Whatever Gods May Be (23 page)

At this moment, however, Phillips' more lucid nature could not deny that Valry truly did appear to be a creation of otherworldliness -- a fleeting, mystical entity whose existence he could share only the smallest responsibility for.

But even through the rosy glow that Valry seemed to exude, Phillips saw yet another aspect of his haunting child.  Through the forced cheerfulness and courageous veneer, he could detect the little girl within - a portrait of tragedy that would never grow old, fall in love or have children of her own.  Her life had known only pain and death, and her future would know nothing else.

The thought threatened to drive him into the increasingly desirable pool of madness he had thus far avoided.

"How about food," Phillips choked, for a moment feeling as if he were drowning.

Valry smiled sadly, then rearranged blankets.  "Thalick and I are going to look now.  Should be lots of Fuzzies around, with all the water.  We'll find something, don't worry."

"I'm not," Phillips smiled weakly, "but you should try and rest.  You'll wear yourself out."

Valry bit her lip and stared at her father very seriously.  "Daddy," she began slowly, "Thalick says that we're near a city."

Phillips eyes went steely.

"Where?"

Valry shrugged.

"He doesn't know for sure.  He mentioned it a few minutes ago to me, so he just found out about it himself."

Phillips propped himself up on his stack of canvas rags.  "He'll have to check it for-"

"He will, daddy, don't worry.  After we catch a Fuzzy, we'll both take a look.  There's an ocean about-"

"We!" Phillips interrupted his daughter, realizing exactly what she was implying.  "We will do no such thing.  I don't want you running around unexplored territory, Thalick or no Thalick."

"I have to help," Valry protested, "No one else is strong enough for a Fuzzy-haul.  Besides, the nearest herd is nearly two miles away.  They'll need me."

"I don't mind you going along for the hunt," Phillips remained stern, "but no trips to any cities, until the Stingers have flushed out anything dangerous.  Now that's standard procedure, sweetheart, you know that."

"Daddy, things have changed," Valry insisted ever so gently.

"Oh?" Phillips raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, "Am I still your father, or has that changed too? Do as I ask you, and stay away from the city.  Most likely, we'll all have to be on the move again, and that means I'll need you here to get the people in shape for travel."

"They need me," Valry continued, "If the Stingers run into a Jumper attack, I can help now.  You saw what I did with the cup.  Ask Thalick.  He'd tell you the same thing."

"How often have you ever known Thalick to talk with me?! When was the last time? A year ago, maybe?"

"He respects you enormously," Valry defended, knowing that the Stingers truly did not like to communicate with anyone but herself, and only Thalick would speak with her on a daily basis.  It was not a deliberate snub to Phillips that the Thelericks preferred Valry as a conversation partner; it was simply that her mind was more attuned to their transmissions than any other human in the tribe.  Consequently, whenever anything important needed to be conveyed to Phillips, for example, it was usually done through his daughter.

"I'm sure he does, just as I respect him.  And I'm sure he can take care of any patrolling that needs to be done without you underfoot."

Valry nodded politely, trying not to appear offended.  But Phillips could read his girl well.  He had never been very good playing the heavy handed father, though he knew in this instant, he was absolutely within his rights.  Due to his incapacitating illness, Valry had single-handedly taken over almost all of the duties of tribe leadership he had originally held.  This included overseeing Fuzzy hunts, wood gathering, Happy Hour observance, and making rounds throughout the encampment to check on illness - or death; the latter breeding additional chores regarding burials.  Furthermore, Valry had taken over the few hours during the day devoted to schooling - the priority duty Phillips had insisted continue regularly even during the rigorous weeks of migration, and most recently, the devastating trek across the Great Desert.

Phillips had been proud of his daughter's attentiveness and efficiency in these matters, but despite her mature handling of tribe duties, he still believed in wielding a few restrictions.  One of these most definitely included staying away from the potentially lethal vicinity of any of the ruins, most of which harbored the putrescent Redeye vampire.

Phillips could see that Valry was pouting, but he would not waver on this point.  The last round of dreams especially had frightened him more than ever before; now, as he stared at Valry, further unpleasant feelings proceeded to grow.

"Promise me," Phillips said slowly, "No city."

Valry sighed heavily and played with a piece of shredded canvas.

"Promise me," Phillips said again.

"I promise," Valry chirped suddenly, then hugged her father roughly.

The old man was visibly relieved, and some color returned in his face.

"You'll be back before night?"

Valry kissed him on the head.

"Promise.  And then, we'll have a Fuzzy feast like never before:"

Phillips forced out a chuckle.  He couldn't shake that bad feeling of a few seconds ago.

"Be careful, baby.  Listen to Thalick." he said quietly.  Tucking some blankets around him, Valry then blew another kiss towards Phillips and eased out of the tent.  A moment later she stuck her head back in through a flap.

"One or two Fuzzies?" she asked.

"One, I think.  We all want to sleep more than eat right now."

Valry nodded "Be back in an hour." she said, then disappeared again.

Phillips waved half-heartedly then collapsed into his hard bed of furs and canvas.

He would have no more nightmares today.  But the bad feeling remained, and despite his weakened condition, it urged Phillips to crawl toward the entrance of his tent.

The air smelled foul and damp as always, though the sound of the nearby stream churning down from the giant peak behind the valley made the overall atmosphere feel slightly cooler.  Few people were moving about now, and only twenty or so remained for Happy Hour.

Valry waved from on top of Thalick, as the lead Stinger and two other Thelericks made their way up a slope that would turn into a pass a hundred yards further.  Phillips again waved back.

This time, the horrible feeling echoed in his brain.

