Chapter 9

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.

Ureeblay followed the creek in the forest as the gathering shadows of the day's end began to deepen. With each step he took, feeling the weight of his pack on his shoulders now, the boy was hoping he would find a good place to set up his camp. The flat floor of the woods beside the stony creek bed showed signs that a large amount of storm water had run over the banks recently. But at least his footing was dry underneath his travel-toughened bare feet as he moved silently beside the jumping waters.

It was soft at first, and then louder as the boy recognized the sound of a lot of rushing water coming from ahead of him. He smelled the scent of increased moisture in the air. After a short hike in the dark of the trees, the tall trunks began to thin out.

To his front, the boy suddenly realized the floor of the woods was dropping away steeply. That was what had to be, he told himself, because he was seeing in the distance an expanding vista of treetop canopies both in front and below him through the remaining trunks ahead. The last slanting golden rays of daylight that Father Son was casting down from behind the boy's line of travel illuminated those leafy crowded crowns of mature trees.

Ureeblay could see that he and the creek were approaching a sizable drop in the floor of the forest—possibly cliffs. Soon the boy came to a chasm the creek had cut out of the crest of the heights he'd been crossing. In the purpling evening rays of the forest below, Ureeblay realized the tree and rounded-boulder populated forest continued on for only another quarter of a morning's hike beyond the base of the steep slope before him, which itself dropped a good two double-hands of his height.

Here the creek seemed to leap off the edge of the heights and drop for a good length to splash onto exposed boulders and moss-covered stones lining the sides of the eroded chasm. Then the spray and white water fell recklessly down into a good-sized pool in the forest floor at the base of the drop. In the darkening shadows below, the boy could see the deep water in the basin surrounded by an almost perfectly circular bank of gravel and sand.

Very tall, straight tree trunks grew up from the flat, sandy soil beginning near the pool and spreading out toward the meadowland which he knew was there but could not see. There were huge piles of boulders to the right of the pool. There were also piles of accumulated dead limbs, which had been deposited by periodic floodwater just back from those banked beaches on either side of the creek at the downstream end of the pool.

The boy decided he'd found his campsite for the evening if he could find a safe way to navigate down to the pool with the load on his back. He studied the steep, wooded slope, trying to pick out the best path to follow before starting his descent.

After nearly losing his footing three times, he put his spear-caster and best spear into his quiver. Then he turned to face the slope. Ureeblay finished climbing down by using both his hands to secure firm grips on the big rocks or tree trunks to go with his footholds on his descent of the steep face. In that way he kept himself from falling.

At the bottom of the steep stone- and wood-covered slope, the boy found the area around the deep pool was amazing. He looked all about in the failing light. There were two large piles of dry, dead tree limbs and twigs on either side of the pool near the outflow creek. They had been deposited in the past by high water pouring over the falls. Several huge mounds of boulders were located on both sides of the pool. One particular group of stones caught his eye because the individual rocks created a cave-like structure, which would give him shelter.

The refuge was on an elevated shelf of sandy grass a body length above the floor of this part of the woods and near the base of the heights he had just climbed down. The boy saw a small jumble of knee high stones starting near the right side of the pool that he could use to climb up to the flat sandy lawn spread out before the boulder mound.

He went to the closest pile of deposited driftwood where he put his spearcaster and second-best spear into his quiver with his best spear so he would have the use of both hands. Then, checking first for snakes before he selected a small armful of dry, hardwood sticks and twigs. He felt his load of firewood was just large enough so he could carry it under his right arm and still manage the rest of his travel gear while climbing up to investigate the lawn.

He'd judged the wood he gathered correctly, and watching where he placed his bare feet, he negotiated his way over and up the stone steps to the elevated lawn. He turned around and looked back toward the pool. Then he faced the Morn and looked out through the darkening, majestic tree trunks in the direction where the Toolie must be. To his right at the edge of the lawn, a huge rounded boulder, easily twice his height, protected him from anything coming though the woods from the river.

