This chapter was not beta read. So please forgive any and all of my many mistakes.
Chapter 4
Discovery at Pig Island
Morning came all to soon for Simon, who was sore all over from his adventure the day before, and his whole body demanded he feed, then go back to sleep.
There was no food.
He pushed him self up and looked to see if Lewis was still in his bed. He wasn't.
After the ill fated treasure adventure yesterday they had spent all afternoon and evening building, and then trying to operate, the hell gate. Simon had been too tired to protest this taboo activity, and the guilt over every thing had pushed him to keep silent about his ever deepening fears. He'd nearly gotten his new friend killed, after all, and you sort of didn't get to be picky about what your friend asked you to do after some thing like that.
They never got it to work, though, and he'd been almost dizzy from the joy that brought him. Simon was going to smash it, but he took one swing, stumbled over his burnt foot, and instead of hitting it with his pick, slammed into it with his chin. His magnificent beard took most of the damage, bless it and it's amazing fluffiness, but the whole ordeal had left his energy totally spent.
They had to race the darkness home after that. Running with all of your toes bubbling up like fried pork skin was an exercise in endurance. Once in the door Simon limped to his grass bed and dropped like a stone.
Lewis shuffled around for a while like a zombie, some times moaning like a zombie, some times whining about wanting to go home and energy links and the dead, before dropping down in his own bed with food in his hands. As promised they split the apple, and Simon found that the roasted wheat berries weren't all that bad. Meager, and dry, but not that bad.
Simon drifted off to sleep, while Lewis had studied the book.
All that night Simon had dreamed horrible dreams of scathing elder dwarfs shaking judgmental fingers, and his own mother roaring at him to wipe his feet because he was tracking lava through the dining room.
Hungry to the point of being to uncomfortable to simply go back to sleep he got up and hobbled painfully over to the door that lead to the scant farm. Each step felt some what like he was walking on broken glass, but only a very little bit of broken glass. At the door he leaned against it for a moment before pushing it open. Once he heard the happy burble of the water fall, then stepped out in to the sunshine, the pain was forgotten. It felt good. The sun felt good.
Almost as good as gold.
He closed his eyes and basked in it. Warm and bright, and he was the only dwarf he knew of that could stand face to face with the big Blue Xephos. He grind stupidly at that, and decided that maybe he'd keep that thought to him self.
Speaking of Xephos... He opened his eyes and looked around. The wheat was growing, and that was good, so they would have food eventually. But there was no human to be seen.
Other side then, all that way across the floor, and out the other door. Better get started.
Any second now.
Yep, just a short walk to the other door.
Simon sat down on a rock and sighed. If felt good to just be here in the sun's light. The dreams still wouldn't shake completely from his mind, and the wheat needed to be watched in case some thing came along and tried to trample it.
It was reasonable for Lewis to want to go home. Simon probably would have felt the same thing if he'd been suddenly cast onto the surface when he'd been younger, but he wouldn't have created some thing so horrific as a hell gate to do it.
Lewis was new here, so he couldn't be wholly blamed, but Simon also reasoned that there was probably a punishment of some sort for building a doorway to the realm of the undead. He wasn't sure what it was, but knew the elders would have probably locked Lewis up and thrown away the keys, or worse. Simon knew his own mother would have dealt a swift, and potentially painful and scarring punishment – Simon could still feel some of the welts he'd gotten not that many moons ago from an accident where he'd let loose some TNT in the dining hall – though she didn't seem to have the grudge against humans the elders had.
He rubbed sleepily at the corners of his eyes, not sure what a good punishment ought to be. Maybe a swift kick in the butt? It sounded reasonable to him.
But that would mean he'd have to get up and go looking for the human. No, the crops, they needed to be guarded.
Yes indeed.
Almost twenty minutes latter the wheat was still standing, mostly thanks to there not being any animals other than the cow around for miles. And even the cow was on the other side of the cave-house. Still Simon felt oddly accomplished.
"Simon?" Lewis' voice drifted out from the doorway.
"Out here." He called.
Moments latter Lewis appeared. In his arms were another few apples. "You hungry? I found a tree with loads of them."
Simon reached up and took one, all of his troubles forgotten in an instant. "Thanks!" He took a huge bite, and savored the sweet taste.
"We need to look for more food." Lewis sat down and gazed unseeing at the wheat. "I didn't pick all of them. Might need them latter."
Simon took another, smaller bite. "Hmm." He nodded. "Pigs maybe."
"I checked the portal." He glanced over at Simon. "It still does nothing."
"We'll knock it down then." Simon said, nodding,. "If it's not doing what we need it to then I don't want to just leave it up." He shifted, suddenly feeling too warm. "We can't leave it up, supposes it is a portal to a hellish world. Could you imagine what sort of horrible thing that would be?"
Lewis gave him a small, thin smile. "It's inert, Simon. If it was part of a portal to some where it's not complete. It would need a whole lot more of something to make it work. As it is it's not ever going to do any thing."
"You sure?"
He nodded. "We need food first. And your foot..." He glanced down at Simon's still singed toes.
"I'm fine." Simon looked down at his foot. It was healing rapidly, and would be whole in a few days. He had experienced worse. "I can walk. And run. And dig."
"All right. I'll get some things, and we'll go." Lewis offered another apple. "Here, fill up before we head out."
Simon took the offered food. "Thanks."
Lewis stood, and just for a moment swayed a little. Simon, suspecting his friend was sleep deprived from his new fascination over the hell gate, casually reached out and gave him a small shove in the back of the knee. Lewis yelped and failed and crashed into the ground, apples flew every where like thick red fireworks.
"SIMON!" Lewis shoved him self up on his elbows and looked back. "What was that for?"
"For sneaking off and screwing around with things you shouldn't mess with." Simon replied mater of fact.
"I am trying to find away back home!" He staggered to his feet, dusted him self off, and huffed.
"I know." Simon took another bite and turned his attention away from Lewis, grinning. "Just be glad it's me and not some hoary old dwarf in some dusty hole. He'd'v taken yer' leg right on off."
