Viella, shaky and nervous as she surveyed the surroundings, expected Hurd’s patrollers to come rushing out of the dome at any moment, to snatch them up and haul them off to their doom. She turned her head over her shoulder and looked back at the dome—she could see no activity. She looked ahead again, and all was quiet, too quiet, like calm sands in the desert night, just before the hurricane winds. She quickly grabbed the stranger’s gloved hand in hers and started off in the cold night air toward the mountains in the far distance. She was angry with herself—she could be home now sleeping in a nice comfortable bed, dreaming peacefully, but no, she ignored her brother’s advice, and now she was running for her life.
As they hurried along she kept a close watch, not only on the surroundings, but also the air above. She knew Hurd would be intently searching the city by now, sending out squadrons of patrollers, hundreds of men to look in every corner and all reaches of the city to find these rebels and to bring them to justice. He would be confused and extremely angry. How could anyone not only escape the deadly whirling blades of a scent, but also destroy it and bring down two armed patrollers? It was almost impossible, but this event would fuel his hatred for the rebels and would compel him to cover all avenues of escape. And just to be sure, he would send patrol craft above the plains to search the lands of the toral on the off chance that these rebels had the audacity to think they could escape through the plains.
Viella didn’t care a damn about Hurd and his patrollers, she knew if she and the stranger could make it to the mountains before sunrise, they could escape into the sparsely forested trees and from there they would find their way to the mountain people where they would be hidden and cared for, and Hurd would never find them.
She picked up the pace, but not too fast as she had to watch for the toral, the most feared, natural enemy on Ar.
The two moons had risen from the horizons, one from the East and one from the West, and since the moon, traveling from the East, was smaller and closer to Ar, it was traveling faster. This meant the two glowing orbs would cross each other’s paths somewhere in the West in a couple of hours. The radiance they gave off produced an unworldly appearance on the surrounding landscape. It had an ethereal look. Double shadows were cast upon the ground, and only where the shadows of the objects overlapped were the shadows black, like that of the sun's shadows. The others were a hazy grey in the darkness.
In the subdued light Viella could see small plants and bushes scattered over the terrain. Big trees, more popularly called ‘Beast Trees,’ because of the toral, grew at random, sometimes three or four clumped close together, sometimes far apart, and unlike the trees of a forest, they were sparsely situated over the fields. Their height was short, a mere ten feet at the most, but their gnarled branches radiated out and ran parallel to the ground for thirty or forty feet. From their twisted branches hung a purple fruit about the size of a man’s closed fist. The purplish skin was leather tough, but the insides contained a sweet succulent pulp, which was edible and tasted good. It was known as the 'Toral Fruit.'
There were groups of toral, located to the Northwest of the city, which roamed the twenty-five mile stretch between the city and the mountain range. They got their water from small springs at the base of the mountains and ate mostly the purplish fruit that fell from the trees. Seldom would they eat meat, nevertheless, on Ar, they were man's most feared enemy.
During her twenty-five years of life Viella had never left the city, and in her early years she had spoken to only a few who had had reason or the adventurous spirit to do so. Lately, however, when the mountain people had become allies with the rebels, she had gotten to know some of them well enough to learn about life outside the city walls.
The mountain-people loved to talk, especially about the mountains and the plains, about their way of life, and about their battles against Nature for their survival. Before the discovery of the crystal, which brought the city to them, they journeyed to the city for supplies on a regular basis. Because of this they learned the way of the ferocious toral and over the years they had learned how to avoid the beast. But this knowledge had come with deadly lessons. Many of their ancestors and their ancestor’s friends had been killed by the toral.
With conviction in the voice of the big mountain man Viella remembered his advice, "Never travel the plains in daylight," said he. "The toral feed by day and sleep by night, but at night they are light sleepers. So, stay away from the fruit trees, or they will either hear you or smell you coming."
Warily Viella guided the stranger around a rock and kept him going stealthily toward the next group of trees, under which they would be able to hide for a few moments while searching the skies for patrollers. All the while she kept scrutinizing the instrument in her hand, looking for little blips as the bright, green line swept in a circle around the face of the scope. She could only hope the flesh detector would be enough to get them to the mountains without being discovered by the toral.
