Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (53 page)

The
Fieri airship hung like an enormous rusty moon above the two forlorn tents of the spent travelers. The rescue party had wasted not a second, deploying the survival cylinder the moment the airship hovered to a stop over the tents.

Fieri physicians hit the sand running and quickly reached the dying wayfarer whose signal had alerted them. In the next fevered seconds, electrolyte fluids were administered and the condition of the patient was carefully noted. He was placed in the cylinder and whisked back to the airship, while the rescuers turned their attention to the women in the first tent.

The Fieri spoke softly to themselves, wondering how the fugitives could have come so far in the desert, remarking on their unusual, old-fashioned clothing, coaxing their patients to live just a little longer so they could be cared for properly aboard the airship.

They had been startled when one of the refugees, lying half out of the second tent, partially revived before they had a chance to minister to him.

“Get him out of the sun!” said Bohm, director of the rescue operation. “Quickly! Get him a stabilizer!”

“He's saying something,” said Jaire, a young female physician. “Flies? I don't understand it.”

“He's delirious. Here—you two,” Bohm directed two aides, “help Jaire get him wrapped up. He will go after these two.”

“There is one more inside this tent,” said one of the aides.

“Bring him out. I'm almost finished here. Take these two to the cylinder. Gently, now.” He touched a triangular tag dangling from an epaulet. “There are five. Three alive so far. Two are on their way up now. I want them started on fluid replacement and stabilization.”

The Fieri leader hurried to the next tent, glancing at Treet as he passed. He peered into the face of the fugitive and whispered, “Infinite Father, guide our hands and minds; help us save them.”

When all had been brought aboard, the airship, its engines booming echoes into the dune valleys, moved slowly off, gaining altitude as speed increased, leaving behind two orange tents and a scattering of footprints in the sand.

Considering
what one had to go through to get there, death was not so bad. At least it was peaceful and the body no longer ached. There was even a muzzy sort of awareness— call it a phantom persistence of being that allowed inconsequential thought—little more than
I am …I am
…
I
am…
over and over and over.

Most surprisingly, death was not black. It was red. Rather, it was vermilion with clear blue highlights. And it was anything but the everlasting silence Treet had always believed it would be. Death was a clattering din, truth be told. There was a droning hum that drummed like an irregular heartbeat, an aggravating click like that of many steel balls smacking together simultaneously, and the sound of static electricity snap-crackling as from an oversized Leyden jar.

Were these the sounds of his own dissolution? He did not know. If not for the noise, he could have gotten used to it. But the incessant racket kept him from the quiescence of his insubstantial thoughts.

Treet opened one eye a crack. Surely that wouldn't hurt anything—being dead and all, one was allowed certain license, and as yet no one had read him any rules regarding the conduct of a corpse. He supposed that on opening his eye he would see that oft-described sight of his own empty husk of a body splayed where his soul had left it, staring blankly up into everafter, a poor advertisement for the tenacity and resilience of the human species.

Instead he saw a woman with long henna-colored hair tied back to grace a slender neck, bent as she peered into the screen of a machine, not much bigger than a common calculator, which was emitting all those annoying clicks. Treet liked what he saw, so he opened the other eye—fearing that so flagrant an action might cause an immediate forfeiture of his corpse status, but being unable to help himself anyway.

The woman sat perched atop a tall stool. She was dressed in a smock of sea-foam green with a loose, open jacket edged in blue. The jacket had deep pockets and a blue belt tied at the side, accenting the slimness of her waist. Her long legs were sheathed in soft white boots that laced to just below her pretty brown knees. Sunlight from an oval window flared her hair, making a halo of red gold around her head. A wisp of cloud trailed by the window, giving the impression of flight.

This must be an anteroom of the afterlife, thought Treet, complete with angel and cloud city.

