Chapter 5

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

It took longer than the Ureeblay thought it would to sever the main trunk of the widow-snare. When he’d cut a third of the way through, the vines started to thrash about so much the juvenile wolf was lifted off its right side a hand-span and then thumped back to the grass-covered peat with another muzzled terrified yelp. The vines twitched and shuddered for the next hand of spear-thrusts, while the boy sawed the razor-sharp flint edge through the green-brown hide-like bark.

The greenish-black thick sap oozed at first and then something broke inside the thing and the stuff flowed out like a stomach or large bladder of fresh water spilled on the ground. And the vines relaxed their death grip on the small wolf.

With a satisfying snap, the last of the bark parted close to the ground under his flint spear tip and the deed was done. The boy discovered he was shaking as he stepped back away from the oozing mess with both of his spears.

Ureeblay hurried to the stream and thrust both of his spear heads into the rushing water to clean them off, even though only one had touched the wretched plant. Luckily, he saw, the nasty sap washed off quickly as he rid his flint heads of the filth. When he was happy with his cleaning, he checked each flint edge and the shrunken rawhide bindings for any more of the sap. He observed none and there were no lingering smells, which had also worried the boy.

Now, he asked himself, what was he going to do next? He walked back to his spear-thrower, his quiver, and his pig carcass. He put his left-hand spear back into the quiver and picked up his thrower. The smell of the flats-pig won out of all the competing activities he could think of.

With three bog apple bushes to harvest, a carcass to clean, and a bound-up small juvenile wolf to deal with, the boy decided to take the rest of the day and do everything right. He admitted to himself he was feeling safer here in this terrace than he’d felt at any time since he’d first climbed out onto the big, long floating log. Yes, that log which he and his friends thought had been hung up by the circle of its bare roots against the river bottom. He couldn’t now believe he had been willing to try and cast for one of the huge sturgis fish slowly swimming up the wide deep-blue river to spawn on a dare.

The bog apples could wait, he decided; they had waited at least a few years, as far as the boy could tell. The wolf with the fur that wasn’t black, or brown, or gray, or even the rare white; and with the weirdly-beautiful blue eyes; well, it certainly was going to await its fate. But the flats-pig, Ureeblay told himself; that had to be dealt with first.

The boy took the pig to near the stream. Taking out his razor sharp skinning flint from his travel pouch and kneeling down beside the pig he made the gentle, shallow incision from just before the anus up to the pig’s throat, opening it up. And then he really went to work using another flint utility edge from his travel pouch, even if he could feel the eyes of the young wolf on his back as he labored.

When he was done he had the intestines in a stinking coil by the bank. The stomach was emptied out into the stream and had been equally smelly until he had washed it out twice. Then the boy cleaned out the intestines and opened the large end under the water and let the flow of the stream flush the inside of the long tube clean. The length of the intestines moved under the water for about three body lengths down the creek as he held it open to finish washing it out in the current.

After he was happy with his effort, he rolled up the intestines. He next carefully removed the hide from the carcass with his small, sharp serrated utility flint which fit in his hand so well. The organs to be eaten were washed off and placed on the pigskin.

There was the pig head looking up at the mid-afternoon sky with blank eyes. The boy wouldn’t try to get to the brains. The rest of the unwanted pig, lungs and viscera, he tossed into the stream to be carried away. He took an arms length rawhide cord from his cordage collection in his travel pouch and tied an end to each of the hind legs of the carcass, through the tendon.

On the other side of the water upstream a ways, the boy had seen a forearm length of bare wood, maybe two fingers in diameter, which seemed to have been deposited in the grass back just a bit from the streambed with the last receding flood of rainwater. He waded mid-calf deep across the flow of the stream, the peat bottom sucking between his bare toes. The water was wet and cold but not enough to make his ankles ache with the chill once he returned with the driftwood and knelt by his work in the sunshine.

The boy used his weight to push his anchor stick deep into the peat of the bank at an angle up stream. Then he wrapped the rawhide, tied between the back legs of the skinned, headless carcass around the base of the firm thick stick. Putting the carcass to cool in the flowing stream, he watched to make sure the drag of the body didn’t pull the long peg loose. It didn’t.

