Chapter 12: Back to civilization

[April 2373 AD – POV Timotheus Mellark – District Twelve]

Once I had found Rue, a little girl who had been the only survivor from a plane crash, my vacation plans had changed considerably. To my own surprise, I did not mind to have her around in my camp, although I was rather shy with people in general, specifically those I did not know. For some reason I felt for the girl like for a little sister, and that was good enough. She had sprained her ankle, and for now we could not yet leave the camp to get back to civilization, but as she did not have any serious injuries, as far as I could tell, and I also had enough food for a few more days, this was all right. I only had my own sleeping bag and no tent, so that we had to share, but curiously she did not seem to mind that at all, and I also enjoyed her presence and closeness. Somehow we had bonded very quickly, and while I did not understand why and how that had happened, I did not bother to analyze this any further.

In late morning, when we were again sitting on a rock next to the camp, enjoying the sunshine and nature's beauty around us – we were fortunate to have a few days of sunshine with only few clouds – I heard some noise, and when I looked around I saw a small helicraft approaching. A helicraft was quite different from the hovercraft which had been used during the Snow regime and before. Hovercraft were powerful, but very resource consuming for construction and in operation, and for the sake of the environment we had adapted a concept which had been in use in Europe for centuries. A group of horizontal propellers were powered by electrical motors, and either a battery or a fuel cell was used as power source. The battery stack was more compact and suited for small and short range crafts, whereas the hydrogen tank for the fuel cell was more light weight and suitable for larger and long range craft. Some more advanced helicrafts had also vertical propellers or swiveling ones for speed.

The helicraft we saw coming closer had a red cross on the side, indicating a medical support vehicle, and it seemed to be searching for something; a few minutes later it landed close to the plane wreck. This made sense; somebody would have missed the plane returning, and a search party was going to be sent out with paramedics. Most likely they did not know exactly where to search, but now they had found the plane wreck at least. Three people got out and looked around, and I decided that it would be good to be noticed. The distance was too great for shouting, but Rex could bark real loud when he wanted. I gave him a command and he barked, with the sound echoing from some rock walls around us. A few seconds later one of the people down on the meadow must have heard that. I could see them looking up and around, and when they were looking in our direction, I waved my arms. They waved back, and I told Rue:

"Rue, I will walk down there and meet the party, and I will let them know that you are up here. Maybe they can take you back and to a hospital in the helicraft."

"Okay, but please do not stay long."

"No, I will try to make it short, and of course Rex will stay with you."

This being said I shouldered my small back pack and hiked downwards to the meadow. The people I had seen saw me coming and spent the time searching the plane and the corpses. When I arrived about half an hour later, they turned around and looked at me. I saw a middle aged male person in a police officer's uniform, a younger female also in a police uniform, and a young lady who appeared to be a paramedic.

"Hello to you! We heard the noise and saw you waving" the police officer told me. "I am Sergeant Darius, and we came searching for the plane."

"Hello everybody, I am Timotheus Mellark, district ranger" I replied. "I am spending part of my vacation around here, and I saw the plane crashing down three days ago."

"You did, really? That might help us to understand what happened. Have you seen something or somebody?"

"Yes, indeed. When I checked out the crash site, there was one man still alive, but he died just when I came. There also was a young girl, not injured much, and I took her up to my camp. She is still up there with my dog."

"Your dog? I think that we heard the barking. But you do know that dogs are not permitted around here in the state park, don't you?"

"This one is; my dog got a special education as search and rescue dog and a permit from the rangers."

"Okay."

"What about the girl?" the paramedic asked. "Is she all right?"

"It appears that she survived the crash with minor injuries only, at least as much as I can tell. She has got a sprained ankle or something in that direction, and that's why we are still here. It's much better now, and we were preparing to slowly walk back to civilization tomorrow."

"Can I come up with you and examine her?"

"Of course; I would appreciate that."

We left the two officers to their jobs, and the paramedic and I left the meadow, crossed the ravine on the side, and started to climb up to the camp. While we followed the narrow and barely visible trail, she wondered: "How can we get her down to the helicraft? There seems to be no place to land up there, I assume."

"That's not a problem" I replied. "She is pretty light weight, and I can easily carry her, like I carried her up a few days ago."

Half an hour later we arrived at the camp, but when the young paramedic approached Rue to start her examination, Rue squirmed and whined, and she looked almost terrified.

"What is it, Rue?" I asked her. "There is no reason to worry; this young lady is a paramedic, and she wants to examine you; that's for your own benefit!"

That did not help much, and after some attempts I had to get Rue on my lap and hold her tightly before the paramedic could do her job. Even then I could feel Rue tremble, and I wondered if she had suffered from bad experiences with some people.

When the examination had been completed, we got told:

"You were right; she does not appear to have any serious injuries, except for her badly sprained ankle, but it does not seem to be broken. It would be good to pay special attention to the scratches on her back in a hospital, but you have done a good job cleaning them. Can you carry her down to the helicraft, please?"

