CHAPTER 05

   It was not exactly like Patty had been getting a comfortable sleep to begin with. She hesitated to call the structure, that she was in, a barn even if she supposed that was it’s purpose. Patty figured it was fitting after all. She was on a world run by barn animals so why shouldn’t the humans sleep here? It was not the worse place she had ever sacked out. She just wished she could figure out if she were doing it in the night or the day. Patty had been to Feyland more than most people and, to this date, that was something she had never figured out. Now if the damn thunder would just stop.
Then there was her traveling companion. Patty might have called Mike Green an Indiana Jones type but, he looked too much like a biker and, as Patty recalled, Indiana Jones actually washed and cut his hair. It was something this alleged professor from North Carolina never seemed to do. Patty listened to the guy fiddling around with his gear. He was also exchanging grunts and chest thumping with their hosts while wandering in and out of the barn. She tried to ignore all of it.
Finally Mike would not ignore her, “you ain’t give up yet?”
Patty did not bother giving up on her false sleep, “did you ever even try?”
Then came that word that Patty could never make herself believe that a professor could ever say, “naw.” He followed it up with his second round of words that professors should never say, as he told her, “ain’t no use right now.”
Patty pushed herself out of the straw and began brushing off, “well you got that part right. I don’t think this roof is going to hold back the rain anyhow.”
Mike finished packing up his small bag. He tossed it aside and began reloading his shotgun. Patty kind of got the impression that he had just put it back together after cleaning it. As Mike began sliding shells in the magazine, he asked her, “what rain would that be?”
The rumble was still going on in the distance. Patty almost asked the stupid question but, suddenly she realized, “wait a minute. Who would be using artillery this far south?”
“Nobody that I know of,” Mike replied. That caused Patty to relax until he said, “it ain’t artillery. Them’s rockets from airplanes.”
The only thing that occurred to Patty at this point was, “the Elves are at it again?”
“Some,” Mike replied as he sat his shotgun aside and stood up. He grabbed a candy bar and tossed it to Patty as he told her, “don’t say I didn’t buy you breakfast.”
Patty almost wanted to snicker as she tore open the chocolate. She’d had worse. She then asked the logical question, “so is this going to slow us down getting back to Cheau-Gan? You know the last purge got pretty nasty. I guess you know what happened that time?”
Now it was Mike’s turn to snicker. He then replied, “you mean when you got held up in that temple with home boy and the girl next door?”
Patty had to grit her teeth before meekly replying, “not sure I’d call Nate and Angie that but…”
“The but is,” Mike interrupted, “this is a little more serious than that. Only good thing I can say is us having to scamper out of Kalean-Erc was probably a blessing in disguise.” Mike began gathering his things and after a few moments he mumbled, “unless you just like getting trussed up and stuff. Some people in to that.”
Patty ignored the commentary and asked about what Mike was doing instead, “are we leaving?”
“Naw,” Mike told her. “You’re staying put for the time being. Aldo come back from a little forage and said he got something to show me. I couldn’t make out what it was but, he looked pretty nervous.”
Aldo was, quite literally, an eight hundred pound gorilla. Patty did not like the idea that he might be nervous about something. In fact, he scared the shit out of her when he was happy too. It seemed that this Yangani had a fetish for human women. He was, apparently, even married to one, even if it seemed to Patty if he cheated on the girl. She was not quite sure which was worse.
There was also the little fact that Patty had no intentions of staying here alone. It was clear that Mike had been camped out at this place for some time. He seemed to know all the creatures and people that lived here. The entire settlement was a cluster of hovels sitting on the edge of a swamp. The decor just screamed, Mike Green. He trusted these people but Patty was new and, as far as she could tell, Mike was the only one around here who spoke English. Patty had just met Mike and, he had kind of saved her but, she had still only just met the guy. She was not sure how much she trusted him but, in a place like this, did Patty really have any other choice in the matter?
