Up a Tree (p.22)
Rory manned the laser, keeping it aimed as it automatically cut a hole in the foliage big enough for the tram to float through.
Darvish braced his feet and spread out a map. The Doctor helped him hold down the corners that fluttered in the soft breeze of their passage. The tram slipped slowly through the newly cauterized tunnel.
“We’re here,” Darvish said, pointing to an area very near the large circle that indicated the mine. He dragged a finger along the map and tapped a point beyond the dotted red line that indicated the zone. “The crash lane ends here.” It was very near the center of the zone. The map, a satellite picture overlaid on a topographical map, showed the broken off tree limbs and sheered treetops of the crash lane. It looked like a gash in the foliage.
“Since you don’t know what you’re looking for specifically, we’ll head there first and hope we can find survivors. We’ll keep our eyes open along the way.” He started rolling up the map, a simple parchment coated in plastic to keep it dry, nothing electronic for the zone to disable.
“Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?” Darvish asked as he stowed the map under the driver’s seat where George steered them along, using a sort of fishing/sonar device to find the clearest route through the jungle foliage.
The Doctor shook his head. “No idea. I’ll know it when I see it.”
-----
They trundled along the forest, the lasers cutting a hole through any vines or saplings they couldn’t go around, leaving a patchwork tunnel in their wake.
The jungle here was more like forest. Birds twittered in the trees all around them, small mammals scuttled from branch to branch, and they saw occasional browsers, big deerlike animals, but differently patterned here than in the north.
Nelda, Zeke, and Chitchi paralleled them, swinging through the trees. Occasionally dropping down to perch on a corner of one of the trams if they got tired.
The first hour or so of the trip had been spent just getting organized. They’d divided up so that each group had one of the local hunters in it, and while they drove, the rest spent the time shuffling and redistributing supplies and equipment from the middle to the edges of the trams, giving them all more space to move. Always keeping one eye on the jungle for danger.
They made good time. They managed to travel a significant distance in the six hours before nightfall.
Finally, Darvish called a halt for the night, and they set up camp.
Unlike the safari they’d been on in the north, here, they didn’t waste time hunting or starting a fire. Erik presided over a self-contained grill and heated up small packaged steaks and vegetables from their supplies.
They weren’t on a safari, but a rescue mission.
Darvish and the Brothers circled the trams and pulled out two large canvases, weaving one onto the base of each of the trams and pulling it tight, forming a floor, and draping the other canvas over two bent flexible poles that were braced in brackets on opposite trams.
When they were done they had a large open sided tent, the floor suspended above the root and insect infested ground and covered from the weather. The trams formed a walkable perimeter for the guards.
Once dinner was over and cleared away, supplies restowed, Erik’s group were more than happy to roll onto the trampoline-like floor of the tent and go to sleep.
The Doctor bounced his way happily over the resilient floor, knees bomping high with each step, until Amy yanked him down in embarrassment. She and Rory were in the center of the canvas, where it dipped the most.
“You’re acting like a child!” Amy hissed at the Doctor, feeling Erik’s sleepy, annoyed gaze on her from the outer edge of the canvas floor.
“This is ingenious!” the Doctor said enthusiastically, allowing himself to be pulled down. He looked around cheerfully at the trams, abutting each other at the corners, the tension keeping the canvases tight.
“This is night,” Rory said with weary resignation. “Are you going to sleep? Or just keep everyone awake?” he said with his infrequent, but effective, snark. He lay in the center of the resilient floor, one arm for a pillow, glaring at the Doctor.
“Yeah, yeah,” the Doctor said at that repressive look. “I think I’ll sleep for a bit.” He turned around and plopped down, his back to Amy, his arm crooked under his ear.
Amy sighed with relief and cuddled into Rory.
The guards, checking that everyone was settled, turned down the lanterns hanging from the poles, to better preserve their night vision.
Night birds chirped. Insects churred sleepily.
“Good night, Amy,” the Doctor said.
“Good night, Doctor,” Amy replied.
“Good night, Rory,” the Doctor said.
“Good night, Doctor,” Rory replied.
“Good night, Bill,” the Doctor called.
Amy winced.
“Good night, Doctor,” Bill called back cheerfully, from their other side. Amy could feel the floor bouncing slightly as she laughed silently.
“Good night, Jute.”
“Good night, Darvish.”
“Good night, Eldon.”
“Good night, Erik...”
