Lyra Starfire and the Legion of Space
Episode 16: Princess of the Plains
Prologue
…the cut and thrust of the great Xaran-Human war has brought Lyra’s ship, the Starblade, to the remote Outmost Stars sector, where there are several neutral planets; some of these are fully aware of the great conflict going around them, and do not wish to become involved, but for others, both Humans and Xarans remain little known, perhaps viewed as unwelcome visitors who would take their planets and use them as bases…
- Mission: Charnia
Let me introduce myself: I am Puffin, one of the Starfighter pilots in Lyra Starfire’s wing. It’s been a hard war, as they always are, but this is my first and I hope it’s the last. Anyway, some of us were on patrol in our Starfighters one day around the Charnia system. According to Lyra, who gave us all a pep talk before letting us go, there were reports of Xaran activity in the system: evidently they were sniffing around, what for exactly we’d have to find out the hard way. I remember her standing before us in the briefing room: she always seemed so sexy and beautiful, and it seemed in some ways a shame that she had to wear those thick glasses of hers. I’m told that she didn’t mind, and anyway, with the economies forced on us by the war, the alternatives weren’t possible at that moment. Apparently many people were forced to wear them simply in order to see. Despite this, she was an elite pilot, and I’d seen her shoot up many of those slimy Xarans in my time aboard the Starblade.
Our wing was split up into sections of 3 or 4 Starfighters, each of which got a planet or two in the star system to check out. I and my two friends Steff and Blinky got the plum job of investigating the only planet in the system known to be inhabited: Charnia itself, and its three rather small and uninteresting moons - we were told to investigate the moons first. We split up, and took a moon each. My friends reported in saying they’d found nothing, then suddenly a Xaran Starfighter appeared behind me, then another. How in space they were here I had only a second to think about, because I was under fire, and very soon in trouble. I remember calling for help, but quite soon I was too busy trying to dodge and avoid being hit. Quite soon a third Xaran Starfighter appeared and started trying to kill me: bad news indeed!
Suddenly my trusty craft received a hit, causing my engines to give out, and thus I lost main power. My Starfighter would keep me breathing for a few hours, but that was about all it would do for me as the planet of Charnia loomed large in my viewscreen. All I could do was crash land, then hope they didn’t follow me and shoot me up on the ground. After a shaky entry into the atmosphere, my craft was just about done for, all sorts of warnings and beeps coming from around me. I looked at the world laid out before me: there were a couple of fair-sized continents to aim for, so I chose one and glided my way down. Alas my guidance systems were down, so I had little choice of where in the continent I landed, so my craft headed for a particularly hot area: a sort of grassy plain, like East Africa on Earth.
My Starfighter touched down, scraped along sideways for hundreds of meters before coming to a halt near a tree, scaring some birds into flight - I thought they were birds, anyway. I pushed open the door, and found the air breathable, as the readout told me on my portable scanner. Boy, was it hot, though: could see heat haze distorting my view of the distance. I got out, using my scanner to check for anything nearby that might want to eat me: it seemed safe, at least for the moment. I imagine my Starfighter crashing in on the scene must have frightened everything away! There was thankfully no sign of the cursed Xarans either, so I got out and checked out my poor battered craft. The main drive had been badly shot up, and I doubted I could get it working, at least not with what I had available: a field toolkit. I needed help, so I went inside to try the com: alas it was as dead as everything else on board. Even the life support wasn’t functioning. The best thing my ship could do for me was provide some shade from the hot greenish-yellow sun.
I thought to myself “what shall I do?” It was more a case of what could I do. I could stay here, and perhaps be found by my shipmates: but I’d seen how badly damaged my ship was, so I thought that the distress beacon was probably nonfunctional like the rest. If the Xarans picked up the signal and came back before I was rescued, the first thing they’d shoot at would be the ship, and I really didn’t want to be in it if that happened. I had supplies here to last me a few days, or a bit longer if I preferred being hungry quite a lot of the time. Or else… I could try finding the natives of this planet and see if they were friendly, in the sense of being friendly enough to help, not eat me, I thought dryly. Humans had apparently been to Charnia only once before a few years ago, officially speaking, on a survey mission. The natives were humanoid, that’s about all I knew. I decided it might be worth getting to know them a bit better. Thus I got myself ready to travel: I put my water and food packs into a backpack, along with a knife, then shoved my blaster into my belt. I picked a direction at random: it was more or less East, then started out.
- Princess Sheeba
After several days of foot-wearing travel on the plains, I was exhausted and running short of rations. Thus far I’d been lucky enough to avoid being eaten, but that was only because I’d used my Scanner regularly to detect large animal life. I took note of the various forms of life around me: the grasses seemed similar to those on Earth, but the animals, well, some of them were massive! In the distance I saw a group of large mottled animals about the size of horses, with two sets of fearsome tusks like elephants, making odd growling sounds. Over there was another herd of some other nameless type of animal: a sort of overgrown warthog, which I think fitted them best as a description. This was fascinating, but only if you were particularly interested in zoology. I was interested in surviving: I began to wonder, if or when my rations ran out, whether I could kill one, and what might it taste like? For some reason I was quietly confident of my ability to kill them, thanks mainly to my survival training and blaster: I was to be shown that I was quite wrong to think that, and in the most surprising manner.
Some time in the early evening, when I was travelling in the slightly less baking heat, I noticed movement a couple of hundred yards away. I looked harder, and saw nothing. Then again I saw movement. I squatted into a hiding position, behind a thicket of grass, pulled out my Scanner, and directed it toward the area of the movement. Sure enough, it detected an animal. It was my chosen policy to avoid large animal life, at least until I really had to start trying to kill and eat it. As my scanner readout showed it wasn’t moving, I decided to move instead. At that moment it began to move too, creeping along… on two legs. I froze, then hid again. I thought “is this one of the natives?”
