Apostle of the Terrians (1/4)
by Simon Kattenhorn
Chapter One
"Didididididididididididi."
The mélange of tens of Terrian trilling voices filled the cavern and echoed back from all directions in a crescendo of mournful sound. Only moments before, the cavern walls displayed dancing silhouettes of the congregated Terrians, like disfigured night shadows issued by swaying tree branches in the light of twin moons. Except the shadows on the cavern wall were backlit by the slowly-fading glow of numerous lines of orange rock that split the otherwise featureless limestone in an erratic lattice of pulsing veins. The lifeblood of this place that fed an energy of sorts into the surroundings. It was life itself. A womb of unimaginable beauty and power.
Fertility had come and gone in this place. The veins of rock had faded from fiery orange, to burned umber, to autumn brown, to black. The shadows danced no longer, and the Terrians filed out of the chamber in subdued silence. This place had become death. It was a concept that this species recognized but could not comprehend. For them, existence was mother. Mother, the planet. The planet that was them. They who were life. The cycle of life that began with the planet and ended with the planet, there to begin again.
For a part of the self to be ripped away was to be enveloped in pain. Confusion. It did not fit in the cycle. It refused to make itself understood and rendered no purpose. And mother could do nothing but cry out in a sad chorus of confused voices.
"Didididididididididididi."
This place was gone now. A hole in the fabric of their existence. It was time to leave it forever. Death could never be nurtured. Death did not belong.
***
"I don't understand. Why won't you tell me?" Uly glared at the Terrian with a scowl that gave no pretense as to how aggravating this was becoming.
The Terrian stared back with the same expression as ever. It bothered Uly sometimes that these creatures seemed incapable of emotion. Well, on their faces at least. Faces were always a good indicator of emotion. Uly had come to recognize the expressions that warned to steer clear of True when she was in one of her moods. The harsh looks that meant a stern reprimand was about to be issued forth by his mother. The gripping stare from Yale that told of his dissatisfaction at Uly's short attention span during daily instruction. But the Terrians- 'well getting a sign of emotion from one of them is as likely as Bess leaving Morgan to marry a Grendler', Uly thought to himself.
Uly sighed and stared down at the white sand once again. The glare from the bright grains of silica hurt his eyes and he had difficulty focusing on the task at hand. The grains of sand seeped through his fingers as he pushed into the loose surface, but as before, he met with the ungiving resistance that nature dictated when matter attempted to displace matter.
The Terrian looked on patiently and gestured to Uly again, as if the mere act of pointing to Uly's hand resting on the sand were enough to precipitate something more than Uly's extreme dissatisfaction.
"Nothing happens!" Uly cried at the creature. It responded with the same patient gesture towards Uly's hand.
Digging his hand deeply into the loose sand, Uly scooped up a handful and flung it up into the air, allowing it to rain down on him, filling his hair and dusting his face. He let out a giggle and threw two additional handfuls into the air as he danced around in the rain of sparkling white sand grains.
"Why do we always have to train so hard? Don't you know how to have fun?"
The Terrian cocked his head to one side and let out a quick trill. As usual, Uly's mind somehow translated a meaning out of the cry, which fell upon him in the usual combination of audible sound and telepathic imagery.
'Dididididididi. #Motion. You understand now#.'
Uly stopped his dance and stared at the Terrian inquisitively. The remaining particles of sand drifted to the ground around him.
"What do you mean?" Uly asked with another frown. "Understand what?"
The Terrian continued to communicate with the young boy in a sequence of rapid trilling.
'Dididididididi. #The motion through the air and ground#. Didididididididididi. #The ground is the air. The air is the ground#.'
Uly contemplated the meaning of the Terrian's thoughts. He wondered to himself why Terrians always had to talk in riddles. At first he enjoyed the game it seemed to be, but it soon lost its appeal. The Terrians didn't seem to know how to stop playing this particular game. They were as annoying as True sometimes. Uly silently wondered if maybe all Terrians he spoke with were actually girl Terrians. Maybe that was why they often didn't make sense.
