13 Degrees of Separation (79 page)

The kid grinned and agreed with a nod.

The End.

Premise: The events in this story take place during the
Wandering Engineer time line, after Destiny's choice but before Pirate's Bane.
They take place on Kathy's World, an inclement small world between the
Horathian empire and the newly reforming Federation.

ACT I

Chapter 1

The Neo
wolves were on the hunt. The alpha and beta male and female lead the pack,
running in a loping gait on all fours as their ancestors had done. They were in
their prime, ready for a hunt, eager for the chance at meat to fill long empty
bellies. It's a simple matter for the Neos to stalk, hunt, and take down an elk
or caribou. As they fed in cast order, another group called in news with the
sounds of a far off train sound of old. The group looks up with bloody muzzles,
some interested, others only annoyed by the interruption. Nostrils flared,
exhaling clouds of hot breath and inhaling the wind for trouble as some of the
news registers. There was something in the air indeed, a strange almost unknown
scent. The oldest of them recognized the scent of metal and fire. A few of them
growled, uncertain of where this was leading. The pack didn't like change. When
they ran into something strange it meant changes for the pack were in the wind,
and sometimes that change was like the wind, it tore at them for better or for
worse.

The pack
priestess went out to investigate being that she was low in the packs priority.
She didn't think about it, it was the way things were done. The pack must
conserve its' best hunters. They were the ones who brought the meat. She was
their link to the past, teaching and minding the cubs, a link some no longer
wanted.

Their
world was a dying one, she knew it. The others had forgotten it in their quest
to fill their bellies. Their world was called Kathy's world by the Terrans. It
had been terraformed and settled nearly a thousand years ago just before the
Xeno war. Seven hundred years ago the great war had come to this star system,
the single capital of this world had been obliterated by the Xenos with
contemptuous ease. As had the towering terraforming equipment that had dotted
the landscape. It was said that the aliens had launched a planet destroyer but
it had been stopped.

This
world had three continents, or so the song story said. The two great ones were
on the poles of the planet, and without the terraformers their world had
slipped into an ice age. It was said that in another thousand years it would be
frozen over and no life would exist. The Terrans were along the coasts, keeping
to the warmer areas and avoiding the arctic interior of the continent. Less and
less game were venturing north, the frigid temperatures just couldn't support
plants that the herbivores needed to feed on. The winter periods were becoming
longer and longer...

For the
pack it was a problem for their children's children, not their own. They cared
little for such things, only in making sure they had enough food to fill their
bellies now. It was disturbing to see how low her people had come. Sure they
had been changed from lower animals, but they were Neos. Just because they were
once animals didn't mean they should become them once more! The priestess
thought with a sigh.

She
didn't know why the Xenos hadn't returned. Perhaps the stories were true, that
the great war had consumed them. She'd heard a few Terran ships passed by each
year, but she herself had yet to see one. She went to the port sometimes to see
them, but each time she had just missed the star visitors.

In her
youth she'd wanted to run away, to go to the stars, to see and experience
things with her own eyes. What things she would see! What things she could tell
the pack if she ever bothered to return!

Ben, her
human friend, had laughed when he had heard her dreams of the future. He'd
tried to be kind as he told her that even he would be turned away. Spacers
needed people who had been taught to live and work in space. A person used to
the great wide open spaces of a planet would fret and not be able to handle the
tight quarters of a ship, the smells alone would probably drive her mad for
home.

It hadn't
been easy to accept that, a part of her resented Ben's attempt at bringing her
down to the ground. Since that time they'd grown further apart as the pack
ranged further from his homestead. She'd even come to accept a mate and had
pups a few years ago.

She
wrestled with her internal dialog as she fell into an easy lope of long
practice. The group made little noise, easily moving across the snow. They
could go for days at this speed if necessary. Her daughter, Blizzard had made
it clear she didn't want to be a simple priestess. She chuffed at the thought,
she too had thought such thoughts, but a love of learning and the need for the
young to be educated had guided her into the role. She looked back at her one
surviving daughter. The snow white wolf was growing into her own, now finding
that being a priestess wasn't as good as she'd liked it to be. The pack didn't
recognize the need for the role, they didn't like to look at the past. They
knew the young needed to be educated but the here and now was all they saw, the
hunt, the fight for survival was everything to them.

She's
near her prime the priestess noted. She wanted more, to be more, to see more.
Their last argument over the tundra had been an echo of her own argument with
her own mother years ago. She sighed feeling the winds of memory and life
ruffle her fur. Mother had been right, she did get a daughter just like
herself.

The
Omegas lopped off ahead of her, breaking trail in their eagerness to get to the
scent and see what it was. They bounded over a bank and into a clearing then
howled that they had found something. She found them circling a body of a biped
being dressed in strange clothes. She stopped Blizzard from killing it in
automatic reflex. She took a look, noting the soft movements of breathing, and
then rolled the small body over. The scent that clung to the being's clothes
was cloying with metal and oils... but also something vaguely familiar.

She
growled softly, trying to remember, searching her memory for clues of what this
meant. She'd spent too much time in the pack, too much time away from sapient
thought. She knew it was a human, but the scent was maddeningly familiar. It teased
at her subconscious, not coming to the surface. She pulled the parka hood back
to see a teenage female human. Ah, yes. She nodded in understanding. “A Human,”
she said out loud. That was true, and one she vaguely knew.

“Human?
They dare come to our lands now?” the Omega growled. She shot him a quelling
glance, as the Omega male he was the lowest of the pack's caste. He acted as a
jester, frequently being picked on by the other members of the pack and eager
to raise his social standings. His ears went flat at her look, not in
challenge, but in deference to her.

“No,
something tells me no. This little one doesn't belong here,” the priestess
said, looking up and scenting the air around them.