Directly over him a cone-shaped instrument hummed and crackled with static electricity as a ruby light glowed from within it. He lay on a flat, padded table, his head held in position by a contoured pillow something like a sandbag. A white, gauzy cloth covered his loins or he would have been completely naked. Yet he was not cold. In fact, his skin glowed with the rosy hue of a sun-worshipping health freak, rather than the insipid pallor of the recently deceased.

The rest of the room, from what Treet could see without moving his head, was kept in shadow. But the shadows were uncluttered, and apparently he and the angel were alone. He worked his mouth and found that it moved quite easily, although it took a few moments for his voice to emerge. And when it did, he did not recognize the raspy wheeze as his own.

“Are you real?” he asked. The gummy film on his tongue tasted as if something nasty had crawled in his mouth and died.

The angelic being turned from the clicking screen and fastened concern-filled eyes on him. Her eyes were the exact color of her hair—ruddy brown with flecks of gold. Delicate arched brows drew together, and her lips pressed firmly in a frown of competent care. She reached a long-fingered hand toward him and placed it on his chest. Her hand was warm on his skin.

“Am I… dead?”

The frown turned into a light-scattering smile. “No,” the angel laughed, her voice soft and full and throaty. “You are not dead, nor will you be for a very long time.” Her speech was understandable, though colored with a light dialectal lilt which made it seem decidedly otherworldly.

“Oh,” Treet whispered.

The angel touched his face with the back of her hand. “You sound disappointed.”

Treet only stared upward into the lovely, flawless face, noting the sweep of her dark lashes and the silky smoothness of her cheek. He wondered what it would be like to look upon such perfection for an eternity. “No,” he croaked finally, “not disappointed.”

Just then a door opened somewhere in the room behind them. Treet felt a rush of cooler air that entered with the new arrival. “So, Jaire, our Wanderer is awake, eh?” said a sharp, trumpet tenor. “Has he said anything?”

The woman, Jaire, glanced up and smiled as a man with a cap of white frizzled hair came to stand beside her. Though he appeared well-aged, his muscles were firm, his skin supple. Vitality burst from his quick blue eyes like z-rays from uonium. Apparently there was no way to contain it—the life in the man simply overwhelmed its slight but sturdy container.

“Yes, Bohm, we have been talking about life.” She winked at Treet. “He has decided to remain on this side of the Transformation.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” said Bohm. He placed a ready hand on Treet's cheek, glanced at the cone-shaped instrument, gazed into Treet's eyes for a moment, and then declared, “The life force is stronger—no question about it.” He looked at Treet and said, “Your Creator has seen fit to grace the world with your presence a little longer. Ours is the benefit.”

Treet swallowed, then gagged. His tongue felt twice its size and sticky. A green cylinder appeared in Jaire's hands, and a curved straw was placed at Treet's lips. “Drink slowly,” she instructed.

A cool, slick liquid slid down his throat, which felt like baked cardboard. “Thanks,” he whispered, and drew in another lengthy sip. “What about the others?”

“Your friends are resting comfortably,” said Bohm as Jaire pulled a thin sky-blue coverlet over Treet. “They are still asleep at the moment, but should awaken before we reach Fierra. Please, don't worry about them. Think no negative thoughts. Your trial is over. All will be well.”

A little pinging sound came from another room. “Ah!” said Bohm, turning away. “Another has awakened to join us. I will look in and return when I can. Rest well, Wanderer.” He patted Treet's shoulder as he went by; The door whished open, and he was gone.

“Bohm is a busy fellow,” observed Treet, noticing the light in Jaire's clear eyes as she watched him. “We're on our way to Fierra, which means you must be Fieri.”

“Yes,” she replied, pleased, and a little surprised, Treet thought. “You know our ancestral name. Now you must tell me yours.”

“My name is Orion Treet.”

“Two names? Which do I call you—Orion or Treet?”

“Either.”

“Then I will choose Orion. It has a mysterious sound.” Her eyes sparkled merrily. “What does it mean?”

“What does it mean? Oh, it's the name of a great hunter whose image is remembered in the stars.”