"The ground is the air." Uly stared up into the sky as he repeated the Terrian's words. The white sun beat down on him and bleached the surroundings of all color. Only the Terrian maintained the same leathery brown appearance. He stood there before Uly, gesturing to the sky with one hand and the sand with the other.
'Didididididididi. #The motion is the same#.'
The Terrian spun around in the air with his arms thrown outwards from his body, similarly to Uly's dance in the rain of sand only a few moments before. Uly laughed at that. He had never seen a Terrian dance before. Maybe they *did* know how to play after all. But it seemed completely out of character somehow. The only thing that would have been more unusual than this particular spectacle is if the Terrian had begun laughing and giggling as he continued to spin round. Instead, the Terrian's face was as expressionless as ever, and with a final spin or two, he descended into the sand which closed up behind him, leaving no trace of his passage.
"The motion is the same," said Uly as he drifted out of the realm of the Dream Plane and back to the realm of his and his mother's tent on the surface of G889. He sat up in his bunk and concentrated on the Terrian's final words so he'd be able to remember them all day and contemplate their meaning further. He was sure they were important somehow.
***
"Morgan, I'm leaving now."
"Uh-huh." Morgan pulled the pillow further over his head and attempted to focus again on the dream he was having about the official re-christening of New Pacifica as the city of Morganville. Not that New Pacifica was even in existence yet, but then that hardly mattered to Morgan right now. The event was filled with pomp and ceremony and Morgan was quite enjoying the ticker-tape parade through the main street of the city with his lovely wife, Bess, beaming at his side. Morgan loved these particular types of dreams. They were like small, welcome doses of justice in a life gone mad.
"Why don't you come along today, honey?" Bess stood with her hands on her hips and glared down at her husband's sleeping form. "And why are you smiling like that?"
Morgan opened his eyes and sat up with an audible sigh. His hair was sticking up every which way and his eyes struggled to bring the soft form of his wife into focus before him, her body partially silhouetted in the sunlight creeping through the tent doorway.
"I was having a wonderful *dream*, Bess. Is it so much to ask to be allowed to sleep in and dream?"
Bess harumphed at her husband and headed towards the doorway. "I just thought you might want to spend some time together alone for a change. Away from the others, you know?"
"Bess, I'd *love* to spend time alone with you!" Bess stopped in the doorway and glanced back at her husband expectantly. "But do we have to *run* there to do it?"
Bess gritted her teeth irritably. "Morgan, if you're not careful, one of these days your heart's going to start pumping out lard. Bodies don't keep *themselves* fit, you know."
With a final contemptuous snort, Bess strode out of the tent and bounded over to the breakfast gathering to greet the early birds and begin her warmup routine before her daily run. Morgan sat on the edge of his bunk staring after her with a look of exasperation.
"I'm as fit as a fiddle," he convinced himself. "Is it *my* fault that all the vegetation in this region is high in starches?" Morgan stood up and stretched his body as he let out a loud yawn.
***
The air was invigorating on this particular morning. Bess had been steadily working her way up a wooded slope that was slowly steepening as she approached the edge of the forest line. The undergrowth had been somewhat thick in some places and Bess had found herself having to concentrate more on her footing than her breathing. As a result, as she loped out of the forest and into the bright morning sunlight shining down on the higher, rocky slope, she found herself beginning to hyperventilate and brought herself to a quick halt. Bending over double, she let her hands rest on her knees and attempted to regain her breath before the return journey to the Eden Advance campsite.
The view from up on the slope was stunning. Catching her breath, Bess surveyed the scene before her and laughed out loud at the pure beauty of it.
"Oh Morgan, if only you could have seen this!" she spoke out into the wind. "It's beautiful!"
She was standing approximately halfway up a small mountain- the smallest in a chain of snow-capped peaks that defined the mountain range along which the Eden Advance group had steadily been traveling for a week. The scenery had been splendorous for days and everyone in the group was in good spirits. They were well over halfway to New Pacifica now and had met with few obstacles since some difficulty with a mysterious illness that had afflicted most of the men in the group two months previously.