The being
in the parka stirred in discontent. The others backed away, growling softly.
The girl looked up muzzily. She rubbed at her head then stared, eyes wide. They
smelled fear and a trickle of urine. “Oh my...” the girl breathed, eyes wide in
shock.

The
priestess barked, and the others stepped back as the girl sat up. After a
moment a few of them sat, either no longer paying attention or pretending not
to. The girl looked around and got up slowly. She brushed snow off her body.

“Wolves.
At least it wasn't bears,” the girl said, shaking her head. She was acting
wary, not moving quickly.

“Not
quite,” the priestess laughed, flicking her ears.

The girl
stopped and stared at her. “I must be dreaming. Did you just talk?” She asked.

“Yes,”
the priestess snorted in amusement. She sat and then raised a hand paw. Her
fingers unfolded and she gestured to the others. She waved to the others to
leave. She knew it was a futile order, this was too new, too interesting to
resist watching. “What brings you to our lands little one? You are far from the
villages,” she said as the others faded into the forest. They weren't gone, the
priestess realized as she scented the wind, and her daughter was still here,
stubbornly by her side, endearing but not needed, or hopefully not needed she
thought.

“I... oh
spirit of space Bobby, Susan,” the girl moaned and moved slowly, turning in
place. She's disoriented the priestess realized. Finally she found her tracks
in the snow and pointed a mittened hand weakly southwest.

The
others looked in that direction. “More humans?” Blizzard asked. Whatever this
was it was an interesting diversion.

“My...my
brother and... and my little... my sister,” the young Terran said weakly. She
shook her head, one hand touching her temple. There was a splotch there, a
forming bruise. “We crashed. I mean, we... it was dark and I've never driven
before and well,” she shrugged helplessly.

The
priestess nodded sagely. “Ah, then perhaps we should take you to the
grandmother, she will know what to do,” she said

Blizzard
stared at her mother, aghast at the thought of bringing a Terran to one
venerated by all the clans. But the thought of meeting her, the legend that she
was...

“No I...
I should get back, they weren’t doing well. I came for help but I don't know
where I am,” her voice said, she was obviously struggling to control her fear
and roiling feelings. “Bobby has a broken leg, he got tore up in the crash,”
she said, sniffing.

“Oh,” the
priestess sighed softly. She glanced at Blizzard who flicked her ears once. She
knew that the young human would be dead in this landscape and weather. The
temperatures were already falling quickly as the winds picked up. She looked at
Blizzard once more, she was wrinkling her nose. “Stop that,” she sighed,
“honestly, she's a person not food,” she said in exasperation.

If she
wasn't food then she needed to establish her hierarchy Blizzard thought.
“Hmmmm,” Blizzard said as she stared at the girl. The girl stared back.
Blizzard growled but the girl held her ground, not sure what was going on, but
not willing to turn her back on a possible threat. Blizzard was shocked that
the little Terran wanted to challenge her. Even in her present condition she
wouldn't back down.

“No,
wrong again,” the priestess interrupted, cuffing her daughter as her hackles
rose. “She is
not
part of the pack, Terrans do not know not to stare,”
she said turning back to the girl. “You're Ben’s kin right?” She asked.

The
little girl nodded, “yes, ah, uncle Ben. How did you know?” she asked
shivering. Ben had dealt with the Neos for years but he rarely let the kids see
them. Of course most of the time the dealings had been during the day when the
kids had been in school or doing chores. “I wish I had fur like you,” she said
teeth chattering. Her parka had fur but it was on the inside, strange that,
Blizzard thought to herself.

“Well,
you can't stay out here, follow me,” the priestess ordered. She turned and
followed the tracks, her nose dilated taking in the scent.

“Um...”
the girl said.

The
priestess sighed, the two leg would never keep up with the people. There was
however a solution, one she hadn't done since Blizzard had been big enough to
walk on her own a year ago. “Ride me young one, we'll have to stay out of the
snow drifts,” she said. She turned and waved to the Omega, “go return to the
pack with word of this,” she ordered.

The Omega
sneezed and then left without a backwards look.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word got
back to the rest of the pack when the Omega returned. The alpha male and female
growled about the distraction, but shrugged it off, they had yearling cubs to
care for. The distraction to the priestess was annoying, for she was usually in
charge of caring for the cubs, but she was also in charge of dealing with the
Humans so they would just deal with her absence. To his chagrin, the Omega was
assigned the duty till she returned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The
priestess took the girl back to her air car, once there she paused at the
sight. The battered and ancient red and yellow car was partially buried in a
snow drift in the middle of a field. She could smell strange smells, metal, and
others she couldn't define, but one she could.. “I smell death,” Blizzard
whispered scenting the air.

“I too,”
the priestess said softly, the girl hugged her tighter. She could feel her
hands gripping her fur around her shoulders. The little one had done well to go
on this far despite her fatigue.

They
circled the wreck. Not able to take it anymore the girl got off and rushed in.
She tripped in her haste and fell once but scrambled up and kept moving, calling
urgently to her brother and sister.

She tried
to peer through the cracked windshield but couldn't, it was too fogged over
from their breath and covered on the outside by frost. She struggled with the
canopy release, it was frozen over and not meant to be opened by hands covered
in mittens. Blizzard came forward and lent a paw. The canopy opened with a
shush and cracking sound as the ice broke its' grip. Blizzard backed off,
startled by the sudden change. Inside Cali found her brother and sister. She
moaned when she realized what was wrong with Bobby, his blue eyes were staring
at nothing, dark and lifeless. Her brother, her lively, exasperating brother
was dead. She fought back a tearing sob as she checked Susan, Susan was barely
breathing. Her little sister was barely alive, trapped with a corpse.