Viella pulled on the stranger’s hand, guiding him toward a clump of trees, which had no toral beneath them. “Did you know, besides the constantly frigid air, the toral is the main reason domes were built over the cities?” She whispered as she looked at the man. She looked back at the scope and then to the front in the direction they were headed. Outlined in the semi-dark, the mountains loomed ahead in the distance.
The man didn’t answer.
“That’s right,” she continued quietly. “Many years ago when the cities were first being built, they constructed walls to keep them out, but the toral learned how to leap over them. So, later when mankind learned how to build transparent domes and oxygen generators, he was able to keep the toral in the plains and out of the cities.” She squeezed the man’s hand. “Great. Don’t you think?”
The man said nothing. She let go of his hand and concentrated on the flesh detector as they trekked on toward the mountains. They walked for several hours. Twice they had to walk wide of toral sleeping under the trees. Once they started around only to find another clump of trees with more toral, which made them circle back, losing time to the coming sun and maybe the search of the patrollers.
They walked toward a beast tree, under which the flesh detector indicated there were no toral, and for good reason — the branches were so heavy laden with fruit they almost touched the ground. Toral would not be able to sleep under this tree.
Viella started around the left side of the low hanging branches when she quickly came to a halt, stopping the stranger, and standing very still. Her heart was pounding in her throat and her breath became rapid while breathing in and out the cold night air. There was another beast tree not more than forty feet away, and she didn’t need the flesh detector to tell her there were toral beneath it. She could see them lying in a group, at least twelve of them, with the moonlight reflecting from their shiny fur like a beacon of death. Suddenly one of the toral snorted and stood up. He looked directly at Viella and the stranger watching to see what had made the noise, to see what it was that had invaded his territory. His nostrils snorted the frosty, night air. He pawed the ground several times and snorted again. Three of the other toral raised their heads from the ground, looking to see what was causing the commotion.
Fortunately, the toral had poor eyesight, and even though their sense of smell was superb, the slight breeze blowing across the plains was behind them blowing toward Viella and the stranger. A hunter’s wind had saved the two intruders.
Viella stood like a statue, not moving a muscle, not making a sound, waiting for the toral to lose interest and go back to sleep. It was unnerving; the toral kept looking at them for at least three minutes, which seemed more like three hours. Viella’s feet started to hurt, her mouth was dry, and her heart kept pounding so loud she was sure the toral would hear it and attack—rendering them into lifeless hunks of flesh. But finally the big toral lay down. He kept his head up for another couple of minutes before he finally laid it upon the thigh of one of the other toral and closed his eyes.
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Holding on to the stranger’s sleeve, Viella very quietly took a step back. In the back of her mind she had worried that the stranger would make a noise and the toral would be upon them tearing into their flesh with their long talons, bringing death. As it turned out, the stranger was very quiet. It was as if he knew.
She took another step back, and kept it up until they had put some distance between them and the beast tree with the toral.
They went another hundred paces to the right walking softly and then they started toward the mountains. “We should be more than half way,” said Viella in a whisper. She was becoming confident that they were going to make it, but no sooner had she spoken these words, than a spotlight from the sky lit them up.
Oh God. It was Hurd’s patrollers. Now, although it was too late, she could hear the familiar sound made by the patrol craft’s antigrav motors.
She grabbed the stranger’s hand and started running. Pulling him along, and with the spotlight following them, she put forth the effort to run as fast as she could to escape a hopeless situation. She ran two hundred paces before she began to tire and slow down. Her legs were starting to feel like lead weights, and her lungs were burning from rapidly sucking in the cold, bitter air. Ar, being the fourth planet from the sun, had a frigid climate, even during the summer months, and when the sun went down the cold was penetrating, especially with the clothes they were wearing—designed for wear inside the dome. The air was so thick with the cold it was like running through thin sheets of ice. She started slowing her pace losing her energy and tiring. She felt like an insignificant insect running across an ice cube with no end in sight. All the while, in the back of her mind, she knew she had to keep the tree between them and the toral. Surely, by now, the toral were standing and watching the light from the sky.
Finally, she could run no further. She dropped to her knees in despair, hoping there was someway they could elude the patrollers. She kept her hand over her mouth trying to warm the air before it went into her lungs, but it wasn’t helping. The cold air was making her throat burn. She peered into the darkness looking for a means of escape, something to sneak behind, some uneven terrain, which would hide them.
