Chapter 24
- Morgan -
The girl slowly steps out from behind the bush.
She’s about my age, I think. But it’s hard to be sure because her face is dirty, her hair is a tangled mess and she’s wearing cut-off jeans and a Cleveland Cavaliers sweatshirt that must have been red at some time, but is now a mottled brown. She has a pointed stick in one hand and stands tense.
“There’s a lot of them,” she says.
I wipe my nose. “They’re harmless. Well, these ones are.” I get the roll of bark out of my dress and hold it up. “Are you one of these? Need help urgently?”
The girl comes closer, still holding her spear in a ready position. “Yeah. I’m Sage.”
“Morgan. Where are the others?”
“In the camp,” Sage says. “Are you alone?”
I look at the dozens of Plood around me. “Pretty much. I mean, right now, I am. But there’s a lot more girls in the tribe I came from. They’re safe. I can take you there if you want.”
The girl looks me up and down. “How are they safe? Is it a caveman tribe they live with?”
I find that I’m not a big fan of her tone. But in my state of mind, I’d be offended by a children’s Christmas choir. “Being safe means something else here than in Ohio, Sage.”
“Uh-huh.”
We look at each other for a second.
“You saw me break down just now,” I address the T. Rex in the cave, the thing we’re both thinking about. “That was about something else. Not about the tribe I come from.”
“You sounded pretty sad.”
“And I am.” I shrug, feeling too tired for this. “So are we going to just stand here?”
She doesn’t move. “How far away is that tribe of yours?”
I tilt my head to the side. “Pretty far, I think. A few days’ walk. How did you survive here?”
“We were dumped in a valley,” Sage says. “With cliffs on every side. There weren’t any cavemen. Or dinosaurs. Until about a year ago.”
“What happened then?”
She finally lowers her spear. “Cavemen came. Well, there was just one. He… actually, let’s go and see the others. Do these have to come with us? I mean, all of them? We’re fine with one or two. But they have this mind-reading thing going on.”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I’ll try.”
I look at Clyde. “You can come along, but nobody else. Okay?” In my mind I form the image of just Sage, Clyde and me while the others stay back. It’s a bit of a challenge.
“We’ll see if it works,” I say and straighten my dress. “We ready?”
I follow Sage as she makes her way through the undergrowth. There’s a fair amouny of ducking under branches and vines, and after a while we have to squeeze past boulders and move through stone arches until we’re in an irregular tunnel that consists of huge rocks.
“This is why nobody bothered us for so long,” Sage says as she squeezes through between two boulders. There’s just barely enough room for Sage, and it looks so narrow that I stop.
“I’m worried I’ll get stuck,” I tell her. My voice echoes hollowly from the rock ceiling.
“Bend your knees a little,” Sage says from the other side. “Suck your tummy in. Don’t breathe until you’re through.”
Both of the rocks have sharp protrusions that almost meet in the middle at waist height, but there’s maybe eight inches of room between them.
Well, the only way past is through.
The rock behind me scrapes along the small of my back and the one in front does unpleasant things to my internal organs, but it’s not as bad as I feared. I slip through in a half second.
“You’ll be bruised tomorrow,” Sage says. “But cavemen can’t pass through.”
Neither can dragons, I think to myself. A sharp barb hits me right in the heart. Damn. Meeting Sage took my mind off him for a moment.
Clyde scrambles easily through the gap. If he’d been a fully grown Plood, and not misshapen, I’m not sure he would have made it through.
“We saw a Plood a few days ago,” Sage says as we keep going through the cave, which turns into a canyon and then to a flat hill.
“And Beth made the message after he made some images appear in her mind. We had no idea if it would work, or that it would just be days before you’d be here.
This is Crater Valley. Also called ‘this Effing Crater’ or ‘the Prison’. ”
“‘Crater Valley’ works,” I tell her. Because it’s plainly a crater, either from a volcano or an ancient meteorite strike.
We’ve emerged about halfway up the round side wall, and only the bottom of the crater is overgrown with vegetation.
The walls are probably too steep to support that, and the rock is too bare for even a Xren jungle to grow from, gray and hard and mostly smooth.
“Nobody can get in,” Sage says as she starts making her way down the steep cliff. “Except small animals and those damn pterodactyls. But we don’t see them a lot, so it’s pretty safe down here.”
The crater must be a mile across, and the jungle at the bottom looks denser right in the middle than closer to the perimeter. I suppose that’s because the sun will usually beat straight down on that part, while the edges of the crater will often be in shadow.
“There’s just five of us,” Sage says and stops.
“And the jungle has a lot of fruit and berries. But it’s not enough.
For the past couple of years we’ve been really good about not picking more than we absolutely need, and we divided the crater into zones and only pick from one zone per twenty days.
Then we go on to the next. But even then, it’s not enough.
Even if we hunt those turkey-like pig things. It’s just not enough.”
I can see where it’s going. “So you had to go outside to hunt and gather. And then the cavemen discovered you.”
She sighs. “There was just the one caveman. But one is enough. There are four tribes around us, we think. And now they all know we exist. We try to not go out that much, but at some point they must realize that we live in the crater.”
“You sure they haven’t figured that out already?” I ask carefully as we keep walking down the side of the crater.
“We’re actually pretty sure they have. They’ve just not found the entrance yet. And if they find it, they can’t pass without doing some serious hacking of that rock.”
“That’s how you know they haven’t found the entrance,” I ponder. “Because if they had, you would hear them hacking away the rock. They would do it night and day in a frenzy if they thought there were women on the other side.”
We pass the top of the tallest trees in the crater.
