Pilgrim (2 page)

“Maybe they evolved here independently,” Cal
said.

Nova snorted.

The pools varied in size from little more
than puddles, all the way up to lakes. All of them were covered
with the same green, grass-like plant. The trees were the same in
all directions; twisted and misshapen. The wood of the trunks bent
around themselves, like pieces of rope. Branches stretched out,
bent at odd angles.

Shrubs bunched together on the ground, their
green leaves reaching for sunlight.

Nova’s stick poked through the ground and
straight down into a pool of water. It was ripped from her hands
with such force that her shoulder twisted and she cried out. Her
arms pinwheeled as she desperately tried to stay upright and keep
from falling headfirst after her stick. She grabbed the nearest
tree and hauled herself away from the murky depths

She watched with horrified fascination as
the stick she had been holding was shattered into shards by the
snapping jaws of some large swamp-creature. Nova caught little more
than a flash of sharp teeth and the thrash of a fin or claw before
the thing disappeared back below the water, and the ripples died
away. All that was left of the beast’s sudden emergence was the
area of water suddenly free of the green grass and the few pieces
of floating bark remaining from her guiding stick.

She stood very still lest the beast leap
from the water and take her in its jaws. The water stayed calm as
she turned her head side to side, alert for any movement. Cal had
the sense to keep quiet until they could back away from the large
pool and the dead-end spit of land.

“This is turning out to be more difficult
than I expected,” Nova said.

“Scanners detect an aggregation of more than
ten life-forms less than a kilometre from here,” Cal replied.

She raised an eyebrow at the robot. “What do
you—”

“They appear to be human,” Cal cut in.

Her eyebrows rose even further. Humans on a
planet thought to be completely abandoned were definitely worth
investigating.

“Well, lead the way then.”

Cal hovered away to the left. Nova stared at
the ground with narrowed eyes before taking a new guiding stick
from the stunted tree beside her. She tapped the ground in front of
her once more as she followed Cal’s reflective silver shape.

Luckily, she had no more close calls as she
followed the robot. The swampy pools became fewer, the further they
travelled. Soon, she was walking on solid ground, which stretched
at least ten metres to either side of her. Ten minutes later, she
couldn’t see any more murky pools, although she didn’t stop tapping
the ground with her stick, knowing how well the murky depths could
be hidden.

A new sound took over from the buzzing
insects and frogs. At first, she wasn’t sure what it was but smiled
as the source came into view: a river. The stream flowed fast and
clean with no sign of grassy growth. The water was clear and
bubbled over rocks with careless abandon.

“The aggregation is just up ahead,” Cal
said, moving across the river.

Nova had some difficulty jumping from rock
to rock, but she made it to the other side with barely a drop of
water on her clothes. She crept between the trees, taking care to
stay in the shadows.

Cal hovered in the dark patches where the
sun wouldn’t reflect his metallic surface. Their stealth routine
was something both of them had had ample time to practice. Nova
remembered at least a dozen bounty hunts where their very lives had
depended on staying hidden.

The two companions came to a larger tree
with thick green branches. They halted. Beyond the tree, the
woodland stopped and gave way to fields. The morning sun lit up the
open grass with a warm glow that contrasted with the dark swampland
behind them.

Nova stared out from between the leaves;
eager to see how humans would live on a planet such as this. She
was careful to move the leaves only slightly. Who knew what manner
of people might be on the other side? They could be violent, using
Taive as a base of gang operations. Or they may not be human at
all. A pack of anything could be dangerous for lone travellers.

Her mouth dropped open at what she saw.
Tents gathered together in the middle of the field. They were made
from what looked like animal skins and were draped at ragged
angles. In the centre of the group of tents was a single wooden
building. It wasn’t made of planks or even logs; a rough collection
of sticks had been tied together to form four walls and a flat
ceiling.

Nova’s brow furrowed at the primitive
structures. People walked amongst the tents, carrying baskets and
hunks of meat. They called to each other and Nova heard a child’s
laugh.

But as she continued to observe, she noticed
something missing. Her gaze darted about the encampment, searching
for a reason but there was none. The whole village was made up
entirely of children, there were no adults.

CHAPTER
THREE

Nova stepped out of the trees. Waving her
hand for Cal to stay behind, she strode forwards. She rested a hand
on her gun and scanned the area in front of her. The few children
she could see stopped what they were doing and stared directly at
her. They watched with unblinking eyes, and Nova’s footsteps slowed
until she came to a complete stop.

“I mean no har—” Nova’s words were thumped
out of her when a heavy weight slammed into her back.

Her body flew through the air and crashed to
the ground. The weight of her landing knocked the wind out of her
lungs and she struggled to breathe. Her body scraped along the
ground and rocks tore open her skin. Pieces of dirt flung up into
her face, making her eyes sting.

Something heavy on her back pinned her to
the ground despite her desperate struggling. Her head was pushed
down towards the dirt. Her arms and legs were firmly trapped and as
hard as she struggled, she couldn’t get free.

“Get off of me,” she said. “I’m not alone.
If you don’t let me go, you’ll be killed.”

Her words went completely unanswered. Firm
hands wrapped around her legs and her ankles were tied together
with rough rope. The knots were strong and dug into her flesh,
leaving grazes. She tried to kick, but her legs were trussed
together so securely that they barely moved.

Her arms were yanked behind her back and her
wrists tied together. The strain on her shoulders was intense. She
cried out as her joints were pulled nearly to breaking point. In
those few seconds, she was rendered as helpless as a strung-up
pig.

There were high-pitched voices above her,
like children. Their language was unfamiliar.

“Cal, where the hell are you?” she said, her
voice strained. The chip in her brain allowed her to communicate
across long distances with her mind and Cal was always just a word
away.

