Dadr'Ba (27 page)

P’Ko tumbled to the tunnel floor, on the far side, and using his martial arts practice rolled to his feet and continued running at nearly the same pace as before. The creature, startled, off balance, fell on its back, then rolled to its side, and tried to get back on its feet. Just as the rest of P’Ko’s pack running at full tilt rushed past it on both sides.

They soon caught up to P’Ko with the Se’Ro’Bs on their trail as P’Ko turned down another tunnel taking the Se’Ro’Bs off the chase from the pack that it almost caught.

From then on it became a practiced routine of a pack intercepting the tiring pack just ahead of the Se’Ro’Bs, drawing off the Se’Ro’Bs before it got too close. The fresh pack would continue, down through the levels. Then be relieved by a fresh pack taking over the task of leading the Se’Ro’Bs on its chase. Allowing the other packs to rest while taking short cuts at a relaxed pace to the new intercept point. All the while the runners stayed in psychic contact, having a mental map of exactly where they are and where they need to be.

P’Ko began to experience trouble as they descended the levels, his long frame, and stride, an asset at the upper level where he leaped over the Se’Ro’Bs became a liability at the higher G of the lower levels. He found himself feeling the urge to go down on all fours while the rest of his shorter, stouter pack mates continued to trot along, seemingly unfazed by their increased weight.

He had to slow his pace even more, despite knowing that it slowed his pack mates, but after the miracle of surviving his first encounter with a Se’Ro’Bs they didn’t seem to mind. When it was their turn to take the Se’Ro’Bs, they couldn’t stay ahead of it for as long as the rest of the packs and the other packs had to accommodate their handicap, and sometimes skipped P’Ko and his pack in the rotation.

There were a few more close calls, but nothing as close as P’Ko’s first encounter, finally all the packs were on all fours, scampering ahead of the Se’Ro’Bs, who had also slowed and was forced closer to the deck.

The Se’Ro’Bs seemed as if it was growing fatigued. The packs, although scrambling on all fours at these lower levels had a relatively easy time staying ahead of it. Finally, the run was nearing the end.

P’Ko found himself tail scampering ahead of the Se’Ro’Bs. Another chase lead change or two and they would all be safely in the survival shelter. But there was a problem, at first nobody noticed it, not until P’Ko glanced back and saw that the Se’Ro’Bs was closing on him. The Se’Ro’Bs had held back and waited until P’Ko, the weakest scrambler of the all the runners was the prey.

The Se’Ro’Bs was too close to P’Ko’s pack for a safe intercept, and it would do no good for one of P’Ko’s pack mates to fall back and act the prey, P’Ko was still the weak link ahead of the prey. P’Ko would have to push, and hopefully, create a safe intercept distance.

The other packs attempted intercepts drawing dangerously close to the Se’Ro’Bs at several intercept points, but nothing could draw the Se’Ro’Bs’ attention away from the weakest member, P’Ko, who was growing weaker.

P’Ko let the rest of his pack know what needed to be done, and they all began to feed him as much psychic energy as they could spare. Though the psychic capabilities they have is not in any way psychokinetic, the effort helped P’Ko reach down inside and bring forth increased strength and agility.

But he/they were still unable to increase the gap between P’Ko and the Se’Ro’Bs, as a matter of fact the Se’Ro’Bs continued to close the distance between them. Ever so slowly, every so many steps, the Se’Ro’Bs got millimeters closer. The packs giving up on an intercept made a direct path toward the survival shelter. It was their only chance.

P’Ko knowing that the Se’Ro’Bs was close behind him, so close in fact, that had this been at a higher level, it could catch him with one leap, focused on his scramble. The deck hit him through his arms and legs like a sledgehammer. He tried to numb himself to the pounding and concentrate on the forward motion, and on the bright glow of body paint ahead of him of his fellow pack mates urging him along.

