Page 52 of Planet Zero
They dumped their load of equally tightly folded furs and skins, tied with a rope. There were Addie’s two lopsided pots full of jerky nestled into the rolls, and her crude utensils, and, she saw with chagrin, her pouches with dried herbs she had collected. Thankfully, Melmie and Oh’na didn’t assign proper significance to the pouches and never asked Addie what was in them.
“Girls… You brought all this?” It was a lot of stuff.
“Yes. Well, there are a couple of things left.”
“I am so grateful.”
Oh’na shyly patted Addie’s hand. “Are you going to be alright, Addie?” she asked quietly.
Addie covered the little hand with hers. “Yes, Oh’na. I’ll be alright.”
The girls did bring her three tubers, and Addie was the most grateful for it.
With Melmie’s help, she got the mushing routine going by the time the tribe assembled in the middle of the village for their customary evening gathering. Lulled by Chemmusaayl’s incessant yakking about difficult times and the lack of big game and the need to move soon, Addie slept.
???
When she woke up, the greenish Ihr was up, low in the sky. She had observed no seasons on Planet Zero, but tonight felt like winter. The angle of Ihr, and Ehr to a lesser degree, had changed slightly. The nights were colder. Addie shivered.
The tribe was quiet and the village empty. Only a sentry was silently patrolling the perimeter of the settlement.
Rolling over with as much care as she could afford to her poor chest - and still groaning softly from acute pain - she reached for her pot… only to knock it sideways.
The tuber juice poured out to become a wet spot on the sandy ground.
“Shit.” The word didn’t even begin to cover it.
Addie would have cried if her chest could take the abuse of sobs. She slumped on her pallet, not bothering to roll over, and pulled the furs over her head to hide from the world.
The furs were carefully folded off her head and a dark figure loomed over her.
“Zoark,” Addie croaked, surprised and relieved.
His stern face bore no expression. Looking up at him while laying down was strangely disconcerting. Gritting her teeth, Addie pushed up with her elbows and sat up. “I wanted to thank you for saving my life.”
He lowered down to sit across her, bad leg slightly bent, the good leg crossed over. Belatedly, she realized his knee must prevent him from assuming the natural For position on the back of his heels, and that now and forevermore he was forced to sit like a human.
“What you did was foolish.” He made an abrupt gesture with his arm, and the bunch of Timpho grass he was holding rustled. “You were almost killed.”
“I know,” she admitted quietly.
“You know? Then why?”
“How could I not?” she said gently. “Watching a child being eaten by a wild beast is unbearable. My life is meaningless if I stand by and do nothing. Some things - you just react. It is how we are wired.”
He was watching her intently, and his gaze burned like acid through layers of her defenses. “This wasn’t what I saw in the city.”
She smiled slightly. “Maybe if there were children, the city would’ve been different.”
“No, it wouldn't have been.”
“Maybe not.” She wasn’t going to argue. “But let me ask you this. Why save me?”
He dropped his stare.
“I don’t know, Addie.” The rolling cadence of her name on his tongue thrummed the chords of her inner self. He looked into the distance. “I didn’t want to watch you die.”
His quiet admission jarred something vital inside her. Studying him closely, she noticed how gaunt he looked, worse than usual. The exertion of fighting the Wrennlins had taken its toll on his weakened body.