Lewis stared for a moment, then sputtered. With nothing to say he turned and picked the apples back up. Being turned away as he was presented Simon with an even larger target than the back of Lewis' knee. He lifted his foot and took aim...
"Don't you dare, dwarf." Lewis snapped, glaring up and over his shoulder.
Simon had to take an extra big bite of the apple to keep from laughing.
"You are so childish." He stood, all the apples regathered. "I should hope by the time we head out you find it with in your self to behave." He then stomped up to the door, opened it, and came face to face with the cow.
The bovine lowed, licked his face, took an apple, then turned away. The door to the cave closed, only an inch from Lewis' nose.
"The nerve." Lewis managed.
Simon nearly choked on his laughter.
Lewis huffed as he ascended the last rocky outcropping, then sank to a squat on the ledge. The best place to look for food, or any thing for that matter really, was high ground. And to keep an eye on Simon, for that matter. The red headed, horn donning native had mischief in his eyes.
Lewis gave him a long look as he climbed up after him.
"What?" He asked, grinning.
"I've got my eye on you." Lewis settled down in to a more comfortable position and stretched his back. The climb had not been a long one, but at nearly a vertical incline it had been strenuous.
From off in the distance he could hear grunting and snuffling. "Simon do you hear that?"
Simon froze and looked up. "Hissing?"
"No." Lewis shook his head. "I think I hear animals."
"Ah." Simon relaxed. "Good." He dragged him self the rest of the way up, and half bounced half limped over to Lewis. Then he peered over the edge. "Whoa, OK, this is, this is high." He swayed a little and stepped back from the edge.
Lewis stood and grabbed Simon's shoulders. "Do you have a problem with heights?"
"Not that I know of, I've never been this high up!" He peered over again, laughed a little nervously, and then cleared his throat. "Dwarfs aren't really known for their mountain climbing, you know."
Lewis felt just a bit like kicking him self. Of course Simon wouldn't be used to it. Not the distance from the ground, and not the altitude. "How do you feel, dizzy? You feel like you are getting enough air? Air is thinner the higher you go, you know."
Simon took a long deep breath. "Oh yeah, it is thinnerup here, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." Lewis took his own deep breath and discovered he could smell traces of smoke. It was a familiar, and worrying smell.
"It's not bad, I feel fine, but I don't want to have to do any running or swimming maybe. I'll be fine up here. No problem what so ever." Simon said with a firm nod. He remained content to stay in Lewis' grasp, however.
Lewis continued to hold him there. "Do you smell any thing unusual?"
Simon sniffed the air. "Some thing is burnt." He looked up and back. "But I can't tell what. It doesn't smell like sulfur or lava."
Lewis let him go and picked his way around the rocks, round the corner, and on to another ledge. He didn't see what was burning, but discovered some thing else that momentarily took all of his attention.
Sprawling before him, as large as a dozen foot ball fields, and sporting it's own miniature peaks and valleys, flowing with clear, clean water, was an island floating in the sky. Trees, vines, shrubs, wild grasses, and flowers of every description were covering the island. The water fell, glittering, cool and clear fell like glassy ribbons all the way down to the world below. Dotting the land were herds of sheep and cattle. Chickens scratched about in lazy flocks and pigs basked in the mid day sun.
"Simon." Lewis breathed.
The dwarf was making his way over, grumbling and cursing all that was the surface world, then stopped abruptly when he too took in the sight of the island sprawled out before them. "Whoa!"
Lewis forgot for a moment his hunger, and even the desperate urge to find home, as he gazed upon the sight. Then, from one corner, he spotted smoke. Just under the smoke he could make out a glint of charred white.
"It's an island full of pigs!" Simon said in awe. "Did you ever see such a thing?"
"Never one floating in the air." He opened his inventory up and pulled out some wood. Carefully he started to build a bridge. "How does it stay up?"
Simon added his own wood. "I have no idea. I mean, I sort of do, but all I can say is..."
"Magic." Lewis cut him off and hurried across. "There's some thing burning over there." He pointed. "See it?"
Simon squinted, then nodded. "Looks like some sort of huge skull, burning."
Lewis winced.
"Sorry." Simon patted his arm.
"I'm going to go look." Lewis trod lightly through the happy little flocks, and past the chickens. He stepped over a burbling stream, and up over a cheery little round boulder. There, crumpled and broken, burning out in some places, was a shuttle craft.
Simon stepped up next to him. "What is it?"
"A small ship." Lewis sighed and stepped closer. He knew for a fact that there had been no plans for his crew to send a shuttle. This could only mean that they hadn't been able to scan the world any better a second time than they had the first time. His short range scanner didn't work down here either, so it was more than plausible that this craft's scanners hadn't worked. Yet the shuttle had come down far enough to crash, meaning it had to have had a navigational scanning pattern for a while. Protocol dictated that as soon as you could no longer navigate you had to turn around and follow your flight path back up the way you came. Contrary to popular cadet belief very few shuttles ever crashed, and when they did almost none were fatal.
The small crew would have been flying blind at some point, a point too far down to simply turn back and retrace their steps.
Lewis stepped into the craft and looked around. Most of the power was still on, but at a glance he could see the craft's navigation was in ruins. The little crew had ripped it apart, certainly desperate to get it working again, before hitting the island.
The craft was empty. For just a moment he felt hope, real tangible hope, that he would be with his own kind again.
"Lewis." Simon's voice drifted in low and void of any mischief.
Lewis took a slow breath. "What is it, Simon." Carefully he exited the craft and looked around. Not far off, just visible from behind some greenery, were Simon's two helmet horns.
"I … I think I found..." He faltered.
Lewis stepped around a tree and saw Simon standing over what remained of the crew. Burns and broken bones were immediately apparent. The flight commander was still sitting up, propped against a tree, her blond hair clean and shifting in the breeze. Her com badge was sitting in the palm of her limp hand.
She had been trying to call for help. No one had heard her.
"What do you want to do?" Simon asked, looking up with dark eyes.
