One of Lexi’s feet found a stone, and she stumbled, breaking her mind out of a haze. She glanced about to see two jagged spires standing like sentries at the edge of the garden of rock formations. Ahead, she saw stumpy scrub-trees growing from cracks in the rocks. Their thick, black leaves held moisture, but Lexi knew they had to be cooked or they’d make you sick. She knew plenty about preparing food, one of her many chores.
A sharp rock to cut the tough leaves off and something to make a fire with would give her moisture. She could carry an armful back to the skiff wreckage and use its wood for fuel. The glimmer of hope gave purpose to her strides and before long she reached the spires. Under her feet, the ground turned from sand into hard stone.
A sharp rock, your next chore. Rocks laid everywhere, broken off from the towering formations around her. An urge swelled to give up on the scrub-tree leaves and set about finding the clan-hold her true uncle had described. Nevertheless, Lexi kept her discipline and looked to the ground. Within minutes, she found a stone with a good sharp edge and stooped.
A scraping sound made her freeze, and she spun to find the source. The creature’s camouflage hid it well, but she made out the flat head and broad body of a sand lizard. Five feet long, she guessed, as her gaze ran over the six-legged animal. Large, purple eyes watched her warily as it stayed perfectly still. Sand lizards only ate plants–she knew that much about them–but the hunters said they could still be dangerous. In any event, it wanted the same scrub-tree leaves she needed to live.
She ran toward it, flapping her arms, and baring her teeth. “Grrrrraaaaaahhhhhhhh!” The big lizard spun like a sand devil and scurried away in a cloud of dust. “And don’t come back!”
“Look out!” A man’s voice rang off the rocks.
Lexi darted for cover, and from the corner of her eye spotted something big fly through the place she had just stood. She caught a glimpse of the fangs, muscles, and translucent wings of a razor-cat and sprinted away, slipping through a narrow space between two towering rocks. Behind her, she heard the frustrated howl of the predator. She emerged from the gap into a large open area surrounded by towering spires and spied a narrow curving wind canyon. With the hope of a hiding place, she rushed toward the fissure.
Inside the shaded passage of wind-smoothed stone, she put her hands on her knees and panted. Girls weren’t taught how to deal with razor-cats, only hunters needed to know that, but she had overheard men talking. The delicate membranes of the wings didn’t let the beasts fly, they used them to cool themselves and a lot of blood flowed through them. Maybe I can cut a wing and make it weak from bleeding.
Lexi tried to find something for a weapon, but the floor of the little canyon held nothing but loose dirt. Why did I let that lizard scare me from picking up that cutting stone? The wind that whistled through the narrow space paused for a moment and she heard a sound: a soft, slow padding.
She gave up her hunt for a weapon and ran deeper into the slender passage. A growl from behind told her the hunter knew that stalking had given way to a chase. She hurried around a curve in the canyon to find the passage ahead too narrow for even her slim body.
“Spirits of the sky, please have mercy on your daughter and make it quick.” The prayer came to her lips though she held little hope they listened. How many times had she prayed that her father wouldn’t find her when she hid from his anger?
Crack! The sound echoed off the rocks, whipping hard against her ears. She saw the snout and cruel fangs of the razor-cat poking around the last bend in the winding passage. Crack! The sound came again followed by a wailing howl. The fangs disappeared and she heard fast paws whisking the beast away.
Her ears reverberated with the sharp noises as she scanned for the source. She lifted her head up and saw a man staring back down from the lip of the tiny canyon. He appeared normal enough at first glance, but she caught sight of his face and her skin crawled. Where she expected to see eyes, she only saw two large, dark circles. In his hands, he held what looked like a long straight piece of metal.
“It won’t be back. Now, get out of there and let me get you inside before you cost me any more bullets.”
The man talked funny, and she had trouble making out the words. What are bullets? She shouldn’t disobey him, especially if he’d scared off the razor-cat. With as much calm as she could muster, Lexi walked out of the narrow space in the rocks.
When the strange man approached her, she saw that the dark circles were something he wore, not his eyes. White cloth covered the rest of his face, hiding every feature.