He was moving parallel to me. Had he seen me? Was he stalking me? Or was he hunting something else? I caught glimpses of him: seeing brown, tanned skin, but little else. Slowly it became clear he wasn’t after me, so I thought, as he seemed to be tracking something else: a small animal not far away from him, something like a gazelle but with extra horns, one set pointing forwards, the others up. I watched him for some time, wondering why he didn’t just throw something at it, like a spear? Or didn’t he have one? It seemed to me that such an animal seemed a fairly puny prize for a lot of creeping around: I thought I could do better than that. Suddenly the animal became spooked by something, and ran off: I wasn’t sure if it had seen him, or whether it had seen something else more deadly, but it was gone in a few bounds of its cloven feet.
After a few moments, he got to his feet, and thus I saw a lot more of him. With a flash of realisation, it was obvious that he was a she. And what a sight she was: tall, athletic, with bronzed skin, and jet black hair tied back behind her head. She wore very little, save bits of animal skin over her private parts, and a sort of bra made of much the same supporting her bust: she wasn’t hugely breasted, but wasn’t flat chested either. Pleasantly proportioned, to be exact. Something flashed at me from her head as she looked around: I couldn’t see it at this distance, but I assumed it was some form of head jewellery or decoration. Helpfully, she started walking towards me.
She moved gracefully, but with care, tilting her head down strangely, sometimes hesitatingly. As she drew nearer, I saw more and more. She was young, I think less than 20, although I didn’t know at that point exactly how old. I saw that her face, body, arms and legs were patterned with strange mottling, something akin to that of an Earthly cheetah: interesting, and plainly some sort of natural camouflage, I mused. But there were far more interesting things about her than that. She turned her head to look at me, seeming to look through me despite the thick glasses she wore. That’s right, glasses: I was quite used to seeing them, being as my commanding officer wore them. But these, they seemed to be far stronger than Lyra Starfire’s. These ones really hid her eyes, distorting my view of her face, shrinking them both to the point that the patterning on her face around her eyes seemed to merge into an uncertain brown soup, thus making it seem from my vantage point that she had no eyes at all. She seemed to look straight at me, even if she wasn’t walking toward me. Could she see me? I couldn’t tell, but it occurred to me… possibly she might not be able to see me, despite the glasses. How strange, I thought.
She carried on walking until she was past me without giving any indication that she’d seen me: I felt like saying “hello” or something, but wasn’t sure whether she’d be friendly. “Perhaps,” I thought, “it might be better to follow her. If she’s as blind as she appears, it won’t be too hard to hide from her.” Once she was past me, I moved, tracking her by sight. She stopped and looked around; I had to duck down fast, then she started off again, and once again I trailed her. A couple of times this happened, then the third time, well, I must have made some sound as I threw myself down, because she stopped and turned to look, then called out, ’te-rah?' Quickly I turned on my translator: her next utterance came out as, ‘hello?’
She walked back in roughly my direction: perhaps she really could see me, and was just playing with me. No, she wandered off in the wrong direction, although she wasn’t far off. She stopped to glance around at one point, but didn’t appear to see me. Then I got cramp, and thus had to move my leg. Despite my best efforts, I gave a little gasp of discomfort, hence she looked at my position, then walked straight at me. She said again, uncertainly, hesitatingly, ‘hello?’ I froze, but it did no good, even considering that she was a searcher as blind as she appeared to be. She walked toward me, saying ‘I hope you’ve not come to stop me!’ I had not the faintest idea what she was talking about, so said nothing.
Within a few strides she was standing above me, looking down on me with an expression of puzzlement and scorn. She didn’t even bother drawing her belt knife, which said a lot. Instead she demanded, ‘who are you? What are you doing here? Why are you wearing such odd clothes?’ At this distance I could just about see her little dark eyes blinking softly, minutely, behind those thick lenses. She sniffed a little, and mused absently to herself, ‘you have an odd smell. What do you wash in?’ I replied, ‘water, like everyone else.’ She snorted derisively.
Then she asked, ‘who… what are you?’ ‘My name is Puffin. I am… a visitor from another planet. An alien, if you like.’ She cocked her head, not certain she was hearing right: I repeated myself, ‘alien. I come from another planet.’ She didn’t seem very concerned by this news: I’d received all sorts of receptions on other worlds, from friendly to downright hostile. This one just seemed preoccupied almost to the point of disinterest. As I was on the ground massaging my cramped leg, I was hardly a threat to her; she exuded a haughty confidence that I lacked, despite her seeming to be half-blind. She crouched down to look at me more closely: her shiny lenses in her metal framed glasses stuck out hard at me, I saw her little brown eyes blinking softly at me, much shrunken by the power of her lenses - how could they be that strong? They had a curious bowl-like section cut into them, I don’t know exactly why, I’m no expert on such things. They looked both ugly, and strangely mesmerising too, if you can understand that.
Having examined me more closely, she declared with more than a hint of disparagement, even amusement, ‘you lack patterning - you are badly camouflaged… so, it is true, you are not of my people. You’d make a poor hunter, even I can see that.’ I got to my feet slowly, so as not to startle her. She backed away a little: she didn’t seem scared of me, or at least didn’t seem to show it. After a moment, I asked, ‘can I beg of you your assistance?’ She said nothing. I continued, ‘could you direct me to the nearest town, then?’ In response, she pointed, then told me rather coldly and distantly, ’there is a town in that direction. It would take me a week to reach it. As for you, I don’t know how long, I think you probably wouldn’t reach it at all.' ‘Could you help me get there, then?’ ‘No. I am busy. I am on my Great Hunt.’ I didn’t dare ask what a “Great Hunt” was, but it seemed important, at least to her. For me, survival was the important thing: the thought of a week, or more likely somewhat longer in this place didn’t exactly fill me with glee. After a pause, she said, ‘goodbye, alien man Puffin. Perhaps if you are lucky, I shall meet with you again.’ With that she started walking away from me, as if I’d suddenly vanished.