Lewis felt a twisted sort of relief that he didn't recognize any of them. None of them were from his bridge crew. He couldn't hail the ship they came from any better then they could, he knew, so there was no way to return the bodies to their ship. It was up to him to lay them to rest. Some thing he was both loath, and honored to do.
He turned away from the horrible sight and looked down at Simon. "Do you have a shovel?"
Perplexed, Simon asked, "What ever for?"
"To give them a proper burial." Lewis replied solemnly, his stomach starting to churn at the thought of the task.
Simon opened his jaw, worked it a little, then snapped it shut. "To bury them." He shook his head. "All right. I can make you one, if you really want."
Lewis nodded, the reality of the situation sinking in. Humans, from his world, and he'd been to late to help them. And they could never have given him help.
Simon walked off, silent.
Lewis couldn't quite make him self look at the crew, not at their faces, but his eyes rolled over the injuries. The ship had been relatively clean looking, but these wounds were large, gaping things. Messy. He wondered if they had survived the crash, only to encounter the undead. They could have touched down in the dark, unprepared for what horrors this world held in the night.
Unable to call for help, and no knowing what was in store for them, they spent the last night trapped on a nightmarish alien world.
Simon trotted back up to him, a sturdy looking shovel in his hands. "Lewis?"
"They never stood a chance once they got low enough. They'll never get home."
"You can still try making a tower, you know." He set his free hand on Lewis' back. "I'll help you."
"We need to focus on food and. . ." He waved his hand over the victims. "I don't know their names. I don't. . ." He sagged. "I don't recognize any of them. I don't think they were from my ship."
Simon was silent for a while, then pulled his hand away. "Here, the shovel."
Lewis took it, and held it limply. "Thank you."
Simon worried at the edge of the clearing where Lewis was busy with his strange burial ritual, until he could watch no longer. He felt a little bad for the dead, not so much because they were dead, but because they were stuck in such awful, crude little holes. But then he'd been told that this is what the humans did, get rid of the dead like they were to be forgotten.
What a sad existence.
He tried not to go into the little ship, because it wasn't his and it could be very dangerous, but he found him self in side soon enough. It had many blinking lights and aside from the burnt smell and taint of blood it smelled clean. Harsh clean, like the sort women dwarfs seemed to think was proper. So pungently clean it stung.
Sure it was crashed and a bit messy, but where the disaster hadn't struck it was shinny, almost shimmering white.
He pressed his hand against the inner wall and felt the hum of alien energy, neither playful, nor all that inciting, but ready. It felt like it was waiting for some thing. Not in a predatory way, but waiting none the less. Maybe like a dog waiting for a signal to preform a trick, but with out any eagerness. It was also weaker than it should have been. Simon wasn't entirely sure how he knew, he just did.
There was no pain, no feeling, no breathing. It was entirely void of life.
Simon pulled his hand away and felt sorry for that last fact.
Lewis came in, looking dirty and just a bit dazed, and sat down heavily in one of the chairs up front. He ran his hands over the shinny black computer material, much like the smaller brick he kept on him, and words appeared in the air, glowing and floating. He looked at the words for a long time before he got up and went back out side.
"Lewis?"
"I just wanted their names." He managed, just above a hollow whisper.
"Oh." Simon wandered around for a moment more, before he found him self in the same seat. He skimmed the computer controls and found them to be warmer than he had expected. Absentmindedly he started to toy with them.
He had a sort of vague idea of what some of them might be. Obviously this ship could fly, so some of them had to be for that, and some of them were for communication, like the little communicators he and Lewis shared, and maybe one for the lights and doors and the like. He didn't want to really start messing with things, though, just in case this thing had something really awful on board, like a bomb.
He toyed carefully with the controls for a long time, half heartedly, until Lewis came back and stood behind him.
"Out of the chair." His voice was rough and deep, commanding.
Simon leaped out and scooted away.
Lewis took the seat and once more ran his own hands over the black surface. Words and pictures flashed on and off for several minutes.
Simon waited for a while, before getting board and wandering into the back again. He settle on the floor to wait. After a time he looked back and saw Lewis staring blankly though the glowing words and at the wall. His eyes were blank, and dark.
"You OK?"
"This wasn't from my ship. This was from a secondary science exploration crew. A lot of the files are to badly damaged to get any thing more than that. I don't even have all of their names." He rubbed at his eyes wearily. "And there's nothing more I can find out about this damned planet!" Roughly he made a fist and slammed it into the wall.
Simon looked away and toyed with his shoulder strap. "It's not all that bad here."
Lewis ignored that, stood then walked over to a small, dark little hole in the side of the ship. It wasn't a burnt spot, it looked like it was supposed to be there. "Replicator works." He grunted. "We have plenty of food here." He poked above the hole and cup of something steaming hot appeared, like magic. He took it in his hands and stared at it numbly.
Simon got up, curious and hungry. "Can it make sweets?" He asked carefully. Sweets helped when you were sad. Lewis definitely looked that.
Lewis nodded before sipping the hot liquid. "Yeah, um, let me get some things for you to try." He smiled a little, but it looked forced. "I don't hate this planet, Simon." He added, quietly. "It's nice enough here in the day time."
Simon shrugged, "It's home. Well, my home."
"It's home. Well, my home." Simon looked torn about the fact, and small. Not in his normal short stature way, but sunken and genuinely unhappy.
Lewis tried to focus on the menu before him, and found that the screen, though clear, was oddly hard to read.
He wanted the other fleet officers to not be dead. But more than that – and he felt like a horrible, cold, heartless person for wanting it – he wanted the shuttle's navigation system to not be dead.
Home was a word that was starting to abstract itself in his mind.
He didn't know the people who had died. He did know shuttles. They were supposed to be safe, and be able to take you back.
Back home.
He ordered up a few dozen treats and pulled the plate out from the alcove. Tiredly he sank down to the floor. He felt like for a moment he'd found light at the end of a very long dark and strange tunnel, only to hear the hollow whistle of a freight train attached to it.
Simon sank down with him.
The portal hadn't worked. He'd tried, tried for hours. He'd gotten up as soon as it was light and left, braving the remnants of the undead to get back to it. It wasn't the answer to his problem and that had frustrated him. This discovery did not help, or encourage him. More of his people were here, but they would never see home again either.
