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29/10/2007
Thirteen
They’d walked four days and Daniel felt his breaths drag through him like a hollow wind. “Slow down, Angel,” he called out, annoyed at her sprinting ahead of him like a white-tailed deer. He walked gingerly to keep his blisters from pinching his heels. “Isn’t it lunch time by now?” he said, stopping to catch his breath.
She turned to face him with a look of impatience. “Come on, Dad,” she insisted. But she stayed put and let him catch up. “You look like an old man,” she said rather disrespectfully, he thought.
“How do you know this is still the way?” he asked, having long forgotten the way back to Icaria. “We haven’t seen the river since yesterday afternoon.”
“It fits,” she said matter-of-factly. “Look over there. See all those scree slopes. They’re part of a major system of ancient alluvial fans when the river was in a different place from now. We’re still close to the big river that flows from Lake Ontario into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s just over that ridge there, I bet.”
“Smart aleck,” he muttered and pulled out a chunk of rabbit jerky from his pack and chewed. When he’d admitted finally to Angel that he wasn’t certain of the most expeditious route, she’d insisted on leading the way. Aard had shown her maps and educated her about the terrain. Although Daniel had found it odd that Aard would have given her that particular information ~ perhaps Aard had used it as a way to teach Angel navigation and orienteering ~ he was certainly grateful for it now.
Angel impressed her father by keeping up a ruthless pace and hiking a relentless fourteen hours a day. While he felt exhausted after ten hours, he refused to be the limiting factor and pushed himself to keep up with his spry daughter. She’d kept them on a grueling schedule, hiking across streams and gullies, through forest, bog and marsh. This rescue mission was killing him, he thought, reminded of the painful blisters on his feet and the gashes he’d received when he’d fallen several times, trying to follow his nimble daughter through steep hogbacks and gullies. He never could control any of his women, Daniel lamented. Why should Angel be any different.
When Angel saw that his breathing had returned to normal, she sprinted off again along the deer trail she’d discovered, leaving him behind as usual. With a resigned smile at his energetic daughter, Daniel hiked his heavy backpack over his shoulder and trudged after her. He wondered if Julie had walked this very deer trail and couldn’t help searching for any sign as he followed Angel up a scree slope of loose talus.
She’d stopped at the crest and waited for him to scramble up beside her. Below them a dried creek bed wove its way through a steep ravine and more scree rose on the other side. Great, Daniel thought, heaving in a long breath and mentally preparing himself to climb more loose talus.
“Let’s stop and eat here, Dad. I’m hungry.”
He smiled at her in silent appreciation. Angel had her limits after all. They ate from their store, which served a dual purpose of lightening his heavy backpack over time and making good time without needing to stop to hunt, forage and trap, which no doubt had slowed down Julie’s pace considerably. Daniel had noted that she hadn’t taken much from their supplies. Just a few essentials. She’d expected to support herself entirely and he had no doubt in her abilities to accomplish this. If not for her pursuers, she was capable of living indefinitely off the land.
For an Icarian technophile who’d relied on her house droids for food, clothing and the comforts of home, Julie had cheerfully and competently embraced her life in the wilderness. Daniel never would have thought that a veemeld who epitomized the virtual world of human melding with the machines of Icaria would take quite so well to living in the harsh reality of the wilds. Not only had she fully complemented his skills and become his ideal helpmate, but she’d also been his constant companion in the heath. Was that the real reason he was chasing after her? Because without her, there was no point in living out here? What fear was driving him? It wasn’t so much fear for her welfare ~ if she was in trouble he wasn’t going to make a difference. No, it was the same old fear, the fear of losing her to the lure of that exciting technological world. Losing her to SAM. She’d never spoken about SAM, but Daniel knew she must have missed it ~ him ~ whatever. How couldn’t she have, though? She’d had SAM “living” in her head, sharing her most private thoughts for years. Ironic, Daniel pondered, how Julie could be so reclusive with people, yet so openly share herself with a machine.
After Angel chased down the rabbit jerky she was chewing on with some of her dad’s unleavened cornbread and a drink from her canteen, she abruptly wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air. “What’s that awful smell?” she asked.
Daniel sniffed too. “It’s just the Spirea. They give off a strong fragrance.”
“More like a dead animal,” Angel countered, frowning. “You need to get your nose fixed if you can’t smell that, Dad,” she said, shaking her head at him, and raised her brows for emphasis.
He shrugged and gave her a lame grin. Like her mother, her sense of smell was far superior to his. With a sigh, Daniel searched yet again for any sign of Julie having passed through here.
That was when he saw the body.
He stiffened with alarm then quickly ruled out Julie. From what he could see under the Spirea bush near the creek bed some fifty meters away, it was a man’s body. Angel sat cross-legged facing Daniel and therefore had no idea what he was trying not to look at.
“I need to pee,” he suddenly said, failing to keep his voice calm. “Don’t look.”
“I won’t,” she said with a smile of amusement. “But you better go!” she sniggered, obviously translating the distress in his voice to a sense of urgent need.
He scrambled down to the dead man’s body and, after a glance back at Angel still sitting with her back to him, Daniel bent to take a closer look. He’d been shot in the chest. Once. Had Julie done this? The process of decay was well advanced thanks to the summer heat. Flies and gnats buzzed and crawled over the rotting flesh, which gave off an incredibly offensive odor. He stumbled back, gagging. Holding his hand over his nose and mouth, Daniel scurried back to Angel.
“It’s time to go,” he said brusquely to Angel’s bewilderment. Shrugging into his heavy backpack, Daniel added. “Let’s go that way.” That way led far away from where the body lay. As they walked in solemn silence, Daniel reviewed what he’d seen. Judging from his clothes, Daniel concluded that the dead man came from Icaria recently. No doubt one of Julie’s pursuers. And she’d neatly dispatched him. She was a dead shot, after all, usually catching her prey on her first try. Was this where she’d been seized? If they got her she must have been taken by surprise, he thought, thinking of her gun and the dead man. Nevertheless, he searched as discreetly as he could for signs of further struggles.
Angel shouted excitedly from the top, “Look!” She pointed to the other side at something he could not see. Alarm spiked and clenched his heart. He quickly reminded himself that, according to Angel, Julie had been taken to Icaria, so she wouldn’t be lying there. “Hurry, Dad!” Angel shot down the other side.
“Angel, no! Wait!” he shrilled. When he crested the rise, chest heaving, he stared. Glinting in the sun with Angel stroking its smooth surface, was a skyship.
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October 29th, 2007 at 2:02 am
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt, he thought, thinking of her gun and the dead man. Nevertheless, he searched as discreetly as he [...]
October 31st, 2007 at 12:55 pm
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