I called after her, ‘maybe I can help with your “Great Hunt”, if you help me.’ She turned to me from a few yards away, laughed, then said, ‘you wouldn’t be able to help me. I doubt you could help yourself. You’d probably hinder me. Go away, please. That way, please.’ With that, still laughing, she walked off. What was I to do? Start off in the direction she’d pointed, run out of food and risk getting eaten alive? Or… follow her, and perhaps try to persuade her to help me? I chose the latter course - but after a few minutes she called back to me, ‘I can hear you following me… please, leave me in peace. I stopped, and considered. If she turned on me, she might actually attack and injure me: I didn’t feel like hurting a blind woman to stop her doing this. So, I stopped and waited, hiding in the grass; instead of using my eyes, I used my Scanner to track her. This had the great advantage over both of us, being as it was able to sense through grass and obstacles, thus allowing me to stay further behind her, out of range of her feeble sight and obviously superior hearing.
- Tracking
Night fell. She had already found a suitable tree, climbed it and was ready to use it to help defend herself, if the need arose. Similarly, I found a tree a few hundred yards away for the same purpose, although I left it almost too late. Nights here were dark, I knew that, because although there were three moons, none of them were particularly big or bright. I wondered how much the girl could see at night: surely not as much as I. After that, I slept.
I woke to bright morning, and already, heat. And, not a moment too soon: she was almost at the extreme range of my Scanner. I scrambled down the tree and walked briskly after her, following for some hours while I grew steadily more hungry, tired and footsore, wishing she might stop for rest. Eventually she did seem to slow, at least, and I thought she might be tired too, but no: after watching her from afar for a while, it became clear she was tracking some nameless animal. I saw it in the distance: a sort of antelope-lookalike, horse-sized, but a with bony ridge along its back, tough-looking bony plates covering its most vulnerable parts and a fearsomely spiked tail. Was she really trying to kill something like that? I watched her follow it, and found that although she followed it well enough, despite her vision, she didn’t make any move to attack it. The animal was heading towards a clump of trees, and in it, my Scanner detected two or three small animals: I guessed they were the creature’s young. Evidently the woman was following the adult to find the nest: I was impressed by this deep cunning.
She crouched and settled down to wait in shade. I got nearer, perhaps a few hundred yards away: I could see nothing, but the Scanner told me everything. During the later afternoon, the adult antelope-thing got up and walked away on slender, fragile seeming legs. It had gone about half a mile before the woman started to move: she crept up to the clump of trees, gathered herself for a moment, then sprang up and scampered into the thicket faster than anything on two legs I’d seen in a long time. There was pretty quickly quite a commotion in there, tree branches waving and broken, the sound of small hooves, scuffling sounds, and intermittent squealing and grunting.
Then one of the young animals, about the size of a small dog, burst out of the trees, followed by the woman. The unfortunate little thing ran twisting and turning, trying to shake her, squealing with whatever spare breath it had. She had her knife in her hand: I wasn’t quite sure which side in the struggle to root for, because I guessed that when she caught the thing, and she had the turn of speed to do so, she’d kill it, despite looking so strangely beautiful. By now, the adult had heard the squealing, and was running back to help out, bellowing repeatedly. She looked vaguely in the direction of the adult, I don’t know if she saw it, but she slowed a little; in that instant the young animal scurried away from her and hid some 20 yards away.
She returned her attention to the young animal, but had plainly lost it, being as she’d slowed to a walk, casting around, listening, and looking with what vision she had. It didn’t do her any good, although I doubt I’d have seen it either, and I wasn’t blind. She then heard the adult coming closer, looked, realised the game was up and thus needed to get away as fast as she could. By the time she was running at top speed, almost toward me, the adult was 40-50 yards behind from her, chasing her away. She was a fast runner, and would have put any athlete I knew to shame. Alas, a hundred yards away from me, she unexpectedly fell with a sharp cry of surprise, then I heard her yell out in pain and dismay. The adult ran past her, overshooting a little, and then slowed, turned and homed in on her. The girl was busy struggling to rise: as it drew nearer, she got to her feet, but couldn’t run. She was hobbling: must have twisted an ankle, I thought.
I wasn’t sure what the creature would do: would it let her go, or just kill her anyway? I didn’t even know if were carnivore, herbivore, or something in between. It started to circle her, as if a little uncertain as to what to do next. I drew my blaster: I didn’t really want to see this half-blind girl get eaten, even considering what she’d tried and almost succeeded in doing - something which I’d have thought more than twice about trying. Abruptly, it seemed to make its mind up: it closed in on her, swishing its mace-like tail, bellowing angrily. She tried to hobble away as best she could, but her ankle gave out and she fell over with another anguished cry. The animal had no mercy, seemingly intent on squashing her, bashing her, or something equally gruesome. I aimed my blaster at the beast’s head and pulled the trigger. A coherent blast of plasma, narrow, but bright orange and hot enough to melt through alloysteel plate sprang from its muzzle and hit its head - which promptly vanished in a spray of disassociated atoms. The unfortunate beast, now minus a head, promptly fell over, quite dead.
The girl cried out again, got to her feet, and tried to hobble away from me, then gave up, sat down and waited for me to come to her. I was soon standing above her, looking down on her. She looked up at me with some amazement on her face; then she realised who had done it, and said, ‘you! Puffin…? Did you do that?’ I told her yes, so she replied, ‘you saved my life - the Gulnar was going to trample me - thank you.’ She actually sounded grateful, and - impressed. Now that was a change from our last talk!
