Under the Canopy (6 page)

I remembered Ort's words about showing weakness, picked up a rock and threw it at them. The projectile hit one on the side, but the animal didn't even yelp. It only snarled and gave me a brief glance with no respect in it.

The front tikili dashed at the poacher, its mouth open and yellow teeth glistening. I cursed and fired.

A piece of land just before the poacher exploded upward, and the tikili jumped back a couple of feet and backed away. The pair pressed together and watched me. The animals didn't have much contact with humans, but they already knew what a rifle was.

I aimed at the tikilis as they backed away. 'That's right, beasts,' I said. 'Go away.' I didn't have much affection for the tikili, but didn't want to waste them nevertheless. They were simple animals, after all. Just following their instincts.

The animals peered at me, hypnotizing with their milky eyes, and then one looked to the side. When the other joined him, I understood what they wanted. Their antennas twitched, sensing more meat inside the boat's cabin.

Though I liked poachers even less than tikilis, I didn't want to become an accessory in man-eating. I fired another shot above the animals, but the tikilis didn't pay much attention to it. They ducked to the ground for a moment and then dashed at the boat.

I cursed again and fired to kill. I got one on the run. It yelped, hit the metal of the boat with a thump and then fell on the ground, dead. But the other one mounted the hull and got inside.

I walked forward and stopped beside the poacher. The sounds of ripping meat came from the darkness of the cabin, and I tried in vain not to imagine what the animal was doing to the bodies. However much I wanted to go there and scare the beast away or shoot it, I didn't dare to leave the wounded man alone. There could be other tikilis around. The grass was tall and thick. So I was stuck defending the man who tried to shoot me dead mere minutes ago and whom I despised.

The feast continued for a few of minutes, but they seemed like hours to me. The sounds of crunching and munching started to get on my nerves. To my horror, my mouth watered, and I spit on the ground. At last, it all stopped.

The tikili came out of the cabin, its muzzle smeared with blood. Its long tongue worked over the teeth, licking the tasty liquid. The beast looked straight at me, as if mocking the human before it. I thought of shooting it, but decided not to. There was no point in more murder. The beast had won.

The tikili turned away and disappeared into the brush in one jump.

Ort returned soon after. He circled over the crash site, examining it, and landed. I felt waves of relief washing over me when he appeared. I put the rifle back on the shoulder and watched him come to me.

Ort looked at the dead tikili. 'What has happened?'

I averted my eyes, searching for words. 'I was guarding the man when two of them came out of the grass. They made it for the corpses. I shot one, but the other got inside.' I paused, not saying the obvious. 'When he came out, I didn't shoot him.'

Ort's reaction surprised me — he chuckled. 'Good for you. Dead meat is dead meat. The live animal is better.' He looked at the poacher on the ground. 'The boat is on its way. Soon be here.'

I nodded and stepped away from the wounded man. To my further surprise, Ort struck up a conversation.

'Did you transfer in from the army?' he asked.

'Yes,' I said. One thought gnawed at me since the beginning. I started from afar. 'Didn't you do the same?'

Ort shook his head. 'No. I'm from the old trappers. Not many wild woods back home anymore. Nothing to do in the city. Came here.' He paused and looked over the woods. 'It's quieter here.'

When I heard those words, my spirit rocketed inside. Here he was - my soul mate. 'You know, I feel exactly the same way,' I said and then a flood of words poured out of me, 'I have this theory that modern people just have too much puttering in them. That's my word for all the worrying we do about the silly, unimportant stuff that's imposed on us—'

I stopped. Ort was staring at me like I was a madman. I suddenly felt very uneasy. Why did I talk about the puttering? It always happens like this. Everything sounds coherent and reasonable in your head, but when you let it out, it turns into gibberish. Call the guys with giant butterfly nets.

Ort shook his head as if he read my mind. Maybe, he did, in a way. 'Stop overthinking it. Life is simpler than that. Just be a man.' He stopped at that.

Silence. I thought that Ort would continue the thought, but he only stared at me. His severe gaze made me feel uneasy.

'What's Edlon's deal?' I tried to shift the conversation off me. Again.

'What do you mean?'

'He—' I started and stopped. What did I mean?
It was just a question. Asking Ort about the weather or something seemed stupid. I remembered the one-way conversations and Edlon's bipolar swings of mood. 'What's his problem?'

Ort didn't answer right away and that fact perked my ears. 'Well… He's a blabbermouth. A bit greedy, but he knows his stuff. He may act like a clown, but inside he's made of granite. Believe me.' Ort's voice lowered, and he sounded tired. 'Don't pester him.'

'As you say,' I said. If anybody pestered anyone here, it was Edlon, but I didn't argue.