“They have you surrounded and are armed. It
would be foolish for me to move in.” His voice sounded directly
into her brain, undetectable to her attackers.

“Have you got their language locked?” she
said. As she spoke, she strained against the ropes. They held
firm.

“It is some kind of derivative of Eberle,”
Cal said.

“Well get the patch!” Nova said between
gritted teeth. The voices around her were raised as if in argument,
but she had no way of knowing what they were saying. She strained
to look over her shoulder and catch sight of her attackers but a
sharp kick to her side made her bury her face back in the dirt.

Her heart beat hard in her chest and a drop
of sweat dripped from her forehead, dribbled down her cheek and
plopped to the dirt.

“Downloaded,” Cal said.

“Auto-translate,” Nova said.

“… sacrificed to the great rock. It is
obvious,” a male voice said.

“No, we should consult the great one to see
what to do with her,” a female voice replied.

“She will say the same thing,” the first
voice said.

“If that is true, then so be it, but we
should ask her first,” the female replied.

“Software operational,” Nova said to Cal,
then out loud, “I come in peace.”

The translation software in the chip allowed
her thoughts to be instantly translated and then transmitted to her
speech centre. She could speak almost any language, provided there
was a patch for it, without ever learning it.

The voices around her stopped their
argument. Silence pervaded the air.

“She speaks as one of us,” the female
said.

“Yet, she is not,” the male said.

“We will speak to the great one. Until then
we should take her to the ledge.”

The ropes at Nova’s ankles and wrists were
jostled and then the ground fell away. She was lifted into the air
by a stick passed through her two bonds. Pain lanced through her
shoulders and up her neck as muscles twisted with the weight of her
body, making her wince. Jolts of agony shot into her back as her
spine was bent backwards and her head hung down.

“Look, you bastards! I didn’t come here to
be taken hostage by a bunch of brats. Let me go or I swear—”

Her captors didn’t respond. They walked
towards the small village with solemn footsteps. She watched the
ground below her; she swung from side to side with their footsteps
and the motion made her stomach churn. The feet and legs of the boy
holding the front of the pole came in and out of view.

She forced her head up, even though it made
her neck scream with pain. The boy was no more than thirteen. The
stick rested on his left shoulder although it looked like he could
barely feel it. He was barefoot and his clothes were made of rough
animal skins. His skin was tanned dark and his hair was cut
unevenly about his head.

Nova took the chance to look around at the
rest of the village as she was carried through it. Her head begged
to be lowered. Her shoulders were sure to break at any moment, but
she couldn’t give up the chance to learn more about her captors. It
could mean the difference between life and death.

The passing tents were made of rough hides
and canvas. Outside each was a post made of thick branches
sharpened to points and thrust into the ground. Every post had a
severed head impaled on it in varying states of decay. The heads
belonged to a range of animals, some of which Nova recognised, and
others that were foreign.

A particularly large skull had a piece of
blue-grey flesh hanging from it. There was only one eye socket and
no signs of a nose or mouth. Bony protrusions extended out all
across the skull like a spiky seed. Nova struggled to imagine what
the creature would have looked like. Next to the spiked skull were
insect heads with massive pincers and antennae poking out in all
directions.

The heads were surrounded by flies and the
breeze carried their stench into Nova’s nostrils. The posts were
stained red with blood, a testament to the many other severed heads
which had gone before. An antelope’s head reared to Nova’s left,
close enough that if her arms weren’t tied she could have touched
it. It had a small set of horns which protruded up from the
partially visible skull. The skin had been torn and hung in a
tattered flap from the bones. The eyeballs of the beast had been
eaten some time ago; now there were just empty sockets.

Her nose wrinkled at the sight and she
turned away to observe the rest of the village. Every inch of it
was a curiosity, leading to more questions than answers. While the
tents were made of animal hide, they were decorated with wires and
pieces of metal. She stared, trying to make sense of the two
incongruous aspects. The village didn’t make any sense. And where
were the adults? Even as she was carried through the tents, Nova
saw only children, none of them older than fourteen.

When she had taken in all she could, she let
her head drop. Her neck ached so badly that she was sure it would
snap at any moment. She stared at the ground.

“Did you receive all of that?” she mentally
asked Cal.

“Received, although the data makes no
sense,” Cal replied.

“My thoughts exactly.”

The ground tilted up. Gravity pulled on
Nova’s shoulders as she was carried uphill. When the ground
levelled out again, she was dropped unceremoniously to the
ground.

She fell helplessly straight onto her
stomach. She lifted her head and twisted it to the side just in
time to avoid breaking her nose. Her cheek slammed into the hard
ground and her teeth clashed together. Dirt ground into her left
eye and her temple pounded with the impact. The wind was knocked
out of her lungs, leaving her gasping for air.

The voices of her captors faded away along
with their footsteps and she was left with silence. Or at least as
close to silence as she ever got since her incident with the
Ancients. The voices and shadows were never far away, swimming at
the edges of her awareness.

When the pain in her face and stomach
receded, she focused on straining her ears for any hint of more
trouble. The only noise was the wind in the grass.

Opening her right eye, she looked around.
Dirt and grass filled most of her vision and above that, all she
could see was open sky. There was no sign of the tents or of the
children so she assumed she was some distance from the village. She
dared not open her left eye. It stung and ached at the same
time.

“Cal, I could really use some help,” she
whispered. As she spoke, dirt filled her mouth and caked her
tongue. She spat it out, but not before the earthy taste
infiltrated her nose and throat. A trail of dirt-filled spit
connected her mouth to the ground.

“On my way,” he replied. “You’re clear for
the moment.”

Nova lay still and waited for her knight in
shining armour, or rather, her robot in shining panelling. The
whirr of his engine was the most welcome sound she had ever heard.
He hovered behind her back and went to work cutting through the
ropes.