Salvage

They left early the next morning. Shaarm, Grandmother, and the two girls were waiting at the door to see them off. Ben fixed the ties on his makeshift shoes, and then endured patiently as Shaarm bundled a thick, heavy woollen cloak over the outside of his other garments. A long, wide scarf of cloth in a burnt orange colour was wrapped around his head and neck too, and his hands pushed into small squares of fleece which had been sewn together as makeshift mittens. Grandmother handed Ben his staff, and then the two of them inspected him critically.

"I suppose it is too late to persuade you to stay?" Shaarm asked, sounding a little wistful. "My husbands are more than capable of bringing back anything you might need."

He smiled. "I know. But I really have to see it for myself."

"Well, I suppose you are ready," Shaarm concluded, grudgingly.

Ooouli suddenly launched herself at Ben from behind and hugged him tightly around the shoulders. Taken aback, he stroked her mane comfortingly.

"It's all right," he said, into her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

She didn't lift up her head and he was suddenly worried that she was crying. Tiki, always sensitive to her sister's moods, started to sniffle.

"We'll be fine," Ben said. "Pakat goes up onto the moor all the time, and the narms aren't dangerous."

"You've found your ship," she said, rather muffled.

"Perhaps," said Ben, still not certain what she was getting at.

"You've found your ship, and now you're going to leave us."

"Oh Ooouli! No, dear one, that's not going to happen. No, listen," Ben said when she didn't stop crying. "I am not going to leave. One day, maybe, but not any time soon, and certainly not today, okay? I want to hear all about your exam when you get home and how brilliant you were. So I just want you to think about that. And I will see you and Tiki when you get home this evening."

Ooouli nodded, sniffed, and let go. Ben gave her a last pat on the back of the neck and a smile, ruffled Tiki's hair, and stepped out of the door.

The morning was grey and dull, and swathes of mist hid the world beyond the end of the yard. Pakat and Chana were waiting at the path. Pakat had the yoke of the cart hooked over his shoulders and across his broad chest like a carthorse, to allow him to keep his hands and forelegs free for walking. Chana crouched down, and Ben climbed up onto his back. The Kheelian rose up onto his four feet, and with a brief wave back to Shaarm, Grandmother and the children in the doorway, they set off.

They walked up from the house and onto the roadway. The fog swirled around them. Ben could only see a few metres in front of them through the gloom, beyond which everything turned to a misty haze. Water droplets had settled on Chana's coat and clothes, and Ben was glad of the warmth that radiated up from the creature into his legs. The Kheelians were mostly silent, caught up in their own thoughts, and Ben shivered a little, and pulled the scarf in closer across his face. The mood was sombre and the atmosphere heavy. After his uncanny dream, Ben felt particularly on edge. The strange young man who had held such power over him...Had it been just a dream, or as it a true memory? Was it prophetic that he had dreamed of a ship on the day they saw it on the map? Or was that just the power of suggestion at work? Ben tried to relax and not sit tensed up, for Chana's sake.

After what might have been a turn or so, a darker shadow loomed up out of the grey mist to their right, and it grew and grew until the massive bulk of the cliffs was hanging jutting out above the path. A distant roar muffled by the fog told him that the waterfall was nearby. Both the Kheelians stopped, the squeaking of the cart falling into the silence. They only waited a few moments before there was the muted sound of footsteps on the roadway, and a Kheelian appeared out of the gloom. Ben recognised Nenka, Chana's friendly nephew, who worked in the village shop.

"Good morning!" Nenka greeted them quietly but cheerily. The others greeted him back, and hugs, pats and strokes of fur were exchanged.

"I asked Nenka to accompany us," Chana turned his long neck to talk to Ben. "He has lived near the moors his whole life, and it is good to have an extra pair of eyes."

Ben nodded approvingly. Pakat's description of the increasing aggression of the narms had left him uneasy. Greater numbers would definitely be advantageous if they had to scare the creatures off.

"It is good to have you along, Nenka," Ben told the young Kheelian as they set off again, heading for the sound of the waterfall. Nenka did something of a double-take.

"You speak Kheelian?" He asked in amazement.

