Treacherous

Chapter 3

Knowing that she had to put some sort of trust in him if they were to survive at all, Bell pulled the folding knife out of her pocket and set it in his hand.

“You were scared to give me this toy?” he scoffed as he cut the cord off and tied the new end to the other water container.

“My father gave me that toy. It’s worked for everything I’ve needed it to, but then I’m not gutting people so I could see how it would be ineffective for you.”

He cocked his head a bit at her outburst, “Well said.” He finished with the rope and handed it and the folded knife back to her. He’d made a sort of sling that would fit around his wrist below the shackle he still wore, to make it easier to carry the two emptier containers. He stood and she hurried to get beside him.

With a hand at Riddick’s elbow Bell lead the way down the hill, trying to stay on the rockier patches as much as possible, though they were more difficult to cross. Rocks rolled beneath their boots, continuously making going down difficult as they slid repeatedly.

Once Riddick’s stability was tested when Bell slipped, but kept her grip on his arm. His hand came up to grip hers just as she was sliding out of reach, and he pulled her back, saving her from a fall that would have lead to certain injury.

The ground leveled finally. One of the things Bell found most interesting about Tangier was its topography. A few sloping hills here and there, but mostly it seemed to be a land of extremes. Rocky gorges and sheer cliff faces shared land equally with nearly endless plains of flat.

“You gonna tell me where we’re headed? Not thinking the crash site. No point in it. No water, and it would be the first place Johns would check and watch.”

Bell released Riddick’s arm when it became pointless to lead him. “Do you need me to carry one of those now?”

“No.”

They moved at a fast pace, stopping occasionally to check that they weren’t leaving a trail. Bell was nearly in agony. The straps of the pack she wore chaffed, more so because of the sweat dampening her skin and clothes. She was hot and dirty and tired. Sleep on this infernal planet was nearly impossible. Heat affected her dreams, making her relive the crash again and again until she refused to even try to sleep. So now exhaustion was wearing on her, and slowing her down.

Suddenly they emerged from a small gorge to find themselves standing at the edge of a steep drop off. At first Bell thought it was a long valley, but it appeared to be a dry lake or pond or something similar. Level edges tapered down to a center point where the water would have been the deepest. Remains of the wildlife were scattered everywhere. Huge ribcages like the one they’d seen between the crash site and the settlement. Yet these were different, the bones thinner and more worn in places for it.

“This planet keeps getting stranger,” Bell whispered, in awe of the sight before her.

“It’s dead,” Riddick said with finality.

“Do you see?”

“Some. Still blurry. I see enough to know that we ain’t crossing.”

“We’ll go around,” Bell said, already turning to the right where the ground was more even. Riddick followed her.

Another hour or more passed, neither saying much. A quarter of the way around they were forced to climb again. Riddick was fine now, walking competently behind her.

“Stop.”

Bell was startled from her private thoughts. She turned to see Riddick moving away from their path. What he had seen that interested him didn’t seem obvious at first. A headache thumped in her skull and weariness had dulled her senses. Squinting she finally saw a deeper shadow beneath an overhanging ledge, but only as Riddick was about to enter it. He disappeared from view, the opening high enough that he didn’t have to stoop at all.

Bell followed him, not knowing if he’d expected her to or if he would need help.

He surprised her by rematerializing suddenly from the darkness, made darker by its contrast to the bright sunlight. His hands were empty. “Come on.”

She moved slowly forward, being careful while her eyes adjusted. From what she could see he’d found a shallow cave, more of a gouge in the cliff than a cave. But it was enough. The cool shade inside made Bell sigh in relief and she moved inside less cautiously.

Riddick had dropped all his baggage together and was now leaving again. Was he checking to see if they were being followed? Where did he get his energy? She just wanted to collapse, and she wasn’t the one tied to a post for days. No wonder he was such a survivalist, nothing brought the man down.

Bell heaved off her pack and practically fell down to sit beside it. She was more than worn out. The heat of Tangier had sapped her strength much faster than she had imagined it would. Gratitude for Riddick swelled within her, not only for being skilled in survival, but also for simply being whole enough not to need her. What would she have done if he had been too weak to walk?

“Did you drink?”

“Huh?”

His voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Bell blinked her eyes in confusion and realized slowly that she most have dozed off leaning against her pack. Riddick was now standing over her, the white shirt she’d given him gone. His nakedness had her sitting up, some instinct trying to make her pay more attention, but it was no good. The movement caused her to clutch her head and leaned forward with the force of the pain attempting to split out of her skull.

“You gonna throw up?”

His voice was soothing to her. It was a point of focus, a moment of concentration in the clamoring agony in her brain. Inadvertently his very question made her nauseous. Without his continuing to speak her brain rebelled at not having that focal point, sending her into jumbled waves of pain. She leaned to the side until she was against the cool stone floor and dry-heaved repeatedly.