The boy wondered where the driftwood had originally come from. He hadn’t seen any sign of trees on the swale the way he’d traveled down it. But there was the stunted swamp-willows he’s seen just down the stream bed, so it could be possible for a few small trees to be growing along the bank upstream somewhere. And he hadn’t followed the course of the stream, choosing as direct a course toward the Toolie as possible.

The driftwood, he told himself, was just one more of today’s miracles of the spirits.

The boy decided he needed to look closer at the other miracle found along with the flats-pig, the three bog apple bushes, the fantastically shaded coat and eyes of the snared small wolf, and the dead widow-snare vines, and the stand of stunted swamp-willows. But walking even that short distance, he would take his spear-caster and a shaft. Just to be safe.

Now armed, the boy walked down between the sunny grassy bank of the stream and the dead widow-snare and the bog apple bushes, while the still trussed-up small wolf following his every movement but no longer growling at him. He noticed the skinny animal was breathing much easier now. But it had given up trying to wiggle loose.

The wolf had used its free left front paw and leg to drag itself away from the bulk of the main trunk of the widow-snare. But the wolf had only managed to pull itself two hard-won body lengths away before the long vine around its leg, neck and jaws had stopped any further escape. That vine had grown around the base of the bog apple bush furthest from the stream. And when the wolf reached the end of what slack there had been in that length of creeper, that was far as the surprisingly-colored dark honey-blonde animal could get.

Going down stream in the sunshine the boy started to relax. It was the first time he’d felt so relaxed since he’d noticed he wasn’t able to comfortably see at least a quarter of a travel length in all directions around him as the landscape of the swale had deteriorated with its increased grade toward the valley of the Toolie. He felt as if a weight, and not just the flats-pig, was off his growing shoulders.

He almost started to whistle, until he reminded himself he was trying to get away from the Hurstmon he’d thieved from. He felt sure his trip through the bog had caused them to find firmer ground. And he had never seen more than five on his trail at any one time, when he had seen them. Ureeblay hoped that those five were the only pursuit following him. He started paying attention to all of his senses again and looking around at the green head high vale he was traveling down.

And there ahead of him, just before the stream cut back to the right and rounded a small bend, the boy inspected one more bounty of this day’s marvels. The stand of stunted swamp-willows started right near the stream bank and grew back to the steep bank up to the grassy terrace above. He saw the thickest of the willow stand was only three fingers in diameter. And for some reason it seemed that about half of the stand of the stunted yellowish-white barked thicket were dead and shedding long thin sections of bark and exposing bits of the dry fuzzy inner bark!

Here in one place was the almost perfect tinder and a good fuel for starting the sacred fire!

Not only that, he could also craft frames to hang and dry his pork after he cut it into slices, or jerked the long muscles.

He was able to break off a grand supply of dead dry straight willow trunks. They were no more than sapling size, it was true, and none were longer than his height and a half. But with each one he had tinder, firewood, and frame wood. It took him four trips to retrieve the big bundles he broke off. And he hadn’t even made a dent in the available standing dead wood.

The boy could picture the two frames he wanted to manufacture in his mind’s eye. He could bind them together with fresh cut pig hide thongs. Each would be as wide as his shoulders and would come up to his mid-thighs.

There would be a hand of cross lengths from side to side. There would be two hand-lengths left bare at the bottom of each so the uprights could be pushed into the peat. That way the frames would stand-up partially on their own. Ureeblay would put two or three cross racks between them, depending on how much sliced pig meat he got out of the carcass. He’d dig a shallow fire pit between the two racks and after he’d slice a third of the carcass up, he would build there the first sacred fire his frozen lightning would produce for him. And when the sacred flame was eating his firewood offering between the bases of the frames, he would finish thin slicing the meat.

The boy could easily see it, with the frames and the rack hung full of impaled thin sliced hand-lengths of pork, and the organs spitted closer to the flames, he would finish cleaning out the stomach and intestines. He could then take breaks to turn his roasting meats.