"He does now," Chana said, with a hint of something that seemed like pride.

"That is amazing!" Nenka had an air of poorly suppressed excitement about him. "It is unbelievable that you are here. An alien from another planet. And now a crashed spaceship! Nothing like that happens around here."

"You did not mention it to anyone did you?" Chana said.

"Of course not, you told me not to." Nenka said, a touch reproachfully. "But I don't understand why. Everyone will be so excited. The whole village has been talking about you all week, Ben!"

"Oh. Have they?" Ben was not at all comfortable with that idea.

"Oh yes," said Nenka. "Taaki's cousin married a couple in Graldit, the village up the valley, and they were asking about you when they were visiting and came into the shop last week. They've even heard about you up there!"

"You haven't seen any strangers about have you?" Ben asked. "People you didn't know. Or any other Pechnar?"

"No," Nenka seemed puzzled. "There aren't any strangers around here, apart from you of course. Why?"

Ben tried to sound casual. "Oh, just curious. But you will let Chana know if you did hear of anyone?"

"Sure!"

By the time they had followed the base of the cliffs along to the stairs, the unrelenting greyness was starting to lighten as the morning gained strength. At the foot of the steps, Chana pointed out a system of pulleys and ropes attached to a wooden platform that rested on the grass at the edge of the cliff. Ben could just make it out through the fog. It was the old lift system for getting peat and turfs down from the moor, Chana told him. A piece of Kheelian heritage from before they had antigrav. Ben did not think that time had been all that long ago.

Ascending the stairs proved to be more tricky than Ben had anticipated. The Kheelians adopted an almost upright position to climb, using the knuckles on their long arms as balance to lift their long legs to the next step. Ben found himself having to tilt all the way forwards and cling on to the back of Chana's jacket to stay seated. From his position, he did note that the stairs seemed comically small to the Kheelians, who took the ascent three of four stairs at a time. Chana told him, between breaths, how the stairs had been made by the creatures who lived in this land before the Kheelians. They had been a small people, not unlike Ben in stature, and they had worshipped the stone stacks on the edge of the moor as gods. Seeing them loom through thinner patches of mist above them like great black demons of rock, Ben could believe it.

The fog suddenly thickened and they had the strange impression that they were moving through a layer of cloud. He could barely see Chana's back in front of him. The water droplets hung thick and heavy in the air, condensing on his hands and face and soaking into his outer cloak. Chana leapt up a few more steps and they burst through the fog, out into bright cold daylight. Ben blinked around in surprise, and saw that they reached the plateau of the moor. Turning back they could see the world below them was lost in thick cloud that filled the whole valley from cliff edge to the distant hills. The waterfall beside their path tumbled down into that smothering heavy whiteness that hid the village from view. On the moor itself, save for a few patches where it clung on stubbornly in hollows, the fog had almost completely burned away in the weak sunlight. Tuffets of emerald-green grass stood out jewel bright against the black peat mud and white stones that edged the path. The path ran along the edge of the cliffs for a way, and then darted out onto the moor, twisting and diving between the gullies and the gurgling stream, towards those grey towers of the rock pillars which edged the moor.

It was strange to be back here again. Apart from his disconcerting fragments of dream, this moor was really the first place Ben remembered. It was, in many ways, his birth place. It felt as if he had travelled through a strange cyclical narrative, only to return to the same place he had begun. But despite all that, his journey did not feel like it was nearly at its end. He had more questions now than he had ever had, and next to no answers.

There was some discussion happening between the Kheelians. Ben drew his mind back from his thoughts. Pakat, it seemed, was going to divert to a small storage unit the scientists had hidden nearby to pick up equipment he needed to take his readings and measurements. Chana, Nenka and Ben would followed on behind at their slower pace with the antigrav cart. They would probably arrive at their meeting place, the old tree stump Pakat called Grandfather Kender, at about the same time. Ben was anxious about Pakat going off alone, but the others did not seem to be concerned. Perhaps the narms really were no threat.