Bess scanned the vista before her and took in the natural features of the surrounding land. The air was clearer than she ever remembered experiencing, either on G889 or back on Earth, where a clear day was a downright anomaly. She squinted off into the far distance. It was hard to imagine exactly how far away she was able to see. A number of snowcapped peaks rose up along the very distant horizon, although their outlines were so faint, it was as if they had been gently brush-stroked onto the sky by some higher power. Bess seemed to recall John saying something about the distance to a mountain chain to the west, but the details of his words escaped her.
As time had gone by during the trek to New Pacifica, Bess had found herself paying less and less attention to the details of the lay of the land and the routes that should be taken. At first, it had seemed to her that her experience of being Earth-born and raised defined a responsibility and invaluableness to the group that required her paying strict attention to the decisions made as to how each day's travel would progress. But in time, the rest of the group had grown experienced at the travails of constant travel over difficult terrain. They recognized the dangers and learned how to read the land. She had become slowly, but inevitably, superfluous, it seemed to Bess.
Initially, this recognition of her decreasing importance in overcoming the difficulties of survival in the wilds bothered her. She had enjoyed the feeling of fitting into the group in a capacity greater than 'spouse of government liaison'. But these feelings too soon passed as she adopted and honed another role in the group of weary trekkers. Irrespective of the situation, Bess always managed to be the smiling face that told of better times to come. She infused the group with an enthusiasm for life and a faith in their abilities to overcome any obstacle. In a nutshell, Bess was the single person who somehow stayed in everyone's good graces all the time. What she had ultimately commanded from the group was respect. The one response she had never thought herself worthy of earning from a stationborn crowd. Bess no longer needed to prove herself to them. The mere fact that she was there was medicine enough for the Eden Advance group. She had proven her worth time and time again.
The valley below Bess was streaked by the snake-like course of a wide river, its water glinting in the morning sun. The water had left almondshaped sandbars everywhere along the river course where the water had dumped its load and built up the mounds of sand. She guessed the water was probably fairly shallow. Not that it mattered to them right now, as they were moving south while the river appeared to be snaking off towards the southwest horizon. Most of the valley was filled with dancing waves of tall, green reed-like grass that gently ebbed back and forth in the gentle breeze breathing down the river valley. A few animals grazed in the far distance, but Bess was unable to guess at their size or species. They had encountered a number of grazers on the planet already and most had been harmless enough to the group. They had resisted using the animals for meat as long as the supply of edible vegetation continued. The whole oldEarth concept of eating *real* meat from actual *animals* was too disgusting for most of them to contemplate anyway. 'Give me a spirolina bar any day!' she had heard Magus chuckle once. The concept never mattered much to Bess really. On Earth, you had to eat what there was, when it was available. Survival is what mattered. And if that required eating the flesh of an animal, then so be it. Bess was reminded of the incident in which Morgan, John, Alonzo, and Julia had relied on the meat of a Grendler in order to survive. The circumstances of that situation had been desperate, it was true. But secretly, Bess was thankful that the Grendler meat had been available so that they were able to survive. Not that Bess considered the Grendlers as wild animals- they were a sentient species for sure- but sometimes one had to do whatever it took to survive. It was that simple.
Bess absorbed the view before her a few minutes longer then headed back downslope into the trees and towards the campsite. She enjoyed this time to herself in the mornings, when she could reflect on the goings on in her life and appreciate the solitude. Even the time spent away from Morgan was needed, although lately she had been trying to get him to exercise a bit more by joining her for her morning run. Not that her efforts had met with any success thus far. "Perhaps I need a different strategy," Bess thought to herself as she approached the camp.
Suddenly, Bess felt her foot hit the ground at an odd angle and her entire body lurched to one side. A searing pain shot through her right ankle and she involuntarily let out a loud yelp that brought Walman dashing over to her, followed almost instantaneously by Danziger, Julia, then Morgan.
Morgan was fairly levitating over the ground between the campsite and where Bess lay sprawled on the ground, writhing in extreme pain. One side of his face was lathered in shaving cream, and in one hand he waved a razor about as if warning all before him to stay out of his way or face the consequences.
