Chapter Eight: Setting Sail

Chapter Eight

Morning didn't come soon enough. Staying in that filthy place was disgusting, and that estimation doesn't include the grime on the wall or the three-inch long cockroach that I squished on the bathroom sink. It referred to the perverted people breathing the air beneath the moldy roof of the dormitory.

At midnight, Aidyn and I were forced awake by an inebriated buffoon busting through our door. He was squinting and grinning like an idiot, but what was more disturbing than his yellow toothy grin was the way he lit up when he saw Aidyn and I in our pajamas. The sight of two fresh youthful virgins was just too much for him. Like the sick animal he was, he dove for the nearest bed, which happened to be mine, but in his drunken stupor, he tripped over the burgundy floor rug and hit his head on the nightstand. Muttering something I probably wouldn't have wanted to hear even if I had understood it, he got up, holding his head, and focused on Aidyn. When he jumped at her bed, he made it onto the mattress, but received a violent knee to his nose. Aidyn's bare knee broke his nose, to which he responded with a masochistic comment about how he liked his meat still kicking. Apparently he lied though because he abandoned the carrot-top in shorts and a navy blue tank for the tailed wonder in torn-off jeans and a skimpy, brightly-colored top. Before I knew it, he was on top of me and licking my neck. Revolted, I flailed my arms in an attempt to throw the beast off, but the real help came when my tail coiled around his throat and pulled backwards. By that time, Aidyn was up and beating him with her broom stick. After a struggle that lasted something like ten minutes, Aidyn and I finally restrained the freak in a rickety wooden chair. We tied him there with his own pants and so we wouldn't have to listen to his twisted comments for the rest of our night, we gagged him with the match to the sock Aidyn had thrown out with the severed fingers. To the curious people who heard the commotion and peered out their portals into our open door, I shuddered to think what the spectacle looked like.

Aidyn and I laid back down, but sleep didn't deign it necessary to grace us with its presence. After the chaos which had ensued, we weren't sure what else might come sniffing for pheromones, and were too afraid to wait and see, so we laid there restless.

When we finally got up, our prisoner was snoring with his head on his chest. Aidyn, annoyed by the interruption of her slumber, socked him in the jaw, waking him up. We certainly weren't going to change or shower with him sitting there, so we decided to throw him out into the hallway. Aidyn took the pleasure of doing it, while I stood menacingly nearby with a drawn sword.

“Come on! Get up!” Aidyn slapped the back of his head. “I said get up!” She grabbed the scruff of his neck and yanked him off the chair. With the sock in his mouth, all he could do was groan. “Move!” She shoved him towards the door, drew a scimitar of her own, and cut his feet free. “I'm giving you two seconds to get out that door.” She dropped the blade close to his face so the man could easily see in his peripheral vision his reflection on the cutting edge. Not surprisingly, he hobbled out of our dorm and slammed the door behind him.

With that over with, we both got ready for the day. We had plenty of time to shower, dress, and repack our things since Mr. Dabahov didn't come get us until after dawn.

He looked rough, as if he hadn't slept all night. He was also holding his head with one hand, and when we left, he actually made Victor drive. At every sign of his unscrupulous behavior the night before, Nellya grew increasingly agitated, eventually reaching the point where she was biting everyone's head off. It wasn't hard to guess what Mr. Dabahov had been up to during the previous night, which was probably why Nellya was so indignant.

At the docks, Mr. Dabahov directed Victor where to drive, and Nellya followed. As I climbed out of the back of the dune buggy and grabbed my things, I saw a shadow not belonging to anyone I'd travelled with on the ground. In fact, it didn't belong to any living being standing anywhere on the planet. It was a familiar shape though. There were two massive symmetrical blotches about three quarters from the bottom of it, and at the bottom were what looked like humanoid walking extensions. The odd thing about this shadow was that it was moving in circles. Usually, when I'd seen it before in my own village, there were two shadows like it together. It was the outline of Drib.

My heart plummeting, I gulped down my fear. She'd found me, and I was about to be caught somewhere I shouldn't have been. Goodbye freedom.

I looked up, expecting my doom, and it dawned on me. Drib couldn't have been the cause for that shadow; she wasn't even on the planet. The creator of the shadow was the other one who could make that shape; it was Leroy. This fact wasn't much better though.

Then I saw him. Leroy was high up above me, at an altitude I could only guess. There were more than a hundred feet between us, but sure enough, Leroy was flying above me. Knowing I had to do it, at the cost of not meeting the Catrions, I had to call him down.

“Leroy! Leroy get down here!”