It had almost been his story, too. But had they lived then maybe at this very moment he'd be talking to his crew, his ship mates. His family. Her.
"At least you aren't alone." Simon said, braking into his thoughts, looking up at him with worry and caution.
Lewis tried to smile at that. "Yeah. Thanks."
Simon picked up the first treat and eyed it carefully. "It smells like chocolate."
"You have chocolate on this planet?" He willingly let him self be distracted by that unexpected pleasant surprise. It wasn't going to do him any good to dwell on what might have been had the shuttle crew survived.
"Yeah!" Simon took a bite, chewed, then smiled. "What is that goo in the center?"
Lewis looked at the cookie like thing. "Orange flavored jell. Do you like it? I've never tried one my self."
"It's delicious." Simon replied, then stuffed the entire treat in to his mouth. "What is it?"
"It's supposed to be orange jelly. The whole thing is called a Jaffa cake, I think."
"More?" Simon asked, only just able to hold him self back from the rest of the confections out of respect for the resent troubling events.
Lewis couldn't help but chuckle at his eager, delighted response to some thing so simple as comfort food. "All right, we might as well make pigs of our selves and not waste the resources we've been given." He picked one of the smaller desserts up and picked at it's edge. Food didn't seem to offer any comfort, no matter what it tasted like.
"Pigs" Simon mumbled past a mouth full, then glanced out the back of the shuttle. "There are more pigs than any thing else on this island. Lets call it that."
"Call it what?" Lewis stood and ordered another twenty Jaffa cakes. Simon's appetite was not hampered in the least, apparently.
"Pig island." Simon replied. "Maybe not the most noble, but definitely the most filling."
Lewis couldn't argue against that, so he nodded. "All right, Pig Island!" He sat back down and plopped the second plate between them. "Dig in."
"Hehe, you don't have to tell a dwarf to dig in!" Simon's hand shot forward, but then he stopped him self. "I hope oranges aren't poisonous to dwarfs." He then took a Jaffa cake and stuffed it whole into his mouth.
For a moment Lewis felt his heart clench. With out the ability to do a medical scan and check for allergies or alien intolerance Simon very well could be in grave danger from some thing humans considered edible. Innocent beings had died plenty of times before from such oversights.
"Simon! Why would you say some thing like that?"
He looked up. "Sorry." Once more there was thin trace of mischief is his eyes. "Dwarfs don't really get food poisoning."
Lewis scowled, "You'll be the death of me!"
Simon stuck his tongue out, it was covered in chocolate and wet crumbs. "Better me than a creeper." He stuffed another one in his mouth, choked, snatched Lewis' drink up, and downed the whole mess. "Ahhhh." He winced. "I'll be the death of me!"
Lewis shook his head, then leaned back against the shuttle wall. "We'll both die from your antics then." As little as he'd eaten before the long climb and heavy work of digging and then filling in the holes he found he just wasn't hungry. There would be time to eat tomorrow. And the day after that, and that...
He closed his eyes. With every shovel full of dirt he'd thrown he'd found him self burying his hope. If they hadn't made it with some thing as sturdy and energized as a shuttle then what could he and his small communicator do?
There had been four people, and it had been awful work. He didn't even know all of their names. Gone, just gone, and never coming back. No names. When Simon had asked him for his name he hadn't had one either. He still didn't know why he had picked the name 'Lewis', but it sounded like a good one. Better than absolutely nothing.
Right?
He needed a name to go over his own grave, at least. He was almost sure he'd have his head stone on this planet, somewhere, someday.
"So about this tower?" Simon asked interrupting his dismal thoughts. His mouth was full and his eyes were a mix of subdued darkness and gleaming delight. "How big were you going to make it?"
It would have to be very big to make it through any of the signal blockage. "I'm not sure. Huge."
"Well, first thing in the morning then." Simon said with a firm nod.
"Yeah, OK." Lewis wasn't dead and buried. Not yet. Survive, find a way to make contact, then get home. I have got to survive. And he had a name. Lewis Blue Xephos. He chuckled dryly to him self. It felt oddly fitting to be named after the star that he was trapped with.
"Here." A Jaffa cake was shoved his way. "You have to try one."
Survival meant shelter and knowledge of the world around you and shelter and food and...
"Well?" Simon waited, gently demanding he eat.
Lewis took the offered treat.
… bonds. "Thank you, Simon."
"Any time, friend."
After the island Simon had been passenger on what was one of the most interesting, and frightening rides of his life. Lewis had insisted on getting the Shuttle back to the cave, and spent almost three hours working frantically on it. Once he was convinced it was flight worthy he ordered Simon in and shut the doors.
It flew. But the word 'flew' was a rough sort of patch word because no other word seemed to really fit the description. The shuttle bucked, pitched, rolled, and wobbled all over the sky, leaving Lewis white knuckled behind the controls, proclaiming he was a RIO not a pilot, and cursing at the craft every other breath.
Simon had been white knuckled as well, cursing at all things human made.
They landed a good distance from the cave's front door. Again, 'landed' wasn't the right word, but Simon was loath to use the word 'crash' in this instance. They were both alive when every thing settled.
For a moment neither moved. Then Lewis had leaned over and rested his head on the controls. Simon waited nearby, and would have left him there for as long as the human had needed to recollect him self, but night came. Simon nudged him in to moving, and watched over them both as they made the trek across the open ground back to the cave.
There Lewis had – no, not crashed – sunk into his bed and curled up. He remained there for the rest of the evening, sleepless, but exhausted.
The beds were horribly inadequate, so the next day Simon had gone on a quest for enough wool to make a proper bed, at least for Lewis, because the red clad man seemed all to content to just remain curled up on his straw pallet. Simon managed to get the supplies and get back with enough time left in the day to tend to the farm. They didn't so much need the wheat now as Simon needed some thing to do that didn't take him to far from the cave-house.
Now, two days latter, though Lewis was still more or less coming to terms with his situation and the grim discovery, the tower was under construction.