Suddenly she heard the engine of the patrol craft winding down. She looked behind her, not more than thirty feet, the patrol craft had landed, and two patrollers with phasors in their hands were disembarking.
She looked at them in desperation. “I won’t be captured,” she thought, “not after being this close to freedom.” She struggled to her feet and ran blindly into the darkness, no longer caring where the toral might be. With reckless abandon she pushed ahead ignoring the pain in her lungs and the pain in the ankle, that she had sprained earlier in the underground tunnel. She no longer knew where the stranger was, as she dared not look back. Her feet pounded the hard surface as she exerted tremendous effort to get away. She had run for several agonizing minutes, when ahead in the moonlit landscape, not more than twenty feet, there loomed a field of rocks, each about the size of man’s head and extending as far as she could see. She wanted to turn and flee in another direction, but she had no choice. If she changed her course she would be caught. She rushed ahead and began to run-jump, bouncing from one rock to another and slowing down to keep from falling. As it turned out, the rocks were bigger than she had thought making it more difficult to keep her balance, and they had small, hard spikes protruding from their uneven surfaces, poking into the soles of her shoes and delaying her progress with such intensity as it seemed they had been purposely laid there so she would be apprehended.
She took a chance with a quick glance over her shoulder. The stranger was to her left and only a few feet behind her. The patrollers, still holding their phasors, were only ten paces further back and coming fast to the field of rocks.
“They’re gaining on us!” she cried out as if the stranger knew what she was saying. She pictured the manacles of imprisonment on her wrists and ankles—a frightening thought. In despair she threw caution to the wind and started running faster over the rocks hoping that she wouldn’t fall and that soon she would come to solid ground. A moment later she heard a crashing sound, which sounded like metallic objects such as snaps and buckles hitting the rocks. She turned her head again just in time to see one of the patrollers sprawled out on the rocks with his phasor clattering to a halt and disappearing into the crevices, and then his partner tripped over one of his outstretched legs and joined him on the hard, spinney points.
She heard them spiting out curses along with their groaning in agony. She quickly looked to where she was going and kept her pace. She jumped to the next stone and then the next and then the next, and then the stones became smaller, and soon she was running on the hard ground of the plains. She quickened her pace and ran for several minutes leaping from time to time over small bushes or running around larger rocks, all the while watching intently for beast trees. Fortunately for her, they seemed to be thinning out.
She took the chance to glance back while keeping the stride. But the patrollers and the field of rocks were so far behind she could no longer see them through the moonlit night. It seemed she was putting distance between them and her, but she didn’t dare think she was going to escape. She knew they only had to climb into their patrol craft again and start searching for her, and though they would catch her, she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She patted the phasor in her pocket, and then she started running harder, really pumping the muscles in her legs, putting forth every ounce of effort, forcing her legs to catapult her through the thick, cold air, sucking ice cubes into her lungs until her wheezing from the contraction of her throat almost made her pass out. She shook her head and pushed harder.
Then she heard the hum and saw the lights of another patrol craft, which had landed about seventy-five paces in front of where she was running. Now, escape has just turned impossible, she thought, and then she said to the Aeolian Master. “The other patrollers called in our location before they landed.” This new patrol craft was between her and the mountains, so she changed her course and started running to the right in hopes of circumventing the newly arrived patrollers.
She was at a full stride when suddenly she almost ran over the edge of a steep embankment. As she tried to stop with her outstretched foot finding nothing but air, the stranger grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back to keep her from falling into the deep abyss.
“Ow” she yelled, with disdain in her voice. She started rubbing the back of her head. It was painful, but she was thankful that he had saved her once again. She looked in the direction of the recently landed patrol craft, and through the moonlit night she could barely see two patrollers coming her way. She looked into the gorge below. “Here it is,” she said to the stranger not expecting an answer. “This is the arroyo they told me about. It runs from the base of the mountain for sixteen miles into the plains before it levels out with the ground. I was told if ever I was on the plains and could find this gorge; it would be a safe route through the plains of the toral. It seems, for some reason, the toral never go into the gorge. It is said they never even get close to it.”
Looking down she could see the gorge was approximately forty meters deep or the height of a twelve-story building from the top to the bottom and about fifty meters across. There were large boulders here and there projecting up from the floor and there were caves in the walls at the bottom of the gorge. The first fifteen feet at the top of the gorge was straight up and down and then from there it was a steep, rocky, sandy incline to the floor. Injury was probable if they attempted to jump.