“GOOD NIGHT, DOCTOR!” everyone yelled in unison.
The Doctor hummed happily and snuggled down.
Amy hid her face in Rory’s shoulder and laughed.
-----
The moon coasted softly across the sky, blue-tinged shadows slid across the forest floor. The night breeze sighed through the trees, lightly ruffling the tent roof. The guards paced, keeping a calm eye out.
They woke their replacements, careful not to wake the rest, and switched places.
The night passed.
-----
Amy woke to find a leopard-skin face staring into hers.
“AAAH!” she screamed and flailed out, the creature jumped backward, landing on the edge of one of the trams. Rory grunted awake beside her as she hyperventilated. The guards snapped around to stare, guns raised.
Bill started laughing.
The leopard-skin creature sat on the edge of the tram and stared at Amy with wide eyes. It was a trelwee. A baby one, no bigger than her forearm. Unlike the Trelwins and Trelwees in the north, this one was a dusky gold color with small black spots, like a leopard.
Nelda swung down under the roof canvas on one long arm and batted at the creature, shooing it out into the forest. Amy fell back onto the canvas and threw a hand over her eyes, still breathing fast. The guards all laughed.
Rory looked down at her with concern, “You okay?”
She pulled her arm down and scowled up at him, still breathing fast. “It was right in my face!” she said.
The Doctor grinned and bumped down into a crosslegged sitting position beside them, setting the trampoline floor bouncing. He patted her on the shoulder. “It would have startled anyone,” he said. But he didn’t stop grinning.
Jute grinned and tossed her a canteen, “I think she startled it more.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she grumbled at all the goodnatured laughter around her. Everyone was awake now.
The morning was slightly cool, but pleasant, the morning sun slanted in under the canopy through the trees. Everyone shuffled around and hopped down, taking care of morning business.
Darvish passed out jerky and pemmican bricks for breakfast, checking on each member of the teams.
Amy gnawed on her pemmican, it was tough as a hockey puck, but surprisingly tasty, a travel food made of grains, dried berries and dried meat, (she didn’t ask what kind). The Doctor was apparently enjoying his, from the way he was bouncing around from side to side as he chewed.
Breakfast over, everyone helped unlace and stow the canvases, rev up the trams and checked weapons. They set out.
It wasn’t long before they were floating out over a giant swamp. Large water lilies, some big enough to walk on, some as tiny as coins, dotted the water in a colorful blanket, large bucketsized flowers with tiny frogs in them dotted the conglomeration of lilies.
(She knew about the frogs because one of the trams had brushed against a flower and it had erupted with a cloud of dozens of tiny startled frogs. The Doctor had been so delighted, he started sonicing passing flowers just to see the frogs burst out, until Erik stopped him.)
Amy shook her head as she watched Erik stuffing the Doctor’s sonic back in his pocket.
She leaned back, her legs draped over the side of the tram, George drove, Bill stood guard behind her, weapon held at the ready. Rory was off in the next tram a little in front of them and to the right. He was driving, listening to instructions from one of the twins.
“Why a swamp?” Amy asked. She’d noticed that the swamp looked almost artificial. It was huge and wide and wild, but seemed to be about the same width as far as she could see, curving away in the distance.
Bill answered, “We think it was formed when the tree died,” she answered, nodding an acknowledgment to one of the guards in one of the other trams as her eyes kept scanning for danger. “Without the tree siphoning off the water, the natural water table collapsed, forming this swamp.”
Amy twisted and looked up at her. “It comes in handy,” Bill said, shrugging. “It forms a natural moat that helps keep a lot of the bigger animals away from the tree.”
“So it goes all the way around the tree?” Amy asked, shading her eyes against the sun.
Bill nodded.
“How do you know so much about it?” Amy asked.
Bill grinned down, that huge Valkyrie grin. “I spent a lot of time around here as a child. Got family here. This is where I learned I wanted to work safaris. Be out in the jungle, not just cooped up in a tree all my life.”
Amy could see that. The woman’s huge muscular arms gleamed in the sunlight. Gun held casually under one arm, eyes bright and alert.
Amy grinned and looked back out over the swamp. It was beautiful, morning sunlight gleaming off the water, iridescent dragonfly-like insects buzzing from ripple to ripple, tall, elegant white birds stepping delicately from lilly pad to lilly pad, occasionally dunking to grab a bright scaled fish.
She looked down at the water right next to the tram, and froze.
