After the elderly hosts ran out of steam, about mid-afternoon, Sata decided the time was right for another adventure, a very personal adventure that she had been putting off. She made excuses why she couldn’t join both Boro and Kibi for things they wanted to do, then wandered by the Manessa Kwi to get a sun hat and a couple of nutrition bars. She wasn’t sure exactly how long her adventure would take.
When she arrived at the old front entrance to the theme park, she found Ilika sitting on a low stone wall gazing across the ancient ticket plaza. Beyond that, weeds, bushes, and small trees were slowly reclaiming the paved parking lot.
“You curious about the world outside the fence too?” she asked, hopping onto the wall beside him.
“Yeah. That story about the first passenger transport got me and Kibi thinking, and we’re planning to go out tomorrow if we can. It was one of the largest cities on the planet. Research teams often study the decay process, but this is the first time I’ve taken a good look at it.”
“At first, the stories about wild dogs everywhere had me a little scared,”
Sata admitted.
“That would have been a dangerous time to live through,” Ilika said, “but now all the wild creatures are back in balance, and a dry climate like this can’t support very many large carnivores — about one every eight square kilometers, Rrr’tana tells me.”
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Sata nodded. “I have about four hours of daylight,” she said, glancing at the sun as she adjusted her sun hat.
“You sure you want to go alone?”
Sata was silent for a few seconds, but then spoke firmly. “Yeah.”
The first few times Sata startled a bird or a rabbit-like creature, she nearly ran back to the safety of the planet station and its animal-proof fence.
But this adventure, this step in her on-going process of getting comfortable with the universe, had very little to do with the creatures of the wilderness that could scare her. She had traveled around her home kingdom with her fellow crew members, and knew all about animals who were more afraid of her than she was of them.
True, the creatures on Siminia Three were a little different than those on her home planet, but also very much the same in the ways they lived their lives.
No, this adventure was all about Sata of Sonmatia Three being alone, without Ilika or Boro near, and without a ship, star station, or animal-proof fence to protect her.
After her heart quit racing from the bird who suddenly took flight almost right in her face, Sata breathed slowly and glanced at her mission bracelet. I could have left you behind, too, she thought. But Ilika would have yelled at me. Besides, what monkey mammal, anywhere, would go into the wilderness without at least a big knife. You’re my big knife, little bracelet.
But I hope I don’t have to use you. I hope I can do this all by myself.
Any paving that had been thin, or made of small tiles or blocks, was now completely broken up by bushes and trees, and its original surface unrecognizable. Occasionally a street or walkway had been built of large, thick blocks, and these provided paths through the scrubby woods, even though tree roots had begun to tilt some of the blocks.
Sata peered up at a multi-story hotel to her left. Most of the glass was now broken, leaving the concrete rooms and their moldy furniture open to the wind and rain. Plants had established themselves on the bottom two or three floors, and Sata spotted a cat-like creature climbing a woody vine from one
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room to another.
Above the third floor began the domain of birds, and Sata could faintly hear their cooing and clucking. As she watched, a large raptor spread its wings and took flight from one of the highest rooms.
After taking several deep breaths, she trudged on through the bushes.
The piles of weedy rubble, on both sides of her, had once been houses, Sata finally decided. Occasionally a bit of tile roof was still visible, but only because it was the last thing to fall onto the heap.
A growling sound, coming from somewhere under the rubble, made her freeze. She waited, straining to see or hear where it was coming from, a finger poised over her mission bracelet, her feet ready to run.
Then another sound made her re-think the situation. The whimpering of several puppies was making the mother dog growl louder, but still not show herself.
Sata felt her heart return to a more normal rhythm. “They’re not very smart at that age, are they?” she asked the unseen creature, a mammal like herself, and another female.
The growling continued, but without such a desperate tone.
“You have nothing to fear from me, little mommy. I’m from Nebador.”
The low warning growl continued. Sata took another deep breath and walked on.
