Alien Chronicles 3 - The Crystal Eye (31 page)

He sighed and allowed himself one small sip of water. Now he was growing fanciful. It was time to return to camp.

But still he lingered, until the sun finally went down in an angry blaze of red that made the horizon itself look on fire. Ampris was now three days overdue. Elrabin felt bleak with worry. She would have been here unless something had happened to her. Ampris
kept
her word. Always.

He never should have let her go alone.

When the shadows lay thick among the trees, Elrabin pushed himself to his feet and trudged back to camp. He felt tired and dispirited. It was his and Tantha’s job today to hunt. The pair of tunals he’d brought down were thin, stringy birds. They were hard to pluck, and at best they made poor eating. He hoped Tantha had had better luck.

The camp itself was new and not very comfortable. They had wedged it into the bottom of a canyon, to help hide their cooking fires from Viis surveillance, which had increased on the imperial lands ever since Foloth almost led a party of hunters and guards straight home. The cub was recovering now from a gash on his head and the serious fright he’d taken from nearly getting himself killed.

If he hadn’t come home already hurt, Elrabin would have beaten him. Even now, two days later, Elrabin was still fuming. Foloth usually had more sense than to wander off on his own, strictly against orders, and put them all at risk. This had been something that Nashmarl was more likely to do, but Nashmarl had been subdued since Steegin’s death and was keeping himself out of trouble. The other adults seemed satisfied that he’d finally learned his lesson, but Elrabin wasn’t so sure. It was hard to tell what went on in that odd-shaped head of Nashmarl’s, but the cub acted moodier than ever. Elrabin wished he could shake some sense into them both.

Tonight, the camp had only one cooking fire burning, and it was a small, cautious one. Wedged in the bottom of the canyon, their shelters received no cooling breeze. As a result, nights were hot and miserable.

They would have to leave soon. They were too far from water, and Velia had been complaining about the inconvenience of carrying it. Game grew scarcer every day. Poaching on the imperial lands was now too risky, thanks to Foloth, who’d frightened the Kaa herself and stirred up the Viis.

But if they left, how would Ampris catch up with them? How cold a trail could she track?

“See her?” Velia called out to him when he entered the camp. She was leaning over a steaming cooking pot, boiling something—roots, he supposed. “I know you’ve been back to the old campsite, watching.”

“Yes. I was there,” he said wearily and laid the tunals on a stone next to her. She glared at them, swiveling back her ears, and he met her look with a sigh and shake of his head. “All I could find. The world is empty of food.”

“Not in Vir,” she said, picking up one of the birds and starting to pluck it without much enthusiasm. “Harthril wants to call a council meeting tonight.”

Elrabin bowed his head, feeling cornered and stubborn.

“Did you hear me?” Velia asked shrilly. “There is to be a meeting.”

“I heard,” he said. “Where are the cubs?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “I can’t watch them, and do most of the cooking, and keep an eye on old Robuhl. He tried to climb the canyon wall today, and nearly fell off. He is becoming a problem, Elrabin.”

“Yes,” Elrabin said, barely listening to her. He nuzzled her throat a moment, then trudged off to find the cubs.

They were crouched under the ribs of Ampris’s old tent, now stripped of its cloth to make them both cloaks. They had taken apart the viewer, and parts and pieces of it lay scattered on the ground between them.

Elrabin knew it would never be put back together. Anger stirred inside him, but he quelled it. Ampris had valued that viewer greatly, even if its charge was exhausted. But perhaps Ampris was never coming back, and if not, what good was the viewer to anyone else?

“Cubs,” he said, interrupting them, “come and eat.”

“Is she back?” Nashmarl asked.

“No.” He knew of no way to soften the bad news. “Harthril wants to meet tonight. I know we can’t wait here much longer.”

Nashmarl jumped to his feet. “But we have to. She can’t find us if we—”

“Mother isn’t coming back,” Foloth said, picking through the tiny pieces of wire and circuitry. “I knew that when she left.”

Nashmarl whirled on him and kicked at his hands, knocking pieces of viewer in all directions. “Liar! You don’t—”

“Stop it!” Elrabin gripped Nashmarl by the back of his new cloak and pulled him away from Foloth. “Both of you, slack off.” He released Nashmarl, who eyed him sullenly. “Clean up this mess and come eat.”

Leaving them, he returned to the fire.