Two bulging, human looking eyes were staring up at her out of the water. Eyes just above the water’s surface, attached to a long, scaly, loglike body floating just beneath the surface. Her mouth went completely dry. The tram was only skimming two feet above the water. That long, alligator like body had to be fourteen feet long.
It watched her calmly. The eyes may have looked human, but the expression was pure flat reptile.
Very slowly, Amy pulled her feet up. The tram floated on by, those eyes casually following it. Amy gulped and started breathing again.
She swung her feet inside, scootching farther into the center to sit on the supply crates lining the edges of the tram. Bill had her gun trained on the idly swishing barklike tail that slowly propelled the alligator under their tram and away. “I told you to keep your feet inside,” she remarked without heat.
Amy squeaked and cleared her throat. “You didn’t say there were alligators!”
Bill gave her a disbelieving look. “It is a swamp.”
“Don’t worry,” George said from the steering bar, silently bouncing with laughter. He turned and grinned at her. “They only eat skinny, long-legged water birds.”
Amy glared at him. “Gee, thanks!”
-----
Darvish waved them all together in the center of the swamp. All the trams gathered around, the main current of the swamp flowed by underneath them, the main river channel, but the trams stayed in place.
Darvish raised his voice. “From here on we’re going to be taking the water routes!” he yelled to be heard over the water and wind. He pointed. Amy turned to see a break in the foliage, west of them, on the far edge of the swamp, where a river or stream exited.
“We’ll make better time, and won’t have to wait for the lasers to recharge. The stream takes us most of the way to the zone before it branches off. Keep together, but don’t crowd, the overhead should be light enough to not cause us any trouble.
“I want a laser fore and aft. Pointing outwards. With luck, this will shave us half a day off our travel time. We’re going into unfamiliar territory, so keep your eyes open. We’re relying on maps, and you all know how reliable that is.”
The hunters on both teams looked at each other and laughed.
Darvish grinned. He waved them down. “Pull out the recorders,” he said, nodding to each tram. “We may as well get as much data as we can while they’re still useful. Catalog anything you can identify as we pass, especially anything useful. Standard drill for new territory.”
The hunters absently nodded as they dug out recording and surveying equipment.
“I’ll go first,” Darvish pointed down to his own tram, with Pickles and Jute. “Then you, Erik,” he pointed to Erik’s tram, with the Doctor and Eldon, “Then George,” George and Amy and Bill’s tram, “Then Garon,” Garon and Rory and Eula.
“Anybody shout out if you see a snag or a problem. Let’s go.” He tapped Pickles on the shoulder and the quartermaster moved them smoothly out in front. The rest jockeyed for position and trailed after him.
Amy wished she’d brought a hat, the sun was getting fierce.
-----
Recorders were attached to the edges of the trams on each side, recording their passage as they slid into the river inlet and proceeded farther into the continent. Bill had on a headset, and would occasionally record notes as she recognized things, or tagged others for further examination.
The jungle was thick on both sides. The river was deep, going by the current, but not all that wide. Twenty or thirty feet across. Fortunately, the trees provided shade, but didn’t actually block out the sun, and they weren’t low enough for creepers or vines to be a problem.
It was actually sort of nice. It was warm, but a cool breeze kept the temperature at a comfortable level. It was almost quiet, in that “all the animals making noise, but not being noisy about it” way.
“I can see why you chose this life,” Amy said, looking up at Bill. The huntress looked down at her and grinned, then stopped and froze. She stared into the water, her gun pointing but otherwise still as a statue.
Her hand raised slowly to her ear and flipped the com channel on her headset. “Water snake,” she said softly into the mike.
Amy whipped around to look where she was staring. Her eyes went huge.
Below them, undulating through the clear green water, was a humongous snake. Its head was the size of a car, its body eight feet thick, she couldn’t see the end of it. If she’d been swimming, she could have swum right down this thing’s gullet and not even caused a bulge.
Her heart pattered fast and light, almost strangling her and leaving her light headed. Her head swiveled to follow it, hypnotized with fear.
It swam right under them, unconcerned, calm and indifferent. Its black hide rippling, distorted by the water. One black eye glinting as the huge flat head passed below them.
Everyone stared. No one moved. All four trams kept their speed. No one made any sudden motion, no one wanted to draw its attention. All the guns slowly tracked it as they all froze like mice.