P’Ko consciously refused to think about how far it was to the survival shelter or the time it’s taking to get there. P’Ko felt only the rumble in his limbs, as he crawled along he tried to will the rumble faster. He could no longer feel the parts of his body coming into contact with the deck; he had no awareness of if the protective body paint was thicker there or not, or whether it was totally worn away and he was crawling on frozen stumps. 

P’Ko lost himself to time, isolating himself to a place in his mind where time and the present didn’t exist, he knew what was going on; he just didn’t pay any attention, almost a day sleep. He thought about God and about what the afterlife might be like.

He thought of living on through his descendants, if he would have any self-awareness once he’d passed those essential parts of himself on through his children to his grandchildren.

Then, when one of the glowing figures in front of him disappeared, he realized that they had just passed through the gel curtain into the survival chamber.

He snapped back to the present. P’Ko thought he could feel the Se’Ro’Bs chasing him bump against his feet as he crawled. The psychic energy of all the rest of the runners and even the spectators watching on live video feeds fed to him, telling him that the Se’Ro’Bs had been just one long reach away. With every last bit of energy he could muster, he surged forward.

A long claw swept at him. The swipe cost the Se’Ro’Bs some speed as the last of P’Ko’s pack disappeared through the gel curtain. P’Ko sprang forward, pushing through the gel curtain as the Se’Ro’Bs made a second swipe catching P’Ko on the side of the leg, knocking him off balance and tearing flesh as his pack mates pulled him the rest of the way through the gel curtain.

The Se’Ro’Bs’, blackness and cold lunged against the gel curtain, but the gel curtain strong and elastic, made only to allow warm things through refused to let the liquid gas cold Se’Ro’Bs through.

Whoops and howls of victory erupted from the twenty-five runners stacked two deep in the survival shelter made for ten. A bandage was hastily slapped on P’Ko’s leg as the dark shadow outside nibbled up the scattered frosty pebbles of P’Ko’s blood. It had frozen before it hit the deck as it poured from the gash the Se’Ro’Bs put into P’Ko’s leg as he was being pulled through the curtain.

After sniffing around to make sure it didn’t miss any of P’Ko’s blood, the Se’Ro’Bs slowly, tiredly skulked away.

Once the Se’Ro’Bs left the area, and the runners felt sure it was safe to venture out the runners sent for the supply shuttle that had been staged not far away. They crawled and staggered out of the cramped emergency shelter they had piled into and piled into the back of the supply shuttle. This time only half on top of each other. Adjusting to stay warm from shared body heat, fortified by the joy of accomplishment. They had faced down death, and passed around a flask of a special “athletic” concoction Mi’Ka designed especially for this event and had placed in the shuttle for them.

They soon felt no pain or even twinge of the cold, despite the fact they left the cargo doors of the shuttle wide open and everyone’s exothermic body paint was nearly gone, worn bare, or in tatters.

The shuttle took the fastest, most direct route back to Ol’Tn and in no time, perhaps feeling the effects of Mi’Ka’s drink, they arrived at Ol’Tn’s cargo access ramp.

The shuttle backed up the ramp through the air lock, and the runners exited the cargo bay and paraded back up the same street they had come down many hours before. Passing cheering crowds.

The spectators had seen it all. The run organizers had stationed camera-mounted robots at strategic locations over the anticipated course. The robots were mobile, able to scamper from place to place to intercept the runners and get a good camera angle.

Some of the experienced runners accepted the opportunity to wear a forward and rear looking personal camera built into the tight fitting goggles that all the runners wore to protect their eyes from the intense cold.

P’Ko, as well as many of the other runners limped, they would have left bloody footprints had they not been given medicated tight fitting constriction slipper socks, knee pads, and gloves when they got off the shuttle.

P’Ko felt no pain; he was riding high on the thrill of accomplishment, acceptance, camaraderie, and, Mi’Ka’s athletic drink. The runners passed a receiving area of sorts near the stage and starting, now finishing line, and were each given a medal of achievement. The medal had each finisher’s name and race number on one side, along with
“
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Run with the Se’Ro’Bs” around the edge. On the medal’s front, an intricate color profile diagram of a runner in full stride closely followed by a dark shape with two massive arms reaching out towards the runner.

