It had been impossible to tell what time of day it was. Dust flooded the sky, the result of sickly brown crops crumbling to the supremacy of an aimless gale. The remainder of those rotting crops, once neatly planted into terraces, had emitted a scent of decay that would've long warded off life. It was the only time, perhaps, Mira had wished it were raining.
"Are you still with me?"
Mira had glanced at the massive mechanism keeping pace high above her. The oval-shaped drone at the center of eight long and skinny legs had been too flat and narrow for any twoleg operators. It was caked in dust but unphased by the torrent. Under the body had been a sphere with a massive red dot on the bottom flanked by several silver chatter holes, the source of the strangely accented voice.
"I'm here, Proxima," Mira coughed against the wind.
To the right of the molly was a massive chasm unnaturally carved through the ground. She passed the remnants of a bridge that once crossed it. Her attention was on forcing her legs to power through sucking mud. Her black fur was colored a sickly brown from all the rotting plants and smelled just as revolting. Mira focused on keeping her balance through the wind and mud and odors. So much so she didn't notice one of the long stocks barreling towards her. It was pulverized against her flank and she was sure it cut her. She desperately looked at the spider drone walking above her. Its camera barely gave her a glance.
"Oh don't worry, I'm okay," Mira spat.
"I know, so I did not ask." The spider drone stubbornly walked forward with a brief surge of energy at Proxima's command. "I have locked onto a signal half a kilometer in diameter on this side of the chasm. We should be close."
A powerful draft drowned out Mira's cursing and pushed her belly into the mud. It was softer than the cold floors and flakey woven pelts she had slept on nights prior. It was the gentlest thing the senior molly had rested on in a while, and she might've let herself sink in if not for the gale nipping away at her. And it became coarser and colder the deeper she sank, sucking away her daydream of a good night's sleep. Mira pushed her powerful legs against the mud's hold and continued struggling forward, her belly covered in a nauseating slime that looked how she felt.
"The storm wasn't this bad last night," Mira yelled to the drone. "Please, just find somewhere I can wait this out."
Proxima kept the spider drone's camera forward. "If I find the transmitter and it is destroyed before I can fetch you, this is all for nothing. And if it is as high clearance as these utilities' maps state, I may be able to end our journey prematurely."
"Can you at least carry me?" It took most of Mira's strength just to look up, now.
"Too dangerous with the wind," Proxima responded coldly. "You could be seriously injured if this drone fails. This whole journey would be for nothing if you were infirmed before you could complete it."
The veins in Mira's head drained of all feeling. Angry thumps from her chest only made it worse. Her paws planted themselves in the first firm patch of dirt she walked over. Even the dust storm slowed its pace and obstinately sided with her. The spider drone took a few steps before stopping. Its red dot only searched for her after realizing she was no longer directly underneath, checking its sides and staying still for a few moments.
"Is something the matter?" Proxima said nonchalantly.
"Why did you have to say that?" Mira growled. The drone's camera fixed on her. "Why did you have to say it would make this all for nothing?"
"Because it would. Your perfected blood makes you immune to illness and poisonings, but not physical harm. If you were seriously injured or killed, our ten years together would be for nothing. Especially when I am so close to removing that shattered section from holding back Skhul Terra's safe travel. We went over this before we left."
"You think everything we've done so far is for nothing if I die or get hurt, is that it? Because most of my life isn't 'nothing' to me. Just like one good night of sleep isn't 'nothing' to me."
"Those extra hours of sleep could have been the difference between a working or a destroyed transmitter. Now, we are not far from the edge of our search radius." The spider drone took a step forward before freezing again. Its camera aimed back at a defiant Mira. "It is easy for you to become lost in this gale. Stay under the drone."
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm not finished yet!"
"Finished with what?"
"You retiring me like one of these drones." Mira's claws glanced off the pole-like ankles of Proxima's spider drone. "I thought we were better than this. Is it because of what I've said and done the last few rotations? Are you mad I met Farstrider? Are you mad I took a break? During a flash flood? I bet you wish he drowned that night!"
"What has gotten into you?" Several more red dots appeared on the spider drone's camera. "Your important vitals appear normal given the conditions of—"
"Would you just listen to me!?"
