The sound of voices came to his ears—but of no language he had ever heard before.
Cautiously he stole out on the brow of a small hill. A blaze of peach sunlight shone where the trees broke. The effect was illusory; his eyes almost hurt from the contrast. Down in a valley he spied many constructions: rude cottages crafted of some unknown material, low towers, lookouts, fenced pits, dwellings of some sort.
Here was some breed of Neanderthals, Miko decided, or anthropoids, tending fields and working with instruments. They were more simian than human, he discovered, with overlarge heads, skullish faces and long arms and teeth, but they wore no familiar hides or skirts of woven reeds, only unusual scarves which covered loins and necks.
He could vaguely detect some manner of womankind tending the land with young ones in tow. Spears and metal pikes and coils of barbed wire were spread liberally on the odd dwellings and the ground. Doubtless to deter the horrors of the forest. Outside the palisade, a group of hunters seemed to be carving up the carcass of one of the enormous, two-headed winged things that had fallen out of the sky. An atmosphere of ritual seemed to surround these beings.
Miko flattened himself to the ground. He gave a bewildered grunt. Edging himself back into the vine tangle, he lay there for some time. Had the humanoids seen him? He hoped not. His breath came out in ragged gasps. His hands shook. The stress and privation of the past days had started to take its toll. He forced himself to hold his breath and imagined a peaceful place, as his instructor on Mission Base had trained him. Feeling calmer now, he snuck another peek at the colony and saw another group of their kind toiling with some kind of tools and primitive machines. Wagons or war machines of some sort? The vehicles were being hoisted on drays which were rolled away by ropes and chains tugged by teams of the strongest members. Bizarre. Yet they would need such machines, thought Miko. To survive on this harsh world was an effort of will. Only too vividly did he feel his own resources waning, as if he himself were in a drug-induced dream. If only the pain were not so real...
The astonishing fact of these beings’ possession of metal and warcraft suggested two things: that they were not of an equivalent class of evolution as the early hominids of Earth, and that they were resourceful enough to survive the dangers of the planet by building advanced survival mechanisms. But had another race landed and gifted them with their technology? If so, where were these beings? Such questions lingered in Miko’s brain.
Spellbound he watched as they went on with their daily work. He lay in the grass almost numb, hearing raucous voices muster commands in their barbarous language. Many of the strange orders were carried out by pliant clan members. Pens of animals sat crowded around the perimeter of the settlement behind the palisades, whose corners were reinforced with low wooden watchtowers. While warriors stalked the grounds, caged beasts hooted and hissed beyond the bars...beasts akin to the horned marsupials that he had come to know so well.
Miko gave a dispirited groan. A food source? For the purposes of domestication? A feral army? He peered, grimacing in a feverish daze at the horde. On the other side of the valley small trails wound up into the hazy jungly tangle.
A brittle amber glow crept its way over the faraway hill. Morning? Afternoon? Evening? All were much the same.
Miko rubbed his aching temples. A sense of defeat flooded him. How his eyes smarted as if they had been bathed in sulphur pools! His tongue stuck in a parched mouth. When had he last drunk a sip of water? He remembered snatching some berries and bitter nuts from a shrub before the aardvarks had attacked, but since then, no water. There seemed little chance that these hardened denizens of the eerie towers and the war wagons would prove a source of aid at this late hour.
Miko felt no need to reaffirm the truth. Behind him came the ominous drones of mournful abandon which seemed to follow him everywhere. In fact, it seemed to be drawing nearer.
From below came movement: Miko spied pockets of warriors scrambling for weapons and taking to the towers. Women and children sought the piked shelters.
Miko let out a sobbing cry. Heaving himself to his feet, he threw himself deeper in the tangle. He did not go far before he fell back again.
A creepy twelve-legged spider had scuttled across his lap, with an eye cluster studying him severely.
He recoiled. What more could plague him?
Off across the hill he half ran, half limped. He summoned every inch of resolve to get away from that abysmal place. He followed the inside fringe of the forest, a sad broken man, pursuing what little shreds of sanity were left, in a direction he thought east. Did it matter? He was only eager to bypass the sinister commune.
New activity issued from below. Miko spied the warriors in the lookouts arming slingshots and primitive arbalests, preparing to do battle with one of the armadillo winged things which came swooping out of the sky. How was it that the shadow didn’t devour the valley dwellers? Did the open basin of the valley protect them?
He ducked back into the forest. His thoughts drifted. Was he destined to wander this sorrowful land for all time with Audra at his heels?
Sadly it seemed true. Maybe a fitting end? He was a grotesque freak, like the thousand other creatures that roamed this world, not knowing if the next hour would be their last.
The foreign air was weakening him.
