Chapter 14

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet

The dust had settled and the blue sky and a few white clouds were the only signs of normalcy. There was destruction everywhere he looked, and from what Ureeblay could see of it, the streambed was a muddy trampled mess, nearly leveled when the stampede passed through the creek. The boy and the young wolf moved along a good ways to the right of the crushed bank through the thinning number of remaining, scarred, tall trees, the large stones, and the occasional pile of boulders.

He moved carefully to be sure of safe footing for his bare feet in the churned up ground, as he was getting used to the new way his heavily-loaded pack frame balanced.

It felt to him as if the weight on his shoulders and back had doubled and the balance was centered a bit higher now. He was very glad for the wide strips of pigskin he'd added to the shoulder straps, although the skin did have the particular odor of pig and uncured hide. He thought he might treat the skin with ashes from his next fire to help with the smell. He had scraped the inside of the hide very carefully before he'd attached the pig hide strips, cutting a slot at the top, two near the center, and one at bottom of each strip and then he threaded a frame strap through each slot before securing the straps to the pack frame.

The extra weight had come when he added the four choice pieces of bison meat. Ureeblay had wrapped the heavy chunks in bison hide and tied them to the top of the frame where his bundle of portable firewood had been. The rangy smelling package was just behind his head, resting partially on both shoulders. The other portion of hide he'd skinned from the dead cow was folded several times long-ways and then once in the middle and strapped over the back frame protecting his woven grass bog apple container. He'd retied the bundle of firewood to the bottom of his pack frame. Now it bounced against the back of his upper thighs from time to time.

Ureeblay was aware that bending too far forward, he might lose his balance. If he didn't place his next footstep properly underneath him, or if his upper body moved too far to either side or backwards, he would also sway in that direction. The new load made him conscious that one poorly placed footstep might cause him to fall over, so he moved more slowly than he had been. He thought he needed a staff for his left hand to help with his balance, something he'd seen hunters use when returning to camp loaded down with game after a successful hunt.

Ureeblay realized he was actually grinning at that image. It was so much better to imagine it than to view the desolation that was around him right now.

He would be very careful. Ureeblay could also appreciate the way his leg and calf muscles were reacting to the added load, testing his strength. It actually felt good to the boy. However, the new additions would make it almost impossible to cast his spear effectively.

Thinking again of the image of a hunter returning from a successful hunt, he realized he had become his own porter, and couldn't be the ready hunter with this weight on his back. Listen to me, he told himself grinning, I am a hunter! I am carrying smoked pig, and I have bison meat and hide! I even had to leave carcasses on the ground. And I have an unheard of collection of huge bog apples! I am a wealthy young man! I could pay for a strong, young wife to carry my load!

Eww, he told himself with a shudder, realizing what he'd just thought.

"A wife might try to boss me around—or worse, try to mother me," Ureeblay said out loud, causing the young wolf several bounds ahead of him on the churned-up waste to look back at him with what he thought was an inquisitive expression in her blue eyes.

Then an equally embarrassing thought hit the boy. What would Crosof and Achinay say if they heard some of these new thoughts of his spoken out loud?

They would never let him hear the end of their teasing, he was certain of that.

He wondered how his friends were dealing with his disappearance? He also wondered what his two friends had told the hunters about the true circumstances of his floating out of sight on a big log and into the middle of the Toolie. When he got back he decided he needed to seek out Crosof and Achinay first thing and find out what reasons they'd given for his misadventure. Early on as children, the three good friends had discovered it was best to tell the truth when something they had done went wrong, just not necessarily the whole truth.

Up ahead of Ureeblay, the honey-colored young wolf snorted at something she'd sniffed at in the torn-up earth. The sound brought the boy back to a vigilant awareness of his surroundings, both close at hand and to the limits of his various lines of sight across the destruction flooded by the rays of Father Sun overhead. Well, Ureeblay told himself, at least the stampede had cleared out all of the undergrowth in every direction.