“Fascinating.” Almost all of them. The Doctor leaned out over the edge of the tram. His shadow fell across the snake’s head as it passed beneath them. It glided along, the Doctor’s eyes absorbing the beauty of the ancient predator. He pulled out his sonic absentmindedly.
Erik saw and grabbed him by the coat tail to jerk him back. The Doctor fumbled, and accidentally blipped the sonic on.
The water exploded. Twenty feet of enraged serpent reared up over the boat. The tram tilted, bouncing off a coil, the Doctor fell backward, knocking into Erik, Erik’s gun, which he’d been aiming at the snake’s head, flew out of his hands and fell into the water.
“Doctor!” Amy screamed. The lead tram swiveled, trying to bring their laser to bear. The water frothed, knocking the trams around, spoiling everyone’s aim as the hunters stumbled and grabbed to right themselves. Rory’s tram was too far back to use its laser.
Eldon struggled to control Erik’s tram, prevent it from capsizing, and tried to speed away. The snake struck. The Doctor rolled, pushing Erik the other direction. The snake’s snout hit the floor, bouncing the tram in the water. The snake reared back with a hissing scream and glared, one black eye locked on the Doctor.
It struck again. Huge, meter long fangs, sprang out. The Doctor shot his hand up into the open mouth. The sonic shrieked as he jammed it into the huge forked tongue.
The snake screamed and lashed back, mouth snapping closed. The Doctor barely missing losing his hand.
The snake thrashed its head. Darvish finally got his tram’s laser to bear and ran a gash along the snake’s flank. The snake slammed back into the water. Gunfire followed it as it powered away. The hunters having finally gotten their balance.
“What the hell were you doing!” Erik’s roar could be heard over the yelling as everyone checked to be sure everyone was all right.
“I wasn’t going to use it. You grabbed me!” the Doctor protested.
Amy watched as Erik confiscated the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and shoved it into his own pocket. “That was my best gun,” Erik said in a slightly lower voice. It was easier to hear him by then. They’d maneuvered the trams all together in a flotilla. Everyone’s guns were pointing outward. Hyperaware and vigilant.
Amy glanced over at Rory in the next tram. He shrugged back, looking angry but worried.
The Doctor hunched his shoulders under the combined glares.
-----
Despite reservations, they kept to the river. Everyone was nervy, and on edge, but kept to the job. Amy found herself checking on all the others, making sure everyone was there and awake. She was surprised none of them had flaked out during the snake attack. It had seemed like the sort of thing that would trigger the “monster.”
She sighed in relief to see everyone was fine. But it took a long time before they relaxed enough to stretch the trams back out.
Lunch passed with more pemmican bars handed around. Rory learned how to use the survey cameras. The Doctor stayed sitting in his “time out” corner of his tram, unusually subdued, but allowing everyone to relax and forget his faux pas.
Finally, toward evening, Darvish waved them all to shore as the river turned east, and they took to land again. For a day spent doing nothing but sitting in a boat, Amy was unusually tired.
They made camp at the first glade they found, once far enough inland to feel safe from water snakes. The Trelwin rejoined them at the end of dinner. Dropping down into the camp like big, tricolored flies.
“Oh my god!” Amy exclaimed, sitting suddenly straight up. “I forgot all about them! How did they get here?” she asked.
The Doctor, beside her, still a bit subdued, set his tin plate aside and stood up. “They had their own way across the swamp.” He shrugged and looked down at her and Rory. “Arboreal creatures. Sometimes it’s faster to travel through the trees.” He shrugged again. “Zeke indicated they didn’t want to go on the trams with the alligators around.”
He scuffed a boot in the dirt, then went and scooped up three pemmican bars and joined the Trelwins.
“Is he going to be okay?” Rory asked worriedly, as he saw the subdued Doctor start hand speaking to the Trelwins as they ate.
“Yeah,” Amy said. She leaned into Rory’s shoulder. “He doesn’t like getting people almost killed. He’ll be okay.”
-----
A little after noon the next day the trams died. Amy hung on in surprise as the mine cart slowly drifted to the ground and landed with a thump. Bill tapped her headset, then took it off with a headshake.
All around them the other trams settled, and everyone piled out. They looked around, feeling a little disoriented. None of the electronics worked.
Darvish waved for everyone’s attention. He pulled out his huge, double-bladed ax. Amy hadn’t seen it off his back since they’d started out.
“We walk from here!” he yelled out. “Grab your gear. We’ve reached the Zone.”