Patty found that she was a little surprised that Mike actually considered her protest about being left behind. Instead of arguing, Mike pulled a machete out of his belt and tossed it to the reporter. Patty then asked, “you’re not going to tell me I can’t come because of this or that?”
“Why should I,” Mike grunted. “You’re an adult. I can’t tell you to sit and fetch like you was my little sister.”
Patty followed him out the door and was somewhat taken as she replied with a question, “your sister really obeys commands?”
“Hell no,” Mike replied as he joined up with his ape and dragon buddy. Then he looked Patty in the eye and said, “you must be an only child.” Patty ignored his observation, even if he was right, and noted she was the only one in this little crew that was not armed with a gun. She asked about it and, once again Mike was quite sarcastic when he asked back, “why? You got one?”
“Mike,” Patty said, trying to hold back her frustration, “would I be asking if I had a gun?”
“Then what you looking at me for,” Mike told her as he tossed his shotgun over his shoulder, “all I got is this.”
Patty mumbled rhetorically, “ask a stupid question.”
“Yeah it was,” replied Mike as he began wading into knee high water. His entire crew was taking off into the swamp and Patty stopped at it’s edge, unsure if she really wanted to go in. Why weren’t they taking the car? Finally Mike stopped wading and looked back at the woman, “you was the one that wanted to come. You coming?”
After mumbling a few choice words under her breath, Patty joined them. She wanted to ask Mike some more questions but, he was not in the mood. His ape and dragon buddy also seemed quite skittish when she made any unnecessary noises. It was the only clue that Patty needed to shut up. She had been on combat patrols before and these guys were sure acting like this is what it was. It made Patty wonder what they thought was out here. Just one look up at the sky was enough to remind her that she was on an alien world. Then a noise brought the little party to a standstill.
Patty watched her three companions exchange hand signals. Mike seemed to have picked up the inter-species sign language pretty well. Patty was now wishing she had actually taken some of those classes at the US embassy. She had just not had the time and never thought she would have much use for it. The look on Mike’s face was the only thing she was currently reading and it was one of deep concern. He backed up, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her behind a tree. Patty tried to ask about the situation but, Mike put a hand over her mouth, followed by a very stern shake of his head that spelled out, “hell no.”
They waited silently. Patty listened intently but, she had no idea what her companions were hearing. Nothing here sounded out of the ordinary until the loud roar of a prop driven aircraft flew in, low, just over the tree tops. Patty saw the Elf markings under the wing and that was of no great surprise. They were the only ones who flew those things. Now she broke silence and asked Mike, “is that what…”
Mike jumped from behind the tree with his shotgun pointing at something. Patty scrambled to see what he was about to shoot. She got sight of it just as he began lowering his weapon and breathing a sigh of relief. Mike grumbled in his usually gravely voice, “false alarm from the looks of it.”
Patty remained motionless until the unicorn ran past them. She was actually awestruck by the sight because, no matter how much that thing looked like a deformed horse, it actually ran more like a deer. Patty was captivated until it was out of sight. Then she realized she had been practically left behind. She had to skip and jump to catch back up with Mike. Once again, her companions were complaining about the noise she made. This time Patty had a reply, “fuck off.”
Mike seemed to ignore her reply and he even seemed a bit more talkative, even if he still had his weapon raised. He was eyeballing everything and the barrel always pointed with his eyes. Even so, he seemed to be the kind of guy who could walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, “don’t make no sense, does it?”
“What?” Patty complained, “that we’re walking through a swamp when we have a perfectly good car?”
“I meant the unicorn,” Mike replied as if her complaints did not even exist, “I saw the way you looked at it. I been watching you lady, you ain’t stupid. You noticed didn’t ya?”
Now Patty was a little more serious, “you mean the way it ran?”
“Adaptations that don’t make no sense,” Mike quietly stated.
Patty fought her way past a tree root and stated, “well of course things are going to be different here. Why is that surprising?”
This time Mike did actually shoot her a glance. He almost laughed at her before he stated, “not as smart as I thought.”
