Approaching Oblivion (Jezebel's Ladder Book 4) (33 page)

Minutes passed in this
entertainment before Oleander said, “We just looked at the rover feed. I know
you can’t answer right now, but what the hell were you and Toby playing with?
Magi artifacts?”

Yvette typed, “Show me.”

Soon after, an aerial photo arrived
on her wrist unit. Through a notch in the canyon wall, Yvette could see a
crown-shaped island in the lake. It was missing two round chunks in a direct
line like the sights of a gun. When the rover aligned perfectly in the next
picture, she could see a massive crater in the deepest part of the lake, with
scores of smaller explosions scattering outward like fingers.

Oleander announced, “We think
someone else had a Magi ship just like ours, and it crashed.”

“Yes,” Yvette whispered over the
throat microphone. Victory. It might cost her life, but she had found the
enemy’s Achilles’ heel. “What can we salvage?”

“Are you crazy? We have to scrub
all record of this from our base computers before
Sanctuary
links again,
or Sensei will strand us here permanently.”

“We have to be able to use
something.”

“Anything in the water would have
been destroyed by the Icarus chain reaction,” Oleander explained. “Our only
hope of finding something intact is on Crown Island, the impact point in the
high desert, or locating a shuttle that ejected before the final impact.”

“Write a note to Z.”

“Quiet. Pacino is back.”

Yvette tried to sip from her camel
pouch and came up with air. Water was now more of an issue than food. If she
didn’t get out of this hole soon, she’d be buried in it.

A buzzing in her ear woke Yvette. Her lips and eyelids were
sticky. Insects flitted away from her when she stirred. Groggy, she checked her
leg. This made her wince. The swelling, red skin was trying to squeeze through
the gaps in the compression bandage. She considered kneeling in the puddle of
cool water beside her in the pit, but moving hurt too much. Even her good leg
tingled from sleeping on one cheek.

Her headset buzzed again, and she
mumbled, “
Chenonceau.”

Herk
came on the line. He was trained for fire and water rescue, but no one had
prepared for this screwup. “The suns are going down. We’ve located a suitable
cave and marked the position on the map. Answer me in text: do you have a
weapon?”

“Dagger.
Flash-bang.”

“Right.
Everything else is water logged or damaged from the fall. Anything else missing
that’s not on the report?”

“Only
drink from small filter bottle.” She had to remove her glove to type, and even
then her coordination wasn’t good.
Fever? Shock?

“Pacino
is roasting dinner right now, so he’s distracted. We have a few options. One:
you slip medicine into the panda’s dinner. When he falls asleep, make a crutch,
and limp ten kilometers to the cave.”

“Might
kill Pacino. Snowflake would not heal me. Can’t walk that far.”

“Right.
Murder, suicide. Ethics won’t let you. Sorry. Option two: you sneak away when
he falls asleep and crawl uphill toward the rover. It can stand guard over you
until I arrive via the desert. I can reach you with food and medical supplies
inside a day.”

Looking
at the map, she asked, “And three?”

“Risa
thinks she can pilot the sled back here with no load. You stay in the pit and
bury yourself with a layer of dirt until the flare is done. Then, disguised as
a log, Oleander will come get you tomorrow night.”

“If
someone saw her without shimmer armor, we’d be doomed. Option two it is,”
Yvette decided.

“The
satellite will be back in place in a couple hours. We’ll monitor Pacino’s
activity on thermal from the rover until then,” Herk said.

She
took a swig of water but didn’t dare use more painkiller. If she fell asleep
again, the ear buzz might not wake her. The solitaire game on the wrist comp
kept her lucid for a while. When she found herself staring at the screen for
several minutes without action, she knew she needed help. “Talk to me,” she
typed.

“Only
forty minutes left,” Toby said in her ear.

“I’m
afraid,” she admitted. “Don’t let me sleep.”

So
Toby asked her questions. He started with alien plant composition but
transitioned into dating questions: how her residency went, who her friends
were, and what her favorite tourist site was.

The
time passed pleasantly until she heard Herk say, “Now.”

Ice
filled her stomach as she readied the dagger and the flash grenade at her hip.
She crawled onto the sideways spear and could feel the wood straining under her
weight. If she didn’t reach the top soon, it would snap, leaving her trapped.
With monumental effort, Yvette lurched upward. Her hands cleared the top of the
pit, making the thin branches rustle. Her helmet could transmit sounds, but not
the smell of game roasting. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of roast
chicken.

