Chapter 13

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

The boy became aware of something wet licking his chin as his hair hung down around his face.

Ureeblay opened his eyes and below him was the head of the little wolf. She was on her side beneath him. Lifting her head up, she started licking his face.

After the shock of her wet tongue on his chin, cheek, and nose, Ureeblay found he was comforted by what the animal was doing and it sort of tickled. Then, he realized it was quiet. The huge stones of the pile had protected them from certain death.

The young wolf stopped bathing his face with her sloppy tongue, but he could feel her tail beat against his bent right thigh and calf.

He raised his chest and shoulders up a bit, easing the pack frame off his side until it leaned away from him and back against the stone wall. The small wolf wiggled out from under Ureeblay. Sniffing, she managed to turn around beside him and pushed her searching muzzle through the curtain of his long hair near his arm. The wolf licked his wrist once before gently taking the rest of the forgotten bog apple section out of his upturned right hand. Then she backed a little ways out of the tiny cave.

What, he wondered, would Crosof and Achinay think if they saw a wolf licking him in such a ... well, friendly manner?

Then the whole situation flashed through his mind. He almost giggled with relief that he was safe from the terrifying stampede so the honey-blonde wolf could lick him and take the morsel of food.

Shaking off his momentary giddiness, Ureeblay saw there was still some dust in the air of the shelter, but the particles were slowly settling. The boy realized he couldn't hear anything. It was silent. Then behind him, he heard the paws of the wolf on the few leaves scattered on the sandy floor of the gap just outside, and he could hear himself breathing. Then he heard the plaintive bawl of a bison coming from somewhere nearby as he managed to shuffle himself around on the sandy floor in the enclosed space of the shelter.

Ureeblay was now facing out of the small cave. He saw the settling, soft-brown dust had lightly powdered everything outside but the wolf. She was in the gap between the two big boulders turning her head this way and that as she chewed on the last bite of bog apple.

Ureeblay tested the air with three short sniffs. He could smell flinty stone, dark damp earth, the hint of manure and piss, and the warm odor of bison hide ... there was also a small tang of blood he could detect. He could feel a bit of dust working its way down the crack of his butt under his clout as he started to straighten up the best he could with the stone ceiling not far above his head.

The young wolf walked right up beside him and into the small opening, her tail gently wagging. Ureeblay was surprised at her sudden unconcerned familiarity with him and he felt awed at being so near the wild animal. She nosed around his water carrier made from the pig stomach. The boy realized he was thirsty too; and his mouth seemed full of dust.

Ureeblay crawled out of the shallow stone hollow, turned around, and crawled slightly back inside. Now it was easier to move his pack frame so he could pick up his water carrier. Once back in the stone gap with his water bag, he carefully untied the top with one hand while keeping the fist of his other hand gripped just below the mouth of the bag. He put his own mouth to the top of the stomach just above his fist and gently squeezed with his other hand on the water container. He took a slow deep drink of the water as it rose up out of the opening held in his fist. It wasn't the best-tasting water, but it was wet.

The wolf watched him intently. The boy lowered the stomach near the head of the wolf and she started licking his wet fist and the opening funnel as he gently squeezed more water out of the skin container slowly enough for the animal to lick up.

Suddenly he was shocked at what he was doing. What would people of his clan think if they saw what he was doing right now, Ureeblay asked himself. What did he think of what he was doing right now?

More importantly, he told himself, what would his mother say if she saw him right now giving a drink of water to a young wolf? The boy felt a flash of excitement at what was happening. Ureeblay almost giggled again, but this time because he realized his mother would most certainly berate him for thinking of giving this animal water when he had always acted so lazy and had complained about fetching water for his own mother, even though she had wanted the water so she could cook him his dinner. Then she would scold him for letting an animal lick the top of his water carrier.

He could just hear her saying, "Wolves licked themselves with their tongues!"

