“They’re coming?” I said.
“Yes,” Andrew said, from the communicator. “I just got word. Time to get dressed.”
In spite of all of my pleas Bethany had kept wearing the skirt, which she now took off as she and Adelphe got dressed in these long robes, which covered them almost completely up. Andrew looked at me, and laughed. “Don’t worry, Sport, she’ll be able to get undressed again tonight, after we get these Rihalan’s settled down.”
I blushed, embarrassed that he would have thought I was worried about that! Besides, Bethany looked wonderful in her robes. The girls had made them out of bark, so they would be light and cool. There were these hood, things, and the whole thing was one piece (not really, stitched together. I know, I helped do some of the stitching) all long sleeved, long skirt pretty much to the ground, and all tied together with a belt around the waist.
The end result was kind of like one of those old fashioned monk’s robes. Adelphe looked kind of funny, as her belt had to go way up high, right under her breasts, really. But Bethany looked simply wonderful.
“Sorry I haven’t built that shelter, yet,” Andrew said. “Hopefully Carl, the boys, and I can get to it tomorrow… well, I can. Carl and the boys will be busy with blinds for the next few days, I guess.”
I nodded. And then all of our heads snapped up. “Boys, to your places,” I said.
I had decided that, after the last attack, the one that killed my parents, it would be good to have sentries out, at least for practice. The boys raced to the positions we had determined, and I went to mine.
I was, we were, supposed to be scanning the jungle for threats, but I, at least, spared a few glances for the descending shuttle. It was a specialty troop transport shuttle, I knew, with more room in it for people… less dedicated to particularly carrying cargo, water, that kind of thing. Being bigger than our normal shuttle it hovered higher up, at least a hundred feet or so, and the zip lines seemed to come down forever.
Four men came down first, down the corner lines. These men were in pretty standard soldier wear, nicely camouflaged brown and green. They thumped down and then stepped back, standing in the four corners of area we had prepared for landings.
Seconds after they had come down, the other lines filled up, and men began zipping down then. At least, I assumed they were men, and Rihalans, although the way they were dressed, had I not known they were men I would have assumed they were girls, in their long robes.
I looked back, then, and scanned the jungle floor. I saw several Juvies and a whole pack attacking and killing a big water lizard, but no adults. I glanced back, briefly, when the shuttle took off, but I stayed at my post, watching, for the whole speech after that; despite my desire to turn around.
“Soldiers!” a voice came, loud even over the jungle sounds. “Welcome to Hell!”
I expected laughing at that, but none came. The voice was standard New Genevan, very much like my father’s had been, but the man speaking sounded almost angry. “You all know the rules, but I shall repeat them anyway. This is the pathfinder base, the foreigner base. You may come here only when sick or injured, and you may not go inside. No looking at the women, no talking to the women.”
“You shall report all of your kills with your camera-pod. “
“I will review your reports every day. Dereliction of duty shall be punished by whipping. Talking to the women will be punished by whipping. Looking at a woman, or touching a woman, will be punished by death. You will take orders from me, any of my subordinates, or any pathfinder. You are mere soldiers, everyone here outranks you, even the women!”
There was a bit of murmuring at that, and the officers voice got louder. “Disobedience to my instructions will be punished with death. Questioning my instructions will be punished by whipping.”
The man stepped back, and a boy standing at another corner started speaking… speaking in Rihalan, which I understood only partially. He was repeating the same speech, except where the one man had said ‘I’ or ‘me’ the boy was saying ‘The father’ or ‘the commander’ or some such. When he finished he yelled out, “Do you understand?” and the crowd yelled out “We do,” or some such. Then ‘will you obey’, followed by ‘we will.’
“Hold ranks,” the father said, and turned to Andrew.
“Carl!” Andrew said to me after a few seconds discussion, and I raced over to him.
“You will need to replace him on lookout,” Andrew said to the officer, and the officer, nodding, sent one of the soldiers over to my place.
“Pick four soldiers and take them to post 21,” Carl said, nodding at the waiting soldiers.
I turned back to them, getting for the first time, a look at the ‘soldiers’. They were staring straight ahead, and I walked forward to ‘inspect’ them a bit. The youngest of them looked older than I was, and I pitied them for their unmarried state. Of course, I pitied their wives more. “You, you, you and you,” I said, using my Rihalan. “Come.”
The followed obediently enough, turning after me. But I felt their eyes on my back as they struggled after me with their enormous backpacks. What must they think of me, they in their long, now soaking wet, robes, me all but naked, and painted brown, green and purple.
Well, I didn’t care what they thought of me, as long as they did their jobs. Post 21 was almost the farthest post, no doubt why Father had had me take them. In a few seconds they were cursing as they pushed their way through the various branches. I didn’t let up, either. At least, until I had to, when the lead man was almost out of sight. Then I sighed, got myself a seat, and watched them.
“What are you?” the lead man asked, when he had come up and while we waited for his bretheren to arrive. His eyes traveled over me. I suppose I must look a sight, but his question was rude, and I answered in turn.
“Your superior,” I said. “You will address me as Luitenant Tome’ and will speak respectfully at all times or I will have you whipped.”
“You are naked,” he said, and I knew I was going to have problems with this one.
“You are stupid,” I said. “And slow, and clumsy. It is a good thing the Bn can’t climb trees or you would all be eaten already.”
“No pig of a Bn would dare to try to eat me,” he said, and I laughed, turning back and starting to climb. Post twenty one was at least two levels up from here, and was looking forward to them trying to climb in those stupid robes.
“Here!” I said, an hour later. “This is your shelter. We have prepared blinds in the area, much lower. They will deliver food once a week to the staging area where we met. Hopefully that is the only time we will see you.”
“What is this?” the man said. He was the fastest climber and every time we had stopped he had spoken to me. If he spoke that same way back at the house I would have him whipped.
“This is your house,” I said to him, chuckling internally. “Feel free to remodel.”
I had had to say that last in Standard, as I didn’t know the Rhialan word for ‘remodel’. I had the last word, as he seemed too shocked to answer, and I was out of there, disappearing in the jungle, before he could answer.
Ten minutes later I was back, to a crowd that was about half there. Benjamin hurried up to me, with a paper… a bit of bark really, in his hand, and a charcoal which he was using to mark it. “Your next group goes to post twelve,” he said. “Uncle said…”
Thanks, Benny,” I said, turning back to the group. “You, you, you, you… with me.”
This trip was very different. The lead boy on this trip… not that I’m saying he outranked the others, they seemed to have no rank insignia, but after our first few seconds, the one that started asking me questions… what this plant was, what that lizard was, how often we saw enemy, what my blowpipe and darts were. His voice didn’t sound mocking, either.
“Why are you naked?” the boy following him asked, as we waited for the fourth boy to come up.
“It rains all the time here,” I said. “If you are wise, you will be ‘naked’ tomorrow, as well.”
“What are your clothes made from?” the lead boy asked.
“The bark from a tree,” I said. “It is easy to make.”
“And your skin?” the third boy asked. “Surely you are not normally that color. Your father was not.”
“No. We make the dye from leaves and bark and things. It makes us harder to see.”
“That it does,” the lead boy said. “Perhaps you could show us those leaves?”
I looked at him, but he didn’t seem to be kidding. He leaned forward to me, and whispered in my ear, “I would like to be one of those who returns home… after valiantly killing many enemy. Pride is sometimes the enemy of success. Where are the women to blush at seeing my nakedness here? Where is the father to scoff at my skin, tho it be purple and green? It is the successful, not the prideful, who will return, with great honors, to a wife.”
“Surely some are wise,” I said, remembering a Rihalan proverb. “I will gladly return… here… to show those that are wise the secret of leaves and bark. But now we have to finish our trip.”
These boys, following the lead of their leader, did not scoff at their shelter, although it was, if anything, worse than that of the previous one.
Twice more I took groups out until I was done, and got to go into the house. “Hello!” I said, coming through the door. One of the boys from the shuttle was there, sitting at the table, talking to Bethany and Justina. He was dressed in his soldier suit, and they were still all wrapped up in their dresses, although with the hoods pushed back.
He hopped up and came over to me, his voice slipping into heavy NG dialect. “Brother,” he said, slapping me on the back. I saw Adelphe and Bethany staring at me as I slapped him back. We didn’t use this greeting much on ship, but I knew of it, and had used it, for example when new recruits came from NG.
“Brother,” I said back. Doing my best to match his dialect, and getting looks from Adelphe and Bethany, “You are still here?”
“I am staying, an you be willing,” he said.
“You and yours?” I asked, and he blushed.
“Not yet wife I be having,” he said. “Some are not so lucky. Mine wife is to come from another unit, and she is not yet arriving.”
“I weep for you,” I said, and he laughed at this, our famous mocking sympathy. “Glad we are to have you. Whipping I almost was one of yours.”
His face got serious, and he shifted back to Standard. “We will need to whip them, and more than one. We will get no respect from them otherwise. They despise us officers, but they have none of their own. With each group it is the same. My father has inducted three groups of them and it has always been the same. Let me know the name of the offender.”
“I didn’t get his name, actually,” I said. “Post twenty one, the oldest one, or he acted like it.”
“We didn’t write down the posts,” he said. “Oh, well, we’ll have an opportunity. It will be a little tricky though, we’ve never done anything quite like this. Tomorrow, if you can, I need you to take me on a tour.”
“I’ll need to visit as many of the posts as I can, tomorrow,” I said. “And show them their blinds. You are welcome to come. You have met mine, by the way?” I said, lapsing back into dialect and waving at Bethany.
“Yes, she told me she was the wife of the brave and handsome young pathfinder,” he said. “I told her that I knew no handsome pathfinders but, as there was only one young one…”
I hit out at him and, within seconds, we were having a little unarmed combat training. “This isn’t fair!” he called out, after a few seconds, “You are far too slippery!”
Everyone laughed and just then, Andrew came in with the boys. “Having fun?” he asked me.
“They’re speaking weird, anyway,” Adeleph said. “I canna understan them!”
We all laughed with that and sat down to dinner. “What is your name, anyway?” I asked our visitor.
“Glenn,” he replied. “Glenn McDougal.”
“Welcome, Master McDougal,” Andrew said. “Let me introduce you to my family. You have met my adopted son, Carl, and his parten… wife, Bethany. This is my adopted daughter, Justina, and my partnére, Aliyah. Growing inside her is my son or daughter… she won’t tell me which.”
“You didn’t want to know!” Aliyah protested, and Andrew grinned.
“Tell us about your family,” Andrew said.
“I am the oldest son,” Glenn said. “I have three other brothers, who you saw today, and three sisters. My mother is great with child now, as well. We are soldiers, obviously, assigned to officer the Rhialans.”
“Not an easy job?” Andrew hazarded.
“No,” Glenn said. “But it has its moments. And it’s important. They give us a lot of soldiers, and we use them for a lot of the harder jobs. Like here. Or where a lot of them will get killed.”
“Not like here, I hope,” Andrew said. “We haven’t lost anyone, so far, although there have been a few close calls, and one man lost his hand… not to an enemy, actually, but to a lizard. And a woman lost her leg to infection.”
I remembered that. Adelphe had cried when she got home from that case.
“So, what’s your plan for tomorrow?”
“If it is OK with you, I’m going to follow Carl around, learn where the posts are, learn about fighting here.”
“It’s more like hunting,” Andrew said.

