Chapter 50
“Rama Prabhas Rajamouli”, the man said.
“You know that truly annoys him, Nanda,” a woman standing next to him noted. “Calling him out by his full name.”
“It is important for us to remember the complete person each of us is, Lakshmi Surender,” Nanda retorted. “And remembering and referencing someone’s full name is an important part of that.”
“We are who we are,” Lakshmi responded. “And here on Nova, our focus needs to be on what we do today to keep us going until tomorrow.”
“We think we know who we are at the moment, but unless we remember who we were in the past, we can never truly know our present self, and will never be satisfied since we won’t know what we want to become,” Nanda expounded.
“And, in your past, are you sure you were not a teacher of philosophy?” Lakshmi asked.
“I remember my past, and back on Earth I was an accountant,” the man said. “And therein lies the point. My inner philosopher was demanding to be let out, and required a completely new environment in which to thrive.”
“I thought you said you were disillusioned by your job and you also needed a quick escape since the company you worked for had discovered the amount you had embezzled from them and you thought you would be thrown into jail for decades,” Lakshmi said.
“Your flower is drooping,” Nanda said, pointing to the woman’s head.
Lakshmi reached up and adjusted the blue bud to sit more firmly in her hair. “Thank you. But what does it have to do with accounting, philosophy, or anything we were talking about? And what do you care about my appearance?”
Rama, along with one other person, exited the woods from a path that led to this clearing.
“Rama Prabhas Rajamouli”, Nanda said again.
Rama scowled at Nanda.
“I told you he would be annoyed,” Lakshmi said softly.
“My job is to get him riled up before the hunt so he has extra energy to bring down the prey,” Nanda said. “Your job, along with that of your flower, is to take Rama’s attention away from me so he won’t poke me with any of those sharp things he is saving for the animals. That is why I care about your appearance.”
Lakshmi tried to match the scowl given by Rama, but the end result was a small smile.
“Were you able to find extra items?” Rama asked the pair as he approached.
“Two spears and two stone knives,” Nanda said. “It seems another hunting party left for the far side of the lake yesterday and took any of the other surplus weapons.”
“I know that group already took from the general supply, but what about individuals? The idea was to borrow from people for the day,” Rama responded.
“These came from Abishek and Jayaganesan,” Lakshmi said, holding out the two spears. “No one else was willing to loan us anything, since they are afraid we’ll break them.”
“And no one wants anything to eat?” Rama asked rhetorically. “Never mind, it’s time we leave. I think we’re already getting a late start.”
And with that, Rama walked briskly into the open field of grass in front of them. The other three followed.
Nanda walked next to the man who arrived with Rama. “Good morning, Ganesh. I know the group came back last night from their visit to the colony from Indonesia, but I didn’t hear of the outcome. Did you hear if anything came from the offer to trade?”
The third man looked ahead at Rama and then replied in a quiet voice. “I don’t why we bother with that. From what they said, that colony has only been on Nova for three cycles, and they are struggling worse than we did to get their village established. Besides, is there really anything of value to trade? We’ve been here six cycles, we have a few extra animal skins, but I’m guessing they want food and tools, and we don’t have any extra to share.”
“So that is what they reported?” Nanda asked.
“I don’t know,” Ganesh replied. “I haven’t talked to them yet either, but I don’t see the value in it.”
“We can trade news at least,” Nanda said. “I’m hoping our team heard from the Indonesians if they’ve encountered any other colonies. From what I recall, they said there were close to one-hundred sites on Earth where the aliens were gathering people and sending them here. And they said many of those sites were sending two or three ships up every day. That has to be thousands of groups that would have landed here by now. And yet we have only met two other colonies. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
“We don’t know how big this planet is. Imagine sprinkling even ten-thousand villages around Earth. I think they would be spread apart pretty far if you dumped them around the planet. So why wouldn’t that occur here? Anyway, I’m not sure I’d like everyone right here. It’s a challenge enough to find the resources we need, so why be in competition with a million others? If you want that, you should have stayed on Earth,” Ganesh said.
“I think you are missing my point. I…” Rama started to say, but was interrupted when Ganesh held up his hand to hush his walking partner and pointed ahead.
Rama had stopped walking and had his fist up, indicating for the hunting party to stop. He looked closely, walked a few steps to the left, poked the ground with a spear he was carrying, and motioned for the others to come forward slowly.
As they got beside him, Ganesh asked Rama, “You found something?”
“That”, Rama said, pointing at the grass.
The other three looked. Lakshmi nodded. Ganesh squinted and then his eyes opened in recognition.
Nanda scanned the ground then took a step forward. “I don’t see..”.
Rama held out the tip of his spear to stop his hunting partner from proceeding. Then he stepped beside him and poked the handle end of the spear into the ground, dislodging some of the grass and exposing a small hole.