"Bess! Bess! Oh my God!" Morgan was yelling. He arrived at the scene just as Julia had started her diagnosis by running her diaglove over the region of Bess' ankle. "What's wrong?" he cried. "For God's sake, *do* something! Oh Bess!" Shoving Walman aside, Morgan kneeled down and cradled Bess' head in his lap as he stroked away the tears on his wife's wet cheeks.
"It hurts!" Bess was trying fiercely to not let her emotions get away from her. She bit at her lip and silently cursed herself for being so involved in thought to have not noticed the small hole in the ground into which she had stepped.
Walman was hovering and moving around the circle of people on the ground, looking extremely anxious. Cameron had appeared too and stood silently outside the group of fellow travelers, feeling helpless.
Julia frowned and gave Bess a sorry glance. "Looks like quite a bad sprain."
"A *sprain*?!" cried Morgan. "Are you sure it's not broken? Look at the bruising already! I think it's broken. Oh my God, how will we set the bone? She took her bone-healer vaccine. You did remember, didn't you, honey? I'm sure she did. We need to set the bone!"
"Morgan!" Julia considered zapping him with a sedaderm for her own peace of mind, but resisted the extreme temptation. Besides, perhaps Bess was slightly more deserving at this point in time, even if Morgan *was* beginning to hyperventilate. "It's not broken. It's just a sprain. We just need to reduce the swelling and block the pain."
Julia applied the sedaderm and the grimace on Bess' face relaxed somewhat. This effect seemed to carry over to Morgan, who had begun breathing normally and was focusing his attention entirely on making his wife as comfortable as possible. By this stage, Alonzo and Devon had arrived, bringing a make-shift stretcher in order to get Bess back to the camp. Yale was attempting to keep Uly and True from poking their heads between the crowd of people gathered around Bess.
"We still have some of that miracle-sap, don't we?"
Julia thought about Devon's question briefly before giving a nod. "I think we do. We should pack the ankle and let Bess rest that leg."
The 'miracle-sap' was the name given to a white, milky substance they had encountered a few months previously; the sap of an otherwise woody, leafless shrub. After a number of tests to determine its possible toxicity or application, Julia discovered the substance to be quite the medicinal wonder, similar in many ways to Grendler saliva, relieving itching, helping wounds to heal, and suppressing swelling. True had mentioned that the last of these benefits made her want to rub it all over Uly's big head. Since his increasing adeptness at communicating with the Terrians he had started becoming more and more intolerable to True. Sometimes she wished he would disappear into the ground indefinitely like the Terrians.
With a concerted effort by the gathered crowd, Bess was carried back to her and Morgan's tent where her ankle was wrapped in sap-soaked cloth before she was ordered by Julia to rest. Everyone then retreated from the tent leaving Morgan hovering furiously over a suddenly anxious Bess.
"I'll take care of you, honey," Morgan gave Bess a concerned grin.
***
Devon and Danziger silently absorbed the information. Yale, maps in hand, had just informed them that an extreme danger of ground collapse existed in the region they were in. Their situation had instantly turned precarious.
"We're going to have be more careful than usual," Danziger gave Devon the most concerned expression he could muster. "The last thing we need is to try to haul that monster out of a giant hole in the ground," he gestured over his shoulder at the Transrover.
"Are you sure that risk exists?" Devon was intently studying the map laid out before her, Danziger and Yale. It's hard to tell from this that the land is any different from usual."
"Oh, it's definitely different," Yale piped up. He had only just completed this latest survey map using all existing telemetry data on the planet available to the group. "Look at the pattern of drainage. The irregularity of the contours. It's all right there."
Devon squinted at the map again and wondered what on Earth it was she was supposed to be seeing. It looked just like any other cartographic sheet to her. Contour lines showing mountains and valleys. Rivers criss-crossing the landscape. Areas of dense vegetation. After all this time moving across the planet surface, Devon considered herself as adept as Yale and Danziger at reading the layouts from one week to the next. It was a small consolation to her though that Danziger was not looking entirely comprehending of the mass of lines and text defining the carto-sheet. In contrast, Yale was nodding intently as he studied the map, as if some personal muse were transmitting a three-dimensional projection straight from the map into his head.
Devon eventually shook her head and shot a questioning glance at Yale. Realizing her difficulty, Yale pointed out specific features on the map.