<Note: Not finished>

I doubt there are many things more nervewracking than standing waiting for a woman to come who is your wife, and who you have never even seen. And I stood not only with my family, Adelphe, Andrew, and Justina; but with Jonathon and his brothers. All of whom kept looking at me, wondering how I felt. As if I knew.

Adelphe had come over to me, early that morning, and whispered in my ear, “You’ll like her!” she had said. I hoped she was right. But, more importantly, I hoped she would like me!

“Look, there they are!” David called out, pointing. They were excited because they were hoping that it was their parents that would be bringing me my wife. It made sense that it would be them, and I sort of hoped they were coming too, so as to take the boys mind of me and my wife.

We all strained to see. Sure enough, it did look like a shuttle. They came from different directions each time; both because the ships themselves were always in motion about the planet and in order to prevent the Bn from planning another attack. The speck rapidly grew bigger and my heart pounded faster and faster.

It was a long time, and way too quickly, before the shuttle hovered over our compound and the ropes came down. The boys and I scrambled to the bottom of each rope, holding them stable. Seconds later the first rope started to shake and the colonel, his assuault rifle over his shoulder, came sliding down. Then the rope I was holding started to shake and, above me, a child came… his drag zipper bringing him safely down the rope. I still caught him… her… when she got to the grown. It was their sister, about half way to puberty. She gave me a quick kiss and ran off to Adelphe.

The next person down my rope was Jonathon’s mother. She always hated sliding, which I thought funny in a soldier-wife. She was a great shot, though, often taking top marks in our competitions. I had to kind of stand out of the way to hold the rope as she controlled her own meeting with the floor and, once she unhitched herself, she turned and hugged and kissed me. Then she stood in front of me and looked meaningfully over my shoulder.

I turned… still holding the rope, and saw her. Why, she was beautiful! She was talking with Adlephe and had an enormous grin on her face. They were hugging and kissing and all and she was crying. I thought, at first, that she hadn’t seen me, but then I noticed that, every few seconds, she was giving me quick sidelong glances.

One more child slid down my rope and then the hugging and kissing became general, and the shuttle flew off. Everyone watched that, of course. No matter how many times you watched a shuttle fly it was still glorious to watch.

“Carl,” Adelphe said, from behind my shoulder, “This is Jill.”

I turned and met her eyes, really met her eyes, for the first time. Adelphe had told me what to do, and I tentatively held out my hand afraid… my fears were foolish. She took my hand back, confidently, even eagerly. “I’m so sorry that my trip took so long!” she said, chattering. “And…”

Just then she kind of squealed. You see, it hadn’t been raining. It almost always rained but, by some miracle, it hadn’t been raining just when they landed. And just now it started again, and pretty heavy. So, when the rain hit her, she kind of squealed.

Everyone one else went racing into the hut but, when she turned to follow, I pulled on her hand. “Could you… I’d like to show you something,” I said.

“I… OK,” she said, glancing back at the hut with its fire and all. I pulled her, then led her, by the hand and we went down the path to my refuge. She was rather nervous at several of the crossings, and clung tightly to my hand, which I really liked. I knew I needed to calm down before tonight, and I hoped a little time alone with her would help. And, besides, I didn’t think I could face that whole crowd, just now.

“Oooh,” she said, when I led her in. “This is nice!”

“I like it,” I said, plopping myself down on the ‘floor’… the part of the branch just next to the trunk. The two huge branches that met here were so wide, and so joined, that I hoped she wouldn’t feel nervous, and we could relax and talk.

She didn’t sit, but walked around, looking at everything, and even looking down at the jungle floor. Then she looked at my collection of blowpipes, flowers, and all.

Then she turned back to me. “Thank you,” she said, and started taking off her ship suit.

At first I thought she was just getting dry. But, as my heart kept beating she didn’t just get down to her shorts but…

“It is so nice of you to give us privacy for the first time,” she said, when she finished undressing. “I know that this isn’t how we will normally be, but it was special of you to arrange this for  our first time.”

I had no idea, at all, what to say, but she made it so I didn’t really need to say anything. The floor must have been uncomfortable for her, and Adlephe told me the first time always was for girls, but she didn’t complain at all.

“Well, so now we’re really partners,” she said, leaning back against me. “Oh, no, I forgot, you’re from Leeman’e, aren’t you, so that makes me your ‘wife’, no?”

She turned toward me, and I nodded. “I’m so glad,” she said. “It was a very hard trip for me. It wasn’t like I was a normal recruit, like Aliya,” she said. “On my ship…”

I listened for at least an hour. She didn’t seem to expect any answers from me, except the occasional nod. Eventually, however, she said, “Do you want to go back now? I’m kind of hungry.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, hopping up.

The rain had died down a bit, so she looked a little less uncomfortable on the way back. I was… I didn’t know what I was. Happy, of course. But shocked. I had never heard of anyone, you know, in the middle of the day like that. I thought it always happened at night, and in the morning. Would she still be willing to… tonight?

“Carl!” the colonel said, when we came into the hut, hand in hand, starting to come over to me. Then he stopped, and blushed. I had no idea why, but I wasn’t really in the mood to talk anyway. Jill kept holding my hand, and I didn’t resist, allowing myself to be led over to Adelphe and Jonathon’s mother.

“Jill,” said Adelphe, hugging and kissing her. I thought they had done that before, but Jill didn’t seem surprised. The colonel’s wife looked at us with a grin on her face. I suppose we did look a little funny. First of all we were all wet, and they had all dried off. Secondly I was just wearing my loin cloth, and my wife was all in her ship suit still. I had made a jungle skirt for her, I would have to show it to her. Later, I thought to myself. She is from NT and will probably not want to change in front of everyone.

“Tell us about your trip,” The colonel’s wife asked Jill, and she started in on that story. It sounded rather different, her telling it to everybody, than it had to me. It started to get a bit boring, her telling a story I had already heard, but, about a minute in, she put her arm around my waist and I reciprocated, getting lost in my thoughts. I had a wife. Not just a bed partner, but a wife; someone to talk to, to share everything with. I could even cry with her, you could with wives, or so my mother always told me. Not that I would.

~~~

The colonel’s shuttle came back for them soon after dinner, but no one else seemed ready for sleep, so we all sat up talking. I kept looking at Jill and wondering if she liked me at all. She sat next me, and all, and kept her hand on my leg, but was she just doing her duty?

Even when we went to bed (she looked funny getting in the hammock), and, well, yes… I still wondered if she was just ‘doing her duty’. She seemed to find being inside, with everyone all there and everything, very annoying. Adelphe had told me enough so I understood that, and tried to be as private as possible.

She was very, very tired when I woke her the next morning, and went right to sleep, afterwards. “Come on, guys,” I said, and the other boys stumbled, sleepily, after me.

“Those Rihalan will be here in a few days,” I said. “One hundred of them. We’ve got to get their blinds ready.”

“I don’t get it,” David said. “how come this works?”

“What?” I said.

“Blinds,” he said. “How come they work? I mean, the aliens. How come that they don’t, like, see us building these things and stay away?”

“That’s a good question,” Jonathon said. “We don’t know. They are genious’s, in some ways, but, in other ways they are really stupid.”

“They don’t cooperate well,” I said. “We do, sometimes.” I wasn’t doing too well at cooperating, myself. These boys were annoying me. The arrival of these Rihalan was annoying me. I’m not going to say that Jill was annoying me, I mean, you know, but what was annoying me was that I had no idea how to deal with her.

“Come on!” I said, as the other struggled along behind me. Frustrated, I picked up Benjamin, and lashed him to my back. We moved along a little faster after that and arrived at the first place I had picked a half an hour later.

“Here,” I said. “You see these limbs? I thought this would make a good place for a blind.”

“They can’t climb either,” David said, a half an hour later, as we arranged vines.”

“What?”

“Not very high, anyway. They can’t climb and they never really look up. This must be a frustrating planet for them, in some ways.”

I looked at him. “True,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that. They like the water, though.”

“Yes,” he said. Then, “Look!” he whispered.

We looked. It was just a normal adult. “Your turn,” Benjamin. I would never have let him try to shoot a genious class, but a normal was fine.”

Phweet. “Did I hit it?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But it didn’t hear your shot, try again.”

Three more shots and, finally, he hit and we watched the Bn collapse. “Back to work,” I said, and David, Jonathon, and I started moving vines around again.

A couple of minutes later Benjamin said, “Oooh, they found him. Their eating him!”

“They do that,” I said.

“Oooh, gross!” he said.

Phweet.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I shot one of them.”

“Don’t waste ammunition,” I said. “It’s hard making those darts!”

“Sorry, Carl,” Benjamin said. “Oooh, gross!”

