Enemy, Chapter 6
#6 of Enemy
Chapter 6
29 December 2357
"It looks like there's a greenish patch of vegetation at seventy five degrees," I said into the microphone of the small transmitter clipped to my earlobe. There wasn't much my small spacial mapping computer could tell me about the surrounding area aside from topography, so my chief tool was eyesight. From the top of a small hill I had climbed I could see a sunken channel in the distance, shrouded in shadow but clearly thick with vegetation. "The mapper says it's a long valley, about five kilometers from here."
My speaker crackled. "Five kilometers? Gods, it's hot as hell out here."
I slid down the rocky hillside, taking it slow so I wouldn't slip and fall. Tatania was hunched over a field pack when I reached our gear. She pulled out a water bottle and took a long drink before tossing it to me. The desert root water was bitter, but it was soothing on my parched tongue.
"Why did we have to do this in the middle of the day," the fox panted. "It's got to be the worst time to be outside, least of all while hiking with a thousand kilos of crap strapped to our backs."
I didn't answer her. I had explained already that we needed the sunlight and that it wasn't safe to travel at night. She had agreed at the time we left our camp early this morning, and I sensed that she was simply being irritating for the sake of being irritating. Her pack was practically empty since I was carrying the food and water for the both of us, the pulse rifle, and a few other tools.
"Just five more clicks," I said through gritted teeth as I hefted my pack onto my back and strapped a buckle over my stomach. "I want to see what's in that valley. Then we'll stop for the day."
She didn't say anything more as she put on her pack and pressed forward with me following close behind. I had gotten to know my companion little better the last few days. While she didn't show signs of hating my guts anymore, she still regarded me with distrust and impatience, like I was an unwanted burden. She didn't volunteer much, if any, information about herself, and I didn't demand any. She was fiercely independent and proud and seemed to be educated by someone--all being key characteristics of a problem slave. I had looked up her cargo data in the ship's manifest. She was the property of one Captain Harris Norwell (the commander of the Beta-Seven Outpost) and was classified as a "personal end-use item," meaning she was not government property. Apart from that, the imperial navy required no further information.
From my limited experience on the subject, I'd have to guess she was a domestic slave since she didn't show any signs of hard physical labor. Likely a household servant; cook, nanny, that kind of thing. I could have asked, but something still kept us at a distance.
I watched her navigate the rocky terrain a few paces ahead of me, noting how her tall chocolate-brown ears swiveled, constantly scanning. Her white-tipped tail, longer and fuller than mine, moved expertly to counter-balance her graceful paw-steps, each one fluid and deliberate, never missing a beat. She didn't even have boots on, and yet she could glide on those small footpaws with a grace unlike any I'd ever seen from a wolf. I didn't realize I was staring until my left boot caught a thick slab of shale and I almost planted my nose in the dirt. I swore under my breath, Tatania glancing over her shoulder long enough to frown at me. I kept my attention on the landscape for the rest of the trip.
The "valley" I had seen turned out to be more of a wide chasm in the earth than an actual valley--the kind not cut by a river or stream, but by an earthquake. I had hoped to find an abundant source of water since it seemed only logical that where there was water, there was likely a source of food. Real food, like fresh meat: not the stunted shrubs and shriveled grasses that greeted us. I leaned as far over the lip of the canyon as I dared to, straining against the glare of the late afternoon sun. It was about twenty meters deep, as much as fifty wide, and while the vegetation looked a little more lush below us, I didn't find what I was looking for.
"Do you see or smell anything, Tatania?"
The fox tipped her little black nose to the breeze and took a few deep breaths. After a moment she shook her head. "Not from here."
We located a safe decent and explored the canyon floor. We crawled in the dirt, scented the vegetation, and searched high and low for any indications of animal life beside our own until the sun had sunk too low in the sky and I called it quits for the day.
"How much food do we have left," Tatania asked later that night as we munched halfheartedly on flight rations around a small campfire.
"Maybe two weeks." The supply was disappearing quickly with two mouths to feed instead of one. She nodded slowly, her eyes staring thoughtfully into the flames as they lashed violently about. It made her eyes shine bright orange. "A few days more than that if we can stretch it," I said. "Of course, it hardly seems important now if there isn't anything else out here." I made a quick sweep with my paw. "What's another three days before everything's gone?"
Tatania didn't say anything. I couldn't blame her. The fox dropping the freeze-dried oat bread in her paw to the dirt and wrapped an arm around her stomach, dropped her nose to her chest. She made a few little hiccup sounds as her shoulders hunched forward.
I suddenly felt horrible for being so dismal. "Look...Tatania, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you, it's just--"
She looked up and her chest heaved.
"Are you okay," I barked, suddenly on my paws.
She shook her head quickly and jumped up, stumbling to a nearby bush where she bent over and vomited loudly several times. I stood by, watching quietly, unmoving, until she stood up again. Her legs were a bit unsteady and her face looked as green in the cheeks as her eyes did.