"Of course; maybe you could take her bag?"

Rue seemed to be more than a little bit hesitant to leave my camp, but she understood that she needed to get to a hospital for a detailed and thorough examination. Down at the helicraft, though, she learned that I'd stay back, to hike back to civilization on my own as planned. She appeared to be shocked about that and begged me to come with her, but I firmly declined; there was no need for me to come, and Rue would be properly taken care of. I did ask where they'd go, and the police officer told me:

"We intend to bring the girl to the hospital in Hillbonia, where we are based, too. The hospital there is quite small, but good enough for a thorough examination, considering that she probably does not have any serious injuries anyway. We also need to find out who her closest relatives are, and we need to ask more questions. I expect that she will have to stay for a few days at least. By the way, I'd appreciate if you could show up at the police station there, too, so that we can get a written and detailed statement of what you have seen."

"All right, sergeant, sure. This town is on my way home anyway, and I do plan to visit and see how she is doing. As we have spent a few days and nights together," I continued, turning to Rue now, "visiting you is the least I can do, and I promise that I will come. When I learn what your final destination is going to be, I can also write letters, and if you want, we can stay in touch. I really promise!"

When Rue heard about 'final destination', her face looked quite sad, but this would certainly be out of my control.

I watched the helicraft leave until it was gone from my view, and I slowly walked back up to my camp, with Rex at my side; for the rest of the day I tried to distract me from my thoughts. Yes, we had spent three days and nights together, but why could I not stop thinking about Rue? I had a feeling that there might be some kind of secret with her, maybe related to what she had hinted at once or twice, about not going to live for long. Well, this was not my business, and eventually I got up and started to do some quick runs to loosen my muscles, with Rex at my side. For the rest of the day I got busy finishing that letter to my twin cousin, and I was going to send it as soon as I was back in the next town.

Quite early on the next day, I packed my big backpack and made sure that I did not leave any garbage behind. Same as for other state and national parks, there was a rule that you brought out what you brought in, which included garbage; the only notable exception was, of course, body excrement. Previous generations, before the Great War, had done many bad things impacting the environment, and our generation was quite happy to see that strict pollution control and other measures had already made the sea level drop a few precious meters. It was still way higher than before industrialization, and all former coastal cities and beyond were below current water level, but we could at least see a little bit of progress. Overall, we had done a big step forward to live with nature rather than fighting it, just like Rue has asked recently.

I needed the entire day to get to a tiny village at the border of the state park; with Rue at my side, it would have taken two days, but on my own, just with Rex, I could walk quickly, despite the large and heavy backpack. It was, of course, not quite as heavy as it had been on the way up, thanks to all of the food I – and Rue – had consumed.

The small local inn had rooms available, and I could stay there for one night. One day later I took the morning train to Hillbonia, not before dropping the letter to my twin cousin into the next mailbox, though. From Hillbonia there was another train line to my home city Appacolia, but first I intended to find Rue at the hospital and also show up at the police station there, as I had promised to do. The train was a slow one with many stops, and I only arrived in Hillbonia in the early evening. Thus I first went to an inn which I knew also took animals. This allowed me to have Rex in my room for the night, and they also had staff taking care of him while I went to the hospital on the next day.

After breakfast in the next morning I decided to first visit the police station, as Sergeant Darius had also asked me to come along and provide a written statement. I had not been at the local station before, but the town was not very large and important places were easy to find, also thanks to some signs. When I got there and asked for the sergeant, I was told that he wasn't here at this time. I provided my name, and the younger officer, Twill, who had been with Darius at the crash site came to the front when she heard me. She told me:

"I am glad that you are here, Mister Mellark. I have orders to get you to the hospital as quickly as possible. Come with me, please!"

I got concerned about the rush, but the officer was not willing to tell me more, so that I tried to be patient. At the hospital, a doctor waited for me. He had a quick look at my ID card and took over, guiding me through an aisle, one floor up, and into a room. Inside, there was Rue together with two nurses, and the girl's face looked like she had been crying for a day or two. As soon as she heard the door closing behind me, she turned around, and her face changed from sadness to happiness within a second, and before I could say or do anything, she jumped into my arms and buried her head between my neck and shoulder, like she had done many times before when we had been at my camp.

The doctor nodded and dismissed the nurses, and I took a seat with Rue in my arms. My face must have shown that I was quite surprised. I had expected, or at least hoped, for her to like me visiting, sure, but like that? The doctor clearly wanted to talk to me, but he decided that this could wait, and he said: "I will leave you two for an hour or so, and later on I want to talk to you, Mr. Mellark."

Rue did not really want to talk much once the doctor had left, and seemed to be just happy to be with me again. I wondered what had happened; had somebody not treated her properly? Had she received some real bad news again? She did not elaborate, and I just spent more than one hour caressing and comforting here. Eventually the doctor came back, and I left Rue in her room, assuring her that I'd be back.