She then struggled to her feet, and tried to walk again: as soon as she tried to put weight on her ankle, she cried out in pain and hobbled to a halt. She turned to me, and with anxiety and regret in her voice, asked ‘I am in need of assistance.’ ‘OK.’ I soon had her arm over my shoulder: she wasn’t much shorter than me, otherwise it would have been uncomfortable for both of us. I asked expectantly, ‘where do you want to go?’ She looked at me as if were slightly stupid, and replied, ‘back to the bushes. I came to hunt: they are my prey.’ ‘Do you think that’s wise? And anyway - that animal is dead. You could eat that.’ She shook her head, and said, ‘adult Gulnar is poisonous.’ ‘Ahh…’ I suddenly felt very glad I’d not tried it. Then I said, ‘if you want to eat, I have food.’ ‘You do?’ She sounded surprised. Ignoring that, I suggested, ’let’s go to that tree and we can eat.’ ‘Which tree?’ I remembered her poor vision, so pointed it out to her.
I helped her limp over, then helped her sit in as much comfort as could be arranged in the circumstances, after which I pulled out my small pack of supplies - alas fast dwindling - and offered her some. The water packs were warm, the contents purified to flat tastelessness, but it was water nonetheless. However, the food I had was designed to be light and compact, but not exactly delicious - it was like eating slightly damp cardboard or very faintly flavoured soft cheese, or even very overcooked cabbage, depending on which variety of pack you got. She sniffed at it, nibbled a little cautiously, then said derisively, ‘you call this food?’ ‘It’s all I have.’
I sat eating with gusto by comparison, but saying that, it wasn’t really enthusiasm. However, as she sat intermittently nibbling then watching me, I asked her, ‘so, can you tell me what this is all about?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, you could tell me your name, and what exactly is a “Great Hunt”, and if you don’t mind my curiosity, why is a blind girl wandering about in the middle of the wilderness?’ There was a pause, then she said slowly, ‘you really must be an alien, from some distant place, as you say, if you don’t know who I am. Very well, I shall tell you.’
She put aside her foodpack, huddled herself together, then began ‘I am Princess Sheeba. I am the eldest daughter of my mother the Queen of the Kithra clan. I should be the natural, accepted choice for her successor. Unfortunately, I was born with extremely poor vision, and even with these horrible glasses, I cannot see particularly well - everything is so fuzzy and small when I look through them, and I am rated as blind. I have to also have this headband to keep them on my face, or else they’ll fall off and break.’ She drew breath, and continued, ’there has never been any Queen, of any clan on Charnia, who was blind. There was one some centuries who had a deformed leg - not from my clan - who was Queen. She did not last long. My people expect their leader to be a perfect huntress, able to provide - at least in theory - food for everyone. They don’t think a blind Queen could do this.'
Her face lowered, but she carried on, ’the clan elders - spiritual guides, religious leaders after a fashion - have urged me to do this - the Great Hunt. It is a tradition of my people: in olden days, many hundreds of years ago, our leaders had to undergo this ordeal in order to prove their fitness to govern. To succeed, one must survive in the wilderness for one month. A meeting point and time is arranged, and if you don’t appear, you are assumed to be dead, and the world has to get along without you. To be doubly sure, you should also kill one of the large prey animals - and bring proof that you have done so. It has been relegated to a sport for some, or just forgotten by many - until I came of age at eighteen. Suddenly people realised they had a blind Queen in waiting, and wanted to know - could she really be Queen? So it was arranged: I spent some months preparing for it, learning as much as I could.' Then, after a pause, she said ‘I was hoping I could find and kill a Danar - the biggest and toughest animal there is - if I could have shown them the heart-bone of a Danar, they would have accepted me.’ With bitterness in her voice, she concluded, ’like this, I couldn’t even catch a baby Gulnar.'
There was a pause: I thought she might cry, but no, she didn’t, although I adjudged she had good reason to. Then, not unreasonably, I suggested, ‘if I helped you, do you think we could catch and kill one of these Danar?’ She looked at me rather dully, as if I were making fun of her. She told me, as if I were a particularly simple child, ‘I am supposed to kill it through my own efforts, without assistance from anyone. I am also supposed to survive without anyone else’s assistance; but now I have eaten your food, it is a little late to worry about that.’ I then told her I was running low on food, and asked, ‘is it acceptable to receive assistance from someone from another planet?’ She considered, and then said ‘I suppose it might be allowed. The writings do not specifically prohibit it. In fact… this is probably really stretching the rules… they only forbid people helping me. I could say you are another animal, perhaps? You don’t look or smell like a person.’ I looked at her darkly for a moment, and then, considering that this might be the only way for us to survive, I agreed.
I then told her about me: the kind of “animal” I was, where I came from, what things were like there, about my experiences in the great war with the Xarans: she commented ‘I have never seen the stars. I am told… they are like little points of light.’ ‘Can you see the moons? There is one of them up there.’ I pointed, and she squinted, then said ‘I cannot see. I’m just a useless blind Princess: that is what has been muttered about me wherever I go. Princesses are not supposed to wear thick glasses - I am supposed to be pretty and perfect, not struggling to see things.’ I wasn’t quite sure how to answer her sudden eruption of despair, so instead I asked, ‘you must help me, Sheeba: I need to survive until my shipmates come back to rescue me. I have no idea what is good to eat here and what might kill me. But I’ll also help you, and help find you your Danar.’ She gave me a happy smile, and nodded: it seemed to greatly please her that she would be helping someone, even a strange-smelling pink-skinned alien animal, as she put it. Soon after we were settling down for the night in the tree, with her telling me to wake at dawn.
