The Battle for WondLa Page 5

  It was hard for Eva to conceal her smile at Hailey’s earnest effort to make amends. “Come on. Let’s go see if the ship’s transmitter is working,” she said.

  They continued on through the hold, their silence broken by occasional chirps from the knifejacks.

  Rest. Watch. Rest, Eva heard them say.

  “I know you are worried about Loroc finding you.” Hailey spoke softly as they climbed through the galley. “But going to the ruins? I can think of a lot of safer places to hide until this battle is over.”

  “You’re right. Trust me, it is the last place I really want to go.”

  “So why go? What’s there?” He yanked the door to the cockpit partially open. In the hold the new inhabitants chittered at the disruption.

  Eva thrust the smudge stick through the opened door to allow the smoke to waft up. The knifejacks did not move from their roost. Hailey pushed the door completely open, and Eva followed him into the cockpit. Though tilted sideways, the cockpit was devoid of any large debris. An acrid odor burned Eva’s eyes and nose.

  “Eww! What is that?” Hailey fanned his face with his hand.

  Eva looked up. A large congregation of knifejacks were huddled in the top of the cockpit, next to the opening of the loose windshield. “It’s guano.” She waved the smudge stick around in an effort to burn off the pungent smell, but it had no effect. They stumbled from the cockpit and into the galley, gasping for air.

  “I’m going back in.” Hailey took a deep breath and stomped back into the cockpit. With his nose buried in the crook of his arm, Hailey frantically inspected the flight controls. He flipped switches repeatedly and banged on buttons. Finally he staggered back out.

  “It’s . . . no good.” He coughed. “The transmitter’s all gummed up with guano.” He kicked one of the food dispensers. A heap of Sustibars spilled out from it.

  “Is there any other place your spare Omnipod could be?”

  “I looked everywhere.” Hailey gestured toward the trashed hold of the ship. “I dunno where it is.”

  “I’m sorry. But we can’t stay here much longer.” Eva stood to leave. “There are things in the forest—”

  “Hunting for you. I know. I know. You don’t think they’ll find you at the ruins?” He knelt down next to the broken dispenser and began filling his pockets with Sustibars.

  Eva dropped her voice to a low whisper. “I think Zin is hiding at the ruins.”

  “Zin? Who is Zin?”

  Eva shushed him. “He’s Loroc’s brother. He works in the museum for Queen Ojo.”

  “Why do you want to find him?” Hailey scooted to the next dispenser and emptied it.

  “Keep your voice down! If anyone can stop Loroc, it’s Zin. He’s really smart, like Cadmus.”

  “Great. Let’s flee from one evil genius into the clutches of another,” said Hailey.

  “I think Zin would stop Loroc if he knew the truth.” Eva began to climb back down into the hold.

  “Do you trust him?”

  “I don’t know that I have much of a choice.” She stopped in the middle of the hold. She remembered the first time she had set foot on this ship, giddy from the opportunity that it held. Eva remembered brave Huxley bidding her farewell and giving his life to save hers. “I want us to return to our families, and I want this conflict to end. Cadmus must be stopped and so must Loroc. I thought Arius could help, but she’s gone. Zin is the only hope we have.”

  “Hope is a dangerous thing.” Hailey peered up at the wreckage that had once been his ship. “I’ve seen firsthand what it’s done to the people at the Toiler’s camp. People who hoped to live a fruitful life in the forest, far from New Attica, and found out the hard way that it can’t be done.”

  “Hope is all I’ve got,” Eva said, and exited the ship.

  CHAPTER 8: WHISPERS

  A turnfin squawked down to Eva as she hopped from the Bijou’s hatch. She stepped out into the abandoned camp and looked up. From the overcast sky above a lone turnfin fluttered down and landed on a crate. Hailey’s head poked out from the hatch.

  “Make sure Caruncle is not around,” Eva whispered to him. “And hand me one of those Sustibars.” Hailey tossed a bar to her and set off to find Caruncle. Eva unwrapped the bar and crumbled it up in her hands. While feeding the turnfin, she asked, “Did you find them?”

  I traveled to the Heart. I sang to others who have seen them.

  “And they are okay?”

  Your blue father and his clan are safe in their nests.

