“You’re thinking that I’m more of a liability, than an asset. Ouch, tell me something else to help boost my confidence.”
Kev grabbed her good arm. “This isn’t about your ego, or… counting coup on Death, itself. You asked me for help; well, that includes listening to me, when I think you’ve got your head stuck up- You’re laughing at me!”
“Digger, you sound an awful lot like my teacher, only with less fur, and cute.”
“The name is Kevin!” he shouted. “Kevin Boyle. My friends call me Kev.”
“Good on you, Kev. Now, we’ve got to find a young idiot male Bluehorn-”
“Ajik? The Mission Commander’s son?”
“That’s the one. He’s not with the rest of the people I’m here to protect. We need to go find him, and I’m afraid I know where he is, bless his little blue ponytails…”
***
His grandfather had a few lines of a poem, hanging in the kitchen, back home on Dee-Lah-Wah. He said it was about loving the land, leaving your mark on it, and being marked by it, in turn.
God gave all men all earth to love,
But, since our hearts are small
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation's birth,
So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
And see that it is good.
There had been a place, where he used to go as a kid, when his mother’s moodiness got to him, a pond created by a colony of woodcutters, the Hunterhome equivalent of beavers. He loved to go there to fish, and draw, and watch the woodcutters working on their dam, or playing amongst themselves. They were as smart a dogs, and while feral, sort of, they were very agreeable to a little bribery. Apples and celery were the coin of the realm.
But one day he went out to the pond hungry because his mother hadn’t been around for breakfast and his Grands were off on a little get away. He had been eight, and had he decided to share his breakfast of peanut butter toast, apples and tangleberry juice with his friends. They were very agitated about something, and he dropped his food to the ground when he saw who they were having a fit over.
His mother was face down, floating at the edge of the pond.
Kev didn’t remember much of that day, beyond a half dozen sleek and furry bodies, with too many limbs, nuzzling him and keeping him warm, until help arrived. He learned, later, that she’d been dead for hours.
As for why she’d come to his pond, well, it had been her favorite place, too.
***
They found the young Bluehorn hanging on for dear life, near the top of the broken hillside she had rescued him from a few hours before. He had a haversack in one hand and held onto a root with the other. He could not climb up without letting go of the sack.
“Hey Ajik! If this your idea of fun, I’m getting tired of it!” The Ranger shouted. Karen and Kev stood a few measures from the youngling, not far, but still out of reach.
“I’m sorry- I’m sorry,” Ajik mumbled. Fear very nearly ruled, but, whatever was in the sack, he would not let go.
Kev stepped closer to the edge. He had a coil of power cable for a make-shift rope and he dropped it down to the youngster. “Grab it- just drop that thing and grab the line!”
Ajik shook his head. The rising flood was getting closer, all the while; cold, glacial melt water with lots of debris. He could drown or die of hypothermia if he fell.
“Let it go!” Karen shouted.
“I can’t!”
“This is ridiculous; look, just tie me off and-“
“No, not with one good arm, you don’t.” Kev started tying it around his waist. “I’ll do it.”
The Ranger stood quietly, as he made it secure, and went to the edge again. “I won’t be much help, if you do get in trouble.”
“You’ll find something to do, I have no doubt. I’ll be okay.”
“Really?”
“Trust me, even if I fall in- Oh crap!” The kid was slipping, and still would not let go of that damn sack. Whatever he’d planned to say passed out of his mind. “Let me have a little slack,” he told Karen, and she did. She was holding the other end of the cable with her right hand, and letting it slide, slowly, around the trunk of a local ‘tree.’ Down he went.
Then he tripped and got turned over, head down and reaching. Above he heard the Ranger grunt at the sudden strain. Below him, the Bluehorn threw out his hand with the sack, and it brushed his fingertips. Then the root was free, and the youngling fell into the muddy waters.
“He’s in! Give me a lot more line!” Without waiting, Kev kicked out. The cable went completely slack, and he fell with a splash and a shock of cold water, almost on top of the Bluehorn. For a terrifying moment, he thought the youngling would struggle, but then he wrapped himself around the man, and they began the long, hard process of getting to dry land.
“The sack!” The Bluehorn suddenly shouted, and then he did struggle.
