Yuen-Mong's Revenge (8 page)

 
     
She dashed off like an arrow. For a second he hesitated whether he
should take the gun along, but then left it on the ground where he had
dropped it earlier, throwing the extra charge pack next to it, and followed
as fast as he could, but she reached the shelter of the trees well ahead of
him. While he ran he quickly scanned the sky. Still not a cloud in sight.
But somehow he did not doubt her anymore. It had almost cost him his
life and hers too.

     
Once under cover, he heard the cry of the craw, spurring him on to
keep up with her. He noticed that his shoulder had gone numb and that
the pain had disappeared. Glancing briefly at the wound, he saw that a
flexible, almost transparent scab had formed over the cut, very much like
the foam stuff sprayed on by surgeons on Palo. That much for modern
science. A little weed on Aros did the same job.

     
She led him back to the field of high grasses, which she called spear
grass. Rather than retrace their steps through the narrow path to get to the
shuttle from the other side of the field, she stayed on its northern side and
about a kilometer along entered the field, taking narrow passages
between the tufts of grasses. After a few hundred feet, he had lost all
sense of direction and wondered how she still knew where they were
going. But he kept himself from saying anything. He had made a fool of
himself too often already. And then all of a sudden he saw the craft rising
in front of him. How had she known where it was?

     
"We have to get inside fast. If the storm catches us in these grasses,
we will be cut to pieces. Open the door."

 
     
"I can’t. The AI unit doesn’t work anymore." He flinched under her
ironic glance. "We have to get in through the ceiling hatch. But how can
we climb on top?"

 
     
"Is there no rope ladder?"

 
     
"Rope ladder? What’s that?"

 
     
"A ladder to climb up, made of rope."

 
     
"No."

 
     
"And you did not leave a rope attached somewhere to the top to haul
yourself back up?"

 
     
She did not wait for an answer, but immediately got a thin rope out of
her pack, attached a clump of hard earth to one end, retreated a few steps
away from the shuttle and threw that end over its top. The clump broke
as it hit the craft on its far side, but the rope dangled down. He did not
need to be told to climb up while she held on to the rope, bracing herself
against the underside of the craft. A few seconds later he had the hatch
open and attached the rope to one of its hinges. She was up in a flash.

     
She put her head into the opening to look inside and then withdrew
promptly. "What a stench! Did you urinate inside?"

 
     
Then he remembered the wet clothing he had discarded on the floor.
He felt the blood rush into his face. Was he always going to humiliate
himself in front of this woman? "I’m sorry. I had an accident when I
crash landed and forgot to dispose of the soiled clothing. Wait, I’ll get it
out and then we can air out the inside a bit before we go in."

 
     
But she did not wait for him. She was down before he got himself
ready and passed him the offending garments through the hatch. He threw
them into one of the spear grasses and then climbed inside too. The
stench was overpowering.

     
"Can this door not be opened manually?" she questioned, standing in
front of it.

     
"I guess yes, but I don’t know how. If the AI unit still worked, I could
look it up in the on-line maintenance manual."

 
     
"Does the door swing out and up to open?"

 
     
"Yes."
How did she know?
From what she had told him he knew that
she had never been in a shuttle or even seen one before.

     
"And how is it locked in place at the bottom?"

 
     
"By bolts sliding into it from below."

 
     
She went down on her knees and with her knife removed the vinyl
floor covering next to the door. It lifted off neatly, revealing an eight-inch-wide cover that extended almost along the whole length of the door.
Inserting her knife into the slit at one end she removed it. In the
compartment underneath was the door closing mechanism, including the
tool to retract the bolts manually. Half a minute later she swung the door
open. They both stood at the opening, breathing in the fresh air from
outside.

     
"That was easy," she said, smiling at him for the first time that day.
"We can leave it open for a short while, but when the first wind blows up
we have to close it quickly. We will only have a few seconds before it
hits us. You go to the hatch and remove the rope."

 
     
He looked up to the sky. It was still blue, at least on the door side. He
climbed up to the hatch opening, as he had been told. Dark, billowing
tentacles where just reaching over the crest of the hill about two
kilometers to the southeast, like the arms of a giant octopus. Within
seconds they had covered half the sky between them and the crest and a
distant roar was building up to a higher and higher pitch. Frantic now, he
undid the knot of the rope and pulled it inside.

     
"Close the hatch." He could barely hear her shout.

     
The hatch was almost ripped out of his hands before he managed to
secure it. She had already slid the door into place and was working
rapidly on the bolts. A few seconds later she secured the tool in its place
and covered up the compartment.

     
She frantically stowed away any loose objects, and he went to help.
By that time the roar outside had risen to a pitch that drowned out any
speech. She pushed him to the pilot seat and secured the webbing around
him. Almost total darkness engulfed them. The craft was knocked around
violently. She just managed to get into the copilot seat and wedge herself
with her feet against the flight console, while holding on to the armrests,
before his stomach was hit by the sick sensation of being lifted up and
spun around and around, he did not know how many times. It seemed to
go on and on, but probably lasted only a minute or so before the craft
dropped down to the ground again. As sudden as it had started, the
storm’s fury had passed over them. The noise retreated in the distance,
and daylight returned.