An endless time passed. It could have been seconds or minutes, and felt like eons. Hands lifted her to sitting and she balked, twisting away, moaning pathetically.

“Stop. Don’t open your eyes. Drink.”

A cup touched her lips and she did as ordered, drinking the water that sloshed over the rim into her. Warm and earthy, but it tasted like an elixir to her. Slowly she raised her hand to hold the cup and steady the flow. Riddick released the cup, but didn’t release her arm.

“Don’t open you eyes. You should have gotten two sets of goggles. You’ve been staring into the sun all day and you’re dehydrated. Just sit here and rest for a while. Do you want me to blindfold you?”

“No,” she managed to whisper. The torture was easing some, the nausea subsiding.

Riddick left her, moving around some, pouring more water by the sound of it, then settling somewhere between her and the entrance.

“Sleep.”

Bell didn’t wait to be told twice. With the pounding in her head all she wanted to do was escape into the blissfulness of sleep. A repeat nightmare of the crash would be preferred to this continuous pain.

Bell woke cautiously, as if her subconscious feared the return of the migraine as well. No remnants of it remained, but she got the feeling it wouldn’t take much for it to return. Slowly she opened her eyes. Riddick still lay a few feet away, the bags between them. He looked to be asleep.

The cave faced ‘West’ and she saw that the setting blue sun had been what had woken her. Already the red and yellow suns would have risen, making certain that no relief from their blazing heat was found by anyone or anything.

When she’d booked her passage on the Hunter Gratzner she’d gone through the star charts and marked their path. An amateur astronomer, other worlds had always interested her. The back shipping lanes didn’t have a lot of interesting sights, or they wouldn’t be the BACK lanes. Several planets had caught her attention as worth looking into, and the Tangier Trio had been among them.

One planet, only two weeks into their trip had been Todonun, a very unique planet because there was no land. Depths of the water had been reported measuring more than five kilometers deep in places. On a planet roughly half the size of Earth, that was something to marvel at. Another towards the end of their trip was better known than others out this far. A race of human-like people had been discovered. The people were purported to be earless, have blue forked tongues, webbed feet, and scales instead of skin, yet spoke an intelligible language and had civilizations and such ‘advanced’ things. The planet, Komorangei, was guarded by The Company upon Universal directive to keep the race indigenous.

The Tangier Trio was about smack in the middle of their trip, in No-Man’s land. She’d found an old article on the discovery of the distinctive planets that had stated all scientific evidence scorned their very existence. Planets with more than one Sun? It was supposedly scientifically impossible. Yet she stood, lay, on the proof that it was indeed possible, despite whether it could be explained. Tangier 1 and 3 were relatively uninhabitable for either low oxygen levels or problems with gravity, big surprise there. But T2 was on all accounts ‘supportive of life’.

A more recent news bulletin regarding the planets remarked on the desolate nature of the planet, the remains of unknown creatures, and announced geological exploration. She’d read the article then as something to do while she waited for her flight to leave. Now it seemed like divine intervention.

Remembering why her knowledge of the planet was becoming useful, ie. Johns, motivated her to sit up. The blue sun was setting. The ‘night’ in the settlement would be ending, and they’d be learning of her treacherous activities. That was if the alarm hadn’t been raised earlier.

Would Johns be able to track them? How much support would he get from the others if he wanted to mount a search? And if he did search, how far would he be willing to go? How long before they were given up for dead?

“You gonna tell me your story?”

Bell jumped at Riddick’s soft words. He’d been laying completely still, his wide bare chest rising and falling evenly as a man asleep. With his goggles on she hadn’t been able to tell if his eyes were closed or not. Folly that.

“My story?”

“Start by telling me where we’re going and why you know of it.”

“Know of what?”

He growled low, apparently frustrated by her obtuseness. “You’re not a stupid girl. You’re taking us somewhere.”

Bell realized the reason she’d refused to tell him what she knew. By sharing her knowledge she was causing her own worthlessness. He wouldn’t need her once he knew what she knew. It would be like slitting her own throat. Her contact with him so far had not eased the anxiety she felt. He’d done nothing to convince her that he WOULDN’T gut her when he deemed it necessary. Unfortunately she also knew there was very little he could do to convince her. Even if he came before her on bended knee and declared that he’d never harm her she’d still doubt it. Which left her no outlet. Damned if you do, damned if ya don’t.

“There’s more than one settlement on Tangier 2.”

Riddick took a minute to digest what she said. “How do you know that’s the planet we’re on?”

“I overheard Fry say that the crash maintenance system on the Hunter Gratzner aimed us at the second planet of the Tangier System. This is the only habitable planet of the three.”

“How do you know all this?’

She shrugged, not looking at him, “I read. Geological teams were sent to T2 thirty-some-odd years ago. I didn’t read that they were all dead.”

“And you’re sure that there is another settlement?”

“Not another. SEVEN others.”

“Seven?” He seemed disbelieving and sat up. “There are seven settlements on this planet.”