Star Cruise: Marooned (11 page)

“You four stay here and be ready to move when I say so.” Drawing the blaster, Red ran at full speed in the direction they’d come.

“What’s he doing?” Callina asked.

“I have no idea.” Meg was as puzzled as the others, but she was grateful for a chance to rest.
 

Moments later, a terrible shrieking filled the air, coming from the same direction Red had gone. At the same moment, the Shemdylann ship drifted by for the fourth time, close to the treetops, which were another hundred feet or so above Meg’s head. She cringed, as if making herself smaller would save her from detection by the enemy. The noise in the trees came closer and she worried about what kind of threat might be approaching. Hands over her ears to block the yelling, which seemed to be from a large number of creatures, she hunkered down.

“Shouldn’t we get out of here?” Mr. Bettis shouted, arms locked around his terrified wife. “Whatever’s moving this way sounds worse than the Shemdylann. And the threat is here in the trees with us right this minute.”

Meg shook her head. “Red said to wait here.”

“You’re in command, not him,” Bettis said, pointing his finger at her.

She glared until he averted his eyes. “And I trust his combat skills. Stay here as ordered.”

“Fuck this, you fools can wait here to see what’s about to overrun us, I’m moving out.” Trever sprinted away from them, running full tilt along a sturdy branch. “Every man for himself today.”

Frustrated, Meg turned away. She couldn’t abandon the others to chase him. He’d made his choice, and she hoped he wouldn’t regret it.

Mouth open in surprise, Callina stood, pointing. “Lords of Space, it’s some sort of stampede.”

A troop of the tree-dwelling mammals was running along the branches and swinging on vines through the open spaces. The screaming and yelling came from the fleeing animals, green-blue fur on end and curly striped tails spiraled close to their bodies. Ears flat against their skulls, fangs bared, the troop of enraged beasts came in a wave.

Meg shrank back, pulling Callina with her. She realized Red was driving the creatures, using carefully aimed, short blasts from the blaster. He was hitting branches in close proximity to the troop to speed the laggards’ progress and head the leaders in the direction he wanted. As the flood of angry animals reached the next tree trunk to the east, Red spaced his shots to force the alpha to climb instead of continuing on to where Meg and the others waited. Standing directly below the chittering, complaining animals, he whipped them into a frenzy with a few more well-placed shots at the heels of the rearguard climbing toward the crown of the tree. Meg heard the engines of the Shemdylann ship again.

“Run!” Red yelled, not taking his eyes off the animals. He fired a few more blasts to keep them motivated, and sprinted after Meg.

“The tree climbers’ll emerge from the foliage right under the ship’s scanners,” he said, running so easily right on her heels that she was jealous of his stamina. “I’m betting the pirates will be fooled into thinking they’ve been tracking the animals all this time. Worth wasting some blaster charge if we can decoy the enemy away.”

“Clever. We’re tree climbing mammals too,” she said.

“Exactly.” He took her elbow to help her navigate a huge knothole in the branch she was travelling. “Shemdylann scanners aren’t well calibrated. Or at least the tech wasn’t up to par last time I was on an operation downrange.”

Meg stopped with a shriek as something heavy hit the branch right in front of her. She realized a heartbeat later it was Trever, sprawled across the wood like a broken doll. Red moved in front of her and knelt by the body. “I wondered where he’d gone.”

“He refused to wait with us when you were driving the animals in our direction,” Meg said.
 

Red had his fingers pressed to Trever’s neck. “He’s dead.”

Retreating a step, hand to her mouth, Meg said “Did the pirates kill him somehow?”

Aiming the blaster at the body, Red fired a short burst of low intensity fire at something on the dead man’s arm. “Spiders!”

Callina shrieked as a cluster of fist-sized, yellow-and-black arachnids scuttled away from Trever’s corpse, scattering along the branch and taking shelter in nearby nooks and crannies of the bark. Meg yanked her backpack off and swiped at a particularly large specimen crawling in her direction, dropping bag and spider into the two hundred foot void below the branch. Shuddering, she followed the passengers to the tree they’d left, where the three of them huddled close to the reassuring bulk of the trunk for a moment. More slowly, Red joined them, scanning the branch as he came.