"Look at this river. Notice anything unusual about it?"
Devon and John both examined the thin line traced onto the map. This was followed by an exchanged look between them and a double shrug.
"It's a river, Yale. What's the point?" Danziger was starting to sound impatient.
Yale continued in unwavering patience. "The river is not continuous. See?" He pointed to one end of the river, which Devon recognized as being the river's source. A small stream, really. Perhaps merely non-perennial drainage. Then he pointed out a similar end-point further along the river's trace. John and Devon both frowned. How could a river have two source points?
"The river can't just stop," John showed his frustration. "It must be a mapping error."
Yale shot a hurt glare at John, as if the man had just insulted him, his family, and all his ancestors and their friends.
"I assure you the map is *quite* accurate."
"Then what the hell happened to this river, huh? It can't just stop!" John was beginning to find the discussion trying. He felt like he had been transported back to high school, with a disapproving geography teacher getting on his case about forgetting the principles of stereographic projection or some such nonsense.
Devon's face lit up suddenly. "Ah! The river can't stop, that's true. But it *can* disappear!"
"What?! What the hell are you talking about, Adair?"
Yale had started smiling, pleased that even this far out of her tertiary education, Devon still managed to draw upon things learned many years previously.
"It flows into the ground, doesn't it Yale? It flows back into the rock, through a crack or something. Now what was that word..." Devon drifted off into silent thought, trying to recall a distant lesson in surficial processes.
"Karst," prompted Yale. "Karst topography to be exact."
"That's right!" exclaimed Devon. "Now I remember! Limestone!"
"Exactly!"
Danziger's head moved from side to side as he followed the exchange between the two of them. He, for one, wouldn't know a karst topography if one sneaked up and bit him on the behind.
"What the devil are you talking about? We've seen limestone before." John had had enough of this game of point-out-the-geologic-feature.
"Yes, but not like this," explained Yale. "This region has an active underground water system that has eroded out the rock and formed great underground rivers. I wouldn't be surprised if the rock was full of giant crevasses and caverns. Very treacherous land indeed."
John frowned. "You mean the ground could just give way beneath us without warning?"
"I don't know, John. Perhaps. Sometimes in this type of environment, large holes open up suddenly and everything collapses into them. On Earth they are called sinkholes. I've heard of entire buildings being swallowed up by them."
John took another long look at the Transrover, trying to gauge its weight in his head, but it was a futile exercise. All he could decide was 'heavy'. But heavy enough to cause the ground to collapse?
Yale continued. "This entire area may be pock-marked by small collapse features and holes. Could be big. Could be as small as the one that tripped up Bess this morning."
"Well then we'd better put the scout teams on extra alert," decided Devon. "Is there some way we can determine the likelihood of cavities ahead of our path?" she directed at Yale.
"Perhaps. If we can figure out some way to build a wave-pulse emitter with a built-in receiver. Then we can look at signal return-times to determine the structure of the ground beneath us."
This idea was a concept John *could* relate to. "Hey, I could make something like that," he offered. He thought about it for a few seconds and continued. "Maybe steal a few parts from this and that, but I'm sure I could get something together in a few days or so."
"Excellent!" said Devon. "Now if only we could figure out in the meantime if we're safe exactly where we are..."
***
Uly stared up at the towering tree above him and watched the squirrel-like animals that scuttled back and forth along the branches. They were interesting to watch although he realized one would do well to avoid getting too close to the rodents. True had made that mistake once when she decided such a furry creature would benefit greatly from being her pet kitty-substitute. The animal apparently took exception to True's plans, responding by sinking its teeth into one of her fingers. Sometimes it seemed True never learned her lesson when it came to the creatures on this planet. This event, as usual, precipitated a stern lecture from both Yale and each child's respective parents, despite Uly's proclamations of innocence throughout.
Returning his gaze to the ground, Uly closed his eyes and attempted to concentrate.
'The ground is the air. The air is the ground.' Uly repeated the words again and again as a silent mantra. 'The motion is the same.'