It had to be made of smelted stone. A tower of cobble would have been awful, an eye sore, cringe worthy. Not only that but it would have made the wrong sorts of sounds. Solid smooth stone, now that sung with music in it. Simon had dug most of the stone out him self, then smelted it.
Lewis had protested rather loudly about smelting taking too much time, but Simon had tried to reason with him. "Once you go home this thing will still be here. I'll still be here, and I'll have to rip it all apart again!" Simon had argued.
Lewis had pouted, shuffled around, and made miserable unhappy noises, but relented after that. "Good point." He'd said, then cleared out an aria and started to lay the foundations.
Now, with the four walls quite tall, and Lewis outfitted with plenty of smelted material for the day, Simon contented him self to tend the farm, and eat at his leisure. They had plenty of food now, and Lewis had showed him the basics of the replicator. It would give them plenty for a couple of weeks at least. Long enough to establish the farm.
To Simon it still looked like a sad, broken giant's skull. Maybe he could find some Lapis and paint some runes on it, give it a cared for look.
The cow shuffled up to him and nudged him. Absentmindedly he reached back and scratched her nose. "Hello."
She huffed and leaned in to the petting.
He looked up and patted her neck. "You are bing awful affectionate today."
She craned her neck and sniffed at his food. Simon pulled it away and out of her reach. "No."
She mooed, sounding quite unhappy, and lumbered off. A few feet away she looked back, then grunted softly, before disappearing behind a tree. Simon watched her go, and frowned. She had tried to get in to the cave that morning, but now she was just to big.
"Simon?" Lewis suddenly called from the tower, his voice drifting up from the communicator. "I... Uh... I need some help." There was a thinly vialed tremor shaking his words.
Simon winced. For the last two days the red clad human had been adjusting and adapting, and regaining his nerve. But after all that had happened he was just as jumpy as he'd been the first day and night. Every thing spooked him. Shadows, the cow, every thing. "What's wrong?" He asked, patiently.
"Creepers!"
"Creepers?" A trickle of fear slithered down Simon's spine. He stood and looked up at the tower, but couldn't see Lewis at all. Real fear then, this was bad.
"Ahh, they see me! Do they? I don't know!" Lewis rambled. "Simon!" Panic was rising from the tone of his voice.
"All right, don't move. I'll be right there." He jogged back to the cave and rummaged through the junk until he found the materials he needed. Sticks and string. There was no way he wanted to face them with a blade. It would be suicide.
"Simon?" Lewis whined.
"Are they hissing at you?" Simon asked as he hurriedly kicked the crafting bench to life.
"No."
"Just..." He bent the wood into shape and strung the weapon. "Just don't move. They probably can't see you. Don't get near them, alright?"
"R-right."
Simon abandoned the crafting bench and opened the chest again. There were a few arrows there, but not enough for more than two, maybe three creepers if he was lucky.
"Simon!"
Impatient and a little afraid Simon ground out, "Grow a pair Lewis!" He could forgive the man for being traumatized by what had happened to his own people, but if he didn't start to try and pull him self together real trouble would find him.
Like it had now.
Little dwarf children knew more to keep a look out than Lewis did. Watching his back wasn't going to be easy if he wasn't going to try and at least be adult about the situation.
Then again maybe Lewis was still just a kid, and maybe humans were really tall even when they were young, and grew beards from birth. That would be sort of cool, Simon thought.
Lewis yelped, and Simon could hear the full on panic in his cry.
It would be cool to be born with a beard, true, but it would mean that they had a long way to go before the human could be left alone with him self for any extended period of time.
"I'm coming." Simon hurried and crafted another bow, then rummaged for more bolts. With two bows in hand, and enough shots to hopefully dispatch at least four of the green monstrosities, he headed for the tower - only to come face to face with the most horrible, disturbing, mindbogglingly awful sight he'd ever seen.
"These stairs. Lewis..." Simon drew a breath in, let it out slowly, and looked up. Way up. The tower was much larger than he'd expected it to be. Lewis had worked with all due haste. "Why would you DO this to me?" He could feel the energy twisting it's self in to nauseating knots all the way up to the very reaches of the stone walls. Simon could feel it in his stomach, like all of his gut had suddenly been grabbed and wrung about. He gasped for a breath and leaned against the tower's sturdy foundation.
"Simon!" Lewis whined, his form just visible at the top of the ugly ascending path. "Just kill them!"
"Well I do have my pick..." He eyed the offensive steps wearily.
"The creepers!" Lewis snapped in a demanding, but also freaked out, needy sort of way.
Oh, right. "Coming."
He'd had nightmares every time he'd fallen asleep after the adventure at Pig Island. The science crew members would rise from the grave and come for him. They were zombies, shredded and broken, screaming and clawing. Clawing desperately at the shuttle's broken navigation system, their only hope of salvation, trying to land safely and save them selves from what had already happened. He tried to stop them from ripping it apart any further, but they were mindless and frantic. They looked up, panicked and saw the screen. Nothing could save them. They would turn on him then, screaming and clawing at his skull. Not one of them had eyes.
He couldn't keep him self from dreaming it when he fell asleep, so he stopped sleeping. Now the world was swimming around him, fuzzy, and he knew his reactions were slow and muddled with exhaustion.
Lewis clung to the flimsy railing he'd tossed up along with the stairs and glanced at the green creature not more than a good stone's throw away. It was in the trees just above the tower's incomplete wall, slowly turning about, surveying it's world.
Simon was climbing the steps carefully, and grumbling the whole way up. Lewis could hear it through the communicator. He willed the dwarf to hurry.
The creeper couldn't see him, he could just back away, but he couldn't make him self leave the wall. If the thing exploded it might knock a chunk out of the structure, and every moment longer it took to build was one more moment for his ship to possibly abandon him. He had to get the wall up, it was his only hope.
He took a breath to calm him self, and reached for the blaster that wasn't there any more.
He was unarmed. Simon had told him to keep some sort of weapon on him self at all times, but he hadn't thought he'd need it all the way up at the top of the tower.