  “And the ones who live on the big lake?”

  The fish-eaters now roost with your father’s clan.

  “Thank you.” Eva stroked the bird’s feathered head. The turnfin gobbled down the last of the Sustibar and flapped up to join the others circling overhead.

  “Did you nab-catch a thief?” Caruncle asked.

  Eva turned to see him round the nose of the Bijou. He ambled toward her holding the reins of his two munt-runners.

  She smiled. “Naw, just a curious visitor.”

  “Your lost-missing Seeing Eye? That is probably who stole-took it.” Caruncle pointed to the roosting turnfins. “They crave-like shiny objects to decorate their nests.”

  “Maybe.” Eva looked up. Though her vantage point was low, she saw no nests on top of the wreck.

  “Eva, I couldn’t find—” Hailey came around the tail fin of the ship and gave a startled look at Caruncle. “I couldn’t . . . uh, find . . . my Omnipod, after all. . . . Yeah . . . so . . . no Omnipod.”

  “Caruncle thinks maybe a turnfin took it,” Eva said, pointing to the birds.

  “Turnfins, huh?” Hailey put his hands on his hips. He focused his gaze up to the sky and squinted as if he saw something far above them.

  Caruncle eyed them both for a beat as he fed the munt-runners. “Those turnyfins are sneaky. You cannot turn your back on them for a moment-second.” He handed the reins to Hailey. “Hold this.” From his hoversloop Caruncle pulled out a large curved wooden beam—a yoke—and unbuckled the straps. “Eva, can-will you help?”

  “Sure.” She held the other end of the yoke while Caruncle fitted it over the head of each munt-runner. “So,” Eva said. “Given any more thought to my proposition?”

  Caruncle hitched up the munt-runners to a pole projecting from the front of his hoversloop. “I will-shall take you to the ruins.”

  “Thank you,” Eva said, grinning.

  “However.” Caruncle wagged his finger. “You-humans feed yourselves and find your own drink.”

  “Deal,” said Eva.

  “Fine with me.” Hailey tore open a Sustibar wrapper.

  “Fine-good,” said Caruncle. “Then we have an understanding. Let us break camp. After I load up my stuff-things, you can add your belongings. Then we leave-go.”

  The late-morning sun burned away the low-lying bands of clouds to reveal the Rings of Orbona. Sitting next to Caruncle in the front seat of the hoversloop, Eva watched the crackled plains of the salt flats roll past.

  “We shall-will continue south, along the edge of the moving forest.” Caruncle steered his munt-runner team in the direction he was indicating. “By nightfall we should arrive at Hiyao’s Hook.”

  “Hiyao’s Hook?” Eva asked.

  “Yes. Named after the famed storyteller who travel-journeyed here during the Great Migration. See how the forest point-juts out and stretches to the east toward the mountains?” Caruncle waved his pipe stem at the horizon. “If you were to look-gaze at it from above, or with a beamguide, you would see it forms a hook—Hiyao’s Hook.”

  Eva closed her eyes and listened to the forest. She could feel the ebb and flow of energy . . . and the presence of intruders, but they were now far behind. She let out a long exhale and watched the turnfins riding the wind currents alongside them.

  Caruncle lit the three bowls of his pipe while his second pair of hands held the reins. “So are you ready to tell Caruncle why we are traveling to the ruins?”

  “Not yet. B
ut I’ll let you know when we arrive.” Eva glanced back at the shaded end of the covered sloop where Hailey was. The pilot lay on top of a large crate. A low snore crept out from the cap pulled over his face.

  “Very well.” Caruncle sucked on his pipe. “In the meantime perhaps you’ll tell me what this is.” He pulled several folded yellowed sheets of paper from his pocket. On the water-stained pages were printed words. “I discover-found a hinged box full of these. Some were loose. Some were not.”

  Eva took the pages and unfolded them. The words did not light up or scroll like on the electrapaper she was familiar with. “These are pages from a book. An old book.”

  “A book?”

  “Yes.” Eva read through the words. “It’s like a story that once happened. See here: it is talking about a city named Phyllis and how it is beautiful when you first arrive but becomes faded and boring after you live there awhile.”

  “So it is a history?”

