The Siege of New Terra (Star Sojourner Book 7) (22 page)

“A girl?” Sophia asked.

“We hadn't decided on the sex yet. The child was only seven Equus years old when it happened.” She closed an eye and wiped at it.

“Oh,” Sophia murmured. “Can you tell us what happened?”

“I can. One tri-day, the father took my beloved child for a ride in his air-slider.” She shifted her weight and grimaced, as though uneasy within her own skin. “I told the father the craft was in need of repairs. The fusion assembly…it doesn't matter.”

“Did he see to the repairs?” Sophia asked.

“He was always absent-minded!”

I felt a twinge of fear. Evrill's great disc eyes seemed blurred, and I realized it was tears shimmering and running down her cheeks.

“They were sliding far above the tree line when the engine faltered.”

“Did they crash?” I asked, my throat tightening.

She shrugged her narrow shoulders. Her mouth worked, but she was silent.

“Was the child killed?” I asked.

Evrill swallowed. “My beloved child lay dead, while the father sustained only a broken shoulder.”

“Why were
you
banished and not the father?” Sophia asked in a hushed tone.

“He could not be banished, for I killed him.”

I felt my hands tremble and I stood up. “I'm going outside for a while. I need…it's getting stuffy in here.”

“Jules!” Sophia followed me as I put on my jacket. “You can't go out there. It's too cold. The air is too thin!”

I took a breath. “I can't breathe in here.”

Sophia opened an upper compartment and dug out two woolen hats, scarves, and gloves. “Then put these on.” I saw fear in her expression. “I'll come with you.”

I shook my head and hugged her. “I'll be all right. I just need–”

“Then here!” She shoved a red woolen hat into my hands. "Take this one. At least we'll be able to see you through the swirling snow.

I put on the hat and gloves. Sophia tied the scarf snugly around my neck. “I need to–” I started.

“You don't have to explain anything,” she said.

“Thanks.” I sprang the hatch. Cold air with swirls of crystals washed into the room.

I went out. Wind slammed the hatch shut. The air cut like shards of ice. The sun blazed down, and I had to squint. Cold ate away at my clothes and I began to shiver as I trudged to the edge of a sheer precipice and stared down.

“Ginny,” I whispered. Her face formed again in my mind, her eyes frantic, her mouth twisted in terror, her fingers clawing marks in the smooth boulder as she slipped away. “Oh, Ginny, I'm so sorry.” Tears fell to my cheeks and froze. I closed my eyes. A few more steps and I could end this pain forever. I swayed there. Just a few steps.

Jules!
a voice said inside my head.

Evrill?

No! Spirit. What do you think you're doing?

I can't go on, Spirit.

Oh yes you can! Have you learned nothing from my lessons? Great Mind does not condone the suicide of his children. How many times must I tell you that?

There's just too much pain. I can't–You mean too much guilt. I have told you of the planet where your sister has morphed, and that she is content. Why do you never hear my words?

I'm tired, Spirit. Beyond tired.

Jules.
A different voice, more lilting.

Sylvia?
I sent.

My child, if you destroy this body, what will become of Sophia, whose life is so entwined with your own, and your faithful Huff? And what of Joe, your father, and Bat, your confidant, and Chancey, too, who only teases you because he knows no other way to show his affection?

But Ginny!
I sent,
I should have died. Not her.

That was not your decision,
Sylvia replied.
Leave it where it belongs, my child, in the hands of Great Mind.

Jules,
Spirit sent,
you may yet get your wish, but not before you do all in your power to save your friends.

What?
I looked around.

The
Sword of Terror
was rising, huge and ponderous, along the mountain's flank.

“Oh, shit!” I plowed back toward the hovair.

Too late!

Like a great whale breaching, Sword rose above the snowy ledge. Too late. If I ran to the hovair, they would see me and know where we were hiding. I thought of the mother bird feigning a broken wing. I pulled off the red cap and stuffed it into my jacket pocket as I ran to a shallow crevasse and slid into it. I turned quickly to watch the
Sword.
Had they seen me? I drew in frozen breaths that stung my nose and made my teeth chatter. I buried my face in the scarf and watched
Sword
bank and circle the ledge like a predator who knew its prey was close. Probing lights blinked along the hull.

Then, of a sudden, it turned to face the overhang and taxied toward it.

“Oh no! Sophia. Get the ship out of there,” I whispered to myself.

As though she'd heard, the hovair smashed through sheets of overhanging ice, lifted, and sped across Sword's starboard side, where it had no weapons. I held my breath as it dropped below the ledge before the lumbering starship could rise, turn, and follow. The
Sword
never got off a shot.

“Good flying, Soph,” I said to no one. “Good flying, my love.”

The mouse had won this round.