We didn't speak for a while. Ort seemed both forthcoming and restrained at the same time. Maybe, he was just out of the habit of communicating. I didn't push.

There was humming coming toward them, and soon a boat appeared. It carefully moved between the trees and landed in the clearing. Two medics in blue stepped out, followed by a man in gray. He approached us, and the medicine men attended to the poacher. The gray suit was a large man, mostly by the way of fatness.

'Hello, Ort,' the man said. He turned to me. 'And you must be Wealder. We haven't met, I'm Fomas Pimock, the chief of security at the sawmill.' We shook hands on the acquaintance. His grip was hard. 'You have created quite a mess here today.'

'Shit happens,' Ort said. 'Will you clean the debris?'

Fomas looked over the area. 'Yeah, that won't be a problem.'

'What will happen to him?' I jerked my head at the poacher lying prostrate on the ground.

Fomas measured me, as if he wasn't sure whether to tell me or not, and shrugged. 'We will put him in our hospital. Will keep him there till he can stand trial.' He smirked. 'Fucker.'

While we talked, the medics lifted the poacher and put the stretcher underneath him. After securing the patient, they carried him to the boat. Having done that, they returned for the corpses. Ort and Pimock exchanged some general phrases between them as if I wasn't there. I saw that they respected each other, but there was no friendly warmth in the conversation. When all the bodies were loaded, the boat took off.

I followed the boat with my eyes. Before they left, Fomas told me that we might meet soon. Weird man. He seemed to be measuring me the whole time. Maybe, it comes with the job, security and all.

'How's the job treating you so far?' Ort said, pulling me out of my thoughts. There was a hint of warmth in his voice, as if I just passed some test.

'OK. I like it here.' I looked at the remains of the boat. 'Regardless of anything I don't like.'

'One piece of advice — don't ever try to camp out overnight. It never ends well.'

I rooted to the spot. Cold sweat formed on my brow. Before Ort could suspect of my shortcomings in that area, I presented him my hand.

Ort hemmed, amicably, and we shook on our first encounter. His grip was hard and gentle; he could have easily crushed my hand in his if he wanted to do it. After that, we went our separate ways.

I was flying with a smile on my face. Ort was everything I expected him to be and more. Even though he scolded me, I wasn't cross at him. I needed it.

For all my talk of solitude, I felt lucky to have such a good neighbor. It was good to know that Ort was always out there, backing me up. Compared to him, Edlon and I were just dumb kids.

Fomas' invitation came soon after the poachers incident. The message didn't specify what he wanted, and I didn't really care. I gathered my personal effects and set off for the sawmill.

The facility was situated a few miles southeast from the border of my sector. Several hours' trip by scooter. The sawmill was built on the riverbank for efficiency — they'd cut up the wood and then sail it downstream right to the city. It was actually just south of Edlon's land, and it made more sense to call him. Maybe, they just wanted to get acquainted with me.

As I moved closer, the sounds of human industry reached my ears. Ah, bird songs are nothing compared to the sweet melody of a buzzing saw eating its way through the wood.

I saw a machine ahead as tall as my cabin's pilings. When I flew closer, I recognized it as a treeroller. It had the base of an excavator or tractor, and a tripod sprouted from the front end; two prongs to burrow into the ground for support while the third stretched along the trunk, clasping it with mighty mechanical pincers. You see, Safun's trees are too big to let them fall freely; doing so can lead to catastrophe. Therefore, the workers would saw the tree free from the ground up, carrying the wood it away in cubes, then rollers in the pincers would lower the trunk safely to the ground and the work would continue.

As I approached, the workers stopped in their tracks and looked at me like I was an intruder, an alien creature. Some of them waved to me and pointed to the facility. Others just stared, hands hanging by the sides, as if they didn't want me to see what they were doing. I waved back, a bit put off by the scene. The rest of the trip didn't take long. The forest grew sparser as my scooter went forward. Trees, bushes, ditches and hills were replaced by flattened land littered with warehouses, machinery and people in safety helmets.

The sawmill, which doubled as the worker camp, didn't resemble my cabin in its design. It was built on the ground and designed as a fortress. High walls, manned by guards, gates with machinery and workers going in and out. My scooter's dashboard bleeped, they had caught me. I saw guards waving to me from their high posts. I flew over their heads and entered the premises.

Inside, it looked a bit empty, probably due to all the machinery being in the field. There was a flat square in the middle, its ground printed with caterpillar tracks. To the right of me, there were what looked like barracks and administrative buildings. Right ahead of me — the mill itself combined with loading docks, and the river pushing its waters beyond them. To the left was my destination — the hangars. My board computer went live and turned the scooter in its direction. I eased my grip on the handles. The machinery would do the necessary procedures with minimal interference from the driver.