The moment Mira slammed her paw into the dirt, she knew something was off. That break in the storm was even gentler now, reducing the gale to an uncomfortable breeze. The throbbing she expected to reverberate through her leg never came. But the imprint it left seemed to gently float towards her. Mira wiped away fresh blood from her nose and ears, eyes growing wide and scanning for shelter.
"Gravity lapse." Proxima's voice held a shred of concern, the spider drone's cameras aiming squarely at Mira. "Hold onto one of the legs, quickly."
Mira's body seemed to move itself, curling around one of the spider drone's massive legs. She secretly wanted to stay in the weightlessness, all the heft of the mud and dust and rot she carried vanished. The smell of decay faded and the unnatural cold stopped chilling her to the bone. The wind vanished entirely. She gently slid up the spider drone's leg as everything became weightless. But the leg was perfectly smooth and flawless. With nothing to latch onto, Mira slid all the way to the joint near the top. Before she could settle in, it snapped and caused her to keep rising.
"Grab hold, quickly!"
The drone extended another leg for her to latch onto, the clamp that would have kept it anchored exposed. She reached out for the drone's arm but long since missed it. A throaty hum dominated her senses, rattling her head and adding more pain to the land. She could see the terraced farms and deep chasm dividing them. Spires created by the twolegs defiantly stayed put, but many of the accompanying structures did not. Mira could hear nothing, feel nothing. It was a tranquility she'd never felt before. As the last of her senses failed her, she closed her eyes and stopped breathing. The event that used to terrify her to the core was now the start of a long rest.
And it ceased so swiftly. The calm, the loneliness, the weightlessness all vanished. Pain swept over Mira as her blood flow returned to normal. Her eyes widened in panic when she realized she had ascended over the chasm and was now falling towards it. The last lifeline she had, the spider drone's extended leg, was already out of reach.
Her cries had been lost to the renewed torrent. Mira's acceptance of her fate moments ago had been replaced with a scream against what she now thought was an unfair end. The last thing she had seen before descending into the darkness was the silhouette of a glowing cat perched under the spider drone.
O O O
Mira's eyes fluttered open to a breeze gliding through healthy grass. She closed them a few moments longer and took a deep breath, savoring the fresh air, distant sounds of a wooden wind chime, and moans of faraway cows. She opened her eyes to a blue patch of woven pelt covering the hole she slept in. It let in enough midday light to let her know it was time to get up. The senior molly pushed up but collapsed, her legs giving out. She looked behind her at four gray sleeves made from airy woven pelts, one having a thin, inflexible panel on its side. Carefully sliding one sleeve over each, she felt them compress and recompress her legs until the pain stopped and everything felt right. Then she was able to leave her nest.
"Hi, Mira." She turned to see a cheery calico elder greet her. "Sorry to ask right when you get up, but can you take the youngest kits on their first walk to the edge of the hills? The younger cats—lazy bones—all went to sleep around the same time."
"Of course," she responded nervously. "I just have something to do first."
"Oh, no rush. They're probably still out of camp."
As the elder padded away, Mira shook out her long fur, covered her nest, and made her way to the edge of camp. A group of older cats were crawling into their own holes neatly spaced around the hill. The shallow ones at the center smelled of fresh milk. One was covering unused holes with a woven pelt while another was digging a new one. They both greeted her as she walked past. She kept quiet walking past the largest hole filled with several young cats flopped over each other and fast asleep. They left a red woven pelt to the side to bask in the soft, hazel light of the sunless sky.
Keeping her eyes straight ahead, Mira followed patchy forests and terraced hills of crops and livestock until it all blended into the horizon. Beyond the horizon, the curvature of the ringworld extended further upward until it tapered off and vanished. To the other hill cats, it was just what things always looked like. But to her, it was a map of places she had been.
Mira left the hilltop camp and made her way towards a clearing between two dense patches of trees. Dozens of cylindrical drones in clashing yellows and blues dashed and crawled between rows and rows of vertically stacked greens. Each row extended far beyond her view and had its own lights, water drips, and screens displaying illegible twoleg scribblings. The drones, each with a red and blue ring on their undersides, barely made a sound and ignored everything but their work. The smell of damp soil put her at ease and shook her earlier apprehension. Mira had learned the others didn't mind the drones but kept their distance, giving her somewhere she could usually be alone. But still, before approaching the edge of the rows, she glanced around for a particular eavesdropper.
