IN NATURA: a science fiction novel (ARZAT SERIES Book 2) (16 page)

CHAPTER 21

KILLING STICK

Mot quickly polished off a large portion of the buffalo meat that Tom had prepared for him and began work on another. The fire they had built to cook the meal had burned down to dimly glowing coals. The sky was totally dark.

  Tom had always thought that
he
had a big appetite until he had witnessed Mot getting after a meal. Before they had gone into cryogenic sleep, Tom had prepared many large dinners in the ARC’s well-equipped kitchens for Alex and the Arzats, so he was used to seeing him eat, but the quantity of food Mot could put away was still mind numbing. Ara’s appetite, for that matter, didn’t lag far behind her mate’s.
He must have downed four or five pounds already,
Tom thought. The buffalo meat was not going to last long at this rate. Now he half-wished that they had hauled more of it back.

  As Tom watched Mot continue to devour his dinner, he noticed that Mot’s reptilian skin appeared to perfectly reflect the remaining light coming from the fire pit. He had first observed this phenomenon during their time in the ARC. Though Mot’s natural color was actually kind of a blue-green and Ara’s was more golden, they definitely did seem to take on the tint of their immediate surroundings.
If I were at more of a distance, they would be almost impossible to see,
he thought.
Amazing! In addition to everything else,
he realized,
they really are chameleons!
It was now obvious to him that this characteristic was even more pronounced outdoors.

  He got up and threw some more wood on the fire to bring it back to life.

  “You should eat more, Tom Pilot, to gain strength,” Ara said, without looking up. She was preoccupied with crafting a weapon. “We will not be able to take any of the meat with us anyway when we attempt to follow Mot. We will have to travel with as little as possible to gain speed.”

  Ara had gone into the forest earlier and had returned with two long and fairly straight pieces of wood that were about the size the Arzat’s had described to Tom as “killing sticks.” Their lengths were just short of Ara’s height and about four or five inches in diameter each. Tom had watched closely as Mot ate and Ara had gone to work.

  First, she had carefully eyed each length for straightness, as if she were sizing up a set of pool cues. Then, she tested them for heft and strength by placing the weight of her body on each of them, angling the large sticks into the ground and holding the upper end with one hand while putting pressure with the other. When she ultimately seemed satisfied, she stopped and looked Tom directly in the eye.

  “Pilot Tom,” she asked. “May I borrow your blade?” She sensed that he was very worried she would ruin it. “I will be very careful with it, but it is required.”

  Mot and Ara rarely referred to Tom in true Arzat fashion, which would have been to use his father’s name in conjunction with his own. Just as Mot was the son of Url and Ara the daughter of Zan, Tom would formally be Tom, son of Richard, in Arzat etiquette. But, ever since Tom had flown the two of them and Alex from the Nevada ARC to the unoccupied Utah ARC in a mad dash to escape the impact of the asteroid, the Arzats most often used “Tom Pilot” or simply “Pilot” when they referred to him, almost as a surname.

  He reached out and presented his long knife to Ara holding the blade so that she could take it by the handle. “I still can’t believe how easily you read my mind, Ara!”

  She tested the blade, seemed pleased, and immediately began using it to sharpen one end of the long shaft of wood. Tom winced when he saw how much pressure she was able to apply and worried even more that their one-and-only knife might snap under the pressure.

  “As even you said, Tom Pilot, you must learn to block,” Ara said, concentrating her attention on her work. “But, that is only for other Arzats and perhaps Alex. I have been inside your mind and have seen almost everything there is to see, so really . . .”  She shrugged without looking up. “Anyway, I will do my best not to damage this precious blade, for I too understand its immediate importance.”

  “I can’t telepath with Alex, Ara,” Tom said, suddenly forgetting all about the knife.

  “You might if you tried, Pilot.”

  Tom wondered for a moment if that were true.
Could I really telepath directly with Alex?

  “Now,” Ara said, glancing up from her work to make sure that Mot was still eating, “I am a poor craftsman, and I only know of these things from stealing a look now and then . . .”

  Even in his head, Tom could tell Ara was making some sort of sardonic statement.

  “Of course, Pilot Tom, the Arzat females were certainly never allowed to directly create weapons or to ever partake in a hunt. But, if one were to keep one’s eyes open . . .” Ara paused, the pupils of her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked directly at Mot and Tom. She seemed to be smiling.

  Tom continued to watch Ara craft the weapon, liking her more and more. Despite her assurances, he still grimaced each time Ara put her enormous pressure to the knife. In only a few minutes, she had skillfully carved the tip of the long shaft into a rather sharp point and had deftly skinned the rest of the branch and cut another indentation two thirds of the way toward the other end.