They fell into another squabble while the pitiful supper was being ladled into each person’s bowl. Tantha’s luck in hunting was even worse than Elrabin’s. So it was another night of berry soup, flavored with stringy bits of tunal, and a few chunks of root. Less than appetizing. Horrible. Elrabin accepted his, trying to keep from showing his revulsion. Velia moved around ladling a ration into each bowl and sniffing to herself.

Elrabin realized she was crying and trying not to show it. His heart squeezed painfully in his chest, and suddenly he was angry. It was no good, living like this. They were slowly starving. And no matter where they went next, it was going to be more of the same.

“I can’t eat this slop,” Foloth declared, tossing his bowl on the ground. The soup splashed out, and Velia yelped in outrage.

“We haven’t enough to go round, and you throw yours away?” She hurled the ladle at him, making him duck.

Nashmarl jumped up and pushed her, toppling her over and spilling the whole pot.

Then they were all on their feet, shouting and quarreling. Elrabin forced his way through, snapping at someone’s ear to clear a path for himself.

By the time he reached Velia, she was back on her feet, sobbing now. “I hate them. I hate them!” she wept on his chest as he pulled her into his arms. “You have to do something.”

“Yes,” Harthril said. He was holding Nashmarl by one arm as the cub attempted to twist free. “They are your responsibility, Elrabin. Yours.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Elrabin muttered. He released Velia and went over to pull Nashmarl free of Harthril’s grip.

“He hurt me,” Nashmarl said, ducking behind Elrabin and glaring at Harthril. “He hit me and he has bruised my arm.”

“So what?” Elrabin said without sympathy. “Where’s your brother?”

“He ran,” Nashmarl said contemptuously. “Didn’t want to get in trouble.”

“He was born in trouble, and so were you.”

“Foloth started it,” Nashmarl began.

“I ain’t going to listen to no whining about this. March,” Elrabin ordered and shoved the cub off to the edge of camp.

By this time, Nashmarl was shooting him uneasy looks. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I want to go back and eat. I didn’t—”

“You made sure no one gets to eat tonight,” Elrabin said.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“What is?” Elrabin demanded, exasperated. “What is ever your fault, cub? You so sure the rest of the world is out to get you that you set up extra trouble for yourself.”

“I don’t have to listen to you,” Nashmarl said sullenly. “You hate me, just like all the others.”

“I don’t hate you,” Elrabin tried to explain to him. “I hate what you
do.
Why can’t you behave? Just for one day. You think maybe you could try sometime?”

“I was just defending Foloth,” Nashmarl said. “She had no business throwing that ladle at him.”

Now Elrabin was really starting to lose his temper. “Oh, so now it’s all Velia’s fault?”

“She threw it at Foloth.”

“You try cooking all day, working on something that ain’t fit to eat in the first place. You try doing half of what Velia does, and see where your temper goes by sundown. Anyway, it don’t matter if she throws something or bites your head—she’s an adult, see? You ain’t.”

“Just because she’s grown doesn’t mean she’s better.”

“No, but you got to respect her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s grown and you ain’t.”

“That’s no reason.”

Elrabin growled to himself, feeling as though he were chasing circles. “Just you shut up about it, see? You go and find Foloth. Tell him to come back and apologize to Velia.”

Nashmarl’s green eyes widened in outrage. “No!”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s not—”

Elrabin’s growl grew louder, “Not what?”

Nashmarl’s face turned red and he wouldn’t meet Elrabin’s eyes.

Elrabin gripped Nashmarl by the front of his cloak and twisted hard, backing the cub up against a tree. “Now you listen good. She’s my mate, and she ain’t going to be insulted or knocked down by a pair of
nolos
like you. I been real easy on the two of you so far, but you’re pushing my temper, see?”

Nashmarl looked back at him with open insolence. “You won’t do anything,” he said. “You never do.”

“How come Foloth ran?”

Nashmarl said nothing.

Elrabin wanted to bite him, but instead he pulled the cub along to his shelter and pushed him inside.

Nashmarl tried to come out, but Elrabin blocked the way.

Nashmarl scowled. “I don’t want to be in here! What are you doing?”

“You going to stay in there until you be ready to apologize, yeah, and to see that your brother apologizes too.”

“Go mate with a Toth,” Nashmarl retorted.