Further to his right and back toward the palisades he'd climbed down, there were stacked boulders forming a wall. There was a grotto going back into the tumbled huge boulders. He figured the cave was large enough for him to stand up, and maybe two body lengths wide and three deep. He walked over and put the wood down near the small grotto. In the early evening light, he could see there were no sign of prints or scat in the sandy grass around him or inside the stone shelter. He felt reasonably secure that no animals were using the place as a den.

He took off his water bag, then his food carrier and his quiver, putting them near his pile of firewood. Ureeblay eased off his heavy backpack and leaned it against the side of the opening to the little cave. He shoulders rejoiced at being relieved of the burden his muscles were not yet used to supporting. Taking off his spear quiver, he carefully put those weapons down near his small pile of firewood. Finally, he removed his travel pouch from his belt and placed it next to the quiver.

Next Ureeblay searched around for stones for a fire ring. The boy found different sized stones all around the lawn, sticking up out of the sandy soil. They looked to be water smoothed and some were probably quite heavy.

There was a large stone near the edge of the lawn. It was smooth, rectangular and flat. The rock was the size of the boy's chest and as thick as his hand. The form of the rock caught his attention. He thought about the shape of that stone as he began to gather smaller stones and construct his fire ring near the front opening to the grotto.

The boy went back to the flat stone. Ureeblay managed to shift it loose and dragged it to his fire circle. He found another big smoothed block of rock about calf-high, and was able to tumble it to the side of his nearly complete fire circle. Then the boy wedged the expanse of flat stone up against the side of the stone block. His intuition told him placed in that location the flat rock face would reflect the heat of his soon-to-be fire into the grotto.

With a ring to honor and contain the sacred fire and a reflector stone to radiate some of the heat back toward him, the boy sorted through his load of various-sized sticks and limbs. Ureeblay began to snap the smallest ones he wanted to use to construct his tinder teepee. With the twigs snapped and in place on the floor of his fire circle, he undid his woven belt and put his travel pouch by the protective stones.

Next, he got out his bag of collected tinder and gently placed a ball of dry, compressed fluff and bark fuzz inside the delicate sticks making up the inside layer of the teepee. When Ureeblay felt he was ready, the boy took the plaited rawhide cord from around his neck and eased the long splinter of cool, frozen lightning from its thin leather sleeve.

Ureeblay found it was as exciting to hold his find now. It was just as exciting now as when he first lifted the frozen lightning from the other splinters he'd discovered at the bottom of the blasted sand pit.

It had been evening when the spirits first blessed Ureeblay. He had been looking up into the sky, when he happened to notice movement in the area of the constellation, The Soaring Raptor. The boy then tracked a trail of rushing sparks across that part of the night sky as a Swongli dropped from the judgment of his brethren. At first, the boy had not been able to believe his luck as he watched the arc of the falling star. Then he was in shocked awe as the bright object got bigger and bigger before striking the earth around the bend of the river he'd camped beside for the night.

When the fallen Swongli struck the ground, he saw a flash of glittering sparks fountain-up through the trees. The accompanying boom nearly knocked him to the ground where he was already crouched.

Ureeblay had been well into Hurstmon territory when this blessing occurred. The boy had scurried towards the spot, hoping to find the new man before the light and frightening explosion alerted any Hurstmon in the area. Being discovered by the Hurstmon at the sight of a spiritual miracle inside their lands was the last thing Ureeblay wanted. Well, for a moment part of him hoped if they found him, they might mistake him for the new man and leave him unmolested until he could slip away.

Ureeblay had found the hot sand crater, but the new man was nowhere to be found. He had waited until dawn to explore inside the crater, and there he made his find. He had also hoped the new man might come back to the spot of his arrival, but no one appeared. That night had been over a double moon ago.

The boy had only taken one big sliver of frozen lightning. Once Ureeblay realized the fragments must be from the fallen Swongli, he could have taken enough for every sub-clan in every clan of his people; if he had something to carry them all in. However, the boy knew it would be wrong for him to be greedy and take more than one piece for himself and his own spiritual needs. At that time, his only thought was the sliver of frozen lightning would be his talisman. He had never suspected the strange shard would also become his fire starter.