Next Chapter
Previous Chapter
Websites Counter
Darvish braced his feet and spread out a map. The Doctor helped him hold down the corners that fluttered in the soft breeze of their passage. The tram slipped slowly through the newly cauterized tunnel.
“We’re here,” Darvish said, pointing to an area very near the large circle that indicated the mine. He dragged a finger along the map and tapped a point beyond the dotted red line that indicated the zone. “The crash lane ends here.” It was very near the center of the zone. The map, a satellite picture overlaid on a topographical map, showed the broken off tree limbs and sheered treetops of the crash lane. It looked like a gash in the foliage.
“Since you don’t know what you’re looking for specifically, we’ll head there first and hope we can find survivors. We’ll keep our eyes open along the way.” He started rolling up the map, a simple parchment coated in plastic to keep it dry, nothing electronic for the zone to disable.
“Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?” Darvish asked as he stowed the map under the driver’s seat where George steered them along, using a sort of fishing/sonar device to find the clearest route through the jungle foliage.
The Doctor shook his head. “No idea. I’ll know it when I see it.”
-----
They trundled along the forest, the lasers cutting a hole through any vines or saplings they couldn’t go around, leaving a patchwork tunnel in their wake.
The jungle here was more like forest. Birds twittered in the trees all around them, small mammals scuttled from branch to branch, and they saw occasional browsers, big deerlike animals, but differently patterned here than in the north.
Nelda, Zeke, and Chitchi paralleled them, swinging through the trees. Occasionally dropping down to perch on a corner of one of the trams if they got tired.
The first hour or so of the trip had been spent just getting organized. They’d divided up so that each group had one of the local hunters in it, and while they drove, the rest spent the time shuffling and redistributing supplies and equipment from the middle to the edges of the trams, giving them all more space to move. Always keeping one eye on the jungle for danger.
They made good time. They managed to travel a significant distance in the six hours before nightfall.
Finally, Darvish called a halt for the night, and they set up camp.
Unlike the safari they’d been on in the north, here, they didn’t waste time hunting or starting a fire. Erik presided over a self-contained grill and heated up small packaged steaks and vegetables from their supplies.
They weren’t on a safari, but a rescue mission.
Darvish and the Brothers circled the trams and pulled out two large canvases, weaving one onto the base of each of the trams and pulling it tight, forming a floor, and draping the other canvas over two bent flexible poles that were braced in brackets on opposite trams.
When they were done they had a large open sided tent, the floor suspended above the root and insect infested ground and covered from the weather. The trams formed a walkable perimeter for the guards.
Once dinner was over and cleared away, supplies restowed, Erik’s group were more than happy to roll onto the trampoline-like floor of the tent and go to sleep.
The Doctor bounced his way happily over the resilient floor, knees bomping high with each step, until Amy yanked him down in embarrassment. She and Rory were in the center of the canvas, where it dipped the most.
“You’re acting like a child!” Amy hissed at the Doctor, feeling Erik’s sleepy, annoyed gaze on her from the outer edge of the canvas floor.
“This is ingenious!” the Doctor said enthusiastically, allowing himself to be pulled down. He looked around cheerfully at the trams, abutting each other at the corners, the tension keeping the canvases tight.
“This is night,” Rory said with weary resignation. “Are you going to sleep? Or just keep everyone awake?” he said with his infrequent, but effective, snark. He lay in the center of the resilient floor, one arm for a pillow, glaring at the Doctor.
“Yeah, yeah,” the Doctor said at that repressive look. “I think I’ll sleep for a bit.” He turned around and plopped down, his back to Amy, his arm crooked under his ear.
Amy sighed with relief and cuddled into Rory.
The guards, checking that everyone was settled, turned down the lanterns hanging from the poles, to better preserve their night vision.
Night birds chirped. Insects churred sleepily.
“Good night, Amy,” the Doctor said.
“Good night, Doctor,” Amy replied.
“Good night, Rory,” the Doctor said.
“Good night, Doctor,” Rory replied.
“Good night, Bill,” the Doctor called.
Amy winced.
“Good night, Doctor,” Bill called back cheerfully, from their other side. Amy could feel the floor bouncing slightly as she laughed silently.
“Good night, Jute.”
“Good night, Darvish.”
“Good night, Eldon.”
“Good night, Erik...”
“GOOD NIGHT, DOCTOR!” everyone yelled in unison.