Ben slid down from Chana's back and walked around a little to stretch his legs, as Pakat unhitched the antigrav cart. The Kheelians each ate a nutrient block from the stash that Chana carried; Ben settled for a drink of cold tea instead. He had noticed that the Kheelians needed to eat much more frequently and lager quantities than he did, presumably due to their much larger body mass. Pakat set off first, heading confidently out into the moor.

"I'll take Ben if you want?" Nenka offered, casually. Chana agreed with a smile, and connected the straps of the cart to his own shoulders. Ben climbed up onto Nenka's back, and they set off again. Chana had given Ben the holomap device to navigate by, as he had his hands free. A red line projected a few metres out from the device into the misty air before them to mark the direction they should follow.

At first they travelled in silence, but it wasn't long before Nenka's curiosity got the better of him again.

"So you really can't remember anything before you turned up at Uncle Chana's house? Not the ship wreck or anything?"

Ben shrugged. "A few snatches, but no, not really."

"Wow," marvelled the teen. "So Ben is not your actual name? That's funny, because it doesn't sound Kheelian."

Ben laughed. "No, sadly it is not my real name, though I am growing rather fond of it. The girls...Tiki and Ooouli...they named me after someone from history I think. Benbor- something."

"Benborena? Oh yes, that is just the name the locals give him; they can't managed more than one name around here," Nenka pronounced with the scathing tones of a youth who had never left his home town and probably never would. "His real name was Benibor Waken. He is famous for ending the War of Ten Thousand Days."

"That sounds like it could only have been a good thing. But you surprise me, I thought that peace was valued so highly here..."

Nenka bobbed his head in agreement, and Chana took over the tale.

"The War is precisely the reason why. Ten thousand days of war...can you imagine it? It all but destroyed us. By that time neither side could even remember why they were fighting, except that I was how things had always been."

"Benibor Waken saved us," said Nenka, proudly. "And since that day we have renounced all violence. You will have heard Grandmother reading from the Death Lists? The big red book that she keeps?"

"I did not know what it was."

"It is a list of all those who died in the War from this region. Grandmother's task is to keep the names alive by reading them. Ask her to show you some time, she would like that."

"I will," Ben promised, feeling like his whole world view had shifted in the last few moments, and that the Kheelian people were far more complex than he had previously understood. "So your cherishing of the arts and sciences are reaction to the war, in a way?" he asked.

Chana bobbed his head. "There was an understanding that only through expression and creativity would we truly find lasting peace. All weapons and devices of war were destroyed in all countries, so that there could be no temptation to take up arms again. Although it has been said that now our pacifism holds us back."

It was a surprisingly bitter statement from the Kheelian.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Ben.

"There is such a fear of war that any technology which could be conceived in anyway to form a weapon is banned. Many devices which could aid the lives of ordinary Kheelians; instant satellite communications, better transportation, droid labourers, and even certain medical devices, are no longer permitted, and no further research can be made." He sighed. "We are safer now than we were at war, but no less afraid for it. I think the situation will improve in the coming years as people start to forget...But forgetfulness itself cannot be hoped for, because that is how history repeats itself."

They had made steady progress while they had been talking. Looking back, Ben could see the rock stacks were diminished against the horizon, and the cliff edge had could not longer be seen. The moor now stretched away from them on all sides. It was very quiet. The patches of fog lingering in some of the gullies had melted away, although the sun was not hot and the day was chill. Even though it was wet through, Ben was glad again of the extra layer of the cloak. Looking back to see their path, Ben saw a flash of movement in the direction he thought that the cliffs lay. Pakat, probably, coming over to meet them.

The conversation fell quiet for a while as they trotted along. The Kheelians' four long legs managed the undulations of the moor's surface much better than Ben could have done on his own, and even pulling the antigrav cart behind them, the land passed by quickly. Ben was about to ask how much further until the meeting place, when he saw more movement ahead.

"What is that?" he said. The Kheelians looked up.

"What?" Chana asked. "I do not see anything."

Ben pointed. "I'm sure I saw movement, over there. Is it Pakat?"

Chana shook his head, raising a foreleg to shield his eyes. "He will be coming from the other direction."

They carried on, but it was only a few moments before Ben saw the movement more clearly, and saw what was causing it.

