IN NATURA: a science fiction novel (ARZAT SERIES Book 2) (21 page)

CHAPTER 30

LONE WOLF

After the young woman
had eaten her fill of buffalo, Tom and Ara had decided to let her sleep before they began questioning her. It was clear to both of them that she was spent.

  “She is too exhausted to be of any use to us tonight, Tom Pilot,” Ara had said to him, despite her own desire to fully question the female. She knew that Tom was equally exhausted and equally in need of rest, but she blocked the thought, not wishing to offend him. “Qu’aa will rise in just three or four torches. Better to get some rest, Pilot. We will leave at first light, and I will attempt to speak to the little female and question her along the way.”

  While he had been anxious to find out what the young girl might know about Alex, Tom was far too tired to argue with Ara’s point. He realized that all of them needed sleep or they would be worthless in the morning. The two of them piled up what was left of the clothing Ara and Mot had shed earlier in the day and made the best bed they could for their surprise guest.

  “You need rest, little Ma-ri-a,” Ara told her telepathically. “In the morning, we must go and find our friend, and you will come with us. You need not worry. I will protect you with my life. Sleep now, and I will awaken you when Qu’aa rises.”

  Maria had looked into the golden eyes of the giant lizard, still not believing she could “hear” the creature speaking in her mind. With her stomach full and somewhat less fearful for her life, Maria’s body suddenly felt as if it weighed a thousand stones. She allowed the creature to lead her to the area that had obviously been prepared for her. Gratefully settling into a pile of their strange clothing, she dropped instantly off to sleep.

* * *

Tom awoke immediately to Ara’s touch. Light was already beginning to show on the eastern horizon, though it felt as if he had just shut his eyes for a moment. He looked over toward the fire, almost surprised to see that the young girl was still sleeping exactly where he and Ara had left her. Her sudden appearance the night before still seemed like a dream.

  “I watched her all night, Tom Pilot,” Ara said to him, reading his mind.

  “I thought you might sleep, Ara,” Tom said, struggling to lift his stiff body from the hard ground.

  Jesus, I must be getting old,
he thought, trying to work some movement into his limbs. He laughed at his own unintentional joke, suddenly remembering the eight thousand odd years that the cryo sleep had piled on to his original thirty-seven.

  “There was too much out there,” Ara said, her eyes indicating the perimeter of the camp. “Perhaps
you
should awaken the female, Pilot. She seems less frightened by your presence.” She looked back toward the impending sunrise. “We need to leave soon.”

  Tom slowly approached the young girl and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. She moved slightly, and then appeared to settle into an even deeper slumber. He shook her a bit and she finally opened her eyes, startled.

  Maria had been having a pleasant dream about being home, back with her tribe, as if she had never been foolish enough to leave in the first place. When she opened her eyes, she was instantly reminded of her current predicament.

  The strange male was crouching close by. He had surprised her, but there was something in his eyes that was immediately reassuring.
He’s actually quite handsome,
she thought,
even if he is old.
The hair on his head was the shortest she had ever seen. Maria glanced past the man and could see the female lizard some paces behind him, watching her.

  “At et ur namo?” Maria asked the male as she sat up.

  Tom heard her words and though he didn’t totally understand them, he knew what she meant. “My name is Tom. And that,” he said, gesturing behind, “is Ara.”

  “Tam . . . Aaara . . .” Maria repeated. “E ama et Maria,” she said, pointing at herself.

  “Nice to meet you, Maria,” Tom said, holding out his hand.

  Maria extended her own, expecting the man was offering to help her up, but he clasped it momentarily and released.
How odd,
she thought.

  “Well, Maria, we need to go find Alex,” Tom said.

  The woman gave him a confused look.

  “We need to go and find Tom’s mate,” Maria heard the female lizard say clearly in her head. “Maria, did you see another female yesterday?”

  Maria looked at the lizard Ara and attempted the reply only with her own mind. “Yes. I was close by when a woman was taken by another of your kind.”

  “Tom Pilot,” Ara said, “she saw Alex being captured. I also could see it in her memories last night, but the images were vague and from quite a distance.”

  “Where? What happened?” Tom said aloud, forgetting that the woman could not understand him.

  Ara redirected her attention to the female. “Maria, did you see what happened? Did the Arzat kill the woman?”

  Maria paused. “I am not sure. I was on the other side of the river, and it was hard to see. Is that what you . . . call yourselves . . . Arzats?”

  “Yes Maria, but we—my mate and I—are from a different time. It is a very long story. Where did you see this happen?”

  “Up the river,” Maria said, pointing in the direction Mot had gone.

  “Maria, we need you to take us there. Can you do that?”

* * *

It was late morning by the time the three of them reached Maria’s old camp. Ara was forced to move slowly, though she could tell that both of the humans were doing their best to keep up with her.

  Along the way, the young female had stopped and pointed out the spot where she had seen Tom’s mate captured. Ara carefully sniffed the area and looked around, relieved that she could not see or detect the scent of blood, only the fading scents of both Alex and the Arzat who had apparently taken her. She had reassured Tom the Pilot that if Alex had been killed, it had not happened when she was captured.

  As they got closer to Maria’s camp, Ara cautioned them. The stench coming from the area was strong enough that the Arzat was sure even a human could smell it. Mot had done a good job marking his own trail for her, but there was another scent present in the area that Ara was not familiar with. It smelled dangerous—some sort of predator she could not identify.

  “Do you know these tracks, Tom Pilot?” she said, bending down over an area of soft earth.

  Tom studied the marks carefully. They looked like dog tracks, but they were much larger. A chill ran up his spine. “Wolves, Ara. These have to be wolf tracks. Too big to be anything else.”

  “Are these the beasts you described before?” Ara said, remembering Tom’s description of the four-legged “dogs” he had once talked about. She was already testing the ground.

  “Yes, Ara, very . . .”

  “They are close, Tom Pilot,” she said, rising and seizing his arm.

  Tom looked up just in time to see a large wolf silently running toward the three of them, teeth barred. He swiftly pulled his long knife and prepared for battle but not nearly as swiftly as his Arzat friend had moved, stepping between Tom and Maria and shielding them with her body from the charging wolf.

  Ara let out a scream that was so loud it seemed impossible to Tom that it could have come from her. The wolf stumbled and scrambled to regain its footing and then changed direction and vanished into the underbrush almost as quickly as it had appeared.

  Ara immediately dropped into a squat and again placed her palms to the ground, sniffing and flicking the air as she did so. She listened intently while her nose and tongue continued to sort out the various scents that had been left in the area.

  There had been many humans, she realized, although none of them had been Alex. Many of the dogs and many Arzats had traveled through. Thankfully, the strongest and most recent scent, aside from the animal that had just attacked them, was the one most recognizable of all—that of her mate Mot.

  She rose back up and turned to Tom and Maria.

  “I do not detect any more of these ‘wolf’ animals close by, Tom Pilot. It seems as if there was only the one, and it has decided to leave the area,” Ara said.

  “Well, I’m not surprised, Ara. I think that if I ran into you howling at me like that, I would leave the area too!” Tom’s heart was still beating so fast he could feel his pulse in his temples. He was still looking in the direction the lone wolf had taken.

  “I do not understand, Tom Pilot.”

  “Never mind, Ara. Thanks for jumping in,” he said, finally relaxing.

  He turned and looked at Maria, who seemed to be relatively calm given the circumstances. This was obviously not her first encounter with wolves. Tom wished he could speak with her directly.

  “Obos,” Maria said, pointing in the direction the wolf had run.

  “That is the female’s spoken word for the animals you call ‘wolves’,” Tom Pilot.

  Interesting. That is very close to the Spanish word
lobos
,
he thought. Tom suddenly remembered an English professor in college that had proclaimed that Spanish would soon be the dominant language in all of North America. That prophecy seemed to have been well on its way to happening prior to the asteroid strike. Perhaps Maria’s own language had morphed into some hybrid version of it. Tom didn’t speak much Spanish himself, but Alex did.
Maybe she can figure out how to communicate with her directly,
he thought.

  Yes,
if
she is still alive,
Ara worried to herself, reading the Pilot’s mind. “We need to go.”

* * *

The threesome proceeded along the rest of the morning at what Tom considered breakneck speed. Ara was on point, with Maria in the middle and Tom taking up the rear guard. Not since he had been in Army Ranger training had he been forced to maintain such a pace. Ara, he was sure, probably considered their group to be hardly moving. Maria, on the other hand, seemed to be having no trouble keeping up, despite the young woman’s very pregnant condition.

  I’m getting old,
he thought for the second time as he stepped over a boulder.

  “You are not so old as you are slow, Tom Pilot,” Ara said to him silently as she moved along in front. “I remember seeing many humans in the ARC who had far more seasons than you.”

  “Damn, Ara, I can hardly have a thought without you intercepting it!”

  “Sorry, Tom,” Ara said, without the least bit of guilt. “I was just checking to see how you were doing and . . . well . . .”

  “Speaking of how we are doing—how is Maria?”

  “She says she is feeling better since her sleep. I have been speaking with her almost the entire journey. She has great knowledge of this area, Tom Pilot, and also great knowledge of how to survive here.”

  “What about Alex?”

  “She told me the entire story from the time she left her clan up until the moment that Alex was taken. I have also been able to see things more clearly in her memories as well. Unfortunately, she was not close when the Arzat attacked . . . or . . . . How would you say it? ‘Abducted’ Alex? I cannot get a completely clear picture of it.”

  Ara stopped for a moment, sniffed and flicked the air with her tongue, then continued on.

  Tom was breathing heavily and hoping that Ara would take a break. “Are we getting any closer, Ara?”

  “Closer to what, Tom Pilot?”

  “Anything,” Tom said, realizing the stupidity of his question.

  Ara stopped again and flicked and sniffed carefully. “We are close to water. I can tell you
that,
Tom Pilot. Let’s find it, and we can take a drink, and you and the female can rest for a moment.”

  For a moment! How about for a week
, Tom thought, praying that the water was as “close” as the Arzat had just made it sound.

  “It
is
close, Tom Pilot,” Ara said, twisting her head around on her neck so far that Tom found it unnerving. The Arzat was looking straight back at Tom though her body was still moving forward. He was further surprised when he saw what he thought was a wink!

* * *

  As promised and in short order, they reached a rather sizable creek. The water was running swiftly over a shallow bed of smooth river rocks. On the far side, the creek turned back hard to the right and slowed. A natural beach of sand had formed there.

  Ara stepped gingerly over the dry rocks on the creek’s bank and squatted. She carefully sniffed and tested the water. “The water is good,” she said, taking a large sip of it from the palm of her hand.

  Tom watched as Maria quickly bent down, washed her hands briefly in the flow, then cupped them and began drinking very much like the Arzat. He peeled off his makeshift pack, which was largely made up of what was left of the clothing they had brought from the ARC, and found his own place at the water’s edge. Tom noticed that—despite having a good long drink herself—Ara’s eyes were constantly scanning the area, one hand planted firmly on the earth testing the ground for vibrations. Suddenly, she rose and sprang across the creek in a single bound, easily landing on the sandy spot on the far side a full thirty feet away.