I was guided into a separate room, and the doctor asked to tell him what had happened in the mountains. When I had finished the story, he nodded, and he told me about the events here:

"Rue's body is not seriously injured. We have taken care of the scratches on her back, and the sprained ankle will heal on its own. We X-rayed it, but no bones are broken. She has a few really odd features, like her eyes, ears, teeth and her partial fur cover, and we need to find out where she comes from and what her medical background is. Those features are all not dangerous at all, as it appears, but what gives us trouble is her mind. During her first night, she had real bad nightmares, and she managed to wake up half of the hospital staff. The nurse on duty tried to comfort her, but failed to do so, and Rue shouted your name repeatedly; same during the next night, so that we finally had to sedate her."

"I think that she mentioned nightmares about the loss of her father and sister when we were at my camp together" I replied.

"Yes, you told me about that. There seems to be more, but we are not sure yet. When she was with you, were those nightmares violent?"

"No, not at all. I heard her moaning, spoke a few words, caressed her back a little, and she fell back asleep quite quickly."

The doctor nodded and elaborated: "Yes, I thought so. Please do not take offense, but I needed to make sure that she shouted out your name because she wanted to see you rather to state that something bad happened between the two of you. Her reaction to seeing you could not have been any clearer."

I nodded in understanding; I had had Rue at my camp for three days, and I could have hurt her body and soul, and nobody might have noticed.

The doctor continued: "I am not a psychologist, but it also appears that the girl is real shy around people. Every time a nurse got close to her, she squirmed, and I wonder if she's got a problem with anxiety attacks around some people. This might be caused be her very special looks and features, though, and maybe she has been mobbed because of those for too many times. Anyway, this is only a very small hospital, and we do not have an expert for this around here. I strongly suggest to transfer the girl to a larger hospital where they have experts for children physiology and psychology, ideally to the big university hospital in Appacolia. In addition, your presence seems to be good for her, so that it would be real good if you could be around, too, for regular visits, if that is possible from your side."

"About the latter," I replied, "as I have already contributed to saving her life, I am not going to abandon her, if she does like to have me around. About the former, Appacolia happens to be the city where I live and work anyway, so this seems to be perfect.

"Splendid!" the doctor told me, "The head psychologist there is Dr. Aurelius, and he is a good friend of mine. I will call ahead and let him know about the upcoming transfer."

"That's good. All right, if you decide to transfer her to Appacolia, I can sure visit her there from time to time."

"Of course," the doctor added, "plans may change if or when we find a relative of her. The police are still searching, and I do not know if they have found anybody by now. If such a relative is found and takes care of Rue, that person will have to decide where to go with her. For a few days to come, though, she will require some more medical and specifically psychological attention."

"Naturally" I understood and nodded.

"There is one additional issue to mention" the doctor continued. "The police have found her fathers' ID card and her own, and this enabled us to identity her health insurance system. I assume that her parents were not rich people, as the insurance only cover basic treatments. In addition, with her father's death, the insurance will run out end of the month. We can always cover emergency treatment, but consulting a specialist like Dr. Aurelius will not be covered, at least not after the initial consultation. We hope that a relative can be found to take over and get her insured with them. Of course that's not your problem, but I thought that you should know about it."

I nodded, and I just had to state:

"If some additional money is needed to cover treatment, I am more than willing to cover that; I can afford it."

"Oh yes, your family owns the Mellark bakeries, right?"

I nodded again, and the doctor finally said:

"I will let you go back to Rue's room now, and when your are done with the visit, I am supposed to ask you to stop by at the police station again."

It turned out to be hard to take my leave from Rue; she did not want to let me go, but there was no choice; however, I promised to come back on the next day. I tried my best to make her understand that the doctors and nurses were here to help her and that there was no need to be anxious about it.

Back at the police station Sergeant Darius was waiting for me, and he nodded when I told him that I had been at the hospital. He told me:

"We have got two issues to address here. The first is to find out why Rue and her family had been in that plane and why it crashed; fortunately you were at least able to observe the crash, so that we have a few hints. The second issue is to find a relative of her who can take care of her. If none is found, she will have to go to an orphanage, I am afraid."

I nodded, understanding the situation, and the sergeant asked me to cover the whole sequence between my first sighting of the plane and the crash, and he seemed to be very interested in a few specific events, like the one when I had first heard the engine stuttering. After we had reviewed that topic together, we moved on to Rue's relatives, and just to make sure that this was being covered I mentioned:

"Rue said something about grandparents to me; are you trying to find those, too?"

"Of course we are" Sergeant Darius replied. "However, we have not been able to locate them yet, and it they are her mother's parents, they probably have a different last name, too."

I had one more question:

"What happens if you find a relative and he or she does not want to take Rue?"

"We cannot force a relative to assume responsibility for the girl, unless they are real close, like an adult sister or brother. She only had one sister, and she died with her parents. At this time we hope that we will be able to find her grandparents, and hopefully they won't be too old to take her in. If all efforts fail, she may have to go to an orphanage."

[Author's Notes: There are quite a few odd things with Rue, and some of them will be explained in in later chapters.]