~~~

“Carl!” Jill said, coming over and kissing me.

“Hi,” I said, hanging my stuff up. “Been busy?”

“Ummm, yeah,” she said. “I guess I was kind of tired. But I got up sometime after you left, and helped Aliyah fix breakfast. Kind of gross. Lizard.”

“Lizard is good,” I said. “Better than bug.”

She turned a little green, and turned back to the stove. The boys busied themselves with some dart making. I looked back at Jill. She had her shipsuit on again. Adelphe must not have told her about her new skirt. Probably thinking that, since I made it, I should give it to her.

I went to the closet, “Jill, come here for a second,” I said. Everyone, the boys and Adlephe, looked up as Jill came over. “Look what I made you,” I said to her holding it up. She grinned at me.

“What is it?” she asked. “You made it?” I guess, since she hadn’t seen anything quite like it before, it was a bit confusing.

“It’s a skirt!” I said. “Adelphe has some like this.”

“Oooh,” she said, sounding kind of confused.

“Well, try in on!” I said. “You’ll find it a lot more comfortable.”

“Ok,” she said. I don’t know if she liked it, really. I mean, she said she did, but I had to convince her that it was much more comfortable without the shorts and all, and she still seemed very uncomfortable with it. But she wore it, and I knew that she would find it more comfortable in time.

“Breakfast ready?” Andrew asked, coming in a few minutes later. Jill must have been embarrassed to be wearing the new skirt I had made her, as she kept her back turned to him for a while. And I guess Lizard wasn’t her favorite, as she didn’t eat much breakfast.

“What are you doing, Uncle Andrew?” Benjamin asked, once he had taken his first few bites of breakfast.

“Shelter, shelters, and more shelters,” he said. You are so lucky that you are getting to hunt with Carl.”

“Shelters?” Jill asked, blushing when everyone looked at her.

“We are having a hundred Rihalan, coming in about a week in a half,” Andrew said. “I’m putting them in four man shelters, so I have to work up twenty five shelters.”

“Rihalans,” Jill said, still blushing but gamely trying to integrate herself into the family. I was proud of how hard she was trying. It must be difficult from someone from a society like New Texas, without all of the formal training, to come into a family like ours. “I’ve never met any Rihalans.”

“What?” I said. “I thought you came with them?”

“They were in the fleet,” she said. “
But it’s not like I met any of them. They were all quarantined in their own quarters. We weren’t allowed anywhere near them.”

“Why?!” David asked.

‘Because I’m a girl,” Jill said. She really must not like being the center of attention, as she blushed, again, when we all looked at her, but she continued gamely, angrily. “Girls, women, none of us were allowed near them.”

“But why?” David asked, again.

“Because they don’t bring women with them,” Adelphe said. “Boys need girls, men need women, but the Muslims are so interested in getting two wives each that they send their boys out to be killed.”

“Oh,” said David. I didn’t quite understand why Adlephe and Jill were so upset. I never did understand girls, really.

We ate the rest of the meal in silence and then, as we all picked up our bowls to take them over to sink, Jill pulled me aside. “I talked to Aliyah and she said it was OK for us to, you know, spend some time together. Can we go back to the… to your shelter?”

I was confused but Adelphe, standing behind her, nodded vigorously at me. Ordinarily I would have hated a hint like that but, really, girls… she knew about them and I really didn’t.  I knew the girls in my dorm but they… they weren’t really girls, if you see what I mean. They were more like sisters. “OK,” I said.

She grabbed my arm, like partners did sometime. It was kind of awkward, holding my arm against my body but I did like it. It connected us. I didn’t understand what was supposed to happen between us… except in bed. And even there I wasn’t sure I was doing it quite right, she seemed so awkward and tentative.

“Oooh,” she said, when we got to that one section of branch where I had to help her across. “We have nothing at all like this back on New Texas,” she said. “Everything is just totally flat. The tallest thing on the planet… well, not really, but in our area, is new corn, which grows to about ten feet.” We got to the other side and she looked back, and down. “And that is way more than ten feet. Oooh, what’s that?”

I pushed her behind me, and down, dropping down next to her, sort of on top of  her. She squealed a bit as I whipped out my blowpipe.

Pwheet.

“Sorry,” I said, getting up. “It was just an adult, but I don’t like to let any get by.”

And adult what?” she asked, me as I pulled her up and she straightened her skirt and brushed some leaves out of her hair and off her chest.

“Bn!” I said. Didn’t she even know that?

“Enemy? Really?” she asked, falling flat on her face again and peering over the edge. “That’s my first one to really see.”

I stood there, staring at her. At first just because it was so beyond my ken that someone her age had never seen an enemy. And then because, well, she was my wife, and she really looked good, laying there, in nothing but her skirt… which had kind of rumpled up. And, now, I was really allowed to look.

Girls must have some kind of sixth sense because I hadn’t been staring at her for more than a few seconds before she rolled over and grinned at me. “Want to get to the shelter?” she asked.

“I, umm, yes,” I said, embarrassed and excited.

She must really like the shelter, I thought to myself an hour later, as we lay together on the floor of the shelter. She really seemed to like being here, so much better than back at home. She even seems to like me better here!

“How’s it going with the boys?” she asked me, suddenly.

“The boys? Jonathon and them? Ok, why?”

“Oh, you just seem a bit angry at them.”

“Angry? No, just frustrated. They’re supposed to be helping me, and learning, and instead I seem like I’m babysitting them.”

“Well, they are younger than you,” she said, rubbing her hand across my chest. “It’s not like they’re ready to be married yet.”

“I guess,” I said, glowing at the compliment. “I guess we need to get back. I need to set up a lot more blinds. All of those Rihalans are going to hunt, too.”

“OK,” she said, sounding sad.

“You, you don’t have to wear that skirt, you know, if you don’t like it. You can wear your ship suit, or I can make you something else.”

“I love it,” she said, kissing me. “It’s just a little different from what I am used to wearing back on New Texas.”

“On New Texas?” I asked, confused. “I have seen files from their and that is more than just a little different… oh!” I said. “I’m so sorry!”

“Sorry, my love?” she said.

“For making you wear that! Oh, I’m so sorry. I grew up in the dorm, but I should have remembered from my studies!”

“It’s OK!” she said, kissing me again. “I knew things would be different here. It will just take me a little while to get used to.” She took my hand and led me outside.

“This rain, on the other hand, I don’t think I will ever get used to.”

I didn’t say anything. No one else seemed to like the rain. I liked it.

“What are you looking for?” she asked me, halfway back to the house.

“Bn,” I said, and she gripped my hand tighter, looking down at the jungle floor herself.

“Come on, boys,” I said, when we got back. The boys looked up from the table, which was covered in plants. They must have been helping Adelphe sort. That was good, that they were working.

We got five more blinds done before dinner time. Seriously, it took me most of my time getting them there. They were fine once we got to a site. We got back and showered… which I always thought funny, as we spent pretty much all day pretty much naked in the rain. The boys, unlike my wife, liked the clothes I had made the. Especially Benjamin.

“Carl,” Uncle Andrew said, “Are you going to want to do worship time with just your wife? Or join  us?”

I looked up, startled. And  upset at myself. Of course I would need to do worship time with myself, and I had totally forgotten. But… “I think it would be good to do it together, in the evenings,” I said. “Then perhaps we can find some time, during the day, to do our own worship time?”

Andrew looked pleased at this answer, Adlephe grinned at me, but Jill looked very confused. She didn’t say anything, though, so I let it ride. “OK, well, if you change your mind, let me know,” he said, and we finished the meal while he, basically, moaned about having to build all of these shelters for the Rihalan. Once we were done, and had done the dishes, we gathered, as we always did, in a corner of the hut… if a round hut could be said to have corners. Jill, without my even asking, sat down in my lap, sort of.

“Since we are going to have Rihalans coming to live with us, or near us anyway,” Andrew said. “I thought it would be good for me to teach, some, on what the differences are between us… between the religions of New Texas, New Geneva, and Rihala. Jill squirmed in my lap, I guess she was having difficulty finding a comfortable way to sit. I was comfortable just having her there, I can assure you.