Kev saw that it had floated free and now the youngling was trying to get to it. He grabbed the alien child and very nearly cuffed him. “You listen to me! We are both going to die, if you don’t stop this!”
“But-“ It was worth his life, Kev understood that now.
“I will get it!” Kev fought with dumb, numb fingers, to get the power cable off of himself and around Ajik.
“What’s going on?”
“Pull him up!” Kev shouted. To Ajik, he added, “I’ll go get it, and later, we’ll talk!”
The Ranger spluttered once, as he swam after the bobbing sack, and then shut up. She dragged the cable around the tree and Ajik clambered out of the water and up to the top of the hill; not so far, now, maybe a half-measure. She grabbed him by the scruff, and threw him back away from the edge. Then she looked out into the dirty, swirling waters, for the fool.
***
His grandparents both worshiped an Earthly god, one who had died for others; or something like that. The Ilshani, and their dead gods, and the Gods and Ancestors of the Markov, plus dozens more, had all competed for his attention, growing up. As for the god of his grandparents, Kev had always been pretty sure that Jesus had done it to impress a girl.
He had the sack now, but getting back would be problematic. He was so damn cold, and the water was starting to move… He marshaled what remained of his wits, and determined that the flood must be starting to go over the makeshift and ephemeral dam. When it went… Oh, sweet Jesus…
The current swirled him around, and slammed him against an underwater tree, knocking the breath out of him, and causing him to gulp a little water. Then he was sucked down, and he cried out in despair.
He was in an alien forest, murky and fae, the play of light from above giving it a magical look. But that might have been the hypothermia. He could feel his body shutting down. God, this had been such a bad idea…
Then he saw her. He could not quite make out her face, but there was a light shining on her, and she held out her hand. The other she one seemed to clutch to her heart. Kev used the last of his will to reach out and take her hand. With sudden violence, she pulled him to her, and wrapped her legs around him. Lost, it was all he could do to grab onto her, and then the water dragged at them both, smashing them into the underwater brush. The roaring in his ears went on and on.
***
“I just,” Karen gasped, “Just want to be clear,” another gasp. “I’m not your mother!”
“What!?”
“You distinctly yelled out ‘Mom!’, before you went under.”
“Oh.”
She was quiet for a long time after that, and they might still have been lying where the receding waters had left them, if a pair of short, fox-like Gara had not found and taken care of them. Warming sheets, like blankets but much more useful, dried them off with warm air forced through the fabric by millions of microscopic fans, and helped get their body temperatures back up. The Garas got them into an emergency shelter meant for on
e of the larger races, and Kev woke up a little later, curled up in a warm ball with five Garas and facing Ajik. He rolled over and found himself facing Karen. She was smiling.
“Good job, hero,” She said and kissed him on the nose, probably the only part that wasn’t hurting. Then she reached around and rapped him on the back of the head. “That’s for being stupid!”
“I think I liked the hero part, better.”
“Well, hero-ing has got its good points. Just don’t let it go to your head. A dead hero is useless to everyone, including himself.”
***
They crawled out of the shelter and went back to what was left of their camp, which had now been moved to higher and drier ground. Along the way, Kev fell in with the young Bluehorn, who kept stealing nervous glances at him.
“Don’t tell my dad, please?”
“Somehow, I’m thinking that’s not going to happen.”
“But…” Ajik sighed and pulled out his treasure. He handed it over to Kev.
This most recent great flowering of star travel, culture and technology, was far from a golden age. The species of the wider Galaxy still fought wars. Warfare had lately spread again amongst the stars. They had their reasons to spill blood, steal and lay waste to worlds. In the Conservancy, all were welcome, and Markov and Bluehorns lived here in peace, but elsewhere…
It was a purpose-built game, a copy of a copy of some plans that had originated… somewhere. Homeworld was a strategy game, designed and distributed originally, it was said, by either the Markov, for it ‘proved’ that the Bluehorn worlds would fall to the Markov Imeprium, eventually, or by patriots, seeking to encourage Bluehorns in the Cee to return, and fight for their blood and soil. That didn’t matter, now, but this was a matter for the kid’s father.
“I’m sorry, I can’t promise that…”
“It belonged to my brother! We- We don’t talk about him, anymore. He went away, a few months ago, and we came here. I don’t even know if he’s alive!”