"There's an animal over there, beyond that higher patch of grass," he said. "Its hard to see, but I think it's a quadruped, and a seems to be a dark greenish colour."

"Sounds like a narm," Nenka agreed. Ben pointed it out, and they observed it for a while.

"Well I can see only one," Chana said, "and it does not seem very interested in us. We'll keep going and it will probably run off when we get close."

True enough, the creature had disappeared when they approached and Ben didn't see it again. They arrived at the huge tree stump on the curve of the river that they had designated as their meeting place to find Pakat already there. He was using a long probe to measure the thickness of the peat at various places around the river bank. They took another break while they waited for him to finish his work. Ben was given a packet of the tasteless orange-coloured biscuits from Chana's knapsack, which he soaked in his tea to make palatable. The Kheelians found that most amusing. Smiling to their laughter, Ben couldn't help but notice that circumstances couldn't have been more different to when he was last in this spot. When he had been cold and in pain, and dying. And alone.

Pakat finished the last of his notes, and took a final few samples of the river water in small vials. These were tucked into a case, and packed onto the antigrav cart. He turned back to the others.

"Right. Is everyone ready to go on?"

Although he had been talking to everyone, the Kheelians all turned to Ben. The moment of truth was fast approaching. He nodded, suddenly nervous. The headache which had been held at bay all morning suddenly lurched back into life behind his temple. Despite it, he nodded.

The Kheelians exchanged burdens again, with Nenka taking a turn pulling the cart and Pakat carrying Ben. The holoemitter had now been programmed with the projected co-ordinates of where they had seen the map anomaly the previous day. Ben turned the device on, and the red beam flickered out across the moors.

"Let's go," Ben said, pleased that his voice sounded confident.

There was nothing to see for a long while, long enough that Ben's doubts were starting to niggle at him again. Was this a good idea? A wild gundark chase more likely. They didn't even know for certain that he had come this way; it was all drawn from his tattered memories and supposition. Maybe they ought to just-

"Look!" Chana was ducked down to ground-level, pointing at the earth. Ben and the others craned over to see, but it was unmistakable. A row of uneven bare footprints, a quarter the size of Chana's, heading back the way they had come. Ben's stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. They weren't wrong. He had been here.

Their pace quickened now they were sure of the path. Suddenly, Nenka, who was at the front, stopped sharply with a shout. The others hurried over to see, and also stopped still, staring. Their path was cut by a swathe of destruction. Something huge had smashed through, scoring a deep scar into the peat. Bushes and plants were hurled aside, and water seeped from torn earth like blood. The tear was at least five metres wide and two metres deep, and perhaps twenty metres long. The smell of burning was everywhere. All of their eyes were drawn to the right, where the scar cut through a high bank and then fell out of sight. But just beyond the top of the bank, the cold light glinted off metal.

Ben felt suddenly sick to his stomach. "Stop, please. I need to get down."

Pakat obligingly knelt, and Ben scrambled down, ignoring the twinge in his hip. His eyes were fixed on that glint of metal.

"Are you all right?" Pakat asked, softly.

"I dreamed of a ship," Ben said, and then blinked in surprise. He had meant to keep that to himself.

"You did?" said Chana coming over. "That is good news! Your memories really are returning. When was this?"

"Last night," Ben confessed.

"And when were you going to tell us?" Chana scolded, light-heartedly.

"I wasn't alone."

"What?" Pakat and Chana looked at each other.

"In my dream," Ben clarified, reluctantly. "I wasn't alone. There was someone else on the ship."

The atmosphere instantly went tense. Four pairs of eyes turned to the ridge, beyond which that enticing metal gleamed.

"Ben-" Pakat began, but Ben couldn't hear any more placations.

"Let's go," he said firmly. "I just need to know."

He turned and set off towards the ridge, letting the others follow along behind. He had to know for certain, one way or another. He forced his way up the bank, pushing uprooted plants aside with his cane, scrambling over clods of torn earth. With the Kheelians at his side, he breached the top of the ridge, took a deep breath, and looked down.