This jungle is not like the one outside - there’s no giant canopy of treetops with darkness and bushes under them.
There’s maybe a hundred of those trees in total, but below them there’s room for smaller trees and bushes and a dense undergrowth that is rare to see in the jungle I come from.
“Looks fertile,” I comment as we carefully slide down a steep section of rock.
“It’s fertile, and water’s no problem,” Sage says. “But even if we don’t exactly gorge ourselves on fruit and berries, we’ve been running on empty for a while.”
I believe it. Sage has a bony look to her, the skin on her face stretched taut over her cheeks.
“I used to live like that, too,” I tell her. “For years. The Borok tribe has been a big relief in that sense.”
“M-hm.”
The air gets denser and warmer as we descend to the floor of the crater. The ground is as soft and springy as the jungle around it, and I’m sure the crater must have been here for centuries.
Before I know it, I’m standing in front of a hut. It’s better made than the bonfire-like things that Vyrathion heaped together, but not by much.
There’s nobody there, but Sage raps her stick on a hollow log, making three sharp bangs.
Four girls come walking into the little clearing from different directions, all with primitive tools in their hands.
I have to struggle to stop my hands going to my mouth in sympathy. These are some skinny girls, clearly malnourished. Their clothes are rags and their hair absolute rat’s nests.
The first one comes in close. “Are you the Plood boss?”
“Yes,” I reply. This is not the time for correcting details. “I’m Morgan. I live in the Borok tribe with several other girls. I got your message.” I show them the piece of bark.
“Okay,” she says. “I’m Beth. This is Quinn, Rosa and Abigail.”
I just nod. This is also not the time for handshakes and formal introductions. “I got your message.” I hold up the piece of bark. “Also, did one of you drop this?” I show them the broken comb.
Abigail’s eyes widen. “Where did you find that? It’s mine!”
I hand it to her. “The Plood found it and gave it to us… to me. That’s how I figured out you existed in the first place.”
Abigail carefully blows on the comb. “I think I lost it one time I was out gathering fruit. Thanks.”
I try to smile, but it just won’t come. “If you want, I can take you chicas back to the Borok tribe. It’s far, but…” I can’t think of any buts. “It’s far,” I repeat lamely.
“You don’t starve there,” Rosa says, taking me in. “What do you have to do so they’ll feed you?”
“Nothing,” I tell her with a bit of a snap. “It’s not a brothel, if that’s what you mean. It’s a nice village with a good chief and ample food and drink. Some of the girls have married cavemen. By their own choice, I guess I should add, with no marry-me-or-starve thing going on. Yes, really.”
This is not the day to get on my bad side.
“Sorry,” Rosa says. “It’s just, we’ve got tribes on every side and we know what they want with us.”
“I know,” I say in a softer tone. “And I’m not saying my tribe is perfect. All I know is that my life improved when they took me in. I haven’t starved for a day since then.”
“So the thing is,” Quinn says, “that we’re kind of waiting for something.”
“Waiting for a Plood saucer to come and pick you up and fly you home to Earth?” I ask. “Yeah, we waited for that, too.”
All their shoulders slump.
“But,” I go on, “we do have a flying saucer. One that works.”
Their eyes widen. “Really? Then why…”
“Why am I here and not on Earth?” I finish the question. “We don’t know if the saucer works that well, that’s why. It might, but it’s a big risk to take. Or so I’m told. I’d fly the thing into space myself if they’d let me. And maybe they will when I get back with you chicas.”
The girls exchange glances.
“That actually sounds pretty good–” Beth begins.
Sage interrupts. “Yeah, it sounds terrific. Stuck in a caveman tribe where every man is just waiting to find you alone so he can jump you. Having a flying saucer dangled in front of you that might work but probably won’t, and anyway you’re not allowed to try.
That’s after a long walk through a jungle just infested by fucking dinosaurs.
I mean, I don’t see you with any weapon, Morgan.
So excuse me for not jumping for joy. And it can’t be that good.
When I first saw you, you were weeping your eyes out against a tree. ”
I sigh. “That was about something else. Well, mostly. I can tell you, but you might not believe it. Anyway, do you guys have some water?”
“Wait.” Abigail runs off and returns with a waxy, green leaf that’s been fashioned into a deep cup, filled to the brim with tepid water.
“Thanks.” I gulp it down and hand it back. “I heard there’s no shortage of water, so…”
“Sure,” Abigail says and runs off again.
“Nobody has to come,” I tell them. “But if you’re surrounded by caveman tribes, and they know you’re in this crater, they’ll get in sooner or later.
They’re some tenacious dudes when it comes to women.
Or you’ll be taken when you’re out hunting.
” I drain the second cup and hand back the cup. “It’s going to happen.”
Beth looks around the crater. "If we stay, they'll find us eventually."
Quinn nods. "And if they don't, we'll starve."
"I'd rather take the chance," Abigail says.
“That’s three,” I state. “Rosa? Sage?”
They look at each other.
“We’ve been safe until now,” Sage says. “And if two of us stay, we won’t struggle so much to feed ourselves. We won’t need to go outside anymore.”
I tilt my head to the side. “You better be absolutely sure that this is what you want. I’m not coming back here.”
“Well,” Rosa says, “if you get the saucer working properly, maybe you could swing by here and pick us up on your way to Earth?”
“Deal,” I tell them. I should probably try harder to get them to change their minds, but this is not the best time for me and I’m feeling all numb inside.
“I guess there’s no reason to wait. Oh, one more thing.
Do any of you girls have any gold? I know it’s a weird question.
But maybe you had some jewelry on you when you were taken. Anything?”