- The Great Hunt
I awoke with the sun at the horizon, its first greenish-yellow rays darting across the grassy plain. I looked across at Princess Sheeba, stretched across another bough of the tree about three feet from me, still asleep. Gleams of light soon washed softly across her flat lenses, caressing her delicate, patterned face, her soft lips, then the curves of her lithe body. Out in the distance I heard an animal’s bellow, and I looked up and saw another adult Gulnar running across the plain, and further in the distance, I saw a herd of some other strange animals slowly tramping past in the distance. I looked back at her, then more closely, now not sure if she were still asleep: her eyes were that hard to decipher thanks to the strength of her lenses. I could almost but not quite distinguish her patterning merging behind them. Then she stirred a little, and those little dark eyes twitched, opened, and then she was looking at me whilst I leant close to her. Her dark little eyes seemed to be squinting: it was hard to be certain, being as the changing light on her glasses made them difficult for me to see through, and her eyes were so small behind them thanks to their power.
She gave a faint smile, as she remembered her situation: her nose twitched, then she said gently, ‘hello, animal… you are such a strange animal…’ ‘Why?’ She looked a little uncomfortable, then said, ‘you smell so strange.’ I couldn’t help that, so I told her why ‘I haven’t washed in days.’ She laughed, and said ‘I guessed that.’
I let her get down from the tree, then followed her, and watched her massage her injured ankle. I asked, ‘how is it?’ In answer, she got to her feet and took a few steps. Her face showed it was painful to walk on, although not so bad as it had been last night. She told me ‘I can walk. How far, that I don’t know. You’ll have to help me again, I think.’ I was thinking I’d need her help too: I was down to one day’s supply of food by now, and without Sheeba, I’d quite likely poison myself trying to eat something that lived here. I asked her, ‘which way?’ She didn’t answer immediately, instead seeming to look around: “how?” I naturally wondered. Then it became obvious she was using more than just sight. After a minute she pointed - southeast I think - and asked, ’there are some animals over there, four legs, rounded head, with a beak, and a long neck - about this high?’ She indicated something about her chest high. I glanced at her chest, and then at where she’d pointed. Indeed there were animals: several of them, roaming around slowly, rather ungainly and vaguely stupid-looking beasts, some ducking their heads to tug at the tough grasses, others with their heads up, chewing and looking around for danger.
Oddly, she asked, ‘can’t you see them?’ ‘Yes, yes, I can see them. Are they - Danar?’ She laughed, remarking that I truly knew nothing about Charnia. They were instead called “Myracelia”, or “breakfast” as Princess Sheeba labelled them. She told me, ’they are quite docile, quite stupid really. They like to eat some of the tubers and roots: if we can find some, it’ll be much easier.' She began to cast around, looking for a particular kind of stalk that would lead to a nice plump tuber. I tried to help with the search, but had no idea what she was looking for: the grasses all looked alike to me. I was wondering if they did to her too, but after a bit she declared, ‘here’s one!’
She dug the thing out: it looked like a hard brown cucumber. Deftly she slit the thing down the side with her knife, evidently to let the smell get out and waft over to the Myracelia. Soon enough, one caught the scent and came trotting over to look. She hissed to me, ‘hide! Quick!’ I did as I was told, crouching beside her. Stealthily I drew my blaster. Princess Sheeba looked at me, and hissed, ‘you can’t use that on a Great Hunt. My ancestors didn’t use guns, and that is a gun, so put it away. You’ve got to use your brain and hunting skills, not zap-guns.’ ‘Who will know?’ ‘I will! Now shush!’ I crouched, puzzled, but accepting her wish; the poor unsuspecting creature waddled up to the tuber laid casually on the ground, picked it up in its beak and started to eat it.
I glanced at Princess Sheeba, and saw her ready to pounce on the unsuspecting animal. I turned and whispered at her, but she wasn’t paying much heed to me; I had to go right next to her so I could whisper in her ear. In doing so, my foot slipped across the ground, making a faint scuffling noise. The beast looked over at us, and I saw its ears flick: had it heard me? Princess Sheeba looked tense, then the animal caught our scent and ran bounding off towards its fellows. Princess Sheeba turned to face me: despite her glasses, I could see that she was at least put out, possibly even angry. She said scornfully, ‘you scared it off! You are a terrible hunter! I’ll do the hunting from now on. You go over there and hide, I’ll provide for you!’ I wandered over to the tree, chastened by her muttered remark, ‘useless males, they’re like children, no good at hunting at all!’
Half an hour later Princess Sheeba came back to the tree, dragging a carcass behind her. I’d watched her lure and then attack another of the Myracelia with her knife, jumping up at it and slitting its throat before it could do anything else. There was no apparent pride in her achievement: it was just what she needed to do to survive here. She made a sort of fire that made little smoke but gave enough heat to cook a big piece of it, and quite soon we had a belated breakfast. I looked at the remains, and saw that it was being attacked by what looked like flies already - I told Princess Sheeba; she replied, ‘of course - they can smell the dead flesh - can’t you smell it?’ I told her I couldn’t, to which she replied in open astonishment ‘I can’t believe you humans can hunt anything - you can’t smell and you can’t hear very well.’ ‘I can see better than you.’ ‘If I was a normal Charnian, I’d see better than you too.’ I began to feel more than a little inadequate.
- The Heart-Bone of the Danar
A couple of days passed: Princess Sheeba’s ankle recovered enough to the point where she could walk without any help, and even run a little: faster than me, already. By now I’d completely run out of supplies, so I was dependent on her hunting skills, and her ability to smell water - now that was a good party trick, as well as being a lifesaver.
