Under the Canopy (16 page)

After hearing Ort's story, I wanted to apologize to Edlon, but couldn't find the words.

Giant bees buzzed and moved around inside my cranium, I couldn't think straight. Not once I sat at the computer and turned it on, but didn't call Edlon. My speech would have been a torrent of indecipherable words and nothing more. No, I needed to sleep on that. So I went to bed.

Easier said than done.

I rolled around on the sheets most of the night. The images exploded in my mind. The maw of the shrine. The shooting. R'lok bowing before me. Edlon standing over the dead thieves. The knife with yellow blood on it. There was no coherence in this horror show. Finally, I fell into blackness, exhausted. The sandman was merciful, and I didn't dream.

The next morning, I woke up with a clear head and a clear purpose. I decided to go to Edlon's cabin and explain myself. We should have this talk face to face, not in some video chat. I got up late, thanks to the sleepless night, so he could be on patrol. So what, I thought, I can wait for him on his roof. I took the scooter out and aimed east, for his sector. Thoughts and fragments of phrases swarmed in my head, amounting to nothing. I still didn't have my speech.
So what? Perfectly selected words wouldn't help. Only my intentions mattered in the end. I felt so ashamed.

I saw a flash in the distance slightly to the left of me. It appeared and vanished. I thought it might be a glitch in my brain, but it lit up again and blinked out. Somehow, I understood right away what it was — R'lok was signaling me with the flashlight. He wanted a meeting, and I wouldn't ignore his invitation. Whatever it was, it must have been something important if he came in person. I sped to the rendezvous.

R'lok was waiting for me at the base of a tree. I hovered over the clearing and remembered how I saved his life that day. How he saluted me with two fingers. Now he was looking up and waving. He wasn't alone now. Behind R'lok, I saw a group of people who were bustling about, dropping glances at me. A royal train. It didn’t look like he came to ask for help again. I descended.

My scooter hovered above the ground, and I looked at my guests from top downward. R'lok was dressed in a lush fur and a hat with claws woven into it. When he saw me face to face, the alien made an elegant bow.

'Good day to you, thundergod,' he said. R'lok looked merry, almost beaming. The train was less cheerful. They huddled together behind their chief and dropped to the knees when I gazed upon them.

'What brings you here, friend?' I asked with numbing lips. The situation was grotesque, and I kept thinking of Audrey. R'lok was the only barrier between
them
and me. I wanted this to be over as soon as possible, but didn't want to be rude to R'lok.

The alien straightened and extended his hand to me. 'O brave thundergod, you have helped us, you saved me. You hero. I want to return fraction of good you had done to us. Please, accept this humble present.'

Alright, a present. I didn't want, or deserve, one, but who asked me. I put my hand on the chest. 'I'd be much obliged.'

R'lok beamed and turned to his people. They whispered something, the train parted, and they gave him what looked like a wooden shield. R'lok turned to me and made his offering.

(They drove a big stake through her, its end came out of the jugular notch.)

Edlon's head lay on the shield. His face was covered in blood and dirt, but what got to me was the look on it. He looked sad, humble, beaten. No trace of his usual smirk. Edlon looked like he accepted his fate.

'Behold, thundergod, the head of your enemy. Rejoice!' R'lok extended the gift to me, smiling. Only it no longer looked like a smile. His lips were stretched, parting in the middle, uncovering sharp teeth beneath. It was a grimace of an animal, a mask that only appeared to look like a human face.

There was a lump in my throat. I gulped it down and tried to speak. 'What have you done, beasts…'

A whisper, no more, but he heard it. The grimace dropped off his face. R'lok looked at me ingratiatingly, but soon his expression changed to confusion. He didn't understand my reaction. After all, he'd seen us fight with his own eye.

I looked into Edlon's face, and he looked back at me with a reproach. The man I would never apologize to. I felt revulsion and loathing so strong that I nearly fell off the scooter. I grabbed my head, a moan crept out of my chest. 'Away… get away from me!' I shouted at them. The alien pulled the shield to him, others moved back a bit. I tried to shout again, but my throat closed like it was squeezed by steel fingers. I grabbed the rifle hanging on my shoulder and fired into the air.

The report clapped in the clearing, bouncing off trees. The train dropped to the ground and fled into the brush. R'lok only flinched and dropped his hands. The shield slapped his legs, and the head rolled onto the ground. The alien just stood there, hands hanging by his sides, an uncomprehending stare directed at me. I lowered the rifle and aimed at him.

'Go away! Never return here! Or I'll kill you.' I spit out the words through the teeth and looked at him through the gunsight.

The alien made a step forward and extended his hand, he wanted to explain himself. I fired. The bullet passed by his ear, tearing a tuft of wool from the fur on his shoulders. Now he got it. The alien stepped back, his hand curling.

'You cursed thing! Go now or I'll shoot you where you stand!' I felt my face reddening.

R'lok made another step back, still looking at me. He looked like he couldn't believe his eye. Then he threw the shield on the ground, turned and ran away. I wanted to shoot him in the back, but didn't, just helplessly lowered the rifle.

My stomach jumped to the throat. I dropped the weapon and leaned on the dashboard. The world danced and whirled around me. I covered my face. Steady, steady, concentrate. Finally, the carousel stopped. I looked back at the gift. Edlon's head lay on the ground like another rock. You wouldn't tell the difference from the air. I looked around and stepped on the ground without turning off the engine. My rifle searched the greenery for the targets.

I approached the head and squatted beside it. I was scared to touch the thing. I wasn't afraid of dead people, but this was different. It wasn't just a head, but a mark of my personal damnation. I squeezed the rifle under my elbow and touched Edlon with the other hand. Still warm. They did it today. I rolled the head onto my arm like a ball and returned to the floating scooter.

I put the rifle on the seat and opened the basket. Before I put the head inside, I closed his eyes.
Forgive me, Edlon.

I closed the lid, sat on the scooter and rose into the air. When I was high enough to see my surroundings, I called Ort over the wrist communicator.

What I heard was the crunching of white noise. I stared at my communicator not comprehending what it meant. Then I remembered. The magnetic storm, it must be at its zenith now. No communication till the next day. Ort wouldn't have received my message even if I was two hundred feet away from him.

Without wasting a moment, I swerved the scooter and pushed the pedal to the metal. My only option was to come to his cabin in person.

The wind beat me in the face, biting the skin to the bone, but I didn't pay attention to it. I felt Edlon staring into my back from inside the basket, from beyond the closed eyelids. His gaze burned like acid and whipped me forward. At last, I saw the cabin. Flying over to it, I started to honk madly. I beat the shit out of the horn button, but to no avail. No one came out.

Desperation choked my heart. What if they had gotten him too…
Then I heard honking from the distance. I replied and laughed aloud. Ort was coming. I landed on the roof and peered into the woods, waiting for him.

Ort emerged from the greenery and dropped on the roof. The moment his scooter touched down, he stepped on the concrete and hurried to me in big steps. 'What happened?'

I stepped back and gestured him to come closer. Then I opened the basket and averted my eyes into the forest. Ort looked inside for mere moments and then closed the lid.

I turned to him. 'R'lok.'

'When?'

'This morning. On the edge of Edlon's sector. I was coming to have a talk with him.' I told him about the rest.

Ort listened silently, I could see the muscles of his face tighten. 'You should have killed them on the spot. All of them.'

I couldn't answer anything to that.

'We'll deal with R'lok and others later,' Ort said. 'They must be gone already. Doesn't matter. First, we must check the cabin. In case he visited it.'

'Let's go then,' I said and mounted my scooter.

We didn't talk the whole way there.

Edlon's cabin was identical to mine. Nothing looked out of place. No broken windows. No scratches on the walls. No torn off doors. We landed on the roof and went to the elevator. Ort clicked the safety of his rifle into the fire mode and I followed suit.

I approached the elevator and touched the panel. 'Emergency code k158. Wealder. Requesting entrance.' Then I stepped to the side. Ort did the same, and the doors opened.

'If they are there,' Ort said to me in the elevator. 'Shoot first, think later. They are quick.' I nodded.

Nobody was in the crow's nest. All seemed peaceful and cleaner than I expected from Edlon. We separated, Ort headed for the garage by the elevator while I descended the stairs.

I walked softly downstairs, listening for any sound that might have given away their presence, but heard only the hum of the descending elevator. I remembered Ort's rescue and did the same thing — took the landing and scanned the living room with my rifle. I waved the barrel in the air and the dark room lit up.

Nothing.

I walked forward expecting an attack, but then lowered the rifle. I was obviously alone here. The place looked perfectly intact. I examined the floor and didn't even see a speck of dirt. Something clicked, and I jumped back, my finger finding the trigger all by itself.

The cleaning droid slid out of the wall and went to work. The machine didn't care that the master of the house got decapitated. No wonder the floor was so clean. It was wiped. No evidence could be found, even if the natives had been here.

I walked to the bedroom, kicking the droid on my way there. The robot clanked and jumped, but continued his work. The room was unruffled, except for the bed, but I guessed that it was its normal condition. I saw a picframe on the bedside table and took it in hand. The screen showed a woman in a scarf, she was smiling. That must have been Audrey. Now they were together, wherever it was, if it even was. I shook off this morbid thought and put the picture back.

When I came out of the bedroom, Ort was walking up the stairs. He shook his scruffy head. 'They attacked him in the woods — a scooter is gone.' He jerked his head upward. ‘The cameras.'

When we moved up the stairs, I asked him, 'Has this ever happened before?'

Ort moved his mustache. 'Yes, in the early days. I've read old reports of aliens ambushing rangers. It was before the whole "thundergod" thing started. We stomped them down. They started to look up to us. Eventually, they created a cult, and we… We just let it go on.'

'Control through fear?'

Ort looked at me gloomily. 'It's all about power. That's what they respect.'

We entered the crow's nest. Ort dropped into the seat and began to search the video archive. It didn't take long. The recording was fresh and had a warning tag next to it. Ort stretched it to fullscreen.

On the screen, Edlon glided over the forest floor on patrol. The view changed to a different camera. He stopped, something drawing his attention. A flash in the grass. Ort zoomed in. Edlon lowered his scooter to the ground and jumped off. He went up to whatever was flashing, looked at the thing, and picked it up. It was a camera, torn out of a tree along with its mounting pin. A piece of wood clung to the spike like meat on the end of a rapier. Edlon heard a snap from the side and jerked to the right. An alien attacked him from the left. He tried to fight, but another one jumped on top of him from the right. Then they swarmed him. We could see only a wriggling mass of bodies. A shot rang out, followed by another one. One alien raised his club and rained it down. The struggle stopped at once. Edlon was stunned and dragged to the side.

I felt sickness returning. Seeing Edlon alive again was like a harsh jab under the ribs.

Ort stopped the recording and entered the coordinates into his wrist communicator. 'I've seen enough. Let's go.' He stood up.

'What about calling the sawmill? They can help.'

Ort looked at the computer and then shook his head. 'No use. The magnetic storm is rolling in. Too thick even for these machines. Will have to travel there. But first, we must retrieve the body.' His voice dropped. 'R'lok has chosen a good day for his betrayal.'

Ort walked to the elevator, and I took one last look at the screen. The video was on pause. The aliens were carrying Edlon away. Only one of them faced the camera. He looked directly at it. R'lok. Even without zooming on his face, I could recognize him. The black hole gaped at me. I switched off the computer and followed Ort.

The ambush site wasn't far. We stopped the scooters and left them hovering, not turning off the engines. We advanced slowly, searching for targets everywhere.