitude. I dig my heels into my mount's flanks, urging it onwards, trying to make up the ground -
- and, all of a sudden, the sparks of unease in the animal's mind all run together and flare in a single brilliant mass of panic, and it is bolting, running, twisting and jumping, trying to throw me from the saddle.
I scream a curse, and that only makes matters worse. I catch a glimpse of Haught, ahead of me, reining his mount to a standstill. Then, suddenly, the world dissolves.
Landslip. The prancing of the animal on the loose dry earth has triggered some instability in the ground, and now the hillside itself is sliding away beneath me, exploding into choking dust. The riding beast screams as it loses its footing, and I scream too, abandoning it, leaping from the saddle rather than be crushed beneath it as it falls.
The breath is knocked from my body as I slam into the shifting ground, and I tumble and roll through the choking haze for what seems a very long time. Around me, I hear the rumble of the moving earth, and incoherent shouts from Haught, and the high screaming of animals in fear and pain. Another impact, and I stop rolling. I breathe in dust-choked air, and I choke myself, and cough, and spit, and finally struggle to my feet.
There is still screaming. One of the riding beasts is screaming, lying on the ground, covered in dust, two legs obviously broken, its head thrown back and its eyes rolling as it voices its pain. There is nothing to be done for it. I draw my disruptor, take aim and fire, and the beast's pain ends. Its companion is lying some distance away: lying very, very still. Haught -
Haught is on the ground nearby, and he is still alive, but groaning and coughing and massaging his ankle. I hurry over to him, still coughing and spitting out dust myself. My body feels as though it has been beaten with clubs. Pebbles and trickles of earth are still rolling down the hillside.
Haught blinks at me. "How bad is it?" I ask him.
"Don't think -" He breaks off in a fit of coughing. "Sorry. Don't think it's too bad - think I can stand -" He tries it, rising a little way, then floundering on the uncertain ground. I take his shoulder, support him, raise him to his feet.
"Rrueo will name you human burden, as well as human idiot."
"Sorry, sir," he says, as he gingerly steadies himself.
I sigh. "Do not apologize. This was Rrueo's fault. Rrueo spooked her mount, and that caused all that followed."
Haught winces. "I think it's just a sprain, but I'm having trouble putting my weight on it.... Don't think there's any alternative now, sir." He touches the combadge on his uniform. "Haught to King Estmere. One to beam up."
There is no response. Haught frowns, and touches the badge again. "Haught to King Estmere, respond, please."
"Forget it," I tell him, wearily. I look around. We will need some shelter from the sun, and perhaps I can use the local vegetation to make some support for Haught's ankle....
"Sir?" Haught is puzzled.
"That was the message Rrueo received. We have lost contact with the ships. All the ships."
"What?" Haught takes a tentative step, and stumbles. I catch his arm and prevent him from falling.
"Rrueo thinks there is a stream, over there." I point. "We will need water -"
"Uh," says Haught. "What about - Sir, the ships -"
"There is nothing we can do. Except worry. Rrueo will not waste effort in worry when there is work to be done." I squint at the hills. "We cannot complete our task, so we must return to the steadholding. Perhaps Shohl and the others will have news of the ships there."
"Yeah." Haught takes another tremulous step forwards, wincing with pain as he leans on me. "Uh," he says. "Only, well, sir -"
"Yes?"
He swallows. His face is pale, and not just with pain. "I - I don't know how we're going to make it back before nightfall."
No comments:
Post a Comment