“Slow down,” Patty growled until she caught up with he-man. They all stopped for a second, apparently to let her catch her breath, and Patty managed to ask, “what are you saying?”
“It’s not the differences Patty,” Mike replied as the shotgun went back on his shoulder. Despite his apparent ease, his eyes never stopped watching, “the point is there should be a lot more. Most of the critters here, they would do just as good back home as they would in this place. That don’t make no sense.”
Aldo gave Mike a few hand signs and then wandered off with the dragon. Mike did not seem to care so Patty did not either. Mike had her mind working in other directions right now, “why doesn’t that make any sense Mike? For that matter, how the hell do you know this?”
“It’s just plain common sense,” Mike told her as he pointed up at the sky. All it took was one quick look at the aurora borealis to get the point across, “Hell, even the Orc eyeballs don’t function optimally in this place.”
Patty thought about that for a second and then something else struck her, “how do you know that?” Then before he could say it, Patty pointed at him, “and don’t hand me this common sense horse shit.”
“You just ain’t getting it,” Mike came back with. “Don’t feel bad, I got bosses that don’t seem to get it nether. Near as I can tell, nobody has yet.”
“I get it Mike,” replied Patty. This was not what she wanted to know and she had put up with far more stubborn interviewees than this. “You’re saying that none of these creatures are from here, that doesn’t…”
Mike gave her a sly grin, “naw woman, I’m saying a hell of a lot more than that.” Patty did not reply. She gave him a ‘well’ gesture and waited for his brilliant hillbilly theory with more than a little frustration. Mike almost chuckled, “I’m not just saying that most of these critters ain’t from here. What I’m saying is, they ain’t even been here all that long.”
“What?” Now Patty was thoroughly confused.
Mike pointed to a nearby embankment, “see that ridge over there?” Patty had nothing to add so Mike went on, “it ain’t a ridge. It’s an earthworks, a damn, it’s artificial. This whole swamp, it’s not a real swamp Patty. It’s a drainage basin for that.”
“OK?” Patty just shrugged and then asked, “what’s on the other side? A lake?”
“Naw,” Mike replied easily enough as he nodded for her to follow. They clawed their way up some vines and came to rest just below the summit. Patty was just happy to be back on dry ground but, Mike was busy peeking over the top. Finally he nudged Patty and she joined him. On the other side was an endless sea of patty ducts. It was all agricultural land, for as far as she could see. It was where they grew that small rice like grain that the elves seemed to be so fond of.
As Patty took in the sights Mike explained, “this dike is probably only a couple of hundred years old. That’s as near I can figure, judging by the vine growth and talking to the farmers down yonder, the ones that work this section.”
The way he said that made Patty wince, “only a couple? Mike, our entire country is only a little older than that.”
That got a short bark of a laugh before Mike continued, “to them, that’s new and improved. Look Patty, just like this hill, just like that swamp, there ain’t nothing about this goddamn place that ain’t been manufactured.”
“Manu… What’s that supposed to mean,” Patty replied with a wince.
“Think the term would be terra-formed but, that don’t quite fit,” he replied, having to think about it. “Let me just put it this way, there’s been intelligent activity here long enough to have took. Most of the inhabited area’s have definitely been changed enough that their natural forms have been permanently altered.”
“Well they did a crappy job of it,” Patty replied. Unlike most humans from Earth, she had seen most of this country. As far as that went, she had probably seen more of it than most of the locals. This land looked like a wilderness and most of it sure as hell was not being used for anything productive or useful to civilization.
“Naw,” replied Mike. “That’s what you think if you look at it from our point of view. Remember the two hundred year old remark?” Patty did not get it so Mike explained, “we think that things start primitive and then we develop it to look like New York City, and then it just stays that way. There’s just a start and an end, a straight line up, just one way it happens.”
“MIKE!” Patty growled.
