Then the canopy of the forest swallowed him up like a carnivorous predator.
Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty aliens were laid carefully in the road while each species mourned the dead in his, her, or its own way. The mourning ranged from shrill, yet musical, screeches to pounding of chests to throwing dirt into the air while whispering strange-sounding incantations. The people, as I came to think of them, were united, possibly for the first time in their lives.
I watched as the people embraced and mourned together. Even Skrew got into it, though there weren’t any vrak among the dead. His way of comforting mourners, though, involved a lot of face-licking, which some of the species took minor offense to. Others avoided him at all cost, and I wondered if he was really trying to help, or if he just really liked to lick faces.
Skald might have survived. But it wouldn’t do him any good, not on a planet like this one. Even if he had squirmed away from a burning wreckage, he’d be hunted down by the people of Madomar, traveling bandits, or a local predator.
I figured it small consolation for the people who’d died here, or all those who’d lived under his tyrannical rule.
While the funeral ritual continued, I considered the past few days. My thoughts returned to Shesh. Unlike the other aliens I’d met on this planet, he had seemed honorable. I reached beneath my shirt and pulled out the amulet he’d given me.
“Spirit-Watcher,” I echoed.
I examined the light-drinking item. How had Shesh described it? A lens into another realm? Something like that.
When I brought the device up to my eyes, the world changed. No longer did I see things in color. Everything became black and white, with a few shades of gray between them. Lines connected similar things, shapes appeared around others, and symbols began to scroll across the bottom.
Surprisingly, I could read them. Ambient air temperature. Parts per million of dust, which consisted of 93 different types of pollen, 17 different minerals, and dander from at least five furred animals. Each of them was being tracked. Each of them had been assigned a number. Each had a trajectory marked.
When I felt my balance beginning to give out, I pulled the device from my face and caught myself before I fell over. “That’s something I’m going to have to get used to,” I said aloud.
It was a heads-up display. A HUD. It didn’t require a power source. It wasn’t connected to any computer I could recognize. It was self-contained and fed more data into my brain than I was used to absorbing. The visual input alone was enough to make my head spin as the angles and information filled my vision.
The HUD was sophisticated to a degree I couldn’t understand since I wasn’t a scientist or an engineer. I tried to imagine what Federation scientists would do with the tech if they could even begin to understand it, let alone recreate it. Such a device would change the tide of the war against the Xeno.
Instead of having to rely on huge ship-board computers to do calculations, track the enemy and provide data, each pilot could do it themselves. I doubted those who hadn’t been “blessed” by the Lakunae would be able to handle so much data, but the toughness and tenacity of my species should never be underrated. We were fierce, dangerous, and inventive. We’d find a way to make it work, or die trying.
The hunter, Shesh, had told me it was magic and that it showed the spirit realm or some such nonsense. Of course he’d say that. He didn’t know what a HUD was. He must not have known what he was looking at. He had no anchor to base his observations on. To him, everything he didn’t understand would seem like magic, especially a HUD with so much information.
The combined effect of the funeral and staring into the Spirit-Watcher made me lightheaded, and I found myself questioning a lot of my beliefs about things I couldn’t understand. It didn’t last long. I figured those philosophical questions were better left to other men and concentrated only on the flames of the funeral pyres.
Ten minutes later, the fires were out. Several of the older townsfolk walked around their half-burnt warehouses, inspected the damage, and doused any hot-spots they found. A good breeze could carry an untended ember into another building, and they’d be starting all over again. The trees that had caught fire were far too green to burn for long, but the scar the battle had left behind would last years. For some of the townsfolk, it would last the rest of their lives.
They looked as if they were shocked by the damage and the lives it had taken. I hadn’t gotten the impression that the people of Madomar gave a shit about anything except their own profit. but their ability to leave aside pettiness in favor of dousing fires, rebuilding, and mourning suggested I might have misjudged them.
“Thank you,” a frog-faced kakul said before taking my hand and licking my palm. I resisted the urge to recoil and wipe my hand on my pants.
“Yes, thank you,” said another creature. She looked human, except her eyes were halfway down her cheeks, and her nose was too high.
Soon, I had all the survivors gathered around me, even those from further into the town who had seen what was happening but hadn’t joined the battle for one reason or another. Some, I was sure, were too frightened. Others were elderly or showed evidence of old wounds that would have made helping all but impossible.
Yaltu pushed her way through the crowd. Her vertical pupils were wide, and her lips seemed redder than usual. When she reached
