“Is my stomach growling that loud?”
She laughed. “No, but it just dawned on me that if your clothes dissolved so did any rations you had.”
“I actually didn’t have time to grab any rations. I was too busy escaping from a forty-meter-long collapsing death trap.”
“Well, good thing you did.” She smiled at me.
As we walked and ate, I noticed we were dropping in elevation, winding our way lower into a densely forested valley. We had been roughly following the course of the river—or at least staying within earshot of it. Several times our path wandered back to the river’s edge, and I noticed that each time, it seemed like the cliffs were getting lower and lower. At this rate, we’d soon be right there on the same level as the river.
During our rest stops, Kira used her portable comm unit to contact her parents. She warned them that she was bringing home a stray and would explain when she got back to camp.
“That’s what I am to you, a stray?” I smiled.
“I thought that might go down a little better than ‘time traveler’.”
“True enough.”
We continued down an overgrown ridge that switchbacked into the valley.
“So, anything dangerous in this jungle?” I asked.
Kira almost choked on her teinstick. “Uh, yeah,” she laughed. “Just about everything.”
“Like what?”
“Flora or fauna? Take your pick.”
“Well, you are a botanist, so let’s go with flora. Any particularly nasty plants around here.”
“See that?” Kira pointed to an innocuous-looking vine with tight tendrils of heart-shaped leaves. It was wrapped around a dead tree trunk.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a Periaceae.”
“Okay…”
“If you break its stalk, the Periaceae oozes kind of a milky, sticky, sap.”
“Let me guess. Don’t drink the sap, right?”
“Definitely don’t drink the sap. In fact, don’t even look at the sap. It’s a powerful corrosive.”
“How powerful?”
“About a thousand times more powerful than sulfuric acid.”
“How are we not dead already?” I asked in amazement. “We must have walked under a hundred of those vines in the past hour.”
“Well, the plant is pretty strong. And fortunately when it does break, the Periaceae emits a thick purple cloud of gas. If you see a purple cloud, run in the opposite direction.”
“Good to know. What else do you got?”
“There’s a fungus here called Eriachia that’s pretty nasty. It shoots out spores when disturbed. If you breathe those spores, it basically turns your brain into jelly.”
“Pleasant.”
“Yeah.”
“So you don’t do a lot of mushroom gathering here?”
“Not in the caves.”
I nodded. “Well, I get the idea. Safadin isn’t a very fun place. I wonder why the Mayir wanted to buy it.”
“I told you. There have been a lot of rumors that the Mayir bought Safadin because of something in this jungle.”
“Any idea what?”
She shook her head. “Could be any one of seventy-thousand different species of plants and animals.”
That actually made my head spin. Or maybe I got a whiff of that fungus Kira mentioned. I took a deep breath to try to clear my head, but just got a lungful of wet air for my trouble. It was either my imagination, or it was actually getting more humid as we progressed.
“How much further until camp?” I asked.
“What? Are you wimping out on me, Adventure Boy?”
“No, I’m good. I could actually keep going for another six hours. It’s just that it looks like it’s getting dark and I bet there are some carnivorous nocturnal ferns you haven’t even mentioned yet.”
“They’re not ferns, they’re mosses,” she said with a straight face. “And actually you don’t have to worry about them. We’re less than three klicks away. We’ll be there in an hour.”
That was good news. I actually was completely exhausted, although I didn’t want to admit that to Kira. I wasn’t sure why.
She called camp again and updated them on our progress. I imagined that her parents would either greet me with open arms — or point a shotgun at me. I wasn’t sure which.
“Tell me about your parents,” I said.
“Oh Dynark, that’s kind of a big topic. I don’t know where to start.”
“Well, where are they from?”
“Originally? Earth, of course.”
“Yeah, we’re all originally from Earth. I was actually talking about the last few generations.”
“My dad’s family is from Yaados,” she said.
“Miners?”
“Yes, from way back.”
“Cool. And your mom?”
“Lussix.”
“Did her family work for the government?”
“Yes, my grandmother was the Assistant Secretary of Education.”
“Are you serious? That’s pretty cool.”
“It didn’t seem very cool when I was growing up. A little too much pressure, you know?”
“I can imagine.”
“We had to leave Lussix when I was thirteen. Of course, my mother said it was for her job, but I’m still pretty convinced it was to get me out from beneath my grandma’s shadow.”
“Yeah, I kind of know what you mean. My dad casts a pretty big shadow himself.”
“So you said. He’s some kind of influencer or something?”
“No, he’s an explorer and procurer of antiquities.”
“But you said he’s been on GT.”
“Yeah. A lot of his expeditions have been broadcast. I can’t believe you never heard of him.”
Kira shrugged. “What can I say? As a kid I spent more time in the back yard than in front of my datapad.”
“That I believe.”
She laughed.
Before I could say anything else, Kira called out and waved as a woman walked confidently down the path towards us. She was wearing a khaki-colored jumpsuit with a brightly-colored pink scarf tied around her neck and she was holding a radiant blaster confidently at her side.
“Hello, Mother!” Kira called.
As we drew closer, I could see where Kira got her beauty from. Her mother was stunning, with long black hair streaked with gray and very light blue eyes. Kira’s mother ignored me, and turned to her daughter.
“Did you get the Ctenzl samples?”
“Yes, of course.” Kira rolled her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know, Kira. Maybe another mudslide?”
“That happened once. Why do you have to keep on bringing it up?”
Yeah, there was a little bit of weirdness going on.
I interjected and held out my hand. “Hi,