Victor heard me call for the boy, and helped get Leroy's head out of the clouds. “Hey Leroy!”

Leroy heard our cries, smiled at me, and waved before folding his wigs shut and diving at us. “Howdy!” He chirped “Aren't I so cool? I followed you and you didn't even know!”

“No Leroy, that's not cool. You should tell people when you're going to follow them. If you don't, it's called stalking, and stalkers can get in trouble.” I scolded.

His lip curled and his eyes grew big and moist. “You mean I-I'm a stalker? I'm sorry Valerie! I really am!”

I had no choice but to bring him close to me. Even if I was mad at him, he needed comforting. Knowing what his presence meant, I had to find Mr. Dabahov. He was standing ten or fifteen feet away so I went to him.

“Mr. Dabahov, we've got a problem. Leroy followed us and I have to take him home.”

“Zat is a problem.” He commented.

“Can I borrow one of your dune buggies? I'll drive him home and then return your dune buggy to that building you had it in!” I pleaded. “You and the others can still go on and I won't tell what we were going to do. Leroy doesn't even know so he won’t tell either!”

“I'll go with her!” Victor volunteered, coming towards the three of us, and taking my shoulders in his hands. “I won't tell, and I didn't even want to come along, but I had to.”

“I'm afraid you can't do that. I sold one of ze dune buggies for our trip over zair and we vill need the other once ve get zair.” He said coldly. “Besides, I vill not let ze zree of you valk back home. You're all coming, ze boy included.”

“But sir! He's just a kid! He's neither old enough or ready to face that!”

“Neither are you, but you seem perfectly capable of ze task, am I vrong?”

“Yes,” Victor mumbled. “You're wrong in forcing a kid to come.”

“I didn't force any of you to come. You came villingly, so if zair is one to be vrong, it is you, and especially her. Now get on ze boat.” Victor looked like he was going to punch Mr. Dabahov, and steal his dune buggy.

“No respect intended sir, but you're a selfish fool who doesn't even care about the well being of a single child.” Victor growled.

“Zair is vhere you're vrong. I care for my dear Oken. Now get on ze boat.”

“What's to stop us from not getting on that boat and finding our own way home?” Victor was using his angry voice. I knew he was probably doing it for Leroy's sake, but I felt cared for, knowing Victor would be that aggressive towards an elder.

“ I already told you. I vill not let you valk home. Ze tribes are var more dangerous than vhat ve seek since ve probably von't find zem. Now zis is ze last time I vill tell you to get on ze boat.” Mr. Dabahov was turning on his own angry voice. An angry Russian was pretty intimidating actually.

Victor looked to me for support but I didn't know what to do. I was too overwhelmed with grief over everything that could happen to do anything. Mr. Dabahov was probably right, that we were safer hunting Catrions than trekking back through territory known to be infested with the tribes. The continent of Africa was the largest of any on Earth, and at the end of the Catrion War, less than 1000 Catrions had been deposited there. On the flip side, the past two times I travelled over five miles out of the village, I'd seen the tribes, and if we were to go back now, Victor and I would probably be the only ones fending off an entire tribe. Faced with no other option, risking Leroy's life with adequate protection seemed a better choice than risking his life at the expense of Victor's and my own.

It was with tears in my eyes that I stepped onto the gangplank and boarded the grungy ocean liner. In one of my hands was Leroy's small one and in the other was Victor's big one. Together we walked into an unknown future.

“Hey! Who the-” The husky voice that was yelling at us used a word I wouldn't repeat even if Leroy weren't within hearing range. “-Are you?!”

“Relax Joe, zey're vith me.” Mr. Dabahov commanded.

“I had to ask, for security reasons.” He shrugged. “Your quarters are in the B-wing, rooms 103-109. From this moment onwards, you'll abide by our rules or we'll-” His lips widened into a cruel smile. “-dispose of you.”

I nodded and Victor, Leroy, and I walked in the indicated direction. Guilt was stabbing into me, but Victor had sense enough to guide the three of us to one of the rooms; I couldn't have done it in my melancholic state of mind.

Victor had no problem finding the rooms we’d been assigned. The first one we went in had four beds, stacked in a pair of bunk beds. When he saw the beds, Leroy relaxed some.

“Valerie, may I lay down and take a nap? I’m tired from the journey. I rode on thermals most of the way, but I’m still tired.”

I nodded and ruffled his hair. He chose a bed and fell asleep almost instantly. Interpreting his nap as an ample opportunity to speak to Victor, I tried it.

“I’m sorry,” Looking at him was hard because I was just realizing what I’d dragged him into.