“Are you cold?” I asked her, suddenly thinking of it. After the day it got a bit cold, here. Not like it had in the desert, but still. She nodded, and I reached out for a blanket, and covered her… us really, with it. She relaxed a bit then, leaning back more against me. She probably was tired, as well, poor girl, having to change shifts.

“New Texans and New Genevans share most of our religion,” Andrew said. “New Genevans are much more serious about it, of course. New Genevans explain much more in relationship to their religion, as well. When we execute someone on New Texas, for example, we are likely to say ‘they had it coming’ or ‘good for them’ or some such. New Genevans are much more likely to specifically state the religious conviction behind the execution.”

“Another issue would be that the Genevans tend to emphasize the role of God in salvation, and we from New Texas talk about man. So we might say, “I found God,” while the Genevans will say “God found me.” Both have their roots in Scripture, and were not here, tonight, to argue the point, I am just pointing out the differences.”

“But, mostly, we agree. We believe in God, as a trinity: the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. We believe that Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins…”

He went on for a few minutes on that subject, and then, finally, got to the part that interested me. It had been a long time since I had studied what the Muslims actually believed.

“Muslims believe in one God, as well, but believe that we believe in three. Like most non-Christian religions they insist in misunderstanding Christianity.”

“Rihalans are different from other Muslims. They have taken several aspects of Muslim culture and religion to rather an extreme. The  one that will affect us the most is their view of women. We believe in a strong difference between the sexes,” he said. “We believe in early marriage, and in women being very ‘fruitful’ and having lots of children.”

“But we believe, and believe strongly, in being ‘one flesh’ with our wives. In doing lots of things together, and really getting to know each other. We believe that the love between a man and his partnére… or wife… is the strongest and most important love after the love that God has for us, and we are supposed to have for him.”

“For  Rihalans, on the other hand, women are almost a separate speices. Except for their sisters, mothers, and ‘aunts’, Rihalans almost never see women. Women are kept very closely guarded in their compounds or houses.”

“Rihalans, like some religions, even, I’m sorry to say, some Christians, see women as basically evil.” He paused, “Well, maybe that’s not quite fair. Basically they, many religions, see the body, and its desires, as evil. A necessary evil, a ‘fun’ evil even, but evil. And for Muslims and others, including many early Christian writers, women represent that evil.”

“No one, not here on the colonies anyway, reacts like some of our anscestors did. It used to be common for people to delay partnership, thinking they were somehow more Godly if they were able to wait; or scared of getting into a ‘bad’ partnership with a woman who wasn’t Godly enough. Fathers of daughters had the same idea. It was truly an insane time.”

“Anyway, no one today acts like that. Even before the war made it even more vital pretty much all the colonies were in favor of very young partnership. But what they do do, and the Rihalans really do, is hide the flesh away, and try to pretend that those relationships don’t exist.”

“The Rihalans, in particular. They wear clothes you will find oppressive… and our women will have to wear something like it. They don’t care so much about boys and men. They might kill us if they found us around their women dressed like this, but there will be none of their women here.”

“As for justice,” he said, “They have a rather different judicial code than we do…”

~~~

The next morning the boys did better. Jonathon and David were getting better at getting around, and Benjamin just climbed on my back first thing. “I’m going to leave you guys for a while,” I said, when we got to the fourth blind are after breakfast. “I need to spend some time with my wife.”

“OK, Carl,” Jonathon said, looking around. “Which way do you want us to go for the next one?”

I explained that and hurried back to the house. “Are you ready?” I asked Jill, when I got there.

“Ready?” she said, looking confused. I guess I should have told her when I was coming, but I hadn’t been sure it would work. “Oh?!” she said brightening up. “Sure.”

“You don’t have to wear that skirt, you know,” I said to her as we went, hand in hand, toward the shelter. “It won’t offend me if you want to wear something else.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “How was your morning?”

“We’re getting more blinds built,” I said. “The boys are getting better. I haven’t seen many Bn, though.”

“Well, with the Rihahalns coming you will have lots of help, soon, no?” she asked.

“I hope they will be help,” I said. “How are you doing with Adelephe?”

“Who?”

“Aliyah, your sister. Sorry, I call her Adelphe. It is a New Genevan name for a sister in law.”

“Oh, fine. She and I get along fine, we always have. Does it always rain, here?” she asked, as we got to the shelter.

“Pretty much,” I said. She started to take off her skirt, but I shook my head. “Not yet. You remember what Uncle said. I need to do our worship time. I noticed, last night, that you didn’t seem to know any of our Psalm tunes, so I thought I would teach you a couple of them.”

Well, she had a fine voice, and learned well. And, well, the rest went well as well. “Can you find your way back?” I asked. “I need to…”

Her panicked face answered my question and I took her hand. “Look, I’ll get you started,” I said, remember that she had problems with that one branch. “But you really will need to learn.”

Then I remembered myself. “Or, maybe not. You won’t be able to get out of the house without me with these Rihalans here. Bother.”

A couple of minutes or so later she said, “I can find my way now, thanks.”

She gave me a quick kiss, and I darted back toward the boys…

~~~

“Carl!” Uncle called, from where he was building a shelter, the next morning. We had just been passing nearby on our way to a new blind.

“Yes?” I yelled back. I didn’t really like to yell, I figured it let the enemy know where we are. I had been having a lucky morning so far: three enemy shot and killed.

“Get the boys working and come up here, will you?” he asked.

“K.”

It was probably fifteen minutes later I made it back. “Sir?” I asked.

“Ah, well, more ‘Uncle’ I think,” he said. “More of a family thing.” He cleared his throat and said, “How is it going with Jill?”

I blushed, I’m sure. What was he asking? “I, umm, fine.”

He frowned. Obviously not what he was looking for. “I am not trying to pry,” he said. “But it is my responsibility, both as your new father and as your superior officer, to make sure that things are really ‘fine’.”

“You have been taking her off to your shelter every day, and I think that is a good thing. She was not raised on shipboard. You’ve been coming together there?”

I nodded, blushing, although I didn’t know why.

“Good,” he said. “And she is talking to you, that is good.”

“Talking? Yes, she is always talking.”

He laughed, “She is kind of talker.” He sobered up, ‘You probably need to do more talking too. Do you do any talking?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. Didn’t I do worship time, just like I was supposed to? That was talking, wasn’t it?

“Well, good. Girls seem to need a lot of talking. Glad to hear it is going well, you can go back now.”

As I left I wondered what that had been about. My wife was great, I was enjoying her attention in bed, if not so much her talking, and we could only hope she would be fertile. If she helped Adelphe with the house and all, and freed her up to do more doctoring, the I could do my job of killing enemy, and everything would be fine.

“What did Uncle want?” David asked me, when I showed up at the blind, which they finished and had been sitting watching for Bn.”

“To talk to me about how it was going with Jill,” I said.

“Oh!” he said.

“Come on,” I said. “I have to get you to the next blind area.”

I took them there and then went off to the shelter. Jill had told me she would try to get there herself and, when I got near, I saw that she had done. I was on a level several meters above her, and could see into the shelter from where I was.

She was, surely, the most beautiful creature on Earth… or this planet anyway. I was sitting, just looking at her, as she stared down, probably looking for enemy… although whether she could hit something with her pistol was a doubtful question.

Truly girls must have a sixth sense, for she almost immediately turned around and looked at me, grinning and waving… quietly. I had talked to her about how important that was. I grinned back, and started down toward her.

When I came in she was, again, watching for Bn. Which was good. I hadn’t seen any, myself, on my trip down, and we needed to get everything done, tho, so I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around, and sat up for worship.

“Umm, before I get started, I have a question for you.”

“Yes?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.

“Are you happy? I mean, is there something different I should be doing as a husband to make you happy?”

Her face totally changed, and I was afraid I wasn’t communicating very well. “Uncle took me aside, today, to ask how everything was going, and I wanted to hear from you, as well, how things are going for you.”

Her face was a study, and she seemed at a loss for words. She opened her mouth several times, and then, finally, with an embarrassed pull at her skirt, said, “Well, I won’t lie to you, it has been hard coming out here. Things are very, very different here. But you have been wonderful, and Aliyah, and Andrew, and I love Justina and the boys and all.”