As the two traveling companions moved along, a pattern developed. The small wolf would go off from their rough direction of travel from time to time when some smell caught her attention, or if she spied something of interest to her senses. The wolf would be gone for a while, usually in Ureeblay's sight, but sometimes not. Then she would return close enough to Ureeblay so she could make eye contact with him before she took the lead again.

She exhibited a degree of wary skittishness, but it was not directed towards Ureeblay. Her uneasiness was focused on the wasteland through which they traveled. Ureeblay felt the same as the wolf, he told himself. He would be relieved when they were out of the area of devastation.

Whenever he saw a dead bison near the creek, he would swing closer to the body to see if the animal had any long hair clean enough to salvage. He didn't want to put any matted, muddy mess into his travel pouch to soil the other hair he'd managed to pick-up from low hanging limbs, the sides of a trunk, and the occasional, clean carcass.

The boy carefully scanned his vision to the far rise of land that was blocking his line of sight in the direction of the Cool, to his left. And then looking toward the Warm where what had been the meadow fell away on his right, Ureeblay realized it was the once-stony and sunken streambed, which was a major cause of the dead bison. The number of unclaimed carcasses depressed him. The salvageable meat here would allow his good-sized camp to feast for days, and still they would have much to put aside. He realized the other meat eaters on four legs and two wings would be feasting here soon, so the boy carefully increased his pace.

As he picked his way along, he was managing to gather a good deal of the heavy, blackish and brown hair caught on the larger tree trunks or low-hanging limbs that survived the flood of rushing bison. He had even pushed some down beside the shaft of his second spear, inside his quiver.

Ureeblay decided that around his fires in the coming evenings he would start twirling some of the long bison hair into rough thread. He had helped his mother and sister do that some evenings. With the twine he would make from that labor, he could then use three, or maybe five equal lengths of twine to braid into cordage. He'd seen a hunter at the last congregation with a sling that had used a treated-leather pouch as a stone holder attached to two lengths of braided hair-cordage.

The boy was more familiar with all-leather slings made from a single, long, thin length of hide. The leather to craft a sling had to be strong and supple from being treated with a concoction that included, among other things, the brains of the animal. Then the hide was smoked. In addition, all-leather slings reacted differently if they got wet. Wet leather could stretch, and then when dry again, it could become stiff. Ureeblay had heard the man with the braided sling boasting he didn't have to compensate very much when he used his sling in the wet. He also claimed the braided hair never stretched, even though the leather stone holder did stretch a bit.

Maybe, the boy pondered, he could find a way to weave a stone holder from hair. Then no part of his sling would stretch if he used it wet.

He had all the hair he could carry by the time he reached the edge of the plateau. Here the land dropped away to the plain of the river valley below him. Ureeblay started to realize his notion of the lay of the land he'd gotten from higher up as he came down toward the valley was only partially correct. He hadn't appreciated the size of the land contours he was seeing from that distance. From above he really hadn't recognized this feature as anything more than a small embankment descending toward the Toolie. In reality, this descent at his feet was of a much larger scale.

This hillside he faced wasn't as steep as he'd encountered coming down through the wooded palisades to the pool and the elevated lawn where he'd spent the previous night. But this decline was easily three times the drop. The boy could see to his right a good travel length away across the denuded descending grade of meadowland where the huge herd of bison in their panicked flight had been split into two different bodies of rushing animals.

By the path of the destruction left behind, he could see where one group of bison had turned slightly toward the Toolie and headed down much gentler sloping terrain to the lower plain. From the point where the herd separated, a full travel length away from where Ureeblay stood now, the meadowland rose higher and higher as the slope before him rose steeper and steeper. Now down below Ureeblay, there was huge expanse of grains covering the plain, moving in undulating waves with the breeze coming down the valley of the Toolie.

