Early morning sun shines on the ship as it rests on an island in the tropical seas. Mor and Breen are snoozing on the floor of Mol Dett's ship. Mor has passed out, lying on top of Breen like a big orange frog. Breen on the other hand is alternately picking his nose with his thumb and his ear with his pinky finger, being careful not to wake Mor. The prox alarm sounds...
Whoop. Whoop. Whoop. Whoop. Whoop. Whoop. Whoop.
Mor snaps up, alert and wary. "The prox!" She shouted, completely unaware of how far my thumb got shoved up my nose when she hopped up.
Rolling to my side and ceremoniously extricating my thumb from my nostril, I got to my feet and made my way to Mor. She was at the console looking at a small screen, panning the image from left to right with a joystick.
"There it is. It's a wolf."
I peeked into the monitor. "That's not a wolf, it's a lizard." It was checking out the deerskins.
"Oh. Well, I've never seen one, but that kind of fits the description." Shrugging her shoulders.
"Not really. If we ever head back north, I'll show you what a wolf looks like."
"Great. But for now, I'm going to kill that thing." She said, picking up a gun and heading for the door.
"Are we going to eat it?"
"What?" She stopped and looked at me like I was a loony. "You want to eat that thing?"
"No, but instead of killing it, why not just give it a wave blast and tie the skins up in a tree? No reason to kill it."
"Oh, well, if you um... Yes. Wave blast it and we can move it. When it wakes up, we'll be gone."
I grabbed my wave gun and, walking past Mor, strode out. I walked up on him while his back was to me and gave the lizard two good blasts. I'm glad his back was to me, he was really big. He rolled off the boulder Mor had put one of the skins on and came to rest at my feet. I walked back to the ship to get some clothes on and pull out the hovercat. Mor was wiping between her legs with a towel, watching as I came in.
"Oh, you're hurt." She said, wiping my nose and face with the cum-soaked towel in her hand.
"Hey, hey, hey, that's all wet."
"Sorry."
I grabbed my shirt and used it to wipe my nose. My nose had bled a bit from my thumb being shoved up in there, but not that much. I put my shirt, pants, and boots on. Mor joined me and we managed to tie up the lizard, especially that mouth. There were an awful lot of very sharp teeth in there. With a substantial effort, we rolled him onto the cat and I activated the wave generators.
With only myself on the cat, I could reach over ten meters of altitude. That lizard's weight kept the cat to less than two meters. Still, we were able to take him about a kilometer away and dump him off. Mor cut his bonds and we hopped onto the cat. After taking a tour of the small island, we figured the only thing this island could offer us is solitude.
"I suggest we check the maps and ascertain our exact location and get back on course." She spoke.
"Sounds good to me. Let's eat first."
"Agreed."
We ate raw deer meat dipped in salty, spiced vinegar, some spicy vegetables, and a tea that Mor whipped up.
Afterwards, we pulled out the maps. I couldn't read the words, though Mor could. She figured that we had come almost due south, nearly two thousand kilometers. Heading east over the mountain range, we would then turn southeast toward lands familiar to her.
When the skins were just about dry, we rolled them up and stowed them in the ship. Carefully, I pulled us out of the trees and headed east while gaining altitude. Ten minutes later, we were still in a slow climb, crossing the foot lands of the range. The range was marvelous to look at. Keeping about five hundred meters above the peaks, many mountain villages could be seen, some inhabited, some apparently not. Mountains gave way to great, grassy steppes with herds of animals running ahead of us. Such animals, I had never before seen. The steppes gave way to great valleys filled with expansive forest and divided by rivers. Valleys gave way to coastal lowlands. This was where Mor began to recognize landmarks.
"Look, look, look. The serpent's back." She pointed at a ridge that did look like a snake slithering along the ground.
"Porta's tears." Pointing at a series of lakes and ponds. "Porta was a star who was cast from the sky by her father. The legend is that Porta stood here and wept until her lover, Gan Ladek, rescued her. Her father, King Thala Kul Dinn, slew them both in his rage. He later threw himself on his sword, suiciding himself in his grief." She scanned the horizon. "Look. Fly there." She said pointing south.
"King Thala's sword." She said, as we approached.
A single spike of stone stood among some low hills. It stood at least two hundred meters tall, maybe ten in thickness. It was an awesome spectacle, an intriguing myth.
"Ok, that way." Pointing south by southwest. "Slow down when you can see a great green river."