The large grocery store had once boasted a high ceiling and aisle after aisle of food from every corner of Siminia Three. Now only rusting steel columns pierced the rubble, a mixture of ancient roofing materials, rusted cans, and broken jars.
From a low mound, Sata surveyed the ruins, still hosting few bushes and trees because of the thick concrete floor. She could imagine Jimox and Teina, in their youth, selecting their favorite foods to take back to Similand, talking and laughing as they worked.
It occurred to Sata that free food, while it lasted, and free admission to Similand, were the only payments their people gave them for the task of witnessing and recording the end of a civilization, the only payments their
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people could give them.
Sata blinked away the moisture that had gathered in her eyes when she suddenly heard a digging sound, and quickly looked for its source. Not far away, a rabbit-like creature had not noticed the visitor, and was burrowing into the rubble.
Before she could even think, something furry leapt from a nearby bush.
The rabbit squeaked once, then fell silent, its neck held tightly from behind in the powerful jaws of a large cat.
Sata didn’t dare move, but her heart raced and her mind reviewed the bracelet code she would use if the cat took an interest in her.
Minutes that seemed like hours passed slowly as the cat held its prey in a death-grip. Finally the cat began dragging its meal, now completely limp, toward a dense bush.
Sata let out her breath, but then realized she had done so too loudly. The cat dropped its kill, glared at her with two bright eyes, and hissed, but didn’t abandon the fresh kill.
For a moment, Sata felt fear. Words from her native language came to her, judgmental words to label the cat as evil for killing the helpless little rabbit.
Sata kept breathing, and began to remember who and what she now was —
the navigator of a deep-space response ship, and in training for all other positions on her ship. She was also the survivor of a Great Transformation, had completed fourteen classes on Satamia Star Station, and had begun the Psychic Development program.
From Basic Ecology she knew that a planetary biosphere was a complex web of constantly-flowing streams of energy, and some of those consisted of carnivores catching, killing, and eating their prey. If they didn’t, Sata remembered, the biosphere would become imbalanced, the herbivores would grow too numerous, exhaust their food supplies, and soon die of starvation and disease.
She took a slow, deep breath. “I understand. It’s yours, and I won’t try to take it away from you.”
The cat hissed again.
Without taking her eyes off the carnivore, Sata backed away from the ancient grocery store.
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More mounds that had once been houses came and went, another multi-story concrete building, and two more stores, all just ruins.
Sata was beginning to feel more confidence in herself as she wandered through this strange mixture of dead civilization and living ecosystem.
The path with fewest bushes suddenly angled downhill. She looked out over the low area and saw that the bushes and trees were greener not far ahead. Her curiosity piqued, she followed the path down.
The stream was barely a trickle, but marks on the trees and rocks showed that water a meter deep sometimes flowed. A bush full of birds exploded with fluttering wings when Sata came into sight, and a wiry dog looked up from getting a drink at the stream, then vanished into the bushes.
From the boulder where Sata nibbled a nutrition bar, she glimpsed two rabbits, and not much later a snake that could have been a tiny version of T’sss’lisss. Soon a large bird arrived who was intent on having snake for dinner, but because of the thick branches, had to make a new plan.
As the sun neared the horizon, and Sata judged she had another hour of daylight, she said good-bye to the little stream and its community of wild creatures.
Not long after she returned to higher ground, Sata’s heart began to beat faster as she discovered that all the ruins and faint pathways looked the same, and none of them felt familiar. She took some deep breaths and forced herself to think.
“The sun’s at a lower angle,” she muttered to herself. “And I’m looking at everything from the opposite direction.”
She walked on, but soon came to a halt, as the scrubby trees and mounds were starting to appear completely wrong. She felt herself trembling slightly.
“You’re
a
navigator! You’re not supposed to get lost!”
A lizard raised its head when it heard the frustrated monkey-mammal voice, then quickly backed away into its bush.
With her heart now pounding loudly in her chest, Sata struggled to think of a plan. She looked at her mission bracelet, and could think of three or four ways it could easily save her.