“A good name for you then,” she said. She gazed at him with open admiration, making Treet feel like a rank impostor for presuming to use his own name. She reached down, pulled the coverlet up beneath his chin, and tucked it around his shoulders. “Bohm has said that you should rest. I will leave you now.”

“No, don't. I wa—”

“I will be close by should you need anything. Rest now. Anyone who has come across the Blighted Lands needs all the rest he can get. Think no negative thought.”

Jaire left quietly, and the lights dimmed as the door whished once again, leaving Treet in the soft light from the oval window. He closed his eyes. Yes, it felt good to rest. He would doze for just a moment before getting up.

The moment must have
been a long one, for when he awoke again, the sky through the little oval window showed steel-blue dusk. He felt better than when he woke up the first time, so raised his head slowly from the table. The movement made him slightly woozy, but it passed almost immediately and Treet swung his legs over the edge of the table and stood up, draping the coverlet over one shoulder like a toga.

He tiptoed to the window and looked out. From his vantage point he surmised that he was in a Fieri airship, flying eastward at an altitude of about a thousand meters. It confirmed what he already knew to be true—that they had been rescued from the desert at the point of death by the Fieri and were now en route to the Fieri settlement.

Below, he could see a slice of landscape—not oyster white and dry as bone, but dark green and lush, and not the washed-out green of the hill country either—fertile looking, with gently mounded hills and shallow valleys filled with small round-topped trees. The silver-blue threadwork of a river wriggled beneath the airship as it pushed its way through the lowlands. The rest was cloudless sky, sinking into twilight.

Treet heard the door slide open behind him and tightened his hold on the folds of his improvised toga. He turned to meet Jaire, standing in the doorway. “You are up, Orion. Good. Bohm thought you would be.” She held out her arms, and he saw that she carried clothing. “I brought these for you to wear.” She stepped closer, placing the bundle on the table. “When you are dressed, come out. I want to show you something.”

“Thank you.” Treet nodded. “I will.”

He stared at the place she had stood long after she had gone. There was a woman worth getting to know on more intimate terms, he thought. I should be so lucky.

He shrugged off the toga and sorted through the pile of clothing she'd brought for him. There was a pair of loose-fitting underwear which he donned at once, and a pair of trousers of a softspun, loosely woven material, sandy colored, with a voluminous, three-quarter sleeved shirt to match. He put on the trousers, the pantlegs of which stopped well short of his calves, and then tried the shirt, discovering that it had no buttons. The next item from the pile was a wide, plum-colored sash. He took the shirttails and overlapped them around his waist—noticing that he'd lost every ounce of the life-support system he'd carried with him for the last thirty years—stuck the tails into his trousers and tied the whole works with the sash.

Next he perched on the edge of the table and drew on high boots, dove-gray in color, and made of a canvassy material. He pulled the corded laces tight and wrapped them around the top of the boots, stuffing the few centimeters of pantleg into the boot tops before tying the laces just below the knees. He stood, bounced on his heels a few times to get the feel of his boots, and decided he was ready to join the human race again.

He approached the door and put out a hand, only to have the thing slide open of its own accord. He stepped through to meet Jaire, waiting for him with her back turned, leaning a graceful hip against a rail. She tossed him a glance over her shoulder as he moved to the rail and saw that they were on a circular balcony overlooking a large, circular room. At intervals, short flights of stairs joined the balcony from below, where three male Fieri—each dressed similarly to Treet, except for the fact that they wore their shirttails out—engaged in various tasks related to flying the airship.

“Come with me,” Jaire said, moving off along the rail. “How do you feel?”

“Much better,” Treet said, taken aback by the grating rasp of his voice. “Though I sure don't sound like it.”

“Bohm says that will pass.” She put a hand to his elbow and led him around the circular railing to a bank of windows which curved both above and below the balcony, following the contour of the bulb-shaped nose of the craft.