After receiving their finishers medal, the runners loitered around the staging area, now turned triage area, where they waited to be checked out and repaired by one of several doctors that had set up treatment tables near where the body paint tents had been and were making repairs on the runners.

As soon as all the finishers received their Medals of Achievement, the presentation of the group and individual awards were made.

There were individual awards for oldest and youngest and most times run, along with pack awards, which included the fastest pursuit and longest distance pursued. There was the M’Vr (most valuable runner), an award which went to the runner that discovered the Se’Ro’Bs. Her pack also won the longest time pursued by the Se’Ro’Bs over the course of the run award, P’Ko’s pack a close second
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.

On what should have been the end of the presentations, there was an unexpected pause. The race official presiding on stage excused himself and disappeared from the podium; he was gone some time. Then returned, smiling, and began an impromptu speech, announcing that the run organizers and the monitors had, after much deliberation, agreed to the presentation of a first, a one of a kind, special award.

Adding that each year after this, injecting, that it will be based on different criteria unique to that year’s event.

Continuing, this year, he cautioned, is one that the run organizers never want to see repeated or even attempt to be repeated, and in fact, if the run organizers and monitors suspect that if someone tries to repeat it; the runner will be penalized and sanctioned.

“The reward for the longest single pursuit ever recorded, it bests the previous record by a factor of three and God willing will never be repeated or exceeded. It goes to Pack Two, the second pack to be pursued by the Se’Ro’Bs.” P’Ko’s team filed up onto the stage in the same order as they were during the final pursuit. They received a specially designed medal similar in size to the medal of achievement.

The longest pursuit medal, still warm from coming out of the fabricator, was rimmed by the words “Longest Se’Ro’Bs Pursui
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s”. It showed a front on view of five runners scrambling against a field of black with jagged edges in the shape of a fang-lined maw, the back inscribed with the Runner’s name, Race numbe
r
80
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, an
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1
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5,
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… P’Ko’s wa
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5
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5
, indicating that he was the last, the one the Se’Ro’Bs was closest to catching and nearest to death. 

After the Longest Pursuit Awards had been handed out, pack two started to file off, but the race official asked that P’Ko remain behind. Then the race official requested that the rest of the Ti’Ro’s
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come up on stage. Out of the crowd, three other runners came forward and up onto the stage with P’Ko.

The race official announced, “Now is the moment many of you have been waiting for, the Crystal Tear Ceremony.” The official paused, and the crowd grew silent.

“The Chrystal Tear Ceremony traces its origins to before Dadr’Ba’s official recorded history, before the ToG. It allows us to acknowledge publicly, the sacrifices our ancestors made for the more than one million hours over the course of their lives that each spent working to produce the fuel that is taking us O’M.

Our predecessors worked every day of their life’s with no relief or reward other than barely enough credits to buy spices to make energy cake palatable and too short, and too long in between, vacations. Only to become so fatigued with life that retirement begins to look good. Retirement that means passing from this existence, sending a part of you to join your grandchildren, but never, ever, meeting them in person.

The Run with the Se’Ro’Bs began by accident shortly after the ToG, when the Se’Ro’Bs was first discovered. Or, more properly, when we were discovered by the Se’Ro’Bs and Mi’Nr’s had to be watchful and wary if they didn’t want to fall prey.

Since then Run with the Se’Ro’Bs has come to exemplify in a matter of hours the life of a Mi’Nr, the struggles, the hardships, the pain, the Spector of death. It also represents the teamwork, cooperation, and self-sacrifice that are cornerstones to a Mi’Nr’s existence.

Many years ago we combined the two, beginning with the Run with the Se’Ro’Bs and concluding with the Crystal Tear Ceremony. The Crystal Tear displays on the face of all Mi’Nr’s a sign that we respect our ancestors, ourselves and our profession, by wearing this sign it says to all that we are Mi’Nr’s, and we’re proud of it.