“No, I’m the one who needs to apologize. I shouldn’t have treated you as I did. Mr. Dabahov was right, I chose to come-you didn’t make me.”

“Don’t worry about it, I just feel guilty for making you think you had to come.”

Victor started to respond, but I barely heard him because the ship lurched, causing me to stumble into him. Victor only just managed to retain his balance by a coincidental placing of his feet ne behind the other in the direction the ship had moved. If it happened again, Victor wouldn’t likely be so fortunate.

From the aft part of the ship, or whatever word corresponded to the rear, came an aggravated ripping sound. When a storm forms right over one’s house and the lightning is so close the thunder rumbles the walls of one’s house, well, that was the only sound comparable to the roar that ensued. The engines strained to pull the ship away from the docks but after seven agonizing minutes, the ship tore free from what had held it captive. If I had to guess, I’d say the restraints holding the boat to the dock hadn’t been removed.

“Well,” Victor stated. “That was vaguely interesting.”

“Really? You didn’t find it unsettling at all?” I wondered.

The voyage took two weeks which gave me plenty of time to think. I wondered what my parents were doing about my absence; I hoped they weren’t too worried. Part of me was also curious if my father had come after me yet. Deep down, I was concerned for Mrs. Borealis; not only had she lost her oldest son but two other children she’d been responsible for. She was surely devastated.

Leroy tried to be brave but every passing day taxed him. I heard him cry himself to sleep every night. Not only was he missing his mommy and daddy, he wasn’t enjoying the lack of the three-dimensional freedom he was used to; he desperately wanted to fly. I’d pleaded with Mr. Dabaov and the ship’s captain to let him fly circles above the ship but they wouldn’t even let Leroy and I on the deck.

Leroy and I weren’t the only ones to be banned from the deck. Everyone in our group except Nellya was forbidden from showing their face to the ocean air. Alaric tried to bend the rules by going up the stairs to the deck when the coast was clear, but Mr. Dabahob appeared out of nowhere, threw Alaric to the ground, and lectured him profusely. Upon Alaric receiving a splitting headache and shiny purple eye, the rest of us were none too keen to repeat his experiment. Aidyn reckoned I could get past the door at the top of the stairs, even with Mr. Dabahov’s mysterious talent for the martial arts; she figured if I tried it my tail would get me through the door, being supposedly faster than Mr. Dabahov could possibly manage.

Nellya begged me not to try it though. She was suspicious of the image gathering technologies in space; her fear had merit if those hi-tech cameras saw my tail and their operators accused Mr. Dabahov of kidnapping. I could understand her fear, and her pleading made mine and Leroy’s captivity all the more reasonable. Alaric’s too made sense, with his mother working in space, but he, Victor, and Aidyn would have to look up at the sky and smile for the satellites and spaceships to get a good image. I guessed Mr. Dabahov and the ship’s crew didn’t want to take the chance of my father posting Aidyn’s or Victor’s faces on a computer search program.

The Lady Jane, as the smuggler’s ship was called, found a natural harbor on the west coast of Africa. From there, it was a slow process getting us off the ship. If not being accused of kidnapping was vital to the sailor’s happiness, so was not getting caught assisting Catrion poachers. It was a serious offense, even if usually pardoned. Punishment could range from a slap on the wrist to life in prison.

The plan seemed too complicated to work. Mr. Dabahov and the captain thought it was brilliant. For the most part, it was a bluff in case the ship was being watched from space. The crew would unload all of its cargo, feign some repairs, and reload half the cargo. Of course, the half left behind would contain us. The left-behind cargo would be a base camp for our little expedition and after a month, we would be picked up by the ship.

Under cover of night, Aidyn and I were to be the first to depart. We would live in a storage crate designed during the Catrion War. During the war, people were forced to live on boats, so those who found themselves on super-freighters transformed the interconnectable rusted shipping containers into livable modular mansions. Those containers, when all pieced together, had water filtration capabilities, solar panels, and miniature wind collectors for energy as well as nearly every conceivable piece of a home except a kitchen. Usually, to accommodate the missing kitchen, there were refrigerated containers with literally tons of pre-prepared rations.

Aidyn and I had a bedroom in the one container in the complex that was to be erected with a bathroom. Thus, most of the container was filled with water treatment technologies behind a wall with a bathtub and prison toilet on it. Nellya, being daddy’s little girl, couldn’t live in this space which was perfectly suited for one person, but since Aidyn and I were the smallest group to room together, we got that container.

On the stairs to the deck, the rest of the party treated Aidyn and I like heroes; we were going to be the first to breathe fresh air. Alaric, standing next to Victor, intercepted the pleading look I sent Victor for him to watch over Leroy because he wouldn’t see me for a few days. When Alaric glimpsed my cry for help, he smirked.