  “I must say, Tom Pilot, we Arzats never had a blade like this. We did have metals, but they were much softer. Most of our cutting was done with sharp stone.”

  “I am hoping that later, I can figure out how to forge some more like it, Ara.” Tom expected Ara to immediately ask him more about forging, but the female Arzat remained silent, apparently concentrating on her project.

  When she was finished, she placed the sharp end of the wood into the fire and twisted it in the red-hot coals until the end appeared to glow. Ara removed it and blew on the hot end as a test, then snuffed it with her bare fingers and eyed the entire piece. Satisfied, she gripped it in both hands and presented it to Mot who had finished eating and had been watching his mate just as transfixed by her efforts as Tom had been.

  “It is not much, Mot, Great Hunter, son of Url, but it is the best I can do at this moment,” Ara said, holding the piece out to him. “Go now and find Alex, as you have said you will do. Tom and I will follow when the light comes. If there is trouble, I beg you to please wait for us. If we should fail to find you, meet us here, in this very place.”

  Far off, deep in the night, a bolt of lightning lit the sky. All three of them knew what it might mean. A few moments later, the light was followed by the deep and ominous sound of distant thunder.

  “Thank you, Ara, daughter of Zan,” Mot said, looking down at the weapon, proud of her accomplishment and amazed by it. In another time, Ara’s act of creating such a thing would have been considered an atrocity in the Arzat culture simply because she was a female. Now, it had been a necessity, and Mot was happy to have a mate so capable.
How was it possible that the Arzat males had so completely underestimated their females,
Mot wondered again?

  Another bolt of lightning flashed.

  “You must go now, Mot,” Ara said, glancing in the direction of the white light.

  “I will leave you signs, in case the rain washes my scent,” he replied to his mate.

  Mot turned to Tom. “If it is the will of the Great Creator, I will find Alex alive and return her to you, Tom the Pilot. But I will find her just the same.”

  He rose, took a few steps, and looked back at Ara. “Beware of the night,” he said, and then he instantly disappeared into the forest.

CHAPTER 22

FIRE FROM NOTHING

The evening twilight had quickly faded from the clearing and Alex found herself trapped in the near dark with an angry Arzat. Now she could barely see him as he kept beckoning her to the pile of branches he had so obviously placed for a fire.

  “Do you know how to make fire,
uman
?” he continued to ask her aloud in the amazingly difficult Arzat language.

  During their time together in the ARC, Alex had worked with Ara for hours and hours trying to master the correct pronunciation of just a few Arzat words and phrases. Alex had failed miserably. She could speak Spanish fluently with a reasonable accent and had, at one time, even been able to master some French, but the spoken Arzat words had seemed nearly impossible.

  “Alex, you must learn to fold back your tongue,” Ara had told her, as if doing so was the easiest thing in the world.

  The Arzat pointed again at the wood. “Make fire!”

  Should I show him,
she wondered? She could clearly recall her father Simon demonstrating to her as a young girl how to create the friction necessary to create fire from two pieces of wood, and she had watched Tom demonstrate to Mot the method with flint and steel. Alex had almost no doubt she could get a fire going, but what would happen then?
Will he kill me? 

  God, what I wouldn’t give for a book of matches or a BIC lighter right now,
she thought, still blocking. That would really blow this guy’s mind.

  Za’at was beside himself. The only reason he had allowed this
uman
to live in the first place was his hope that she could show him the secret of creating fire, and she had been nothing but trouble ever since. Now he began to wonder if she even knew how? Perhaps it was a skill only a select few of the smooth-skins possessed. Perhaps it was something only the
uman
males could accomplish. That would make
some
sense.
Someone in that camp had known, that was for sure,
he thought, remembering how Ack had stumbled and fallen into the
uman’s
fire.

   Za’at knew he was going to have a very difficult time explaining to the Elders the circumstances of Ack’s death. Unless he came up with something incredible to show them, he might as well just kill this female and be done with her.
Perhaps,
he began to consider,
I could at least save some face by showing up with her cleaned and perfectly skinned carcass. I will save her head as a trophy and the proof.

  “I will give you one chance,” the Arzat said to Alex, pushing her toward the dry wood. “If you cannot show me the secret of fire,
uman
, than I shall kill you and have you for dinner raw.”

  Za’at leaned close to Alex as a threat, baring his line of sharp, white teeth as a warning. Even in the low light, he could see her clearly. There was something disturbing in the female’s eyes, some level of comprehension that made him uncomfortable and even angrier.

