SWEET HOME ALLE BAMMA (SOLBIDYUM WARS SAGA) (34 page)

“I’ve heard in recent years that there was a new drug sweeping some of the outer worlds and that it was becoming a real scourge that caused its users to spend or surrender all their assets just to get more of it.  The name of this drug on the streets is
God’s Sweat
.  If that’s what this is,” Kerabac said as he gestured toward Hotyona, who was now reaching and gesturing in slow motion toward something visible only to him, “no one has ever figured out where it comes from, until now.  God’s Sweat is illegal on all Federation planets; however, on some of the non-aligned worlds it can be purchased anywhere legally.  Even with the laws against it and a very stiff penalty for peddling it, the demand for it in the Federation by drug users is high.”

At this point
Hotyona’s head had dropped to his chest and he was swaying from side to side mumbling and humming.

“How long before it wears off?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Kerabac.  “Aside from what I just told you, I know very little about the drug.  I would say, based on his appearance now, that it will be hours at best.”

I looked outside.  The rain had not let up and I could see it was beginning to get darker; the sun was setting and it would only be minutes before it would be too dark to travel.

“It looks like we will be here for the night,” I said.  “Is there anything we need to know or prepare for?”

“I saw a few reeds just before we entered the tree that I believe have a high oil sap content.  The natives burn them like candles.  If we can collect some and get them lit, it will at least provide us with some light, and the smoke may keep most of the rubloids out, or at least prevent them from biting us.  I think it’s safe to go out to gather some reeds.  I don’t believe the Brotherhood will have anyone out looking for us in the dark.  The smoke won’t travel far in the humid air; and the opening to this tree is narrow, so unless someone is standing in just the right location, I don’t think the light can be seen either.”

Just then I felt something bite my neck and I swatted it.  The small, dead creature on my hand was about the size of my little fingernail.  It was sort of soft and had an iridescent pinkish green color.

“There, that’s what I’m talking about,”
said Kerabac.  “Once the sun sets, there will be swarms of those little vermin all over the place.  They are repelled both by light and the scent of the oil sticks.”

The bite was still stinging and burning when I replied, “Well, what are we waiting for?  Let’s get ourselves enough to last us through the night.”

Collecting the plants was not difficult as they seemed to grow abundantly in the area around the tree roots.  We tried not to take too many from one spot, electing instead to pick one here and there, so as not to make it obvious that they had been harvested and give away our location.  Fortunately, the rainfall had slowed somewhat, enough to make it a bit easier to see and complete the task.  By the time we ran out of daylight we had a large stockpile of the plant piled up in the back of the cavity under the tree.  Kerabac stuck five of the reeds in the ground across the entrance and, using a device he pulled from a pocket in is uniform vest, he lit the ends.  At first the stems didn’t seem to want to burn.  Then, slowly, a flame began to grow on the end of each reed and before long there was a row of beautiful yellow flames casting light into the space.  Black oily smoke curled from the flames, spiraling upward and spreading out like a small cloud throughout the tree cavity.  The accumulating smoke had a rather pungent smell that was not unpleasant to breathe; but it was a bit uncomfortable on the eyes, as it stung and made it difficult to see.  Once Kerabac was certain that the reeds were burning well, he stripped off his shirt and twisted it to wring out the water.

“I would suggest you wring as much moisture out of your clothing as possible,” he said.  “While you won’t be able to get completely dry, you’ll be a bit more comfortable.”  In the light of the reeds Kerabac’s white teeth seemed to be accented by his black flesh as he smiled broadly.”

“Thanks for the suggestion.  I couldn’t get any wetter if I jumped into the lake.”

As we stripped and wrung our clothing out as best we could, I commented with praise for the scientists who developed the textile used to make our uniforms.  The fabric didn’t hold much moisture and, under normal circumstances, probably had wicking properties that I had not appreciated until that moment.  After dressing again, we both looked at Hotyona in his soaked clothing.  He was still humming and rocking gently, oblivious to our presence.

