Chapter Twenty of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated

Please note: This is a weekly post

A cave was now Cela-Byi’s home, shared with a small legless dragon of the venomous kind. If it had been a strangler she wouldn’t have entered. Stranglers couldn’t be trusted; so many stories told of lost hunters found in a strangler’s belly. But a venomous, a small one? She wouldn’t harm it, and it wouldn’t harm her. They were spirit-kin, she wore their skin. All the same, it had hissed at her. She hissed back. It understood and a deal was struck. She had the dragon’s permission to sleep in the cave, but not at the front. The front belonged to the dragon where it would lie in wait and strike at small prey.

That cave was shelter. A stream close by was water. But there could be no food until she’d achieved her task. She screwed her lips and raised a grunt. No food here anyway. No fishes, no crabs, no shellfish. And it was the wrong season for fruits. But six days without food and an ocean of water sloshed in her head, washing away her thoughts. All thoughts but for thoughts of him, Kija, star-spirit, who had held her, and touched her, and wanted to make her his woman.

Again, she set out for the high plateau. She couldn’t return to the dow until he’d told her what he wanted. That was the purpose of this quest.

She followed a path maybe made by a family of pigs, or maybe by deer, though unlikely by the cattle that were more often seen on the lower slopes. That path had started off narrow but was wider now, trampled four times a day by her feet. It wound through stunted trees that dropped hard-shelled nuts on her shoulders and back. Edible? She wasn’t a hill-woman to know. And where there were no trees there were entangling bushes. Brittle black rock showed through the scrawny grasses beneath her feet, none of the familiar lichens and mosses of the lower hills and the plain.

Quest, the word wove in and out of her thoughts. Quest, like she was a young hunter. That caused her to chuckle every time it appeared. But it was a quest, and she was a hunter. A quest that would result in her being—she stopped that thought. If she didn’t succeed, it would be her shame and his dishonour. For her to succeed, she must take him back to her dow where he must seek the consent of her parents, her house and dow. She wasn’t fool enough to accept anything less. Although it wasn’t his only purpose here, she was certain he wanted her for his woman. Why else would he hold her, hold her close. And there was no mistaking she had felt his desire. That’s why she stayed close to the plateau where the star-spirits dwelt.

Wood and leaf gave way to black and grey rocks in a steep sweep up to the star-spirits’ plateau. Five spirits dwelt there, although she’d only seen the blue one close. Nozim, the sea-goat star-spirit, most likely. Yet a star-spirit was a star-spirit, and any star-spirit would raise her standing amongst the Itamakku, raise it to equal and above the headmen – all the headmen. But she had no desire for Nozim – if he was indeed Nozim – and preferred not to befriend him.

She climbed, her body held close to the ground dragon-wise – until a loose rock skittered beneath her foot. She skidded, her momentum lost. A frantic clutch at the nearest rock disturbed an avalanche. Unstable, the rocks tumbled with her, knocking her head, again, again, again. Heart pounded, a war-drum in her spinning head, her spirit left, transported by hunger. And as the darkness closed around her, she murmured, Please, take me to star-spirit Kija.

*

Jess filled in the flight log. Name: Zem Jess. Purpose: Further inspection of holos. Duration: He started to write: Expect to be away half a day. But changed it to: Expect to be back before nightfall.

He was leaving early to avoid questions, and he’d told no one his plans. Yet Armar and Kookka had only to look at the log. It couldn’t be helped. The memory of that female wouldn’t leave him alone. Her fragrance haunted him. He told himself no, not to go, that he’d be wiser to stay on the base. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the stories, that to succumb to her lure would be certain death. Even as he completed that log his inner voices chided, and as he lifted the flier from its base, one of those voices shrieked in horror at him. His face slicked, his mouth dried. But he breathed in deep and set his jaw tight. Then he was into the psi-sphere, thoughts of the Itamakku gone, everything given to navigation.

The textile operatives’ hive was the furthest from base, surrounded by extensive fields of linen, hemp and cotton. In Jess’s opinion that farm wasn’t sensibly sited. Too distant from a natural water source. But the Techs had installed an irrigation plant close to the farm’s eastern perimeter which the domestic operative, Poalt, maintained. Poalt, who had seen the Itamakku intruder. Seen her out by that irrigation plant? Although hidden from the fields and the hive still Jess obeyed the safety routine when landing outside of a fly-port and flicked the landing security switch; his voice advised the operatives that a flier was landing and to stand clear. He had chosen a spot within sight of the plant.

The blue clad Poalt raised a hand to block the sun from his eyes and watched the flier land. As Jess stepped out, Poalt waved to him.

Jess forced a smile. He had hoped not to be seen. Now he’d have to play it, whatever came. What came was an invitation to visit the irrigation plant. But Jess delayed.

“What’s the hut over there?” Small, of woven sticks, not anything a Tech would construct.

“Ah, that, that’s nothing special.” Poalt placed himself between Jess and the hut and wilfully directed him to the irrigation plant.

“Well, what is it, this ‘nothing special’? Something you’ve made?”

“It’s how I use the time slots when Eulal and Niapse don’t need me. I make things – from wood, from stone. From found things.”

Jess glanced back. Poalt was hiding something, the way he was hurrying him to the irrigation plant. He wanted to see some of these craftings, but Poalt was determined that wasn’t to happen.