He did not seem to notice her frustration, “the world don’t work that way, this one nether. The elves have been around three or four times as long as we have. That’s a safe bet. They’ve seen this cycle go over and over.”
“Yeah but,” Patty was just getting more frustrated, “you said they haven’t been here this long.”
“Yeah I know,” Mike agreed. “Not much on this planet has. Most of it, even a lot of the wild animals, I’m figuring are descended from domesticated critters, like that unicorn back there. None of them show adaptations to this kind of environment. Even if they’d been here just a million years you’d see something.”
“Ok fine,” Patty could see that much but, didn’t that contradict the other things he was saying? The only thing she could think of was, “so, you’re saying their civilization collapsed?”
“We know the human one did,” Mike told her straight up. “I’m figuring the same thing almost wiped out the elves too but…”
Now he definitely had her attention, “but what?”
Suddenly Mike did something that she had never seen him do before. He told her, “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Mike then heard a noise. Patty could not guess why this particular one was any different from the last. She just followed him as they got back on the move. It was not long after that they found Aldo and his dragon buddy. They were taking cover behind the same dike, only further down. There was a small collection of huts nearby. Patty thought they would go there but, they went to a drain that was just below them.
Patty found herself revolted by what she saw there. There were four bodies lying in the runny water. They were hacked almost beyond recognition. The only saving grace was that the running water had already taken most of the fluids and gore with it. Patty found herself even wondering if she should feel the disgust that she did. The bodies were Orc. She had to pace herself as she spoke but, she managed to get out, “what are they doing this far south?”
Mike exchanged a few more hand signs with Aldo and then he told Patty, “it’s like I thought. Remember the farmers I told you I talked with? That’s them.”
“Oh,” Patty definitely felt sick, “they’re the other ones. Like the ones Balfour has. Did the elves do this to them?”
Even if Aldo was physically incapable of speaking human languages or, at least, fluently, he definitely could make a few sounds in several human languages and that included English. He also seemed to have no problem understanding those languages. He grunted out to Patty, “no. Polmarij.”
Patty blinked, “what?” She became alarmed, “where the fuck did they come from?”
Mike looked dumbstruck, “hell woman, who you think them planes been shooting at all day?”
This seemed to amuse both the dragon and the ape. Then Aldo patted Mike on the chest and guffawed as he grunted out, “told you so.”
Mike grunted back, “hell I thought… Oh fuck off you hairy ass bastard.” He then looked at Patty and told her point blank, “a bunch of the bad Orcs came out of the east not long after we got to Aldo’s. They attacked Kalean-Erc. The fucking elves ran like school girls and if it hadn’t been for the towns folk, they’d have took the whole place. As it is, they got the town cut in two.”
Now Patty really felt sick. She looked back at the bodies and could imagine an Orc doing that to her! Suddenly, elf on elf violence seemed rather tame. She then demanded, “how did they do that! What’s the damn army for if…”
Mike pointed down at the bodies, “that’s how they did it right there.” Mike exchanged some more hand gestures with Aldo and then told Patty, “you see, only thing it could be.”
Patty snapped at him, “Mike! I don’t fucking speak planet of the apes!”
“Oh,” Mike slapped his forehead, “sorry. Aldo is like me, they been dead for over a day. The Polmarij must have come in here, killed a bunch of farmers and then took their place.” Then Mike thought about it and added, “then again, you said it. Most of this country ain’t nothing but a jungle. They could have been hiding out in the bush for a long time.”
Now Patty was deliberately trying to avoid looking at the dead Orc. She paced around and thought. Even she realized how panicked she sounded when she suggested, “NIKA, the base. Can we get there? Have they been attacked too? Even if they were I…”
Mike stopped her, “forget it. Right now, we ain’t going nowhere. We got war parties crawling all over this area and the roads…” When it looked like she was demanding an answer, Mike told her, “they been refugee’s streaming out of Kalean-Erc for hours. The IAF is shooting them up like they was war parties. Hell, they’re shooting at anything moving on the roads right now, even each other.”