Kerabac said, “I don’t think it will make any difference to him.  He’s off in another world someplace and not feeling anything here.”

It had been our intent that we would take turns sleeping during the night so one of us was always on watch.  As we settled in, we found ourselves caught up in conversation.  I told him how much joy it brought me to hear him sing at the lounge; and then I taught him another Nat King Cole tune.  He later shared more of his adventures on some of the worlds he visited as a trooper, stories that I found enlightening and intriguing.

We replaced the burning reeds with new ones only once during the night.  It was obvious that we had picked way more than we actually needed.  The smoke from the reeds seemed to hang within our space and add to the fatigue we felt from the eventful day.  Without realizing that it was happening, we both fell asleep.

Once again I dreamt of
Thumumba.  In my dream this figure stood beside me with one hand on my shoulder.  We seemed to be standing on a large branch at the top of an I’aban tree looking at the ground.  The trees in the area around us seemed to have their leaves removed, allowing us to see the ground clearly.  Thumumba pointed out certain features with the free hand while keeping the other hand on my shoulder. My vision seemed to zoom to a magnified view of whatever I was directed to observe.  As we surveyed the jungle floor from our lookout, Thumumba directed my attention to a nearby clearing.  It was then that I recognized we were looking out over the Brotherhood’s compound.  Thumumba pointed out a large, low building.

“
There is where my children are held as slaves.  You must free them.
”

Then it seemed that the tree was shaking; and I heard Kerabac’s voice.

“Wake up, Tibby.  Hotyona is gone.”

I opened my eyes to the daylight streaming in through the narrow opening in the tree trunk.  The last set of reeds we lit
in the night before falling asleep were burnt to the ground and barely smoldering.

“What happened?” I asked groggily.

“We fell asleep and now Hotyona is gone.  I just woke up and he’s nowhere to be seen.  I looked outside in the immediate area; but I don’t think we dare call out his name or the troopers might hear us.  I don’t know if he’s wandering aimlessly, still under the effect of the drug, but there’s no doubt that he’s nowhere nearby.”

“Is it still raining?”

“No, it stopped sometime before I woke up and the remaining clouds are thin.  By the looks of the shadows, it’s been daylight for hours.”

“Can you see Hotyona’s tracks?  Maybe we can we follow them,” I asked.

“Wait here.  Let me look,” Kerabac slipped outside and soon returned.  “Yes, I can see his tracks.”

As Kerabac and I began to trace Hotyona’s steps, it was obvious that he was still not fully functional, as his tracks weaved back and forth, periodically looping in small circles.  We traveled about a half kilometer from the tree, when suddenly the tracks stopped in the middle of a
broad patch of mud, as though he had vanished into thin air.  Kerabac and I stood dumbfounded as we tried to sort out the mystery, when suddenly I saw a small feathered dart sticking from Kerabac’s neck.  Within a couple of seconds he began to drop to the ground; and as I reached to grab him, I felt the sting of a needle in my own neck.

The next thing I recall was hearing chants inside my head; and for a moment I thought I was dreaming again.  Everything was so dark that I couldn’t discern what was around me.  Slowly the world came into focus and I found myself looking at a band of natives dancing about, singing and chanting.  Most of them were naked, save for headbands woven from plant fibers, strips of bark or leather.  The faces of the natives were devoid of eyebrows and the lenticular shaped eyes that gazed at me as they danced were a bit unnerving, to say the least.  I also noted that they had a pair of catlike fangs in their upper jaw and a complementary pair of smaller ones in the lower jaw; but their other teeth appeared to be flat and more like the molars of a human.  This was a feature neither Kerabac nor Hotyona had mentioned.  As I came out of my stupor, I realized that I was tied to
the branch of an I’aban tree.  I looked to my right to see both Kerabac and Hotyona likewise tied to tree branches.  We appeared to be high in the air on a platform of about 30 square meters built into the fork of the tree trunk.  Kerabac appeared to be unconscious and Hotyona was most certainly still under the influence of the hallucinogenic plant from the day before, as he was still mumbling and gazing into space.  He seemed to be a bit more alert than yesterday, but he was no doubt unaware of what was taking place.