Another cylindrical drone sprung up from the ground with an accompanying marker to signal the hole it left. This one was the height of a twoleg and painted gray with a muted shade of red and blue underneath. Instead of heading to the vertical crops or terraces, it came directly towards Mira. A red light on its front blinked twice and sent a chill down her spine. But she sighed and approached anyway.
"I am surprised you called me back so soon." Proxima's strangely accented voice made Mira's heart pound and her mind fog with memories. There was an awkward quietness as they moved further from camp. The senior molly kept her ears wide, especially for the laughter of adolescent cats some distance away. "Sometimes I forget Skhul Terra has a beautiful environment, even the ones just for twolegs. I hope these hill cats have been good to you."
"They've finally seemed to warm up to me." Mira let her words trail away but cleared her throat and forced the rest out. "But it's been twelve rotations. I'm ready to finish this. And, before you ask, I was never going to quit."
She imagined Proxima nodding even as the drone motionlessly responded. "I have been monitoring your vitals through your leg braces. Have you tried walking without them?"
"I have trouble sitting, standing, and walking without them. Climbing and running are out of the question without them. But there's no more pain with them on."
"Then your legs are healed enough to keep up. Good." Proxima paused again, searching for her next words. Even without a face, Mira could sense her guardian's nervousness. "Your kit also looks healthy. And, given we are having this discussion in seclusion, you have not told him you are resuming your mission?"
The lump welling in Mira's belly finally untied itself, replaced by suppressed anxiety and a fluttering heart. "This decision would be easier if Farstrider were here. He told me to do what I felt was right."
Another drone approached and projected a map of light onto the grass. "The first thing I did this morning was try to find Farstrider. He told me not to follow him as I do you, but he is elusive. It is times like this where I wish I had found a way to repair Skhul Terra's intercommunications systems."
"Farstrider will be back in a few rotations." Mira glanced between the map she couldn't read and the nearby farms for her kit's prying ears. "I just hoped Faypaw didn't have his father's adventurous streak. Then again, Farstrider insisted he at least have Star Covenant titles as he grows. How else could I have expected him to turn out?"
Mira sighed, walking through the light map and further from the hill camp. Proxima followed quietly as she made her way towards the columns of crops. The rows were wide enough for several twolegs to move through at once. But she only got close enough to walk over the minute lip in the ground separating the natural grass from the perfect grass.
"This place has good weather all the time and prey are sustained by all the crops," Mira said. "Foxes are the closest thing to predators we deal with. He's safe here. He always will be, if he stays here."
"This is one of the only farms still functioning after the supernova." Proxima said. "It is probably the safest remaining sanctuary on Skhul Terra."
"I don't have a problem leaving. The ringworld is dangerous and always has been. But I don't think I could forgive myself if he got hurt…. I'm sorry to ask, but what would you do in this situation?"
"You do not have to apologize." Though there was no emotion in her guardian's voice and the drone was incapable of showing it, Mira still felt uneasy asking. She looked to the top of the busying hill camp as Proxima formed her response. "If it were me wandering Skhul Terra instead of you, and my daughter instead of your son, I would want her by my side. Perhaps it would be selfish of me to endanger her, but so would leaving her behind because I am afraid of what could happen. Her decision must be accounted for."
Mira sighed and shook her head. "Not exactly what I wanted to hear."
"I can prevent him from leaving this place, should you so wish."
The old molly glimpsed at the vertically stacked crops. Proxima's words floated in the back of her mind just as the drones floated between crops. She slighted, grunting a bit, at how much sense their actions made in her mind. Mira led Proxima's drone back towards the hole it emerged from.
"I have to watch the youngest kits for a while." Mira shuddered nervously. "Sorry, can we pick this up again this evening?"
"Of course," Proxima said. "Perhaps I should explain my plan before you come to your decision? It is quite a hazardous but straightforward task."
Mira nodded. "I'll meet you at the edge of the forest when the light starts to fade."
Proxima's drone gently lowered into its underground housing, the marker lowering with it. Mira waited for the faint 'click' when both disappeared. When she looked to the hill camp, she saw a molly's waving tail. She was accompanied by the clan's youngest kits eagerly bouncing, awaiting their own adventure.