One afternoon, we stopped in a particularly nondescript area of the grassland, notable only for the rocky outcrops that punctuated the endless scrubby grass: I had no idea which way we were going, trusting Princess Sheeba entirely. She said, whilst sitting looking at the ground ‘I can smell Naulia flowers.’ I was about to ask her why flowers were important, but then I vaguely remembered something she’d told me: the Danar liked to eat Naulia. She continued ‘I thought we would find them around here. It’s near the mountains.’ ‘Do you mean those mountains over there?’ I pointed: there were indeed mountains, far away in the distance, not seeming very much nearer than when I’d first seen them a couple of days ago.
She didn’t bother looking, saying, ‘yes, those mountains.’ ‘They look very… beautiful.’ ‘So people tell me. I’ve never been near enough to see them. Describe them to me, please.’ ‘Well, they are grey, with bits of white snow atop them, sun glinting on them here and there.’ ‘Sounds like any other mountains to me.’ ‘You have to see them…’
I realised perhaps I ought not have said that, but it didn’t bother her. She ignored it, then realised it might be a problem, so turned to me and addressed me softly ‘Puffin… don’t worry about saying things to do with my vision: I am used to it all by now. Actually… it’s strange not to hear it.’ Then she startled me by saying, ’there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you.' ‘What?’ She looked at me a little sheepishly, as if she both wanted to say and not say what she was trying to say. Then she said, ‘you don’t have to call me Princess. Not if you don’t want to.’ ‘OK, I don’t mind.’ ‘And… you’re a very strange animal. You’re the same shape as me, yet you are completely useless at hunting. I can’t believe this - I’ve found someone even worse at hunting prey than me! I find that really funny. And very strange, too. But what is really, really strange is this: you are not put off by me. Is it because you are terrible at hunting and need someone to hunt for you, or is it… that you like me?’
She seemed to be hoping that I might say that I liked her, so I told her, ‘yes, Sheeba. I like you. What is there to dislike? You are helping me, and, well, you are very kind and generous.’ She smiled, and nodded slowly, politely, then said, ’thank you, Puffin.' Then I really stuck my neck out, and said, ‘you are very beautiful too.’ Indeed she was, even with, or was it due to, the thick glasses; but now she simply stared at me, her tiny little dark eyes fluttering behind her thick lenses. Perhaps she didn’t believe me: but then some thought process clicked in her head, and a moment later she was lifting up her glasses, wiping away tears. Her eyes were beautiful: they looked at me for just a moment, or rather through me, completely unfocused, lovely big soft brown eyes blinking away tears. She said softly, ’nobody has ever said that to me!' She replaced her glasses, looking at me, then shuffled closer, pressing herself against me affectionately. After some moments, she murmured to me, ‘you might be hopeless at hunting… but I can tell you’re good for some other things.’
Just as my thoughts were vaguely turning to romance, there was a tremendous bellow, mixed with a bit of lion roar and elephant trumpet: it came from some distance away, but was still loud enough to make the listener tremble. I looked up in alarm: what sort of creature could make a sound like that? Sheeba started, too, and then pointed over to the right, exclaiming, ‘it is a Danar - over there - do you see it?’ For a moment, I saw nothing, then I saw movement in the long grass. I saw dark grey leathery skin and pale grey scales moving, stopping, then moving again: then it came more into the open, in order to munch another Naulia plant. Again, Sheeba asked, ‘do you see it?’ ‘Yes, I see it.’ After a moment, I commented dryly, ‘it’s big, isn’t it?’
It was indeed big. If you took a rhino, lopped off the horns on the nose, then made it as big as an elephant and covered it with armor plates, that would be something like what I was looking at. Add on a fancily coloured crest between its eyes, and two long, sharp horns sticking forwards from each side of its head, and you’ve got it. Naturally, I was curious. And also worried, to put it mildly. I asked ‘Sheeba, how are you going to kill that? With just your knife?’ She shook her head. ‘No, we shall make a weapon. It is how my ancestors did it.’ I was mystified: I looked at my blaster, wishing she’d let me use it, then looked at the animal, wondering if it would only make the thing go mad, or perhaps make Sheeba angry. She commented, ‘one thing you need to know: Danar have a foul temper. It’s dangerous, but we can use it against him.’ Suddenly I began to wish my Astrofighter had crashed a little less badly.
Urgently she told me, ‘Come. We must get to work.’ She soon had me cutting bundles of grasses, then when I’d got a sore back and arms from doing that, I then got sore hands from twisting them into a sort of rope, as she instructed me. Meanwhile, she’d taken a long, straight branch from a nearby tree, broken it off, and hacked at it with her knife till it was sharp one end and notched the other. Patiently she showed me exactly what she was doing: she fixed the makeshift rope to the tree, lashed up a sort of crude trigger mechanism out of other bits of wood, and then fitted her arrow to it.
I spent some time looking at this contrivance: it seemed quite a strange and overcomplicated way to do what was needed, but also rather inadequate. Sheeba told me that she would make a sound like another male Danar, the one still chewing at Naulia would charge over, then she would kick the trigger and spear it. I asked innocently, ‘what happens if it misses, or bounces off its armour?’ ‘Then it either spears me, tramples me, or I run away and try again. Danar are shortsighted - unfortunately not as much as me, but I might be lucky.’ I could see why nobody wanted to do the Great Hunt anymore: it was uncomfortably near suicide for my taste! But I could see that this would prove Sheeba was fit to be a Queen. Nevertheless I fingered my blaster nervously. Something told me I would need it, so I tried to come up with a “Plan B”.