Well, Ureeblay corrected himself, the breeze was affecting the grain growing further away from the base of his plateau. The grain for a quarter of a quarter of a travel length out from the base of the hill below him had been flattened and crushed by the stampede. Where the creek came out of the trees at the bottom of this wooded drop and crossed through the trampled devastation, once again the low banks of its bed were torn up and leveled. There were several large stones and boulders to be seen on the lower plain, but not as many as the boy had seen through the area he had just passed. He also did not see any dead bison.

Once the streambed moved into the area of standing grain, Ureeblay could see the low banks had remained untouched, and he identified stretches of sand exposed by erosion and green grasses, growing right up to the banks of the muddy, stirred-up water. Quite a bit further out into the grain belt, along with breaks of brush and groves of trees, he could see a string of small lakes which he had thought were ponds when he had first seen them from up on the higher ground. From his vantage point now, Ureeblay could also see there were small stands of trees close to the growing creek, which was becoming wider and slower as it moved toward the Toolie.

Looking to the small lakes again, Ureeblay set the first, or if all went well, the second body of water as his goal for the rest of this day's travel. There did seem to be a ridgeline, or esker, to the Warm side of those lakes that were edged with boulder heaps. And by now his experience told him that boulder heaps could provide secure campsites if no predators were about.

He turned back to his right and he could see where the upper herd of animals had moved along the top of the plateau. This was the path taken by the moving mass of panicked terror that had swept by his pile of boulders and wrecked almost everything in front of them.

Turning around, Ureeblay was able to gaze to his left much further along the huge river valley. Through gaps in the receding canopy of trees that were growing from the high embankment he needed to descend, he could see a dust cloud. Somewhere below that cloud was the portion of the stampeding herd that had split off from the massive charge and found its way below to the lower plain.

It looked to Ureeblay as if the animals had now run themselves out. But with the intervening distance, the bison were just a blackish-brown colored mass spreading out under the slowly settling film of tan dust which was obscuring the depth of the herd.

A short distance away, the wolf trotted back and forth along the edge of the impressive wooded embankment, and to the boy she seemed to be eyeing the full, green bushes and clumps of undergrowth down the hillside with eager anticipation.

The boy looked down across the wooded green hillside to see if an advantageous way to the bottom might be apparent. He was very aware now of how easily the weight on his back could cause him to overbalance and take a tumble. Not only would that be embarrassing to his self-esteem, he could easily be injured and his equipment could be lost or broken. He chuckled to himself; it would not do for his new position as a young man of wealth to fall down because of the weight of it.

Seeing a way down to the plain below that looked to provide small trees and saplings as handholds along a faint animal trail, Ureeblay gave silent thanks to the spirits that seemed to be guiding him, and he very carefully started down.

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

Before I knew it, my after-action report was over. With all of us approaching the opened cargo hatch to the storage compartment, First Lieutenant Shellbee announced that she wanted the mess cluttering the right aisle way cleared as fast as possible. Once cleared, she said, we would start at the rear bulkhead with the donk and we would collect what we were taking to the Sitwell household as we moved to the front of the compartment.

While Krychenkov stopped just inside at the data communication terminal to upload her collection of after-action recordings, Beatrice and I moved to the front of the right aisle and hustled to pull those opened, out-of-place boxes and crates just far enough out of the way for the donk to start down the aisle. Working made me realize how beat I felt and that I was still hungry. I noticed the lighting in the compartment changing and I looked up from my half-assed clean-up job to see the Gunnery Sergeant just closing the two big hatch sections. I was surprised that I felt comfort from that one security measure. I shrugged and got back to the work at hand.

While Beatrice and I were policing up the aisle, which was mostly Anika's mess to start with, I heard my youngest wife back by the monster donk saying she was not going to reassemble that junk rifle that, I guessed, still must be in its component parts on top of the machine. She asked Ashley Shellbee to help her put the pieces back in the ragged foam slot where she'd originally gotten the junk rifle.

A little while later, I heard Shellbee tell Anika to fire up the monster donk and told her to follow along behind the cleaning crew, but not to crowd us. Bea and I were motivated to get to the end of the aisle, and we didn't move anything any further out of the way than absolutely necessary. We were about two-thirds of the way to the back bulkhead when Kiarianne Krychenkov caught up with us and lent a hand. The aisle really wasn't all that cluttered to begin with, so with Kiari's help we finished quickly.

