My backpack was gone – and the medi-kit with it. I had no bandages and no antibiotics. I needed to bind the wound and stop it bleeding so I was going to have to improvise. I shrugged off my jacket. My shirt was wet and filthy, but it was all I had. I pulled it off and turned it inside-out, pressing the cleanest surface to the wound, wrapping the shirt around my leg and tying it tightly in place.
I had no idea how far I had fallen – either horizontally or vertically. My joyride had carried me away from the robot, which was a good thing. But I didn’t know where I was in relation to the Celestia or my Trekker. I needed medical supplies and the ship or my vehicle were the only places I was going to find them.
Using my arms and sliding on my bruised butt, I dragged myself further into the undergrowth. Using my knife I cut a strong sapling and tripped the twigs and leaves from it. I used the stick to help me get to my feet, keeping my weight on my left leg. I hobbled around in a circle, looking for – There! A tree with the round leathery yellow gourds. I cut one down and jammed it on top of my stick. Tucking the gourd into my armpit, I could lean on the stick like a crutch. I just hoped the gourd wasn’t the local equivalent of poison ivy.
Without my shirt I was feeling chilly. This was possibly my body going into shock. But I still thought it was a good sign. When I started feeling hot – burning up inside – it would mean that my wound was infected. I pulled on the leather jacket. It had survived the battering remarkably well. Zipping it up, I could feel the bulges of the drones in the inside pockets. Gnat was out for the count, but Mozzie was still functional. I powered him up and sent him skywards to get an idea of my location.
I thought about trying to use the drone as a communicator. I could call for help. Hell, maybe I’d call the bounty hunters and tell them where to find me. Being back in Margotsville jail would be a massive improvement on my current situation. But, of course, there was no signal down here in the jungle. If I waited until there was a satellite overhead, I might be able to make contact. But I had no way of tracking satellites. Given enough time – and a college degree in electronics and astrophysics – I might have been able to come up with a solution. But my life-blood was leaking away and I needed to act quickly.
The thing about jungle is that it all looks the same. The images Mozzie came back with told me nothing useful. Operating the drone manually, without Trixie’s input, meant I could achieve very little. I pinged the location of my Trekker – it was fifteen miles away, due east of my position. Running from the robot and the subsequent fall had taken me further from it. There was no tracking device in the Celestia that I could use to pinpoint its location, but I could scan for non-natural energy sources. The ship was a little over five miles away – as the crow flies. The Trekker was a safer option, but I doubted I could reach it in my present state. The battleship was closer. But both of them were above me. I was going to have to get back up to the top of the cliff that I had fallen from. And I couldn’t fly up like a crow.
I drank some water that had collected in the centre of a large leaf. I would have been glad of a protein bar at that moment – the thought of that rubbery old slipper texture and indeterminate flavour made my mouth water. I would probably find some back at the ship, I told myself. All I had to do was get there. Before I bled to death.
I sent Mozzie back up again, scanning the layout of the land to find a less vertical slope that I could trek up. The one he found would add a couple of miles or so to my journey, but it was a much better prospect than trying to climb a vertical cliff face with only one good hand and one good leg. A journey of eight miles begins with one unsteady step. A little voice in my head was telling me to find a sheltered spot and go to sleep – start my journey in the morning. If I listened to that little voice, I wouldn’t wake up in the morning.
Chapter Seventeen
The rainclouds drifted away westwards and the sky faded from dark blue through a rich purple to black. Saphira has two moons, Smaug and Fafnir. The first of them came out; I didn’t know which it was, but the bright yellow disc lit up the jungle and made it look unreal – like a theatre set. The second moon would rise about an hour after the first. The two would give enough overhead light to travel by and I had the drone shining its little spotlight on the ground so I could avoid any immediate obstacles.
On top of the fear of bleeding to death, I had some