“Now”, he said, “where in this blasted desert did you come from?” The voice sounded almost like a growl, and he said all his words funny.
“Clan-hold 47,” Lexi said. The name made a lump rise in her throat, the home she could never return to.
“You alone?”
Lexi nodded.
“What in the name of—” He peered over her shoulder. “Blast! We need to get to the habitat.”
She followed his gaze and saw the black leaves of a nearby scrub-tree retracting into their pockets in the gnarled wood. The bad spirits are coming.
“Get moving, Girl!” His voice boomed, and Lexi jumped.
He led her up what could almost be called a path among the rocks. Everything around them had turned dormant, no leaves exposed on the scrub-trees or the spike-bushes, no animals skittering through the sand and rock–nothing but her and the strange man. The plants and animals knew when the bad spirits would come. She didn’t know what this habitat was but she prayed it would keep her soul safe from harvesting.
They climbed to a level place in the rocks, and she saw the monster. It squatted there on four stubby legs like some sort of giant metal animal, with a pair of huge folded-up wings. Four big hoops with thick blades inside were also tucked against its flanks. In the front of the–she couldn’t find any word better than thing–windows let her see what looked like seats inside it.
The strange man yelled at her. “Get over here!”
Lexi tore her gaze from the squatting metal monster and hurried to obey. She needed to keep her discipline no matter what strange things might be about.
“The transport could shelter us, but this is a lot more comfortable.” The man stood next to a door in the rocks. He pulled on a big lever to release it, exactly how a door on the clan-hold worked. Once they hurried inside, he pulled the door shut and slammed another lever to seal it.
Lexi gasped–a clan-hold! They stood five levels up on a walkway that circled the open space in the gigantic round shaft. Many doors lined the curving walls, each one a dwelling just like the one her family lived in back in clan-hold 47. She let out a sigh of relief; they would be safe from the bad spirits here.
Orange light poured down from the transparent roof six more levels up. A complex of mirrors and strange structures at the top made the inside brighter than the outdoors. At the bottom, the light illuminated only bare dirt and the shriveled husks of plants long dead. Her home had a garden there where her people grew most of their food. How do the people here eat? Where are they? She wanted to ask the man, but that wasn’t her place.
“Looks familiar doesn’t it,” the strange man said.
It wasn’t a question from the way he said it, so Lexi didn’t answer. She braved a glance, and saw he had taken off the dark circles and unveiled his broad face. He had wild, pale hair, large blue eyes, and an unkempt beard of gray.
He still frightened her, especially with the pale, almost white skin. Lexi’s skin was light in color, like the sand, but even hers looked dark compared to his. She took a step back and lowered her eyes.
“Quiet thing, aren’t you?” He chuckled, a low rumble that Lexi could feel in her bones. “Don’t worry; Old Tom Gault isn’t going to hurt you.”
She stayed still and didn’t speak, her gaze fixed toward his feet.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you have a tongue?” His voice turned ha
rsh and irritated.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked.
He pointed to something near the tunnel, a big number 39. Lexi knew her numbers even if she didn’t know letters.
“Your home has a 47 there doesn’t it?”
Lexi nodded.
“It’s called a habitat, not a clan-hold.” He sighed. “C’mon let Tom get you some water.”
Questions swirled in her mind like sand in a storm. Where are the people? What is that metal monster outside the door? How did he scare off the razor-cat? But he hadn’t given her leave to voice them, so she kept her mouth shut–discipline.
They took a stairway to the lowest level, and he opened one of the many doors to enter a dwelling. It reminded Lexi of her own home, only larger–something a clan leader would live in. She put a hand to a white wall and felt the same slick smoothness she was used to.
An opening led to a kitchen, and she saw several doors that must lead to bedrooms. Inside the big central room, she only saw furniture made up of metal and the same material as the walls. She preferred scrub-wood chairs with cushions made by clan craftsmen; they felt more comfortable than the hard furnishings Old Tom had. Illumination came from light-shafts in the ceiling, the light from the sun somehow carried from the top of the habitat.
Unsure what to do, Lexi sat in one of the hard chairs and folded her hands in her lap. Old Tom