For the first time, Alaric had gone too far. My tail coiled around the hilt of my stolen katana but instead of dirtying the steel, I merely threatened. “You wanted to see me put this tail to use. If you say anything to him, you’ll not only see it, but you’ll feel it ripping your fragile anatomy to shreds.” I wasn’t kidding.

The storage crate was positioned just at the top of the stairs. Fortunately, it was far enough away that I had a chance to glance up at the starry sky and wonder if my father was looking back from his office on the E. S. Next Dimension. If he was, I prayed he wouldn’t be too mad if he saw me. Chances were he was at his desk staring at a computer, searching for any trace of me. For the unlikely possibility that his computer screen was hovering over the smuggler’s ship, I gave my tail a hopeful flick so the tip of it wiggled above the shipping container I was entering.

“We’re going to lock you in and lift the container with the crane. You’ll be fine if you sit down on the bottom bunk and don’t move until the container stops moving.” The captain warned; Aidyn nodded and I gulped. “Oh, and you won’t be released into other containers until tomorrow at the earliest, but more likely, you’ll be trapped for two days before you have some—” He grinned an eerily happy grin that didn’t look quite human coming from his jagged yellow teeth. “—breathing room.”

Aidyn dealt with the captain’s cynicism better than I could. “We’ll have food, right?” Her firmness stunned even the hardened sailor.

“Yes, you have a week of rations in the compartment under the bed.” He huffed, annoyed that his attempt to intimidate two young women seemed to have failed.

“Then we’ll be fine, provided you haven’t poisoned the rations.” Aidyn turned on her heel and marched into the container. The captain stood dumbfounded until his mate approached him.

“She’d make a good sailor, that one.”

“Aye,” The captain agreed as I stepped into the blue container. They shut the rusted door behind me; I heard a steel bar fall into the lock.

Wary of the thick metal cables preparing to hoist the multi-ton box into the air, I joined Aidyn on the lower mattress of the twin-sized bunk bed. I tucked my legs beneath me and waited for our shelter to levitate.

Perhaps she was nervous about being lifted, or maybe she had the same guilty conscience as me, but whatever it was, Aidyn began talking. “That man irks me so much, I just want to—” She growled and made a strangling motion.

“The captain? Don’t let it bother you too much. You won’t see him again for another month or so.” I guessed, hoping it was the right thing to say.

“I guess you’re right.” She replied; the container creaked upwards.

I was silent but that was fine since Aidyn wasn’t ready for me to talk. “I guess I’m just glad you try to relate to me.”

I shrugged. “I try to befriend everyone.”

“That’s not true,” She contradicted, prompting a confused look to appear on my face. “You quarrel with Alaric every chance you get.” Her smile was warm and playful.

“Oh,” I brushed my bangs out of my eyes with the tip of my tail. “Has it been that obvious during the trip?” An awkward situation, this was.

“Yeah, but I’ve watched you two nearly every day; I sat next to him in class you know.” Talking, though not a habit for Aidyn, gave her a happy relief.

“I forgot about that,” I confessed. “I guess you’ve seen a lot of our fighting, huh?”

She nodded. “I’ve also heard Victor brag about your skills in combat. Is it all true?”

Not knowing what to say, I voiced my ignorance. “It might be true, but I don’t know what he says about me so I can’t answer.”

She laughed. “He says a lot of things about you but about your fighting, he says you have wicked agility.”

Her answer got me curious. “What else does he tell you?”

Aidyn knew what I was asking for but she continued referring to the way Victor talked about my fighting style. “He claims you’re decent with a sword in hand but with one in your,” She gulped; she was hesitant to finish her sentence. “But with a sword in your tail, the strikes come faster than can be seen. He doesn’t think anyone could parry an attack from your tail, except your father with his tail.”

“Part of that is true; I’m not bad in traditional swordplay but I couldn’t tell you what happens when I have a sword in tail.” I spoke the truth. I was an experienced duelist but the only time I saw my tail’s potential was against my father.

“I could believe your tail is impossible to fend off—you reacted astonishingly fast when that tribal woman attacked. “Aidyn stated. “I’ve been told I’m quick but I doubt I could stop your tail.”

Most people’s heads would swell at such compliments yet I had trouble accepting them for what they were due to my feelings about my tail. “We’ll see how effective my tail is soon enough.” I heard the doubt quiver in my own voice. “I’m sure you’ll see how much of what Victor said is true.”

“Not all of it, but you’re right about what he said concerning your tail.”