Page 63 of Planet Zero
“I’ve come this far.”
“Not without help.”
Addie’s mouth closed with a snap. They stared at each other for a charged moment that stretched forever and thrummed with heightened energy.
Hishelp, he meant. She hated him for pointing it out.
“Would you rather see me give up and die?” she asked tightly.
“No.” He closed his eyes briefly, breaking the contact. “No. But I’m afraid you will anyway.”
His quiet words dampened Addie’s anger. “Have faith in me, Zoark. I am getting the hang of this whole surviving thing.”
He expelled a long-suffering sigh. “Do you know that Timpho grass doesn’t grow in the mountains? Neither do tubers.”
“Oh, no. How long are we going to stay in the mountains?”
“However long it takes to cross. Maybe three days. Maybe three weeks.”
Three weeks were highly unlikely, but he was giving her the information to prepare for the worst-case scenario. She needed to pick enough Timpho grass stalks to last her that long.
“Thank you, Zoark. Again.”
“Yeah, so, about learning to survive. Hurry up and learn already.”
He left her as quietly as he came, and Addie let the tears fall. The tears of exhaustion, of frustration at her own lack of knowledge of this land. Of helplessness. Of fear that weakening Zoark might soon become what so many others in her life already had: a memory.
Chapter 20
The next day was as grueling as the day before, except Addie was already tired when she got up from her pallet. Her leg muscles hurt from overworking them yesterday, and her back hurt from the heavy backpack, and her ribs hurt because they hadn’t healed sufficiently before the trek, and her head hurt because she didn’t get enough sleep. What was it that Zoark said about puny humans? Yeah, that thing. There must be a grain of truth in his words.
On top of everything, Addie had to gather Timpho grass bulbs before they reached higher elevations. Those quick stops to harvest the bulbs cost her in time, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
Oh’na didn’t seek Addie until later in the day, preferring to hop along with Chele and Melmie who walked far ahead of Addie-the-slow-poke. But when the excess of her energy had been spent, and she had grown just a teeny bit tired, she remembered that Addie tolerated her whining with much more patience than Chele. An opportunistic little monkey, Oh’na was. Her little hand felt warm and snug inside Addie’s palm.
On the third day, they approached the base of the mountains. The ground had become rockier the closer they came, and vegetation grew scarcer.
The mountains, after listening to Oh’na and her exuberant descriptions of their beauty obtained, in turn, from the words of adults, underwhelmed. There were no snowy caps glistening under the rays of the bright sun. No majestic trees covering the base in a dense forest. No waterfalls flowing down wet, moss-encrusted boulders of Addie’s home. Nope. The Olzol Mountains were a massive, insurmountable formation of slate-gray jagged rocks, rising to the skies, devoid of any vegetation, silent, hard, and sinister.
Addie’s Yuux settled on her shoulders and stared blankly at the landscape in front of them that was the opposite of picturesque. Their subdued behavior questioned the very wisdom of going there.
The tribe was slowing down, having entered the base where the vegetation disappeared completely. Melmie waited for her, and together they found Chele and Illied.
“Are we stopping here?” Addie inquired with ill-concealed hope.
“Yes. The chief announced a camp-out until tomorrow. The ground rises sharply from here on out. We won’t be able to lay down for the night until we cross the first overpass. And that’s a full day’s walk from here.”
Addie didn’t ask any more questions, very on board with this plan, and didn’t waste time shrugging off her backpack. She busied herself with unrolling her pallet and shaking it out along with the blanket. She took out her food supply and counted her Timpho grass bulbs. They weighed a ton, but it was a burden she would have to bear.
She glanced at her Yuux, wondering if there were bugs for them to eat in the unknown territory of the mountains. She felt responsible for her pets.
They were strangely quiet.
Raised voices drew her attention to the men camped out at the head of the line. Something was happening there, but she couldn't see for the wide backs blocking her view.
“What’s going on?” she pulled at Chele’s sleeve.
Chele’s ears were twitching, never a good sign. For Addie, it always brought back memories of Sathe and their last moments together. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