"Are you okay," I asked again.
She glanced my way, her ears folding back against her head before she looked away, embarrassed. Nodding, she wiped her snout with the back of a paw. "I think I just--" she started but was cut short by another strong heaving in her chest that brought another assault to the unfortunate bush. "...got a little overheated...is all," she muttered, panting slightly, still hunched over.
If it was meant to make me feel guilty, it certainly worked. I grabbed a bottle of water and offered it to her. I gently placed a comforting paw on her back; leaning down a little to do so, I got a good whiff of the regurgitation and was almost sick myself. She rinsed and spit while I pretended not to notice the smell.
"Are you sure," I asked. "You've never reacted like this before. You sure you aren't sick?" Granted, the flight rations weren't the highest quality dining, but they were reliably safe and nutritious. I'd never heard of anyone getting food poisoning from them before. "I can get you an antibiotic, but it will have to wait until we get back to the ship."
Tatania shook her head. "No, it's not that. I'm feeling a lot better now, actually." She gave me the water bottle, but I told her to drink the rest. We had two more in our packs. She did so gratefully. "Sorry, Nate," she whispered. "A waste of a ration."
I smirked a little at that. The way the fox was putting on weight around the midsection from loafing around prompted any number of clever retorts in my brain, but I put them aside, saying instead, "I probably shouldn't have pushed you so hard earlier. We'll take it easy tomorrow. Wait 'till later in the day to head back. There's nothing here, anyway."
"What are we going to do? Two weeks isn't very long. Then what?"
I shrugged. I wish I knew. I had no answers beside, "Tighter rationing."
Neither of us said anything after that, though I knew the question echoed in both of our minds, "What then?" We could delay starvation by eating less and less each day for only so long. After that, any healthy wolf could survive as long as two weeks without anything to eat. I had considered the idea of subsisting on water root and stunted shrubbery for as long as necessary, but a lack of protein would steadily shrivel our muscle, degrade our organs, and eat away at the fat reserves in our bones and brains. After only two or three days we'd begin to feel sick in the abdomens, muscles would cramp, and dementia would follow.
"When we get back home we'll cut back on the flight rations and add more vegetation. It won't keep us from starving to death, but it will prolong it a couple more weeks. Hopefully we'll be rescued before then."
"Yeah," she said quietly, her voice distant. "Rescued." Her paw went to her stomach and I was afraid she was going to be sick again. "Not really sure I'd call it that."
I stacked a few more bundles of twigs on the fire for the night and we both bedded down beside it on a pair of filthy blankets. I think Tatania was fast asleep even before she was down, but I wasn't so fortunate. I kept playing over in my mind different events from the last several weeks, cursing myself for my mistakes and cursing fate victimizing us. Throughout my training I had been told over and over how, as a future officer, I would have to make difficult decisions, the kind that determine who lives and who dies, myself included.
I rolled onto my back to gaze into the fire, now mostly embers. There was a kind of ironic beauty in their dying glow; that such power and energy would inevitably dye without fuel. Without food.
I wanted to live. I wanted both of us to live, to persevere, to succeed at existence and triumph over this seemingly insurmountable problem, to which there must have been an answer. A solution I haven't yet seen, if only I could find it.
And find it soon.
***
I woke up the next morning as soon as the sun hit my face and my first reaction was to jump up with rifle in paw before I could stop myself. I breathed heavily, sitting back down on my bedding and shaking my head. I had had a full-night's sleep, a welcomed change from the usual insomnia. I noticed a cooling breeze on the morning air. It smelled of dust and lightly of sage. Maybe Tatania could distinguish something different.
Her bedding was empty. I looked around for the fox but couldn't see her nearby. "Tatania? Are you close?" There was no answer. She must have been in the brush performing some hygiene.
I pulled out a brick of vacuum packed grain bread from my rucksack and cut a slice from the loaf to munch on absentmindedly as I felt the sun on my back. This early in the morning the warmth was soothing, comforting on my fur. In only a few hours it would become much less so. I craved hot tea for breakfast, with honey and carribat spice, as my mother would always make in the mornings. I set aside half of the loaf for Tatania and stood to stretch my legs and back to shake off sleep and the stiffness in my bones.
"Tatania," I yelled loudly. "Where are you?" When there was no reply I became concerned. She knew better than to get outside ear-shot of the camp. "Answer me, Tatania!" I growled irritably, concern building in my mind. "Tatania! Where are--"
"Will you stop shouting," hissed a voice from behind me.
I spun around. The fox was sneering smugly at me. I wasn't so amused.
"What in hell were you doing," I demanded.
"Personal things."
I crept up before her, eyeing the fox. "For so long?"
She folded her paws across her chest. "Do you think I'm hiding something from you?"