Kev looked into the aliens face. The brown eyes were very like a human’s, but the face was long, with room for a big, convoluted nose, designed to filter the dry, cold, desert air of their homeworlds’ vast steppes and deserts. It was now just as snotty as any human child begging without guile for just a little something of his own. Kev reached over and rubbed the nub of Ajik’s horn, just starting to form in his forehead. Bluehorns were known to be so stubborn… There were two braids on the right side of his forehead, for his two living parents, and three on the left, for his siblings, but there was one place where the hair had been cut away. Kev remembered seeing a similar bald spot on Brooj’s forehead.
“Alright, just this once, I’ll keep that to myself. But let me hold on to it, will you? I don’t think I can take any more excitement, if you were to go and try to find yourself another hiding place, okay?”
“Okay.” In the Ilshani, literally, ‘It is well.’
***
“So, what did the little menace have to say for himself?”
“Ease up, will you?”
“That kid is a one-horned crime spree- You are laughing at me,” she said, dangerously.
“Coz you’re funny, your high and mighty Ranger-ness.” He watched and felt triumph, as she smiled. He’d been right. She liked a little give and take, a little- “Ouch! What was that for?”
The single knuckle in his ribs hadn’t hurt, so very much, but she smiled some more, and he wondered if he was going about this the right way. She took his left arm with her good, right, arm, and said, “Before you get too full of yourself, walk with me?”
“Okay…”
The suns of this little world had set, and the inner, faster moon, was already up and near to setting. The outer one wouldn’t show itself for hours yet, and the little moon, while close and bright, was puny. It didn’t light up the countryside like on Dee Lah Wah, or Earth. Kev wondered about all the worlds without moons, and realized that Karen had stopped. She turned to him. “I set a dead-fall; here, you recognize the critter I got?”
“We call that a ‘Boo’, because it either runs away, like a shot, or it falls over, plays dead. A couple of times, we’ve actually seen one have a heart-attack…” Kev said, lying through his teeth, but she was laughing, which was good.
“Good eating?”
“Well, yeah, we’ve tried- oh, sure.”
“I’ll get it ready, why don’t you start a fire? I laid up a little extra wood, some water and rations, over here.” She showed him, and Kev did as she asked. Brooj commed him, in the middle of his work, and he talked the Bluehorn into not sending a search party out for them, too. He went back to his preparations, thoughtful, and, a little later, as they sat by the fire, the meat and some of ‘his’ tubers roasting, he leaned over to her.
“Did you have something else planned, Ranger?”
She drank from her water bottle, and passed it across to him, and he drank. She broke a ration bar in half, and gave half to him. Her movements seemed stylized, almost like a ritual, and he wondered if it was meant to be the Ranger sharing ceremony. Or maybe it was something far older; two people sharing food, two people who were no longer strangers.
“Today is my birthday. I’m twenty-three, and I’ve spent almost ten years in the Conservancy. I spent my teen years with dozens of types of aliens, some the size of Clydesdales, and others the size of dogs. There are aliens that roll along on three wheels! Good God, Trikes, and three or four other kinds of tentacled horrors, right out of Lovecraft! Do you even know …”
“How wonderful it all is? I know. I’m a child of the Conservancy.”
“It’s crazy! This place is crazy-mad, and I love it. We went native… Dad pretty much ditched me with some friends we made here, and buried himself in becoming a Ranger. I didn’t get to do that right away, but I can tell you the entire history of the Conservancy. From the re-discovery of Ilshan, to the funding of a consortium to study it, the decision to re-build Ilshan’s signature Orbital Ring and bring a murdered world back to life, the day when it was opened to settlement, and the decision to keep on doing that, endlessly.”
The little moon had touched the horizon and the roast Boo and tubers were ready. They ate the food that she provided and he prepared. The moon set and the night sky was brilliant with stars. They made a game of naming the constellations here. He was a little disappointed when she drifted off to sleep, but also, happy. She seemed happy, and was smiling again, in her sleep. He put his hand in hers, and she took it, without waking.
Kevin Boyle smiled. There would be other nights. “The Universe is kind.”
***
The Circle is made whole!
That which was broken, is re-formed!
That, which was barren and dead, is re-born!
The Work gives us meaning. The Work gives us hope. The Work goes ever on.
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