The Doctor hummed happily and snuggled down.
Amy hid her face in Rory’s shoulder and laughed.
-----
The moon coasted softly across the sky, blue-tinged shadows slid across the forest floor. The night breeze sighed through the trees, lightly ruffling the tent roof. The guards paced, keeping a calm eye out.
They woke their replacements, careful not to wake the rest, and switched places.
The night passed.
-----
Amy woke to find a leopard-skin face staring into hers.
“AAAH!” she screamed and flailed out, the creature jumped backward, landing on the edge of one of the trams. Rory grunted awake beside her as she hyperventilated. The guards snapped around to stare, guns raised.
Bill started laughing.
The leopard-skin creature sat on the edge of the tram and stared at Amy with wide eyes. It was a trelwee. A baby one, no bigger than her forearm. Unlike the Trelwins and Trelwees in the north, this one was a dusky gold color with small black spots, like a leopard.
Nelda swung down under the roof canvas on one long arm and batted at the creature, shooing it out into the forest. Amy fell back onto the canvas and threw a hand over her eyes, still breathing fast. The guards all laughed.
Rory looked down at her with concern, “You okay?”
She pulled her arm down and scowled up at him, still breathing fast. “It was right in my face!” she said.
The Doctor grinned and bumped down into a crosslegged sitting position beside them, setting the trampoline floor bouncing. He patted her on the shoulder. “It would have startled anyone,” he said. But he didn’t stop grinning.
Jute grinned and tossed her a canteen, “I think she startled it more.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she grumbled at all the goodnatured laughter around her. Everyone was awake now.
The morning was slightly cool, but pleasant, the morning sun slanted in under the canopy through the trees. Everyone shuffled around and hopped down, taking care of morning business.
Darvish passed out jerky and pemmican bricks for breakfast, checking on each member of the teams.
Amy gnawed on her pemmican, it was tough as a hockey puck, but surprisingly tasty, a travel food made of grains, dried berries and dried meat, (she didn’t ask what kind). The Doctor was apparently enjoying his, from the way he was bouncing around from side to side as he chewed.
Breakfast over, everyone helped unlace and stow the canvases, rev up the trams and checked weapons. They set out.
It wasn’t long before they were floating out over a giant swamp. Large water lilies, some big enough to walk on, some as tiny as coins, dotted the water in a colorful blanket, large bucketsized flowers with tiny frogs in them dotted the conglomeration of lilies.
(She knew about the frogs because one of the trams had brushed against a flower and it had erupted with a cloud of dozens of tiny startled frogs. The Doctor had been so delighted, he started sonicing passing flowers just to see the frogs burst out, until Erik stopped him.)
Amy shook her head as she watched Erik stuffing the Doctor’s sonic back in his pocket.
She leaned back, her legs draped over the side of the tram, George drove, Bill stood guard behind her, weapon held at the ready. Rory was off in the next tram a little in front of them and to the right. He was driving, listening to instructions from one of the twins.
“Why a swamp?” Amy asked. She’d noticed that the swamp looked almost artificial. It was huge and wide and wild, but seemed to be about the same width as far as she could see, curving away in the distance.
Bill answered, “We think it was formed when the tree died,” she answered, nodding an acknowledgment to one of the guards in one of the other trams as her eyes kept scanning for danger. “Without the tree siphoning off the water, the natural water table collapsed, forming this swamp.”
Amy twisted and looked up at her. “It comes in handy,” Bill said, shrugging. “It forms a natural moat that helps keep a lot of the bigger animals away from the tree.”
“So it goes all the way around the tree?” Amy asked, shading her eyes against the sun.
Bill nodded.
“How do you know so much about it?” Amy asked.
Bill grinned down, that huge Valkyrie grin. “I spent a lot of time around here as a child. Got family here. This is where I learned I wanted to work safaris. Be out in the jungle, not just cooped up in a tree all my life.”
Amy could see that. The woman’s huge muscular arms gleamed in the sunlight. Gun held casually under one arm, eyes bright and alert.
Amy grinned and looked back out over the swamp. It was beautiful, morning sunlight gleaming off the water, iridescent dragonfly-like insects buzzing from ripple to ripple, tall, elegant white birds stepping delicately from lilly pad to lilly pad, occasionally dunking to grab a bright scaled fish.
She looked down at the water right next to the tram, and froze.
