Adam led the way through the jungle, this time going slower and using his hands and arms to gently push away the barriers they encountered. In a few minutes they came upon the path Adam had cut through the jungle with his blade, a wide and obvious scare through the jungle. They jumped over the path, each being careful not to leave any signs of their passing, and soon they were once again trudging upriver.
They stopped about twenty minutes later when they heard noises coming from behind them. Adam moved to the edge of the jungle where it met the river. The waterway curved slightly away at this point and Adam could see pretty far down the river. There, at the point where his original path met the water, were a gaggle of Hyben security forces, their flashlights dancing helter-skelter across the scene. They were shouting and pointing across the river, and in a few moments, turned away from Adam’s location and began to follow the bank downstream.
Adam smiled as Sherri patted him on the back. “Good plan, Stan,” she said, matching his smile. Then she leaned over and kissed his cheek. She quickly feigned spitting motions to rid her lips of the sweat and grim from his face, but still her eyes smiled at him.
“Let’s get going,” he said. “Another twenty minutes or so and then we’ll head back toward the yards. It’ll be daybreak soon; we need to set up camp and try to find something to eat.”
Adam saw the grimace cross Sherri’s face. She still had the taste and smell of the Hyben baths in her memory. “I hope there’s something on this fucking planet worth eating.” Then she looked back at Poul, who was standing a few meters behind her, still in the cover of the jungle. “Maybe something like a giant shrimp cocktail?”
Adam looked at Poul as well and raised an eyebrow. “Definitely an option. Just wish we had a little sauce to spice it up a little.”
Poul just stared at them, confused by the Human’s sudden attention directed his way. He was relieved when they moved past him, with Adam placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
An hour later, they once again were at the edge of the buffer zone surrounding the shipyards. They were a couple of kilometers west of the point where they’d first entered the jungle, and the area beyond the fence here was dotted with derelict spacecraft that had been relegated to the furthest hinterlands of the yards.
About fifty meters back into the jungle, Adam and Sherri began to clear a campsite with their blades. Once the vegetation had been cut, they proceeded to cover the muddy ground with large palm frowns to shield them from the guck. Finally, they all sat down in a circle, each enjoying the first rest they’d had in several hours. Poul managed to curl himself into a large ball, with just his pointy head and black, beady eyes staring out at them. Adam couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not.
Sherri fell back herself, resting her head on a small vine. She had mud on her face, stubbornly securing itself to her skin even through the sheen of sweat that dripped from her pours. Adam’s stomach began to growl, loud enough so she could hear it.
“You know it’s going to be a crapshoot with the food we find,” she said. “Without a dietary scanner we could be eating poison and not even know it until it’s too late.”
“I know,” Adam agreed. “The safest thing to do would be to find some meat and cook it, but we don’t want to attract anyone with either the fire or the smell. Let’s get a little rest now, and then I’ll head out to try to find us something near daybreak. So far I haven’t seen anything much bigger than a worm. But there has to be something out here worth eating.”
“Poul did mention the snakes.”
“That he did. Whatever is out here, let’s try to find it, before it finds us.”
Chapter 19
The Hyben sun was halfway up in the eastern sky by the time Adam and Sherri awoke from their naps. Adam swung into consciousness, angry at himself for not having them each stand guard while the other slept. After pulling some leech-looking thing from his forearm, he looked around their tiny campsite and immediately noticed that Poul was gone.
Both he and Sherri drew their MK’s and began a sweep of the jungle surrounding the clearing. It wasn’t long before Adam spotted where the Hyben had moved into the jungle, his tail leaving a wide swath in the muddy floor of the jungle.
Silently motioning for Sherri to follow him, Adam began to track Poul further into the thick growth. After a couple of minutes, he heard a noise ahead of him. Holding up his clinched fist, Sherri froze. Then he alone moved forward.
Ahead he saw Poul coming toward him, carrying in his mid-arms the carcass of a rodent about the size of a small dog. Spotting Adam, the diameter of Poul’s round mouth grew wider. “I got us some first-meal. It’s a grummer. I have to say I’ve bought plenty at the market, but I’ve never had to kill one myself. This is exciting.”
Adam and Sherri stood and watched silently as the large shrimp-like being moved past them. They just shrugged at each other and followed him back to the campsite.
Once there, Poul tossed the dead, hairy creature into the center of the clearing and then leaned down, covering the carcass with his body. When he pulled away, the dead beast had been gutted, with its entrails clutched in Poul’s two nin-arms. “Come, get your fill,” he said joyfully at the two Humans, as the arms began to stuff the raw and bloody flesh into this mouth — the pink gash located between the nin-arms.
“You eat it raw?” Sherri asked, unable to hide the disgust from both her expression and her voice.
“Of course,” Poul said, cocking his head slightly to the right. “And it is best if the body is still warm.”
Adam sucked up his resolve and moved to carcass. He withdrew his sword and proceeded to cut two generous portions of meat from the flanks of the beast. Next he took out his MK-17 and dialed the weapon to level three. He fired the weapon into the flesh and surveyed the results. Some of the pink was gone, but still more remained than he was comfortable with. He blasted the meat three more times, until the alien steaks were steaming with a consistent brown color throughout.
Poul’s head began to vibrate slightly. “Why have you ruined your meal? Now most of the nutrients have been cooked out of it.”
“Thanks for the meat, Poul, but we can’t eat it the way you do.” Adam handed a slab of cooked meat to Sherri on a thick, shiny green leaf. She eyed it suspiciously.
Adam lifted his own portion to his mouth and bit off a section. He chewed vigorously before swallowing and then he met Sherri’s eyes with a look of surprise. “Not bad. A little tough, but I think this will do.”
Sherri tested a much smaller bite, but then raised her eyebrows. “Okay, but remember, we have to survive for five more days on this shit before Kaylor comes to our rescue. I hope in that time some ravenous little parasite hasn’t eaten us alive from the inside out.”
Chapter 20
The next four days passed relatively quickly, with a simple routine being established in the tiny base camp. Poul became the hunter of the group, surprisingly capable at locating and taking down small game. He also spent time near the river, catching a variety of fish, half of which seldom made it back to the camp before Poul consumed them.
Sherri and Adam had constructed elevated sleeping racks to lift themselves above the myriad of crawling creatures that inhabited the Hyben night. They covered the beds with stacks of palm fronds, and then covered themselves with more fronds as shelter from the frequent rains. Poul didn’t bother with any such improvements. Instead he dug a hole in the soft, muddy soil and would insert himself into it every night.
Even though they were all making it the best they could, Adam and Sherri were growing increasing restless. Adam’s beard grew longer while Sherri’s hair became oilier and darker from the accumulation of dirt and grime. The local diet had also caused its share of discomfort; they both suffered from chronic diarrhea and headaches from the dehydration it caused. After a couple of days, the diarrhea passed, but now they were weak and listless.