There lay the ship. Half sunk into the mud and listing unnaturally on one side. The hull was blackened and cracked, and around it in all directions was a field of scattered debris and shards of ceramisteel inside a forty-meter crater of scorched earth. The stench of fuel and burned plastoids still stung at their eyes even after all this time. The Kheelians began to climb down the bank towards the ship dragging the cart. Really, Ben considered absently, calling it a ship at all was was generous. It was little more than a pod, and did, as Ooouli had said, resemble nothing quite so much as a smashed egg.

"It's not the ship," Ben said, almost faint with relief. He scrambled down the bank to where the Kheelians were peering at the craft.

"It's not the one you dreamed about?" Nenka questioned.

Ben shook his head. "This is much smaller. The one I remember had fixed wings and there was a separate cockpit area..."

"And another thing, Ben," called Chana, who had stuck his head into the open side of the pod. "There definitely was not anyone else here. Come and see."

Ben limped over, and climbed up beside the Kheelian. Chana stepped out of the way and let him peer into the ship. Several things were instantly apparent. The craft had been designed to hold six passengers, with the seats all positioned facing outwards around a central post. There was no viewscreen; the ship was meant to be flown with a holoscreen, or on instruments alone. Almost certainly it was an escape pod then. Thirdly, the landing had not been smooth; one entire half of the pod had been crushed on its impact with the ground. The inner chamber had buckled, and four of the six seats were completed destroyed. A three-metre long rod of steel had punctured straight through the backrest of the fifth seat. Anyone sat in any of those seats would not have walked away. Ben ducked his head, touching the synthleather of the one intact seat a little reverently. That he had survived such a crash...it was unbelievable. There was some force out in the universe looking out for him, of that there could be no doubt. And thank that force, whatever it was, that there had not been five other passengers on board when the pod had crashed. And that he hadn't chosen the seat to the left.

A tearing sound above his head made him pull his head out of the capsule.

"What are you doing?" he asked Chana, who had a large sheet of the hull's cladding in his hands.

"Salvage." Chana gave him an odd look. "Many of these materials are very rare. That is why we bought the cart." He suddenly tensed, as if worried. "That is alright with you, is it not? I am sorry, I thought you and Pakat had agreed it."

"Oh," said Ben, who hadn't really thought this far ahead. "Yes, of course. Absolutely."

Nenka had brought the antigrav cart over, and the Kheelians began unpacking the tools they had brought. Chana and Pakat worked on dismantling the pod, while Nenka poked through the debris around the site for anything of use.

Ben remembered his promise to Ooouli, and found the camera amongst their gear. He got a few pictures of the ship and the Kheelians working nearby to give it some scale. The creatures were tearing off whole plates of metal with their bare hands. Their great strength was incredible. There wasn't much he could do to help out here.

"I can get inside the pod," Ben offered, "and see if there's anything useful I can get out of the electrics."

This offer was gratefully accepted, and soon the whole group were intent upon their tasks. Ben found the manual task of stripping out the panels and inspecting the cabling to be refreshing. After so many turns of weariness and ennui, it was beyond satisfying to be doing something useful, accompanied by the quiet if the moor, Chana's hammering and the sound of Pakat humming. Not that there was much to salvage. The majority of the electrics were so much melted slag, although there were some parts that had survived intact or might only need minimal work to be functional again. He pulled out anything that he thought might have any utility at all, and passed it out to Nenka who was making a stockpile by the cart.

It was not all good news however. After some searching, Pakat had managed to find the fuel cells, and three of the four were ruptured and empty, the fuel long ago having leached out into the ground around. The Kheelian had taken more samples from the water around the craft, but they could all see the unnatural iridised sheen to it. What effect it might have on the ecosystem of the moor, none of them could guess.

After several turns of work, the escape pod had been reduced to a bare hulking skeleton, squatting in the blackened earth. All of the ceramisteel hull which was salvageable was packed onto the antigrav cart, along with as many panels, engine parts and electronics as would fit, and of course, the single surviving fuel cell. Each of the Kheelians was also carrying a backpack stuffed with recovered hydraulics, cabling, circuitry and other parts. The remaining parts of the ship which could not be saved; the shattered dome, the flight computer, most of the engine and boosters; these they piled into a mound around the burned carcass of the vessel. Hopefully, Pakat said, they would come back another time with a larger group and shift the rest of the debris. The ravaged shell of the craft cast a melancholy shadow in the late afternoon light.

