Chapter 15

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet

The First Risers of the Swongli began to show their twinkling points of lights in the clear early evening sky overhead. Ureeblay sat a few strides from his cooking fire. Sighing, he rubbed the bare skin of his back against the nicely scratchy surface of a vertical section of granite boulder. The glacial erratic was one of a huge ridge of boulders on the Warm side of the lake, making up the natural wall of ancient stones protecting the rear of his camp.

He had worked the short, fur clout, covering his butt, snuggly into the sand. Ureeblay watched the gutted, large-mouthed fish on the wooden spit he'd cobbled together roast over the deep bed of glowing coals. He was anticipating a very enjoyable evening meal of cooked fresh fish, reheated bog apple, and sweet berries. He had fresh water in his water carrier near at hand.

The sizzle of cooking juices dripping out of the opened gut of his fine, fingertip to elbow-length catch and onto the bed of coals was a wonderful sound to his young ears. Across the cooking fire the young wolf rested on a large carpet of thick grass that invaded the otherwise sandy floor of their campsite.

Earlier, near sunset, Ureeblay and the adolescent wolf had been skirting around the shore of this, the second lake they had encountered on their trek. There was an intermittent high ridge of boulders just behind the brush and tree line beyond the wide beach along their right. The boy and his honey-blonde traveling companion were halfway around the long shore on the Warm side of the lake when Ureeblay found a perfect spot for their evening shelter.

The campsite was within two stomach-high piles of stones that arched away from the glacier-stacked boulder ridge stretching along this side of the lake. The arc of piled stones reminded Ureeblay of encircling arms with a two-stride gap where the fingertips of both hands would otherwise touch. That gap faced the beach and the lake. It was ten strides from the entrance across the enclosed sand to the high-stacked cliff face of huge boulders and rocks that backed the campsite.

Ureeblay chuckled to himself, if he might want to wash his hands after eating, as his mother always insisted—well, the lake was just a long, stone's throw across the sandy beach from where his young bottom rested.

On the grass, the young wolf was industriously gnawing raw meat off the back haunch of an immature verge-deer. The wolf had brought Ureeblay's attention to the mortally wounded animal earlier in the day. It happened right after the two had reached the base of the tree- and brush-covered precipice they had descended to the undulating plain of waving grains from the desolation caused by the stampede up on the plateau.

A small, young verge-deer, overtaken by the fleeing bison and trampled, had managed to pull itself out of the way of the rest of the stampede at the base of precipice.

The young wolf had discovered the dying animal behind a stout tree trunk a few body-lengths up the steep hillside. When Ureeblay saw the wolf's jaws clamp down on the throat of the small deer, breaking its neck and putting it out of its misery, he at first didn't know what he should do.

He felt sure he already had all the meat he could carry. In fact, a few times climbing down from the plateau above, Ureeblay had almost come to grief from his easily-overbalanced burden. But as the young wolf had begun to drag the carcass of her kill along behind him through the churned ground, Ureeblay decided he needed to do something.

It was all the small honey-colored wolf could do to drag the equally small, dead deer along under her legs as she tried to follow him. She would never keep up with him dragging her prize, Ureeblay realized, and it was important that she did. They would soon clear the trampled desolation on both sides of the stirred-up creek. The high, slender stalks of grain ahead on both sides of the streambed he intended follow to the Toolie could easily hide any predators drawn to the smell of dead and dying animals up above. He and the wolf needed to put distance between the path of the destruction caused by the stampede and themselves.

Seeing the small wolf struggling with her kill, Ureeblay became aware that he now thought of his trek to the Toolie as their trek.

First, Ureeblay told himself, he had saved the young spirit wolf from the widow-snare and not taken her wondrous hide as a trophy. If she had not been the evil vine's prey, he would have been.

Then he had fed the animal from his cooked meal of flats pig. She had followed him to his camp beside the waterfalls and received more food from his supply. Ureeblay thoughtfully pondered the development of his relationship with this animal.

The boy recognized for the first time, as he had watched the young wolf fight the drag of the carcass of her kill over the churned up ground, that her confrontation with the river skunk had certainly saved his life again. If he had continued his hike along the creek without stopping as he did, where he did, he would have been too far from the shelter of the boulder pile when the stampede had swept by.

Trying to hide behind the nearest thick tree trunk, he told himself, would only have put off a terrible death for a few terrified moments. He would not have been able to climb any low limbs with all his gear on and there would have been no way for him to take it off in time to save his life. And now, since he and young wolf had taken shelter with each other in the cramped stone hollow during the loud, dusty, horrifying chaos of the stampede, Ureeblay had to admit, as unheard of as it was, their relationship was even closer. She was not wary of him at all now.

Not considering the unique color of her eyes or that of her fur, this wolf acted as no other wolf, except perhaps in the tales of the storytellers recounting some legend in which animals could talk to each other and taught the first members of the various clans of his people valuable lessons.

Ureeblay further noticed that as they climbed down to the plain of grains, several times while picking her way ahead of him, the young wolf had turned and caught his attention and seemed to point out where he might lose his footing on a loose rock or a semi-exposed tree root. Once he had made it to the bottom safely, the young wolf brushed up against his legs with her tail wagging, almost as if she were happy they were safely down from the heights with the wide plain ahead of them.

With all those points considered, Ureeblay had taken the time to offload his pack of wealth. Once it was free of his shoulders along with his meat and water carriers, he had slowly approached the wolf and her prize kill. He had been surprised at her response. Instead of growling at him and trying to protect her meat, as the wild river skunk had done with the fish, the wolf had yapped eagerly at him. With her tail wagging the young wolf had come bounding around him. Almost, it had seemed to Ureeblay, as if the animal was excited and filled with pride at what she had done in killing the small deer.

Talking words of encouragement to the wolf, Ureeblay reached for the small deer and the young wolf allowed him to slit the throat of her kill, to bleed the carcass out. The young wolf then crowded right beside him as he worked to gut the deer, and then cut off both of its rear haunches. He fed the small warm heart and liver to the young hunter, as was the custom of his people when a new hunter made their first kill of consequence. The juvenile animal wolfed down the treats and then actually tried to lick the side of his face. Since she'd already done that to him up in the stone shelter that protected them from the stampede, he wasn't shocked and figured it was something wolves did.

When the first haunch had come free, the adolescent wolf dragged it back from where Ureeblay worked. The second haunch Ureeblay had taken back to his pack frame, leaving the rest of damaged carcass behind. He had found a way to secure it to the rest of the fresh hide sections, his wrapped bison meat, and the bundle of swamp willow sticks and skewers.

Then Ureeblay had returned to the side of the carcass. With the wolf quiet a few steps off to his right, also looking at the remains of the deer on the churned up ground, the boy had said the words of thanks out loud to the spirit of the small deer. He thanked the deer for giving its life that Ureeblay and the young wolf could eat of its flesh and live. A feeling of correctness had come over the boy making him smile as he cleaned his hands, arms, and blades in an exposed pocket of clean sand back from the destroyed streambed.

Once Ureeblay had all of his equipment back in place on his shoulders and around his body, and with her other small haunch of deer meat clamped in her jaws, the boy and his unlikely traveling companion had started hiking again along the slightly less muddy creek. They had followed the somewhat meandering water feature the rest of the sunny day as they traveled through the seemingly endless fields of waving, ripening grains.

Sometime the young wolf would carry her treasure ahead and then wait for Ureeblay to catch up. Sometimes she would follow behind him until he would slow down for her. Sometimes there were stands of trees along one or both sides of the stream; sometimes there were thickets of brush they skirted. Even with the load she carried in her jaws, now that they were free of the stampede wasteland, they had made relatively good time as far as Ureeblay was concerned.

Ureeblay had quickly woven a grass mat envelope three hands wide and two hands high, as they slowly traveled along a huge patch of a berry canes close to the almost clear running creek. The boy had been able to fill his mat envelope with sweet, fat, firm, dark-purple and blue-black berries while eating his fill as they moved toward the Toolie.

Whenever he tossed a berry to the young wolf, she just rolled her eyes and put her small haunch of deer down on the ground. She would pant for a while with her pink tongue hanging out of the right side of her mouth. Once she caught her breath, maybe after drinking from the creek, she clamped her forearm-length of haunch back into her jaws. Then she followed after Ureeblay as he slowly moved along the berries, continuing to pick as he went.

Later, Ureeblay relaxed by his cooking fire, smelling succulent roasting fish. He also kept an eye on his meat-smoking fire to his left. They had made camp before dark. Finding a dry pile of accumulated storm-washed limbs and sticks back a ways on the lake sand where another much smaller, ankle-deep creek emptied into the water, the boy had collected four loads and brought them back to the campsite where he made two fires. His meat-smoking fire was up against the inside of a granite boulder, part of the left arm that encircled their campsite.

As the evening came on, he constructed a larger rack using stout lengths from the driftwood pile to smoke and dry the second small haunch of verge-deer venison as well as the first batch of the bison meat he'd cut up and skewered. He had found another patch of course-sage and also a really big, leafy frenal bush that he used to add smoke to his curing process—more frenal than sage; this was bison after all. The haunch of tender venison would be delicious with the addition of that spicy frenal flavor.

Ureeblay had decided they would stay a few days here in this place. This was a fine defensible stone shelter. He had his spirit-gift of the bison meat to process. Besides what already was on his drying racks over the fire, there remained three large pieces he must finish cutting up to smoke. There were good firewood stocks available around this clear, sandy lake. He would take two days to completely deal with all the meat he had gathered. He would have an opportunity to work on the hides, too.

There were plenty of wide bladed, long-fibered grasses about that would make superior woven matting. While he was waiting for his first racks of meat to smoke, he would construct another mat to wrap around his apparatus to hold in the smoke. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would weave the sleeping mat and cover he had considered making before.

The quality grass he found around the lake might make the weaving almost waterproof. While tending his smoking fire he would have the time to make his weavings as tight as possible, so he should accomplish some of his best work, he told himself. He had paid attention to his sister as she wove mats for their mother's shelter. He wished he knew the secrets to weaving waterproof mats – his mother and sister knew, but he did not.

At the time, Ureeblay would not let his older sister do something better than he could ... well he had been willing to let her excel at carrying water. Learning to weave grass had been a matter of his childish pride. But that pride had not extended to weaving freestanding baskets from reeds. However, all his weaving stopped once his friends made fun of him for doing women's work.

Another point for staying camped here longer, Ureeblay told himself as his supper sizzled again, were the long, fat and lazy large-mouthed fish crowding the gravel point where the deepening creek emptied into the lake. There were flat boulders strewn along that spit of land and into the edge of the lake. That was where Ureeblay stretched out on one nicely situated granite monster and, with just his head exposed over the side, he studied the fish down in the clear lake water as they waited for food to float by.

With a bit of pork on the fishing hook his sire had given him, Ureeblay had waited for dinner to strike. The boy had also spent that time studying the way the fish used their fins. When just sculling in place, the collapsed side fins extended forward and then the spines would open almost as the boy could spread out his thumb and fingers on his hand, he had noticed. But fish fins had those tough transparent membranes between each spine that captured the water and allowed the fish to pull itself forward through the lake water.

Ureeblay saw that when a fish wanted to dart forward rather than hold its place against the current, the fish would thrash its powerful tail. With the back fin fully extended and pushing against the water around it, the fish would flash forward. And that was what his meal had done in taking his bait.

The boy smiled at the roasting fish on his spit as he stretched out wide the fingers and thumb on his right hand and then relax them, thinking on the structure and purpose of the fins he'd studied in action earlier. He turned the fish to roast evenly and he sat back down on the comfortable sand cross-legged, Ureeblay found himself stretching out the toes on his bare feet.

A thought hit him and he started to chuckle, disturbing the relatively quiet evening around the fine campsite. Across the fire in the grass, the young wolf stopped her leisurely eating and looked up at him from the remains of her haunch. Her blue eyes leveled on Ureeblay as she tilted her head to one side and he heard her make a soft urrouph noise in her throat. For all he knew, it sounded to the boy that she was asking him what was so funny.

"Oh, Girl," Ureeblay said to her across the roasting fish and the crackling sacred fire, "I was just thinking, if I had skin between my all of my fingers and toes, like fins, I could catch the water with my hands and feet and pull and push myself across the Toolie floating on any old log I found. Now, would that not be a handy trick?" he asked her as he held up his right hand and demonstrated his point by spreading his fingers.

The young wolf cocked her head to the other side and looked at him attentively, almost as if she were awaiting his next question or statement.

"Are you planning to cross the Toolie with me?" he asked the wolf as if she understood every word he spoke.

Her head came up higher above her shoulders and then quickly pushed forward, almost in a nod and she spoke, "ruff!"

"Well," Ureeblay laughed out loud, "ask a blunt question ... get a blunt reply."

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

As she stepped away from the table and the kitchenette counter behind her, the women gathered close around my first wife. Juliet calmed down enough to begin talking softly to her friends. It was obvious to me that everyone had eaten all we wanted of our wonderful meal, so I began cleaning up the table. With quiet words between themselves, and stopping first in the kitchenette so Anika and Beatrice could gather the unused cooking supplies, the seasonings, and herbs, they slowly started to escort Juliet back to our new suite.

I walked them to the hatchway and watched them go. As the five women walked sedately along the cream-colored passageway towards our home, I called after them that I would clean up and I would see them in a little while. I heard five individual voices come back up to me, thanking me for being thoughtful, which made me feel appreciated. Since I'd learned at a young age to never underestimate the power of women grouped together for a cause, I was confident Juliet was in good hands.

I admitted to myself, right at that moment, the only thing I could think to do, even to hope to make her feel better, would be to hold her in my arms. And if I did that, I suspected I would remain mute, offering Juliet only dumb commiseration. As I could hear by their voices fading down the passageway, what Juliet seemed to need most, was to talk ... with other women.

From seeing the effortless way that the two of them reacted in offering comfort to Juliet, I felt First Lieutenant Shellbee and Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov had dealt with similar situations in the past. I realized the reason the two of them were so effective was that they could merge and become part of the entire team. It was not just Ashley being the one giving the orders, or Kiarianne being the one seeing to it their squad carried her orders out effectively. For successful soldiers, or women in this case, it was the same, I told myself. From experience, I knew that outside a military context guys could often be contentious in groups before a pecking order was established, often even after.

I easily trusted these women now, as a group – my Grand Pater having drilled into me as a boy how to recognize when I was out of my league. So I worked diligently to close-up the remaining salad and casserole containers that I would take back to our quarters. Cleaning off the dirty dishes and utensils, I scraped the uneaten food off of our supper plates into the scrap container for the kitchenette and put that into the recycling system. Then I put the dirty dishes into the trays of the ultrasonic cleaning unit under the counter and started the process.

Using actual cork corks, I stoppered the remaining bottle of white wine, and did the same with the bottle of red wine used with the oil to make the salad dressing. I put the empty bottle into the recycler. After I checked the dish-cleaning unit, I put a special cleaning and disinfecting solution on one of the Ship-provided clean-up cloths to wipe down all of the surfaces we had used, starting with the table.

Once the ultrasonic machine finished cleaning the dishes, I had the clean pots, dishes, utensils, as well as the wine packed up into my wheeled hamper with the sealed food containers secured to it, and I was ready to take everything back home.

I had to admit, after a long hot shower and a good meal, I was feeling much better and more alert than when I gave up that wonderful bucket seat and crawled down off the monster donk earlier.

I trundled everything back into Compartment 001. As I entered I was happy to see my Juliet sitting in one of the two desk chairs now available in suite C001-C003, while Ashley was sitting in the other. To my left, Juliet sat sideways to me. She was leaning slightly back in the comfortable articulated chair with her bare feet resting on the footlocker at the foot of the bunk and her back toward the counter top along the back of the left bulkhead.

Ashley was in the second chair that someone wheeled in from Anika's old quarters. The attractive woman in her gray coveralls sat to the right of the footlocker with her back to the head with her elbows on the armrests. Anika was on the left side of the bunk, sitting with her back against the padded headboard.

Kiarianne, her buzz-cut blonde head resting on a tall stack of pillows, stretched out in her olive-green tee and camo combat trousers and was barefoot in the center of the bunk. I was somewhat taken aback to see Beatrice snuggled up next to the Amazon NCO's left side.

I was surprised at the comfortable way the three were bunched together on the big bunk. But now that we were name friends I guessed that was allowable. Or else Kiarianne had gotten on the bunk and then the two girls had climbed up after her.

I could tell I was walking into the middle of a relaxed group conversation, which my arrival didn't disrupt in the slightest. It was comforting to me, as well as disconcerting to my paranoid ass-wipe, that I could actually sense the five women's warm acceptance and welcome of my presence in the room. However, the paranoid ass-wipe in me hoped it wasn't just the response extended to a trusted, loyal household servant.

"Might I accompany your household?" was the first part of the conversation I actually heard. It was Kiari addressing her question to Juliet, I sussed out.

"I still hope I might get to meet Casper finally," the statuesque NCO said from the middle of the bunk, "before going to Sick Bay to visit our honored wounded tomorrow."

"Casper is a rogue and a scamp," Beatrice giggled with a dismissive wave of her left hand, and she moved her honey-blonde head around against the crook of our Amazon warrior's left shoulder and upper arm. "He is such a rotten boy, even for a cat."

As I moved the wheeled hamper back behind Juliet and toward the left bulkhead and the cabinets where I kept it under the utility counter, I saw the side of Juliet's face as she began to respond to what Beatrice said.

"So... how is it?" Juliet asked trying to still sound aggrieved, "that I am learning there are two cats onboard the Ship, a male and a female?"

"Oh—" Anika sighed in an accented, bored voice, selling her nonchalant set-up like some multi-Grand Nova winning actor, "—yes ... and four more in stasis...

" ... and, if Arrbra is accepting my proposal ... and finding means to include such ... in scope of her research ... then there will be KITTENS!"

And that set all of the women off, again; about missing the companionship of a pet out here in the Big Black. Then, they began relating the antics of a favorite cat left behind. That moved on to how just petting a cat and hearing them purr was so peaceful and calming.

I just concentrated on putting leftovers into the fridge and the hamper under the counter in the cabinet and the wine on the counter top and me being invisible. I did not want to be drawn into this conversation.

Because I knew if Anika found out I'd been strongly attached to several fine felines in the past, and if kittens did come about on this Mission, Anika would not rest until she had lured a heartbreakingly cute ball of fur with needle-sharp, tiny teeth and claws into our suite somehow. Inevitably, when some officer became involved and ordered Anika to give the kitten back, I was actually afraid of how she would respond. I just did not want to see her hurt by having one of the objects of her innocent desire so close that she could hold it but not be allowed to bring it home with her to keep.

And if it took more than a few days for other people to realize where the kitten had gotten to, the little thing would probably end up sleeping on my pillow just above my head, resting one front paw on my check until I got up in the morning to feed it. And even though there would be three other people in the bunk just as capable, I knew kittens always seemed to end up with the warm pad of their paw on my cheek.

Then, seemingly out of the Big Black, it happened. Of course, I came out of my ponderings and paid attention as I leaned back against the counter two steps from Anika's side of the bunk, off to Juliet's left.

"So my loving, Juliet," Anika asked from her lazy recline, with ulterior motives thick in her vocal tones and accent, "I am sure it is getting now to that time of evening. And, I know you have gone through so much today. But I remember a certain head of household making mention this morning of possibility that you are to be paying off this IOU ... lost at poker table ... which so many people are talking about through out this fine Ship lately."

The three women not involved in this conversation perked up immediately, just as I had, maybe realizing we were all balancing on the sharp edge and wondering which way the Polka Fireball intended to push.

"If so much speculation were gold ... I could become rich from what I am knowing..."

"Oh-Kay!" Ashley Shellbee crowed, sitting upright in her chair and starting to laugh. "I didn't ever—really—intend to bring this up, Juliet. But since it is out there now, what in the Sixty-Ninth Hell did you wager, young lady?"

"Sixty-nine is not hell," Kiarianne casually remarked from her back on the bunk, immediately elbowed in the ribs by a smirking Beatrice, who started laughing outrageously.

"Ahh ... or, so I have heard," the Amazon in olive-green tee and camo trousers added and brought up her right arm up and covered her face with her forearm, the folded crook of her arm and her bicep and causing her elbow to point to the rear bulkhead behind the bunk over her buzz-cut head.

At the same time, Kiarianne Krychenkov squeezed Beatrice to her with her powerful left arm, trying to restrict the honey-blonde's range of motion and keep the squirming, laughing young woman from tickling her. I was surprised that the Amazon NCO was allowing two women on detached duty under her nominal charge to be so friendly with her. Somehow, First Lieutenant Shellbee, acting as she had from our first meeting, didn't surprise me with her attitude toward my entire household.

But, I did remind myself, with all of the Marines I was getting to know, the generic concept I'd had of what, and who, a Marine was, was rapidly changing. My brother being a Marine hadn't seemed to count before in changing my general perception, for some reason. I mean, he was and always would be my brother. It just so happened, he'd joined the Marines.

In her chair to my right, I saw Juliet was blushing deep red and still had not moved a muscle in response to Ashley Shellbee's question.

"Face it," Shellbee told Juliet, her voice still full of glee. "That IOU is legendary now. Won from the most beautiful and glamorous woman on the Ship over a hand of cards by the Ship's Uber-Geek. Details! You can trust me; as an officer, I would never divulge the confidences shared during a girl-talk session ... really. I am serious. You can trust me."

"Do you realize—" Beatrice giggled from the bunk, still half-heartedly trying to struggle free from Krychenkov's iron-like arm lock, "—how many credits you could auction that slip of paper for?"

"Juliet," Kiarianne spoke up from under her right elbow, still hiding her face, "I will give you an amazing New Colt Arms Commemorative forty-five caliber pistol, still in the original wooden presentation box, which has never been fired. And I will be willing to surrender to you this treasure, just to look upon this fabled IOU note for three minutes ... in relatively bright lighting, however."

That set Beatrice laughing again. I noticed Anika sitting back, seemingly pleased at the reactions around the room to her inciting words.

Ashley Shellbee calmed down and leaned forward away from the back of her chair, and put her elbows on the wide knees of her off-duty coveralls. She gave Juliet a long speculative look.

Shit, my paranoid ass-wipe muttered, we are dealing with an empath here, folks!

"I will intercede on your behalf with Major Luce, to be put on detached duty with our team ... but only if you reveal all the details of the IOU, and back them up by showing me that little slip of paper and ... any other evidence of what you tell me that might result from paying this IOU—which, from what Anika just said, Jameson has yet to collect."

Shit, my paranoid ass-wipe muttered again, we are dealing with an empath.

I saw a shiver go though Juliet's magnificent body as she sat back in her articulated desk chair.

Still leaning up against the utility counter and sort of enjoying seeing the women going at it as if I wasn't there at all, I knew I trusted First Lieutenant Ashley Shellbee and Gunnery Sergeant Kiarianne Krychenkov. But I didn't like the idea of anybody outside the household knowing our business. Well, my business—especially the sexual details concerning the IOU my first wife owed me. That was to be for our pleasure, our enjoyment, our memories, our vid collection, our bonding. It was to be our secret. I thought. I hoped.