The crevasse made a good shelter, as good as most up here, so close to the stars. I rammed the red hat over my ears, stood up and took deep, cold breaths through the scarf as I surveyed the ledge. This high up, the mountain was as desolate as an underwater landscape in winter.

Without climbing gear, and with the air so thin, I could walk downhill for about a mile, and then I'd face sheer cliffs. If I could find rocks buried beneath the snow, I could warm them with my stingler. But nature did not provide a foothold for life this high up.

I climbed out of the shallow crevasse and went to the overhang. There, I found what I'd hoped for. The hovair's engines had burned through ice. Melting snow still poured out of the sloping ledge in small waterfalls and rivulets. The remaining sheets of hanging ice provided a barrier from the wind. But even bretter, as Trumbril would say, the melting ice had exposed rocks. They were covered with a film of ice, but that was no problem with my trusty stingler. I torched the rocks. Water puddled and ran down the slope. I fired the rocks until they steamed, then sat down near the ledge wall, out of the wind and melting ice, and had my camp for the coming night.

Sophia and I had both salted the mashed potatoes. Too many cooks. Now I was thirsty. I pulled off a glove and scooped up handfuls of cold water.
Ice on the rocks
, not my favorite drink.

I settled down for the cold night. Even with the heated rocks warming the ledge, the air would turn frigid when the sun dropped. I turned on the stingler's charge button and laid the weapon out in the sunlight. This was no time for depleted batteries.

Short hours later, night rose from the east. I heated the rocks again and huddled as close as I dared. This would not be an easy night, but my friends knew where I was, and for me, it was a waiting game.

A howling wind came up and battered the overhanging sheets. A slab broke off, allowing the wind a doorway into my camp.

I shivered and torched the rocks again. I could only hope that the wait wouldn't be too long.

“I did not presrume you could fry like that, Sophria,” Trumbil said from beside me in the co-pilot's seat.

“Neither did I, but I still can't fly the way Jules does.”

“Ah, Julesh fries like the zroomflit bug, without caution. What you Terrans call…by the sreat of your asshes.”

“The seat of…? Oh, the seat of our
pants
.” I sighed. “He does everything that way, Trumbril. He drives me crazy.”

“That is his way, Sophria.”

I thought of Jules, out there on the mountain, alone, in frigid weather. “We have to go back for him soon!” I checked the view screens and turned the ship toward the road where Huff was hiding. “I think we lost
Sword
for good, but we'd better pick up Huff before the mercs find him. They know we were searching for someone on that road.”

I tapped the power gauge. The indicator was in the red. That wasn't possible. We should have a full charge, it had to be a malfunctioning gauge.

“But Hruff ish in hiding,” Trumbril said.

“A starship has infras, Trumbril. Hiding does no good.”

He fixed me with those silver slitted eyes that I found exotic, yet disturbing. His natural body aroma of maple syrup was actually homey and comforting.

“As soon as we find Huff,” I said, “we go back for Jules.”

The engine stuttered.

“What? Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “It's not the gauge. The mercs must have hit the solar circuit. We're running on batteries, and they're low.”

Trumbril stiffened. “How much of thre brattery powrer have we lost?”

“Oh, God, Trumbril, too much to fly back to the mountain. We'll be lucky to reach the Orghe Village! Jules… He
can't
spend the night on the mountain. He'll freeze to death!”

Evrill and Zik came into the cabin.

“What the yellow-freakin' leak is wrong with the engine?” Zik lifted himself to a view screen with a tentacle. “Why are we landing?”

“We have no choice, Zrik,” Trumbril told him. “The mrecs broke our fruel line with their aprons.”

“What
aprons
?” Zik asked.

“Their weapons,” I told him. I drew in quick breaths as I concentrated on bringing the crippled hovair down to land on the road below.

“I can repair the circuit with my energies,” Evrill told me, “but I cannot conjure electrical power out of thin air.”

“Hang on, everybody!” I cried as we landed hard on the road and bounced to a stop.

Zik dropped to the deck. Trumbril and Evrill were already seated, but Grothe cried out from the cot in the main deck.

“Sorry, Grothe,” I called back and unbuckled. “I have to show Huff that it's me. He's expecting Jules to pick him up in a jeep.”

“You should have tried to make it to the Orghe Village!” Zik said. “At least you could have gotten closer.”

“If the merc ship saw Huff, my diminutive friend,” I said, and bent down to his level, “and he ran back to the new village, he would've led them there, and the mercs would know that the Orghes weren't poisoned. Did you ever consider
that
?”

Zik stood up to his full four-foot height on all tentacles. “I don't much care what happens to the Orghes, or to
you
, my gangly friend, for that matter. My only concern on this dirtball in space is to get
off,
and back to my homeworld.”