After licking up the third squeeze of water, the wolf turned and stepped out into the gap. The boy carefully retied the stomach, wondering humorously if the wolf was going to expect to get its drinking water from his water carrier now. He heard another bawl of an animal in distress somewhere close to the boulder pile that had saved both him and the wolf. He put the water bag back inside the small stone hollow.

Picking up his spear-thrower and both of his shafts, he got up out of the shelter and stood up. As he slowly moved forward, he looked out from between the two large-boulder walls with the small wolf by his right leg. Having the wolf by his side was as comforting as it was exciting for some reason.

Then, Ureeblay was stunned into numbness. At first, his mind refused to make sense of what he was seeing. Through the slight haze of settling dust sifting the mid-morning light as well as the shade cast by the canopy of the nearest remaining trees, what he could see was a completely different landscape than he'd walked through before the passing of the stampede.

All of the green, leafy underbrush and grasses once crowding between the large trees were gone, torn-up into trampled dirt. Other than scattered large boulders and the big trunks and leafy canopies of the remaining trees, the surrounding ground was just dirty, chewed-up, sandy dirt for as far as the boy could see. Ureeblay looked out from the boulder pile in the direction of the Cool until a long rise, trending gently downward from his left to his right toward the Toolie, blocked his line of sight further into the valley. Everywhere, the surface of the ground between the exposed boulders and remaining mature trees all looked the same—a trampled wasteland.

Any small plants had been broken into pulp and mixed up under all the deep hoof prints and gouges covering the churned ground. The smallest trees had been broken off completely and were gone to splinters. Somewhat larger trees here and there showed as broken stumps, or debarked, gouged poles bent over and pointing in the direction of the massive herd's flight.

There were some small uprooted, denuded trees, which hadn't broken but hadn't withstood the onslaught of pounding bison—their huge numbers measured only in passing time and terror. Scattered here and there, Ureeblay saw what he realized were not boulders, but the dust covered, mangled carcasses of the smaller, or the weaker, or an unlucky animal, which had stumbled under the slashing hooves of the panicking herd.

In some places the boy could see a few bare, shredded stalks of thin wood sticking out from behind big tree trunks. That was all that remained from the core of some large, healthy clump of woody bushes. All the sand, fallen leaves, loam, and soil were mixed together now. As far as Ureeblay could see out of the boulder pile in the direction of the Cool, the only green was at the tops of the remaining thick-trunked trees.

While that greenery had been up high enough off the floor of the thin strip of woods to escape the stampede, leaves up in the tree canopy still wore a slight coating of dust that would remain until the next few rains washed it away.

Turning his head first to the Morn, the direction where Father sun rose each day to his right, and then back to the Eve on his left, the direction from which he'd come, Ureeblay could easily observe the entire, broken-down bank of the creek on this side of the streambed. The creek bank on the other side had been reduced to just a slight rise in most places, and the water he could see was a thick, muddy, light brown. All the larger rocks and boulders near the creek on the other side were splattered with the mud. Well, Ureeblay hoped it was mud.

Some of the closer boulders he could see on this side of the creek had the moss and lichens rubbed off. The nearest large tree to the boy had a few good-sized, long hanks of dark, blackish-brown bison hair caught on a broken-off low limb. For the hair to be that long, Ureeblay realized the massive herd that stampeded past had to be wooly bison, another animal not commonly seen on his side of the Toolie. The plains bison predominate in the territories of the clans would have shed their winter coats in early spring and not had that long of hair to leave behind to mark their flight at this time of season.

As Ureeblay again started walking toward the mouth of his haven between the two boulders, he could see what he knew now were several bison carcasses down among some of the mud-plastered boulders in what had been the creek bed. While he was watching to his right, one muddy, low boulder suddenly shook with a deep snort. A massive, horned-head rose up and shook again, sending muck and muddy water everywhere. Ureeblay realized he was seeing a bull bison down on its knees and belly in the creek bed.

Then the bull rolled slightly to its left and managed to get up. It snorted again as mud and brownish water dripped from its matted stomach and flanks. Slowly moving out of the mud and toward the Cool, the big animal headed away from what remained of the creek. The bedraggled bison trudged between a large, black, gouged tree trunk and a shoulder-size boulder. The battered bison was favoring its back left leg.