Elrabin slammed shut the rickety door constructed of slim branches lashed together, and latched it with a stick slid crossways through the tough vine loops. Nashmarl kicked the door, but it held.

Growling to himself, Elrabin went off to find Foloth.

He had no luck in his search—not that he tried very hard—and finally he came tramping back into camp, with twigs and leaves caught in his fur, his stomach gnawing a hole out his back, and his temper in shreds.

The others had finished eating whatever was left of the ruined supper, and had gathered for the meeting. Velia slid a half-empty bowl of cold soup into Elrabin’s hand and he drank it in three angry gulps.

Giving her a quick lick on one ear, he handed back the bowl and saw Harthril beckoning him.

The tall skinny Reject looked very stern tonight in the flickering illumination of their small fire. Everyone else sat on the ground in a circle around the fire, but Harthril remained standing. Elrabin stood before him, feeling like he was on trial.

“You punished them?” Harthril asked.

“One of ’em,” Elrabin replied. “Ain’t found the other one yet.”

“I hope you beat them,” Frenshala said.

Elrabin glared at her. “No one asked you.”

She jumped up in outrage. “I have a right to speak,” she said shrilly. “We are part of this group now. I can say what I wish to say.”

“Just keep your muzzle out of my business, see?” he said.

Harthril held up his hand before Frenshala could reply. She snarled an insult and sat down. The other Kelths murmured to her, yipping and growling among themselves.

“We have bigger decision to make tonight,” Harthril said, raising his voice slightly to be heard. “Is time to break camp. Already we stay here too long.”

“Now wait,” Elrabin said. “Don’t get so hasty, Harthril. We promised to wait for Ampris.”

“Yes, but three days past her time to come,” he said harshly, flicking out his tongue.

“Three days?” Elrabin tilted his head to one side and scoffed. “When you’re walking across the Plains of Filea with your feet on fire and your brain melting inside your skull, maybe you find it takes a little longer than you meant for it to. Get it?”

“We give her extra time,” Harthril said. “She not come. Now we go.”

“Where?” Elrabin asked him. “Going someplace special or you intending to roll a dice bone in the morning and strike out the way it points?”

“Elrabin,” Velia said from across the circle. He glanced at her, and she shook her head in reproof.

Elrabin shrugged his shoulders under his tattered coat. Things used to be pretty good, but he was tired of the way the camp ran now. Everyone at each other’s throats all the time. No leadership worth spitting at. Too many fool decisions, like this one.

“I ain’t going to Vir,” he announced, baring his teeth.

“There is food in Vir,” Luax said quietly as she leaned forward. “We must eat.”

“Sure, I like to eat, but I ain’t going back to that stinkhole just to get dinner,” Elrabin told her. “Listen to me, all of you. Ampris had a plan to keep us out of there. When she gets back—”

“We listened to her and we agreed with her,” Harthril broke in. “But Ampris did not come back.”

“Give her time.”

“We have no time,” Harthril said. “The game is gone. Foloth scared the Kaa, and now the guards want our hides. They hunt us, every day, and they will catch us soon. We must go.”

“Give Ampris a chance to come through,” Elrabin said. He faced them in the firelight, pleading with them. “Have faith in her, folks. When’s she ever failed you?”

“Ampris does not fail,” Harthril said fairly. “But maybe Ampris is hurt or dead. Is long way to Vir.”

“Yeah, and a long way back. We can hold out another couple of days,” Elrabin said. “Give her a chance. Come on.”

Robuhl rose to his feet, tottery and white-maned and frail. “We shall wait for Ampris!” he declared, his voice quavering.

Tantha lifted her hand. “I vote we wait.”

Elrabin stared hard at Velia, who backed her ears and snarled at him. But obediently she rose to her feet. “We wait,” she said in a soft voice.

“But how long do we wait?” Frenshala asked. “Till we starve? Harthril be speaking right, and we know it.”

“She’ll come,” Elrabin insisted.

“But she has not come yet,” Frenshala said fiercely. “Do we wait forever?”

“If we have to,” Elrabin said stubbornly.

An outcry rose at that, and he lifted his hands. “Hey, slack yourselves. I know we can’t do that. So we compromise, see? We wait a little longer.”

“How long?” Luax asked.

“Five more days.”

Frenshala howled, and Harthril’s rill turned red. He shook his head. “One day, Elrabin. Only one more day.”