Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (44 page)

Calin's expression was one of pained reluctance. “I—I can't do it.”

“What do you mean? You did it yesterday; we all saw you.”

“I can't use my psi. Yarden told me that it's not good for me. It's dangerous. She made me promise never to use it again.”

“She did what?”

“She told me many things I didn't know about it, and I promised her never to turn to it—to use it is weakness.”

“Well, maybe just this one more time.”

“Yarden said there will always be one more time, and then one more. I have to stop and never go back.”

Treet stomped back to where Pizzle and Crocker waited. “It's no go. She won't do it.”

“You're joking. Why not?” Crocker demanded.

“Yarden has given her some story about how using psi is dangerous and unhealthy. She made Calin promise never to use it again.”

“Oh, great,” sighed Pizzle. “Well, you can kiss one skimmer good-bye and maybe one or two of us as well.”

“Stop being melodramatic.” Treet frowned at Pizzle.

“Right. I forgot you volunteered to
walk
across the burning waste. We have one skimmer to carry the water, and we need the other two for passengers.”

“You laughed at my idea for hauling water.”

“I changed my mind.”

“We're not getting anywhere this way,” grumped Crocker.

“Have you tried driving it out?” The men turned to see Yarden watching them, arms crossed, chin thrust out, daring them to laugh at her. Calin stood quietly behind her.

“Well, no, we haven't,” replied Crocker diplomatically. “There didn't seem to be much point.”

“Why not?” Yarden came to stand with them as they stared out across the water to the skimmer—an island all its own in the slow-moving current.

“Why not? Uh, tell her why not, Pizzle,” said Crocker.

Pizzle shot a venomous glance at Crocker. “It's my belief that the water has damaged the circuitry, or at least shorted it out. There's no point in trying to drive it out of there because it will never in a million years start while it's sitting in water.”

“Do you know this for fact?” Yarden turned her eyes on him and bored into him. Treet enjoyed the show.

“Well, no. But, I—”

“Why not try it and see? It seems to me that any vehicle made to traverse the desert can probably take a little water.”

“Yeah,” echoed Treet, “why not try it and see?”

Pizzle rolled his eyes and harrumphed, but Crocker said, “What have we go to lose? Give it a try.”

Without a word Pizzle walked into the water and out to the skimmer, climbed onto the seat, and pressed the ignition. He nearly fell off when the machine started up at a touch.

“Pizzle, you're a genius!” hooted Treet. “Only trouble is, Yarden is a bigger genius.”

She smiled acerbically and looked at the men with a smugly superior expression on her face. She and Calin walked upstream, leaving the men alone.

Pizzle drove the vehicle slowly out of the river, grinding the runners over the rocks. When it finally reached dry land, it gave a sputtering jolt and died. “Okay, so the motors and circuits are sealed. How was I supposed to know that? It would still be a good idea to let it dry out before running it again—just in case.”

Treet raised his eyes to the sky. The sun was climbing rapidly, spilling light over the hilltops and into the valleys. Another perfect day—like one more perfect pearl added to the string. “Shame to waste the day,” he said. “What shall we do while we wait for that buggy to dry out?”

Crocker spun toward him. “I was just thinking the same thing. You know what? I think we should go fishing.”

“Fishing!”

“I'm serious. That eel last night tasted pretty good, considering. And since none of us expired during the night from any unknown toxic effects, and since there are bound to be more where that one came from, I say we go after them.”

Pizzle brightened, and Treet saw the computer chips that Pizzle used for a brain light up. “We could catch a million to take with us into the desert! I should have thought of that yesterday.”

“How are we going to take a load of putrefying eels into the desert? They'll rot before we get two days from here.”

Pizzle rolled his eyes in exasperation. “We
dry
them. On rocks. In the sun. It's easy. And we'll have food all across the desert. Water, too.”

“This is just one big jamboree to you, isn't it, Pizzle?” sniped Treet.

“Starving appeals to you?” Crocker mocked. “Let's get started.”

They discussed several techniques for catching the eels, including making rods and line from the tent poles and braided thread, and rigging up makeshift harpoons. Neither possibility, nor any of the others they considered and discarded just as quickly, suggested success. So they sat stymied until Treet said, “Actually Pizzle didn't catch that eel as much as that eel caught Pizzle.”

“What do you mean? I caught it.”

“If I remember correctly, you fell into the hole and it grabbed you. When you came rocketing out of the water, I saw that thing attached to your chest. You were flapping your arms around trying to get rid of it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Crocker turned an appraising eye on Pizzle.

“Hold it! What are you guys thinking? You can't be serious. I'm not—hey, wait a minute …”

“Food all the way across the desert, Pizzy,” said Treet.

“You're crazy!”

“It's easy,” said Crocker. “We used to do it all the time when we were little kids—slip down along the river bank and find a hole and reach inside. A good grappler could catch some pretty big old catfish.”

“You're
both
crazy!” Pizzle edged away. “I won't do it.”

“It's the only way. Besides, it was your idea. You should get the glory.”

“It's only right,” agreed Treet. “We could tie something around you to hold on to so you wouldn't drown or anything; you have nothing to worry about. We'll be there right beside you.”

Within ten minutes, Pizzle's protests notwithstanding, they were wading out into the river together, Treet and Crocker holding opposite ends of a piece of tent cording which had been secured around Pizzle's waist. “Look, there's nothing to worry about,” offered Treet. “They don't have teeth. From what you said, they just sort of suck onto you and there you go. We'll pull you up if you get into trouble—so don't get yourself in a nervous tizzy.”

“You'll be fine,” assured Crocker. “In fact, after the second or third time, you'll start to enjoy yourself.”

“If I live through this,” muttered Pizzle darkly. “I'm going to get a good lawyer and sue both of you into debtor's prison. There must be laws against using a person for fish bait.”