Upstream to his left, Ureeblay could easily see the destruction of everything but the large trees and boulders extending all the way back to within a short spear cast of his pool at the base of the waterfall. Disgusted, the boy turned and looked down stream; he saw the stampede had leveled a swath as far as he could see. About a quarter of a travel length in that direction he now realized the land fell away steeply enough that he lost sight of the churned up ground.

An idea made its way into the boy's brain as the shock at what he was seeing slowly began to wear off. There was a lot of meat that might be harvested from the least battered bison around him. He found himself walking to the tree with the good-sized hanks of dark, blackish-brown bison hair caught on a broken-off low limb. He transferred his spare spear to his right hand, which was holding his spearcaster nocked with his best shaft. He swapped spears in his caster. Then he reached up with his left hand and collected the hair. The boy knew it was strong and long enough that he could work the hair into thread, yarn, twine, or cordage. Ureeblay remembered hearing a hunter from another camp at congregation saying something about hair not stretching if it got wet.

When the small wolf picked her way over to him and began sniffing the long hair hanging from his left hand down to the churned up ground, the boy became more aware of his situation.

He realized all this meat would soon attract predators and scavengers, even with most of it heavily bruised, mangled, or crushed. The thought hit him with a small jolt of adrenaline – large predators might have caused the stampede in the first place. Turning around and looking back past the boulder pile, he saw what was left of the meadowlands, just beyond where the edge of the brush line had been.

The meadowland was as devastated as the woodland Ureeblay had seen so far. It did register in his brain that he saw no dead bison out there. He now had a clear field of view all the way out to a slight rise in the land a good half-travel length away. All the grasses and plants were stomped flat into almost clay in some places and into dust in others.

Ureeblay suddenly had the urge to get away from all this.

From the other side of the big boulder pile the boy heard a bison bawl again. The boy and the wolf both perked up. He moved back to the rocks and put the big wad of dark, blackish-brown hair up on a rock ledge. Ureeblay checked the nock of his second-best, lightweight, feathered shaft in the receiving cup of his thrower and took his best shaft in his left hand. Then he started around the huge pile of boulders to his right. As he circled the base of the high mound of rocks, he prepared to make a cast with his spear arm.

When his arm went back and the spear head came up the wolf hurried quietly out further to his right. Then she started stalking forward, alert and searching with her eyes for the cause of the commotion. Ureeblay realized that he and the small wolf formed a hunting line of sorts, and the boy started to move forward too. He was being very aware of where he was putting his bare feet in the churned up soil and debris.

As he came around the high stack of different-sized stones, the boy saw a medium-sized bison cow lodged four large stones up the Warm side of the rock pile and lying on her left ribs and back hip. Her right front leg was broken and Ureeblay could see it had caught in a crevice formed where three uneven rock faces rested not quite against each other.

He could see blood running from the lower side of her mouth onto the boulder under her, and she was laboring to breathe. Now Ureeblay was close enough he could see the bison cow's bloodshot eyes were blinking from time to time, rolling in terror. Pink, foamy mucus was coming from the nostrils of her wide, flat nose.

It was obvious to Ureeblay the beast was dying; probably from some hurt to her insides as well as the mangled leg. He knew she was stuck, but could still lash out with her rear hooves. The young wolf seemed to recognize the big, wounded beast was dangerous, too, and now she was carefully sniffing around the pile of boulders while keeping well clear of the bison.

Ureeblay became aware that he was facing such a dilemma he had to stop and take stock of this situation.

First he told himself, here was meat that could be taken so easily it was almost maddening. He had gotten by on so little food over the last two double moons that thinking back on it now, it amazed him. In addition, he still had to find a way across the wide, deep Toolie. Ureeblay had no idea how long that might take either. He was sure he would need more meat than the smoked pig he now carried. He was not going to eat up his riches in bog apples along the way, even though that food source would not spoil as meat did. That would be his wealth when he returned home.