“Good,” I said, relieved. Uncle’s question had worried me. “Let’s see what the next text is…”

~~~

“What on Earth!?” I said, when I got back to the latest blind. Benjamin was standing in the middle of the blind, looking truly bizarre. I looked at the other boys.

“Camouflage!” David said, excited. “We looked it up, and wanted to surprise you!”

Well, they had done that. Benjamin was all over splotchy: not a trace of his original skin color was left. Greens, browns, even purples covered him from head to toe… at least everywhere not covered by his loincloth… covered him in long, scraggly, streaks. Even his eyes.

“Camouflage?” I said, wonderingly.

“So we can’t be seen,” David said, as if I wasn’t clear on what camouflage was.

“Where did you get the stuff?” I asked them. Jonathon kind of giggled.

“We asked Adelphe,” he said. They had taken to calling Aliya that like I did, I’m not sure why. “We had to do it when you weren’t listening. It was hard. They are all local plants and things. The brown is from the bark of a Yhoran tree,” he said.

“It itches,” Benjamin said, scratching. Scratch how he might, it didn’t come off tho. I rubbed on his skin, and looked at the other two, who grinned.

“Won’t rain off, either,” Jonathon said, confidently. “Adelphe says so.”

“Wow!” I said.

“Shall we all put it on?” David asked and, when I nodded, he squealed, running over into the corner where they had the materials all bound up in leaves.

Minutes later, fun minutes later, we all looked like nothing on Earth. “Wow!” I said, as Benjamin finished putting the last few touches on David’s leg. “This is awesome. Good job, boys!”

The boys grinned, and stayed grinning all the way back. Especially when…

“What on Earth?” Jill said, almost dropping the pot she was carrying to the table.

“Like it?” Benjamin asked her. Aliyah stood in the background, grinning.

“What is it?” Jill asked. Then I came in, “Carl?!”

“It’s camouflage,” I said, enjoying the boys pleasure. It was funny to see Jill’s face.

“Good luck,” Miriam said to me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around?”

“No,” I said. I wanted to face my new future alone. I had gotten the latest letter from Aliya yesterday, as we came into the system, and I was still busy trying to process all that she had said. My partner’s family dead, and he was ‘traumatized’, she had said. She had told me everything, everything, about his new life, my new life, how he was coping, what I would have to do to help him, and just to live.

I had been shocked. My training on board ship, and my exposure to the other cultures on board, had taught me much, given me a good idea of the various differences, and prepared me for shocks but…

There was an enormous clang, and the shuttle rocked a bit then, after some more noises and some work by the men at the doorway, the door slid open, quietly. That was the last quiet thing for quite a while, as the room suddenly filled with me and women coming in, greeting, discussing cargo, and overall acting like people who were getting together with old friends after a long break. I stood, quietly, watching, until, about five minutes later, one of the women noticed me. “Oh! You must be Bethany! My name is Laura,” she said, hurrying up and attracting far more attention than I wanted. “We have waited so long for you to arrive!”

“Carl certainly has waited a long time!” One of the younger women said, and everyone giggled. Then I had to survive an inordinate number of huggings and kissings… luckily only from the women and girls, the men mostly just watching with amused fascination.

“Poor, Carl,” the first woman said when, a few minutes later, she managed to pull me off into a corner by myself. I gathered she must have been some kind of leader, or leader’s partnére, because everyone else left us alone, reluctantly. “You heard what happened to his family?”

I nodded, overwhelmed. My heart was still racing from the ‘introductions’. I loved people but, now, with all that I had before me, I felt incredibly shy.

“It will be so good that you are here,” she continued. “You remember the story of Isaac, well, I hope you will be just as helpful to Carl. He really is a very wonderful boy, you know.”

How would I know? Outside of the letters from Alihay, of course. But I nodded my head.

“Your sister is trying so hard with him, she and her husband. And Justina is doing fine… weepy, from time to time, but she’s doing fine.”

“When… when will I get to see him?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm.

“Tomorrow!” Laura said. “You’ll sleep with us tonight, it’s almost the end of our sleep shift, and then my husband, the colonel, will take you down tomorrow. It isn’t going to be a very standard partnering,” she said, grinning, “But I am sure Carl won’t mind.”

I certainly hoped he wouldn’t. The rest of the evening passed in a blur. If I hadn’t been prepared, trained and warned by Aliya, I would have found the dorm life hard but, since I knew what was coming, I just threw away my New Texas modesty and ignored… everything I was supposed to ignore. I was very tired, and nervous, but I could hardly sleep. What would tomorrow be like? What would my husband be like? Would he like me, at all?

I had just really started to get good with my blowpipe when we received a visit from the colonel. They had really revamped the shuttles, and no holes showed anywhere when the shuttle hovered over our hut. The colonel, and three of his boys, slid down the ropes. I hurried forward to meet them.

“Carl!” the colonel said, saluting me. I saluted back, and he said, “I would appreciate it if you would give my boys a bit of a tour,” he said. “They can report to you on the latest developments, which I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear. Have them back here by sunset.”

I saluted again, and turned to his boys, “Come!” I ordered, and led them inside. In a couple of minutes I had them dressed in spare loincloths and we set off toward my shelter. They looked rather miserable in the wet, and I had to work hard not to laugh.

“Wow!” Jonathon said, as I pushed aside a branch, allowing him easier access to the branch we were climbing across. “This is incredible! You remember the desert planet we were  on last?”

I laughed, “This sure is different,” I agreed. “So, what’s the news?”

“The news… oh, yeah! We’re going to get soldiers!”

“Really? When?”

“Soon, in a week or so. Muslims!”

I gave him a dirty look and he had the grace to blush. His family was from Leeman’een and they were often rather prejudiced against other religions. “Rihahlans, then,” he said. “Anyway, they’re coming next week.”

“What are they going to do?” I asked, reaching out my hand to help Benjamin, his smallest brother, who was looking a bit nervous at having to cross a bit of a gulf.

“Fight, obviously,” Jonathon said. “Dad’s going to divide them into units of a hundred each and assign each unit to one of our pathfinder families.”

“So Carl will get to live with a hundred families?” Benjamin asked.

“Rihalans don’t have families!” David, the middle brother, scoffed. “They are all men, at least their soldiers are.”

“No mothers?” Benjamin asked, wide eyed.

“Nope, not while they’re soldiers. They just come out for five years, and they are all soldiers. Every single Rihalan boy, once he changes, has to come for a five year stint as a soldier. Then they go home and get married, and have kids and all.”

Jonathon and I looked at each other, knowing what David wasn’t saying. The Rihalans, when they went back, would go back, usually, to two wives each.

“So, what will they do with us?” I asked, again.

“Fight!” Jonathon said, again. “With stunners and your new blowpipe things. We have them for a whole year, and they are going to slaughter Bnentarri. They will just live, eat, and kill.”

Jonathon sounded excited, and, indeed, there was a hint of something in his voice so, on the off chance, I said, “…and you are going to just sit back and watch?”

He blushed, “Well, no, that is the rest of my news. My dad… he’s asking your folks if we can come live with you for a while.” He seemed embarrassed and rushed on, “It isn’t easy fighting with shuttles, here,” he said, “the fighting needs to be on the ground, so, well, we were wondering if we, my brothers and I, could come live here, with you. Benjamin will go back and forth, more, but David and I, we’re hoping…”

He broke off and glanced at me. Did he think I wouldn’t like it?

“Great,” I said, nervous myself, although I didn’t know why. “Hopefully Uncle Andrew and Adlephe will say it’s OK. Hey, here’s my base. I have several blowpipes, maybe we can kill some Bn’s.”

We tried shooting for a while, but they were too nervous, or active, for anything to come nearby, so I decided to take them on a ‘tour’ of my flower garden. I hadn’t realized how poor they were at climbing, tho! It took us easily an hour to get high enough to even see the flowers.

“Wow!” Jonathon said, again, as he and I held Benjamin between us. Benjamin clung tightly to us and kept looking down, which you seriously didn’t want to do when climbing. I had told him and told him, and Jonathon had even switched him, but he would keep doing it. It was the first thing we would have to do when they came for real.

Suddenly we heard the noise of a shuttle and, looking off to our left, saw the shuttle that had brought the colonel and the boys coming back down. Jonathon looked as if he would start down, but I stopped him. “There’s no way we can get there fast enough.”

“He… he said he would leave  us here if your folks said it was OK,” Jonathon said. “But I thought, I thought we would have a chance to say goodbye.”

“Well, you’re soldiers now,” I said, seeing he was about to cry. “Soldiers don’t worry about saying ‘goodbye’ to their folks. It’s probably getting about time to get home, though, for evening meal and sleep. We’ll be getting up early for hunting, you all need to train.”

It took us fully two hours to get back to the house, and that was with me carrying Benjamin on my back. We made it just before sunset. “Carl! Boys!” Adlephe said, waddling over to greet the boys. “Dinner is just about ready, wash up!”

The boys had eaten with us often enough, so our ‘sink’ wasn’t a great surprise, and they had even slept with us before, so the shower and hammocks and all they were used to. Benjamin slept with Jonathon in the other hammock, and David slept with me. I noticed that he had a hard time getting to sleep. Probably homesick. He would have to get over that.

~~~

“Carl,” Adlephe said to me, the next evening. The boys were over in the showers; I had showered and was over watching Adlephe cook. Beetle stew tonight, although the boys wouldn’t know that as the shells were all strained out. “Don’t you think you’re being hard on them?”

“No.” I said. “They need to learn fast, the Rihalan come in a week, and we will need to show them what to do. You’re going to have a lot to do, cooking for all of them,” I said. “Do you think they will give you a helper?”

“No Rihalan will be allowed in the hut,” she said. “And I will only be able to go outside with you or Andrew.” I looked at her, and she finished explaining. “We don’t allow Rihalans to get around any of our women,” she said. “And I have to be all covered up, head to toe, whenever I am around them.”

“They can’t do that!” I said, disgusted.

“They can. Indeed we did most of it when we signed them up. But that is my problem, not yours. Andrew is going to make me a ‘sun room’ so the baby and I can get sun. Kind of like a porch where I can dress normally, but ‘inside’ so we obey their rules. But there have been problems, in the past, so you and the boys need to be watching out for me.”

My heart kind of jumped when she said that, but it almost seized when she said, “And your wife, of course, when she comes.”

I hadn’t forgotten that my wife was coming, of course, but I sort of almost had. “Did you hear any more?” I asked, nervous and then, at her look, got more nervous still. “You did!” I accused her.

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she said. “I didn’t want you all nervous. She’s coming in the same fleet as the Rihalans. The Colonel said he will place soldiers with other families first, so poor Jill can have a couple of days, at least, with just you and not a bunch of perverts running all around, and having to stay inside.”