In his mind, Uly was dancing around in circles, the sparkling grains of sand floating around him in suspended animation, like stars in a miniature universe. He moved through this private microcosm as if the stars were pure energy rather than matter. Little pin-pricks of light that he could move through without hindrance. As each point of light hit his body, he felt their warmth and allowed the heat to pass into his body and combine with his own thermal core. It was as if each tiny grain of sand- each pin-prick of light- were feeding him somehow. Giving him the energy to continue. Making him feel as one with the universe. Uly could not fully comprehend what this meant to him. He only knew it made him feel good inside. It was definitely a feeling of pleasure.
A noise in the distance disturbed Uly's concentration and he opened his eyes suddenly. He was horrified to discover himself buried up to his knees in the ground and he let out a loud yell.
"Uly!" His mother's cry was instantaneous. 'I should have gone further from the campsite' Uly thought to himself as he realized he was not hurt by the close encounter with the planet. He extracted himself from the ground as if it were made of vapor. And yet when he put his foot back down again, the soil supported his weight with its usual ungiving strength.
"Uly! Where are you? Uly?!"
"It's okay, Mom! I'm over here!" Uly began running back towards the camp as Devon appeared at the edge of the grove of trees and ran towards him.
"Uly! What happened? Why did you scream?"
"I'm sorry, Mom." He put on his best sheepish look. "I tripped over a dead branch."
Devon gave him the quick, motherly once-over and reassured herself that everything was alright. "Be careful!" she half-scolded him. "This area can be dangerous, so don't go wandering off, okay?!"
"Okay, Mom." Uly gave Devon a small hug then scampered back into the camp and over to where Baines had begun to build up the firewood for the evening campfire. Devon watched him go with a mixed feeling of relief and concern before heading back to her tent. 'Raising a child on a planet's surface is just impossible,' she thought to herself.
***
"Aaargh! OUCH! Goddamned T-clip bolts!" Danziger hurled the wrench to the floor and sucked on his finger where he'd just slammed it against the underside frame of the Transrover. He regretted it immediately as the bitter taste of axle lubricant hit home in his mouth. He spat out sideways, much to the dismay of True who had just popped her head under the vehicle to find out what all the hollering was about.
"Ew! *Gross*, dad!"
True wiped at her face as if an acid-spitting alien had just gobbed all over her, and gave her father a disdainful look.
Danziger crawled out from under the Transrover and sat up next to True. "Sorry True-girl. The T-clip wouldn't budge." He held up his grazed finger as if displaying a war injury.
"What were you trying to do?" True poked her head under the vehicle and surveyed the area of the rear axle where her father had been tinkering. "Is there something wrong with the Transrover?"
Danziger forgot his aching finger for a moment. "No, I was scavenging for a part for the subsurface surveyor." Danziger had already begun bandying the term around whenever possible. The fact that he had been the one to come up with it may have played a small part in that. Suddenly, his fatherly instinct kicked into gear. "I thought I told you to stay back from the Transrover!"
True retreated a few uneasy steps in the hope that this would pacify her father's abrupt turn of attention. "I wanted to see if you were okay," she stated, her posture stiff in sudden indignance as if to indicate to her father that it was her *job* to look out for him.
"True, what did I tell you about coming near the Transrover, hmm?"
True stared at the ground in a sudden fascination with dirt and scraped a pointed foot back and forth. "You said to stay away because the ground could cave in," she recited in a soft voice.
"And why is that?" Danziger questioned her again.
"Because the Transrover is really big and heavy." True was starting to feel that this entire situation had turned unfairly out of her favor. She had only been worried about her dad after all. And now she was being reprimanded because of her concern.
Danziger walked over to his daughter and crouched down in front of her. "Do we have an understanding?"
True snapped her head away from her father's glare in defiance. "Well, what about those trees over there?" True suddenly blurted out, pointing to the grove of trees beside the camp. "I bet they're really heavy too but they're not falling into the ground."
Danziger glanced at the trees and was about to say 'that's not the same thing' when it suddenly struck him that in essence, it probably *was* the same thing. He found himself at a complete loss for words then.
"I bet those trees are as heavy as the Transrover! Heavier even!" True stuck her chin out at her father, as if daring him to challenge her astute logic. She was beginning to feel a small amount of reparation from the turn of the discussion.