Well, his trade-goods wealth he told himself. His long-term wealth was his sliver of frozen lightning.

Ureeblay was also sure the spirits would not give him the opportunity to acquire meat in this quantity with so little effort again.

And, it seemed he was now traveling in the company of a small, young, skinny wolf. A wolf that had adopted him for want of a better way to describe what seemed to be happening. Ureeblay felt more and more certain she had been put in his path by the spirits as well.

So he realized he was responsible for another mouth to feed in addition to his own. And that mouth belonged to the same honey-colored, blue-eyed, spirit wolf. A spirit wolf that did seem to look to him to provide her with, now, two meals a day. Also, the occasional bog apple snack. Maybe even her drinking water.

Ureeblay shook his head, and feeling a smile break out on his face, the boy almost laughed. Maybe, the growing boy considered as mirth bubbled up inside his heart, he had drowned in the Toolie after all and this was all happening in the third life. The shamans made it known around the night campfires that the third life was lived with the spirits to prepare the life force of a person for rebirth as a better human being.

Ureeblay took a deep breath and the smells of the newly-made wasteland he was in brought him back to the here and now. He reminded himself he would like to have a nice big section of good bison hide. Finding the time to cure it would be another thing, if he could recall all the necessary steps of the process, he told himself—but without the hide in the first place ... He would also like to collect more of the long, wooly bison hair—off some of the carcasses, perhaps.

Ureeblay still wanted to observe the seven directional Swongli, the Seven Sentinels, in the night sky for his own peace of mind. Marking their relationships with other known Swongli would allow him to make a good estimation of the distance he would need to travel upstream to find where he'd come ashore.

After he found where he'd started his travels on this side of the wide Toolie, he wanted to travel further upstream to a point beyond where he'd started his river journey on the other side. That way, if he could float across to the other side, he'd have a chance of being carried to his original starting spot by the current. And during the unknown amount of time it would take to accomplish all those things, he—and the wolf—would need to eat. Meat.

Ureeblay figured if he did collect hair, hide, and meat, he and the wolf could use the gap and small cave in the boulder pile as a protected camp. With one fire near the mouth of the vee opening, and a smoking and drying fire near one of the stone walls, and with all the available meat around, the boy thought he would be safe from predators for the evening—if he found sufficient wood.

Then he remembered this pile of boulders also protected the den of a river skunk, which might have been bringing that contested fish back to feed her kits. From his intense study of river skunks since his last encounter with one, Ureeblay knew for a fact that skunk kits were tumbledown mischievous and full of curious brashness.

And they were just as territorial and potent as a grown skunk, too.

This was not the place for a camp, he told himself.

The injured bison bawled again and thrashed its free legs around before exhausting itself, its sides heaving as it snorted out its breath.

Ureeblay reminded himself that he had a limited supply of firewood on the top of his pack frame. All the other dry wood he might have easily found before the stampede would be hard to find in this swath of destruction. If he stayed anywhere within the area of the stampede after he claimed some of this meat, he'd need at least two good fires all night to keep predators at bay as well as to start drying the meat.

He knew by the position of Father Sun there was a span of time before midday. If he took the meat of this cow, he suddenly asked himself, where would he get the proper wood to create another drying rack? He didn't want to take his pack frame apart. That was another argument he should move on. He knew getting out of this depressing place was what he really wanted to do.

However, he could kill this cow with his spearcaster. It would be mercy actually—he would save her some of her terror and misery. Then he would slit her throat to bleed out the carcass, skin-off a section of hide, and take her tongue and all the other choice meat he felt he could add to his pack frame. He would wrap the meat up in a section of hide to reduce the mess. He could be on his way with half of the afternoon and the early evening to locate sufficient firewood, and a suitable camp closer toward the Toolie.

Most of all, Ureeblay admitted to himself again, he wanted to be away from this place. Being here right now was making him feel deeply uneasy, even worse than the smell of death and fresh meat, which would draw predators and scavengers to the carcasses as night fell—which it certainly would. Yes, he admitted, that is what was going to happen.