Suddenly, Phillips was terrified that he would never see his daughter ever again.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Thalick had found them one month following Cathy Phillips death, and then only by chance.

As usual, and as had been the case for the past ten thousand years, the Stingers were again fleeing with their tribe from a particularly pesty swarm of vampires near a place which had once been called West Virginia.  The Eastern Seaboard of the United States, like most other spots in the country, had been dramatically altered with the passage of time, and of course, the initial blast affects from the hellish bombs released a million years earlier.  Now, where low rolling, coniferous slopes of the Appalachian mountain range once crept up to the very seashore, and fields of wild flowers had stretched along meadows bordering rock beaches, only a tedious tundra of burnt out desert remained on all horizons.  Shore configurations had changed as well, with the Atlantic Ocean receding gradually to deep, plunging shelves miles out past the original surf line.  Not a weed sprouted, not a flower had bloomed for countless centuries, and the only signs of life came from the prey and predator - Man and vampire respectively.

Challenger II had missed the tepid seas of the Atlantic by only six seconds of flying time.  Had fate decreed a different shift of wind, or minute change in downward velocity, then perhaps the troubles and tribulations of John and Cathy Phillips would have ended in premature, but merciful, oblivion.  Instead, the battered shuttlecraft glided awkwardly past the enslimed cliffs of a once submerged mountain chain, and onto the soft cushion of charred ash and sand, thus preserving the lives and destinies of its crew for yet awhile longer.

Challenger had come down only ten miles from the Stinger tribe's current base camp.  For two weeks, the Thelericks had held a piece of high ground against sporadic raiding parties from a group of rarely-seen nomadic Redeyes.  As a rule, the alien vampires were a stationary menace, preferring the vast, torn out hovels of city living to those of open and exposed country.  Rarely were gypsy Redeyes and Jumpers encountered, which was always a blessing from a tribe standpoint.  They were, however, the most dangerous enemy to battle because they were accustomed to improvising against the harsh landscapes for survival.  Formidable opponents, they risked daytime attacks, despite serious injuries and planned raids around the clock, day and night, thus exhausting all tribe efforts in predicting any kind of strategy.

Far from any major metropolis, and consequently large populations of rural vampires and rats, the Thelericks had hoped that this small patch of desert they had brought their tribe would be, as always, a temporary resting place for their sick herd of humanity.

Two weeks after their arrival, and after the loss of nearly a hundred people, Thalick ordered the tribe to again travel.  The gypsy vermin continued to plague the tribe as it moved, and for several days following its departure from the low hills, the tribe endured further ostracism from the ambitious vampires.

For thousands of years, the Thelericks had moved the tribe in a generally circular direction, passing just north of the Panama isthmus every two hundred years, then moving west and north through the California, Oregon and Washington regions.  Mid and Northern Canada were avoided due to the freak blizzards which occurred year-round, but the entire upper strip of the Dakotas, Montana, and Great Lake Regions were a well-traveled migratory route for the Stinger tribe.  New York and points generally east as far north as Washington D.C.  were the territorial "hot spots", and were shunned always.  Too many ruins and cracked metropoli housing millions of the Redeye hoard were scattered through these regions, making travel anywhere near this vicinity risky at best.  Instead, alternate routes detoured diagonally from the Great Lakes inland, through the midwest and then east to the Virginias.  Digressions of these primary roving lanes included routes through the tall Rockies of the northwest, but this higher ground was usually too intemperate for the weakened tribesmen and was consequently avoided by Thalick and his herding associates.

Due to the inadvertent encounter with the gypsy vampires, Thalick was forced to go further south, where the land generally became flatter and thus more uninhabitable for the cave and hill loving Redeyes.  Had the nomad bloodsuckers not been such a nuisance, the Stinger tribe would have moved gradually west, towards the badlands or what had once been Nebraska and Oklahoma.

The forced change of plans by the navigating Stingers had saved the lives of Valry and her father.  After two months, all of Challengers food and water stockpile had disappeared.  Though John and courageously reconnoitered for several miles around the beached shuttle in search of game, or even a running brook, he had found neither.  The last stores of concentrate soon dwindled, and Phillips found himself pushed to the limit; several hours before Thalick appeared, he was resigned to killing both himself and baby Valry.  Phillips had long since accepted the unbelievable premise that he had come to some different world or dimension, populated by devils and monsters that did not need the same vital constituents for survival that humans did.  His failure to find any fresh water, or even an edible root, seemed to support this ghastly theory, and with almost relieved determination, Phillips prepared for the last, relatively simple task of self-extermination for himself and his daughter.

The Stinger tribe as well as the nine other Thelericks would have missed Challenger completely in their trek south, had it not been for the exceptional senses of the Sentinel Stinger Thalick.  One afternoon, he simply broke off from the rest of the tribe and charted his own course across the low dunes without a hiss or clack of a pincher to his bewildered companions.  The nine Stingers ordered a halt to the tribe's advancement, and watched Thalick disappear over the low dunes and out of sight.  Minding their own business, the Stingers ushered the giant tribesman into a camp position and waited for the leader's return.

Thalick stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Challenger.  Suddenly, the visions that had not perplexed him for ten thousand years reappeared all at once.  The inner voice that had guided him to this quadrant of space, and indeed, this particular planet so long ago was again booming within his soul, informing him that a new phase of his destiny was about to begin.  For ten millennium he and the other Thelericks had charitably supervised their small community of mankind across the globe, unconcerned about the passing of time, or agonizing in question as to how they had come to be delivered to such a desolate, and disaster-torn world.  Trapped and earthbound by the Dark above, the aliens contented themselves with the duty of defending the first benevolent form of life they had encountered ages earlier - the human race.