Kitai wondered how old the paintings were. Many thousands of years, no doubt. A particular painting caught his attention. It showed a man, sleeping apparently, surrounded by different animals.
Despite the crudeness of the technique, there was a beauty and a majesty to the place. As he caught his breath, he admired everything around him, appreciated it for what it was: a window into the way the first men looked at their world. Down below the cave, which was really just a slanted pocket in the earth, a tiny rivulet of lava could be seen moving in the darkness. Kitai nodded to himself. That’s where the warmth is coming from.
Suddenly, he heard a noise, a scratching sound. Following it to its source, he saw a snake emerge from a seam in the cave wall. As he watched, it spread the skin on either side of its body into what looked like wings. Then it rose up and floated through the cave.
Kitai shrank from it, pressing himself as far back into the stone wall as he could. But the snake didn’t seem to take an interest in him. Instead it landed on a rodent that was scurrying in the darkness. With blinding speed, the snake coiled itself around the rodent and crushed the life out of it. Then it flew away with the limp little carcass.
Kitai moved closer to the warmth of the lava thread. His cutlass at the ready, he found a good spot and hunkered down. Finally, he could rest his body. But it wasn’t so easy to rest his mind. He had to remain watchful there, like anywhere else on Earth. It became harder when the light from his lifesuit dimmed and went out.
Delirious, Cypher continued to search his probe cameras for a glimpse of Kitai. But as many probes as he checked, over and over again, he didn’t see a thing. Not even a hint that Kitai was still alive. Then Cypher saw him—or thought he did. But no. It was just that he wanted to see Kitai so badly, he convinced himself for a second that he had.
I’ve lost him, Cypher thought. Lost him. And he cracked. The weight of it, everything he had been through—everything he had put his son through—was too much for him. He had sacrificed both of his children on the Raige altar of pride and service.
He fought the collapse and turned back to the search for his boy. “Come on,” he whispered fervently, “come on! Where are you?”
It was no use.
Reluctantly, his fist shaking, he hit the stud that activated the cockpit recorder. “General Cypher Raige,” he groaned. “The mission with Cadet Kitai Raige was a failure. I—”
He tried to go on, but he couldn’t. With a sigh, he looked down at his tortured legs, at the blood running down them and collecting on the deck. When he looked up again, his tone was different. Softer. More human. “This is a message for my wife.
“Faia, I have lost our son.”
She would find that shocking, no doubt. How could the general not know what to do?
But Cypher didn’t feel like the general anymore. He felt helpless, unable to help his son or even himself. His eyes, the eyes of a father, began to fill with tears.
Kitai didn’t know when light began to filter into the cave. After another sleepless night, time blurs into one endless mess. He realized that he could see without the help of his suit. His cutlass sat on the ground beside him along with the rest of his gear. Only one vial of breathing fluid remained to him.
Kitai looked at the cave paintings and felt a spurt of inspiration. With the help of a rock, he drew a picture of his own—a huge map that covered an entire wall—and traced his journey step by step since he had left his father in the ship. When details became fuzzy, Kitai found himself hearing his father’s voice in his head, guiding him as he labeled every location: Dad. Baboons. River. Waterfalls. Nest. I am here, I think. And finally, Tail somewhere here in a huge open area on the map.
As Kitai worked, he developed a plan.
He didn’t stop until he saw the hog family start to leave the cave. He quickly gathered his things and followed them out into the sunlight. Once he emerged from the hole, the mother pig looked back at him as if to say “You’re welcome.”
He was still marveling at the creature’s intelligence when a huge shadow fell over him. Shading his eyes and looking up, Kitai saw the mother condor creature circling overhead.
Why? Is it hungry? More than likely it was. He got a better grip on his cutlass and began walking south. As Kitai made his way through the jungle, he felt hollowed out. He hadn’t slept well in the cave. After a while, he glanced up again and saw that the condor creature was still pacing him on the other side of some trees.
“Leave me alone!” he cried out.
But it didn’t.
Finally, no longer content just to fly beside Kitai, it landed on a branch above him. Looking up, he could see it sitting there. There was no question in his mind that it was watching him. But the more he looked at it, the more he thought it looked listless rather than hungry. It seemed to him that it was still mourning its young. Still, it was a dangerous creature, and Kitai wanted to escape from it. But he couldn’t. He was too spent. He lumbered along as best he could, keeping an eye on the bird all the while.
He was directly below the condor creature when the ground began to tremble. Kitai looked around, confused. What was going on? Moment by moment the sound grew louder, like boulders rolling down a hill, and the ground shook even more violently. Kitai’s suit turned black and developed little bumps in its texture.
Suddenly a herd of six-foot-tall creatures burst from the foliage. They looked to Kitai like an evolved variety of okapi. He flung himself out of the way of the first creature but was instantly caught up in the stampede. One hit him as it came on and knocked him to his left; then another hit him and sent him to the ground. Powerful hooves trampled the turf all around him, narrowly missing him.
The sound of the herd was deafening as Kitai struggled to his feet. But there was good news—he had an open lane up ahead, a lane free of the creatures. If he kept to it, he might be all right. Then he was hit again, a glancing blow. Unable to stop himself, he fell among the trampling hooves a second time. That’s it, he thought. I’m done.
Suddenly, Kitai felt something grab him and jerk him into the air. Looking down, he realized he was rising above the okapi—and rising even more, the herd falling farther and farther below him. The okapi charged through the field, unrelenting. From this height, Kitai could see how green the landscape was. He could see how thoroughly the herd was trampling it.
But not me, he thought. It’s not trampling me. He was safe. Somehow.
Kitai caught a glimpse of something metallic glinting in the distance, something human-made sticking out of the natural landscape. It made him wonder what it was for a second.
Then he fell toward the ground.
It rushed up at him faster than he thought he could handle. As he hit it, he tucked and rolled and by sheer luck missed a pair of colossal trees when he somersaulted between them. The next thing he knew, he had stopped, and unlikely as it seemed, he was still intact. Dazed, dizzy from the spinning he had done, he managed to get his feet underneath him. He looked around.
What happened? Kitai asked himself. One moment he was about to be crushed under all those hooves, and the next he was rising through the air. As he was wondering, he caught movement in the trees. Then he saw what had saved him from the okapi. The condorlike bird was sitting on a tree limb far above, looking down on him.