Some more wierdness fer y'all.
CH. 3
Three full orbits of the single star later found Noah Smith still fishing, still baking fish over a small fire, and still very much alone by the river. On this world there was no day, there was no night. No morning welcomed him back from sleep. Only the damned twilight kept him on the verge of a drowsy half-sleep.
The lieutenant today was sitting beside the quietly mumbling river, watching fish jump out in the middle as he caught their brothers at the bank. In part, Smith was waiting to see the boatman again. He wanted to learn more about this world before venturing into it. Also, he remained put due to the suspicion that there abounded no real reason to leave the river.
The boatman did come again, late that third day. He came down river against the gentle flow from the direction he’d disappeared in. Noah hailed him as he came close, and the man again patted the water and swung his boat aside to draw onto land. Today, though, he got out and stretched his long legs.
“So, young one. Still in the same spot…”
“Didn’t see much reason to leave it.” Smith explained.
The old man blinked and smiled as he scratched the stubble at his jaw. “Oh, boredom will give you reason soon enough. Believe me.”
“Not much happen here?”
The elder smiled and looked down at his mismatched boots and the smooth ground beneath them. “Not in this exact spot, no. That’s why you should get around.”
“I’m not so sure it’d be all that wise to leave.”
This made the fisher look up suddenly with curiosity. “Really, why?”
“If I leave the river, my ship might not be as able to find me from orbit.”
Now the old fisherman was laughing outright and slapping his pant leg. Dust blasted from his clothes, making the young blonde cough.
“No one’s going to be looking for you from orbit, son!”
Smith flushed with a sudden rise of anger.
“And why not?”
“Because your ship is already here! Don’t ya know that’s how it always works?”
“No, I don’t know how it works! I’m not from here!”
The old one seemed to consider that and then sobered. He circled the kid once and then looked down at his camp fire and the fish baking on a smooth rock.
“Alright, kid. Here’s how it goes around here… Your ship was snoopin’ around somewhere close by. Maybe not even in this solar body… The Caretaker saw ya’… He maybe liked your ship or your species, prob’ly your ship since your makeup is about like anybody else’s. He brings your ship here, puts it where he can look at it. But since you and maybe others on your ship was sick or dying…he tossed you in that cave to die…or live…or whatever.”
Noah could only gape. Endeavour had been here all this time? Where? How far away? What could he do?
“What about the rest of the crew?”
“They’re okay, I imagine. You won’t get much out of ‘em. They’ll be like statues.”
“Dead?”
“Don’t think so. The crews and passengers never seem to…decay or whatever. They don’t get old. But then…nothing here does.”
Smith calmed a bit with this knowledge.
“Nothing ages?”
“Nope.”
“No one dies?”
“Oh, sure. Folk die all the time…just not from getting’ old. Some get a disease. Some have accidents…a murder every now and again.”
“You said there weren’t many people here!”
“Only take two folk for a murder.”
Noah looked out onto the circular horizon about him and scoured it anew for anything familiar. He hoped to see anything…the bulge of the saucer’s casemate…a nacelle… anything. Nothing. He saw nothing.
“Where would she be?”
“Damned if I know. I don’t even know which yours looks like.”
“Have any come here in the last week?”
“Not to my knowin’.”
Noah stared with bald consternation at the man. The elder just stared back without helpful expression. He was still smiling. At length, he shrugged and sat down by the fire.
“Why don’t ya offer me some grub and we’ll think on it.”
Smith nodded almost unwillingly. He did owe the man a meal. And his clean clothe. This latter he gave to the man and filled his palms with baked fish.
The old man took a bite and sat up rail straight.
“Son! What did you put on this here fish!”
Noah pointed off to a sprig of dark green grass sprouting up from beneath a rock ten meters from the river bank. “I dried that and coursed it up.”
The old man looked out at it and then back to the fish.
“Huh… Adds a kind of spice! Never thought of usin’ grass to flavor my fish with.”
“It smelled like oregano.” Noah explained. He was pretty certain oregano looked nothing like that three bladed grass, though.
“Whatever that is, this is good, son!”
“Now, sir…” Smith looked out to the twilight again. “Which direction is the closest starship you know of… You implied there were a lot of them.”
The fisher nodded.
“Seen at least fifty in my life. Likely I’ll see more of ‘em.”
“Which way to the closest?”
The old man pointed down the river, in the direction he’d been paddling just minutes prior. “There’s the Buzzard just about three mountains that way.”
“The Buzzard?”
“Yeah… Should be the name of it. Big ol’ green thing with big bird’s wings and a long, buzzard neck on it. Even has feet.”
Noah could only thing of one design of craft fitting such a general description. He suddenly smiled. “How far away did you say?”
“Three mountains. I pass by three mountains to get to it from here.”
Noah looked up and studied the terrain following the length of the river. He could make out two mountains easily. A third might have been obscured in the distance by the bulk of the second. “About… fifty, maybe eighty kilometers.”
“Kilo-whats?”
“How long by boat?”
“Half a day easy paddle. No stoppin’, though.”
“Will you take me there?”
The old man laughed and stood up from the fireside. He finished his meal and returned his cloth to his rough pocket. “I’ll take you so far as the water’s edge, but that’s as far as any sane man goes.”
“Why is that?”
“Remember I said murder was one of the plenty of ways folk can die round here?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, the troll what lives there is special keen on murderin’.”
--thu guv!
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