She was feeling anxious as she looked to the left watching the patrollers run along the rim of the gorge. They were closing in, and by now the patrollers behind her would have recovered from their spill into the rocks and would be chasing after. Therefore, she couldn’t go back, she couldn’t go left, and if she went to the right, she would be going toward the city.
She only had one choice. She scrutinized the steep incline, foun
d a spot which looked bare of rocks, and jumped hoping that her injuries would be minimal enough that she could put up a good fight when the patrollers caught up with her. She assumed the stranger would follow her, and he did. She could see him out of the corner of her eye before she hit the steep incline and rolled painfully over several rocks. She continued her rapid descent, out of control with flailing arms and legs, until finally she was able to dig her shoes and fingers into the semi-soft dirt, bringing her to a slow halt on the steep wall of the gorge. During her roll her head had grazed a rock and there was blood slowly seeping down the side of her face and into her right eye. She wiped away the blood and explored the rest of her body with her gloved hand. No bones seemed to be broken, but her body was aching in several places where she had hit the rocks. Just then the stranger slid in beside her, which for some unexplainable reason brought her a sense of relief. She looked at him and said, “I’m so glad you’re here. There’s something about you that gives me resolve.” She bolstered up her courage, and started down the incline. She went rapidly, mostly sliding, but sometimes walking on her hands and feet with her back to the dirt and her head raised off the ground like a topsy-turvy Manorian soft-shelled crab running across the white sandy beaches of Critton escaping the powerful snapping beaks of the seabirds.
Two feet from the bottom she stood up and stepped onto the sandy floor, wincing as she felt a sharp pain in her right buttock. She started limping toward a large boulder on the far side of the arroyo.
After limping three quarters of the way across the floor of the gorge she heard voices on top of the ridge, and then someone started shouting. “Stop in the name of the law. Stay where you are, or we will open fire.”
She grabbed the stranger’s gloved hand in hers and continued toward the boulder. “They’ll have to be a hell of a shot to hit a target like us in the shadows at this distance.”
Suddenly a blue phasor bolt hit ten feet to the right and three feet in front of them. She started limp running, ten more feet and then she and the stranger were behind the boulder. “That’s strange,” she said. “A blue bolt. That means they want me alive. But why?” And then it occurred to her that Hurd wanted to use her as leverage against her father. But how did Hurd know it was her. And then another realization. The flesh recording taken in the clothing store had given away her identity.
“Why didn’t they shoot when they were only thirty feet behind us?” she asked softly. And then she shuddered when she realized what the men had in mind for her before they took her back to Newusa. In order for them to rape her she couldn’t be in a state of stun.
She wanted to cry, to lie down in the sand and wail, but knowing that she had to keep her composure in this time of crisis, she couldn’t succumb to thoughts of despair. She looked out from behind the rock and surveyed the arroyo. “Come on,” she said, “we’ll make our way along this side of the gorge from boulder to boulder toward the mountains.”
Hoping the shadows of the canyon wall would act as a shield against enemy eyes, she walked stealthily toward a boulder further up the arroyo with the stranger following. In reality, she knew escape was no longer possible. The patrollers knew where she was, and they would eventually close in. It occurred to her that they no longer had rape on their minds. If she escaped because of their folly, they would feel the brunt of Hurd’s wrath.
“It’s not likely, but with luck on our side, we might make it to the mountains,” she whispered to the stranger. “With this phasor,” she patted it in her coat pocket, “and with your uncanny strength, we might be able to overcome them.”
She knew she was being overly optimistic, and when another patrol craft landed on the bottom of the gorge near the boulder she had planned to hide behind, and when the patrollers opened the doors and jumped onto the sandy bottom of the gorge, she realized her thoughts of escape were folly. The net was closing in and she was beginning to the feel the lines tighten around her.
Now there was nothing to hide behind without retracing her steps. She and the stranger stopped in the shadows as she tried to determine their next move. She had to formulate a plan, but she realized the situation was hopeless. She looked at the top of the ridge where she and the stranger had jumped into the gorge. On the far side, the four patrollers, bathed in moonlight and small in the distance, had spread out and were looking into the shadows of the arroyo.
The shadow cast from the wall upon the floor was beginning to recede as the larger moon from the west was starting to appear overhead.