My scooter flew into the open doors. Compared to the bright day, it felt like entering a cave. I landed the scooter and dismounted. The hangar was lit by the white artificial light. It wasn't too bright, and fuzzy shadows decorated the walls and the floor. There were rows of scooter inside and a few bigger machines — floaters and boats. A welcoming committee was already approaching me. It consisted of just two people, Fomas and some woman. The man wore the gray uniform I saw him in plus a headgear with a mic. The woman was thin, her haircut short, dressed in a blue jacket and jeans with jackboots. Unlike the swaying chief of security, she walked steadily and unrelentingly, like a rocket zoning in on its target. Me.

The chief of security stepped forward and offered me his hand. 'Welcome, Wealder.' His handshake was hard on my bones. 'Thanks for coming on such a short notice.' He was grinning, the black ball of the mic nearly falling into his mouth.

I smiled to him too. 'Well, it's my job.'

The woman stepped forward and smiled with no mirth, brackets appeared around her mouth. 'Hello, Wealder. I'm Lutice Morkan, the administrator. Pleased to meet you. My doors are always open to the brave rangers.' She shook my hand.

I felt uncomfortable. I expected the administrator to be a man. Strange to see a woman in such a "dirty" place. Her handshake was short and tenacious. It gave me a good idea why she had this position.

'Let's make this quick,' I said. 'Because of you, I've left my sector unguarded. What happened?'

'Come,' Morkan said. Ordered. 'I'll fill you in on the way to the office.' She sharply turned and started to walk away. Fomas looked at me and raised his eyebrows, expecting me to follow. I did.

I caught up to Morkan. She continued to speak as if nothing happened. 'You see, the locals are bothering us again. They're stealing metal, wrecking the equipment and machinery.'

'They are also stealing things,' Fomas said. 'The small stuff.'

We left the hangar and went across the square. I could feel the coarse earth under my soles. At one point, I even stumbled on a track print in the frozen mud and nearly fell over. My companions, on the other hand, walked as if the earth was a waxed floor. Truly, practice makes best.

'Sixteen pairs of boots, twenty-seven gloves, nine helmets and two beer cans,' Morkan said. 'That's just the last two weeks. But there’s more. They have taken apart the tracks of one treeroller. We couldn't even move the machine into the garage. It still stands out there.'

'Yeah, that's right,' Fomas said. ‘And you, as our rangers, are supposed to deal with the locals. They had done this in the past, but not on such scale. These savages are damaging our enterprise, costing us thousands of creds.'

'If they keep this up, they're going to ruin us,' Morkan said. I could hear calculator clicks in her voice.

Yeah, you'll be downright destitute
,
I thought. 'I'll do what I can,' I said aloud.

'I don't doubt that you will,' Morkan said. 'I'll tell you the rest in my office.'

We'd reached the living quarters. My companions went for the doors, and I stopped for a moment. Just in front of the barracks, I saw one thing that made me tense inside. A pole was sticking out of the ground. It rose high into the air for all to see and had dried alien skulls pierced on the tip of it, like olives on a toothpick. The flesh had rotten away, and white bleached bone shone in the sun. It looked surreal.

I looked at it for a moment and then hurried inside. No words would be said about it. I didn't want to stir water right from the start.

We walked along the corridor to the place. The walls were freshly painted, and the whole place looked clean and well-maintained despite its remote location. We passed doors, doors and more doors. At last, we arrived at the right one. Next to it was a row of seats with one occupied by a scruffy man. He looked like a worker, with dirty overalls and a faded cap on his head. He sat doubled forward, with elbows resting on the knees and face turned downward. The man appeared to be sleeping. Something in his appearance seemed familiar and off.

'Heap, get up now!' Morkan said in a commanding tone. 'The ranger is here.'

The man flinched like he was lashed on the back and raised his head towards his master. In that moment, I saw that he was an alien. If R'lok looked deformed to me, this one was outright ugly. He was old, his face was swollen, and dark bags lay like plums under his eyes. The red nose above them betrayed a drinker. He also wore a collar with a small box in it. I recognized a linguabox.

Heap touched the box and said something. 'Yes, master,' an impassive robotic voice came out of his collar.

'Here's a good boy,' Morkan said and patted him on the shoulder.

'Is he allowed in here?' I asked. I couldn't believe what I saw. An alien in human clothes looked grotesque. In addition to the pole outside, this sawmill was getting stranger and stranger. Barbaric.

'Oh yes,' Morkan said, smiling. 'Heap is harmless. He works here for food and beverages.'

'Beverages…' I said. Now I could smell it too.

'Yep,' Fomas didn't seem to notice the tone of my voice. 'The freak will do anything for booze.' He opened the door and let us in. Morkan went in first. When I entered, another surprise I awaited me.