  Well Alex, I guess you have your answer,
she thought.
He might kill you if you show him but he is definitely going to kill you if you don’t.

  Alex rummaged around in the pile and found two pieces of wood that she thought might do the trick. One was almost flat on one side and the other a short piece that was almost perfectly round and about a foot long. Both, thankfully, were extremely dry. She jammed the flat piece between some rocks and used another to indent the surface, making sure her movements were slow and purposeful. She then took the straight round piece into both of her hands, inserted one end into the indentation, and began to rub her hands back and forth rapidly, occasionally glancing at the giant Arzat who was watching her intently. Nothing was coming from his head, but something in his demeanor seemed to doubt her process.

  “Here goes nothin’,” she said aloud, blocking.

  There were two methods that Alex knew of to try to create a glowing ember. One involved using a piece of wood with a slot and rubbing a stick up and down its length. The other was to vigorously rotate a round stick back and fourth in a single spot on another piece. She had opted for the latter, since that appeared to be her only option at the moment.

  At first, nothing seemed to happen, and even Alex began to wonder if what she was doing would work. But, as she continued, she started to feel the friction beginning to generate heat. She tested the end the stick. It was hot, but it wasn’t even close to hot enough to cause an ember and she began to worry again.

  “Patience, Alex. Patience!  Stay with it. You’ve done this, remember?”

  She increased her pace, breaking into a sweat as her fingers moved back and forth. Finally, there was a slight thread of smoke. The indentation in the flat piece of wood began to slightly glow and the end of the round stick was becoming red hot.

  Alex held the stick up and blew. She had done it. There was actually a very slight ember glowing on the end of it. She quickly placed it into a small pile of dry grass and blew some more, agitating the end of the stick in the process. Finally a spark appeared, then another, and the dry grass burst into a small flame.

  Alex carefully fed her fledgling fire with more dry wood until the larger pile had caught and began to spread. When she was sure she had succeeded, she sat back and looked at the Arzat in the light of the fire she had just created. His eyes were glowing with delight, locked on the flames.

  She rolled back off of her knees into a crouching position that was almost exactly like the large Arzat’s squat and stared at him, still carefully blocking her thoughts. “There. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, mother fucker,” she said aloud, watching his eyes as his large pupils reflected the firelight.

  Now
all you have to do is convince him he cannot do it himself,
she heard Simon say in her head.

  “Very good . . . Very good,” Za’at said almost unconsciously, his eyes focused on the new flames. He had watched every move the female had made. Was it really that simple? Rub two pieces of wood?

  Za’at found himself rubbing his own hands together with excitement.
After all of these many seasons, no Arzat has ever made this discovery,
he thought.
Not before the Great Rebirth, nor after, has any Arzat ever mastered the creation of fire.
Not even the Great Hunter Orn—who is the father of all Arzats—had MASTERED THE CREATION OF FIRE FROM NOTHING! Now Za’at, son of the Great Hunter Qua, his lineage of fine hunters clearly recorded back to the rebirth and beyond, has finally discovered the secret!

  Suddenly, Za’at knew, his life had changed. No longer was he worried about dealing with the wrath of the Elders. This discovery went beyond any other judgment they might render regarding his leadership or the circumstances of the hunt. Despite the mishap with Ack, now he would not only be returning with the prize of the
uman
who had killed Ack but also with the ultimate prize of being able to create fire from nothing! No longer would the Arzats have to scramble to preserve that which the Great Creator only occasionally provided and which then had to be closely kept and guarded. The prospects made his head swim.

  You will be the most famous Arzat in . . . in . . . the history of all Arzats,
his head kept telling him.

  Suddenly, he looked at the female. In the midst of his thoughts, she had uttered something aloud in the smooth-skin’s unusual high-pitched gibberish. He hadn’t understood it, but whatever the female had said had strangely felt like an insult. He watched her closely for a moment with her incredible blue eyes looking back into his—fearless. Za’at could have easily reached over and knocked the little female senseless, and he nearly did so, but something stopped him.

  What other uman tricks do you know,
he wondered, consciously trying to read the thoughts behind those strange white circles?

  Eventually, Za’at turned his attention back to the fire the
uman
had started and that was now burning nicely, already in need of more fuel. He quickly retrieved more dry wood and fed the flames.

  “You deserve a reward, little
uman
,” he said aloud as he stoked the fire, still delighted with his newfound prospects. “I will not kill you for the moment, but instead, I shall make you a dinner of roasted
ree
. Then, when Qu’aa rises, I shall decide what to do about you.”