Two bulging, human looking eyes were staring up at her out of the water. Eyes just above the water’s surface, attached to a long, scaly, loglike body floating just beneath the surface. Her mouth went completely dry. The tram was only skimming two feet above the water. That long, alligator like body had to be fourteen feet long.
It watched her calmly. The eyes may have looked human, but the expression was pure flat reptile.
Very slowly, Amy pulled her feet up. The tram floated on by, those eyes casually following it. Amy gulped and started breathing again.
She swung her feet inside, scootching farther into the center to sit on the supply crates lining the edges of the tram. Bill had her gun trained on the idly swishing barklike tail that slowly propelled the alligator under their tram and away. “I told you to keep your feet inside,” she remarked without heat.
Amy squeaked and cleared her throat. “You didn’t say there were alligators!”
Bill gave her a disbelieving look. “It is a swamp.”
“Don’t worry,” George said from the steering bar, silently bouncing with laughter. He turned and grinned at her. “They only eat skinny, long-legged water birds.”
Amy glared at him. “Gee, thanks!”
-----
Darvish waved them all together in the center of the swamp. All the trams gathered around, the main current of the swamp flowed by underneath them, the main river channel, but the trams stayed in place.
Darvish raised his voice. “From here on we’re going to be taking the water routes!” he yelled to be heard over the water and wind. He pointed. Amy turned to see a break in the foliage, west of them, on the far edge of the swamp, where a river or stream exited.
“We’ll make better time, and won’t have to wait for the lasers to recharge. The stream takes us most of the way to the zone before it branches off. Keep together, but don’t crowd, the overhead should be light enough to not cause us any trouble.
“I want a laser fore and aft. Pointing outwards. With luck, this will shave us half a day off our travel time. We’re going into unfamiliar territory, so keep your eyes open. We’re relying on maps, and you all know how reliable that is.”
The hunters on both teams looked at each other and laughed.
Darvish grinned. He waved them down. “Pull out the recorders,” he said, nodding to each tram. “We may as well get as much data as we can while they’re still useful. Catalog anything you can identify as we pass, especially anything useful. Standard drill for new territory.”
The hunters absently nodded as they dug out recording and surveying equipment.
“I’ll go first,” Darvish pointed down to his own tram, with Pickles and Jute. “Then you, Erik,” he pointed to Erik’s tram, with the Doctor and Eldon, “Then George,” George and Amy and Bill’s tram, “Then Garon,” Garon and Rory and Eula.
“Anybody shout out if you see a snag or a problem. Let’s go.” He tapped Pickles on the shoulder and the quartermaster moved them smoothly out in front. The rest jockeyed for position and trailed after him.
Amy wished she’d brought a hat, the sun was getting fierce.
-----
Recorders were attached to the edges of the trams on each side, recording their passage as they slid into the river inlet and proceeded farther into the continent. Bill had on a headset, and would occasionally record notes as she recognized things, or tagged others for further examination.
The jungle was thick on both sides. The river was deep, going by the current, but not all that wide. Twenty or thirty feet across. Fortunately, the trees provided shade, but didn’t actually block out the sun, and they weren’t low enough for creepers or vines to be a problem.
It was actually sort of nice. It was warm, but a cool breeze kept the temperature at a comfortable level. It was almost quiet, in that “all the animals making noise, but not being noisy about it” way.
“I can see why you chose this life,” Amy said, looking up at Bill. The huntress looked down at her and grinned, then stopped and froze. She stared into the water, her gun pointing but otherwise still as a statue.
Her hand raised slowly to her ear and flipped the com channel on her headset. “Water snake,” she said softly into the mike.
Amy whipped around to look where she was staring. Her eyes went huge.
Below them, undulating through the clear green water, was a humongous snake. Its head was the size of a car, its body eight feet thick, she couldn’t see the end of it. If she’d been swimming, she could have swum right down this thing’s gullet and not even caused a bulge.
Her heart pattered fast and light, almost strangling her and leaving her light headed. Her head swiveled to follow it, hypnotized with fear.
It swam right under them, unconcerned, calm and indifferent. Its black hide rippling, distorted by the water. One black eye glinting as the huge flat head passed below them.
Everyone stared. No one moved. All four trams kept their speed. No one made any sudden motion, no one wanted to draw its attention. All the guns slowly tracked it as they all froze like mice.
“Fascinating.” Almost all of them. The Doctor leaned out over the edge of the tram. His shadow fell across the snake’s head as it passed beneath them. It glided along, the Doctor’s eyes absorbing the beauty of the ancient predator. He pulled out his sonic absentmindedly.