“So…?” I asked.

“About a week from now,” she said, answering the unspoken part of my question. “Go back to your trainees, now,” she commanded. “And get your mind off your wife.”

“Yes, Adlephe,” I said, thinking to myself how impossible that was!

“Dinners not quite ready,” I said. “Let’s work on making darts. Benjamin, get some flowers out. David…”

Chapter 15: At Ease

The next morning the colonel came to visit me, no doubt because Sister had told him I was finally awake. “Sir!” I said, struggling to get to my feet.

“At ease,” he said to me and I sank back, reluctantly. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice giving me the lie.

“I see. Well, we hope to have you up and going in no time. Your new family and your sister will need you.”

My new family? Who…? But he went on, “It will be a bit of a change for you, of course,  living with Pathfinders, but don’t worry, we’ll hold your spot open for after you partner, if you want still want it. As a Pathfinder’s son  you will have that open to you too.”

A Pathfinder’s son? Suddenly I realized who they were talking about and looked at Uncle Andrew, who was standing behind him, looking at me. I handn’t even dreamed of this, but it made sense. Since my partnership, even is she wasn’t here, Uncle Andrew was my closest relative. But that meant, that meant I would have to leave my dorm! All of my friends and all my other Uncles and Aunt.

I noticed the Colonel looking at me. What must he be thinking! How could I be a soldier if a little thing like a new assignement got me all upset?

“Thank you, sir,” I said, which seemed to be the best thing I could say. “Sir,” I managed, after a few seconds, “Sir, do you know what happened?”

He looked at Uncle Andrew, who said, “We told him everyone died, but not how. Indeed, I’d like to know myself.”

The colonel sat down next to me on the floor of the hut. “Well, it was incredible. We will have to change all of our procedures. You know that this planet has almost no metals. Well, in general that means that high technology is very difficult. So we thought our shuttles were safe.”

“But this genious class, and we killed him, by the way, this genius class invented himself this tube, made entirely out of plant material, and shot a high explosive charge out of it. He had to have been standing in just the right place, and had incredible aim, because it went in the door of the shuttle, killing everyone except you and Justina.”

I lay back, and the others started talking about other things, plans and things, but I decided what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I was going to kill these genius class aliens. Whenever I could find the time I would go out in the jungle…

—

“What are you looking up, Carl?” Sister said to me that evening, after the colonel  had eaten with us (I stayed on my mat) and left. I had gotten out my computer tablet.

“Weapons,” I said. “Primitive weapons that we can make here.”

“Carl,” Sister said, but Uncle Andrew interrupted her,

“That’s an excellent idea,” he said, and I flushed. “The son of a soldier, stuck with some Pathfinders, helping design appropriate technology weapons. A great idea. Do you have anything?”

“Well, I have one,  that was used in just this kind of environment, but it needs something I don’t have.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Uncle Andrew asked me. “Maybe I can help.”

“I need a drug that affects The Enemy,” I said.

“A what?” he asked, coming over and taking the pad from me.

“It’s called a blowgun,” I said, feeling foolish now. “It’s a long pipe and you blow a sharp stick out of it. I thought it might work, but I need some kind of poison to put on the end of the stick. I’ll keep looking.”

“Why?” Uncle Andrew said, “This looks good. Your Sister can help you with a poison for aliens, can’t you Aliyah?”

“I… I suppose so. We have a lot of information on their biochemistry., But you don’t just want a poison, do you? You want something we can make here.”

I nodded. “Well then,” she said, “you will have to help me with my work. You will need to go out and get me samples form all of the plants in the area: their leaves, stems, flowers, and fruit. I will test them for what I need to make you your poison.”

I looked back and forth between them, but they didn’t seem to be making fun of me. “OK,” I said. “Can I do that, then?”

Uncle Andrew sat down next to me. “You’re a partnered man. You need to decide what you should be doing. I outrank you, but there is no reason for me to boss you around. If you are out gathering plants, for your Sister’s work, which is vitally important, and finding out more about our environment in other ways, and you write that up properly in your reports, then you will be doing a vitally important work.”

I stared at him. Dad had never said anything like that before! But maybe pathfinding was a different kind of job from soldiering, more independent like. “OK, I’ll get started,” I said, staring to get up.

“Hold on, soldier,” Sister said. “First of all I’m not letting you out just yet. And secondly, you need to study my files so you will know what I already have.”

I was too tired, really, to go out anyway, so this sounded good, and I booted up her files and spent the rest of the afternoon studying them. We had roast Juvie for dinner, which was great, and I fell asleep, almost happy.

“Where are you going?” Sister asked me, the next morning, when I got up early and, pulling on my shorts, started for the door.

“To look for plants,” I said to her,  pulling a knife and a pistol from the rack by the door. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but Uncle Andrew pulled her back down into bed and I walked out of the door.

It was nice to be outside, after so long being  inside. And it wasn’t bright yet, either, not that it ever got that bright this deep in the jungle. I walked along the web to the nearest tree, where I clung to a branch and walked along another one. This wasn’t as  hard as it seems, because they were big fat branches for the most part, and their were vines everywhere.

I knew Sister would have collected from around here, so I went off toward the main trunk, worked myself around the trunk, and continued away. I went two whole trees away before I stopped and started looking around. At first I cursed myself, because I had forgotten to bring a collection bag. Then I rememberd my survival classes and, pulling off some thin vine, wove myself one. When I got done I looked at it. It wasn’t the best, but I would do better tonight, at home, while I was resting.

I looked at the plants around me and, seeing a dozen types that hadn’t been in the catalog… including, ironically, the small vine I had made by bag out of, I started collecting.

“Carl!” Sister said to me, three hours later, when I came in. “Where have you been?”

“Collecting,” I said, putting my bag down.

“Well,” she said, partially mollified, “that is a nice collection. But did you bring anything to eat with you?”

“I… no, I forgot, I said, embarrassed. “But there was plenty to eat. There was some of those red berries that you have checked out, and that round smooth nut thing.”

“If you go out again without food,” she said, “I won’t say anything about water, here, because it rains all the time; but if you go without food, I’ll use you to test out the bugs that I have determined are edible.”

She said this while holding out a jar that had a variety of bugs crawling around in it, and I blanched. I mean, we knew we had to eat those, at least in sim; and sister had actually told me that the colonists would need to make some of them part of their diet, but…

I saw her grinning at me, and decided to pay her back. “You’re right, Sister,” I said, “I should have known better.” I reached out to the jar and, before I could change my mind, pulled out an enormous beetle and popped it in my mouth, chewing loudly.

“Oh!” Sister said, as bits of leg and shell sprayed out, “Oh, Carl, how could you! Oh, that is so gross!”

I swallowed, and laughed. It felt terrible, chewing, but it tasted kind of like chicken. I did take a drink right after that, though, and was glad to eat the Pack stew that she had saved for me from breakfast.

‘Bye,” I said, an hour later, but she was having none of that.

“Nap!” she said. “You may be some big grown up soldier, but I’m still your doctor. Nap!”

So she made me lie down, and took Justina out to do some collecting with her. I lay down, vowed I wouldn’t sleep, and woke up three hours later. “I’m going out again,” I said to Sister, who was working at her lab stuff. She turned around,

“Ok. Go a different direction this time, and get samples from the trees too. You got lot’s of vines and all, which is great, but I need to examine the trees, too.”

“Yes… yes, ma’am,” I said, reverting to military speech, since this sounded like a military order insead of Sister (or doctor) stuff. “I’ll be back later.”

“I’ll save dinner for you,” she said.

These shorts were horrible in the rain, I thought to myself as I walked along. They got wet, and stayed wet, rubbing up against my skin in a very irritating way. And besides, they aren’t natural. I’ll have to look up some natural materials to make clothes from, or ask Sister if she knows if anyone is working on that.

This time I took samples all along the way. There were so many plants  here that even with Sisters big collection I still found new ones, ones she didn’t have, every few feet. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was really helpful. If I got the plants, then Sister could spend all of her time analyzing them.

These shorts were sooo irritating. I looked around. No one could see me from the house, and there was just my Sisters and Uncle there anyway, who didn’t care, so I took of the shorts and hung them up on a broken branch, leaving my belt, with the pistol, knife and collecting bag in place. This was better, and, taking care to remember where exactly I’d left them, I continued along.

After another couple of hours I came to a really cool spot. Two separate branchs, big branches, had grown together, with two more right above them, a rare combination. The vines, taking advantage, were growing all around the branches. I came up to them and pushed aside the vines, crawling into the space between the branches.

It was awesome. It was kind of dark, but some light still came through the curtain of branches all around. And the branches above blocked off almost all of the rain. I lay back for a minute, reveling in the dryness. Not that I was dry, exactly, but it was nice not to be in the pouring rain or drizel that was constant here.

I got quickly bored, though, and lay down on my stomach to look out. Looking down I could see the jungle floor in a couple of spots, which was rare. I squished around, this was amazing. I could see the jungle floor in a dozen areas! I was so impressed that I kept moving around and looking and then, to my glee, I saw an adult alien.

It was just sitting still. I think I had missed it the first time I had looked here. They weren’t all that easy to spot in the jungle, being of a kind of dull green, which fit in with all of the other greens. It must not have heard me, and I eased my  pistol out of it’s holster.