The creeper turned about again and it's hollow eyeless sockets locked on to Lewis. It's head coiled back and it hissed, serpent like. It looked like a verdant snake ready to strike.
Lewis stumbled back to get out of it's visual range and tripped down a step. Dizzy with fear and exhaustion he couldn't catch him self and slammed solidly against the far wall of the tower. "S – Si..." He wheezed, but the air to call out wouldn't come.
Pull it together. He tried to stand but his knees were jelly. The memory of broken science officers danced crazily through his mind, shuffling towards him, zombies.
The creeper took a step down, off the wall, closer, and hissed again. Then, with a crackling, sizzling sound, it started to puff up.
Lewis pressed back against the signal tower's wall as hard as he could and squeezed his eyes shut. "Simon?"
Some thing whizzed through the air and Lewis heard it impact the monster. He pried one eye open and saw an arrow sunken deep in to the beast's expanding chest.
Undaunted, the creeper started to move forward again. Smoke started to billow from it's serpentine maw, and it hissed. It's throat continued to bulge larger, sizzling just under the skin.
Simon thundered up the steps and let another arrow fly. It hit home in the creeper's throat and the beast stumbled backwards. Simon pulled the string back once more, and glared icily at the living bomb.
"Kill it! Simon, kill. . ."
"What do you think I'm doing?" Simon let the arrow loose. It shot forward and tore clear through the creeper's body, before exiting and slamming into the steps not far behind. The creeper gurgled, then staggered. It still wasn't dead.
Lewis closed his eyes again, his heart thundering in his own ears. There was a dull thud, but he couldn't make him self look.
"We have more coming." Simon snapped. "Here."
Something thin was pressed in to Lewis' chest, and he cracked one eye open. A bow. He let go of the railing and wrapped his fingers around it. His hand felt stiff, sore, and cold. But the wood felt natural.
"Arrows." Simon added tensely. "We have two more coming."
Lewis took the offered projectiles and looked around. "Where?" He hooked the arrow and pulled the string back. Instinct. I've done this before. Memories, vaporous and ghost like, of many bow shots, drifted through him like a distant dream. He lifted the weapon and stared at the far corner of the wall, left his gaze there, unwavering from the singular spot, and waited. He could fight back. Easy prey.
"One is in the tree." Simon replied icily, firring his own weapon.
The fear was melting, and a colder calm was replacing it. Lewis saw movement from the corner of his eye, shifted, and let the shot go. The arrow flew straight and slammed home into the chest of another creeper. The strike forced it back and it fell out of the tree.
Simon let off another shot, and the third creeper fell from the wall's edge and down in to the hallow of the tower, right onto their roof.
Lewis peered down, feeling a dark calm washing over him, and strung another bow. Dark, like the night, and clattering. Dead, dead, and bones dance. I'll fire and not miss.
The creeper looked up at him, eyes dark, body crippled.
"Well it can't get us now." Simon breathed a sigh if relief and sagged back. "But these stairs. . ."
"Die." Lewis whispered, not listening to the dwarf next to him. He let the shot go. It hit home centered in the creeper's chest. The beast dropped dead almost instantly. No longer interested Lewis turned to gaze at the fallen creeper still on the walk way before him.
"Lewis?" Simon asked, concern tinting his voice. "You OK?"
"We never used bows on the ship." Lewis' voice was so cold an hollow that it almost didn't sound like him.
Simon blinked and stood straight. Where was the panic? The fear? "Lewis?" He reached up and shook the man a little. "Come on, your are starting to spook me."
Lewis blinked slowly, then closed his eyes. "Uh. . . I. . ."
Simon tugged at his sleeve. "Did you hit your head or something?" He looked up but couldn't see any injury. That was almost as distressing as the tone the human was using. It was as stark a contrast as day was to night. "Hey, Lewis!"
Lewis lifted the bow in his hands and gazed blankly at it, then he shuddered. "Simon?" He shook his head.
Simon pulled Lewis around so that they were facing each other. Maybe humans just couldn't take the strain. Maybe Lewis' brain had finally checked out.
He shook him self again, looked down at the bow with disgust. "I've never used this kind of weapon." His expression shifted, and he jerked back. "This isn't mine."
"I made it for you." Simon took the bow back any way, and held it between them. "You can fight zombies with swords, even bone archers if you are quick, but a creeper needs to be shot at from a distance."
Lewis nodded, and shuddered again. Once more he reached up and started scratching about his head nervously. "Those things almost killed me!" There, the panic was back. That was the Lewis Simon had come to know.
"That's why we have bows now." Simon offered. He held the weapon out for Lewis to take.
The human from the stars stared at it for a long, shivery moment, before hesitantly reaching out to pick it up again. "Thank you." He managed. Then slumped against the wall.
Simon fidgeted, and looked around, trying not to notice how far up they were.
The creepers would vanish just as sure as they had appeared, so they didn't have to worry about the bodies. They had appeared, though, and more could be out there. Impulsively he reached up, grabbed Lewis' arm and tugged. "We need to go down and wait a while. We don't know. We just don't know how many are here." Down, that was a good word. Down far enough to start digging.
He felt a little dizzy, but tried to shake it off.
Lewis allowed him self to be pulled forward. "I'm sure I've never used a bow before. Not really. We were shown how to make and fire them in our training. But I never killed anything with one."
"Well now you have." Simon pulled again and started to descend the stairs. In all of the hectic furry he had been blinded to the stairs, but now going down them was an exercise in control. With energy swirling haphazardly all about him it was starting to distract him. Placing one foot before the other, while keeping a mind on his friend, was becoming difficult.
Just don't think about it. He told him self.
First thing in the morning he was going to rip them apart and make some popper ones that lined up with the rest of the world.
In the distance he heard the cow moo, long and low. He tried to focus on that. The poor beast had looked miserable that morning, and she had been trying so hard to get some affection.
Lewis stumbled just a little, and it shook the stairs in a way that made the whole world feel like it was about to crumble away like gravel. Simon closed his eyes against it and sucked in a breath. His stomach lurched.
One step at a time.
He opened his eyes and pushed forward. It felt like his brain was being twisted around in side of his head.