“I’m thinking you need to know how this all works, what with having no Techs now,” Poalt said. “I wanted to invite you yesterday, but Eulal and Niapse are the textile operatives, and they said not.”

Jess had to agree, it would be sensible for the observers to know something of Tech constructions, an aspect of being Tech-less that Jess and his team hadn’t considered.

“It’s all in this…” Poalt spread his arms in such a way his hands seemed to enclose the hive-like building and led the zem towards it.

Denied a closer look at the hut, his eyes were instead drawn to the perimeter, wanting and not wanting a glimpse of the female. He asked Poalt, “Any more intruders?”

Poalt shook his head. “No. No, no, I reckon the holos scared her away. Though I do hear movements that could be a Sanki. But more likely it’s the local fauna. I mean, what’d she be doing there? Watching me, yea?”

The operative’s tight jaw jarred, alerted Jess. “And why would she do that?”

“Right, why?” Poalt shrugged. Yet his hand strayed his crotch.

Jess nodded to indicate that crotch. “There have been changes.” It wasn’t a question although his intonation might have suggested it.

Poalt denied it.

“Good try. And I understand how you feel.” Jess raised a finger to stroke Poalt’s cheek. The hair was too short to show, but Jess could feel it. Poalt tried to block him, but Jess wouldn’t desist. Poalt’s head shrunk into his shoulders. “How’d you get rid of it?”

Poalt rolled his eyes, a fast shake of his head. “And you a zem? Look around you. We’re a textile farm, yea, we have tools. And as I’ve said, I’m handy with them. As easy to shave a cheek as to clean a pelt.”

Jess nodded to show his acceptance of the operative’s jibe. “Good thinking. But you stay away from her. You understand that, Poalt? To touch her, to mate with her, that’s certain death. Is that what you want?” An ache grew deep in Jess’s groin, as the image of Poalt and the female occupied his vision. To cover his rising anger, he clamped Poalt on the shoulder, “Come on, show this Tech construct, explain it to me.”

He tried to reject the swiftly conjured image of Poalt mating with the female, but it persisted. Mating, just the word raised a sour taste. Animals mated, and the Itamakku weren’t beasts. And as for her with Poalt… With that unpleasant image rattling his head Jess struggled to give any attention to this Techs construct.

Focus. Focus. Trained as a metallurgist, Jess had studied minerals and geology too, so this ought to be familiar territory.

As Poalt explained it, the Techs had dropped a shaft deep into the mountain to tap a subterranean river that meandered through this ridge of hills.

“It’s probably an old lava tube,” Jess said, and Poalt grunted, clearly not understanding.

“Anyway,” Poalt said, “the water pushes up that pipe, there.”

The water then spilled into a tub that occupied most of the hive. Pipes carried the water to the fields.

“No moving parts,” Jess observed. “So, you maintain it? What’s that mean? What do you do, exactly?”

“Exactly,” Poalt said. “I make sure the water’s delivered where we want it. And that the reservoir doesn’t overflow. We don’t need any flooding. Water at the wrong season will destroy our crops. There’s an overflow pipe – here – that empties into one of the mountain streams. Techs told us the overflow is seasonal, but they didn’t say which season.”

“The wet season?” Jess suggested.

But Poalt shook his head. “That’s what I’d thought, but they said no. And because I don’t know when it’ll happen, I have to come out here daily to check it. Next year though I reckon I’ll have a handle on it.”

Meanwhile Poalt would be at risk from trespassing Itamakku.

At risk, and in the way.

Jess clamped the operative’s shoulder, thanked him for the explanations, and left him fiddling with gauges and taps.

“You going to pop in on Eulal next?” Poalt called as Jess left the irrigation plant.

Not yet, but Jess didn’t answer him that.

The land fell sharply beyond the irrigation plant, a rocky plunge to the perimeter with its holos. Good. That meant he wouldn’t be immediately visible when Poalt left the plant, though he did wonder what the setup had been when the operative saw the intruder. She must have strayed a distance beyond the perimeter. Why? Had she returned to find him?

He closed his eyes, visualising. His breathing quickened. His rapidly maturing – what did Antel call it? A riser. But he’d been referring to animals, not to the Monzas. Yet riser was exactly the right word. It twitched, like a legless dragon, growing, hardening, now becoming more of a shaft than the little flaccid pipy-thing he’d been used to. He pressed his hand to it. That female, she wasn’t Itamakku but a Pendol spirit, sent to tease, torment, and ultimately to kill him.

With a great wrench of will, he opened his eyes, pulled his hand away, took a fresh breath, and continued on his way.

Good sense would see you turning back.

I want her.

She’s not Monza. She’s Itamakku, alien.

Genetically modified.

You can’t even speak her language.

He stopped again and looked at his hands. Those hands had touched her. Beneath her clothes, her naked flesh, touched her. He rubbed his palms, slowly, focused on the feel. But that’s not how her skin had felt. Like fragrant petals from a precious plant, with the softness of ripened fruit. That change came again to his breathing.

At a crack of a twig and a rustle of leaf, he looked up, alert. He scanned around and peered deep into the stunted trees that lay ahead of him. This wasn’t where he’d seen her before. But he saw her now, briefly, before she disappeared.

To be continued next Monday

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