“I would have never guessed, Zik!” I went into the main deck and put on my jacket.
The little lump of shit!
I thought and sprang the hatch.

Evrill looked at me and her lips crinkled in a discreet smile.

I jumped down and walked out into the open. “Huff!” I called. “Huff, it's me, Sophia.” I looked around. The desert sands stretched far away, except for one large boulder. I strode toward it. “Huff?”

I walked around the boulder and saw his white rump as he walked around it to evade me. I turned and faced him as he came around. He stopped short and went up on his hind legs, towering over me.

“Huff! It's Sophia.”

“Are you certain you are not a dopeyganger?”

“A–a doppelganger? No, Huff, it's really me.”

“Then where is my Terran cub?”

“He's… Oh, Huff, he's stuck on the top of a mountain.”

He extended his claws, those hooked talons. “Who stuck him there?”

I studied the empty sky. “I'll explain inside the hovair. We can still taxi closer to the Orghe Village. C'mon, the mercenaries' ship might still be in this area.”

He dropped to all fours and followed me as I trotted back to the ship.

“I would rather taxi to the mountain and unstick my Terran friend and cub.”

I wish we could!" I climbed through the hatch and Huff leaped in after me. I went to the cabin and left introductions to Trumbril. There should be some interesting conversations between the five of them. “Evrill,” I called, “did you manage to repair the circuit?”

“I did, but there's is no charge yet.”

“We'll see how far we can taxi,” I said. "We have to get help to Jules.
Oh, Jules,
I thought.
My love. My life.
God, he'll never make it through the night.

* * *

“I dro not thrink the craft will roll any fruther, Sophia,” Trumbil said.

“No, Trumbril, from here on we have to walk.”

We were silent as we left the hovair behind and walked toward the Orghe Village. Grothe leaned on Trumbril. I think he was still in pain, but he didn't complain or cry out.

Night in the desert is arctic cold with dry, sharp winds that shape sand like hands into new dunes. We had taken lights and spare stinglers from the stolen craft, but we walked in darkness.

I rubbed my arms as I plowed through sand, and couldn't stop trembling. If I were this cold, what was it like for Jules?

Trumbril saw me wipe tears. “He ish resourcefrul, Sophria. If it is prossible to survive the high heights, Julesh wrill do it.”

“I feel so helpless!” I told him.

“That ish becrause there ish no wray to help him.”

Pearls of wisdom!
I thought, and glanced back toward the mountain. What would I do if he died this night? Where would I go? Back to New Lithnia to catch crusties again for my living?

My life had been bleak, I realized now, until I met Jules. My beautiful blonde god with eyes so blue you could fall into them like the sea and happily drown there. With a smile that could make Lord Hades give up the dead to follow him back to the land of the living. My beautiful, reckless, brash, loving hero. I wished I had stayed with him on the mountain. Died with him if that were to be our fate. But I had a duty to get the others out of danger when the
Sword
discovered us. “I could not love thee, dear, so much,” I whispered.

“Loved I na honror more,” Trumbril finished it. “I have heard Julesh sray thris.”

“He lives by it, Trumbril.”
And will die by it,
I thought.

It was near midnight when we topped a hill. The Orghe Village lay below. Fires had been doused. Only the moon threw vagrant shadows across the land.

Huff loped down the hill and into the village. By the time we arrived, Joe, Chancey and Bat were running toward us, followed by Galrin, Sunrai, and Oldore.

“What the hell is Huff talking about?” Joe asked me. “What does he
mean
, Jules is stuck on a mountain top?”

I explained what had happened as we strode into the village. Most of the people were awake and on their feet, listening.

“Joe,” I grabbed his arm and sobbed.

“Take it easy,” he said soothingly and hugged me.

“We've got to get him help, Joe. He'll
die
up there in the snow.”

“Oldore,” Joe called, “can your people help us?”

Oldore turned to Sunrai. “Saddle the draks, my general, and tell the women to wrap up warm clothing, and blankets, and coiled ropes, too, for the climb, and tie them to the saddles. Hurry now, my good breth.” He wiped a hand across his eyes.

Sunrai bowed, hooted softly and went down on all fours to lope into the center of the village.

Twenty minutes later, nine of us rode out of the village, while Huff trotted beside me, tireless as the draks, determined to save his Terran cub.

The mountain loomed ahead, a giant that blocked stars and forced clouds to climb its heights. I'd been given warm pants, and a furred buckskin jacket and hat.

I almost felt guilty to be so warm when Jules was…
We're coming, babe,
I thought. Perhaps he could receive my message.
We're coming.
If only I could be certain that he was still alive. “Great Mind,” I prayed, “don't let them find him dead.”

Please hang in there, Jules. We're coming,