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

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Exhausted though Canipse was, still he checked all around the log. There were insects at one end, but he sat away from them. Then came the task of removing the leeches from his legs and feet. He’d gained the trick of it now, how to pry them away without a sting and tear. Even so, they left a trail of blood. But what could he do, he’d had to rinse his trousers and crotch-cloth.

He’d had to rinse around his arse too. Something he’d eaten had turned his innards to liquid. Fungi maybe, or fruit. That and nuts was all he was eating. He had tried to net a fish but over the years of being an overseer he’d lost that knack. Netting birds too. Neither was he good at lighting a fire.

He looked at the mess of his legs. And looked at his clothes hung on a bush to dry. Though why bother to wait till they dried when like as not it would rain again before he found a place to shelter. He’d been a fool, he admitted that now. He couldn’t even backtrack and return to basecamp, the map Zem Jess had given him was all sogged apart. Useless.

“If you Techs have a god,” he shouted, his scratched scabbed and sun-ravaged face turned up to the sky, “then may that god scope you up and drop you in the deepest midden in Pendolsphere.”

He looked around, surprised at the strength of his voice. That wasn’t good, to make such a noise in the forest. His early training on these GM planets had taught him that – when maybe the planet couldn’t provide suitable herdable meat-beasts, when he’d learned to be successful in the hunt for wild meat he had to be silent. Besides – he was told by his fellow catering ops – if he made a noise he’d be easier to track, then he’d be the prey. But he was easy to track anyway now, what with threads from his clothing and trailed by his shit.

“Talking aloud?” he mimicked the Techs’ inflexion-less voices. “Yes, Techy-Techs, I am,” he answered. “I am and I can. I can talk out loud. I can even say the forbidden because – do you hear me? – because you’re not here to hear me. You know what I want to do to you? You…” He puffed his face, he couldn’t find the word, nothing was bad enough. He settled on “shits” then changed it to “leeches.” Then combined it to “shitty leeches.” With further thought he changed that to “rotten maggot-ridden meat, filthed with vermin puke.”

At another doubling spasm in his guts, he was up and off that log, turned around and arse hanging, splattering more of his innards. Something he’d eaten. Ironic, when he was a food-preparer. He and his sister Cally trained by the Techs while still in school. Then taken to Kreegirn. “And don’t you think I don’t remember.”

He wrapped the crotch-cloth, fixed it in place, pulled on his trousers, then his socks and boots. Everything still damp. Clinging. Chafing. Hardwearing Tech-issued clothes. Not woven but something melted and formed. Had from where? Not Kreegirn, that grey barren place. Maybe Adamzal? He’d never been there but tales told of a verdant place.

Clothed and rested as best as able, he willed his feet to continue his trek. Northward. At this time of day that meant he needed to keep the sun to his left. “Not entirely lost without that map.”

Despite his Tech-issued boots every stone along the trail dug into his feet. He winced, easing his weight first one side then the other in an effort to reduce the weight on those painful feet. He stumbled, hands out to catch himself. On what? Nothing there. He landed with a crunch of bones and yelped.

He knew to get up. He knew there were things on that forest floor, small things that would bite and sting and kill him.

“Small, see,” he yelled from his awkward forest-floor position. “Not only you Techs can kill. Not only Techs can kill,” he repeated, quieter. “I remember.”

He pushed himself up, hands bleeding now, and wobbled into a bent-over posture to stumble two more steps before he stopped again. Somewhere ahead this river flowed into the sea. The beach would be easier walking.

“You, Canipse,” he told himself, “deserve to be eaten. Like Cally? So you thought to send me to Colabri, that they’d fill my head with all those Pendoling demons and I’d forget. But I remember. I remember all the things me and Cally learned about you shitty leechy Techs. The kitchens on Kreegirn were a good place to learn your secrets. A place to learn not to speak of them too. But you can’t hear me here, so now I can speak.

“You know what I learned? I learned about that black sea-poison that brings death while in sleep – because you heartless Techs will kill, kill, kill, even yourselves. I’ve seen it, with my own eyes have seen it, the dehiscing dead body. Like those dehiscing plants I saw on Absin Delath – except your dead bodies split open with a great gush of water, not of air. And there’s no tiny seeds to gather and grind and make bread. Twins. Grey twins. I saw them. Me, yes, I saw them. Cally saw too. Twins, multiple sets of twins, and always female, never a male.

“Wasn’t long after that you slung Cally as a carcase on the marble slab and told me to cut her and cook and serve to you as a meal. Oh yes, I know to be quiet. But that doesn’t make the nightmares leave me alone.”

Canipse stumbled again, his head cracked on a stone. He laughed, even as he drifted into the psi-sphere. “No more nightmares. I shall die here.”

Continues next Monday

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