Chapter 6

By the time evening was falling, the soldiers of the Border Patrol had produced bowls and spoons from their packs and were waiting for Porter to declare dinner ready to eat. The stew was thick and rich from the masa root flour thickened in deer fat; it did not compare to his chicken gravy of old in Porter’s mind, but his cooking impressed everyone else. The true compliment was watching the rest of them eat without conversation because their mouths were too busy chewing and slurping. No one skipped seconds either.

When supper was cleaned up and washed, each of the soldiers pulled out a hobby or a chore from their personal belongings. Harlan was darning a torn sock and Captain Tyver was stuffing dried leaf into a pipe. Porter shaved his arrows as Kanji lay at his side. Occasionally, he would drop his hand to the feline and scratch one patch or another on the cat, which would emit a purr much to the surprise of many around the fire.

Captain Tyver cleared his throat. “That was a tasty meal, Porter.”

“Thank you,” He said politely.

“You cook pretty well for a space man,” the captain said.

Porter gave Zeb a sharp look who shrugged his shoulders in surrender. Porter looked the captain in the eye. “I suppose I do.”

Everyone kept busy with their hands as if this was just another natural conversation. Porter took in the entire scene like a pendulum swinging between evening ease and run-away-far panic. Every breath brought the possibility of stumbling into the abyss. Would he answer the question correctly or seal his doom? Each person around the fire knew the answers to living on this planet and he was alone, clueless as to even what questions to ask. He barely knew how to attend to his ablutions in the woods; a sanitary lesson every child in this part of the world is taught when toddling.

Contrary to the rising alarm of the moment, a thread of melancholy inserted itself amongst his dread. Life before the accident had been a steady, dull beat, a monotonous stepping from day to day that killed his soul in tiny increments. By contrast, these past months had been a herky-jerky adventure ride at one those theme parks from his youth that threw a body in every conceivable direction. Despite the alien-ness, he was not desperate and despondent. Each morning at Zeb’s stead had begun with anticipation and excitement. Like those old rides, sometimes he did not know whether to scream or puke. Kanji picked up the tension though and raised her head to watch the interaction.

Porter gave a heavy sigh. “Did Zeb tell you?”

Tyver adjusted his pipe and said, “No, your business partner did not sell you out. That one you gave away on your own.”

Porter left the term “business partner” alone for the moment and put down his arrow shaft. “How?”

“First, you have a peculiar accent no one has ever heard; two, you use funny words in strange combinations; and three, you have words none of us has ever heard before. Pardon my ignorance,” the captain grinned, “but what in the world does opstrep... , opstrepree; I can’t even pronounce the word.”

“‘Obstreperous’ is the word you are trying to pronounce. The best definition of the word is... ‘Zeb’,” Porter said distractedly, wondering what was going to happen next.

Everyone else chuckled at his joke, even Zeb. The tension they had monitored eased a bit but not so for the spaceman. The captain drew a couple of puffs from his pipe and watched the smoke disappear into the night. “No matter how you pronounce it, the word is a mark of a book and letter educated man. There aren’t that many in this part of the world, and I can probably name a fair number of them myself.”

Porter straightened his back. “Zeb can read.”

Tyver met his poise and sat even straighter if that was possible, “I have one more to add to my list of the literate but that is beside the point. The question I have is why are you hiding? Do you have something to hide?”

Porter wanted to vent his ongoing fear and anger. He glanced around the fire and observed that the other soldiers and even Zeb were placidly going about their business. He unclenched his fists and decided to explain first and then, wait and see.

“I told you this morning. I was attacked by five priests who just drew their swords with some stupid mystical chant and tried to run me through. There was no talk, no conversation; I was standing half naked and unarmed in front of the cabin. After meeting them, why should I trust you with your swords and bows?” Porter said.

Leeza put down her leather with a huff and opened her mouth to say something but Harlan motioned her to silence. Porter caught the small display and figured that he had just insulted some powerfully armed people. He waited for the proverbial axe to fall on his head.

Much to his surprise the captain seemed to agree with Porter. “You ask a good question and I can’t give you a good answer. Time will tell whether you can trust us.” The captain changed the subject. “Zeb said there was nothing to harvest from the spaceship. Is this true?”

Porter sucked in his cheeks, mimicking Zeb without realizing it. He said, “The spaceship was only a lifeboat. The ship I was on exploded in no space.”

“Are you the only one who escaped?” Harlan had jumped in with unchecked curiosity.

Porter leaned in, placing his elbows on his knees and told his tale. “When I first saw the explosion, I was next to the emergency door through which I jumped. I slid on my belly down a long chute until I landed in one of the lifeboats and that is the last thing I remember until I woke up on your planet. I suppose others may have escaped but I doubt they would have made it here like I did.”

“Why not?” Harlan’s curiosity was now whetted.

Porter debated revealing his worst secret; the fear of humiliation was waging war on his need to make peace with these people. He desperately wanted that old Pyotr to disappear and never even be mentioned on this new, raw land. He had hoped passionately that Porter had emerged as a newborn babe from that capsule, that is to say, as a man without a past. He watched his fervent hope disappear like sand between his fingers. Kanji, sensing the tension of his inner pain again, nudged his hand with her nose and he absently rubbed her ears for a moment.

He decided. “When I jumped through that emergency door, I was three if not four times the man you see now.”

The faces perked up at that declaration.

“When I awoke in the capsule, all of my fat had melted away. I surmise, based on my own condition upon arriving, that any person who was not obese would have probably died of starvation before traveling to this planet. Unfortunately, I can assure you that I was the largest aboard that ship and there were 7,500 souls aboard at the time, a dubious honor to be sure.”

Some of them forgot to close their mouths. Porter took it all in stride and concluded his tale. “Is it not ironic that the fattest slob survived and the others did not, precisely because he was so fat and they were not?”

“That explains my little mystery,” Harlan said.

Captain Tyver turned to his second. “Explains what mystery?”

“In the forest Porter moves kind of awkwardly, not like a handicapped or wounded man though. Now I would say he moves like someone who thinks he is larger than he is. At first, I thought he was a little feeble in the brain, but he tracks and shoots just fine.”

“That brings up another topic, Porter,” the captain turned to him, “surely your lifeboat came equipped with weapons and tools to survive on a hostile planet.”

Porter picked a piece of meat from between his teeth, “The day is not long enough for me to explain thoroughly the materials that should have been in the lifeboat and the reasons why they were not present. My job in the emperor’s service was not so different from those misguided idiots who saved a penny here and a penny there on the cost of a lifeboat by substituting inferior items for the necessary tools.”

“It sounds as if our king is in touch with your emperor,” the soldier named Tilden said. He was sitting on the other side of Leeza, and his comment dropped into the conversation like a fresh log on a fire. “None of us carries the issued weapons of our king.”

His words were met with grunts of assent around the fire.

Porter held up his hand to count on his fingers. “From the ship I have a shovel, I have a knife, and I have a super-duper survivor manual that has no answers in it. The boots broke before I left the Waste and I finished the tube of hand cream. The only thing that I believe still works is the distress beacon.”

Captain Tyver removed his pipe from his mouth, “You have technology?”

Porter looked at the captain’s eagerness with confusion. “It’s a portable beacon that sends out an electronic distress call that no one is ever going to answer. It may be technology, but it is useless.”

The captain was not dissuaded. “Would you please retrieve this beacon, so that we may see this technology?”

Since the man asked so nicely, Porter saw no reason not accede to the request. Besides he had meant it, the beacon was useless. He tromped off to the workshop and pulled out his pack, which he had not used since returning to Zeb’s stead. The room was dark, and he did not feel like fishing through the sack blindly, so he hauled out the pack and took it back to the fire.

He dumped the contents on the ground at his feet. The first item he grabbed was the manual. “Anybody want this or see a need for it?” He said. No one answered and he tossed the book with great satisfaction into the flames.

Next, he lifted the beacon still nestled in its foam casing and announced what it was. He tried to pass it to the captain who waved him off and sent it to Harlan. Harlan took the object and peeled back the foam. Everyone ooh’ed and ahh’ed at the shiny metal object, which he held up for all to see. The red LED at the top blinked on and off at its pre-set rate, telling the survivor that it was still transmitting.

Porter held an open hand towards the beacon, “As I told you, pretty but useless.” Just then a blue charge leapt from his hand and struck the beacon. The red LED blinked out and did not return. “What the heck?”

“Blue Hand,” Leeza whispered, “He has the Blue Hand.”

“Is it dead, Harlan?” the captain queried.

“Dead as dirt, sir,” the soldier answered.

“How long have you known that you’ve been blessed with the Blue Hand, Porter?” Captain Tyver put his pipe back in his mouth.

Porter looked at Zeb for help. The old man wound up a gob of spit and aimed it into the middle of the fire. There was barely a sizzle.

“Near as I can figure,” Zeb said as he counted on his fingers using his thumb, “Porter had been down on the ground seven days and then we had been on the trail about five days, maybe four. He was on the planet less than two weeks when he fricasseed that snake monster whose skin is waiting in the storehouse. Porter dropped him in one shot, which was a good thing because that was all the time he had.”

“Less than two weeks and he is endowed with the Blue Hand,” the captain mused. “I don’t know whether that is disturbing or remarkable. At least it explains why the priesthood wanted to cut him down.”