'Howdy, roomie,' Edlon said, greeting me. He was sitting on the couch, leg on leg, and grinning his shit-eating grin.

'Are you…' I said, gesturing towards Morkan.

'Yeah,' Edlon said. 'Two rangers are better than one. This matter must be settled right here and now.'

The door clicked closed behind me. Morkan walked to her table and sat at it. The office was big, with file cabinets and all. I saw a couple of fancy framed diplomas on the wall. Morkan was truly something, as it seemed. I joined Edlon on the couch. Was it real leather? Fomas took a chair and sat near the table, facing us. Heap remained standing at the door, shifting from one foot to the other.

Morkan clapped her hands. 'Here's the plan that I propose to you.' She turned to Fomas. 'The chief of security will relate it.'

The moment the boss said it, Fomas became nervous. He rubbed his meaty palms and coughed. 'We think that the ambush is the best way to go. The wrecked treeroller, it will be the bait. One of you will lie on the ground from our side. Another will rise on a scooter and spy on the thieves from above. Sorry, but we can't give you guards, you must understand that.' Fomas stopped, remembering the details. 'Heap here,' he gestured toward the alien. 'He will assist you. He may be old, but he still can spot his own in the green.'

I leaned forward. 'Won't he help his kind?'

Edlon laughed. 'His kind is whoever gives him the booze.' He glared at Heap. 'Right, sponge?'

Heap puffed his cheeks and looked scared. He energetically nodded his head.

'See?' Edlon said, turning to his fellow ranger.

'Yes,' I said and turned to Morkan. 'When?'

Morkan raised her eyebrows, counting. 'In a few hours, when it gets darker. The thieves won't come until then.' Seeing the expression on my face, she added, 'Of course, we will accommodate you.'

'And our sectors will remain open until then?'

Edlon nudged me in the ribs. 'Come on, one day means nothing here. In addition to that, we want them to come.'

I looked at Edlon's confident face and decided not to argue. After all, I was still new here.

Morkan clapped her hands. 'Swell, we are set.'

I was sitting in the recreation area for the sawmill personnel. It was a big room with a retractable ceiling. It was open now and nothing but a reinforced wire netting stood between the sky and the human dwelling. The area had several tables with chairs, benches, vending machines and TVs mounted in the walls. All in all, it didn't differ much from a recreation area the inmates have in prisons. The only significant difference was that there were no guards around and no shanking, though I wasn't so sure about that.

Edlon sat opposite me and had a can of beer in his hand. He was sipping from it from time to time. I had refused alcohol in favor of soda.

'Won't it diminish your ability to aim?' I asked Edlon about the beverage.

'Nah,' Edlon shook his head. 'A little buzz won't interfere with my senses. I'm too good at it.'

'As you say,' I said and stuck to my soda.

Heap was also present. He sat on the floor, near the vending machine, head down. He seemed to be drowsing. As if understanding his place in the sawmill hierarchy too well, the alien had moved as far away from the workers as he could.

'So,' Edlon said, wiping his mouth. 'How do you find the job here after these months?'

'Not bad. I wish I had moved here earlier.' I was watching Heap. He looked sad. I felt a mix of pity and contempt towards the alien. 'It reminds me of my tour on Clomt. Generally the same stuff, but livelier here.'

'Yep,' Edlon said. He also looked at Heap. 'Forest isn't a desert. Some shit is always going down. Sometimes, literally.'

As Edlon laughed at his own joke, a group of workers approached the vending machine and ordered beverages. The cans clinked, falling down the chute. One man took them out and handed to his pals. The workers opened them.

There was a distinctive click of warping plastic, and white foam hissed out, bubbling on top. Hearing that, Heap perked up, as if he was hit by electricity. The native turned, getting on his knees, and looked at the workers peeking over the machine's corner.

They noticed him. A few glances passed between them, and then one said, 'Hey, Heap, want some?' He showed the alien his can and shook it in the air. Some foam fell on the floor.

Heap frantically nodded.

'Then dance for us.'

Heap pulled himself to his feet, crawling up along the vending machine. He looked furtively at the workers before him and then started to stomp on the spot. It looked like, and probably was, a tribal dance. He hopped from one foot to the other, waved his hands in the air and made bangs with the head. Heap didn't take his eyes off the can the whole time.

I looked away in disgust, repulsed by every participant of that farce. 'Why do they do that to him?'

Edlon looked at me, serious. 'Here's a better question — does he deserve to be treated like that?'

I couldn't give a straight answer to that. The old alien seemed to be here of his own accord. If he really wanted to escape, he could have done it at any moment. I had a strong suspicion that Heap wouldn't be welcomed if he tried to return to his people.