“Neither had I,” Paul said, sitting crosslegged on the ground and not sure how moving would improve the situation. “What the hell just happened?”
“I do not know, but the insights are valuable none the less. When we sleep, we take shifts.”
“I don’t think I’ll be sleeping anytime soon.”
“Yes you will,” Cal-com said, putting his hand back on Paul’s head. “You’re exhausted.”
Paul blinked, then moved his arms and legs around a bit, finally noticing that his body was more than just sore from the walking. He was absolutely drained of energy.
“Ok, now I’m a little scared,” he admitted.
“As am I. Do we stay here and face it, or flee back to the settlement?”
That brought a little steel to Paul’s spine. “Stay. But I have a bad feeling about this.”
“At least your sense of humor is intact.”
Paul huffed, not realizing he’d quoted Han Solo. “I wasn’t trying to be funny,” he said, pulling out one of his armored gauntlets from his pack and sliding it over his right hand, through which he used the regenerator to scan his body and identify the source of his fatigue.
“Grab me some food.”
“What did you find?”
“My cellular energy has been depleted. As much as if I’d taken a 15 hour run and pushed it hard.”
“Do you want your ambrosia?” he asked, referencing what was in Paul’s pack.
“No, I just need food,” he said, taking a Star Force ration bar from Cal-com along with a pouch of crunchy cereal from the local market, which he then began downing rapidly.
“You do not hallucinate calorie loss.”
“I…know,” he said between bites.
“A malfunction in your Saiyan metabolism?”
“I checked…it’s…stable.”
“Most likely an internal manifestation, rather than an exterior intrusion?”
“Telepathy doesn’t deplete cellular energy, but I can’t rule anything out. I have no idea what happened.”
“Was the conversation beneficial to you?”
Paul stopped chewing as he reviewed for a moment. “Yes.”
“Then it either wasn’t random, or a random occurrence triggered a breakthrough that otherwise had eluded you.”
“Still doesn’t…explain how…it happened,” he said, continuing to eat.
“A mystery for us to solve then…amidst the storm.”
“You don’t think that’s random, do you.”
“I do not. But I also have no answers for you.”
“Do a deeper…scan,” Paul said, pointing to his head emphatically as he continued to shove food in his mouth.
10
Paul didn’t get any sleep that night, not that he normally did. An hour, tops, would have been more than enough, but the sense that there was someone else here potentially messing with his mind kept him alert enough he couldn’t have slept if he wanted to. So after spending several hours discussing the situation with Cal-com and his friend being unable to find anything amiss with his mind, Paul stood watch while the Voku got some needed sleep.
By the time he woke the sun had already risen and the storm was past, but still visible on the horizon as it was kicking up enough dust in its wake to say a goodbye to those who had just weathered it as it headed elsewhere on the planet. When Paul came outside the tent he saw a pure blue sky with a hot sun rising in the east and kicking up some weird colors in the dust storm to the south, but by the time they got the tent packed up along with the rest of their supplies the storm was over the horizon and out of view, leaving a tranquil and quickly heating desert with no markings of the trail they had followed here.
The dunes had all shifted, and if it wasn’t for the towers in the distance they would have no visible markers to navigate by.
“Does your fatigue remain?” Cal-com asked as he pulled on his backpack as Paul waited a few steps away with his already on.
“Not sure how much is fatigue and how much is soreness from the sand. You’d think as fit as I am it wouldn’t bother me, but the muscle movements are different enough to find new inefficiencies.”
“You can’t calibrate to everything simultaneously. Does the morning offer any new revelations?”
“Are you real Cal-com or vision Cal-com?” Paul said sarcastically.
“Apparently the vision form is wiser,” he said as they began to walk, with Paul following Cal-com’s lead.
“I still can’t understand how I could see the brush before it happened if it was just a weird dream.”
“That does seem illogical.”
“But if someone was in my head, where are they and what are they?”
“Shall we resume our lack of senses, or do we stay alert?”
“I don’t know where to start, but as long as we’re walking in the broad daylight, let’s just resume the way we were until we have something to scan.”
“This is also an exercise in what to do when you can’t find the solution to something.”
“Meaning I either sit here and think until I figure something out or just blindly move on?”
“Those are the two prevailing strategies,” the Voku said as his foot sunk down up to his knee in a soft dune, tripping him up enough that he fell forward on his hands, pinned in place.
Paul offered his hand for leverage, and helped pull him out stepping backwards as they looked at their navigational options.
“Fine sand,” Cal-com determined. “It must have piled up from the storm. It won’t support our weight.”
Paul slipped off his pack and shuffled his feet around, then jumped straight up into the air several meters before falling back down in the same spot and hunching on landing to cushion his fall.
“The dune is only 12 or so meters wide. Quicker to go across than walk around,” he said, grabbing his pack and throwing it over the crest that was slightly