Viella grabbed the stranger and moved slowly back to the boulder they had just left. She pointed up the ravine and said in a soft voice, “Go. It’s your only chance. With your strength and athletic ability you might make it. After you’ve gone about a mile and a half, climb out and make your way to the mountains. It’s me they’re after, and I don’t think they will bother with you.” In his state of stupor she didn’t think he would go, but she had to try. Why should she get this man, who had twice saved her, into more trouble? She pushed against his chest with all her might, but he stood strong. “No?” she asked. “I didn’t think so. I just wish I could make you understand.”
A light lit up the floor. The men from above had retrieved a spotlight and were searching the shadows. The two men on the floor were coming closer.
Viella took the glove off her right hand, put it in her left coat pocket, grasped the phasor in her right hand pocket and pulled it free. She stepped out from behind the rock and squeezed off a shot at the man coming down the gorge on the left. A blue bolt lit up the canyon hitting the man in the chest and down he went. She quickly got off another shot at the other man, but he had already dashed into the narrow shadow against the far wall and slid in behind a small boulder. He rose up and pulled the trigger on his phasor. The blue beam just missed Viella’s shoulder by an inch and hit the stranger in the arm. He went down in stun.
Viella gasped in horror. In the back of her mind she kept hoping that this strange man would get that sheen in his eyes and come to her rescue. Now, there was no chance. Once again she jumped behind the rock, this time leaving the stranger lying in the sand.
The spotlight lit up the stranger and then moved toward the boulder. “Give up,” yelled one of the men on top of the ridge. “You don’t have a chance. Come in now and we’ll make it easy on you.”
“I’m sure you will,” she yelled back. She peered around the right side of the boulder looking for the man lying behind the rock. If she could take him out of the picture, she could get to his patrol craft and make her escape into the mountains. But he was nowhere in sight. If she tried to move on him, he would gun her down; nevertheless, it occurred to her that she couldn’t wait. It would give the men on the ridge time to fly their crafts into the gorge. She had to take a chance.
She stepped out from behind the boulder. When the man rose up to take a shot, she would jump to one side and take her own shot.
The spotlight lit her up. “Lay down your weapon,” yelled the man on the ridge.
She looked up in time to see him pointing a phasor rifle with a scope at her. She looked down and saw the little red laser dot in the middle of her chest. “Shoot, you fool,” she yelled. She wasn’t going to let them take her unless she was in stun.
The man behind the rock stood up with his phasor trained on her. “It’s no use,” he said in a heavy masculine voice.
She whirled around bringing her phasor to bear on the man when suddenly she heard a scream from the ridge. She looked up in time to see the giant fangs of a toral ripping into the throat of the man with the phasor rifle. His scream changed into a bloody gurgle. The other three patrollers turned away from the gorge and started firing their phasors, lighting up the sky in a red hue. They killed the toral that had just attacked their fellow patroller, but more toral were coming. They turned their backs to the gorge and started firing. Suddenly two of the men were grabbed in the jaws of the toral and shaken fiercely like rag dolls being attacked by an angry cat. The other m
an fell over the ledge, hitting the steep incline and sliding forty feet before he came to a stop. Viella couldn’t tell if he was dead.
“That leaves just me and you,” she said to the man twenty feet away. But she spoke too soon. Much to her chagrin the toral came bounding over the ledge and down the steep incline, which gave them blinding speed.
Without hesitation Viella and the patroller turned and started firing. Two of the toral went down after four or five shots, but the other two kept coming.
Viella stood her ground, but the patroller, overcome by fear, turned and ran for his patrol craft. “You fool,” yelled Viella. “Stand and shoot!” She knew he couldn’t outrun the toral, and he didn’t. The toral closest to him bounded down the incline and chased him down like a cat chasing a three-legged mouse. He struck the man with his huge paw sending him ten feet in the air and then snatched him with the fangs of his jaws before he hit the ground. In a half conscious stupor the man managed a final farewell. “Oh God,” he said as he reached toward Viella with his outstretched hand. “Help me.” And then he died when the toral grabbed him around the throat with his powerful jaws and crunched into flesh and bone.
Viella didn’t take time to watch any more of the bloody execution. She turned and fired at the toral bearing down on her. The blue bolt hit the beast in the head and down he went.
“One more,” she said talking to the stranger lying in the sand. But again she spoke too soon as five more toral came bounding over the ridge.
*