Slowly,
kicking a foothold into the loose soil, she anchored her good foot as high as
it would go. Then she pushed. She had a mental image of childbirth as she
breathed through the pain with an exercise she taught pregnant clients. Drugs
would have been better, but she needed the few wits she had remaining. When
Yvette finally flopped onto the ground, the trader stood by his fire with his
own spear ready.

Pacino
moved his head from side to side, trying to spot the threat. Someone projected
an overlay inside her visor of places her dagger could actually harm the wide
monster from this vantage: eye, ear, and the base of the skull.

Yvette
tried to crawl into the underbrush but didn’t have the energy left. Slowly, she
covered her facemask with her left hand to hide the visor reflection.

Mercy’s
voice in her ear said, “Who there? Show you.”

Piping
the translation feed through the speaker on her wrist comp, Yvette rose to her
knees and raised the wrist with the comp as high as she could. “Peace.”

The
speaker gleeped, and her headset said, “Homonym error. Cannot determine
context.”

Pacino
threw the spear, grazing her forearm where the sound emanated from.
Fortunately, the armor prevented more than another bruise in her vast
collection.

She
heard the sounds of a scuffle and Herk yelling. “Damn it, Baatjies.”

Yvette
tossed the flash-bang immediately in front of the native. The noise and the
blinding flash made the primitive wail and fall to the grass of the clearing.

With
barely constrained rage, Herk said, “I’m dragging this asshole outside for a
few words. Oleander, find out what he did to the rover. It just rolled down the
side of the cliff.”

Yvette
wriggled to the nearest tree and crouched behind it.

“He’s
programmed the rover to ram the aborigine,” Oleander said, frantically hitting
keys. “Run, girl. When the rover gets close, it’s going to blow itself up. I’m
trying to cancel the orders. Risa, help!” Then the operator fumbled with a
button that cut off all sound from base.

Run?
The short distance to the tree exhausted her, and while Pacino recovered, she
did too.

“Do
not kill. I beg,” the translator said.

“Fear
not,” Yvette said. “Raise no weapon toward me.” Her helmet reflected firelight
back at him like a will-o’-the-wisp.

Pacino
squinted, raised a paw, and uttered another stream of expletives. They were
just going to have to slap a censor on this guy. “Why you hurt like sun
bradahuuk
?”
The translator repeated the unknown word verbatim, displaying it on her screen.

Putting
the unit in learn mode, she tapped the new word and said, “Glare?”

Switching
back to external broadcast mode, she replied, “Look not at my face, and we can
deal.”

“Boss
speak strange. Sky
granith
, river tribe, or parent of the old old?”

Weighing
her options, she replied, “I am from the sky.” That wasn’t a lie. Pulling up
the new word, she dictated the definition “spirit.” She didn’t correct the
assumption because this conversation would need to proceed in metaphors he
could understand.

When
Pacino bowed, she told him not to. Interleaved, she heard Mercy’s voice echo,
“Not serve any. Here help you.” The translator took her English and translated
to Pandanese. Then it converted her panda words back to pidgin English. The
term ‘help’ became ‘lift other end of your load.’ She couldn’t shut the feature
off without taking off her glove and using decent light.
Damn interface.
“I
mean make mutual profit.”

“You
find me to trade?”

“Yes.”
Yvette peeked around the tree to see the male panda stand with confidence. This
was something he could manage.

“For
good pelts?”

“For
strong back. You carry my . . . pack items and clothes to my safety cave.”

“How
far?” asked Pacino.

She
did the math in her head: seven hours for a human, or ten for a panda. Glancing
at the astronomy chart, she said, “By red moon rise.”

“We
trade more in cave?”

“Yes.
Tell you secrets of sky spirits that you can trade to many others.”

“Very
much good. Place your pack on top of my pelts as we go now.”

Hidden
behind the tree, Yvette pulled the pack off her back so it could be seen, and
shouldered it again over her still-invisible arm. “This pack and what hangs off
it are too heavy. You must leave the cat pelts here.”

Pacino
leaned protectively over the pelts. “Much value. Quality pelts. Week of work
and good killing.”

“Bury
them in the pit. They will be safe until your return.”

“No.
Leaf in hand better than promise tomorrow.” The panda waved his broad paw.

