“No, it couldn’t have. This way, you are going in without convincing yourself that it won’t be that bad. It will be. We have rejected their coordinates and are going to be setting you down within a day’s walk of the monastery. Just listen for the chanting. The emergency pack is at your feet.”
She chuckled. “Yes, mother hen. I get it.”
“You are calling me a bird?”
“If the feathers match.”
He grinned and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Good luck, little chick.”
He had exhaled some form of power into her head, and she gripped the arms of her chair as the restraints held her fast. The top of the egg came down. She heard it locking into place, and there was a countdown in Malthu. By the time she put the numbers together, it had gotten to one, and she was falling away from the ship.
She was dropping to a world where only one person wanted her to be. This wasn’t going to be rough at all.
She felt the grin spreading across her lips as the display showed her approaching the surface. She was going to get to maraud a little, after all.
Chapter Three
Mathla was pacing in the monastery. “Where is she? Zanicon has told me that she was dropped over an hour ago.”
The monks got nervous. The prior asked, “Zanicon, Your Eminence?”
“The avatar who was in the ship that dropped her. If she isn’t found, he will arrive on the surface to find her, and that is not something you want. If she isn’t alive, he will wipe this monastery off the surface.” She smiled and knew it wasn’t a good smile. “And Luon and I will let him. Are we clear?”
The novice near the door sidled out, and a moment later, he returned. “Your Eminence, we have gotten a signal.”
Mathla looked at the smug faces around her. “Well, where is it?”
He looked nervously at the elders in the chamber. “The plains of Yelfon.”
She chuckled. “I will send a message and ask Yelfon to bring her in. Even he wouldn’t leave someone to die out there.”
The elders of the monastery did not look like they were sure about that.
* * * *
Libby hit the com unit but didn’t get a response for an hour. She slid the view screen open and found that she was in a safe zone, so she waited. When the large animals that looked like scaly buffalo wandered over and began to rock the pod with their noses, she watched the cameras around the pod displaying lots of huge wet noses, but it is the nearby crevice that she was worried about. As it became apparent that they are nudging her deliberately, she decides to not become a casualty. She grabbed the emergency pack, strapped it on, verified that she had undone all of her landing restraints, and she punched the emergency release.
A series of bangs ensued, and the pod popped open. She darted up and out, moving past the scattered herd and heading for the nearest rockpile. Sprinting with longer legs would have been easier in proper footwear. The sandals were unpleasant and not as protective as she would like. When she managed to climb about ten feet up on the pile of rocks, she looked and saw the creatures nudging the pod over the crevice.
She exhaled until she saw that the beasts were snuffling at the trail she had run. They were slowly but surely following her.
She groaned and got moving. She had been on farms before, and no matter how placid a cow looked, it could still break your foot with a slight shift in weight. No sense getting stomped on.
Libby kept going up and down the ride of rocks until she had to stop for breath. The beasts were more than half a kilometre away right now, but they were still trailing after her. She sipped some water, capped it, and put it back in her pack.
She heard a tapping noise on the rocks above her, and she looked up warily, afraid of a giant bird that wanted her shoes or something.
She looked, and there was a shadowed figure standing there who held out a hand, beckoning to her. Well, he wasn’t a lizard beast.
She reached out and gripped his hand. It was definitely him. Even alien guys had a certain musk under the distant suns. He pulled her up, and she slammed into him. She was lighter than he thought, she guessed.
“You are the new novice?” He looked down at her body.
“I am. I suppose. I really have no idea. I am just here to learn.”
“The avatar has asked me to bring you safely to the monastery.” He looked past her. “I was almost too late.”
She looked back, and the herd of creatures was surprisingly fast. “They dumped my pod into the crevice.”
“And yet, you grabbed your pack. Well done.” He shifted her to one side, picked up a large sphere, and he lobbed it toward the beasts, and it rolled to the centre of the fifty huge creatures. “Wait for it.”
One of the beasts nosed it, and a pfaff sounded as pink mist spread out of the area around the sphere.
“What was that?”
He chuckled. “It is a mushroom. They like it, but they are also mildly allergic. It messes with their senses, and we will be able to walk on the plain in a few minutes.”
“What would they do to me if they caught up to me?” She was curious.
“They might start grooming you. Their tongues are barbed, so you wouldn’t last long if they really liked you. They might also go nudge you off the edge of the crevice. Who knows?”
She frowned.
“Kidding. They would slobber over you and possibly stomp you in their enthusiasm. The crevice instinct is only for round objects. They try and keep loose rocks off their plain so they can run. They have been known to push rocks for kilometres to dump