  Eva shrugged her shoulders and handed the pages back to Caruncle. “It could also just be made up. Fiction.”

  “What is ‘fiction’?” Caruncle looked over at her.

  “A fairy tale. You know . . . like ‘Once upon a time’ and ‘They lived happily ever after’? That sort of thing.” Eva’s coveted WondLa drifted into her thoughts.

  “Our kind only write-records true accounts of what has happened so that we can remember. These accounts are written continuously with no end—but you say that your fictions end. Do they always end the same?” Caruncle exhaled a series of smoke rings.

  “Yes. No matter how many times you read them, fairy tales always end the same. They’re not like real life.” Eva didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

  “They are like a fortune. Fate.” Caruncle watched the horizon pass by.

  “No. Not like fate.” Eva crossed her arms.

  “It is the same story-sequence every time you view the symbols on these pages, correct?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “A predetermined record of events that always ends the same is fate, if you ask me-Caruncle.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Eva looked away toward the mountains.

  “Of course you do not. But perhaps someone does and has written-recorded it unbeknownst to you. Besides, your ending has yet to arrive.”

  They continued on through the afternoon and arrived at Hiyao’s Hook shortly after nightfall. Eva balled up her poncho to make a pillow and stretched out on a blanket next to the campfire. Dark shadows danced around the firelight, concealing the noisy nocturnal denizens of the forest. The proximity to the woods relaxed Eva. Grogginess caused by the long day of travel soon began to overtake her.

  “You know,” Hailey said, looking up at the waning moon in the star-speckled sky. “It really is beautiful out here at night.”

  “It sure is.” Eva stretched and pulled off her sneakboots and socks. She wriggled her toes in the warmth of the fire.

  “I’d appreciate it a lot more if everything weren’t trying to devour me.” With his hands folded behind his head, Hailey lay back on his blanket.

  “It is a test-game of survival out here in the wild.” Caruncle set a large scorched pot on the fire.

  “Yeah, a game I don’t really want to play anymore,” Hailey said.

  Caruncle chuckled. “You have no choice. You begin-start this game the moment you are hatched. It does not matter if you are human or otherwise. We all play this game.” He waddled over to his hoversloop and unhooked the cage holding the knifejacks. The creatures within chittered and flapped their wings. Eva tried to block out their fear.

  Caruncle lit his smudge stick and blew the smoke into the knifejack’s cage. He reached in and pulled out one of the creatures. “Life is hard and painful for all, even for the fierce knifejack. Look-see here.” Caruncle grasped one of the knifejack’s squirming legs. Slowly he twisted the leg backward in its socket. The creature hissed and nipped at Caruncle’s hand.

  Eva squirmed, feeling the knifejack’s pain, and tried to look away.

  With one swift movement Caruncle pulled the leg from the socket and tossed it into the pot of boiling water.

  “Come on!” Hailey cried. “That’s cruel.”

  “Ah, but you-human see? The knifejack is still-remains very much alive. If I let it go”—Caruncle released the knifejack, and it fluttered off into the night—“it will carry a reminder-scar, but it will be smarter. Perhaps it will-shall avoid smoke from a smudge stick. Perhaps it will-shall avoid Caruncle. Perhaps it will-shall survive.”

  “Perhaps it will just get eaten by something else.” Hailey lay back down.

  Caruncle seized another knifejack from the cage and bound its wings with twine. He dropped it into the steaming pot. “We all must do what we can to survive.”

  “For what?” Hailey said. “In the end we all are going to die.”

  “True.” Caruncle poked at the boiling knifejack. “No matter what we did yesterday, do here-now, or do tomorrow, we are all destined for death. It is our fate.” He looked over at Eva.

  “But our knowledge, the things we learn, can carry on in others after we are gone,” Eva said. “The toil of this journey, our journey, is the map for those who will follow.”

  “Well said-spoken.” Caruncle continued preparing his meal.

  “That was deep. You sound like Rovender.” Hailey nudged Eva with his foot in a playful manner.

  She shrugged him off. Her mind was occupied with memories of Rovender describing death at the skeleton of the air-whale. She recalled Muthr holding Eva close and rocking her to sleep back in the Sanctuary. She could almost hear Muthr’s voice whisper, I love you, Eva dear. Eva replayed that memory over and over until she drifted off into sleep.