With the donk as close to the back bulkhead as Anika could get the thing, Beatrice went into mind-bogglingly efficient, subordinate mode. Stating figures and manifest numbers without consulting her data pad, she began pointing out the ammunition that the Marines needed to collect.

First Lieutenant Shellbee got on her Heavy and made a call. The person who answered at the other end was told to schedule a contraband recovery crew for a pick-up. Shellbee gave the compartment address, where they would find all 50,000 rounds of 5.56 millimeter, M855 FMJ-8 ammunition in the compartment, and to make sure the ammo was secured back in the Barracks Block before 10-hundred Ship's time today—but not to send the crew out before 0800. Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov commented that the Marines could legally use this ammunition.

As our direct supervisor talked into her Heavy, Beatrice pulled a marker beacon out of her cargo pocket and put a bright-yellow guide-light on top of the stacked cases of that 5.56 millimeter ammo. She told the First Lieutenant she wanted all of the beacons returned as she put a beacon remote control on the ammo box near the first marker so the beacons could be released and collected for her.

Shellbee nodded her head at Beatrice, and then she told the person she was talking to there would also be nine-millimeter ammo, one disassembled and 49 assembled assault rifles, and some .40 caliber pistols also to be policed up. The First Lieutenant ordered that the recovery team was to secure any item marked with a yellow beacon, starting at the back of the right aisle, and the team was to collect the beacons along with the required contraband. Shellbee told her listener the recovery team should use the remote control on top of the ammo cases against the back bulkhead to release and turn off the marker beacons as they were collected.

Once Ashley Shellbee put her Heavy away, Anika swiveled her driver's seat around on the steering platform of the monster donk and slowly moved the beast back up the aisle to our first pick-up, the rest of the Steyr AUG assault rifles. Shellbee, Kiari, Beatrice, and I followed along behind my wounded teenaged wife's expert driving.

"As part of a military force attached to my squad, or anytime out on your own," Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov said as Beatrice walked up to the six-pack case that held the remaining AUG assault rifles, "you three must always get in the habit of cleaning your weapons as soon as tactically possible after firing them. In that way, you will always be able to rely on your weapons to function properly in critical situations."

"See," First Lieutenant Shellbee told us with a smile, "this is the reason why every officer should always listen to the recommendations of their NCOs. Anika, shut down the donk for now and let's all follow my Platoon Sergeant's advice. It's time to maintain these fine weapons that served us so well earlier. So ... who's got a cleaning kit for a pistol?"

"Ummm, Sir, there are cleaning kits here in the presentation boxes for the Colts," Beatrice said as she claimed a Steyr bullpup AUG for her own and pulled it up out of its foam cut-out by the handle that contained the electro-optical sight. She leaned the weapon against a stack of supplies next to the six-pack case, and then began examining the rest of the items in the case.

Picking up a bayonet, Bea seemed to be handling it for weight and balance, then put it back. Next she took out and opened a soft-sided zippered carrying bag designed specifically to hold and protect a Steyr AUG A901. I notice dried blood on her protective suit from both her knees down to the uppers of her boots. When she turned around, it looked like she'd sat down in some blood too. At least, I told myself, none of it was hers.

Anika climbed down off the back of the monster donk with her own assault rifle and walked over to me. I was standing in the spot where we'd prepped our assault rifles earlier. My young wife looked down thoughtfully at the canister that had held the 5.56 EHVP rounds she had loaded into the ammo magazines for her AUG before we'd hiked off to Colony Stasis Bay 3.

She carefully knelt down and scooped out the ten remaining rounds inside the canister, putting them into the top cargo pocket on the right side of her chest. Then she secured the lid, and turning around she gingerly sat down on the box and sighed. I eased myself down to the deck on my ass. My fatigue let me know this was a good thing to do. Now, if I could just get back up.