How do you communicate a
revolutionary idea? It was like a game to use only words she knew. “Not leaf in
hand to wipe. Leaf on stalk. Use again and again. Worth many wipes for
children’s children. I give you head-bloom-brightly.”

He scrunched his forehead. “What
kind of bloom?”

Desperate,
she found the obsidian-tipped spear in the brush and rolled it back across the
clearing. The edge was chipped, but it could be sharpened again. “You liked the
spear my man-mate gave you well enough.”

Picking
up the weapon, Pacino said, “I found spear.”

“He
made it himself and left it in your path in the center of the ring of mushrooms
so it would stand out.”

The
panda took a step back and looked all around. “I told no one.”

“He
sees you.”

Pointing
to the spear, he said, “Prove to me your man-mate is
lah-zay
.”

Yvette
looked up the word on her wrist unit. Lou had only one reference to the term,
but by context, it might mean clever or handy with tools. She removed the
bracelet of spear points and tossed it over to the trader. “Will this pay for
your pelts?”

“For
a season’s worth,” he said, pocketing the treasure. “I will drag your
belongings now. You are she-mate of mighty
lah-zay
.” After ‘she-mate’,
Mercy’s translation added a brief giggle.

Yvette
thought it was hilarious that knowing the god of grave robbers opened doors
that the secrets of mankind wouldn’t.

Without
delay, Pacino tossed the furs into the pit and covered the hole with leaves
again. While he did this, she strapped her visible bag and her transparent body
to the travois. “Turn your head and do not look at my belongings, or my husband
will smite you.”

When
Pacino picked up the handles of the travois, he grunted another brief
profanity. “What is in bag?”

Though
she was lying on the rack, she stretched her arm with the speaker out to sound like
she was walking beside it, Yvette replied, “Things Toby, my man-mate, gave me
to keep me safe on my journey.” The name didn’t translate. In fact, the ‘ee’
sound at the end generated errors. “Walk upriver and turn right at the split. I
will tell you when to turn toward canyon wall for the cave of secrets.”

The
panda repeated the name, mangling it in the process, but he didn’t turn his
head to look back.
“Will I meet great spirit Tohb?”

“No.
Other spirits will not allow him contact tribes,” she said before she could
stop herself—the damned Ethics page honesty got away from her when she was sick
or tired. “They call him . . .” Criminal didn’t translate, so she picked scout,
which came out, “Lurker in dark.” Oops. She was already painting him as Hades.
Lord of all things buried: the dead, treasure, thorny plants, and secrets.

“You
messenger, Tohb-mate?”

“No.
Normally, I stand by women in childbirth.”

“Decide
which one die?”

“No.
I will that all mothers and children live.”

Pacino
grunted. “This
lah-zay
, too.”

“I
suppose so.” She couldn’t keep babbling like this. How could she end the
rampant contamination? She settled on, “Silence or others on the road may hear
us.”

“I
learn at your feet.”

****

As Pacino trudged onward implacably
through the dimly lit night, she moved the panda translation mode on her watch
to text only. It solved the echo problem and the weirdness of the sumo
wrestler-sized alien speaking with Mercy’s voice.

Yvette had just started to drift
off to sleep when Oleander spoke in her earbud. “Finally, Risa and I stopped
the rover. Your husband is a sneaky bastard.”

“He was trying to protect me,”
Yvette typed.

“Yeah. Herk chained him to a pipe
and won’t let him near the equipment again. He’s pissed. The rover’s pretty
dinged up. I’ve been watching your transponder, and saw you get away. Did you
make a crutch?” Oleander asked, her voice becoming cheerful.

“Not a chance. Actually, Pacino is
dragging me to the shelter. I’ve promised him shelter and at least one page. I
think your mute button went both ways.”

Oleander swore at length,
presumably in Swedish. “No more talking until we read the transcript.”

Despite the order, Yvette had
Pacino top off his waterskin in the river. While he was distracted, she used
the opportunity to drain most of her drink and pop some pills to reduce the
swelling in her leg. She tried to nibble at a potato, but nausea prevented her
from consuming too much.

Oleander called her an hour later.
“We need you to ask him a couple questions.”

“Sure,” the injured woman replied.

“Does he know about hardwood
trees?”

Pacino did, though any such tree
beyond a sapling was hard to chop down.

The humans at the base launched
question after question at their subject. Pandas used fire-heated rocks to cook
on and had never heard of an oven. Eventually, Pacino asked, “Why so much
talk-talk? Hunters find us and eat as meal.”