Now, if you’re used to projectile pistols, this next will sound silly. But this was a sonic-focused pistol, which was very accurate even at long distances if you knew how to use them… which I did, of course. I eased it forward, snapped open the laser targeter, and fired.

“Yes!” I muttered to myself as the adult dropped like a stone, it’s stupid alien brain fried into alien mush. I watched, and soon a Juvie came snuffling up, nervously. When the adult didn’t move it got closer and, finally deciding it was dead, began to feast. It was kind of gross, and I won’t describe it, in case any girls ever read this book. It had hardly gotten three good bites in, when another Juvie came by. Five minutes later, fairly well in, they were driven off by a pack.

And, no, I didn’t fire at them. You don’t. You never waste ammunition, not that the sonic pistol uses ammunition but the principle is the same, on Juvies or Pack unless you are going to eat them. The world was filled solid with Juvies and Pack. It was adults we hunted. And I was going to become a genius hunter. Well satisfied with my day, I put my pistol back, grabbed my sack, and went back to my shorts (which I did remember where they were, in case you were thinking of laughing at me for having to go back the Sister all naked).

“Sister,” I said, while scarfing my Pack stew an hour or so later while we watched Uncle Andrew draw us a picture of Justina. “Who is in charge of developning native clothing?”

“Ruth. Why?”

“These shorts are horrible to wear in this weather,” I said, “I was wondering if we have developed anything else.”

“There is a bark that she is recoomending,” Sister said. “It takes a bit of work.”

“Well, I have time, evenings,” I said, and, as soon as the stew was done I got out my computer pad and looked it up. The next morning I got up early and went looking for the tree it had mentioned. I found one and cut myself a strip of about four feet long and one foot wide. I put this, along with my shorts, into my new blind area and, naked except for my belt, went out to get some more plants. And insects, Sister had told me she needed more insects too.

This was glorious, really. It was pouring down rain today, but since my shorts were off there was nothing to bother me there. I think all of the adults were finding the rain annoying, but I loved it. And there seemed no end of plants, or insects.

I was just thinking about going back and getting dressed when I saw it. There were very few straight plants on this planet, and fewer hollow ones. I was down near the floor, however, when I saw a whole clump of plants that were both: about an inch wide, and hollow, and perfectly straight. I looked around. Juvies woudlnt’ bother a human, but a pack would, and an adult certainly would. Besides, there were local animals that wouldn’t mind a nice raw leg of human for a snack.

But there didn’t seem to be anything around, so I snuck lower. I grabbed one, from a nearby branch, but it wouldn’t come out of the ground, so I had to go lower, almost into the muck itself.

Now, I haven’t ever told this story to Sister, so you have to keep it to yourself. The clump was just a little to far away so I had to really reach out to get it. Which to do that I had to put my foot on this rock or log or whatever it was. I’m sure you know what happened. It wasn’t a rock, or a log, it was a crocodile type creature. And I scared it. So it moved, which scared me and dropped me right in the water.

The next few seconds were the longest of my entire life up to that point. Which is to say I moved faster than I ever had before, and it seemed I was moving through molasses. I fell in the water, as I said, but I managed to keep one hand on the tall hollow reeds and so my head didn’t actually go in the water and I swung myself up the reeds, kind of with both hands until I could shove my feet in, jamming them between the various reeds and pulling myself into the clump.

Which seemed like it took forever, like I said. But it must have been just a few second because, when I got up and got turned around and drew my pistol I saw the crocodile thing, which was still thrashing around and turning itself toward me. When it got around it stared at me with an expression on its face that was truly funny to behold. I was a lot bigger than it was, or heavier anyway as it was so long, and it probably thought it was being attacked.

I looked around, but I still saw nothing, so I carefully cut off (and they were hard to cut!) several of the reeds and, using a vine that was growing among them, lashed them to my back. Then I very carefully climbed up a clump of reeds until they kind of bent over toward the tree and I could grab a branch and haul myself up.

“What on Earth do you have there?” Sister asked me, a couple of hours later, when I trooped back into our hut.

“Stuff,” I said, which annoyed her. But really, she was always asking me things, and I wanted to get to work not to talk. I laid down my carry bag on her table and took my stuff over into a corner.

I looked at the reed first. It had these dividers every few inches down the tube which I would have to get rid of. I could just use the laser cutter, of course, but that would be cheating. I needed to figure out how to do it with local materials. “Sister,” I asked, “do you have some kind of strong acid I could use to clean out these partitions?”

She waved me over and I showed her the reed. She looked at it, looked at me, cocked her  head to one side the way she does when she is thinking, and said, “Well, I might, but I don’t think that is what you want to do. What if you took a long stick and poked a hole through them, then took a really tough vine, maybe with some, well, we don’t have pebbles…”

“Bones!” I said. “We have some hard bones. And pull it back and forth, you mean, and wear it smooth. Thanks sister.”

I set the reeds aside. I would find a good stick for the poking tomorrow. I picked up the bark I had cut off and looked around. The girl had said that I needed to rub it against something, both directions, to make it really flexible. Suddenly I grinned and took up my reed.

“What are you doing, Carl?” Justina said, some minutes later. I had the reed propped up against my feet and had my bark, which I had put around the reed, and I was pulling it back and forth.

“I’m making myself a new pair of shorts,” I said. “Except it won’t be shorts, it will be what they call a ‘loincloth’.”

“But what are you doing?” she asked again, confused.

“I’m pulling this back and forth over the reed to make it soft. I go this way,” I said, stopping and wrapping the bark the other way round,” and this way, so it gets really soft and flexible.”

“Oh,” she said. “Can I try?”

“I’ll get you some, tomorrow, and you can make a skirt out of it.”

“Oh, ok,” she said, and then asked, “How long do you have to do it?”

“Just a few minutes,” I said. “At least the first day. It says I should do it every day.”

I stood up and took off my shorts, and, with everyone watching me, put the cloth on. “Get me a bit of vine, will you ‘stina?” I asked  her and, when she came, I made myself a quick belt with the vine. “TaaDaa!” I said to the room in general. Uncle Andrew clapped and Sister came over and felt at the fabric.

“Well, you look like a regular native right out of the books,” she said. “I think you should work on that fabric more, though, it seems like its still a bit rough, and will rub a bit. Good job, though. Where did ou find the material?”

I took it off and started on the rubbing thing again, “Oh, East about half a mile. You’ll recognize the tree, its the one,” I laughed and held up the material, “with bark like this!”

“And you’ll make me one?” Justina asked, again.

“Yes, ‘stina,” I said. “Could you get me some more of that stew?”

—

I wanted to scream in frustration. I was a man now! I had a partner, and a job, and was going to be a soldier, and Sister had me over her knee for teasing Justina, her hand wailing on my naked backside. I didn’t scream though, but gritted my teeth and hated her. Hated her for treating me like a little kid that needed a mother. Hated her for trying to be that mother.

Finally she was done and she let me go. I reached down and pulled my cloth back on and walked outside without a word, picking up my belt and my blowpipe without a word.

My blowpipe was finished, after a week of work, and I was working on another one of evenings. I had finished Justina’s skirt, which had thrilled her, although she almost never wore it, preferring au naturel most of the time. She wore it whenever we had company, and when Sister made her put something on, like for meals.

I was now working on the darts for my blowpipe. The computer had had several ideas, things people had used in the past, and I was trying to make one of them work. I had found a really good material for the dart itself, long thorns form one particularly nasty vine. But the dart needed something at the end to help stop up the pipe, to allow my breath to actually push it, and to help guide the dart in the air, so it didn’t just tumble but went straight.

I had found s omething which worked really well. I had killed this lizard, and he had this thing on his throat, this loose light skin which it used for making noise. I had killed one of them and figured out a way to attatch it to my dart. It had flown really well but Uncle Andrew had pointed out that I only was able to make two darts from that one lizard so I would have to kill a whole ton of those exact lizards to make more darts. So I had a few of those darts, but I just used them for practice.

My eyes smarting from tears that kept trying to come out I went to my hideout and sat. But, after I didn’t see anything for a half an hour I decided to try something different, and climbed.

We didn’t have any birds on this planet, which was a shame, as it was a great place for birds, they would have loved it here. I climbed and climbed, higher than I had ever been. This was great, and it almost helped me forget how mad I was at Sister for spanking me.

The flowers here were awesome. There were flowers all in the jungle, of course, but they were incredible here. The air was fresh, clear, and bright… and filled with insects buzzing from flower to flower. It was a rare hour without rain right now, and even most of the clouds were gone so I could see, in one or two spots, the kind of blue sky we had had back on the desert planet.

Not wanting to get in trouble I started to collect plants and things, flowers with vines. Flower after flower with their vines. My bag filled up and I started on another one. Sister would be happy with me after this, certainly, I thought, not even trying to blink back the tears. After all, no one could see me.

I looked up at the blue. The blue which hid my real family, my dorm, with all of my other aunts and uncles, where I had grown up, where I had always lived. Why did I have to live here? Sister was trying to be my mother, and she couldn’t be four years older than me, and hadn’t even brought first her first child.

A lizard poked his head out from behind a nearby clump of flowers, and I had to laugh it looked so funny. I grabbed at it with my hand and it darted away, leaving me with a handful of flowers.

I was about to let go of them when something about them struck me. They were incredibly tough. The petals formed kind of a long, tapered cylinder and they had come off the plant easy enough, but they didn’t come apart from each other and…

I put them carefully into my new bag, and reached for my belt, pulling out a dart, one that didn’t have an end. I took a flower out of the bag and, my hands almost trembling, took a small thread out from my belt pouch and, very carefully, tied the flower onto the end of the dart. I held up the result. It looked like it would work, it really did.