Ben had been forced to finish working well before the others when his nose started up bleeding again. With a muttered curse, he had retired to the earth bank, to pinch his nose and watch the others finish packing up. When they were done, the Kheelians joined Ben on the bank to rest for a while before starting their return journey, and to finish up the rest of the food they had left. Ben had yet more of the bland orange stuff; this time it was cold dumplings. The stuff was getting less appealing every time he ate, but at least it didn't feel like it was burning the inside of his face off.

At last it was time to go, but Ben felt oddly reluctant. He wasn't sure what he had truly expected to find at the crash site, but there hadn't really been any answers here. All he knew at least that no-one else seemed to have been hurt or killed. And that the dream he had? What could he really remember of it anyway? An old ship, bigger than this. Blaster fire. A tall sandy-haired man, full of frustration and anger. He hadn't wanted to go with him. Ben shivered, remembering that false sense of tranquillity that had overcome him before he had lost his own will to resist.

"What is that?" Chana asked in a curious tone, and Ben dragged his mind back to the present. The question had been aimed at Nenka. The youth was looking at another piece of debris he had just picked up from out of the grass where it had been flung far beyond the wreckage.

"I'm not sure," he said, examining it. "I don't think it's part of the ship."

Ben glanced over, and saw the Kheelian was holding a silver-coloured duralumin cylinder. There was a small silver hanging loop, and a line of black ridges at one end, like a handle. It was oddly familiar.

Nenka peered into the top of the tube. "There's a button here," he said, and his thumb moved.

Ben felt as if time had jolted. He was moving before thought had even passed through his head, throwing himself forwards. His bodyweight hit the young Kheelian before the cry had even left his lips.

"No!"

The cylinder was thrown from Nenka's hand and rolled harmlessly away across the earth. Ben collided hard with the Kheelian's bony shoulder and slumped to the floor, gasping. Pakat and Chana came suddenly alive out of their shock, dashing forward.

"Nenka! What happened?"

Ben rolled aside. Chana was holding his shoulders, trying to sit him up, but Ben pulled out of his grasp, curling forwards against the pain in his ribs. Damn, damn, damn. Everything had been going so well.

"I don't know!" Nenka sounded distraught. "It was something about the cylinder..."

Pakat bent over and picked the innocuous thing up. "What, this?"

"Don't touch it!" Ben groaned out through gritted teeth. That had really hurt. "It's a weapon...it's dangerous."

Pakat carefully lowered the cylinder back down to the ground and stepped back.

"Ben, are you alright?" Chana was stroking his hair and back. "What's wrong?"

"Ribs," Ben grunted, closing his eyes now the immediate danger had passed. The sharp agony was starting to lessen now. He probably hadn't done himself any new damage, just exacerbated his previous injuries by smacking his not-yet-healing ribs again twelve foot of solid Kheelian. He sat up, and looked over to Nenka.

"Are you alright?"

Nenka nodded, wide eyed. "Yes, I'm fine. Sorry, I didn't mean to do anything wrong."

Ben waved off his apology. He got painfully up to his feet and staggered over to where the weapon lay on the ground.

It was familiar, but at the same time, not. It felt wrong in his hand. His thumb strayed to the button, but he didn't press it. The Kheelians were watching him, clearly rattled and completely at a loss at what to do.

"What is it?" Pakat asked. "What do you remember?"

"It's called a lightsaber," said Ben, quietly. He clipped the cylinder onto his belt and let his cloak fall over it.

"You are not bringing it back," Chana objected. "A weapon? What if it explodes!?"

"I can't leave it here," Ben said, firmly. "It is safe enough as long as I keep hold of it. No-one will touch it but me, I promise."

"But," said Chana, "how do you even know how safe or dangerous it is? I mean no insult, but your memory is not the most reliable-"

"I am sorry," Ben said, not to be dissuaded. "But you will have to trust me. I don't like it any more that you do, but I feel quite certain that the 'saber has to come with me. I won't bring it inside the house if that makes it any better."

