Reunification (21 page)

But I spared no time wondering about that.
I simply ran around the mound, dragging Resita along behind me, and
as soon as we were behind it, a massive
boom
—like a
thunderstorm on a dark stormy night—rattled my jaw and stung my
ears.

The explosion 'twas so powerful that I
fell down onto my hands and knees, pulling Resita with me. I
covered my head, as did Resita, for I feared that the explosion
would send all manner of debris flying our way, including
mechanical parts that could impale our bodies.

And indeed, something black and smoking
and metallic flew over the mound and landed on the ground directly
in front of mine face. Though it was a small thing, not much bigger
than my energy knife, it radiated enough heat to make me back up
enough to avoid burning my face, though I dared not back up too
much, for I could still hear the sounds of the exploding machine
and I feared moving around might put me in the path of its flying
parts.

But my fears turned out to be unnecessary,
for in a short time the machine ceased exploding and no more bits
and pieces of its fell from the sky. Keeping my hands over my head,
however, I looked up carefully, just to be certain that we were all
right, but it did turn out to be an unnecessary precaution, for the
sky was as clear and warm as ever.

Hence, I took mine hands off my head and
looked over my shoulder to ensure that Resita was all right. Though
he had not yet removed his hands from his head, he did not look
injured or hurt in any way. And for that, I was thankful, for I had
worried that he might get injured by the machine's flying
debris.

Nonetheless, I had to be certain, so I
asked, “Resita, how do ye feel? Are ye all right?”

My throat and mouth were still quite dry,
so my voice did not sound quite as strong as it normally did.
Still, I managed to speak as clearly as I could given the
circumstances, though whether he could even hear me at all 'twas
doubtful, for that explosion had been loud and might have taken out
his hearing for all I knew.

But then Resita looked up at me and
nodded. “Yeah, Apakerec, I'm fine. It's just that my head hurts,
like someone had taken a club and smacked it against my skull.”

“
Praise be to the Old
Gods that we both made it out of that situation alive,” I said with
a sigh. I wiped the sweat off my brow and sat up, dusting off my
chest as I did so. “That was indeed a dangerous situation we found
ourselves in back there. I had not expected the machine to explode
so violently, however.”

Resita, too, was sitting up, a confused
look on his bird-like features. I noticed now that he was missing
far more feathers than he normally was, which made him look
skinnier and weaker than ever. He appeared much like the abused
chickens I had once seen back in my hometown when I was a child,
which made me feel even sorrier for him than I normally did.

“
But tell me,” I said,
turning so that I was facing him squarely. “Just what was that
thing? Why did it play music? And how come ye were entranced by it?
Is this some form of witchcraft that I must be aware
of?”

Resita simply shook his head, however, as
if I had just said the dumbest thing in the universe. “No. This
wasn't witchcraft, but science.”

“
Science?” I repeated.
“That still does not explain what that was, however. It bares no
resemblance to any 'science' that I know of.”

“
No surprise there,”
said Resita, dusting off his body, for the sand had gotten all over
his feathers when I had pulled him to the ground. “That kind of
machine isn't exactly well-known among most Xeeonites, either, or
at least anymore. Only reason I recognized it is because my father
used to have one, so I got to know all about it because he'd always
ramble on about it to me when he would—when I was a
kid.”

I caught Resita's stumble, even though he
appeared to think that I had not, if the way he looked at me was
any clue. Nonetheless, I chose not to pursue the point any further,
because I was not interested in what he meant to say. 'Twas too hot
and tired to care about something that was not directly related to
our dire situation.

“
Then tell me,” I said,
feeling somewhat annoyed as I gestured at the mound, though I was
really gesturing at the spot on the other side where the machine
had been, “what that machine was.”

“
An old '94-B Player,”
said Resita. He frowned. “Oh, right. I forgot. You don't know much
about Xeeonite music machines, do you?”

“
I recall having seen
some such machines when I came to Xeeon to see mine sister,” I
said. “And I have heard stories about them from my fellow Knights
who have visited your world. But on Dela, we do not have any need
of such atrocious machines, for we have musicians of all stripes
who play our music for us when we need to.”

“
Right,” said Resita.
“Well, this particular machine is an older model. The '94-B was
quite popular in its day. It was the most popular music machine in
all of Xeeo for the longest time until Annulus Robotics came out
with the Mechanical Musician model late last year, but it's still
popular among the older crowd like my father.”

“
I see,” I said. I
glanced over my shoulder at the smoking bit of metal that had
fallen in front of my face. “Then what was this machine doing all
the way out here? And how did it hypnotize ye? Did these ''94-B
Players,' as ye call them, have the effect of hypnotizing whoever
listened to them?”

“
No,” said Resita,
shaking his head. “At least, I don't think so. My father says they
have the best sound quality ever, but that doesn't mean they can
actually hypnotize you. Not without special equipment,
anyway.”

“
Then explain your story
to me,” I said, putting my hands in my lap. “When I awoke this
morning, I discovered that ye were missing from our cave. I
followed this trail of feathers—” and here I gestured at the
feathers left behind by Resita, “—all the way up to here, but I do
not know what happened before all of that.”

Resita stretched his arms, though he
looked a little ashamed, as if he was embarrassed by his actions.
“I … well, I got up before you because I wanted to scout the area
quickly to find out where we were in relation to Xeeon. I planned
to come back and wake you up as soon as I figured out where we
were, but then I heard that music.”

“
The music played by the
machine,” I said. “The mournful electronic.”

“
That,” said Resita. He
shuddered. “It was just the most hypnotic tone I had ever heard in
my life. It reminded me of my childhood for some reason, so I went
and followed the noise until I found it here.”

“
Then it hypnotized ye,”
I said. “Correct?”