The look on True's face cut to Danziger's heart. Sometimes the resemblance to Elle was more than he could bear to face. The very mannerisms were even the same. The genetics never failed to amaze him. As well as cause him pain.
"You're right, True-girl."
True's face lit up with a broad smile as Danziger continued.
"From now on, you don't go within twenty meters of those trees either."
Danziger walked back over to the Transrover leaving True staring at his back in utter frustration. The smile hadn't lasted very long.
***
Bess felt her eyes roll back in her head for the umpteenth time that day. This was becoming intolerable.
"Morgan! Honey! I'm fine, *okay*? Just let me rest here. You go and help Magus and Cameron with the vegetables."
Morgan stopped with his efforts of re-fluffing the pillow under Bess' shoulders and looked at his wife with extreme concern. "But Bess, I have to stay here and take care of you! Magus and Cameron can manage chopping the vegetables by themselves."
"Well...well I'm sure Baines and Walman need help getting the fire started. Really, I'm fine here by myself. Really!"
Morgan was unconvinced. He seemed to be under the impression that an ankle sprain had rendered his wife completely incapable of functioning and so she needed him there to watch out for her. All the time. Hovering. There.
"Bess, I really think two can handle a fire just fine. Besides, you need..."
Bess was distracted by the sight of Walman seemingly hovering just beyond the entrance to their tent. "Walman!" Morgan had stopped in midsentence and spun his head round, expecting to see Walman standing in the doorway. Instead, he appeared a second or so later, looking slightly embarrassed. Regardless, he seemed happy to drop in to see how things were going with Bess' injury.
"Er, you called me?" he half stuttered.
Morgan was now looking at Bess in confusion. How on Earth was Bess supposed to rest with all sorts of visitors dropping by for a chat?
"Walman!" Bess was relieved that the man had heard her call. "Hi! Er...I was just telling Morgan about...you know...the fire." Bess struggled to give the most pleading expression she could muster. "Remember, you said you...ah...could use help with...er, the firewood." Walman looked slightly confused. "Right?" Bess fairly demanded.
Walman seemed to get the picture suddenly. "Oh! Right! Yeah, the firewood! Wadda ya say Morgan? Wanna give us a hand? We could use someone with your talent out here."
Morgan was looking even more confused. "*What* talent?"
Walman struggled for words. "You know? Deadwood."
"Huh?!"
"He means the dead wood, honey. You know what wood burns best, right?" Bess gave her husband the sweetest smile. It worked.
"Okay Bess. But you rest, okay?! I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Sure Morgan. I promise!"
As Morgan and Walman exited the tent, Bess felt her body relax for the first time that day. She loved her husband dearly, but sometimes... 'Well, sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder,' she told herself.
End of Chapter One. Continued in Chapter 2.
Story Notes:
Dear Edenites
I've tried posting this story so many times already, I'm beginning to think the fan-fiction list has a personal vendetta out against me. *Other* people's posts seem to be going through! What's going on?!! Let's see if it actually goes through this time...
Following in four parts is my latest Earth 2 fan-fic contribution "Apostle of the Terrians".
My thanks to Mary Brick for her superb editing comments.
"Apostle of the Terrians" takes place about four months after the time of the episode "All About Eve".
Earth 2 is the property of Amblin/Universal. This story, COPYRIGHT 1998,
is not intended to infringe upon any existing copyrights.
Please send any and all feedback to me.
Enjoy!
-Simon K.
HellerMan
I've tried posting this story so many times already, I'm beginning to think the fan-fiction list has a personal vendetta out against me. *Other* people's posts seem to be going through! What's going on?!! Let's see if it actually goes through this time...
Following in four parts is my latest Earth 2 fan-fic contribution "Apostle of the Terrians".
My thanks to Mary Brick for her superb editing comments.
"Apostle of the Terrians" takes place about four months after the time of the episode "All About Eve".
Earth 2 is the property of Amblin/Universal. This story, COPYRIGHT 1998,
is not intended to infringe upon any existing copyrights.
Please send any and all feedback to me.
Enjoy!
-Simon K.
HellerMan