“How do you suppose Trever tangled with those?” Meg asked.

“He was always careless about tearing through the hanging vines growing in our path, rather than detouring,” Red said. “I untangled him more than once, remember? He just wanted to bull through them or any other obstacle like he did to the human opponents in his playing days. We’ve seen a lot of insects, so I’m betting the spiders live in the foliage as well. He must have disturbed a nest.”

“And like everything native to Dantaralon, the spiders are evidently poisonous.” Callina gave the nearest cascade of brightly colored flowers draped over a nearby branch a nervous glance, edging closer to her husband.

“What are you going to do with the—with Trever?” Bettis asked. “We can’t leave him here.”

“I don’t have time for burial detail, nor am I about to carry a corpse hundreds of feet to the ground. We leave him.” Red’s tone was uncompromising. “I’m concerned about saving the living while we still have time.”

“Some ancient cultures arranged their dead in trees or on platforms,” Callina said unexpectedly. “To be closer to the Lords of Space.” As the others swung to give her their attention, she added, “Or whoever their deity was.”

Meg seized on the idea. “If we can cover him with small branches maybe? And say a few words? Then it won’t be so harsh, just…walking away.”

Red grumbled, but obliged her by moving Trever’s body to lie against the nearest trunk, and then took her knife to slash small branches in the vicinity, which the others piled in a fragrant mound over their late companion. Meg commended his spirit to the keeping of the Lords of Space and Red had them on the move again as soon as she uttered the final words.

Callina didn’t offer to sing.

Red steered them north for about an hour before correcting their course to the westerly heading again. It seemed his stratagem had worked, because they didn’t see the Shemdylann shuttle, which was a relief.

But relief never lasted too long on this voyage, Meg reflected, while resting during a lunch break. “Am I seeing things, or is it getting dark early today?”

“Kinda windy too,” Callina said. “Worse than yesterday, anyhow.”

Meg and Callina exclaimed in unison, “Storm!” Meg grabbed Red’s arm. “How many cells were you and Drewson tracking when we landed?”

“Two, with a third one beginning the process of coalescing around an eye.” He stood, tilting his head in an effort to peer through the canopy of leaves and branches above them. “I think I see clouds. Guess I’d better shinny a bit higher and verify. You keep walking. I’ll be along soon.”

Meg took him aside as the Bettis couple scrambled to identify the next branch and hike per orders. “If there’s a storm brewing like the one we had at the ranger station, how are we going to shelter?” She stared at the forest surrounding them. “We’ll never make it here. The wind must howl through these branches. And the last storm took down a tree as big as these. Would conditions ground level be any better? Should we descend for the night?”

“One problem at a time. First, let me see if there is a weather threat.” Brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, he climbed to the next higher branch and kept going.

All too soon, he rejoined them, dropping on the branch in front of Meg like a big cat. “Major storm on the way all right. The front is blowing in fast.”

“Can we tie ourselves together with the vines? Maybe lash ourselves to a tree?” Mr. Bettis asked.

“We could, but keeping ourselves from blowing away in the gale wouldn’t solve the problem of the rain. At these wind speeds, the droplets will hit like projectiles.” Red frowned at Callina’s sundress over a swimsuit. “We’re not exactly dressed for a storm.”

“Let’s keep moving, see if we come across anything we can use for shelter, maybe a hollow tree or dense branches, perhaps closer to the ground,” Meg said. “The first thing we find, we settle in.”

“Agreed. I’ll scout ahead.” Red was off, moving faster than Meg would have dared, supremely confident of his balance.

She led the two passengers after him at a more deliberate pace. The breeze was definitely picking up, buffeting her from odd directions as she hiked along the branches.

Then Red was there, broad grin on his face. “You won’t believe what I’ve found for shelter.”