He could also see in his mind’s eye that he would take the time from the messy cleaning to partially harvest the roots of one of the bog apple bushes. Cooked bog apple was the best tasting food he could remember ever eating. Well, except for steamed bog apple. Maybe it was baked bog apple. Well, with all the bog apples that he thought he would be able to dig up, he told himself, he could compare cooking methods. He would go back to the stand of swamp-willows and find a good digging stick, even if he had to cut a green one using one of his flint utility blades.

Ureeblay knew he would have to weave a big, grass mat basket as a carrier to pack off what was appearing to be his almost indecent riches. Maybe he might need two—a smaller one for the meat, and a much larger one for the apples. Both would be quickly put together and make-do, as his mother would call the work, but that couldn’t be helped. He didn’t want to turn this gift of the spirits into several days of labor. He knew that after he’d smoked the meat for a while today, in a few days he would have to smoke the meat again. Good jerky usually took at least a full day and night over a smoking fire to preserve properly, and he didn’t want to waste any of this bounty from the spirits.

But he did hope against hope that he would have so many bog apples that he would have to weave a large mat carrier to hold all of them as well as a good sized mat carrier for his smoked pork. But, because all of this was a gift from the spirits Ureeblay did intend to plant at least three, if not four, small bog apples further down stream from the widow-snare roots so the sky spirit could raise up more of this wonderful blessing in later seasons for others who might pass this way.

But before any of that could happen he had to gather bower bird grass he’d seen on the other side of the stream for weaving.

A boy’s work was never done, Ureeblay told himself.

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

I came out of the Gym locker room in my flip-flops, wearing my white gi, and very uncertain about what was going to happen. I held my Heavy in my hand per First Lieutenant Shellbee’s directions on carrying protocol.

I had to admit it, I was nervous. Hell, I was skittish, as I quickly looked around at the Marines coming back into the Gym after cleaning up from the PT session. Even though I was distracted, I was still aware that on the sides of the Heavy I could feel a small grid of sharp little points pricking my skin from the micro-cones on this model.

Earlier, I had gotten just a glimpse through the milling Marines of the backs of the two friends First Lieutenant Shellbee had been talking to as I headed for the locker room at the end of PT to change. One friend was really tall—tall and big—and female, and the other was a short guy, but very powerful looking. At the time, I’d been in a hurry and I didn’t connect those two with what was scheduled for me next.

I’d stayed away from the gang shower stall crowded with naked laughing Marines under the ultrasonic emitters. I had used a single ultrasonic emitter stall to get rid of the sweat that had poured out of me when I had joined about two dozen of the Marine detachment stationed on the Ship for physical training. I was proud I hadn’t puked. It had been close though.

Emitters did the job of cleaning, but the lack of flowing water on bare skin left a lot to be desired. First, you stood inside the emitter stall between the opposing banks with your skin tingling. You ran a cloth over your body to remove the sweat and primary grime being loosened by the ultrasonics. It often took two passes and a second cloth.

Then, you apply the treated wipes used to rub over your bare skin for the final rinse. The wipes gave you a warm tingling feeling while the emitters evaporated the thin coating of fluid the wipes leave behind. That was a bit invigorating, but water beat it; hands down. Emitters still left your scalp feeling oily if your hair was more than an inch or two long.

Now my body felt clean but my scalp felt oily. That was another reason a lot of people cropped their hair short. I knew that was the final indication I needed my hair trimmed short again. And my hair was about the only part of my body not in a state of rebellion. My body felt like pounded shit from my first experience of the Terrible Twenty. I knew that a daily regimen of the T20 would physically make me a new man. Or kill the old one.

I was actually glad that neither Juliet nor Anika had wanted to come to the Gym with me. I’d contacted them both using my new Heavy POC, sending them texts after I’d departed Two Deck at the end of my duty watch. I told them about going to the PT class and invited them to meet me.

Both of them replied back by text; letting me know of other plans that precluded working out today. Juliet had let me know that she would meet me at my quarters at 1200 hours and we would eat after that. Anika’s text message stated, in better Fedenglish than she spoke, that she had another four-hour remedial class. She said she was looking forward to seeing me when she got back to her quarters after 1200 hours and that she was hoping there was going to be another sleepover.

I slowly made my way over toward the sparring mats. On the other side of the matting, Shellbee was standing in her white gi, facing me. She wore a black belt around her trim waist. There were four small white bands on the right end of her belt. I knew those ranking marks meant she was a fourth degree dan in some form of martial arts—but in what discipline? I stopped at the edge of the mat and thought about it.

In Koh Doh Keewa, my discipline, all practitioners wore a white belt. The old Earth Korean symbols for pass by in peace were embroidered at both ends of my stiff waist cinch. Only the color of the thread used denoted the ranking of the wearer.

My belt symbols were embroidered using a metallic-green thread, called Green Dragon. Although, at my last proficiency exam before this Mission, which I had passed without any difficulty, the master in charge at the school I’d happened by on shore leave had become infuriated while filling out the final paperwork when he had discovered I was in ExServ. He had almost demoted me to a waist cinch embroidered with Gold Tiger thread; because he knew he could not totally strip me of more than one ranking. He had screamed as he threw the papers at me, that if he had the power, I would not wear even a blank white waist cinch ever again

He had certainly failed the pass by in peace maxim of my discipline. I knew these three Marines did not plan on allowing any of the four of us here on the mats today to pass by in peace from this point on.

I took a deep breath and cleared my mind. Focusing on First Lieutenant Shellbee again, I could see about two-finger widths of olive-green tee shirt at the open collar of her white gi. Even barefoot, my supervising officer looked sexy and attractive in a tallish lethal kind of way. I became aware that it was becoming hard for me to take my eyes off her, let alone pay close attention to my surroundings. But with another deep breath, I managed.

Shellbee was talking to the Amazon Marine and the surprisingly short guy. Both wore a white gi. Their backs were turned part way to me. I saw a black belt cinched around each of their waists. Enough of the tips of both belts extended past their sides and into my view that I could not help but notice the six white bands that denoted their level of attainment in whatever disciplines they followed.

I wondered if Shellbee was still wearing the thin cotton panties she’d described to me back in our secure duty station.

“Here he is now,” Shellbee said, nodding her head in my direction.

Nothing to do for it now, I told myself, but to go meet my new makers. So, I started across the mats toward the three.

The Amazon and short guy turned to face me. Shit, I thought, a jolt hitting my system that bordered on nausea. They were the two Marine NCOs I’d seen nod at Merchanni when we’d been walking down the passageway on the way to inform the Captain about the additional Trellaway crap we’d found in the Supply Department inventory database. And the Amazon was the killing machine I’d seen taking apart a big Marine in this very Gym once. This was not good.

“Mister Sitwell,” First Lieutenant Shellbee called to me as I approached my possible doom, and most certainly a maiming. “This buzzed-blonde, is Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov. And the bald scholar next to Krychenkov here is Gunnery Sergeant Moanauer. Everybody in the barracks refers to them as the Ministers of Pain ... You will learn to think of them as Kry and Moan. Because that is exactly what they will have you doing. So rejoice! You’ve only one life to give in the line of duty. And these two have agreed to be here starting today to make sure any bastard that tries to take yours pays a heavy if not mortal fee for the chance.”

“I know of you,” Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov said, her voice rich and low as a grin came to her wide mouth and full lips that balanced her handsome face. It was the kind of grin that in no way approached her wide-set, golden-brown eyes.

“This skinny-assed geek,” Officer Shellbee announced to both NCOs, “is Grade Five Sitwell. He is a code monkey; and ... not-so-fresh meat on the mats.”

“Koh Doh Keewa?” Gunnery Sergeant Moanauer asked me, in a surprisingly soft voice as he conveyed his amazement and disgust. He sounded like he’d rather have heard I’d been taking ballet since I was six-years-old. There was close to a tell-me-it-ain’t-so look in his pinched, brown eyes.

“Koh Doh Keewa is an almost exclusively defensive discipline,” Moanauer complained.

Well duh, I thought; hoping I didn’t transmit my feeling though my eyes and piss him off—but if I had; too late now.

“We’ll have a lot of work to do,” Moanauer sighed, shaking his head, “if we’re to redirect some of his muscle-memory responses and get him beyond his defensive situational awareness. We’ll need to develop offensive instincts and moves, too.”

At the moment I found I was developing the classic, ‘I’m standing right here, and I can hear everything you’re saying about me’ syndrome. I found myself getting just a little bit irritated. Part of me knew from experience, that irritation was not a response that had survival value for a geek. But right now, fuck-it; I didn’t care.

“You have trained with the blades in Koh Doh Keewa?” the Amazon asked, sounding relaxed and maybe hopeful.

“Yes,” I said, surprised the NCO knew about Koh Doh Keewa blade training. “Yes, I have...”

“I will get practice wands and masks,” Krychenkov mentioned, moving like a huge, undulating regal cat across the mats.

“It’s been a while...” I told her retreating back, realizing it had been a while since I’d sparred with training blades—my last proficiency exam actually.

She looked over her tall shoulder at me. “It will come back ... or not.”

“Hey,” Shellbee said, with the barely repressed glee evident in her voice. “I told you he was fresh meat for you two, but leave a little something to show up for duty. We don’t want any more complaints from the bankers on this Ship about damaging their command structure, or the peons that do all of their grunt work for them. They might try and make us get off and walk.”

“If I may, First Lieutenant?” Gunnery Sergeant Moanauer asked First Lieutenant Shellbee, and inclined his head toward her.

“By all means,” Shellbee said, bowing to the short NCO. “On the mats I am yours to command.”

“I’ve heard the barracks talk,” the bald short NCO said, “Marines who’ve sparred with him. I think, First Lieutenant, it will be more instructional, and safe, if the two of you spar while Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov retrieves her equipment. That way I can better evaluate what we have to work with.”

Moanauer held out both of his hands. When Shellbee pulled her Heavy out of the blouse folds of her gi and handed it to the NCO, I walked mine to him and placed it in his open hand, guessing the Gunnery Sergeant knew about Heavies. He transferred them to his knotted black belt; hers on his right, mine on his left; not seeming surprised at all at the weight of the POCs. Shellbee and I both kicked-off our flip-flops. The mat felt cushy and nice beneath my toes, soles and heels of my feet.

We did some stretches. Then Shellbee and I faced each other across the mats and prepared to spar. We both knew the house rules. Pull all punches and kicks, no disabling shots to joints, three falls and retire to opposite corners. Neither of us seemed worried we weren’t putting on head gear and padded body vests. This was, in my mind, a match in which Shellbee would probe my skills as she attacked me. I would be protecting myself and not revealing any skills I didn’t have to.

“And ... go!” Moanauer called from the side of the mat.

We began by slowly circling the mat. I watched where Shellbee’s belly-button should be behind her black waist belt and under the folds of white cloth draping her lithe body while still being aware of the set of her shoulders. After we’d gone about a third of the way around the mat, Shellbee gave two quick feints by cocking her head and left shoulder back, trying to draw me into a confrontation. Then she did commit. She was fast.

In a flurry of forearm blocks, a leg cross followed by a spin and hip toss that almost took Shellbee off her feet; I defended myself. And then we were circling again. I could feel adrenalin buzzing in my system. I relaxed as best as I could by deepening my breathing. I watched her belly-button.

Like a whip, she reared back on her right leg while maintaining her balance and snapped her left foot at my face, dropping she twirled around and cracked her left shin across my hips as I did a limbo duck and flip as I guided the force of her leg’s momentum along my chest and over my twisting shoulder as we both seemed to skid past each other and started circling again.

And so it went. She would attack. Each attack more sophisticated than the last, landing a pulled punch or pulled kick, or a short series, that I would redirect in defense. With each defense I found I was more vigorously prosecuting my recovery. My breathing was getting deeper. Our aerobics training was kicking into the contest.