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But she didn’t want it to save her. She was a navigator, and she should be able to get home from a short walk in the wilds.
With panic threatening to rise inside her, she turned one complete circle and spotted the answer. Just a few hundred meters to her right, a six or seven-story concrete building jutted from the trees and bushes. All the windows were broken, and birds came and went constantly. From the roof, or one of the upper floors, she’d be able to see Siminia Three Planet Station and plan her route.
With a sigh and a shiver, Sata suddenly felt renewed hope that her little walk wouldn’t end in embarrassing disaster after all.
Behind a tangled clump of bushes, Sata found a rusting stairway door kept closed with a rock, and wondered if Teina and Jimox had once prowled through this same building. The ancient hinges creaked and jerked as she pulled, as if fighting to keep her out.
The concrete stairs felt crumbly under her feet. In the dim light filtering down from small broken windows, she saw cracks in the steps, and the rusting metal bars that still held the building together. Sata remembered the original hosts telling about the quake that had shaken the area, bringing down many old brick buildings. As she slowly climbed, dry leaves, twigs, and a few small bones made the stairs tricky. She continued taking slow, careful steps upward.
After a quarter hour of climbing, the door to the roof was locked, but so rusty it crumbled to pieces when Sata pulled. She snorted and spat as the red dust settled, then stepped through.
Weeds and stickers covered the flat roof, but appeared all dry and dead.
Sata could imagine it quickly coming to life after a rain, then returning to its dry, dormant state. With her back to the setting sun, she worked her way across the roof, hoping the planet station would be visible from the eastern side.
Sata smiled for the first time in an hour. Siminia Three Planet Station was right about where it should be, but she could have easily missed it if she had just wandered aimlessly through the bushes.
She felt like a navigator again, and remembered several times when the
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Manessa Kwi had been piloted to higher altitudes for a better view.
As she scanned the landscape and noted the relative positions of several other tall buildings, the sun found the horizon behind her.
Sata swallowed, and a moment later her mission bracelet chimed.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Kibi’s voice reassured.
“I wouldn’t be much of a navigator if I got lost, now would I?” Sata teased.
Kibi chuckled. “I got lost in Olde Towne today! Had to ask directions at a response ship of equines.”
Sata laughed to release her nervousness. “I know where I am, but I’m just a little too far to do it in the dark.”
“Want Manessa to come get you?”
Sata was silent for a moment. “No. I want to finish exploring this old building, and I’ve got a nutrition bar, so I’ll stay here and come back in the morning. All I have to do is talk the local birds into sharing one of their rooms.”
Sata couldn’t see Kibi’s grin of understanding. “Okay! Call if you need anything!”
“See you tomorrow!”
After descending to the top floor, Sata quickly discovered that it was a hotel, and all the rooms were completely filthy with bird droppings, nests, and moldy shredded furniture.
“Not Nebador birds,” she mumbled to herself.
Although the hallway was clear, it smelled of mold from the leaking roof above, and she hardly dared breath the air. Yanking open a few unmarked doors, she discovered that the closets of bedding and towels were filled with mushrooms and slime.
Returning to the stairwell, Sata had an idea. She remembered that the bottom two or three floors had been completely invaded by plants and small animals. She now knew that the roof was leaking, making the top floor, and maybe others, very unpleasant. Birds owned all the guest rooms when other animals couldn’t get to them. She wondered if anything remained in between, so she activated her bracelet light and began to carefully descend the stairs.
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The fifth floor was damp and moldy, but the fourth made Sata smile. She chuckled when she saw two-hundred-year-old cookies in the rusty vending machine, and thought of Jimox and Teina, but left the cookies alone. The broom and mop closet boasted no comforts, but the bedding closet was just what she had in mind.
After checking the rest of the hallway on that floor to make sure nothing could creep in and surprise her, Sata made herself a nest from ancient blankets, tore open her last nutrition bar, and breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction.