Chapter 5

She was definitely regretting her decision to come traipsing into the wilderness alone. If she died here of exposure or dehydration, no one would even know where to look for her body. She hadn't told anyone at University where she was going – just decided, determined, to make the trek to the Phoenix Preserve by herself. She had to find someone who'd know what had happened to her sister. Kristi was dead. Okay, she accepted that, but Kristi wasn't one of those girls who tempted danger – not like some of her more daring classmates, and definitely not like the Phoenix wannabes.

'Oh, come on – New Eden isn't that big a place, is it? I mean – I can see everywhere! It isn't like I could actually get lost what with the landscape inverted like this!'

But, god, it was taking a long time to walk the length of the land. It was almost continuously uphill, now, as the equator – and University – were both far behind her. If she lost her footing here, it could be a looong roll down to any flat surface, and likely, she wouldn't survive the fall back down toward the equator without some broken bones. Luckily, there were copses of trees – more like a forest, here – and long, tall grasses that might cushion her, perhaps slow her down a bit, if she lost her footing.

She stopped, frozen, as something moved in the trees ahead of her. There was a soft, crashing sound of branches breaking off to her left, and that frightened whatever was in front of her. As she watched it bound away, she realized it was only a deer. 'But what had frightened it?' she couldn't help but wonder.

Still frozen, she waited. After another moment, more noises came from her left; more branch breaking, and... voices!

Instinctively, she knelt down to conceal herself in the grass around her. Two men eventually appeared, both making more noise that even she – as 'country-fied' as she wasn't – would make traveling through the woods.

"It went that way," one of the distant voices said. "Here. You can see the hoof prints."

"Straight toward Luke and Jasper," the other man chortled.

"Yep!" the first one agreed. "They should frighten it farther north – if they're where they're supposed to be."

'There are hunters out here? I could be mistaken for a deer and get shot!' Sandi suddenly realized.

Crouching even lower, the girl carefully, slowly, turned her head to look over her right shoulder, then turned to look over her left. 'Doesn't seem to be anyone behind me ... I'd hate to get shot in the back ... Not even see it coming... '

"So we just basically 'follow' the deer tracks into the Pre-Zerve and innocently accidental-like shoot down one of them wild wemmen what lives out here?" one of the men was saying.

Sandi concentrated all her attention on the words faintly coming over the wind, appalled at what these villainous 'hunters' were planning. 'Wild women?'

"That's the plan, Harv," the other man chuckled. "If we're gonna guard the borders of this evil place, we need an excuse to be out here."

"Hunting."

"That's right. An' if we accident'ly kill us a human, T'ain't our fault she looked like a deer. Should'a been wearin' clothes!"

'Holy crap! They're hunting girls!' Sandi thought, shocked as the thought raced through her mind. 'They could be hunting ... ME!'

A thrill of both dread and excitement raced down her spine as she determined the deadliness of the game in which she found herself entrapped. If she backed away, tried to retrace her steps south-ward, these murderous hill people might discover her trail and, thinking she was trying to leave the Phoenix Preserve, hunt her down. If she kept going on her current quest, they might find her trail and catch her before she could reach the Lake View Lodge.

'And if I do succeed in reaching the lodge, will I be safe from them?' Sandi wondered, thinking furiously. 'Yes – these butchers are outside the boundaries of the Preserve. They're too chicken to go in – unless they're following a game trail – from what they said.'

She looked behind her again, noticing the bent grasses and easily discernible trail she'd created. Any child could tell someone had passed through here. 'How to be less ... noticeable. Less destructive. That's the key. But how can I walk without leaving a trail?'

A metallic voice sounded in her head. She'd heard it before, and knew instantly what it was. It was her metallic instructor from University. 'Are you asking a question?'

'Praetor! You can hear me way out here? How is this possible?' Sandi anxiously demanded in her head.

'All activities of the people here in New Eden are recorded for posterity, ' the answer came.

'Can you help me?' Sandi asked. 'Can you warn the Phoenix girls about these awful hunters?'

'My purpose is to record data. I do not interfere with the life cycles of those who live here, ' the Praetor replied.

Silence. Sandi considered her options for several minutes, then formed the thought, 'Praetor, are you still listening?'

'Yes, young one. Do you have a question?'

'Um, yes, ' Sandi decided. 'I know that you help students at University to learn – history, science, stuff like that. How do you ... impart ... give students that information?' Though she recognized the voice of the Praetor, her studies, so far, were through the use of disks which displayed data on computer monitors so she could read it. She had yet to take a class taught directly, mind to mind, by a Praetor.

'Usually in the form of mental images, child. Memories. The student views them as events that have occurred, even though they realize the events did not actually occur to them. They can access the knowledge as a vivid, memorable dream, until it is forgotten or deemed no longer necessary to remember.'

Sandi had been watching the progress of the two men as they continued away (thankfully) from where she crouched down in the grass. Now that they were out of sight, she wondered if the Praetor might be able to help her in a 'special' way. 'Praetor, can you show me where those men went?'

Almost instantly, the image of a deer trail appeared in her mind. There was a man off to the left of the direction she was facing, and the image of a rifle carried with the barrel pointed downward in his right hand. She could tell that the first men were walking away from her.

"Wow! That's incredible!" she said out loud. 'Just like I'm actually remembering it!' To the Praetor, she formed another question; 'Praetor, can you show me how I can get by them without them noticing I'm here?'

Another image superimposed, then replaced the view of the man off to her left, who was walking north. A different man was also traveling north, considerably faster, almost trotting. He was breathing rapidly and almost chanting to himself. 'Got you, bitch!' he whispered over and over as he increased his stride. Sandi could tell he was...

'Behind me! He's found my trail! Praetor! How can I lose him?'

Another image crowded into her already terrified mind; A rocky outcrop – ahead and to the right, as though I've always known it was there! But...

'How will that help?' Sandi nearly screamed in her mind, then thought, 'Oh, yeah. No footprints!' Sandi scrambled up onto the sharp rocks and quickly crossed over. On the other side was a path – obviously used by many animals.

'Why would animals come here?' Sandi wondered. There was no water nearby, and, in fact, not much growth of any kind, almost like the surrounding trees were unable to sustain themselves in this dry patch. In some places, dirt had been scraped away, revealing a solid, whitish substance.

'This is a salt lick, ' the Praetor announced. 'You should keep moving; you don't have much time before the person you wish to avoid arrives where you are.'

Quickly choosing her path – one where she wouldn't leave boot prints in the dirt, Sandi leapt to the next rock, then, finding another, leapt to it. The steep path was rocky as it continued north. It only took a moment to reach the safety of the next tree line, but that short burst of speed nearly drained her. Her last canteen of water was long gone and she wished she'd been bright enough to refill in that last town, but she hadn't actually realized that New Eden was so friggin' big!