He wasn't even going to consider returning to the wooded pool back at the waterfall, even knowing that was a perfect camping site. He couldn't face having to re-cross this wasted section of landscape again tomorrow or the next day. Any big predators that showed up would most likely remain close to all this meat for days, Ureeblay reminded himself.

That decided, he rejected backtracking and he took the cow. His spear cast from such a close distance was superbly accurate and almost instantly fatal. The only thing he overlooked was the need of clear water to wash the blood and gore off his hands, arms, and his lower legs after his quick skinning, the butchering job, and the digging he had to do to retrieve his second-best spear from out of the carcass.

He would have been done sooner, but the skinny young wolf was in his way until he cut off a big hunk of meat for her. He put it on a flat area on one of the boulders. After that, she was content to stay right there and eat while she observed everything he did after feeding her. From time to time when Ureeblay looked over in her direction, he saw the skinny wolf would look out over the desolation as if on watch while she chewed her most recent mouthful of bison.

Ureeblay even cut four fist-sized hunks of bison and, walking around to the other side of the boulder pile; he put the offerings on the flat, stone apron below the opening to the skunk's den.

When Ureeblay was finished with the bison cow, he thanked the animal's spirit for her sacrifice. Then he went back around the boulders to the vee-notch that had helped protect him and the wolf from the stampede. The sand between the granite walls was clean and Ureeblay used that to scrub the blood from his body parts and his spear and other cutting implements. Walking back, he retrieved the big hanks of brownish-black hair he'd put on that side of the rock pile. He would stuff that resource into his travel pouch back with the pile of his other gear. While walking back around the pile, the boy also noticed one of the hunks of meat was gone from near the den.

After gathering up his gear from the small cave and on coming back to the butchering site, the boy noticed the young wolf almost seemed to be guarding the area. She had jumped up higher on several boulders while he was cleaning himself with sand. Now the honey-colored animal was slowly looking all about, testing the slight breeze with the black tip of her moist nose.

Feeling a bit more secure with her up on the pile keeping a lookout, Ureeblay used some of his water to finish cleaning his flint knife and hand blade. Then he drank from the water himself. When the spirit wolf picked her way down the stones and boulders, the boy gave the small, alert animal her drink. He noticed her sides seemed a bit rounded from her gorge on the meat.

With his meat wrapped inside a big section of hide and bound to his pack frame along with another side of rolled hide, he put on his gear, his now quite heavy and overbalanced backpack, and then Ureeblay whistled to the wolf.

She was nosing around the partially butchered carcass. Hearing his whistle, her ears went up and she looked right at him. The animal turned her head and gazed with her blue eyes out across the wasted meadow. Then she bounded down from the rocks and loped out ahead of him heading downstream as if she knew their line of travel already.

Following the vigilant young wolf, Ureeblay started carefully hiking along what was left of the stream. He figured by the height of Father Sun he should easily be able to cover another travel length and-a-half, possibly two, before he would need to make camp. He should be able to find a supply of dry wood once he cleared this wasteland around him, he told himself. Or so he hoped.

Third Mission, outbound aboard the FUP Deep Space Exploration vessel Glenndeavor, 2401 CE

So, here we all were, standing around inside Colony Stasis Bay Three. I could smell faint odors, which hinted that much nastier nasal experiences might be possible from time to time during the course of regular duty in this place. However, the citrus overtones that I'd detected earlier were not in the mix at all right now. In front of me, there were seven rows of eight dull-orange, three-meter long, tubular stasis chambers. All together in the neat ordered rows, each sleeping unit looked small. In addition, there wasn't anything else inside the space of the huge stasis bay.

When filled, the vast compartment would hold 400 chambers easily with room for big donks to maneuver around the perimeter and down a central aisle from the hatch to the back bulkhead.

Each chamber was oriented toward the right, actually the forward bulkhead. Okay, the geek in me was much happier describing the units as parallel to the passageway bulkhead.

Each meter-or-so-thick, tubular chamber rested on two end pedestals with a thick composite panel running from the higher pedestal at the head of the unit to the lower pedestal at the foot. That panel dropped from the bottom of the chamber down into a locking channel in the cream-colored deck. Under each stasis device, the pedestal at the foot of the unit was knee high. The pedestal under the head of the stasis chamber was higher than the one at the foot. So every chamber was slightly tilted down toward the right bulkhead. There was a meter-and-a-half wide walkway along each row of sleeping units. That was enough room to move a medical gurney or the smallest work donk between the chambers.

At the highest point of each of the devices, which was the head of the chamber, was a meter-square, angled control panel attached to and covering the whole end of the apparatus. Along the top edge of each control panel was an elevated, horizontal LED bar the thickness of an oval broom handle. At present, every one of the LEDs bars in the Bay was showing steady green lights, except the first LED segment on the right side of each bar was showing the units designation in bright-white LEDs.

The first unit to my right in the first row closest to the front bulkhead was chamber A1. I was able to read G1 on the first unit in the last row toward the back bulkhead.

The first row of long, dull-orange chambers began about ten meters from the huge front bulkhead. The designers positioned the stasis units with a meter-wide gap between the foot of one unit and the head of the next, creating smaller ranks of aisles running from the front to the back of the Stasis Bay. The rest of the Stasis Bay deck – away from the bulkheads – that was not taken up with the 56 units, was flat, hauntingly empty decking that was huge in comparison.

The rows of sleeping units started about four meters from the forward bulkhead. Along that wall, I saw, interspersed with blocks of lockers, eight good-sized, chest-high cubicles. Through the openings into the cubicles, I could make out dormant workstations. Above each cubicle, attached to the forward bulkhead, was a cubicle-wide, data-display board that, when powered-up, could easily be seen from anywhere inside the bay.

The last two cubicles near the back bulkhead had high, substantial-looking dark-blue panel walls, making those spaces almost like enclosed offices. Those two offices were probably where the Colony Stasis Bay supervisors would hide from the real work once the Glenndeavor became a school bus carrying hoards of paid-up, would-be colonists heading out to their new worlds and adventure. Adventure that might kill some of them, I reminded myself.

The geek factoid engine down in my brain reported to me that each stasis row stretched out in precision alignment 31 meters into Colony Stasis Bay Three, approximately 35 meters out from the right, forward bulkhead. I shook my head and turned around to get the sight of all those big, dull-orange tube-like devices out of my mind.

The huge hatch to CSB-3 was still open and I could see the two armed Marine Warrant officers who were the Captain's security team standing just outside. Each of the men was dressed for combat, an armored vest over their desert camo gear. The visors of their POT helmets were down, covering their faces. I watched one Marine scan to the right, down the corridor along the way we came in. That Marine held a laser-concussion rifle at the ready, the same model as the one Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov now carried. In addition, the second guard faced left, occasionally pacing back and forth with a tricked-out, AK-type assault rifle with a big banana magazine in the well of the receiver. So those two really weren't just standing around as I was.

Actually, I wasn't standing around either. The correct terminology for what I was supposed to be doing would be "deployed at Port Arms." Pretty much just like the rest of Krychenkov's Delta Team, and Anika and Beatrice, too—although she didn't have a rifle. I realized I was supposed to have the sight of all those big, dull-orange, tube-like devices in my attentive awareness, so I turned back around.

So here I was. Going around the perimeter of the dull-orange chambers to my left was Anika in her cream-colored protective suit a few rows toward the far back bulkhead. Then Krychenkov's bandoleers, as the First Lieutenant called them, starting with Private Wasserkeld, half way along the outside of the back row of stasis chambers. He was one of the guys from the Marine donk who had goaded PFC Vespa when Anika challenged him to a sparring match. Then there was the reliable PFC Benson near the far corner of the block of stasis chambers. Next along the far side of the perimeter toward the work cubicles against the right bulkhead, was Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov with her exotic laser-concussion rifle in her hands.