The next day Sheeba was ready, with me hiding nearby: not wanting to be trampled, but also not wishing to see Sheeba trampled either. She called out a good mimic of the Danar-call, once, then again, and then I heard the real thing reply in the grumpy tone she’d told me to expect. I heard, then saw it trotting toward us, nearer and nearer. Upon seeing Sheeba, it ran a little faster. It ran right up to her: I couldn’t fault her courage. She then kicked the trigger, the arrow twanged, and by some miracle as she scampered out of its way, the arrow hit the Danar in the side, sinking in a couple of feet. I cheered, but then my cheers evaporated as I realised the Danar wasn’t falling dead: it was slowed a little, but its bad temper more than made up for that. It squealed and growled as it slowed and turned, then looked for Sheeba. It ran panting heavily at her, so Sheeba turned and ran.
The two were evenly matched in speed: I hoped having the arrow in its flank might slow the Danar down gradually, but that didn’t seem to be happening. Instead, it rumbled after Sheeba as I watched feeling helpless. What if she stumbled again? Would my blaster kill it? I drew it, looking doubtfully at it. Would she let me kill it? Then I looked up, watching Sheeba running for her life toward some rocks. I looked at one outcrop, then another. There was one nearby that had a sort of overhang: suddenly a cunning plan formed in my mind. I called out, ‘run to those rocks.’ ‘Which ones?’ I tried to describe them to her, while scampering after her and the Danar, but she called back, ’they all look the same to me!'
I had to guide her there by calling out “run to your left - further… right a bit…” etc. Finally she was on the right track: I stopped, took aim at the overhang, waited for the Danar to come close, then fired. The rocks melted and shattered, flying everywhere. Sheeba was thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion: I ran over to help her. As for the Danar - it was buried under a rock fall. I didn’t see or hear any sign of movement from it. Sheeba got to her feet, then exclaimed angrily, ‘what have you done! You shot it - you’ve ruined everything!’ ‘No, I didn’t shoot at the Danar. I shot at the rocks!’ I took her hand, guided her over, thus allowing her to inspect the situation more closely, or at least closely enough for her. She seemed less angry, but not entirely satisfied. She told me ‘Puffin, you must help me dig it out. I want to see every inch of the beast. If I find any sign of gunshot, or however that zap gun of yours works, I’ll be hunting you next!’
It took hours to dig it out, but eventually Sheeba was satisfied. She told me so, adding, ’that was a good trick - I must use that next time, maybe with explosives or something.' She started to dismember the corpse, cutting away skin, muscle and some oddly shaped internal organs, before getting right inside and ripping out what she was looking for. She stepped back, holding it up in triumph: the heart-bone of the Danar. It was a hand-sized bone that as I later learned attached the Danar’s heart to its spine; a sort of central spur about the length of my hand, with two curved winglike structures sticking out each side, each of which supported one of the animal’s ventricles. As we walked away from the stinking carcass, she told me, ’now, at last, I can be Queen.'
- Return
A few days later we were back in what passed for civilisation on Charnia. It was a city - the capital city of the Kithra clan-nation: the buildings were mostly of brick and stone, artfully constructed but similar to those of tribespeople on Earth in shape and structure, as if these people were slowly learning the art of townbuilding, but still harked back to days of nomads. Here and there were larger buildings, occasionally two storied, and I took these to be some sort of municipal building. In some quarters I saw smoke rising - not small amounts, as might be expected from domestic cooking and the like, but more like those of old Earth I’d seen in archive pictures taken a few hundred years ago. Evidently some industrialization was under way.
We arrived at what Sheeba told me was the royal palace: it looked the part too, with large, multi-storied buildings, lavishly decorated, the whole place protected by a stone wall, and at the gates, what were evidently guards. They wore just about as little as Sheeba did, but for them, it was necessary for them to turn out a bit more neatly, giving them the effect of a uniform. The guns they carried seemed a little primitive, but would still kill if fired at someone.
Once inside, there was some explaining to be done. Sheeba proudly exhibited her trophy: the reaction from some of the King and Queen, and the senior guards who knew her personally, was one of congratulation. The chief of the Elders, a grim old man named Devoran, stood watching her holding it, looking less than impressed. He wished to know how she’d gained it, so she told him, daring him to suggest that she’d lied. Then matters turned to me, and she told them, ‘he is a inferior animal from another planet. If you wish to speak with him, do so.’ Nobody really seemed much interested in me: they were far more interested in Sheeba. Someone else was also present, although sneaking in the shadows: a beautiful woman, like a younger version of Sheeba, but without glasses.
Quarters were found for me at the insistence of Sheeba, and I was able to eat and drink for the first time in days without having to hunt and kill anything. A day passed, then another, after which I asked a guard about Sheeba, being as I’d not seen her and hadn’t heard anything of her either: he didn’t know, but told me that he’d investigate. A few hours later I heard footsteps, a stifled sob, then a knock at the door. I called out, ‘come in.’ It was Princess Sheeba. She was dressed in a cleaner, more delicate and expensive version of what I’d last seen her wearing, but far more importantly, she was constantly nudging up her glasses to wipe tears from her eyes. It didn’t take much to get her to sitting on my bed and telling me what was wrong.
‘It’s my sister Trillian and Devoran, the chief of Elders. They’ve got together to debar me from being Queen, forever.’ I guessed the answer to this, but asked anyway, ‘why?’ She stifled another sob, then replied, ‘it’s because I’m blind. They will not allow me to be Queen. Trillian wants to be Queen. Of course she does!’ ‘Can they do that? How?’ ‘Devoran is chief of the Elders. He says that there cannot be a blind Queen. It doesn’t matter if I kill a hundred Danar. It cannot happen.’ ‘What do your parents say? Aren’t they the King and Queen?’ ‘They say nothing about this. They never could. They knew this would happen, that I would go on the Great Hunt, and probably die, or if I did come back, it would be like this. My mother - she wishes this were not so - but she can do nothing.’ She began to sob again, and so I comforted her.