"Simon?"
"Hm?" He asked, not wanting to look back.
"I haven't... I don't know how to use this thing." Lewis stopped, halting them both abruptly.
Simon chanced a look back and saw the human's eyes were a little unfocused. Simon didn't want to spend any more time here on the crazy stairs, but he couldn't leave Lewis like this either, not if there could be more danger nearby. He took a deep breath and pivoted, trying to ignore the growing unease rolling through him. "If you don't want it fine, but it's safer to have one, and you seem good with it."
The cow mooed again, sounding closer. Strained.
"I don't want to be good with it." Lewis said, his voice strangely shallow.
Simon let him go. "Look, you are good with it. You need every advantage you can get up here on the surface, so just take it and get over it!"
Lewis wouldn't look at him.
"What?" Simon demanded, impatient and now slightly nauseated.
"It wasn't me shooting just now. It wasn't me." Lewis scratched at his temple nervously.
Simon had no idea how to respond to that at all. "Lewis. . ."
The cow mooed again, this time sounding quite urgent. Lewis winced and shook his head. "Uh, is she OK?"
Simon took the opportunity to change the subject and try to get them moving again. "I don't know, she was awful friendly today. Just hovering around me like a pest."
Lewis nudged past him and down the steps. Numbly he said, "I'm going to check on her."
Simon followed, but slowly at a distance with one eye on Lewis and the other on his footing. Moments later the world started to spin.
Lewis wanted to run. Panic was eating away at his mind again, but he was shoving it back. He felt trapped in his own bones. It was suffocating and chilling to not be able to get away from the feeling that some where deep with in, and just under the skin, was some thing alien. A parasite. He couldn't out run it though, as much as he wanted to he just couldn't. He took the steps two at a time, leaving Simon behind. Leaving the creepers and the horrific feeling of loosing him self to that phantom dwelling with in him behind too.
Once he was back on board his ship they would fix this. He had no doubt about it. That calmed him some what.
As he made it to the bottom of the steps and exited the tower's base the fright was being tucked back in to the corner of his mind. He had won the fight. Simon was right, too, that he needed every advantage he could get. If he had to borrow memories from the dead in order to get home then so be it.
He heard a hearty huff from his right, and followed the sound. There, around the tower's corner, was the cow. She was standing oddly, head down, eyes half closed. Lewis wasn't entirely sure, but he thought she looked like she was in pain.
"Hey, are you OK?" He reached out to pet her nose. He had made the excuse to come check on her, he might as well make good on it.
She closed her eyes all the way and bowed her head even lower, avoiding his hand. Then all of her stomach shifted and bulged to the center. She huffed and tossed her ears back.
"Oh!" Lewis backed away slowly. "Simon!"
"What?" Simon grunted. His voice was tight through the communicator.
"I think our cow is in labor."
"Um." Simon replied sounding distracted. "And what do you want to do about that?"
Lewis looked the bovine over. Her stomach was relaxing, and she moved on to graze a few feet away. "I don't think we can do any thing for her, actually. I'm not a vet."
"Mmm." Simon hummed. "Well. . ." There was a short breathy pause. "That's, you know, cows don't really..." He mumbled some thing, possibly a curse, "She's a wild animal, after all."
Lewis turned back to the tower and returned to the doorway. He looked up and saw Simon taking each step slowly with his back pressed tight against the wall. "Are you OK?"
The short, red headed native turned and glared down at him. "Oh just fine!"
Lewis climbed the first couple of steps, feeling a new sort of worry bubble up even through his exhaustion. "Do you need me to come up and, um... I don't know... help or something?"
Simon just continued to glare, apparently frozen.
"All right, I'm coming."
A fine mess! Simon thought hotly. I race all the way up here to save him and I get left for a cow. Simon leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He now felt like he was trying to ride a rabid boar who had decided to climb into a raft and sail down some rapids. The energy spikes were flaring and dieing, making all of his senses explode and level at random, jarring moments. Seconds ago the world felt fine, then just erupted into a full earth shaking flood of sensations and sounds he couldn't proses.
Lewis started to ascend the steps causing the energy to buck even more wildly.
Simon's eyes snapped open and he glared down at the human coming up towards him. "Slow down!" he hissed, nauseated. "You're making it shake."
Lewis slowed down. "Sorry! Are you all right?"
Simon's stomach lurched and he felt breakfast rumble a little to loosely. "I am going to throw up." He swallowed thickly. "But I'll wait till you get closer."
Lewis stopped. "Take deep breaths and try to relax."
"I think I detect irony here some where." Simon grumbled back, but took a deep breath any way.
"Can you move down at all?"
"Yeah, maybe." Simon forced him self to take a couple more steps down before the whole world seemed to turn all the way upside down all around him. He could hear the soft rumblings of the earth echoing up through the hollow of the incomplete tower, but it snagged on the steps and turned in to a hellish wailing.
He closed hie eyes and leaned his head back again. He'd be happy to take on a whole dozen creepers, rather than listen to the wild sounds echoing in his chest.
"You... you are like a cat stuck in a tree!" Lewis exclaimed.
"I am not!" Simon snapped. The world was calming once more, abruptly, it left him feeling hollow and shaken.
"Just a bit." Lewis started to climb again. "Keep working your way down."
Simon sucked in a breath and once more forced each step. Down one, then two, then three, before energy swelled again. This time the nausea sent his vision swimming and he felt more than heard the world rattle around in his rib cage.
He closed his eyes and was only some what aware that Lewis was calling to him.
Nothing had substance. He felt like he was floating, or maybe falling though he hadn't moved. One false step, however, and he was sure that would be it. "I'm going to fall." He mumbled, mostly to him self, but it filtered through the com.
"Don't! Don't move then!" Lewis started to run up the stairs, taking two at a time. The energy exploded all around him and it was all Simon could to to keep standing. He gritted his teeth and road it out.
Then, thundering up to him, Lewis came to a breathless stop beside him. "Simon?" Lewis grabbed him with hot sticky hands. "Say some thing!"