“You won't sue us,” predicted Crocker, “you'll thank us.”

They found the hole Pizzle had dropped into the day before, and several more near it, one of which was big enough to admit a man. With murder in his close-set eyes, Pizzle took a deep breath and dropped in. Treet and Crocker held the ends of the cord and counted, figuring they would give Pizzle twenty seconds to accomplish his task.

He was back in ten. The hole was empty. And so was the next. After several more attempts, they moved on a little further downstream and came to a place where more holes dotted the river bottom. Here their luck changed. The second hole Pizzle tried contained an eel abut the size of the one he'd caught the day before. This one attached itself to his back and when they pulled Pizzle up, Treet grabbed it and flipped it onto the bank.

The rest of the holes in the area were empty. “We won't find any more eels here,” said Treet after the fourth try. “These critters have territories. I think all the holes in a given area belong to one eel. If we want to catch another one we'll have to go further downstream.”

“The water gets deeper,” observed Crocker.

“We'll stick to the shore.” Treet looked at the eel expiring on the bank. “This is going to take a lot longer that we thought. I think we ought to streamline this process. You two could catch them, and I'll gut them and get them drying out.”

“Good idea. We'll get a regular little production line going.” Crocker and Pizzle headed off downstream, and Treet—using a tool from the skimmer kit—made quick work of the eel and carried it back to camp. The two women were waiting when he got back. He gave them the eel, explained their plan, and repeated what Pizzle had told him about how to dry the meat on rocks in the sun. “We'll be back later on this afternoon,” he told them.

By the time Treet reached the place where Pizzle and Crocker had been, he found another eel on the bank—this one half again as big as the other two they'd caught. The two "fishermen" were already working their way further downstream; he could see their torsos swaying above the water as they searched for holes in the riverbed.

The day stretched out into a rhythm of walking and working and waiting and walking again—a rhythm Treet found enjoyable. The eerie silence of the place was modified by the plap and gurgle of the river as it moved quietly along. With the sun on his back and the company of his thoughts, Treet went about his task happily, enjoying the solitude and serenity of the day.

By late afternoon they had worked far downstream. The sun dipped near the horizon, signaling the end of a good day's work. Treet lost count of the number of eels they had caught. He decided, however, that it was enough for one day and was gutting the last eel before hurrying ahead to call Crocker and Pizzle back when he heard the whine of a skimmer behind him.

Yarden, her dark hair streaming, piloted the skimmer expertly over the ruffled riverbank toward him. He stood and waited for her. “Call it a day,” she said. “Talazac taxi service has come to fetch you home.”

“Thanks. Pizzle and Crocker are somewhere up ahead. Why don't you go get them and I'll finish up here. We can pick up our catch on the way back.”

“You've caught enough to last three months. I counted twenty-eight, and I may have missed a few.” She gave him a smile and a wave and glided away. Within minutes she was back with two tired fishermen in damp clothes. She had found them a little way downriver lying on the bank drying out before heading back. Treet squeezed onto the crowded vehicle and they worked their way homeward, stopping at intervals to pick up their catch.

They arrived back in camp as the sun faded behind the hills, washing the westward sky a pale eggshell white as the east darkened to indigo. Calin had a fire going and an eel on the spit as they climbed down and unloaded the toppling stack of flayed eels. Treet noticed that the tents had been moved and that beneath each one was a thick bed of bunched grass. “We've been busy all day, too,” said Yarden proudly. “We made grass mattresses.”

“My dear lady,” said Crocker, “each and every one of my brittle, aching bones thanks you. If I weren't so hungry, I'd crawl in right now and go to sleep.”

As they ate around the fire, Treet noticed that everyone's spirits were markedly improved. They all talked and joked and smiled at one another. Even Calin joined in shyly from time to time. Something important had happened to them that day; a milestone of some sort had been passed. Treet worked it over in his head and decided that the buoyant feeling was due to the fact that day was the first time they had worked together as a group toward a common goal of survival. Today they had become a team.

When all had eaten, they lay back as the blue flames flickered. “Well,” said Treet, “I guess I'm the entertainment for this evening. Are you sure you all want to hear a story?”

Treet began like this:

“After the scuffle on the landing platform, I woke up by myself in a room—fuzzy-headed, naked, and sore. I put on the clothes I found in my cell and waited. I was brought food, which I ate, and I slept. Two or three days went by and I was taken to meet the Supreme Director of Empyrion, a cagey old cuss named Sirin Rohee.

“Three of his advisers showed up and asked me questions. I answered. We talked a little, and he sent me back. It was a day or two later, I think, when I remembered who I was, where I was, and who had come with me. The drug wore off, I guess—or maybe they didn't give me such a heavy dose. When Rohee sent for me again, we met alone. I told him I remembered, and told him
what
I remembered. For some reason—I still don't know why—he took pity on me and gave me quarters of my own. He provided Calin to be my guide and allowed me the run of the place, although I'm fairly certain I was watched constantly nevertheless.

“I toured each Hage of Empyrion—at least those areas open to inspection. There are places within Hage where outsiders are not allowed, and we of course stayed out.

“After about a week of this touring, I asked Rohee if I could see the Archives. He debated about it for the better part of a day and decided to allow me. I think he had some private plan in mind for me, or hoped I would discover something useful for him, or maybe he was just curious—I don't know.

“Calin and I, along with the obligatory priest, went to the Archives and looked around. The place was full of old machines, parts, and junk, and it was my impression at the time that the place had not been visited in many years, generations perhaps. Anyway, we didn't find what we were looking for—at least not at first. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, I noticed Calin had disappeared and went looking for her. I found her in a hidden room under the Archives—a room full of historical data on the colony which had been hidden and sealed about seven hundred years ago. That's an educated guess.