I watched her from the belly button out. I was becoming aware of our connection. It was feeling like a companionable contest, but one in which Shellbee intended to take my head off. With each flurry of attacks, she was trying to shepherd me into body postures and over-balances that she could compromise with her lightning second assault to take me down. But my body was not responding to her attacks; it was harmonizing with them.

I was starting to feel sweat under my armpits.

Suddenly I was on my back with the weight of Shellbee’s wonderful butt on my chest and both her muscular thighs around my neck. I could have mouthed Shellbee’s mound through her gi if I cared to. Now I could smell warm, active, and slightly aroused woman mixed with a faint scent of some laundry product on the white material covering her crotch.

“Okay, up,” the bald NCO barked, holding out one hand for us to desist.

“You, Sitwell. You were distracted.” Moanauer told me. In the sound of his soft voice I could tell I’d met his low expectations.

Then, with a rush of realization I knew I’d been foiled by my own pits.

“Ha, I too could feel his concentration fail,” Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov’s voice called out from behind where I’d ended up on the mat with Shellbee on top of me, “from clear over here. And, First Lieutenant Shellbee, her conditioning is superior. But, we know how to remedy that. If this were a serious confrontation—nut cutting—she would be putting you down, hard. Yes, Mister Sitwell?”

Gunnery Sergeant Krychenkov looked down at me and I was very aware of Shellbee’s butt on my chest, her thighs now loose around my neck. I was looking up at Krychenkov’s blonde, buzz-cut scalp and her face floating in front of the overhead of the Gym.

I was glad Krychenkov was willing to engage me with her eyes. Because I dared not move my head and look into Shellbee’s eyes, as I just knew she was looking down the length of her torso at me underneath her. Her butt seemed to ripple on my chest as she freed my neck and head and then she bounced up to her feet. She was slightly panting but didn’t seem winded. I rolled over onto my knees and got up.

“Six ways to Sevenday...” Shellbee said, baiting me in a soft voice, in spite of her breathing.

“Did you see?” Krychenkov asked me. “You see how she breathes while engaged, Sitwell? Her diaphragm, like a piston, chest up and down, in and out. Circular. There is her engine of power that defeated you. She generates the energy—quickly. She focuses and releases, quickly. Your energy management failed you. You, using your breathing technique to maintain calm to best react. To survive, you must use your breath control to energize for action. You did not even see the attack that she brought you down with.”

“But, working together,” the short, bald NCO beside the Amazon said as he considered me while he rested his hands on his hips. “We’ll fix that. And expand your responses. There were at least two points he could have developed decisive attacks. First Lieutenant, you know what I’m referring to. Correct?”

“Yes, I do Gunnery Sergeant...” the officer answered the bald NCO, sounding contrite as she gave him a slight bow. But she shook off that frame of mind almost instantly.

“Could of, would of, should of,” Shellbee said softly at me, and then bowed to me from across the mat. Then she moved to stand beside Moanauer; both of them looking at Krychenkov and me with anticipation.

“You have seen enough of his open hand skills?” Krychenkov asked Moanauer, as she made to hand me a practice wand. Taking a mask from her, I realized she was a good head-and-a-half taller than I was and she outweighed me by at least one of her legs—from her surprisingly shapely buttock down to the tip of her bare big toe. But then, with a shake of my head, I found myself focusing on the wand, not my soon to be opponent.

The black wand was about the length of the katakalli sword I was familiar with; it had the same slight blade curve. My grip and wrists told me it was weighted almost exactly the same as mine, with an oval finger or cross guard and a grip long enough to allow a two-hand technique and there wasn’t a pommel. The entire wand was made of a black composite that didn’t have a cutting edge. I’d used weighted, wooden practice blades exclusively before in sparring. I didn’t even know the Ship had practice wands and masks. As a geek, I’d let myself down not knowing that factoid. But then I noticed the slightly raised FUP MC lettering on the ricasso of the blade near the cross guard.

I put on the metal-mesh mask and tested the feel of the blade length and balance in my hands a bit further, as I began my centering exercises. Then, I quickly ran through some forms. The comfortable feeling submerged me.