More rumbles, and more heart crushing sounds. There was a long, low wail, and the rubbing of stones against stones. "The world sounds like it's dieing!"
"What? I don't hear any thing." Lewis tugged on the shoulder armor. "Come, Simon, come with me. You'll be all right."
Simon may as well have been glued to the wall, because as hard as Lewis tugged the dwarf was stuck there. He looked pale too. After the terror from the creepers Lewis wasn't sure he could take one more emergency. But at least Simon's fear of falling seemed unfounded at the moment. Pressed back from the wall he was about two full feet from the edge and leaning away.
And that was good because if he did fall from this hight... Nope, not going to think about it. I've buried enough people this week.
"You really can't hear that?" Simon opened one eye and looked up with a dark scowl.
Lewis shook his head 'no'. "Are dwarf ears better than a humans?"
"Not the ones in our head, no." Simon swallowed thickly, then with a shaky hand, tapped his chest with his fingers. "Our heart's ear can hear the world, though."
"Heart's ear?" He wondered if it was like the so called "ear" in the foot of an elephant. "Tell me about it as we go down, OK?" He pulled again, and the bow over his shoulder slipped around and smacked the back of his leg.
"Yeah, while it's calming." Simon nodded and took a step down. "We hear the echoes of the world in our chests." He took another step. "Lower sounds than our head-ears can hear."
"The deep, subsonic sounds?" Lewis asked. Elephants could communicate using deep, low frequency notes that traveled through the earth like ripples in a pond. The sound could travel for miles and miles. It made sense that a dwarf ought to be able to hear the world moving about him, as it could help predict cave-ins and earthquakes. "Like, rumbling and the like?"
Simon nodded. "And the energy." He added thickly. "I feel it all over me. It feels like it's going to pull me into little bits."
"So..." Lewis looked down and around him. The tower had to be a huge, ear splitting, sounding chamber then. Maybe an energy amplifier as well. "You hear the sounds, and feel the..." He faltered. "I don't know what you feel."
"Gweled." Simon managed one more step before leaning back against the wall with an agitated hiss.
"That aura thing." Lewis looked down at the steps. He could see that they weren't quite aligned with the rest of the world, and blatantly crooked in some places. He'd felt the aura him self if only very lightly, but it had a flow and a rhythm to it. Some what like water. These steps could be an eddy in Simon's ever steady stream, giving him virtual seasickness. Suddenly the OCD made a lot more sense. "Oh, oh these steps!" He rubbed his free hand down his short beard and then whistled. "Wow."
"Yeah." Simon spared a glance up at him. "Your steps."
"I had no idea!" Guilt washed over him. Guilt for not paying attention, guilt for calling him up to fight when he should have been prepared, and guilt for not being more on top of his own reeling maelstrom of emotions. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"Tell you?" Simon huffed, indigent despite his green features. "When? Before I ran up to save your ass?"
Lewis winced back at that. He really hadn't been paying any attention at all. He had wallowed in his fear and grief, and that went against every moment of his military training. "I'm … I'm sorry."
Simon sighed, resigned, and took another stiff step. "Oh it's in the past. Lets just move on." He stubbornly took another couple of steps, Lewis descended with him. "I think I'm adapting any way. Not that I want to, but, I think I'm getting used to it." He kept his body tight to the wall. "Maybe."
"You'll be OK?" Lewis asked, feeling the worry ebb just a little. With the worry was also the energy to fight sleep off.
"Yeah." Simon managed to peel him self off the wall an inch or so. "You really have a knack for making the absolute worst things in Minecraftia, Lewis." He looked up, cranky and ill looking.
Lewis had no grounds to argue that, because Simon was the only one Lewis had ever met on the planet, and therefore the only one he could gather facts from. "But I didn't know!"
Simon gave him an exasperated look, then pulled out of his grasp. "Well now you do." Very carefully he started to climb down the stairs at an even, measured pace. "Like a flipping child!" He added with a huff. His knees wobbled, but he pressed on.
Lewis hesitated to follow having been scolded once more. He looked all around at what he had made and winced. He couldn't feel what Simon felt, but he could comprehend it. "I'll fix them, if you show me how."
Simon's sigh sounded as loudly from the communicator as it did from the descending dwarf. "Tomorrow." He hiccuped miserably and groaned a little.
Another day lost. Lewis rubbed his temple. "OK." A shuttle had come so his people were investigating the planet. Maybe he could still afford the time. Humans liked a good mystery, and this place was certainly that. "Tomorrow then." He followed Simon down.
The moment Simon had touched both feet to the solid ground he had felt better. He stood, just savoring the natural flow of energy, until Lewis stepped up behind him. Simon wanted to tell the newcomer off, and nearly did so, but then he caught the weary look in Lewis eyes and let the rant die before it could start.
All he was left with to say was, "Lets get ready for nightfall."
Lewis nodded and shuffled off towards the cave, head hung low, the bow slung carelessly over his back.
Simon gave the stairs a quick back glance, found him self dizzy with just the thought of being on them, and tore his attention away. He wandered, after that, not prepping for nightfall at all, and not feeling all that pressed to do so. He felt, more than he had in the last several days, the need to dig down. There was a good spot in the cave it's self that would make a fine entrance in to a mine, and they needed supplies any way.
His distracted wandering didn't take him far, but with in a couple of minutes he managed to stumble in to the path of the cow. He turned his attention to her.
"Hey." He reached up and patter her shoulder.
She stood, not really invested in the attention, bit not puling away either.
"You uh... you'll be fine."
She gave him a soft, cow eyed, look, then lumbered off. Her tail swished behind her.
He was glad to be down, and better yet, to be alive. He'd faced off with three creepers and he was alive. He was glad that he could dig a hole. He was even more glad Lewis wasn't going to bury him in a tiny, hopeless, sad little grave.
I've got some of chapter five hammered out, but not all of it.
As always my main story is Naruto: The Fox and the Wolf, and I will be working on that next. And after so long I REALLY want to work on Growing pains again too!
Still I have plans for the "Space man" and his short buddy. So I'll keep picking away at this as my muse sees fit.