“Ah, yes, the pit,” Nanda said. “I forgot where it was.”
“You wouldn’t forget if you fell in,” Rama said, shaking his head.
“If I fell in, I’d be dead, and I’m not sure my dead body would remember anything. But thank you for pointing this out, since I’d rather not deal with the conundrum today.”
“Look around, everyone,” Rama said, ignoring his friend’s comment. “Notice how the ground rises on all sides from here. And how the tree line both in front of us and behind us seem to be the same distance. We need to make use of these pits to aid us in our hunting. I’m convinced this is the safest way to catch a wolf-bear. And that animal has a lot of meat and a lot of skin that can both be of good use for our colony.
The lead hunter walked around the dip in the ground, and continued towards the tree line in the distance.
The other three looked around to orient themselves, closely looked at the ground, and then gingerly proceeded around the pit and followed their leader.
After a bit, Rama slowed down, letting the others catch up to him.
“You also need to be looking up more these days,” he said, pointing a spear towards the sky. “I’ve seen a flyger circling overhead out here the past two mornings. We don’t want to become its next target – especially the last person in our group.”
Nanda made sure he was a half-step ahead of Ganesh, and scanned the space above, from horizon to horizon. “I didn’t think they were seen in our area? What would they be out now?”
Rama answered, “Because we are taking their prey, and they are more desperate. Maybe they realize they aren’t the alpha predator any longer, and want to fight to re-establish their dominance. Doesn’t matter why they are out. I just don’t want to be caught by surprise by one of them.”
“Rama!” Lakshmi called urgently. “Tracks!” she said, pointing at the ground.
Rama came over, looked at where she was pointing and nodded. “Excellent! Probably a large deer! OK everyone, tracking mode.” and he took off jogging ahead.
The other three followed, crouching as they ran in the tall grass and remaining as quiet as they could.
They followed the path into the woods on the far side of the field, where the tracks became a little harder to follow. The hoof prints circled back towards the open field.
Rama stopped and held up his hand, then pointed to where a deer was standing twenty paces downwind. He motioned Lakshmi forward, and whispered in her ear. She nodded, slowly straightened up and used her atlatl to launch an arrow towards the deer. It hit in the neck and made the deer stumble.
Rama jumped up, took a few steps and flung a spear. It missed its mark, partly due to the deer beginning to run.
The group started to chase their prey.
As they approached the edge of the woods, the quadruplet of hunters were blocked by three people jumping in front of their path, pointing long spears at them.
The colonists from Kottagramam stopped.
Rama made an instinctual move to go around them, but one of the strangers quickly moved and stuck his spear close to Rama’s chest.
“What are you doing?” Rama said in English. “The animal is getting away!”
“The animal is we,” one of the strangers replied. “You animal no more.”
Rama, Lakshmi, Nanda, and Ganesh all glanced at each other, obviously confused.
“What do you mean, ‘You animal no more.’?,” Nanda said. “We found the deer, we shot the deer, we’re taking the deer.”
“You animal no more. You hunt for we,” the spokesperson for the trio of strangers said.
“Am I understanding this correctly? Are you trying to tell us you expect us to give you that deer we were about to catch?” Ganesh asked.
The stranger did not reply.
Ganesh looked at Nanda, who shrugged.
“Like bloody hell we’re going to hunt for you?” Ganesh said, the volume of his voice rising. “You want something to eat? Catch it yourself! Who are you anyway? And besides, I think we’ve got numbers on our side at the moment, since I count four of us and only three of you.”
A second stranger said something to the first stranger who was doing the speaking. The first person replied to his co-stranger, not taking his eyes off the four hunters. After the first stranger finished, the second stranger whistled.
Two other strangers similar in skin tone jumped from one of the tree branches behind the four hunters, effectively catching them between spears pointing at them from the front and the back.
“We five. You four,” the spokesperson said with a not-so-friendly smile. “You come with we now.”
Rama glanced at his fellow Kottagramam colonists. “Viḍipōyi śibirāniki tirigi veḷlaṇḍi!” he yelled and immediately ran to the left. Lakshmi followed right behind.
Ganesh quickly looked at Nanda, and then ran to the right, with Nanda following.
The five strangers paused, with the second person yelling and motioning at the two who hopped down from the tree to follow Rama and Lakshmi, and the two next to him to follow Ganesh and Nanda.
Rama and Lakshmi came running out of the woods about a hundred paces left of the surprise encounter, and a moment later, Nanda, who was now ahead of his partner, and Ganesh came out of the woods from the right. Both groups were following an arc to meet up with each other.
The injured deer was far ahead, stumbling as it neared the woods on the opposite side of the field.
Rama looked over his shoulder to see the four hunters were far ahead of their pursuers. He then looked up, eyeing the sky in all directions.
“Head towards the low spot in the middle of the field, but be careful,” Rama directed.