“
Right,” said Resita. “I
don't know what happened. One minute, I was following the sound,
and the next, I was sitting in front of it and it was exploding and
you were pulling me away from it.”

“
How come I did not hear
it until I got close?” I asked. “Furthermore, why was I not
hypnotized like ye? Am I mentally stronger than ye?”

“
I think it's because
the music was designed to hypnotize Checrom like myself,” said
Resita, pointing at himself. “The tone, the way the music shifted
and moved, all of it pointed toward a song that had been designed
specifically to hypnotize my people. I'm surprised you could hear
it at all. I thought for sure only I could hear it.”

“
What a strange device,”
I remarked. “But that does not explain what this machine was doing
out here, nor why it was playing such music in the first
place.”

Resita rubbed his forehead, causing a few
more feathers to fall off onto the sand under him. “Well, I have
heard rumors that sometimes people drop off their old unwanted or
broken devices out here in the Dead Lands. It's technically
illegal—you're supposed to either recycle you broken or unwanted
things or put it in with the rest of your trash—but it's a common
enough occurrence that I wouldn't be surprised if that was where
that '94-B Player came from.”

“
I find that highly
convenient,” I said, scratching my chin. “Though even if that is
true, I do not understand why that machine exploded when I cut off
its speakers.”

“
Well, that's because,
as good as those old machines might have been in their day, it was
discovered sometime after production that quite a few of the units
were defective and prone to exploding if damaged,” said Resita.
“Most likely, whoever used to own that '94-B Player had tossed it
out here when he found out that it was defective. Probably didn't
want it exploding in his face.”

“
That is plausible
enough, I suppose,” I said as I rose to my feet, dusting off my
clothes as I did so, “but this still fills my soul with dread and
unease. I had thought that the only dangerous machine we would run
into out here would be the Destroyer, yet ye say that there are
more unwanted or broken machines here.”

“
Most likely,” said
Resita, nodding. “But don't worry. As long as we're careful—more
careful than we already are—we should be fine.”

“
I hope so,” I said.
“Anyway, did ye find anything during your scouting of the area?
Food and water, perhaps? Or maybe a good pair of shoes?”

Much to my disappointment, Resita shook
his head. He then stood up, though as he did so, even more feathers
fell from his body. I felt sorry about his appearance, for he now
looked as ugly as a newborn chick, but I did not see anything I
could do about it.

“
No,” said Resita with a
sigh, dusting dirt off the front of his clothes. “I didn't find
much of anything thanks to that music machine. I still have no idea
how far we are from Xeeon.”

“
Damn it,” I said,
slamming mine fist against the mound. “I was hoping that something
good might come out of this, but it appears that my hopes were
dashed against the rocks.”

“
It's not an issue,”
said Resita. “We can still find our way back to Xeeon. We just need
to be smart.”

“
Smart?” I said. “How
so? We do not have a map of the Dead Lands, nor do we have any of
that tracking tech that ye Xeeonites are so fond of using to find
your way around. Do ye suggest we simply wander in circles until we
find civilization?”

“
Nope,” said Resita. He
looked around the mounds around us. “We need to find out which way
is north. Xeeon is supposed to be north of the Dead Lands and the
Foundation HQ; therefore, if we can find out which way is north,
then we can also find out which way to go.”

“
'Tis that simple?” I
said, putting my hands on my waist. “Why did ye not mention this to
me before?”

“
Because between the
stress of everything that's happened within the last day or so, I
really haven't been thinking as clearly as I normally do,” Resita
replied. “That's why.”

“
Well, then finding
north ought to be easy,” I said. I pointed up at the hot sun in the
sky. “We need but only follow the trail of the sun. If the sun is
heading west, then it will be easy to find which way north is.
After all, the sun sets in the west.”

“
The sun doesn't set in
the west,” said Resita. He pointed to the right. “The sun sets in
the east.”

“
What a peculiar
statement,” I said. “But a wrong one. The sun does indeed set in
the west. I should know, for I have spent many days of my life
watching the sun set in that direction.”

“
Wait,” said Resita. “Do
you mean that the sun sets west in Dela? Because that might be true
there. Here, though, I know for a fact that the sun sets in the
east.”

“
Yet another
irregularity betwixt our worlds,” I said, brushing my hair off my
forehead. “How confusing this all gets sometimes. It makes me
wonder how those who frequently travel betwixt our worlds ever keep
anything straight.”

“
Who said that they
did?” said Resita. “But anyway, your idea is still sound, even if
the direction is wrong. It should be simple to find out what
direction that the sun is going to—”

He ceased speaking so abruptly that at
first I was certain that I must not have heard the rest of his
sentence. Perhaps my ears had temporarily failed me or maybe I was
not listening as closely as I ought to have; either way, 'twas my
fault.

But something told me that I had not
misheard anything he said. He looked as though he were listening to
something, but what, I did not know. And I was afraid to ask,
because I had a feeling that whatever he heard was not good.

“
Do you hear that?”
Resita asked, his voice so low I had to strain to hear
him.

“
Hear what?” I asked. I
kept my own voice low, as something in his voice made me want to
match his tone, though I don't think I spoke as low as
he.

“
Just listen,” said
Resita. “You might not be able to hear it right away, because …
there it is.”

And indeed, as soon as he said that, I
heard it. It sounded like a couple of large men were walking
nearby, though I could not see them no matter which direction I
looked in. Their footsteps sounded close; based on what I could
hear, it sounded as though they were making their way through the
mounds around us.

Whether they were friends or foes I did
not know. Nonetheless, I redoubled my grip on my energy knife and
listened closely to their every movement. One of them had heavy
footsteps, as if he was obese, while the other's was light and
quick, like a fox.