Thinking of the bloody condition of Bea's Class-Three suit, I really looked at Anika. The front of her suit was clean. The only evidence she'd seen battle was her missing belt, umbilical, and fanny power pack, as well as the wide swaths of camo-tape sealing places on her protective suit. I knew my own suit had splatters and long smears of blood on the front of it. I wondered what I might look like from the back. Ah, but Anika was here with me now, and safe, so how I appeared to others didn't matter one spit to me.

So Anika and I disarmed our AUGs by removing the magazines and ejecting the chambered rounds into a hand cupped over the ejection ports. Anika asked me to give her the other metal container of 5.56 millimeter ammo I'd used to fill my magazines originally, which was easy enough for me to do without getting off my ass.

Anika claimed ten rounds from that supply, and along with the ten loose rounds in her pocket, she started refilling the mags she'd emptied in the Stasis Bay. Walking up to us, Kiarianne convinced my youngest wife to wait until later to refill her magazines completely.

Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov pulled up a heavy wooden case near us and sat down on it. She retrieved her new Colt from its clip-on holster on the pants belt inside her combat smock, and then pulled out her service pistol from the holster on her right hip, placing them both on the top of a convenient metal container where the presentation box for her Colt was already resting.

Looking through the clear composite side of my box magazine, I discovered I'd fired 16 rounds of 5.56 back in Colony Stasis Bay Three. I un-holstered my Colt and looked at it.

One empty magazine was back in CSB-3 somewhere, I realized with a twinge from my long-instilled training at being responsible for policing-up my brass for reloading, and from never having misplaced any of my ammo magazines before. I knew Beatrice had my full spare magazine in her Colt. I released the magazine from my Colt and I discovered two rounds had been fired out of it. I cleared the round from the chamber, and then I thumbed the .45 caliber shell back into the mag.

So I'd fired 16 rounds from the AUG, plus the seven rounds fired from my first Colt magazine, plus two from the next magazine; that was 25 total rounds. I shook my head, it sure seemed like a hell of a lot more to me. On the other hand I was somehow pleased I hadn't gone crazy—well, completely—shooting my assault rifle on full auto and burned through all the 5.56 rounds I had on me either.

I started to clean both my weapons—the AUG first—without thinking again about how many times I'd fired. I was using the cleaning kit I retrieved from under the butt-plate of my assault rifle.

Anika was lovingly cleaning her AUG and left her Colt holstered. I guessed she hadn't used it. Beatrice sat down with us and slowly field stripped her chosen assault rifle, asking Anika for clues on how to break the weapon down. The four of us were joined in our firearms maintenance by the First Lieutenant, who closed our circle by sitting cross-legged on the deck between Beatrice and our Amazon NCO. She borrowed the cleaning kit from my presentation box and got out her own service pistol. I noticed it appeared that her magazine was empty when she released it from the well in the pistol grip.

"Where did you say the forty caliber ammunition is at, Mister Henderson?" First Lieutenant Shellbee asked, looking down at her empty magazine.

"Ah, I call team-building," our luscious, honey-blonde sweetheart announced, not looking up from her work as she wiped a small square of oiled-cloth along the recoil spring of her unassembled rifle. "And reasonable expectation of not being overheard by other crew or officers. Because I can tell Sergeant Krychenkov does understand. Correct?"

"Ah, that would be ... a-firmative, Beatrice – she does understand. And since you called it, team-building is now hereby in effect," First Lieutenant Shellbee said to our Hydroponics warrior as the younger woman began to reassemble her new, cleaned and lubricated assault rifle. "However, let me point out that is Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov, not Sergeant Krychenkov. If just a Sergeant were here with us ... on her sleeves she would be wearing just three chevrons over crossed rifles with no rockers or bars underneath.

"Now, this NCO as we all can see is wearing three chevrons over crossed rifles and two rockers underneath, so she is a Gunnery Sergeant. And Gunnery Sergeant is the proper military form of address. Besides, it is just plain good manners, too. Okay?"

