Page 71 of Cozy Prisons
“Palathum said there were only minor injuries,” he assured her. “We’re going to need to walk around the canyon to return to the others. We might get a little hungry until we get to them, but we won’t starve.”
“I know we won’t starve,” Nataly said with a mysterious little smile.
He sounded a questioning rumble. “What secret do you have to share?”
Closing the canister, she stood up and stretched. “Let me show you.”
Deeply curious, he got to his feet and secured his belt. Then he clipped the canisters, still full of liquid, onto it.
By the time he’d done that, Nataly had his Ident and clipped it on for him. Holding the canister she’d been sipping out of, she turned and led him away from their sleeping spot. They moved parallel to the canyon and eventually reached a tree line undisturbed by the nearby natural disaster.
She paused for a moment before continuing. How she knew where she was going was unfathomable to Daxus. There was no designated path, no obvious markers on trees or rocks, and not a single sign that anyone had been here recently.
Finally, she stopped and looked up. He followed her gaze to see at least twenty large bags hanging from thick, high branches.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“The result of me trying to make myself comfortable,” she explained. “When we first arrived, I couldn’t settle. That was before I started feeling the anxiety. You weren’t here yet, but we were all doing a lot of hiking and exploring.”
“And that led to this stash?” he asked.
“Not directly,” she said. “I was always restless. The hiking wasn’t helping. I thought it might be because I was unconsciously worried about getting robbed. I collected a bunch of stuff and stored it out here. The hiking simply helped me find the right spot. I didn’t know why it was right, I just knew it was a good spot when I found it.”
Daxus didn’t know what to say. Her instincts didn’t make any sense in his logical, scientific world, but he couldn’t ignore the facts. She’d saved them and also prepared for the aftereffects of losing the village.
“What’s in the bags?” he asked.
“Tents, sleeping stuff, food, a few med kits, emergency kits, clothes, shoes, information squares, stuff like that.”
“Everything we need to be comfortable,” he murmured.
“I guess,” she said with a little shrug. She pointed to a lower branch. “If you cut that line, they’ll all drop down. I rigged it so I could get them down without having to climb all the way up again.”
That’s when it hit Daxus that she’d done all this alone. He sounded a surprised rattle that started several birds out of a nearby bush.
“How did you manage by yourself?"
“I took my time and used a small all-terrain mover bot when I could,” she said. “It was a lot easier after we got some of those retracting platforms. All I had to do then was secure one to the base of the tree and deploy it.”
He was still impressed. “I’m not sure I can carry all of them.”
“You spoke to Palathum earlier, right?” she asked.
He sounded a rumble of agreement.
“Great, then contact her again and have them send Grace’s mover bot to us,” she instructed. “I upgraded the navigation capabilities so it should be able to get to us without getting stuck anywhere. It can’t climb over rocks or through sand, but there’s only grass and trees between them and us. They can use your Ident as a homing beacon for it. ”
“That will take a while,” he said.
“Longer than you think, it's an old bot.” She grinned at him. “Is there some other place you need to be?”
He sounded a rumble of amusement. “If I’m with you, I’m exactly where I want to be.”
Nataly
After contacting Palathum, they focused on the bags in the tree. It only took Daxus a few minutes to undo what took her weeks to put together. The bags all came raining down and hit the ground in a cloud of dust.
Following them down, Daxus landed with a thump and walked to stand next to her. “Do you remember what is in which bag?”