A small elderly woman wearing a woven headdress separated herself from the congregation of dancing natives to approach me.  She had an air of authority about her that hinted at her status as a tribal leader.

“Why you come to Sweet Home?” she said.  “Why you make children of Thumumba harvest sacred plant, make them do wrong things, make them work with binding around neck?  Why you destroy trees of Thumumba, make big ugly place and hurt and kill children of Thumumba?”

I was immediately able to reply in the broken universal Bammaspeak that I learned via the headband device.

“We not do wrong things.  Other men – bad men –make ugly places and bind children of Thumumba.  Bad men our enemies.  They not men like us and we not bad like them,” I answered.

“You lie! You look like them.  You smell like them.
”  She gestured toward Hotyona, “See your brother take sacred plant and dream the dreams of Thumumba without guidance.  Forbidden by Thumumba to take without guidance of elder.”

“
He take sacred plant as accident.  He not know your sacred plant.  He make mistake.  He taste only drop on tongue.  He not know.”

“Why he do such thing if he not know?  You lie
!  You come to Sweet Home from sky like others.  Take and destroy, hurt and kill children!”

“No,” I protested.  “We seek eggs of Slow Mover
to make cure (I used Slow Mover, realizing as I spoke the word that it was the name the natives used for the ruguian).  Must save friend who is poisoned.”

“Where is friend?  We watch you three days now.  We see no friend.  You lie.”

“Friend not here.  She lay sick in house in the sky.”

In spite of my efforts, the elder clearly found my answers to be incredulous.  She came close to my face and squinted her angular eyes at me.  “How friend get poison on house in sky?”

“From bad men who bind children of Thumumba, who cut sacred plant and destroy Sweet Home.  They try kill her and me, stab with poison from Slow Mover.  Now she sick and face death if we not gather Slow Mover eggs and mix medicine cure.”

“You lie.  You say you poisoned by Slow Mover poison.  Why you not dead or sick?”

“I no tell lie.  I poisoned too.  See scar on arm?  Slow Mover poison stabbed into skin from bad men blade, but I not die.”

“Only children protected by Thumumba not die.  You lie, man
.  You not child of Thumumba.  Thumumba not save you.  You lie!”

She then turned to one of the natives standing nearby and said, “Bring Slow Mover.”

The native quickly ran off and the woman turned back to me.  “We see if you lie or not lie.  If you lie, you die and friends die, too.”

The native that she sent off reappeared carrying a woven basket covered with a lid that had a long thorn protruding from the center of it.  She pulled the thorn free, reached into the basket, and extracted a
ruguian.  Holding it firmly in one hand, she stuck the thorn into the ruguian, sliding it up the creature’s back just under the skin.  The ruguian squirmed in an effort to free himself, but it could not escape her grasp.  Then she extracted the thorn.

“Now we see, man, if you lie!”  She stabbed me with the thorn, first into one arm and then the other.

The chanting suddenly stopped and everyone on the platform stood still and dead silent.  I looked at Kerabac and saw that he had also regained consciousness, but I had no idea how long he had been awake or how much he had heard.

“What do you think is going to happen?” I said to Kerabac.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “If you live like before, it will be a huge shock for them, I assure you; but what they do after that is beyond my ability to guess.”

I looked at the woman before me who stood in silence with the rest of the tribe, watching and waiting.  After a few minutes I felt the familiar wave of illness that overcame me when Kala and I were poisoned on Plosaxen.  For a moment I felt like I might black out like I did the first time.  I looked at the old woman to see a smile on her face as though she had proven me a liar and that she and her people were witnessing my death.  I knew that
ruguian poison did not kill quickly.  From what I learned from A’Lappe and the medics, the poison acted by rendering one unconscious relatively quickly, after which the victim would fall into a coma for several days before dying.