I got out my blowpipe and carefully put the dart in, aimed and… Yes!! I missed what I aimed at, but it had flown straight and true. The flower had stayed on and hadn’t come apart. “Sister!” I yelled, starting down and ignoring the fact that, a good two miles away in the jungle there was no way for her to  hear me, “Sister, Uncle Andrew, I did it!”

—

They watched as I shot dart after dart at the practice log I had set up at the other end of the hut. “Good job!” Uncle Andrew said, and Justina clapped and cried out with each shot.

“Will they last, do you think?” Sister asked.

My heart sunk a little. They were just flowers, after all. Everyone knew that flowers faded. “Does it matter?” Uncle Andrew asked. “He says there are hundreds of them, so he can get them new whenever he needs them. And besides, he picked these hours ago and look a them.”

“That’s true,” Sister said, running a flower through her hand and rubbing at to see if it would come apart. They are remarkably tough for flowers. Good find, Carl.”

“By the way,” she said, “I am coming along on your poison. I have one that I want you to try. It’s a combination, actually, of two different poisons. One of  them is a sleepy drug, that we get from that nut, you know the one.”

I did indeed. It was from a really cool plant that I had found. There was this nut growing in the middle of the plants leaves.  I had been on a gathering expedition when I had seen a lizard crawl up and eat the nut. It had looked kind of startles, and then sleepy. And then, while I watched, fascinated, the plant had slowly closed around the lizard. You can bet I had (carefully!) gathered a nut to give to sister.

“I boiled that down and the result should make Aliens almost as sleepy as the lizard, even with the small dose from your dart.”

I nodded, but what good did that do? I didn’t want sleepy aliens, I wanted dead ones. “The second poison,” she continued, “I’m a little less sure of, which is why I need you to test it, or to capture me a Juvie to try it on. It’s a bleeding drug, or and ‘anti-coagulant’ drug.”

“It will make them bleed?” I asked, picturing this little spurt of blood from my dart. That didn’t seem very effective… just sleepy and bleeding, but maybe it would do.

Sister laughed, “Not the kind of bleeding you are thinking of,” she said, “although it will do that too. It will make them bleed inside, in their brain and lungs. It will kill them. And it doesn’t affect humans, as we have a different coagulation pathway, so it should be safe on the darts. The sleepy drug will make you sleepy, though, so be careful.”

I thought about it for a while and then started looking things up  on my comp. Captureing a Juvie… I’d never done that before. How could I do that?

—

“Sister! Uncle!” I yelled, startling a dozen lizards into scurrying away from me. The Juvie struggled in my arms, trying to bite and scratch me. I had it by its legs, but it was threatening to curl around and get at me. My trap had finally worked, but I hadn’t thought  about how hard it would be to get the silly thing back to our hut!

“What on Earth!?” Uncle Andrew said, a few minutes later from above me. “Why don’t you just kill it?” he asked, dropping down next to me and getting out his knife.

“Sister wants one alive!” I said, mostly evading a nasty scratch.

“Oh, to be partners with a doctor,” Uncle Andrew said, grinning. “Here, let me tie it up.”

We all carried several loops of this tough vine and, after a few struggling minutes he finally got it tied down. “Let me get a stick,” he said. “I’ve seen pictures of animals carried that way. A few minutes later we had my struggling captive tied down to the stick and we started the long climb up to our hut.

“Oh, wonderful!” Sister said when we arrived. Then she saw my scratches and my ‘wonderful’ capture had to wait a while while she doctored me all up with all sorts of new salve made, if I rember correctly, from some berries or something.

“Well, shall we give the poisons a try?” she asked, finally, as my last scrache was washed and salved.

“Shall I shoot it?” I asked, reaching for my blowpipe.

But Sister laughed, “No,” she said. “I need to do it with a needle so I can measure exactly how much I put in. Let’s try the sleepy drug first.”

We all watched, even Justina, as she drew up some drug in a needle and went over to the Juvie, who was still struggling against its bonds. Uncle Andrew and I went over and held it down for the couple of seconds that it took to give the shot, and then the Juvie relaxed, almost instantly.

“Well, that part worked,” Sister said, kind of kicking at the Juvie, with no response. We all stared at it. It was past merely asleep; if it hadn’t been breathing I would have thought it was dead. “I put very little in, too; I think your darts should do as well. Now we just have to see if the next poison will work.”

She got out a bottle, and mixed something up, all the while looking back at the Juvie. “What is with that thing?” she asked. “I didn’t think it would work that well!”

She finished and put some of the mixture in a needle, still shaking her head. “Wow.” She injected it and, seconds later, the breathing stopped, and blood started coming out of the Juvie’s nose. “Wow,” she repeated. She looked at me, “I think we have your weapon.”

 

Chapter 14: Waking up to pain

My world was pain, nothing but pain. Pain and a sense of dread, of something missing, of something go wrong. “Go back to sleep, Carl, Sister said, and I felt her cool hand on my forehead and then she did something at my wrist and…

My world was pain, nothing but pain. Pain and a sense of dread, grief, loss, fear. I heard Justina playing, talking with her doll. I heard Uncle Andrew talking in the background. A soft beep went off and Sister started talking to me again, and…

I had to pee! I hurt all over and I had to pee! Sister came over, which was embarrassing, but she put some bottle or something there when I told her, and then I could go back to sleep…

“Carl, Carl, it’s time to get up!” Sisters voice pounded incessantly, if gently, at my brain. I knew I didn’t want to get up. The pain was better, but the dread, the grief, stood at the door of my brain like a lion waiting to tear me apart.

“Is he still sick?” Justina asked, at my elbow.

“Yes, Justina, but he’s getting better now and he needs to move about, to eat and drink, or he’ll start to get sicker. “Carl!” Sister said, as if she knew I was awake, “Open your eyes now.”

I did, slowly. I was hoping that I would see, somewhere in the background, Mom and Dad… but I knew I wouldn’t. If I was this sick Mom would have been there with me, and if she couldn’t, Dad would have. He would have found it hard, but he would have been there. And when I opned my eyes I saw… Sister, and Uncle Andrew, and Justina. I looked around, still hoping, hoping for some of them! Even little Dustin!

But, when I looked back at Sister’s eyes I knew the truth. “Their all gone, aren’t they?” I asked. “When the shuttle…” I looked at Justina, wonderingly.

“Yes, Carl dear,” Sister said, pushing my  hair back from my face. “Justina was in the bathroom, and you were out on the rappelling line.”

I nodded, and Justina said, “Can you make them come back, Carl?”

I looked at sister, who looked pained. No doubt she had told Justina dozens of times but, I was her big brother, the one who always did things for her. “No, sorry ‘stina, Carl can’t do that.”

Justina’s face fell, and then brightened, “Uncle Andrew made me a ‘ammock,” she said. “And you can sleep in it two when you can get off the floor and climb in it. I can climb in it!”

“Cool, ‘stina,” I said. I reached out my hand to sister, and she helped me sit up.

“Here are some shorts,” Sister said, and together we struggled me into them. When we got done I lay back on my bed, as exhausted as if I had run a four mile race in the deep sand. “You need to eat,” she said. “I’v made some nice lizard soup.”

I had to chuckle, remembering how much sister had complaind about having to eat lizards. I liked them, myself. Mom always said they tasted like ‘lobster’. Not that I would know. I’ve eaten a bunch of stuff, but never lobster. I struggled to sit up again, with Justina helping me, while sister ladled me some soup… a thing broth with small pieces of lizard floating around in it.

“Oh, wow, this is great,” I said and then, remembering again, my eyes started to flood with tears, which I hurriedly blinked back.

“You can cry, Carl,” Sister said, but I shook my head, angry at her.

“I’m a soldiers son!” I said “Soldiers don’t cry.”

“I cried,” Justina said.

‘You’re a girl,” I said. “Girls can cry.”

Uncle Andrew looked at me, and he looked proud, so I went back to my soup knowing I had done the right thing. I was getting big enough I wasn’t going to get to see my family much anyway, I thought to myself. Why, Sister’s sister, my partner, would be showing up any day now. I hoped I would be better by then; it would be humiliating not to be able to perform our first time!

“Drink slowly,” Sister said to me, “I don’t want you to get sick.”

I was just about to tell her that that was silly, when I felt my stomach complaining, and slowed down my eating. I got the entire bowl down, though, before Sister said to me, “Sleep now. The drugs will take a while go get out of your system. You’ll feel a lot better when you wake up.”

I didn’t though. I woke, next, in the middle of the night. I had to pee, bad, again, but Sister had left me a bottle, which I used. And then I cried. I cried really quietly, I couldn’t let Uncle  Andrew see me! What would he think of me? What kind of soldier was I, crying my Mommy and my Daddy and all my brothers and sisters.

“Carl?” Sisters voice came, out of the darkness, “Are you up?”

“Yes,” I said, hurriedly wiping a hand across my eyes, “I had to go.”

“Did you find the bottle?”

“Yes,  and I used it,”

“OK. Do you need anything? Are you hurting?” I was, even if not in the way she meant,

“No, Sister,” I said.

“Night then,” she said, and I heard her roll over.

I chocked back my tears, then, and thought… if you could call it thinking… and decided. How should a soldier react to this? What could I do?