Nanda looked up at the sky. His eyes widened and he ran even faster than he was before, outpacing the other three.
“Be careful! Low spot!” Rama shouted.
Nanda looked at the ground, barely slowing. Then he immediately stopped and glanced intently all around him.
Rama jogged by him, saying as he passed, “It’s just ahead. Go around.”
Nanda saw the indent in the ground and saw Rama swing around it, with Lakshmi and Ganesh following suit.
“Over here!” Rama urged, having stopped on the other side of the indentation and Nanda gingerly complied.
“When they get a little closer, we’re going to all run back towards the colony together so they pursue us,” Rama said, breathing heavily.
“I don’t care about them, what about…” Nanda said as he began to extend a finger and lift his arm.
“Stop!” Rama yelled. “Don’t point and don’t look at the sky! Look at the strangers. OK, ready, now – let’s go! And don’t look back!” With that, he took off jogging again as the pursuers were getting within spear range again.
The four colonists were jogging when they heard a shout and then a scream. Rama glanced over his shoulder and then turned around and stopped.
Two of the first three strangers they met were standing on the edge of the pit, looking down at the opening which had been uncovered by the third stranger who had fallen in and continuing to try to scream between loud wet coughs.
The final two strangers stopped running, and looked around at the ground.
Rama looked up and said “Be ready!” as he prepared his spear.
Before the four pursuers were aware, a shadow swooped out of the sky, and two large claws closed around the stranger furthest back.
Screams began again, this time from the man being carried aloft by the flyger.
Those still standing looked around in the sky and then watched the flyger quickly cover the ground over the open field and to the forest they had all run out of.
The man’s screams continued until the flyger neared the edge of the woods, swerved and deftly turned the man’s body, smashing his head against a tree trunk and breaking his neck. The screaming stopped.
After a moment, the strangers recover from the shock of what they had just witnessed. The second stranger that gave the pursuit commands back in the woods shouted some words and rushed at the four hunters, coming at Nanda who Nanda was closest to him.
Nanda stood firm, holding his stone knife at the ready, then stepped back as the stranger was about to impale him, knocked the spear downward with one hand and sliced the man across the neck, causing him to drop to his knees and bleed profusely from his right carotid artery, as he struggled for breath from his severed windpipe.
Rama nudged Lakshmi and the pair went behind the remaining two strangers as they stood staring, afixed at the third of their group to be killed in sequence. By the time they noticed their position, the fifth stranger dropped his spear and was going to run.
“Stop!” Rama commanded in English. “Or we will kill you also.”
The man stopped.
The first stranger who initially spoke to them dropped his spear, knelt, and put his hands on his head.
Lakshmi went up to the man who had attempted to run away, grabbed him by the arm and marched him back to the first stranger. She pushed him to his knees.
All four hunters took deep breaths.
Then Rama spoke. “When did you develop those skills, Nanda? I’ve never seen you put on a display like that!”
“What?” Nanda said, his eyes still wide. “You are asking about my knife skills? What does that matter? Why didn’t you just tell us to watch out for the pit? ‘Low spot’? Oh my god, Rama! Just say what you mean!”
“I didn’t want them to know what I was talking about,” Rama said defensively.
“They barely speak English! And you think they understand Telegu? My flight instincts were far outpacing my fight instincts back there, and I was lucky to have even heard you. And don’t look at the flyger? It could easily have gone the opposite of what just happened, with two of us remaining alive, me on the spikes and poor old Ganesh with his head smashed in on one of those trees!” Nanda rattled off.
“I can’t help it if I don’t run as fast as the rest of you,” Ganesh muttered.
Lakshmi giggled.
The other three looked at her, and each began chuckling in turn.
“So now what,” she said. “What do we do with them?”
Nanda spoke again, this time in English. “Where is your colony? Where did you come from on Earth? And why did you attack us?”
Neither of the strangers spoke.
Lakshmi poked a spear in the shoulder of the first stranger. “Answer him!”
The man glared at her and then at Nanda.
“We are colony two day walk,” the man said, nodding towards the far woods. “We come from Shqipëria. We have bad food, no animal. We take you and you get us food.”
“They planned to take us as hostages?” Ganesh said to his fellow colonists.
“No, as slaves,” Lakshmi responded. Then returning to English, “Why only five of you? What could you possibly hope to accomplish with so few people?”
“We first. More in more days,” the stranger said.
“How many more?” Rama asked.
The man didn’t answer.
Lakshmi repeated her spear poke. “How many more people from your colony are coming?”
“Six hundreds,” the man said, spitting on the ground, showing the not-so-friendly smile he displayed earlier.
“Six hundred?” Lakshmi said to her friends. “That’s one and a half times the number of people still at Kottagramam!”
The four hunters stared at each other as the implication of Lakshmi’s statement sunk in.