Moreover, he had reasoned taking more than one piece would certainly displease the spirits of the Swongli. Additionally, he'd thought at the time, the Hurstmon would realize the thief's restraint, that whoever had taken one sliver had not intended to rob them of this unheard of bounty—pieces of an actual fallen Swongli—which the spirits had directed into their territory. On top of that, Ureeblay reasoned the Hurstmon would have gained the new man to count among their numbers so why should they worry about his taking one splinter of frozen lightning.

He still wondered at the outcome of that part of the mystery. Would the new man, the boy asked himself again, influence the Hurstmon to be more accepting of strangers such as himself? Even if the new man could bring about a change in the attitudes of the Hurstmon over time, Ureeblay told himself, he did not see how that would help him with the group after him right now.

He got his flint nodule out of his travel pouch, and angled the lightning toward the door to his tinder teepee and scraped the two objects together. With a krasp of sound, sparks flashed into the fuzz. Immediately a tendril of smoke and a glow of red nestled in the packed, dry, inner bark material.

Making sure his hair was out of the way, the boy dropped his shoulders to the stones of the fire ring, and leaning in close he gently breathed onto the tinder. When a small flame was born, he breathed carefully again and the tinder was quickly alight and his sacred fire lived and started to grow.

Moving his head back a little, he placed his two magic fire tools, the flint nodule and the frozen lightning, gently on his travel pouch by touch alone as he continued softly blowing more life into the flaming tinder near his face.

As the red-yellow tiny tongues grew and devoured the dry offerings, the boy put slightly larger twigs and sticks in the fire's path over the top of the burning teepee. Once the flames were well established, the boy put larger pieces of hard wood over the twigs and sticks, which were slowly on their way to being converted to red coals. Red coals were good for the fire, Ureeblay knew. The more red coals in the fire bed, the larger the pieces of wood or the greener the wood he could place on the hungry fire and the flames would continue to prosper.

With his sacred fire happily crackling and sending sparks of thanks up into the evening air, Ureeblay climbed down by the pool. He soon returned with as large a load of big sticks and broken dried limbs as he thought he could get back up on the elevated shelf.

Once back beside the fire, he now felt prepared for the night. The boulders around him began reflecting back the light and some of the heat. He knew the forest canopy high above him would disperse any smoke the fire breathed out and help hide the glow of the campfire from anyone looking this way from a distance. Gazing into the heart of the flames the boy knew he was losing his night vision for a time but he did not care.

He did care that he was hungry again.

After reverently putting away his flint nodule into the travel pouch and the frozen lightning into its thin hide sleeve, Ureeblay placed the plaited leather cord about his neck. Next, the boy found two lengths of dry, seasoned hardwood in his pile to make good skewers. Both were already stripped of bark.

He reached over by his quiver and got into his food supply tied to it. He sat back cross-legged and put two good-sized slices of semi-smoked, fatted pork to the end of one skewer. Then he forced the tip of the hardwood though the flat hand of meat, long-ways, so that more surface area would face the fire.

He had made sure the slab of pork was one of the pieces most marbled with fat. Because he had always liked to eat, as a child he'd paid attention to some degree to what his mother said about food preparation. He had learned he needed to eat the fatty pork parts first, or smoke or dry them further than they were now, else they would go rancid and spoil before he'd be able to eat them all. Thinking that, he picked a second piece of marbled pork and put it on the second skewer as he had with the other hand of meat.

Once he had his selections spitted to his satisfaction, he pushed the end of each of the skewers into the ground and rested the side of the sticks against the top edge of one of the larger stones in the fire ring. He positioned both pieces of fatted pork very near the flames. Then Ureeblay got the rest of cooked bog apple out of his carrier and pushed it on to the tip of another hardwood stick he located in his firewood pile. Then he placed the butt of the stick down in the loam and leaned the stick over one of the stones in his fire ring so that the bog apple was close to the sacred fire to warm.

With his cooking fire going nicely, he was beginning to feel the heat radiating from the flat reflecting stone back toward the opening of his grotto as well as the direct heat from the sacred fire itself, and that gave him a further idea. He got his bundle of skewer sticks out of his pack basket and sorted out the fatty cuts of pork from inside his woven meat carrier.

He put two hand-sized cuts of meat on each length of swamp-willow and then pushed the end of each of those skewers down into the grassy sand-loam of the lawn at the base of his reflecting rock and rested the skewered meat up against the side of the hot stone. By the time he had all the fatty meat cuts on the rock face he knew he'd found an answer to drying out the pork. He'd have to tend the meat and turn each skewer around to ensure both sides of the cuts were dried equally, but now he wasn't afraid that he'd might have to throw away any meat because it spoiled too quickly.

Happy with his use of his resources, he was just about to get up and look closer at the interior of the small grotto when he heard a low whine from over at the edge of the lawn shelf, near to where the rock stairs were located. He turned with a feeling of foreknowledge, as well as the sensation of his hair standing up on the nape of his neck.

At the far end of the firelight dancing out into the darkening trees and bushes, Ureeblay could just see peeking at him over the edge of the grass, the honey-colored head and blue eyes of the young female wolf. Her tongue was lolling out the right side of her mouth, but this time she didn't seem to be panting from exertion. The boy looked at the head of the small wolf. The thought struck him that he was glad he had seen the rest of the wolf's body before, because if he hadn't, he might think there was a disembodied animal head haunting his travels since he'd killed the widow-snare vines.

He looked at the meat starting to smell very good cooking at the fire. He looked at the wolf. The small female had followed his small movements and when their eyes met, the wolf's eyes looked at the meat over the fire and back into the boy's eyes. She made a little whine as she moved her head forward and terminated her whine with a little quiet yip.

Ureeblay didn't do anything. He just looked at the wolf.

When he didn't respond to her begging, the little wolf barked.

The boy had never heard of a wolf that barked. But wolf lore was the realm of the hunters of his clan and the storytellers, and he had, of course, not yet been acknowledged as a hunter of the clan before his journey started. He had gone on the journey to begin learning more skills needed to take up the mantle of a hunter, after all. However, he did understand that foxen could bark, if not wolves. So it was true, Ureeblay told himself, this was an unheard of color for a wolf, but it was no foxen.

The small wolf put her left paw on the edge of the lawn and looked at him again, her head tilting to her right a moment and then to the left.

"I will not cook your food for you," Ureeblay said in a low raspy voice, surprising himself at how low his own voice sounded to his ears.

The wolf's ears and her head came up in almost what looked to the boy to be surprise.

He realized this was the first time he had said anything aloud since he'd yelled himself hoarse while the log had floated out of view of his running friends as they tried to follow him along the banks of Toolie—what seemed to him now to be a full season ago.

The boy reached into his food carrier and pulled out another slice of smoked pork. He took his flint knife out of its sheaf on his belt and cut a hunk out of the meat. The wolf watched his every movement with seeming anticipation. The boy tossed the morsel to the juvenile wolf, which snapped it out of the air and gobbled it down, then looked back at the boy, obviously waiting for more.

He tossed the next piece about an arm-length in front of the small wolf into the grass of the raised lawn. The wolf whined low once and stretched her head out toward the meat. She couldn't reach it.

"Come and get it, girl," the boy said, surprised at the deeper sound of his own voice now that he knew he was going to talk.

The wolf ever so slowly rose up with both paws on the edge of the lawn and stretched her body toward the small piece of meat. She still couldn't reach it without coming completely up onto the lawn. And the boy could see she didn't want to do that.

He sliced off another chunk of pork and lobbed it just this side of the first piece.

That was too much for the small wolf to take and she lunged toward the first piece he'd thrown. Sniffing her nose through the grass to find the food, she located her prize and gobbled it down. When the boy did nothing, she slowly moved to the next piece using her nose to find it as she watched the boy for any sign of serious threat. He gave none and she found the meat. This time she picked it up in her mouth and moved to the edge of the lawn where she took some time to chew this mouthful before swallowing it.

That was how he fed the wolf until the piece of meat he'd gotten out for her was gone. By then most of the pork was sizzling on the skewers and the mixture of smells from the pork and the bog apple were mouth-wateringly delicious. It looked to him as if he might want to turn the fatty meat he was drying against the reflector stone also. The bog apple scented the cooking pork in the air with a wonderful cream-and-spice odor.

Ureeblay turned his drying pork, then retrieved his cooked meat and the bog apple and sat down near the fire. As he carefully sliced off bits of the hot foods with his flint knife, being careful as he ate so he didn't burn his tongue, the young wolf went off into the darkness. The heavy coarse-sage smoked pork was such a joy that he lingered over each bite, carefully chewing and savoring the flavors in every mouthful.

And the bog apple was his own bog apple and made this meal a true feast. His first feast, provided by only his own efforts. Well, Ureeblay reminded himself, not counting the feast of pig organs and bog apple back at the site of the small creek. He promised himself he would be on the lookout for any of the onion family he might recognize as he traveled to the Toolie.

He slowly finished enjoying his cooked meat and hot bog apple, which only seemed to get better each time he heated it. Getting up and stretching by his fire, the boy made his way down from the lawn. He crossed the gravel and sandy little beach and drank his fill from the clear, cold pool near the outflow of the pool. Looking up from the pool and swallowing, Ureeblay watched the mist coming from the waterfall emptying out of the small gorge that the flowing water had cut back into the dirt and boulders of the tall, wooded palisades looming over this area.

Then Ureeblay moved away from the creek to find a suitable location for his latrine in the sandy loam of the forest floor. He was still able to use his hands to dig a hole in the sand. Looking around, he found a huge half-buried boulder with thick moss covering most of one side. He pulled two big handfuls from it. Then the boy went back to his latrine and did his business.

After washing his hands at the outflow of the pool, he returned to the elevated lawn with two long pieces of tree limbs he had to drag up near his fire, one under each armpit. Both were as thick as his young thigh. He put a good quarter length of the two logs over the fire and then moved all of his equipment into the back of the grotto. As the logs caught and the reflector rock did its job, the inside of the grotto continued to warm up.

The boy checked his drying pork and turned it again. Then Ureeblay moved the two long pieces of wood about until each log was down on the fire-ring stones over the heaped bed of bright orange-red coals as best as he could get them. He carefully placed his largest remaining pieces of driftwood in the fire along both sides of the thick limbs and decided he was done.

Next he culled the floor of the grotto for stones and the boy pushed a body-sized divot into the sandy surface near the opening where he could easily feel the radiant warmth cast from the fire and reflector. He wished he had stayed up long enough the night before to weave a third grass mat big enough to cover himself. The mat he had used to wrap his smoker had a layer of grease and light ash on the inside so he'd left it behind.

However, if he had a woven mat to cover his body for sleep and for his second life of dreams that would seem like high luxury, Ureeblay decided, compared to the rest of his adventure so far. Maybe if he found more bower bird grass or a similar long-leaf patch of grasses when he crossed the valley floor to the river, he would weave several more mats.

He had lost his wet moccasins his first night on this side of the Toolie. Some nocturnal animal had quietly pulled them down from the low limb where he'd placed them to dry while he slept under some bushes. The next morning he'd cast about for signs of whatever type of animal the thief had been, or signs of where some animal had dragged the soft leather articles away, but he had found none. He'd even looked higher up into the tree where he'd hung them.

He had searched for most of the morning, feeling his growing frustration at finding no explanation to his missing moccasins. It took him three days of traveling from that campsite to realize that not knowing what had happened and how was worse than the actual loss of his foot coverings.

Since then, his feet had really toughened up. He had learned to be much more aware of where he put his feet as he moved along. And with that care, his passage through the wilderness became even quieter as he moved along though this journey.

Then a full double moon ago he'd used his soft furred-leather vest as a decoy to lure a trio of Hurstmon up into a meager pine break covering a high outcropping as he slipped away down the other side of the ridge. That group of his pursuers had made the tough climb up the slope in the pines to investigate just what was fluttering up there as Ureeblay got away again.

So having learned to do without, having a woven grass mat to help keep him warm in addition to the heat of his fine sacred fire would seem like he was becoming soft, the boy told himself. Ureeblay couldn't resist the fire one last time, and put the last three good-sized pieces of sticks on the stack already in the flames. He watched the fire and tended his drying meat well into the evening.

When he was happy with the drying of his fatty pork, he retrieved the cuts, letting them cool a bit before he put them back into his woven meat carrier with the rest of his leaner pork cuts, and the lengths of intestines. Then Ureeblay secured the grass food container onto his pack basket and moved that gear and his water bag to the back of his small cave.

More than ready for sleep, he banked his cooking fire as best he could with the two long logs on it. Only then did Ureeblay decide to crawl back into his warming grotto with his knife, spear-caster, and his remaining shafts inside his quiver. He fidgeted until he was comfortable in his sandy wallow with the heat against his bare face, his chest and curled legs as he watched the dancing firelight. On his shoulders he could feel some heat re-reflected off the huge boulder making up the back of the grotto where his pack frame was resting.

He thanked the spirits for his day as he settled down to sleep. Then he remembered he'd forgotten to plant the three small bog apples he promised to assure the continuation of the circle of life. He was sure he'd find a suitable place to repair his oversight on his way to the Toolie.

Sometime during the night, in Ureeblay's second life of dreams, part of the boy-in-sleep felt warm fur up against his back. As he dropped into deeper sleep, his second self tried to will the spirit wolf to stretch out further along his back. That way, with the radiant heat from the glowing coals and the remains of his fire he'd be toasty warm all along both sides of his body.

Third Mission, outbound aboard the Federation space vessel DSE Glenndeavor, 2401 CE

Coming out of the head after my shower, I saw a sight I hoped to see every morning for the rest of my life. Juliet, Anika, and Beatrice, naked as the day they were born, all working around our quarters.

Anika with her bruised cheek and black eye was putting our clothes from the night before into a hamper on the footlocker. I'd not seen that hamper before. Beatrice, her impressive right breast showing the fading bruise from her assault, was stripping the bunk down to the bare mattress. And Juliet was setting out her bra, panties and the uniform she'd be wearing to her duty watch. It looked like today would be Class D from what my first wife had assembled.

Her dark-blue buttoned jacket with her ribbon plate on the left and nametag on the right was on a hanger and hung on a hook inside the door of her open locker. There was a light-gray long-sleeve shirt, white tee shirt and cotton panties, a dark-red, small cravat for around the neck of her buttoned collar, and dark-gray trousers. I saw her looking at the dark-gray pleated skirt she held up which she had the option of wearing, but she hung the skirt back in her locker and went with uniform trousers. Finally, she retrieved a dark-blue garrison cap from a shelf in her locker.

Crap, I thought to myself, if the Uniform of the Day called for anyone not on a work detail to be covered as well as wear a cravat for women and a necktie for men, I was going to have lots of uncomfortable saluting today, but only if I ran into any officers in one the passageways of the Ship.

Mostly officers were not seen in the passageways in hull sections where the quarters of rating members of the crew were located, unless there happened to be a duty station nearby, or any officers were fulfilling some duty of their own.

"And how are my loved women feeling this morning?" I asked, with my towel around my middle. The air was fresher, and looking around I saw two green, blinking LEDs over the air vents in the top center of the side and back bulkheads.

"I am being sore. It is good I am on deferred duty, naughty loving husband," Anika giggled, holding up the grass-green satin panties Beatrice had worn under the green robe, showing them first to me and then to a grinning Juliet. Beatrice had turned back to strip down the bunk.