The next morning I saw nothing of Sheeba: she’d told me she was trying to find a way around Devoran’s refusal. Later on, however, the calm of the palace was shattered by the sound of gunfire. It wasn’t like the sound of blasters, more like a sort of crackling sound: initially I didn’t have a clue what it was, until I remembered the antique Charnian guns. I heard someone run along the corridor outside, then I heard a female voice arguing with my guard: it didn’t sound like Sheeba. She got through the guards and stood at my doorway: she was dressing in courtly finery, as far as the scanty dress of a typical Charnian would allow, but seemed dishevelled and distressed, as she breathlessly asked ‘Puffin?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘You must flee! Trillian has taken over, and killed the King and Queen! Her guards are coming! Flee!’ She ran out of the room; I heard a bang, and she fell dead. I grabbed my blaster, and peeked out. A projectile whizzed past my cheek. I shot back, evaporating my assailant. My guard was gone, so I started to look for Sheeba; unfortunately I had no great knowledge of the palace, so a couple of times I bumped into hostile and well-armed groups of guards, who shot at me without hesitation. I evaded one group, outgunned another, thus enabling me to keep moving, whilst hoping my blaster would still have some charge in it for the next encounter.
Presently I came upon a chamber in which lay some corpses: they were what seemed to be some female courtiers, dressed very like the one who’d given her life to warn me of the danger, but their presence told me that I was in the part of the palace reserved for Sheeba. I soon found her “guarded” by more of the soldiers loyal to Trillian; she didn’t see me, but heard my blaster fry them to atoms. I called out ‘Sheeba! It’s me, Puffin!’ She was extremely pleased and relieved to see me, but called out, ‘flee! Save yourself!’ ‘No. You’re coming with me!’ She hesitated, then took my hand to help her pick her way over the bodies. I stopped to pick up the heart-bone of the Danar, which appeared to have been tossed carelessly into a corner, as if everyone had thought it of no consequence; I pushed it into my pocket.
I had to shoot several more guards, then blast a hole in the wall before we escaped: on the way out, we found two zebra-like animals, upon which we jumped and rode off. Quite soon we were once again in the seemingly trackless grasslands which I’d thought I’d seen the last of. We slowed a little, and Sheeba told me, ’they’ll soon find us, and when they find us, they’ll kill us. I know it.' ‘I still have my blaster.’ I didn’t tell her I doubted it would last long in a firefight.
We were both soon proved right: quickly large numbers of guardsmen had been sent out in groups on horseback, combing the grassland. A couple of hours later Sheeba and I were cowering in a rocky outcrop, backs against a large rock, with me shooting at them, trying to survive and protect her as best I could. For each one I shot several more appeared, and of course, their shots kept pinging off the rocks alarmingly. I zapped about a dozen, but then my blaster fizzled out into impotent silence. They started to advance, still spattering the rocks above our heads with bullets. Sheeba turned to me, hugged me, and then kissed me, saying ‘Puffin - I love you! Let them come, and let them kill us. It doesn’t matter anymore.’ I agreed, and was about to call out, ‘we surrender!’ When I heard a noise: soft, but getting steadily louder, rising to a roar, unlike that of any animal of this world or Earth. Suddenly I realised what it was: the roar of Astrofighter engines! Three of them zoomed overhead quite low, and the shooting abruptly died down. They turned, flew back and opened fire on our assailants, blasting away in salvos of energy, ripping up the ground and throwing them around like dolls. Now it was my turn to cheer!
One of the Astrofighters hovered close to the ground, and the side hatch opened. I hissed to Sheeba, ‘come on!’ I led her, stumbling a little, toward it. As we got near it, I heard one of the Charnians call out, ‘stop! What is going on? You can’t go! Trillian wishes to speak with you!’ I ignored it, pushed Sheeba in, scrambled in myself, then pushed the button to close the hatch. As it did so, a bullet pinged off the side of the hull of the Astrofighter. The pilot, Blinky, called out, ‘hey, don’t you shoot at me!’ He shot back, and that was the end of that particular problem! I strapped Sheeba into a seat, did the same for myself, then Blinky told us, ’let’s get outta here!' And we were headed heavenwards in moments. Blinky told us that our ship, the Starblade, had been attacked by some Xaran fighters and forced to withdraw, but had returned when the Xarans had gone elsewhere. They’d found me on the scanners and come to help: just in time, I told them. We were soon taken back to the Starblade.
Later, Sheeba came to me dressed in a flightsuit, looking strangely uncomfortable in it, but also extremely appealing. Just as my famous flight commander Lyra Starfire, she wore glasses, but in Sheeba’s case, she was extremely poor-sighted even with them. After a few moments of her standing looking out of the viewing window, she said, ’this space you talk of - it looks just like blackness to me.' There was nothing I could say, so I didn’t try. She turned to me, drew herself up, glasses glinting flatly at me and said formally ‘I am Sheeba, Princess of the Kithra Clan of Charnia. I seek asylum with the Human Alliance.’ ‘I imagine that can be arranged. I shall pass on your request.’
She walked very slowly toward me, and said ‘I have another request.’ ‘Name it.’ For an answer, she took my arms, kissed me on the lips softly and gently, then withdrew. Softly she said ‘I would be pleased… no… I wish that I could be your Princess from now on.’ For an answer, I retrieved from my pocket the heart-bone of the Danar that I’d helped Sheeba kill, and showed it to her. She smiled, so I said, ‘here is your heart-bone!’ She seemed to delight in that, laughing a little, then put out her hand to touch my chest, her fingers feeling around a little because my heart wasn’t quite in the same place as hers, and told me ‘I prefer this heart,’ and laughed some more; we kissed again, and did a whole lot more besides. And that is how an inferior human, terrible at hunting, got to know a blind but beautiful Charnian Princess!
https://vision-and-spex.com/princess-of-the-plains-t652.html