"Yes ... ah, First Lieutenant," Beatrice said, blushing as she fit her AUG into its soft-sided zip case. "I guess it is, well ... what you said. Thank you for pointing that out to me under, you know, team building. Arrbra gets on me about that stuff all the time. But I can really appreciate the good manners part the best. Arrbra never put it that way." Bea got to her feet gracefully. She was holding her rifle bag by the double nylon handles at the center of balance on the case, where the carry handle-electro-optical sight would be located on her rifle inside.

"Good, so please remember your military courtesy from now on," Shellbee said, looking up at Beatrice with a half-grin on her face. "That is, outside of team building, which we are under at this time. After what we have gone through today, with team building called, I want all of you to call me Ashley or Shellbee, or ... you get the idea. So with that out of the way, what is on that deceptively devious mind of yours?"

"Thank you. Since you explained the error of my ways in military courtesy in a manner I can relate to, I am sure you saved me from going up on report sometime. And as far as my devious mind goes, I say we all need to loosen up here, and have fun," Beatrice told the First Lieutenant. And holding up her left hand in front of her shoulder, she turned, took three steps to the donk, and leaned her protected assault rifle against the side. Then she turned around and faced us still holding her hand up, as well as all of our attention.

"Sure, today for the first time I killed some bad guys," the honey-blonde in her protective suit said, looking slowly around at each of us, her face appearing calm as she slightly moved her hand in rhythm with her words, "and I got really horny over it— However, I got laid real good back in that cubicle when we had to work hard to defuse the Siren of Neuholm's Planet. And I could tell all of you, it was hard work there to start with—but it wasn't—" and a big grin bloomed on Bea's face.

"—yet somebody had to do it. Or Anika would have, like, exploded. And she would have taken all those innocent Marines standing around nearby with her ... So my getting laid sort of saved all of them from going on report or something equally terrible. Also today, I had a lot of fun looking through all this stuff earlier. And I have to admit to feeling sort of tired and hungry now—

"But that shouldn't mean," the honey-blonde told us and held her hand up just a bit higher before she dropped it to her side, "that we are all funned out ... you know?

"So let's try to have fun gathering up our booty, too. Okay? There is a bottle of water for hydration and a thermos of coffee as a pick-me-up in the donk. And I am sure you brought some goodies for us too, First Lu—ah, Ashley. Cause you're always looking out for your people and all.

"Now—" Beatrice said, and looked around our circle at each of us again to judge our reactions to her whole spiel, "—we could turn this into a swell scavenger hunt. Or we could moan and groan to ourselves and be sort of quiet, maybe even get down and blue as we just focus on feeling like shit and on all the work ahead of us humping this stuff into the donk before we get to go home. What do you guys choose?"

"Fucking-A—" Kiarianne Krychenkov said in a strong committed voice, almost shocking me at her choice of words, "—scavenger hunt."

"I concur," Ashley Shellbee said with a nod of her buzz-cut head. And then she grinned, making her features beautiful as her gray eyes twinkled in the low light of the compartment.

"We need to get this stuff gathered up and back to our place as soon as we can, Bea Bea," I told her, feeling responsible and self-directed again, but seeing Anika, Kiarianne, and even Ashley Shellbee trying not to grin too big. "But I vote scavenger hunt too— However, I don't think any of us wants some crewmember walking along Section Fifteen seeing us loading weapons and this much ammunition into our quarters if we can help it at all. I would rather not have to deal with rumors. Especially once word of what happened next door starts getting around."

"And" Anika said, "ah ... First Lieutenant, Ashley, what is being your, ah ... considered opinion, of what should we be taking as our own back with us? I know, as now we are investigators, you are requiring each of us to be keeping a handgun with ammunition. And the Major said I can keep this fine assault rifle as my own personal firearm, and ammunition for it. You, as our supervising officer, are directing us to maintain these weapons in security and safety in our quarters for purposes of regulations. But ... being exact—what, and how much?"