Page 13 of Stellar Drift
When Koda invited her to come and bring her maps, she’d said “yes” partly out of curiosity about the mountain, and partly out of gratefulness to Houyen.His dogged determination had unwittingly freed her.She owed him the chance to prove his theory.
She used to be better at waiting, a skill she’d cultivated in the military because getting antsy didn’t make the time go faster.But now that she had options — maybe — she wanted the expedition over so she could consider her life’s next chapter.
Houyen and Koda finally crossed the flitter pad to where she and Kyala sat in the shelter of a tall, wide tree.Koda pointed a thumb back behind her, where Phen and Garamont were discussing something that made Garamont wave his hands and Phen cross her arms resolutely.
“Sorry about the delay,” said Koda.“Garamont is having an anxiety attack.My beloved wife’s esteemed father is being an overprotective pain in the ass.He thought the hike would be three days, not six.He’s been trying to convince us we need double the people and equipment, or that we should call in the planetary government and let them deal with it.”
Sairy hadn’t noticed the family resemblance before, but she did now.
“He’s now worked himself into accusing Phen of secretly going after the cursed treasure.”Koda made a disgusted noise.“Like she cares anything about money.She loves hiking and studying insects.”She tossed a dark glance at the wildly gesticulating Garamont.“There’s a good reason we moved our business to Axolotl Bend.”
Houyen’s expression didn’t give him away, but Sairy had the impression his patience was wearing thin.He cast questioning looks at Sairy and Koda.“What’s with the treasure rumor?Joro’s crew seems to actually believe it, but I didn’t think the locals did.”
Koda took a breath to speak, but got distracted when Garamont shouted and stomped his foot at his daughter.Phen looked thunderous.
Sairy shrugged.“It’s supposed to be hidden at the top of Jalkapanga Mountain.No one agrees what it is — loot from a theft, rare metals deposit, or maybe an alien ruin that miraculously survived the whole planetary terraform process.It’s probably been kept alive by kids who like a good ghost story.”
Koda laughed.“Says the Ghost of Jalkapanga.”
Sairy rolled her eyes."Don't start with that again."
"Why not?You know this part of the rainforest better than locals who have been here fifty years, and none of them knows where you live."Koda’s face took on an impish look.“My favorite rumor is that you’re a fire spirit who lives in a dormant volcano core.Piss you off enough and you’ll reignite it.”
Houyen shook his head.“Didn’t she fix your comms gateway when it went down and the fastest repair service was thirty days out?And she helped you clean up after the flood a few ten-days ago.From what I’ve seen, you should call her the Good Neighbor of Jalkapanga.”
“Well, sure,” said Koda, waving off Houyen’s words, “but who wants to be called something so utterly unromantic?"
Houyen’s unexpected defense touched her.She resisted sending him a grateful glance that Koda would see and undoubtedly remark on.
Koda was a skilled weaver of plant-based fibers and a savvy entrepreneur, but sometimes annoyed people with her teasing.Sairy had heard a rumor that Koda was an empath.Sairy would have thought a minder talent like that would have made her less inclined to irritate people.Phen, her wife of at least a decade, clearly had the patience of a saint.
Phen broke away from Garamont and walked toward them under the tree.Phen was built like a tank, all well-toned muscle mixed with elegant grace, even when she was obviously ready to punch something — or more likely, someone.Sairy gathered she’d done two tours of duty as a gunnin in the galactic military’s Ground Div before returning to Qal Corona and her extended family.The hard set to her face was as perturbed as Sairy had ever seen her.
“Let’s go,” said Phen, her consonants percussively sharp.
For once, Koda simply nodded and crossed to her airsled.
To Sairy’s great relief, within ten minutes, they checked comms, strapped in, and were airborne.
At a location they’d chosen downslope of their launch point, they landed the airsleds long enough to deploy a temporary comms relay point while Houyen used his ranger access to download realtime weather satellite data.The top of the rift was relatively flat and clear.The edge of the cloud forest started there.
Sairy used the quick stop to check on Kyala.The gargoyle liked flying and didn’t mind the custom eye googles that Sairy had designed and printed for her.The gargoyle’s thoughts were starting to trend longingly toward a midday meal.Truth be told, so were Sairy’s.The human mealpacks she’d brought would never win culinary prizes, but they were compact and self-contained.And the universe knew she had enough of the damned things.She noticed Houyen had similar provisions.
Phen’s airsled had a large, heavy coldbox that her agitated parent had insisted they bring.Sairy guessed it had been a matter of picking her battles, considering how unhappy Garamont had been when they left.He’d advocated for the expedition.Why he’d imagined Phen would stay home was perplexing.
“The weather looks good, but I wouldn’t trust the ‘no rain’ part of the forecast,” said Houyen as he shared the information across their temporary private network.They were using a set of earwires to create a closed comms net.“Uninhabited areas like the Reserve have low priority as far as allocating AI resources or analysts.”
“So what else is new?”muttered Koda.“Let’s hope the satellite images match our maps.”
Houyen ignored the interruption.“Anyway, I think that, as Sairy recommended, the top of the Rift Valley is still the best place to park the sleds and continue on foot.”
After the meeting in Irakat, she and Elkano had reviewed all their camera recordings of the target area.Once they’d known what to look for, evidence of the insect outflux was plain to see.They only ate one species of puffy-leafed shrub that was poisonous to most other would-be munchers.The downslope trails of denuded shrubs all converged at the top of the rift.Higher in the cloud forest, she’d remembered noting a curious scattering of silvery leaves that she now suspected were wuzzy-bug carapaces.According to Phen, wuzzy bug adult wings cracked the nymph’s outer shell, but not all the pieces fell off until flight and feeding.Or something like that.Sairy really didn’t want to learn any more about creepy, disease-carrying insects than she had to.
While the expedition could fly a flitter all the way to the top of the mountain, the dense canopy and jumbled topography offered no place to land, and no way to tell if the area was even accessible on foot.Both Houyen and Phen were convinced the breeding ground would be high in the cloud forest, away from natural predators that would ordinarily keep them in check.They were looking for the flightless nymph form, not the adult winged version that came in sporadic waves and made a mess.
As far as Sairy knew, she was the only member of the group who had ventured into the cloud forest at all.And she wouldn’t have, either, except she’d found a sizeable chunk of incalloy that had taken her four days to cut into pieces small enough to haul away in her airsled’s trailer.She wasn’t a fanciful person, but she considered it an eerie place.She’d made the mistake of repeating her description.
“I thought ghosts weren’t afraid of anything.”Koda’s smirk made Sairy roll her eyes.