     
Had he wet himself again?
he wondered. Another humiliation? He removed the webbing enough to insert a hand into his pants, but it came out
dry. He looked around and had to blink twice. The windows were not
obstructed by grasses any longer and he could see blue sky. He turned to
Yuen-mong, but the copilot seat was empty. Frightened, he got out of the
webbing. She lay on her side, curled up into a ball, her eyes tightly shut.
Had she been thrown from her seat?
Is she hurt? … Oh no, I need her;
she can’t!
"Yuen-mong," he cried, touching her shoulder.

     
"No, don’t touch," she screamed at the same time as he was hit by a
powerful jolt of static discharge, and he snapped back his hand in reflex.

     
"Are you hurt? Where?"

 
     
She did not answer.

     
"Can I do something?"

 
     
"Just give me time," she whispered.

     
He retreated a few steps, looking at her, afraid, unsure of what to do.
After a while, he could not stand it any longer. "Where have you been
hurt?"

 
     
She uncurled slowly and opened her eyes. "Here," she said, pointing
both hands to her temples.

     
"Did you hit your head? You may have a concussion."

 
     
A hint of a painful smile in her eyes, she answered: "No, Atun, it was
the cry of fear of people dying."

 
     
"What people?"

 
     
"The people we share this world with … the savages. Many have died
in this storm."

 
     
She got up, swaying unsteadily for a few seconds. He wanted to
support her, but she firmly said "no" and went to open the shuttle door
again.

     
Outside it looked like a horde of elephants had rampaged through the
field, slashing and ripping the grasses. Only the occasional tuft was still
upright. Blades were strewed around everywhere.

     
"We will have to stay here for the night. It is impossible to cross the
grasses. They would cut us up. By tomorrow much of it will have been
cleared by the night scavengers."

 
     
"But you said they were poisonous to these ants."

 
     
"One afternoon of sun will render the poison harmless on severed
grasses."

 
     
He looked at the heaps of debris. It was hard to believe that these
creatures would be able to get through that in one night. What a strange
world.

     
A sudden smile lit up her face. "We won’t be troubled by the night
scavengers tonight. With the grasses gone, they won’t be able to get on
top of the roof, so we can leave the hatch open."

 
     
The rest of the afternoon, she spent inspecting every aspect and gadget
of the shuttle, both inside and outside. She wanted to know exactly how
things worked, how it was controlled, and whether it had enough fuel to
get back to the outer edge of the ring. When he pointed out that without
a working AI unit the shuttle could not be operated, she only smiled
enigmatically and said: "We will see."

     
Yuen-mong was fascinated by the soft-bound paper service manual.
She placed it carefully on the flat top of the flight console, as if it were
breakable, and opened it solemnly, staring in awe at the rows and rows
of letters and the many multicolored drawings and diagrams.

     
 "Atun, this is the first book I hold in my hand. There must be millions
of letters printed here. It is so exciting … Just laugh. This is a major
milestone in my life."

     
"I guess, you are right. But you know, now-a-days, books have
become a rarity. They have been replaced by electronic data storage."

     
"My mother said that she owned quite a few books … precious books,
some very old from Old Earth, some new editions of poetry, beautifully
bound in leather with gold lettering."

     
"Yes, their main use now is by collectors."

     
"She said that sitting in the garden of her lakeshore villa and reading
poetry in a book was one of her ultimate pleasures." A dreamy look made
her face even more beautiful.

     
It goes without saying that he had to explain some of the diagrams to
her, particularly those relating to the piping of the fuel to the various
thruster units. She found it hard to tear her eyes away from the manual.

 
     
She insisted on removing any food in the food dispenser that could
spoil. That meant dismantling the unit, and she had more of a knack to
do that than he. She turned up her nose when she tried some of it. "Is this
the kind of stuff you had to eat?"

 
     
"Yes, it’s fine and contains all essential nutrients. You can give it any
flavor and texture you want." He took a small mouthful of one of the
blends. It tasted as usual, maybe a bit blander without any condiments
added. In fact, he noticed that he was hungry and had a fill of it. Yuen-mong ate one of her breads with salted fish.

     
"This is better," she said smiling.

* * *

As she had predicted, the following morning at least half of the debris
had been cleared away, revealing a few remnants of spear grasses that
had survived the wind turbulence, as well as many stunted tufts, and
paths of bare earth everywhere. They easily negotiated their way out of
the field, since they could actually see where they were going. He was
surprised that new spears were already sprouting in most tufts.

     
The devastation in the forests was hard to imagine. He guessed that
at least a third of the trees had been uprooted, thrown around in angry
chaos, forcing them to climb over and under them or detour around
clumps of debris. The broadleafs had lost most of their foliage, much of
which had already been cleared up, with only the occasional stripped
branch still lying on the ground. Yuen-mong assured him that these as
well as tree trunks would also be gone within twenty or so Aros days, and
new trees would push their shoots into the space vacated by the fallen
trees. Within an Aros year the forest would look again very much as
before the storm.