Erik saw and grabbed him by the coat tail to jerk him back. The Doctor fumbled, and accidentally blipped the sonic on.
The water exploded. Twenty feet of enraged serpent reared up over the boat. The tram tilted, bouncing off a coil, the Doctor fell backward, knocking into Erik, Erik’s gun, which he’d been aiming at the snake’s head, flew out of his hands and fell into the water.
“Doctor!” Amy screamed. The lead tram swiveled, trying to bring their laser to bear. The water frothed, knocking the trams around, spoiling everyone’s aim as the hunters stumbled and grabbed to right themselves. Rory’s tram was too far back to use its laser.
Eldon struggled to control Erik’s tram, prevent it from capsizing, and tried to speed away. The snake struck. The Doctor rolled, pushing Erik the other direction. The snake’s snout hit the floor, bouncing the tram in the water. The snake reared back with a hissing scream and glared, one black eye locked on the Doctor.
It struck again. Huge, meter long fangs, sprang out. The Doctor shot his hand up into the open mouth. The sonic shrieked as he jammed it into the huge forked tongue.
The snake screamed and lashed back, mouth snapping closed. The Doctor barely missing losing his hand.
The snake thrashed its head. Darvish finally got his tram’s laser to bear and ran a gash along the snake’s flank. The snake slammed back into the water. Gunfire followed it as it powered away. The hunters having finally gotten their balance.
“What the hell were you doing!” Erik’s roar could be heard over the yelling as everyone checked to be sure everyone was all right.
“I wasn’t going to use it. You grabbed me!” the Doctor protested.
Amy watched as Erik confiscated the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and shoved it into his own pocket. “That was my best gun,” Erik said in a slightly lower voice. It was easier to hear him by then. They’d maneuvered the trams all together in a flotilla. Everyone’s guns were pointing outward. Hyperaware and vigilant.
Amy glanced over at Rory in the next tram. He shrugged back, looking angry but worried.
The Doctor hunched his shoulders under the combined glares.
-----
Despite reservations, they kept to the river. Everyone was nervy, and on edge, but kept to the job. Amy found herself checking on all the others, making sure everyone was there and awake. She was surprised none of them had flaked out during the snake attack. It had seemed like the sort of thing that would trigger the “monster.”
She sighed in relief to see everyone was fine. But it took a long time before they relaxed enough to stretch the trams back out.
Lunch passed with more pemmican bars handed around. Rory learned how to use the survey cameras. The Doctor stayed sitting in his “time out” corner of his tram, unusually subdued, but allowing everyone to relax and forget his faux pas.
Finally, toward evening, Darvish waved them all to shore as the river turned east, and they took to land again. For a day spent doing nothing but sitting in a boat, Amy was unusually tired.
They made camp at the first glade they found, once far enough inland to feel safe from water snakes. The Trelwin rejoined them at the end of dinner. Dropping down into the camp like big, tricolored flies.
“Oh my god!” Amy exclaimed, sitting suddenly straight up. “I forgot all about them! How did they get here?” she asked.
The Doctor, beside her, still a bit subdued, set his tin plate aside and stood up. “They had their own way across the swamp.” He shrugged and looked down at her and Rory. “Arboreal creatures. Sometimes it’s faster to travel through the trees.” He shrugged again. “Zeke indicated they didn’t want to go on the trams with the alligators around.”
He scuffed a boot in the dirt, then went and scooped up three pemmican bars and joined the Trelwins.
“Is he going to be okay?” Rory asked worriedly, as he saw the subdued Doctor start hand speaking to the Trelwins as they ate.
“Yeah,” Amy said. She leaned into Rory’s shoulder. “He doesn’t like getting people almost killed. He’ll be okay.”
-----
A little after noon the next day the trams died. Amy hung on in surprise as the mine cart slowly drifted to the ground and landed with a thump. Bill tapped her headset, then took it off with a headshake.
All around them the other trams settled, and everyone piled out. They looked around, feeling a little disoriented. None of the electronics worked.
Darvish waved for everyone’s attention. He pulled out his huge, double-bladed ax. Amy hadn’t seen it off his back since they’d started out.
“We walk from here!” he yelled out. “Grab your gear. We’ve reached the Zone.”
Next Chapter
Previous Chapter
Websites Counter