Finally Chana nodded, although Ben could see he wasn't happy. Pakat, who had remained quiet throughout, spoke up.

"We should leave now if we are to get back before dark."

Everyone agreed. With a final look back at the wrecked escape pod, they turned away and headed for home. At first, Ben insisted on walking, citing the Kheelians already over-large burdens for his reason, but in reality he just wanted to move on his own. He felt ill at ease and on edge. The discovery of the lightsaber had rattled him. He had been hoping that the dream he had about the metal room and the man with the mad eyes was no more than a nightmare. But now the lightsaber was real, in his hands, and he didn't know what to do. Unconsciously, his hand came up to his burned throat. It was the one part of him, apart from his hip, that didn't seem to be healing as well as Shaarm hoped; the burn still weeping and blistered even days later. Ben thought back to the moment he had seen the lightsaber burst into life in the metal room,. His shredded memory insisted there was something not right about the handle he was carrying. It seemed like it was the wrong shape, or the wrong colour or…

Ben stumbled over a cluster of roots and came up, cursing. How he had ever managed to make this journey before, alone and bleeding to death, he would never know. Chana stopped by his side.

"Come here, Ben," he said. "You cannot walk any more."

"I am fine," Ben said, stubbornly, even though he wasn't. Shooting pains were arcing like lightning through his hip and pelvis, and his ribs were protesting even more stubbornly than he was. His head was begin to ache again. Chana swung his backpack round onto his chest like he had before on their trip up to the waterfall, and crouched down.

"Ben," he said softly, and waited. Ben sighed, and gave in, climbing up on the Kheelian's warm back.

They made better progress when Ben had stopped being stubborn. Despite the hindrance of the anti-grav cart, the Kheelians loped along at a smooth pace, and Ben found himself lulled by the rhythm into a sort of trance. It was much better than his anxious brooding of before. He started out of his meditations when Chana stopped, suddenly. Ben looked up. The afternoon had grown dim, and the mist had gathered again in the hollows of the moor and settle about them. Pakat and Nenka were stopped just in front, their long necks swaying as they looked around.

"What is it?" Ben whispered.

"Narms," answered Chana, and he sounded worried.

Ben sat forward and peered into the fog. He could see dark shapes circling in the gathering mist. One appeared out from the fog in front of Nenka, darted a few steps forward and stopped, watching them. Its large body was covered with thick olive-green spines with a dark brown stripe down the back. Its spines were flecked with mud, and rippled as it moved. It hunched on its four legs, its long snout low to the ground, snarling through its bared fang-like teeth. Ben couldn't help but feel it was staring up at him.

"Stay calm," Pakat said, quietly. "No-one move."

"What is it doing?" said Nenka, sound tense.

"I have no idea," said Pakat. "They have never done this before."

Well, that wasn't very comforting.

There was a sense of something moving behind them. Ben turned, and saw two more narms silently circling behind Chana's heels.

"There are more behind us," he alerted the others as quietly as possible. His hand went to the 'saber handle on his belt. If it came to a fight, would he even know how to use the kriffing thing?

The green narm in front of Nenka continued to growl. Ben felt Chana's muscles tense in his back. Suddenly, the narm made a barking, snapping sound. It was repeated in three or four voices from the rising mist around them, and slowly the narm backed away from them. Its yellow eyes stayed fixed on them the whole time until the fog swirled between them, and it was gone.

Ben looked back behind them. The other narms had disappeared along with the leader. He could feel that they were alone. Chana stayed tensed.

"They've gone," Ben said.

"What the grzzking trzk was that?" Chana muttered, looking at Pakat. Nenka had slowly backed up until he was closer to his uncles.

"I do not know," Pakat was looking worried, but then again, he nearly always did. "I have never seen narms act that way towards Kheelians before, particularly when there are a number of us. I suppose they might think Ben was a child and therefore easy prey if he was alone, but not with three of us here as well…"

"We should go," Nenka said. "In case they get their courage up again, and come back."

Ben couldn't agree more.

TBC!

Thank you everyone who is reading along, and particularly to those of you who left reviews. It's great to hear that you're still enjoying it.