"Are you?"
"No," she said, scoffing loudly.
I caught something acrid and sour on her breath just then, the same I had smelled the night before. "You've been sick again, haven't you?"
She shrugged and walked past me, picking up the rations I had left for her and sitting at her bedding, her back turned to me. I couldn't understand what this fox's problem was. I had been doing everything to keep us both alive for this long and so far she was treating me with the kind of contempt a master reserves for a slave. I had tried to put that behind us, making every effort to be agreeable and tolerable despite my apprehensions. So far she had returned that effort without cooperation, without thanks. I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to slap some gratitude into her damn stubborn head.
But I didn't. I couldn't. So I distracted myself with packing my rucksack what few belongings were laid out on the ground. MY belongings, that I was gracious enough to let her use.
"We're leaving in an hour," I said evenly, eyeing her only from my periphery. She only ate my food quietly, slowly. I wonder how smug she would be if I took that away. Maybe then she'd appreciate what I provided instead of sitting around and growing fat off of MY rations. "You better not hack that up too," I muttered, barely audible. But I know she heard it by the way her ears folded back.
***
The trip back to the Nuara that day was long and quiet. Tatania was keeping the pace slow, whether unintended or by design, I couldn't say, but I didn't care either way: I wasn't exactly in any hurry to get back to absolutely nothing important. Amazingly, by nightfall the planet's three moons were together in the sky, lighting our path well without the blazing oppression of the sun. We took a few breaks along the way to eat or rest. I was pleased that Tatania could remain continent the whole time. But that might have been due to the fact that I refused to give her more than the bare minimum I was willing to ration out to each of us.
When she huffed, wanting to know why, I snapped at her, "Because I said so! Now eat it or I'll take it away."
She didn't say a word more for the next three hours, when the topographic computer said that the Nuara was about a kilometer away.
"I'm starting to feel a little sick again," she said quietly.
I didn't reply for a long time, but when I did it certainly didn't sound sincere.
"I'll get you some medicine when we get to the ship."
More haunting silence for a few minutes.
"I'm sorry about the rations, Nate," she said. "I couldn't help it, you know."
I didn't turn to look at her. "I don't want an apology. I don't even want your trust."
"What is it then?"
"I want your respect. Is that too much to ask?" I couldn't say what motivated me to be so candid, but it did feel a little better hearing it out in the open. "Not as a slave to a master, or as a fox to a wolf, but as one sentient being to another. And before you say it: Yes, this wolf is being hypocritical. So sue me."
"I wasn't going to say--"
"It doesn't matter! We both can't survive here treating each other like a thorn in the other's side. We can't keep exploiting one another like this."
"No," she said quietly, "what you really mean is I can't keep exploiting you."
It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact. I was surprised yet again at how perceptive she could be. I sighed heavily, suddenly feeling very tired.
"I didn't mean it that way."
"Don't lie. I was a slave, remember? I know when a wolf is lying to me."
I looked to her. Her green eyes sparkled dimly in the moonlight. But where I expected to see self-righteousness I only saw defeat and fear. She was yet again disarming my anger, and I managed to remain so if only by the simple fact that she could control me so well.
"I want to tell you a secret, Nate, but I'm not sure I trust you yet. I'm not sure I ever could."
I growled. More secrets. "It had better not be--"
I stopped dead in my tracks, staring ahead.
Tatania stopped too. "Better not be what?"
"Shh!" I hissed, pointing a paw ahead. I thought I was seeing things. The possibility that being marooned for so long had made me mad crossed my mind. Ahead of us in the direction of the Nuara, was a bright light--brighter than any star--rising into the night sky. "Do you see that light?"
"Yeah, Nate. I do. Do you hear that?" Her tall ears swiveled forward.
I strained to listen. Barely, just barely, over a light breeze I could make out voices. Distant and unintelligible, but I could hear voices. My heart lept into my throat and for a full minute I couldn't move. But when I did, it came as a violent explosion of muscle and sinew, flinging my pack to the ground and dashing toward the light.
They had finally come for me! Praise the gods, I was going home!
"Nate! Wait!"
I didn't listen to the fox as she struggled to keep up with me as I tripped and slid on the loose ground. There was one more hill ahead and I climbed it with every ounce of strength I still had left in my body. My muzzle was foaming with spit, my nostrils flared. When I finally reached the hilltop I stopped, bending over at the waist, panting and heaving for air, my eyes wide with shock.
I flung my body backward, unintentionally knocking the fox to the ground as she struggled up the slope.
"Nate, what in hell is wrong with you?"
"There's a ship over there," I hissed between breaths.
"Isn't that--"
I silenced her with a paw over the muzzle. "No!" I hissed into her ear. "It's not one of ours!"
She gave me a hard look before her eyes widened in understanding. "Who is it?"
"Ursine."
"Who's that?"
"Enemy," I whispered.