  “Eva, wake up,” Hailey whispered.

  Eva’s eyes fluttered open to find him huddled close and patting her arm. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Shhh.” He put a finger to his lips. “Caruncle says there is someone out there.” Hailey gestured toward the flats from which they’d traveled. “We need to hide. Fast.”

  Eva sat up and grabbed her shoes. While she quickly pulled them on, she listened to the forest. Many of its inhabitants had stopped chirping and singing. “I am sensing that there is another being nearby. It’s not from the wood.” Her eyes grew wide with fear. She scanned the darkness but saw nothing.

  “Caruncle has gone to investigate.” Hailey helped Eva to her feet. “So now is our chance to go.”

  Eva and Hailey stole away from their camp into the gloom of the forest. They found a hiding spot behind the large corrugated leaves of a giant liverwort.

  “Let’s stay here until the coast is clear,” Hailey whispered.

  “No.” Eva pulled the hood of her poncho up. “I wanna see who it is.”

  “But what if it’s that Loroc guy?” There was concern in Hailey’s voice.

  “I don’t think it is.” Eva crept through the wood. Moving through the shadows, like a floatazoan hiding in the brush, they circled the camp and came to rest alongside a large wandering tree. As quietly as possible Eva pulled herself up onto the thick branches and climbed to the topmost bough.

  Hailey joined her. “See anything?”

  “Not yet,” she whispered. “Keep low if you can.”

  Hailey peered up into the cloudy sky. “Did you hear that?”

  “No,” answered Eva. “Is it a ship?”

  “It sounded like engines. Big engines, like a warship . . .” Hailey turned his head as if to hear it better.

  “I know you are out there!” Caruncle shouted from beyond the forest. “I am armed but do not wish-desire to cause harm. Show-reveal yourself!” A breeze blew in from the flats, carrying the hum of Caruncle’s charging boomrod.

  Eva and Hailey peered over the edge of the hardened leafy formations of the tree. Caruncle stood a ways from the camp, his back dimly lit by their dying fire. The vast plain was soaked in inky blackness beyond Caruncle’s long shadow.

  “What’s t
hat?” Hailey pointed north of the camp. A burly creature crept from the forest on three pairs of muscular legs. Even in the dim light it was apparent that it was much larger than Caruncle. Its spotted hairy hide bristled as it approached the junk dealer, while its clawed hands held a charged boomrod. This was an alien Eva knew all too well.

  It can’t be. It’s not possible.

  Besteel.

  CHAPTER 9: HUNTER

  Eva’s breathing hastened. Her heart began to pound in her chest.

  “What?” Hailey’s voice rose. “Who is that, Eva? Is it Loroc?”

  “The sand-sniper ate him. I saw it,” Eva mumbled to herself. She began fidgeting with her braids. “I . . . I saw his bones.” Was it possible that Besteel had somehow come back from death? Rovender did say death was some sort of journey. Could one simply turn around and return?

  “Look! Something’s going down!” Hailey pointed toward Caruncle. Eva stayed hidden within the leaves of the tree.

  “Nothing you seek is here. So you best move on!” Caruncle’s voice echoed over the landscape. He fired a warning shot from his boomrod into the midnight sky.

  “Whoa! Creepy,” Hailey said to Eva. “The other guy has a glowing eye.”

  “A glowing eye? Are you sure?” Eva’s pulse slowed for an instant.

  “Yeah, I’m sure ’cause he looked right this way,” Hailey said.

  Perhaps it is just another Dorcean—the same species as Besteel? Eva scooted back up to catch a glimpse of the Dorcean stranger slinking away into the forest. Caruncle watched him retreat before returning to his hoversloop.

  “Wha—” Hailey’s body slid off his perch. “Something has me! Help!” He gripped the edge of a large leaf.

  “Shh!” Eva slid over to grab his hand. But she wasn’t quick enough. Hailey was lifted from his hiding place and hauled upside down by leafy tendrils that were wrapped tight around his leg. The tendrils carried him to a crown of fronds on a tall tree with bright fruit at its center—a weeping bird-catcher.