Half annoyed, Meg was astounded at his amusement, given their tight situation, caught in the open with a storm about to pummel them any minute. “What?”

His expression grew even more mischievous. “Oh, no, you have to see it to believe it. But the entrance is tricky, so we need to hurry before the winds intensify.”

A few moments later he brought them to a halt where one of the giant trees had forked into three trunks. Built securely into the fork was an odd structure, like a small hut, maybe fifteen feet across and five feet high, made of woven twigs, dried mud, and other materials. The breeze pushing at her didn’t so much as stir the dwelling.

Meg examined the odd construction from various angles, holding her hair out of her face with difficulty. “Is it a nest of some sort?”

Red nodded. “Probably built by those birds of prey. Remember the ones gliding on the thermals above us yesterday? The nest is big enough to accommodate their wingspan.”

Her memory crystal clear on the menacing knifelike talons and beaks on the largest birds she’d seen, Meg was concerned. “Won’t the current owners be upset at us moving in?”

“I’ve checked it out already. Either the nest was never occupied or else it’s been abandoned for a long time. It’s clean, not even feathers, no sign of previous tenants.”
 

“I’m not riding out a storm like the one we had before in some bird’s nest,” said Callina, eyebrows raised to her hairline. “Are you crazy?”

“It’s obviously been here a long time and survived many a storm intact,” Red informed her. "Unless the tree falls, we’ll be fine. The birds or whoever built this thing anchored it to the tree with mud and vines. The mud dried to a stone-like consistency and the vines have taken root in the tree itself. Clever construction—never underestimate Mother Nature’s ingenuity. There’s nowhere else and we’ve got to get under cover in the next few minutes.” He appealed to Meg.

She grabbed at Callina as a stray gust threatened to knock the woman off her feet. “Yes, fine, where’s the entrance?”

“You have to climb to the narrow branch, right below.” He pointed. “Then up into the nest,” he said. “I’m guessing the design of the entrance is a defense against the tree snakes. The reptiles must like birds’ eggs. There’s a broad shelf inside where the eggs probably would have been, but it’ll do as a resting place for us tonight.”

Meg assessed Mrs. Bettis, who was white-faced and trembling with exhaustion. “We’re not all as athletic as you are, Red.”

“I’ll go first and help haul each of you into the nest. Bettis, you follow me and one of us can stay on the perch to catch the women as each climbs across, while the other man pulls them to safety inside.”

Meg insisted on being the last woman to make the transfer. She watched, heart pounding, as Callina made the tricky descent onto the smaller branch below the nest, which swayed in the rising wind and wasn’t nearly as safe as the broader limbs they’d been traversing for two days. Then she pulled herself into the structure, disappearing from view. When Meg made the trip, she tried not to glance down. Red’s strong arms locking around her brought relief as she was hauled to safety.

“Cramped quarters in here, but warm and dry,” he said, as he held her close for a moment.

Red helped her into the spot he’d picked for her, with the Bettis couple on the other side.

She could hear the wind howling around the tree outside the nest, but it was cozy, their body heat soon warming the odd shelter. She doled out the nuts and berries Red had foraged during the day and the four of them sat in the gloom munching on the sparse meal. Torrents of rain blew by the nest’s opening, but the interior remained dry.

“It’s reasonable to expect this’ll blow over in twelve hours, like the last storm did,” Red said.

“Tomorrow we’ll be at the research facility, and hopefully things will be much more civilized,” she said.

“Can’t get less civilized,” Mr. Bettis answered from his position. “I’m not complaining,” he added hastily.

“Adventure,” his wife said with a shrug.

The tree shuddered under them as a particularly strong gust of wind roared through the area. Thunder boomed directly overhead. Meg grabbed at Red and stifled a shriek. He put his arm around her. “It’ll be all right. There are a lot of other places for the lightning to hit besides here. Taller trees. We deserve a break.” In the gloom, she could tell he was doing a double take. “Hey, are you okay? You’re shaking like a leaf.” His voice was soft, for her ears alone. “Cold?”