INCARNASTAR DISCOVERY

1560 4D

Jeff‘s neck hurt. He stirred, groaning, and tried to turn from his side to his back. Every muscle in his body felt sore. He raised his head a little, then let it fall back to a hard surface. A sweet scent filled his nostrils. His skin was chilled, his mouth as dry as dust. He forced his eyes open.

A dim dawn sky faced him. He was on land! He fought his way up to sit and look around. Beside him Dree lay still, on her back, her eyes closed. She wasn’t breathing. Jeff bent over her, anxious, searching for a sign of life. His weight bore him down; as he arched over her, his arms trembled with the effort.

“Dree! Are you all right?”

No response.

“Dree!” Stiff from the night cold, Jeff finally managed to clamber to his feet, swaying, staggering, looking for help. They were in the midst of a vast flat plain, where stretches of tall grass and small shrubs alternated with empty areas of sandy soil and rock. In the distance, a range of mountains gleamed orange and brown where rays of the sun — or was it better called by some other name? — had reached them as it rose. Toward the rising sun, rounded silhouettes of trees made an irregular profile on the horizon.

Dree lay as motionless as a statue. Jeff looked down at her, his legs wobbling. She was beautiful, except for the twisted leg that appeared to have been broken at hip, knee, and ankle, making her foot turn outward ninety degrees. The foot itself, and the tight black boot it wore, bent in a clubbed arch.

She wore only a tight, elastic garment sheathing her from her small, firm breasts to the mid-level of her thighs. Her skin was smooth, pale-tan, featureless. Her developed musculature was softened by a layer of fat or insulation that smoothed even the wrenched regions of her twisted leg. Jeff knelt clumsily over her, touched her face.

“Dree! Wake up!”

Nothing. Despair and determination drove him to stagger up once more, facing the new sun. “Help us!”

A sound behind him made him turn around. He saw nothing, but a soft breeze blew now in his face, and fresh scents mingled with the floral aromas he had breathed earlier: smoke and food and shit. People were not far away. Maybe he could get some food and water for Dree and himself, and then they could — what? It was too soon for then what, he decided. Swaying, he bent over Dree and said, “I’ll be back with help.” He set off slowly, his new enemy gravity dragging at him.

He walked mostly in the bare patches, because the grass was too hard for his unsteady footing. His path took him toward the people-smells. The sun rose higher, and now the green grasses elaborated themselves into tall emerald reeds, pale-green grass stalks, and white and yellow flowers, all commingled, their dead leafings from earlier seasons clumping and heaping over surface root-tendrils. Bushes twice his height, with broad, flat, ragged-edged leaves, spread in thickets here and there, trunks and branches jointed and stiff. The smell of cooked food grew stronger. He licked his lips, but his mouth was barely moist, and his lungs burned. Something thrashed in a bush beside him, and he lost his balance and fell on his side.

He tried to get up, but his body refused to respond. He lay on his side, breathing heavily. Small golden insect-like creatures fluttered near his face, but a darting movement too fast to follow made him blink, and two of the creatures were gone. “Dree,” he said, his voice cracking. He lay a long time staring into the roots of the grass nearby. Something crawled over his leg, but he couldn’t raise his head to look at it. His eyes closed. He gasped for breath.

A cry made him open his eyes again and fight to raise his head. Another cry answered, and this time he could make out word-sounds, unless it was a voiced animal like a wolf or coyote. Under his shoulder, the earth pulsed with the concussions of running feet, getting closer. He wondered if, after his long trip through space, he was about to be attacked and killed and eaten.

The pounding of feet lessened, and a great, charcoal-gray, furred head appeared an arm’s length from his eyes. It was a wolf. Jeff froze, staring in its close-set gray eyes as it approached him, sniffing. He blinked; it jerked back, its neck fur rising, and it gave a low whine that turned into a growl.

Its jaws opened, showing a set of big, sharp teeth and a long pale-rose tongue. It panted, and began nosing at Jeff‘s face and body, sizing him up. He couldn’t stop watching its eyes, eyes that roved over each little bit of him with a methodical efficiency. A bit of saliva from its mouth dripped onto his forehead. It licked his ear, and nipped lightly at his neck. He jerked involuntarily, startled; the wolf backed away, its growl rising, its teeth bared.

Percussions from the ground: footsteps. The wolf went silent. Jeff swung his head around, looking for the source of the pulses. A tall figure stood five strides away, a long stick in its hand. An adolescent boy, dark-tan, with black eyes, his long black hair braided loosely into ropelike falls that ended in heavy knots, studied Jeff slowly as the wolf trotted over to receive a hand on its head. The boy wrapped the brown robe he wore to cover his pale skinsuit around himself more tightly; the cold of the morning seemed to affect him.

“Hello,” Jeff said. “I need help.” He wondered whether his words could be understood.

“Sar aybar anananis namvi.” The youth shifted his weight and pointed his stick at Jeff.

Jeff swallowed. “Water,” he said. He held his hand to his throat in a choking gesture, then signaled the act of drinking. “I need water.”

“Ennistas, ashik.” The youth turned and disappeared. Jeff looked at the wolf, and it stared back at him, not moving.

“Ah, hell,” Jeff said, and laid his head down again on the ground and closed his eyes.